Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 feeder wrote:
I'm not saying the Foundation doesn't do good work, nor am I saying HRC is some kind of evil maniac. I'm saying that as someone with a lot of power and responsibility in the US government, she has overseen some extremely destructive actions.

Sure, I think what you're doing though is looking just at the negative effects of power. I don't mean to single you out (and sorry if my earlier post sounded a bit harsh, the last line was meant with a wink but that's hard to communicate in text), but this is a common theme I see when people discuss politics - they only look at the negatives. Over time anyone who's near power will end up doing harm, because no-one is perfect, and also because lots of situations will have at least some negative consequences no matter what. Because most people looking at politics basically just look at the negative, they end up with a conclusion like yours earlier - that she must have a lot of karma to make up.

I'm not saying she's clean, she's not. It's more that I'm wary of focusing only on the negatives of someone's time with power, if only because it means that in an election the person who's been in power ends up at an automatic disadvantage against someone who's never had power. That was one of the strangest things about this campaign, Trump's complete lack of experience and long list of crazy foreign policy utterances didn't work against him, because defenders could always point to Clinton's failures and claim their guy had no such failures. That's exactly the argument djones put up in this thread.

I'm saying I hope she retires and devotes the remainder of her life to doing good work, hopefully in the areas of the world most affected by the actions of the US that she helped direct.

Fair enough. If I was her I'd probably spend the next four years trolling Trump on twitter, every single day. But that'd be one of the many reasons I'm not really cut out for public life.

Shaming the opposition might make you feel good, but it won't win you elections.

 whembly wrote:

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 whembly wrote:
That isn't what I'm saying.

Then what are you saying?

It's a mistake to keep pushing 'The Deplorables'.

Call out the individual nazi/white supremicist gak. But do it directly.

So stop focusing on the deplorables, instead focus on the deplorables?

Otherwise, it's like what Romney said about the 47% percenters.... and people won't get past that.

In other words, do better in persuading.

This thread shows that people already decided that she said something that she didn't say, and that it means something it didn't mean, so the problem doesn't lie with the messenger or the message, but rather with the recipient.

 Frazzled wrote:
interesting and unique plan afoot by Democrats to seize control of the Senate and force Garland's appointment. I think its a good plan, after all any plan to "fight the Fascists" is a a good plan.

http://crooksandliars.com/2016/12/senate-democrats-have-one-shot-saving

Oh definitely no. The US is facing a big enough challenge with Trump at the helm and a Republican party that's lost its moral centre, the last thing it needs is for Democrats to not only adopt the same 'anything to win' approach of the Republicans, but actually go about another ten steps further with this scam.

Democracy matters y'all. And a big part of democracy is accepting when you've lost and acting accordingly. That doesn't mean rubber stamping anything the majority does, but it does mean stunts like the permanent filibuster of any possible Obama SC nominee aren't fething acceptable, and you don't solve that by doing something even worse. It is extremely dangerous to respond to that Republican rejection of democratic process with an even bigger rejection of process.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
Says the person ranting about how sexist, racist and homophobic the supporters of the opposing sides candidate are. Whether accurate or not, its pretty damn hostile.

I think you should do yourself a favor and check to see who you are quoting before accusing someone of ranting about anything, because I did no such thing.

Keep your facepalm emojis to yourself.

 d-usa wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 whembly wrote:
That isn't what I'm saying.

Then what are you saying?

It's a mistake to keep pushing 'The Deplorables'.

Call out the individual nazi/white supremicist gak. But do it directly.

So stop focusing on the deplorables, instead focus on the deplorables?

Otherwise, it's like what Romney said about the 47% percenters.... and people won't get past that.

In other words, do better in persuading.

This thread shows that people already decided that she said something that she didn't say, and that it means something it didn't mean, so the problem doesn't lie with the messenger or the message, but rather with the recipient.

She said:

“You know, just to be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic — you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people, now have 11 million. He tweets and retweets offensive, hateful, mean-spirited rhetoric. Now some of those folks, they are irredeemable. But thankfully they are not America.”

So. Yes. She. Did. Say. It.

SO do you believe there's 31 million racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic, etc... voters?

To be fair, she did walk it back.

But, the damage was done.

Do you wanna keep trying to spin this?

 whembly wrote:

 d-usa wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 whembly wrote:
That isn't what I'm saying.

Then what are you saying?

It's a mistake to keep pushing 'The Deplorables'.

Call out the individual nazi/white supremicist gak. But do it directly.

So stop focusing on the deplorables, instead focus on the deplorables?

Otherwise, it's like what Romney said about the 47% percenters.... and people won't get past that.

In other words, do better in persuading.

This thread shows that people already decided that she said something that she didn't say, and that it means something it didn't mean, so the problem doesn't lie with the messenger or the message, but rather with the recipient.

She said:

“You know, just to be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic — you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people, now have 11 million. He tweets and retweets offensive, hateful, mean-spirited rhetoric. Now some of those folks, they are irredeemable. But thankfully they are not America.”

So. Yes. She. Did. Say. It.

SO do you believe there's 31 million racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic, etc... voters?

To be fair, she did walk it back.

But, the damage was done.

So, do you wanna keep trying to spin this?

You are still making the mistake of confusing people who voted for Trump with people who support Trump. There is a difference.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:

You are still making the mistake of confusing people who voted for Trump with people who support Trump. There is a difference.

I'm not.

I don't see how I'm arguing it as such... o.O

I readily admit that probably large sections of voters voted against HRC/Trump... rather for HRC/Trump.

It's the idea that attacking/shaming a subset of the opposition party is going to amount to anything.

We all have to do a better job in persuading for our ideas. Attacking/Shaming voters is only going to go so far...

 Frazzled wrote:
A modest proposal:

Lets quit calling Democrat and Republican voters: corrupt; racist; misogynist, socialist, sexist,fascist or communist. I know its really stepping out there, but maybe it will make the thread a little more tolerable.

I think it is fair to say we shouldn't assume something about an individual based just on their party affiliation or who they voted for, but beyond that, if a person shows that they hold certain beliefs it is a bit of a nonsense to pretend they aren't those things. For example, there are Democrats who are socialist. If one such person came here and said they voted for Sanders, but then not for Clinton, because if it can't be Sanders then Trump is preferred as he will bring on the revolution, then it's fair to call that person a socialist.

Similarly, it'd be plainly dishonest to say that there was a number of racists drawn to Trump because of what he said during the campaign. That is a thing that is just true. It would be false to conclude that is the only reason to have voted for Trump, others have voted for him for lots of other reasons (because they believe the accusations against Clinton, because they always vote Republican, because they want an 'outsider' for some reason and think a billionaire property developer is an outsider, because they wanted to spite the SJWs, because they think he will do something on illegal immigration, or because they got suckered in by his claims to create new manufacturing jobs, and a lot of other reasons). But when someone does give a reason that ultimately comes down to racial resentment, we should call it as it is.



*Paraphrasing, but it's basically what Susan Sarandon said. Seriously.

She is talking about supporters, you are talking about voters.

The fact that you are talking about different groups is just the beginning of the problems with your argument.

 commander dante wrote:
I believe we should shift the conversation to TIME magazine naming Trump "Person Of the Year"

And all i see about it are "Hurr Durr Hitler got that as well so Trump=Hitler" So Did Ghandi, Obama Etc
You cant just "Ignore" History to get what you want

You want to see something different about it, how about this? Who gives a gak what Time does. Naming Obama person of the year meant nothing. Time is not a meaningful magazine, and it's editorial comments mean nothing, because Time is a rag. Who buys Time except people stuck in airport waiting lounges with a phone with no battery left?

Sure, Trump ran a campaign that broke just about every rule we could think of, and won the US presidency despite having no experience and no policies. That's pretty amazing. But that was amazing, and something we were all capable of observing and commenting on without the declaration of a magazine that hasn't been relevant in two decades.

 d-usa wrote:
She is talking about supporters, you are talking about voters.

The fact that you are talking about different groups is just the beginning of the problems with your argument.

Now you are just splitting hairs and still missing the point.

What's the first rule of holes?

 whembly wrote:
SO do you believe there's 31 million racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic, etc... voters?

A perfect mixture of all three? Probably not. I would venture to say that she didn't really either, which is why she prefaced her comment with, "You know, just to be grossly generalistic."

Still, there are almost 320 million people in this country so there's probably a number close to that amount of people that are one or more of those things.

It's more than fair to say that explicitly racist people are definitely the minority in this country, the same with anti-gay beliefs. Of course, there's definitely a scale when it comes to these sorts of things, too. On the one hand, you have my coworker who believes that black people are a less-than-human species of animal, women that date black men are permanently "ruined," and gets all of this "news" from places like The Daily Stormer. That gak is just hardcore white supremacy and there's nothing redeeming about it. Then you have people like my parents, both of whom were born in the 50s and grew up in a Southern state witnessing the resent in their parents of the Civil Rights Movement. My parents are prejudice but not explicitly racist; they both think the treatment blacks get from police is abhorrent, but won't hesitate to use racial slurs and want to live in a neighborhood with only people like them: retirement age white people. They definitely don't outwardly hate minorities like my coworker does.

 sebster wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
A modest proposal:

Lets quit calling Democrat and Republican voters: corrupt; racist; misogynist, socialist, sexist,fascist or communist. I know its really stepping out there, but maybe it will make the thread a little more tolerable.

I think it is fair to say we shouldn't assume something about an individual based just on their party affiliation or who they voted for, but beyond that, if a person shows that they hold certain beliefs it is a bit of a nonsense to pretend they aren't those things. For example, there are Democrats who are socialist. If one such person came here and said they voted for Sanders, but then not for Clinton, because if it can't be Sanders then Trump is preferred as he will bring on the revolution, then it's fair to call that person a socialist.

Similarly, it'd be plainly dishonest to say that there was a number of racists drawn to Trump because of what he said during the campaign. That is a thing that is just true. It would be false to conclude that is the only reason to have voted for Trump, others have voted for him for lots of other reasons (because they believe the accusations against Clinton, because they always vote Republican, because they want an 'outsider' for some reason and think a billionaire property developer is an outsider, because they wanted to spite the SJWs, because they think he will do something on illegal immigration, or because they got suckered in by his claims to create new manufacturing jobs, and a lot of other reasons). But when someone does give a reason that ultimately comes down to racial resentment, we should call it as it is.



*Paraphrasing, but it's basically what Susan Sarandon said. Seriously.

Sure, just don't rely on it as a vote winning tactic.

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 whembly wrote:
SO do you believe there's 31 million racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic, etc... voters?

A perfect mixture of all three? Probably not. I would venture to say that she didn't really either, which is why she prefaced her comment with, "You know, just to be grossly generalistic."

Still, there are almost 320 million people in this country so there's probably a number close to that amount of people that are one or more of those things.

Politicians (or anyone really) should be slapped upside the head whenever they try to start an argument with "You know, just to be grossly generalistic...".

No. Stop right there. It won't end well...

Didn't end so well for Ted Cruz 'New York Values' spiel either...

Carter banned muslims from entering while he was president.

Sounds like it would be prudent to do so again.

 whembly wrote:
Politicians (or anyone really) should be slapped upside the head whenever they try to start an argument with "You know, just to be grossly generalistic...".

I don't disagree.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Mitochondria wrote:
Carter banned muslims from entering while he was president.

No, he suspended visas from Iran. Stop getting your news from viral Facebook posts.

Mitochondria wrote:
Carter banned muslims from entering while he was president.

...

He didn't.

http://www.snopes.com/jimmy-carter-banned-iranian-immigrants/

Not a bad starting point.

A nation should put its citizens ahead of any other consideration.

There is a whole wide world for the refugees to flee to.

 Swastakowey wrote:
Just because I am a man does not mean I understand the issues men face. If I said "im a dude, vote for me because I know male problems" then that would be sexist. I would never say that because it's a stupid thing to say and frankly it would be sexist. I know nothing of what, say, a homosexual suffers despite being the same gender.

Sexism through and through. You just happen to agree with the sexism, which is fine as long as you dont attack the other side for their version of sexism (if there is any).

Okay, there's two things here you don't understand.

The first is that claiming to know your gender's issues doesn't mean you know every issue impacting every person who shares your gender. Of course there will be people in that gender with unique issues. But there are issues that impact all or almost all people within a gender, and so someone of that gender will have more understanding of those issues. Women understand better than men issues that impact most women, and men understand better than women issues that impact men.

The second thing you're missing is that it isn't sexist to say 'vote for the person who has experience and sympathy with issues that affect you'. It isn't classist to say that you prefer your politicians to have come from a working class background similar to your own. It isn't even religious bias to say you'd prefer a Christian over some other faith. What is problematic is when a person decides they will only vote for people of a certain background, faith or gender, especially when people from that background, faith or gender already dominate politics. In this instance, given absolutely no-one said they will vote only for women, and given that we are talking about a role to which a women has never been voted in to before, there is no problem.

That doesn't mean the huffpo article you posted was good. It was silly nonsense. But it's the huffington post, silly nonsense is basically what they do.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
"Deplorable" or not, their votes got Trump into office and kept Clinton out of it. Deplorable or not, she needed those votes as much as non deplorable voters.

And when you need someone's vote, browbeating and shaming voters is not an effective way to persuade them to change their mind and their vote, its just going to provoke a "feth you!" response.

A more conciliatory approach is needed. Clinton showed that shaming voters does not work, you need to inspire them like Obama did. Didn't work for the Remain campaign in the UK Ind. referendum either.

This is true, but remember that the election was only a few weeks ago, and Trump is still months from taking office. Right now people are working through a bunch of emotions, and unfortunately one part of that process is a lot of blaming of other people. Give them a year or so to see if they settle down to something that is more constructive, and more electorally viable. If they haven't settled down in to a strategy focused around Trump's feth ups by then, then maybe we should start panicking about a dysfunctional left giving Trump a second term.

That said, Democrats don't need a more conciliatory approach. Clinton just ran on an approach of drawing the 'not crazy' part of the Republican base away from Trump. All 60m of them still turned up and voted Trump. When she said that half of Trump's base are a basket of deplorables, but the other half are good people, all the entire Trump base heard was that she called all of them deplorable. That's just how partisanship works, and it makes outreach a waste of time.

I'm not saying Democrats need to provoke or attack Republicans just for the sake of it. But they shouldn't sacrifice their own values or any part of the appeal to their own base for the sake of trying to win over some Republicans. What they need to worry about is getting all of Obama's 2008 68m voters back on board. They doesn't mean muddling their message with tokens to parts of the Republican base, it means focusing on a clear message that appeals to the Democratic base.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
That your/Clinton's hostile attitude to Republican voters was counter productive.

Nah, Republicans have based the entire meanign of their party since 2008 on hostility to the Democrats, and it worked a treat. I mean, while it led to Trump getting the nomination, it also meant that Republicans had such a strong advantage in enthusiasm among their base they won even though Trump was their candidate.

Democrats need to rebuild their own enthusiasm. Part of that will come from hating the other side. This works quite well when you're out of power. There is no way Democrats won't take advantage of it.

 d-usa wrote:

This thread shows that people already decided that she said something that she didn't say, and that it means something it didn't mean, so the problem doesn't lie with the messenger or the message, but rather with the recipient.

Reminds me of Obama's "they cling to their guns and religion" quote.... Mostly because, much of the media, particularly the right-wing media instantly hit on that one little section and completely ignored what he said both before and after that one line.


So while the problem may not entirely lie with the messenger, who the message is sent through matters about as much as the recipient.

 whembly wrote:
In other words, do better in persuading.

Nah, what is needed is enthusiasm among the base. Sacrificing that enthusiasm by giving a mixed message that might hopefully persuade some Republicans... Clinton just tried that. Didn't work.

Yes, that's what she was trying to do... especially wooing the #NeverTrumpers.

However, her delivery was just awful and it forced pundits to defend it, and *they* were fething it up.

I certainly agree that her efforts to appeal to NeverTrumpers were badly executed, but I doubt there were actually many votes there to be won anyway.

Let me put it this way - across the five rust belt swing states Trump's much touted WWC revolution totalled 500,000 votes. That is, over those 5 states he got 500,000 more votes that Romney did 4 years ago among voters earning less than the median wage. That sounds big, but by itself Trump still would have been short of the votes needed to win those states, and if that was all that had happened right now we'd be talking about Trump's disastrous campaign where he lost the EV by close to 100, and the popular vote by 3.5 million. Except that in those same five states Clinton actually lost 1,000,000 votes among voters earning less than the median wage, that was enough to tip all those states, and thereby the election, to Trump.

And remember that's 2012 Obama, who had already bled votes from his own total in 2008. The important lesson here is that a fully mobilised Democratic base can't be matched by the Republican base, but a demobilised Democratic base will probably lose, and at the same time nothing at all, not even Donald fething Trump, will de-mobilise the Repubilcan base.

As such, the strategy for Democrats is to make sure their base is motivated to get out and vote.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
Shaming the opposition might make you feel good, but it won't win you elections.

Meh, I think you're mistaking how it was employed by Clinton/Remain, and what it can actually do.

Highlighting the failings of the other side is a bread and butter element of politics. While care should be given to focus that condemnation of the opposition candidate and not their voters (something Clinton failed to do), you should still do it. I mean, don't pretend for one second Trump and his team weren't doing the same. The nonsense about locking Clinton up, all the people who've come in here and said they voted for spite due to the SJWs... that was part of the Trump campaign's efforts to run a negative campaign on the other side.

The problem with Clinton's campaign, and also possibly with Remain (though I didn't follow it that closely), was that the moral attack on Trump and bigotry become the only message of her campaign. While she had a crazy amount of progressive policy proposals, she lacked any ability to compress those in to an understandable, appealing vision. She lacked the political skill of her husband, basically. Instead the only campaign issue she was able to deliver in a concise way was 'Trump is a horrible bigot'. It's true, but it isn't enough to win a campaign by itself. Because at the same time Trump was running with 'Clinton is corrupt' and 'everyone will get jobs and I'm gonna cut all the taxes and spend all the money and balance the budget'.

The message from here isn't to stop criticising the failings of the other side. The message is that Democrats need a way to turn their current suite of progressive policies in to something understandable and appealing to voters, and to combine that with a healthy dose of criticism of the other side.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 whembly wrote:
So. Yes. She. Did. Say. It.

SO do you believe there's 31 million racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic, etc... voters?

To be fair, she did walk it back.

No. She didn't 'walk it back'. She continued talking in the same fething speech to give full meaning to her comment.

You fething cut her speech up, to make it seem like that was all she said. You are being dishonest. Here is the actual, full quote.

"You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic -- you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people -- now 11 million. He tweets and retweets their offensive hateful mean-spirited rhetoric. Now, some of those folks -- they are irredeemable, but thankfully they are not America. But the other basket -- and I know this because I see friends from all over America here -- I see friends from Florida and Georgia and South Carolina and Texas -- as well as, you know, New York and California -- but that other basket of people are people who feel that the government has let them down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures, and they're just desperate for change. It doesn't really even matter where it comes from. They don't buy everything he says, but he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different. They won't wake up and see their jobs disappear, lose a kid to heroin, feel like they're in a dead-end. Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well."

She goes straight from talking about the bad half of Trump voters to the good half, and you and every other person who wanted to get butthurt over this pretended only the first half existed. And you're still pretending now.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Mitochondria wrote:
A nation should put its citizens ahead of any other consideration.

There is a whole wide world for the refugees to flee to.

The rest of that whole wide world is also full of countries, which by your logic should also put their citizens ahead of anyone else, which somehow means rejecting refugees. Which means the refugees basically get to suck it and die.

It's interesting, and very sad, to see how the lessons of history just get forgotten. There was once a collective guilt over how few Jews were granted an escape from Germany in the 1930s, which pretty directly led to the modern state of refugee law. It's steadily been forgotten. It's a very sad thing, to see people realise the impact their selfishness can have, and then to slowly descend back in to that pettiness in the decades to follow.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
So she wrote them off as a lost cause? Didn't make any effort to, I don't know, persuade them to change their minds? Or at least avoid pissing them off so much that it guarantees a high turnout from them? You can't afford to be picky about who votes for you. Writing off big swathes of the electorate because you don't like them ain't gonna negate their votes.

They wouldn't be persuaded anyway. Nor did they turn up in spectacular numbers in the end anyway. Problem for Clinton wasn't that republicans came in huge numbers.

What effect that term would have in making democrat core not voting? That's what lost her elections. Democrat core not voting in in expected numbers. She failed to get her supporters to vote. Not by causing opponents voters to vote in any great numbers. Trump's vote count was all in all weak or at best average republican vote count.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Mitochondria wrote:
Not a bad starting point.

A nation should put its citizens ahead of any other consideration.

There is a whole wide world for the refugees to flee to.

Howabout first USA stop causing refugee problems in the first place?

Shows lack of ethics USA has. First go in in own greed to get what they want and cause refugee crisis, then refuse to help fix what you caused. Gee thanks.

And USA thinks it's great. Well great bully maybe.

 Frazzled wrote:
Did she say it? Yes.

Did she take it back? No.

Calling the other side deplorable is not going to help your cause. Your true believers may like it, but the independents don't and it helps stir up the other side's base - which occurred spectacularly in this case.

I talked to two family friends who voted Trump. They didn't vote for Trump, they voted against Hillary. If HRC can't get older women to vote for her, yea she's going to lose, and she did.

The incumbent side always faces head winds in this type of election. Don't run someone actively hated by a large portion of the country. Its that simple. She lost to a carnival barking twitter nut.

Do you think Biden would have lost?
Do you think she would have beaten Rubio-who her team was really afraid of? How about Kasich? Who exactly could she have beaten?

Just like I was willing to ignore Clinton's corruption because I would get something else I supported. It didn't mean I wanted her to continue doing bad things.

Not me. I voted for the dopehead. I embraced his dopeheadedness.

A lot of other people chimed in on this since I had to go to work, but I wanted to address it again. This is exactly what I'm talking about, Frazz Nobody's in the deplorables basket (which...seriously, who comes up with a phrase like that?) unless they're the sort of people salivating at the thought of a Muslim registry or driving around yelling about what bits of women they can grab now that Trump is President-Elect. The original speech was an attempt to reach out to the other people voting or considering voting for Trump; the people who believed what he said about bringing blue-collar jobs back, or the people who wanted to strike a blow against the political establishment and hadn't really looked at what Trump was like, or the people who just don't pay much attention and check the box next to the little "R" on the ballot. It only became an attack on Republican voters in general when it got dissected and waved around by right-wing media and politicians and that one person you sort of knew in high school who shares everything on Facebook, at which point it became a flag to rally around and get the people she was trying to speak to to climb in bed with the KKK and neo-Nazis.

But I'm sure we all know all that already at this point.

Mitochondria wrote:
A nation should put its citizens ahead of any other consideration.

There is a whole wide world for the refugees to flee to.

So, a nation should put its citizens ahead of any other considerations, but only if that nation is the US because there needs to be a whole wide world for refugees to flee to that doesn't have policies like the US? Your argument here is not consistent at all.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/fbi-investigates-journalist-joke-tweet_us_58471b9fe4b0fe5ab6936b54?sojvpldi

This is a story about how the FBI came to investigate a joke I tweeted about fake news.

It is quite a tale.

.. a cynical man might think it's kind of odd that the FBI are investigating people affecting the outcome of an election via dubious claims....



https://apnews.com/b3d2d2f44dd14b44a1ef7f15706b2f79

MIAMI BEACH, Fla. (AP) — A Florida woman has been charged with making death threats against the parent of a child who died in the Sandy Hook school shooting massacre because she thought the attack was a hoax, federal authorities announced Wednesday.

Lucy Richards, 57, of Tampa was arrested Monday after a grand jury indictment on four felony counts of transmitting threats, the U.S. Justice Department said in a statement.

The threats were made Jan. 10, according to authorities, and included messages that said, "you gonna die, death is coming to you real soon," and "LOOK BEHIND YOU IT IS DEATH."

Another threat said, "there's nothing you can do about it," according to court documents.

The indictment said the threats were made in Palm Beach County to a person identified only by the initials "L.P." Justice Department spokeswoman Sarah Schall wouldn't say how the threats were delivered or provide more details, nor would she provide further details about why federal authorities said Richards thought the attack was a hoax.

The messages quoted in the indictment match a series of voicemails released online in January and this week by Lenny Pozner and others who have publicly sought to debunk conspiracy theories surrounding Sandy Hook and other mass slayings. Pozner's 6-year-old son Noah was in first grade when he was killed in the Sandy Hook shootings.

A friend of Pozner confirmed that Pozner was the target of the threats detailed in the indictment released Wednesday.

The friend responded on Pozner's behalf to emails and other messages sent to Pozner, saying the family had been told by federal prosecutors not to talk to the media about the case. He spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of fear of retaliation by people who believe the shootings did not take place.

A year ago, Pozner and his ex-wife called on Florida Atlantic University to fire a professor that the couple said taunted them with blog posts about the Sandy Hook massacre being staged.

"The heartache of burying a child is a sorrow we would not wish upon anyone. Yet to our horror, we have found that there are some in this society who lack empathy for the suffering of others. Among them are the conspiracy theorists that deny our tragedy was real. They seek us out and accuse us of being government agents who are faking our grief and lying about our loss," they wrote in an opinion piece published by the Sun Sentinel.

The professor was fired in January, and he is now suing FAU for violating his constitutional rights.

Others linked to the Sandy Hook massacre also have reported harassment by conspiracy theorists who argue the event was staged to erode support for Second Amendment rights to bear arms.

A New York City man accused of approaching the sister of slain Sandy Hook teacher Victoria Soto and angrily claiming the massacre hadn't happened was sentenced to two years of probation in April as part of a plea deal. A teacher in the Newtown School District told a court in September that he had brought a weapon to school because he feared for his safety after receiving what he said were threats from conspiracy theorists. A Connecticut man was charged in September for allegedly phoning in a threat to the new Sandy Hook Elementary School that replaced the building demolished after shootings.

Richards' indictment comes nearly four years after the Dec. 14, 2012, shootings in which a gunman with a rifle killed 20 first-graders and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. The man also killed himself and his mother.

Richards awaits an initial court appearance Dec. 19 in Fort Lauderdale. Court records didn't list an attorney for her.

Each felony charge of transmitting threats is punishable by up to five years in prison in event of a conviction.

The infowars crowd continue to excel themselves.

Well. Trump sabre rattling with China, Chinese newspaper that's closely tied with goverment is now flagging for more nukes for China due to Trump. Fun fun fun.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 d-usa wrote:

This thread shows that people already decided that she said something that she didn't say, and that it means something it didn't mean, so the problem doesn't lie with the messenger or the message, but rather with the recipient.

Reminds me of Obama's "they cling to their guns and religion" quote.... Mostly because, much of the media, particularly the right-wing media instantly hit on that one little section and completely ignored what he said both before and after that one line.


So while the problem may not entirely lie with the messenger, who the message is sent through matters about as much as the recipient.

It reminds me of the "you didn't build that" speech.

 BigWaaagh wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 Easy E wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
OK now Trump is just trolling us. I did SBA loans a long time ago and you need a banker to run that, not some piece of of crap carnival barker.

He isn't trolling, he has just exhausted his rolodex of loyalists.

That sounds amazingly accurate.

Take that Queso! It's not your day Frazz... Now I'm hungry.

http://www.thv11.com/news/local/arkansas-cheese-dip-wins-us-senate-blind-taste-taste/365311085

As we speak, the Battleship Texas is firing up her boilers. This insult will not go unanswered.

(later on the Mississippii)
"Thats a really big log."
"Thats not a log. thats a abattleship!"


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 feeder wrote:
I agree it's a terrible idea. The alternative is whoever Trumppence puts forwards.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Fething deplorables and those who closed their eyes and got into bed with those deplorables really fethed your country.

There should be a mod alert about a Canadian insult a substantial portion of the United States.

https://twitter.com/newtgingrich/status/806620424796860418

75 years ago the Japanese displayed professional brilliance and technological power launching surprises from Hawaii to the Philippines

can you imagine the volley of bile and outrage if Obama or any democrat had tweeted this ?