Board 8 > Politics Containment Topic 313: August and Everything After

(+) Yeah! (+)

More defense of Ghislaine Maxwell:

https://twitter.com/JohnJHarwood/status/1290705202744565771

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LordoftheMorons posted...

More defense of Ghislaine Maxwell:

https://twitter.com/JohnJHarwood/status/1290705202744565771

It's called innocent until proven guilty.*

*In my eyes, Hillary Clinton has already been proven gulity by the overwhelming weight of evidence against her.

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apparently "you don't know that" is trump's new "wrooooooooong"

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"2+2 is 4."
"You don't know that."
"I do know that. It's simple math."
"Many people would disagree. It's in the books. Read the books."

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it's in the manuals, read the manuals!

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StealThisSheen posted...

"2+2 is 4."
"You don't know that."
"I do know that. It's simple math."
"Many people would disagree. It's in the books. Read the books."

Numbers are an abstract construct. They don't have an objective reality. 2+2 = 5.

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And, to be clear, words are also an abstract construct. That's why President Trump can be always right when he uses words and numbers. You just have to construct an axiomatic or nonaxiomatic system under which his statements are right.

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StealThisSheen posted...

"2+2 is 4."
"You don't know that."
"I do know that. It's simple math."
"Many people would disagree. It's in the books. Read the books."

"the world we perceive is nothing more than the interpretations of sensory inputs processed by flawed chunks of meat housed in our skulls. there's no telling that what one person sees or hears is the same as another. nothing is true. everything is permitted."

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That reminds me of a meme I ran into a while back



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StealThisSheen posted...

"2+2 is 4."
"You don't know that."
"I do know that. It's simple math."
"Many people would disagree. It's in the books. Read the books."

Bad example, technically 2+2 doesnt always equal 4

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Every time I watch bits of that Axios interview, it's like a wave of unreality hits my brain. Like, I cannot believe that's an actual, real, non parody/satire interview with the President of the United States.

That journalist/reporter's voice, cadence, and mannerisms just strike me as somewhat Onion-esque. Then you hear Trump's responses, and you think, "he must be deadpanning in on the joke". And then you realize it's TRUMP and it's oh so real and oh so maddeningly insane.

Seriously, how does someone legitimately defend that interview for Trump?

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To be honest, I'm a little surprised by the strong reactions people are having to the Axios piece - it seems like such bog standard Trump to me, he's almost surprisingly lucid if anything

I think it's more like it's turning out to be a concentrated "greatest hits" thing if anything. I'm not sure there's anything new in there but it's like a montage from the past.

Trump's whataboutism regarding Russia from last week's bit isn't new - we've seen him do much the same, if not perhaps even more egregious, at Helinski and even earlier.

His BS about COVID-19 has always been the case. As has his rank incompetence.

If anything the most surprising snippet (to me) was when Swan started mentioning other countries, and brought up South Korea in particular and when Trump went "you don't know that" to the stats Swan gave, Swan followed up with, "You think they're faking their statistics?" and Trump was like, "Well, I don't want to get into that, I have a great relationship with South Korea." but even that kind of shit flung at our allies isn't new.

It's just these Axios bits have them coming rapid-fire.

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to give trump the benefit of the doubt (lol i know), you could interpret his "you don't know that" response to swan's statement as him saying "we can't be sure if the covid numbers are completely accurate." i even agree with that point! the only problem is that he's saying that AFTER he just threw a bunch of papers at swan filled with covid-related graphs and charts. so it's basically "we have no way of knowing if the numbers are accurate, except the numbers i want to talk about. those are completely perfect and accurate."

it's the exact same bullshit muffin is always pulling in the coronavirus topic. "we have no idea if the numbers are accurate! now that i've made that point, let me flood the topic with stats, graphs and charts that 100% prove that lockdowns and masks don't work."

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"Chuck and I are master negotiators, Pelosi said in a PBS interview Tuesday evening."

lol

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Corrik7 posted...

"Chuck and I are master negotiators, Pelosi said in a PBS interview Tuesday evening."

lol

She's not bad but Chuck.....lol.

Paratroopa1 posted...

To be honest, I'm a little surprised by the strong reactions people are having to the Axios piece - it seems like such bog standard Trump to me, he's almost surprisingly lucid if anything

I saw it put this way: the remarkable thing is that Swan is actually taking the ridiculous things Trump says seriously and calling them out as bullshit (as he should be) instead of dismissing them as "Trump being Trump" like a huge fraction of the media does all of the time.

I think that some of the force field that Trump has is due to the media treating the fact that he is a legitimately horrendously incompetent and sociopathic individual as old news that everybody knows, and that gives something of a permission structure to his supporters (if it really was as bad as his detractors say it is, after all, surely nobody would be treating it like it was normal!)

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LordoftheMorons posted...

I saw it put this way: the remarkable thing is that Swan is actually taking the ridiculous things Trump says seriously and calling them out as bullshit (as he should be) instead of dismissing them as "Trump being Trump" like a huge fraction of the media does all of the time.

I think that some of the force field that Trump has is due to the media treating the fact that he is a legitimately horrendously incompetent and sociopathic individual as old news that everybody knows, and that gives something of a permission structure to his supporters (if it really was as bad as his detractors say it is, after all, surely nobody would be treating it like it was normal!)

It is old news that everyone knows. This new strategy of arguing with Trump about facts is going to blow up in their faces. The only people with less credibility than Trump are HRC and the media.

If they really want to hurt Trump, they should endorse him. Just picture it - the NYT, CNN, Washington Post, and Fox News all endorse Trump and write their usual low quality puff pieces but in support of him. Trump's poll numbers would drop so fast, his campaign might be dead in the water before he's figured out how to react.

https://twitter.com/bbcnews/status/1290764475365298176?s=21

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Damn my state is wild. Have people charging 1k to set people up for PUA who have no work history to get them 12k+ in backpay.

Like they are selling firesticks. Lol

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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

Bad example, technically 2+2 doesnt always equal 4

Just stop

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Seanchan posted...

Every time I watch bits of that Axios interview, it's like a wave of unreality hits my brain. Like, I cannot believe that's an actual, real, non parody/satire interview with the President of the United States.

Very little that Trump had done throughout the last four years has truly surprised me. I said he would be an absolute disaster back in 2016 and I was not very happy to be right. He's somehow worse than I imagined he would be, but overall its within my realm of expectations.

What's blown me away isn't Trump - it's the depths to which the GOP establishment and voters are willing to follow him into the depths of hell for absolutely no reason outside of spite and the desire to 'win'. People have literally died to spite the libs. I find this much worse than one bad apple. America has proven to have a lot of people that I despise.

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NFUN posted...

Just stop

?

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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

?

2+2=4. If you want it to not equal four, then you'd specify the context in which it doesn't (if it wasn't already clear). Sure, technically, 2+2!=4 if you're working in a system with a base of 4 or lower, or in plenty of algebraic groups, or with a different definition of "2" or "+" or "=" or "4", but it's beyond asinine and pedantic to try to well ackshaully this.

In fact, it being only true in relevant contexts makes it a better example. You can painfully contort many of the things Trump says to make them make "correct". "Less testing means less cases"? Sure, if you're looking at it from the perspective of recorded cases. I don't feel like looking more but you know they exist. Of course, Trump is wrong. The "correct" perspective is never what he means, never what his interviewers want, never what is actually useful. This is the shit that Politifact does when it assigns mealy-mouthed "Mostly True" to nonsense on the right. Yes, 2+2=1 is true of some algebraic groups of order three under normal definitions of the symbols. Unless you're talking about the situation, you're wrong, you fucked up, and to argue otherwise is disingenuous and dishonest. Trump in that example is disingenuous and dishonest (in addition to being an idiot). To call that a bad example for the reason you gave is... somewhere on the above spectrum.

I already had to read a wall of stupidity about 2+2 equaling 5 yesterday. I will not put up with it here.

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NFUN posted...

I already had to read a wall of stupidity about 2+2 equaling 5 yesterday. I will not put up with it here.

Could've sworn a man named Orwell wrote a book about this kind of mentality...

(Not NFUN's, the people he's having to deal with)

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trdl23 posted...

Could've sworn a man named Orwell wrote a book about this kind of mentality...

(Not NFUN's, the people he's having to deal with)

from said wall

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Great news from Missouri:

https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/1290853751755026438

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NFUN posted...

2+2=4. If you want it to not equal four, then you'd specify the context in which it doesn't (if it wasn't already clear). Sure, technically, 2+2!=4 if you're working in a system with a base of 4 or lower, or in plenty of algebraic groups, or with a different definition of "2" or "+" or "=" or "4", but it's beyond asinine and pedantic to try to well ackshaully this.

In fact, it being only true in relevant contexts makes it a better example. You can painfully contort many of the things Trump says to make them make "correct". "Less testing means less cases"? Sure, if you're looking at it from the perspective of recorded cases. I don't feel like looking more but you know they exist. Of course, Trump is wrong. The "correct" perspective is never what he means, never what his interviewers want, never what is actually useful. This is the shit that Politifact does when it assigns mealy-mouthed "Mostly True" to nonsense on the right. Yes, 2+2=1 is true of some algebraic groups of order three under normal definitions of the symbols. Unless you're talking about the situation, you're wrong, you fucked up, and to argue otherwise is disingenuous and dishonest. Trump in that example is disingenuous and dishonest (in addition to being an idiot). To call that a bad example for the reason you gave is... somewhere on the above spectrum.

I already had to read a wall of stupidity about 2+2 equaling 5 yesterday. I will not put up with it here.

Too long, didnt read

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Great 1984 quotes:

Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.

But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.

Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.

Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious. [About the proletariat]

Perhaps a lunatic was simply a minority of one.

You are a slow learner, Winston."
"How can I help it? How can I help but see what is in front of my eyes? Two and two are four."
"Sometimes, Winston. Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. You must try harder. It is not easy to become sane.

It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words.

Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just around the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now you begin to understand me.

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KamikazePotato posted...

Very little that Trump had done throughout the last four years has truly surprised me. I said he would be an absolute disaster back in 2016 and I was not very happy to be right. He's somehow worse than I imagined he would be, but overall its within my realm of expectations.

What's blown me away isn't Trump - it's the depths to which the GOP establishment and voters are willing to follow him into the depths of hell for absolutely no reason outside of spite and the desire to 'win'. People have literally died to spite the libs. I find this much worse than one bad apple. America has proven to have a lot of people that I despise.

You despise them, and you say that directly. Why would you expect any goodwill from them?

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I'm struggling to find a premade list I thought ya'll might know something about, so I've started on the list idea below.

Who are the longest-serving members of Donald Trump's staff? We always hear a lot about the turnover, but I'm looking more for the people most consistently there during this administration.

People like:

Ben Carson
Elaine Chao
Jay Clayton
Kellyanne Conway
Betsy DeVos
Neil Gorsuch (need a better word than staff here.....)
Jared Kushner
Steve Mnuchin
Mick Mulvaney
Stephen Miller
Peter Navarro
Mike Pence
Sonny Perdue
Wilbur Ross
Ivanka Trump
Melania Trump

If we're looking for other constants than Donald in the Trump administration, who else is worth mentioning?

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https://mobile.twitter.com/baseballot/status/1290858232714612736

Cori Bush wins the MO-01 election and Missouri passes Medicaid expansion.


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https://i.imgur.com/hRztrNz.png

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https://twitter.com/DavidDouglasTV/status/1290333362394079233?s=19

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KamikazePotato posted...

https://i.imgur.com/hRztrNz.png

In a similar vein

https://twitter.com/SampsaNuotio/status/1290718807091224576

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KamikazePotato posted...

What's blown me away isn't Trump - it's the depths to which the GOP establishment and voters are willing to follow him into the depths of hell for absolutely no reason outside of spite and the desire to 'win'.

this.

of course i know "republicans fall in line" but jesus christ, the enthusiasm so many normal conservatives had when they threw their core beliefs out of the window just to agree with trump's alt-right bullshit was shocking.

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Mr Lasastryke posted...

this.

of course i know "republicans fall in line" but jesus christ, the enthusiasm so many normal conservatives had when they threw their core beliefs out of the window just to agree with trump's alt-right bullshit was shocking.

American conservatives haven't had any "core beliefs" besides "winning" since Nixon, if not longer.

Mr Lasastryke posted...

this.

of course i know "republicans fall in line" but jesus christ, the enthusiasm so many normal conservatives had when they threw their core beliefs out of the window just to agree with trump's alt-right bullshit was shocking.

The do it while holding their nose and squinting until all they see is "right". Rationalizing is a hell of a thing.

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Reg posted...

American conservatives haven't had any "core beliefs" besides "winning" since Nixon, if not longer.

yeah, you're probably right.

the only republican president besides trump i've seen conservatives react to was GWB (i'm too young to remember bush sr.) so this "let's throw everything out to agree with the new guy" thing was new for me. but it's probably par for the course for conservatives.

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Reg posted...

American conservatives haven't had any "core beliefs" besides "winning" since Nixon, if not longer.

They have core beliefs. It's just that those core beliefs are: Anti-Woman, Anti-Gay, and Anti-Minority. All of which Trump hits perfectly well. And doesn't hide it, except the anti-gay part but he chose Pence to cover that.

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Looks like Kobach did end up losing. The race will presumably be harder for Dems now, but the worst case scenario is off the table.

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Dancedreamer posted...

They have core beliefs. It's just that those core beliefs are: Anti-Woman, Anti-Gay, and Anti-Minority. All of which Trump hits perfectly well. And doesn't hide it, except the anti-gay part but he chose Pence to cover that.

Don't forget anti-poor!

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Dancedreamer posted...

They have core beliefs. It's just that those core beliefs are: Anti-Woman, Anti-Gay, and Anti-Minority. All of which Trump hits perfectly well. And doesn't hide it, except the anti-gay part but he chose Pence to cover that.

And yet most white American women are Republican. Though I know why that is and it's not (necessarily?) because they hate their own gender.

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LinkMarioSamus posted...

And yet most white American women are Republican. Though I know why that is and it's not (necessarily?) because they hate their own gender.

Because none of those things are core Republican beliefs, just like communism isn't a core Democratic belief. Things aren't true just because the other party says it.

HeroicCrono posted...

Because none of those things are core Republican beliefs, just like communism isn't a core Democratic belief. Things aren't true just because the other party says it.

What ARE core Republican beliefs then? Keep the rich rich and the poor poor. And propagating various isms to aid in that first belief. Thats all they do.

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If the rich aren't rich then who will make the poor better off? Come on Inviso.

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Espeon posted...

What ARE core Republican beliefs then? Keep the rich rich and the poor poor. And propagating various isms to aid in that first belief. Thats all they do.

Power.

https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/blue-state-tax-break-becomes-a-flashpoint-in-coronavirus-relief-bill-11596619801

What is worse... That they want to help the rich in a crisis... Or that it says that the reason they raised taxes in those states is because they knew the smarter or richer people who could afford CPAs would have the federal government pick up those increases anyways.

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Corrik7 posted...

https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/blue-state-tax-break-becomes-a-flashpoint-in-coronavirus-relief-bill-11596619801

What is worse... That they want to help the rich in a crisis... Or that it says that the reason they raised taxes in those states is because they knew the smarter or richer people who could afford CPAs would have the federal government pick up those increases anyways.

Contrary to popular belief, in many situations there's only so much a good accountant or tax lawyer can do. If you have a lot of straight W-2 income, there's very little that can be done.

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