US Politics, February 2018: Our country was founded by geniuses, but it’s being run by idiots

Being a GOP activist should be considered twice as bad as being a communist ever was, though, so how can anyone be surprised at that?

So many GOPers are going to claim that they just didn't know and it's going to be like stalinists claiming that nobody knew about the gulags.

Just watching the news with dinner and spat chunks to see Jared Kushner sitting at the UN table as the appointed negotiator for Middle East resolution. With respect to my US colleagues, the country is becoming a farce and a laughing stock.

Tony Blair sat in that chair so it’s not like it’s a particularly illustrious cushion.

With respect to my US colleagues, the country is becoming a farce and a laughing stock.

'becoming'

The US has had many people as ludicrous as Kush sitting at the UN, they were just more "professional."

Yeah, the woman in the CNN clip I posted, she's pretty much generic Old Person That Forwards Shit on the Internet, which is a big bullseye for predators and propagandists alike. But just as she probably has no idea how the internet works and how people take advantage of people like her, I agree that she likely has no idea what the reporter is talking about. "Russians? They weren't Russia. They looked and talked just like me. They were Trump supporters all the way, and didn't sound the least bit Communist."

Bruce Springsteen, yes.
A very deep, political thinker.
He's a communist, isn't he?

No, he's from New Jersey.

oh man i've lost 1000s of followers

Apparently, Twitter banned thousands & thousands of Russian bot accounts tonight, and now all the Trump supporters are complaining that they're being "censored" since many lost a majority of their following… 😂 #TwitterLockout

— William LeGate (@williamlegate) February 21, 2018

I am delighted to discover that the dozen or so Lynch-loving commies who follow me are, in fact, apparently real

j/k don't have a twitter account but it's about god damn time they did this

in maybe related nerd news new york magazine's comment section troll regulars have gone eerily quiet in recent days

Twitter is very brave, this is a very brave thing to do. Maybe they can ban the Trollbot-in-Chief next. That would be very brave. I'm going to hold my breath while I wait.

first they came for the bots....

Deleted all bots or just russian bots

considering Jack Dorsey follows a bunch of alt-right goons, I'm always surprised when they take any positive measures at all

I lost a few followers today, but I think it's because I tweeted something bad about Robert Pattinson.

Jesus Fred you really don't fuck about do u

oh man the r-patz mob is intense, I've noticed

I went down about 100 or so over night, which is def not usual, only tweet was about hearing Scorpions at a pho space if ppl don't want to hear that I don't need em

I know I had some bots for sure

only tweet was about hearing Scorpions at a pho space if ppl don't want to hear that I don't need em

Block you like a hurricane

A+

that florida lady was like maxine the shoebox greetings woman with a lobotomy. also people of a certain age have zero idea have facebook works because they’re way too trusting of the idea that anything their feed not labeled an ad is from someone they “know.”

every time i see something like that clip i think of the time my mom shared a picture of a cute dog... that had originally been posted by britain first.

CNN is hosting a "town hall" with students from Parkland...and NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch.

The students should withdraw en masse. There's no reason they should have to be in the same room with Dana Loesch.

she's going to get roasted beyond belief

it's like putting the families of lung cancer victims in the same room with a tobacco exec

It should be interesting to see what happens when an NRA spokesperson drops their talking points on a group of people who are recent victims of the NRA's talking points.

maybe they'll tear her apart with their bare hands to finally prove once and for all that people kill people

I just got lost in a momentary reverie, thinking about the possibility of an NRA shill actually being swayed by a roomful of teenage victims of gun violence, but, well. I keep optimistically recalling all of these points in history when people were convinced, however slowly, to relinquish or ease up on their indefensible ideologies and then I shake it off and remember that the only ideology held by most of the awful people of today is 'intransigent tribalism'.

dana loesch should be arrested for terroristic threats on the basis of those lunatic nra psas

it's like putting the families of lung cancer victims in the same room with a tobacco exec

https://www.slantmagazine.com/images/made/assets/film/thankyouforsmoking_1130_430_90_s_c1.jpg

It should be interesting to see what happens when an NRA spokesperson drops their talking points on a group of people who are recent victims of the NRA's talking points.

Hollow talking points, talking hollow points

Best laugh I've had in days.

Gateway Pundit says founder Jim Hoft was banned from CPAC panel because of his site's attacks on the Parkland survivors pic.twitter.com/748DTdgj1P

— Will Sommer (@willsommer) February 21, 2018

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DWfs98cVQAEcu6o.jpg

Is this Gallup map real? I've only seen it on Twitter.

Texas is competitive?

xp unperson looks like that map is based on this data

http://news.gallup.com/poll/226643/2017-party-affiliation-state.aspx?g_source=&g_medium=newsfeed&g_campaign=tiles

which states that yes, texas is competitive

interesting that the states with the most economic satisfaction are also the most delusional, i mean republican leaning

http://news.gallup.com/poll/226772/wyoming-north-dakota-utah-lead-economic-confidence.aspx?g_source=link_NEWSV9&g_medium=TOPIC&g_campaign=item_&g_content=Wyoming%2c%2520North%2520Dakota%2c%2520Utah%2520Lead%2520in%2520Economic%2520Confidence

"competitive" on that map means that a competition to see which party had the most voters affiliated with it would be competitive, not that elections are competitive in practice.

Right, I suspect that party affiliation in Texas may be more equal than you would expect. But Democrats tend to cluster in cities, so district-by-district elections are lopsided.

Plus gerrymandering

well, yeah, local elections, but even in statewide elections it's misleading to call those states "competitive" as you would based on a poll of likely voters. afaict that's a map of only those people who choose to affiliate/identify with a party. almost half of voters are either unaffiliated or tell pollsters they are independent. http://news.gallup.com/poll/15370/party-affiliation.aspx. so it's a pretty weird map, if i've understood it correctly.

it's weird how some southern states still have vestigial Democratic affiliation even though a Democrat could almost never win a statewide election there

More and more complicated...

New charges have been filed in Mueller's criminal case against Paul Manafort and aide Rick Gates, but the charges were put under seal by the court, obscuring the nature and import of the development, Politico reports. https://t.co/coelDZ9uwi

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) February 21, 2018

“ a reporter on her lawn asking her the modern day version of "are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?"
― i remember the corned beef of my childhood (Karl Malone), Tuesday, February 20, 2018 9:50 PM (yesterday)

Hey maybe let’s not repeat the silly comparisons pushed exclusively by people arguing in bad faith.

no, i don't think that's a silly comparison. i'm not saying that anyone who questions anyone about a connection to russia is a mccarthyist, or that it is a widespread phenomenon. i'm saying that in the segment in question, given the circumstances, the reporter was acting like a mccarthyist.

The reporter's questions:

"but they were involved with you. did you know that?"
"but you guys were involved with Being Patriotic, right?"
"Being Patriotic was the group that helped to organize some of these activities that you posted on your own Facebook account."
"Those were Russians"
"That group was Russians"
[I didn't have anything to do with the Russians]
"Well apparently you did. Maybe you didn't know it, but you did."
[Those people with me were Trump supporters]
"And all apparently following the direction of groups that were associated with Russians who were actually infiltrated"
"But did you realize you were in communication electronically with Russians?"
"You were posting stuff on Facebook..."
"You were in charge of the Facebook account, right?"
"You were posting and reposting almost word for word the information that was coming out of this Internet Research Agency in St. Petersburg."

Karl this is not McCarthyism, bum comp

it's pretty dispiriting though

I mean to say that it's not cool cuz you know "McCarthyism!" is one line of defense they're gonna make

alright, i can tell i'm going to lose this one so i'll stfu up. that was some great reporting

i really dislike being told not to express something just because it's being exploited in bad faith by ideologues on the other team, though.

pin number stfu up