Tonight, in news from the far right · 6:49am Dec 8th, 2015
Michele Bachmann said that there should be a bigger effort to convert Jews to Christianity ahead of the arrival of Jesus Christ. “We recognize the shortness of the hour,” Bachmann said on Tony Perkins' radio program during a tour of Israel of last week. “And that’s why we as a remnant want to be faithful in these days and do what it is that the Holy Spirit is speaking to each one of us, to be faithful in the Kingdom and to help bring in as many as we can — even among the Jews — share Jesus Christ with everyone that we possibly can because, again, He’s coming soon.”
"Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on," a campaign press release said.
Trump, who has previously called for surveillance against mosques and said he was open to establishing a database for all Muslims living in the U.S., made his latest controversial call in a news release. His message comes in the wake of a deadly mass shooting in San Bernardino, California, by suspected ISIS sympathizers and the day after President Barack Obama asked the country not to "turn against one another" out of fear.
In Trump's defense, though, he said he has some Muslim friends, and they're cool.
On a lighter note:
For those of you who haven't been following the election, Mitt Romney is not, in fact, running for president this year, meaning that apparently someone who isn't even running for president is more popular than any of the present crop of candidates.
I feel kind of sorry for the Republican party at this point. If any of you in my audience are Republicans: I'm sorry you guys have to put up with this year's campaign.
And finally, on a totally unrelated note:
Researchers led by Gordon Pennycook from the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, claim to have proven that people who buy into pseudo-profound quotes are less intelligent. As they write in their paper, On the reception and detection of pseudo-profound bullshit:
Those more receptive to bullshit are less reflective, lower in cognitive ability (i.e., verbal and fluid intelligence, numeracy), are more prone to ontological confusions and conspiratorial ideation, are more likely to hold religious and paranormal beliefs, and are more likely to endorse complementary and alternative medicine.
If only I had known I could write papers with titles like that, I might have gone into a different line of work.
I'm sorry, but after reading r/NotTheOnion, I had to share. Hopefully I'll have something pony to post in the next few days.
my country is screwed no matter what.
Can't wait to see if the GOP can manage to shape up this time around, or if they just double down on the crazy like they did after the last couple elections. Gonna be a long year.
Naw, that's just sad.
This is a lighter note:
Ah.
Four words.
Vote Jeb.
He's a guy you can count on.
Glad I'm not GOP.
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I missed this earlier:
Virginia Mayor Uses Japanese Internment Camps to Defend Blocking Refugee Assistance
FYI, the incident remains a national historical embarrassment to the US, and we ended up paying out a bunch of money to people who we illegally detained.
You missed this lovely sentiment on international crisis outreach.
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It's like, a parody of what someone on the far left would think a Republican would say.
For those of you too lazy to read the article:
Well, glad to know she has her priorities straight. Hard to shoot them all the way over there, gotta let them get in range first.
Donald Trump is doing more for the Democratic Party than anyone could ask of him.
Also, that is easily the best scientific journal article I've seen outside of the Journal of Irreproducible Results.
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My favorite title of a scientific article:
Proton‐Enhanced Nuclear Induction Spectroscopy. A Method for High Resolution NMR of Dilute Spins in Solids
http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/journal/jcp/56/4/10.1063/1.1677439
This is why y'all need
Jesusto #FeeltheBern Bernie Sanders is the only viable candidate who isn't incompetent or a megalomaniac.3601949
You're probably not going to be surprised by her family's Christmas card.
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From this side of the Atlantic, we often see the US only through the distorting lens of the media (both yours and ours), and make no mistake we have no shortage of nutjobs of our own (Le Pen family, Corbyn etc), but please tell me this creature Michele Fiore has no real chance at the big chair.
Please...
Couple of things. Seems like a big deal being made of an off-comment of a minor candidate on the radio in Israel who is simply saying exactly what the Christian church is *supposed* to be doing: "Go forth and make disciples of all nations, etc..." Also, Romney is posting high numbers most probably because during the last election, nearly all of the Republicans being polled *did* vote for him. As did I. Beats the heck out of grandma Clinton the Crook.
As for Trump... He's Trump. It's always about Trump. He's not going to be the nominee. He's *also* not far-right. If anything, his donations and published policy positions pre-presidential posturing point left.
Personally, I prefer Cruz, although at this point in time (a year ahead of the election), I'm afraid we're going to get Bush/Rubio (or Rubio/Bush), even though both of them are swinging doors on the topic of mass amnesty. The Republican party seems bound and determined to commit political suicide.
3602300 I can't tell you she has no chance—this is the land of opportunity, after all. But I can say it's not very likely. She's a member of Nevada's lower legislative house, so she's pretty far down the ladder in terms of political clout. Furthermore, if you read to the bottom of the article, she says she was never asked to sign the statement which suggests she isn't very influential within the Assembly either.
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Michele Fiore is an obscure state-level politician; she only got national coverage because she's so crazy, not because she's popular. Basically, "ha, look at the idiot!"
She's a crazy moron who is, apparently, a million dollars in debt to the IRS (our tax-collection agency).
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In all fairness, Trump holds rather fascist positions. Fascists are often defined as far-right, though they're really more of an example of a group which falls off the most commonly seen diagonal line in American politics between liberal leftist and authoritarian rightist. Or, alternatively, a great example of the Horseshoe Theory of politics. Others have noted that Trump is an "American moderate"; many moderates in the US aren't "moderate" in their political positions, but rather hold a mixture of extremist views on both sides of the spectrum, and thus get classified as "moderates" even though in actuality they aren't really "moderate" on anything, they just happen to hold a variety of extreme positions which don't cleanly align with either party.
Trump is certainly embracing nativism. Then again, so is Cruz, given his whole "build a wall" and "triple the number of border patrol agents" thing, which is not only ineffective and expensive, but also ignores the fact that the main way that illegal immigrants get to the US is not sneaking across the border but overstaying on visas, indicating that he either has absolutely no idea whatsoever what he's talking about or is just lying to get votes.
I would like to think it is the latter, but given his generally bad policy views, such as thinking that the US should move to a gold standard (something basically every economist agrees is a bad idea, because gold itself has arbitrary value based almost entirely on speculation and there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to tie the dollar to the price of gold) and that he doesn't think global warming is real, I'm not so sure.
Well, as the party of neo-Confederate white nativism, the Republican party is doomed, demographically; indeed, if hispanics voted for Democrats at the same rate that blacks did, or voted at a higher rate than they do (only about 40% of hispanics vote), Texas and Arizona would turn blue and that would more or less be the end of the Republican party as a national party. There just aren't enough white people who never went to college left anymore, which is the only demographic that the Republican party wins by a substantial margin (54-33%) - and even there, that advantage can mostly be attributed to overwhelming support for Republicans in the South and Empty Quarter (Democrats actually win non-college educated whites in the Northeast). In 2008, Obama won a majority of the white vote in 19 states (good for 222 EVs) and won a plurality of it in three more (good for a total of 278 electoral votes). The main reason that the Democrats look like they do so poorly amongst whites overall (winning only 42% of it nationally in 2008) is this:
But the Republican party wasn't always what it is today; it used to be the party of Theodore Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Nixon, and Bush Sr., and there are still Republicans like Colin Powell left. A big part of the reason why the Republican party ends up getting pulled back towards the middle during presidential elections is that the Republicans who live in blue states represent the old way more than the new way. After all, it wasn't all that long ago that the Republicans used to win the Northeast, and the South was the Solid South, and a lot of African-Americans voted for the Republican Party. The Republican establishment has been taking advantage of the evangelicals and white nativists for a while, but their political views have never really aligned with one another, which is part of why there is so much tension within the Republican party - the latter two groups are tired of being pawns.
The Republican Party in 2012 suggested that they WOULD BE doomed if they kept on the same path they had been going down, and said that they needed to do more to appeal to minority voters, especially hispanics, as well as to young people, but so far, a lot of the headlines have been taken up by people like Trump and Cruz, who come off as very hostile towards them. Bush's push for immigration reform is in line with what the party recommended in 2012 in order to stay competitive on a national basis, but it doesn't seem that the base of the party is eager to embrace such things (and by the sounds of it, you aren't either). People suggest that Bush and Rubio are inevitable, but neither of them are doing very well in the polls.
Personally, while I'm not a fan of illegal immigration, I don't think anyone is willing to spend hundreds of billions of dollars deporting illegal immigrants; I think addressing it on a business level, by ensuring that businesses don't hire illegal immigrants, is much more likely to bear fruit, given that during the Great Recession, over a million illegal immigrants who couldn't find jobs left the United States. Most people come here because it is the land of opportunity, and denying them the ability to find employment will ensure that far fewer come here (as well as prevent businesses from hiring them for sub-minimum wage and screwing over American workers as well). We also need to be more welcoming of legal immigration, and avoid the sort of indentured servitude that some work visas currently produce.
3602283 Retention holsters, fingers off the bang switch, good muzzle control, not bad (comparativly, because there are far worse pictures out there). I'm a little questioning of the two central women's choice in firearms, though. They may be fun to shoot, but no folding stock either makes them less controllable in CQB. I'll keep my AR.
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But what about those sweaters? Nowhere near ugly enough to be Real American Christmas Sweaters.
At this point, I want Trump to become president just to see how much bullshit one can publicly say in complete seriousness and still be elected.
But then I would feel sorry for you guys in America. Not like everyone else is that much better though.
What about that guy who wears seven ties and a boot on his head?
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They're bulletproof. No self-respecting bullet would hit those.
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Vermin Supreme?
He's great.
Though I'm suspicious of his plan to provide a pony for every American.
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http://www.amazon.com/Ugly-Christmas-Sweater-Threesome-Featuring/dp/B009VGT92O/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1449617147&sr=8-1&keywords=reindeer+threesome+sweater
3603508 Yeah him.
*Insert a reference to the Reverse Conversion Bureau or whatever it's called, since I never actually read any of these fics* *Actually scratch that, it's not conversion but more like enslaving I guess?*
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Might want to note that's a NSFW link there. I mean, it wasn't explicit or whatever, but...
Also, I've never quite figured out the market for those things. I mean, they amuse me with the idea that someone, somewhere, might wear them, but who would?
3603354 Hm. Facism from Wikipedia. I prefer the more accurate definition of Liberal Fascism from Jonah Goldberg. (which I will admit has a lot of similarities to the Trump/Clinton/Sanders/Alinsky models)
Evaluating the Republicans using the New York Times, or a newspaper article that seriously suggests that Ann Coulter represents "what the nasty voices in Republicans’ heads are whispering" would be like determining the exact goals of the Democratic party by reading a Right-to-Life newsletter. It's not exactly applying due scepticism to your sources. Cruz has used the gold standard as an example of the direction he would like to take the country's financial policy, not as a goal. (Nobody sane seriously wants to go all the way back to the gold standard except for maybe Ron Paul, but I repeat myself) Since current Fed policy has flattened interest rates to near zero for seven years and pumped more than a trillion dollars worth of taxpayer dollars *and* borrowing into the stock market in an attempt to make it twitch (not to mention the original trillion dollar stimulus package that was supposed to), it seems only rational to apply a new policy that does not simply benefit the ultra-rich and mega-corps at the expense of the taxpayer.
(deep calming breath) Ditto for calling the Republicans the party of the neo-confederates, while it was the democrats who until recently had the only klan member in the senate.
Your opinion on illegal immigration almost mirrors the conservative Republican view, which is good. Enforce the existing law, deport the lawbreakers, E-verify, actually finish the darned fence (which has been funded), stronger enforcement on criminal deportees who return, , and reward those who follow the rules. Amnesty is a huge kick in the face to everybody who has ever legally emigrated to the US, because you follow the rules, pay your fees, go through the correct paperwork to ensure you're not a threat and will be a legitimate citizen... and some tatooed gang member just strolls on in. I am descended from a large wave of emigrants who followed the rules, although from Germany. We still have the original german language bibles in the basement of our church (for some reason, WWII caused a certain move to English within the church).
Oh, and H1B visas and their ilk are mostly legalised slavery, or possibly indentured servitude. (Hm, there ought to be a pony story in there somewhere. Maybe M rated. I wonder what Spike's citizenship status is. After all, Dragons are citizens where they are laid, not hatched. (evil chuckle))
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Liberalism and fascism are utterly opposed positions, given that liberalism is based on liberty and equality, while fascism is authoritarian and nationalistic. Liberalism and authoritarianism lie in opposition to each other.
Fascism is considered a ultra-far-right philosophy which takes some cues from the left, such as having a mixed economy. However, conflating leftism with liberalism is wrong - the USSR was leftist, but not liberal, instead being a highly authoritarian state.
Woah now. Let's not get carried away. I wasn't using the New York Times. I was using his own website and own political statements. Cruz has outright said that he believes that the Bible trumps the Constitution and that people should disregard the gay marriage ruling. His website talks about the border fence and the tripling of the border guard. The gold standard stuff is from Ted Cruz talking about it in the presidential debates.
:V
The economy has improved immensely in that time. Unemployment is at 5% now (down from 10% when Obama took office). Republican policies were a major driver of the problem in the first place and are the reason we are so deeply in debt - Clinton fought to keep the budget surplus, but once Bush became president, he cut taxes and increased spending, sending us into a huge deficit. Obama took office during a recession - when you're supposed to deficit spend to prop up the economy - resulting in us being doubly deep into debt. Though it is worth noting that at present interest rates, the US is actually in a way gaining money from our borrowing, because the interest rate is sub-inflationary, so it isn't actually as big of a deal as people make it out to be. The main problem is that if/when interest rates go back up, there will be some point at which borrowing more money becomes problematic.
Unfortunately, trickle-down economics/supply side economics don't work, because what drives the economy is primarily consumer demand. Consumers consuming more drives supply; people aren't going to increase supply without an increase in demand, and will instead just stuff it into their pockets. It is a fundamentally flawed strategy, and it is why tax cuts don't really stimulate the economy - it isn't like tax money just disappears, after all, it goes into financing government operations, and thus, is consumed (indeed, the government consumes MORE money than people pay in taxes when it is in deficit spending). Thus, any money rich people sit on is basically lost to the economy, meaning that it is rational for the government to tax wealthier people more, because wealth is money which is pulled out of the economy, weird as that may seem.
Ted Cruz's policies are intended to help the ultra-rich pay less taxes; it is a huge tax cut for them. Right now only capital gains are taxed at such a low rate (which is itself a Republican policy - and something that the Republicans refuse to eliminate); this would make all income be taxed at that rate.
Thing is, we're materially very wealthy; people often suggest that wages haven't risen in a long time, but the reality is that we just have much nicer STUFF. Sure, we aren't all independently rich people, but the reality is that was never a realistic expectation of what getting wealthier would be like; you can't have a whole society of wealthy people with no day jobs. Instead, our wealth takes the form of better and better stuff - we all have these magical computers in our pockets, and more magical ones at home.
And these things are so complicated that no one person can make them; they're the product of entire cultures, not individuals. That's how it is today. Our houses are better, our computers are better, our cars are better... these forms of wealth are all really great, but are largely invisible to people because they compare themselves to each other, not to "how we were in 1975".
There is a good argument to be made that executives are siphoning money off the top for themselves, and are taking a disproportinate amount of wealth, but the only way to fix that is economic regulation which the Republicans oppose. They don't like the idea of the government forcing the businesses to distribute money as the government wants, in any way, but that is literally the only way it is going to happen, be it carrot or stick.
The Republicans are the party of the Klan today; that's why David Duke switched from the Democratic to Republican parties. It is why the South votes Republican these days; the Democrats decided that we weren't going to put up with their shit anymore. They got very upset; the Dixiecrats originally tried to break off in 1948, then gradually, their base defected to the Republican party as the Democratic party became increasingly hostile towards racism (and included more and more black people in it). That's why Strom Thurmond, the guy who ran as the Dixiecrat presidential candidate in 1948, switched from the Democrats to the Republicans - more or less, the people who wanted to stay in the Democratic party were forced to apologize for being racist assholes. Robert Byrd, the Democratic Klansman in question, renounced his earlier views about racial segregation, said he regretted his actions against civil rights, said joining the KKK was the worst mistake he ever made, and by 2004, the NAACP said that Byrd was 100% on their side.
Conversely, Strom Thurmond never fully renounced his earlier views on race and segregation. Not that that stopped him from cheating on his wife with his black maid, but you know how those types are.
I mean, all you have to do is look at which party Southern whites support. While GOPLifer (who is himself a republican, but more in the Eisenhower vein) sarcastically notes that it was awfully convenient that Southerners somehow managed to find their love of small government after the Civil Rights movement was supported by the Democrats, the reality is that the neo-Confederates have always been hypocrites about government, which is why they don't see anything contradictory about interfering with women's healthcare decisions, but are bitterly opposed to anyone questioning their hiring practices. It is much the same way as they've always been, where they claimed to care about states rights while forcing the Fugitive Slave Act on the North in clear violation of the supposed rights of the northern states.
The reality is that the Confederate world view of every man ruling over his own kingdom with a government whose job is policing/protecting them from the outside and protecting THEIR rights (and theirs alone) is why the South lost the Civil War; the North participated in a lot of mass infrastructure projects, building canals, railroads, and factories, while the South spurned such advancements. When the two sides got into a fight, the South was crushed under Northern economic might and their slaves got taken away.
When the Democratic party came back together after the Civil War ended, there was continued tension between the non-Southern and Southern parts of the party over the direction of the party, and it was in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s that the northern part of the party won, in large part because FDR's coalition extended nationwide and there were more non-Southern than Southern Democrats at this point. While LBJ was a southerner, he was a liberal, and thus for civil rights, and when the whole leadership of the party over the 1940s to 1960s lined up against the Southern Democrats' support of segregation, they got deeply upset with the party. This is why Goldwater won states in the Deep South in 1964 - because it was a protest against the advancement of Civil Rights, and Goldwater had voted against the 1964 bill (even though he had voted in favor of earlier bills - he felt that the 1964 bill was unconstitutional). In 1968, Wallace tried to pull another Dixiecrat thing, and over the course of the next 20 years, the Southern Democratic leadership was forced to accept civil rights. While inertia has a lot of power, the Democrats gradually faded in the South as the conservative South turned away from the liberal Democratic party and defected to the now-conservative Republican party in the wake of Goldwater (as it should be remembered, the Republican party was originally a liberal party - Licoln with the slaves, Teddy Roosevelt's progressivism, ect. And lest we forget, Eisenhower helped with a lot of early civil rights stuff, and his appointment of Warren to the Supreme Court made a huge difference.)
The conservative white Southerners gradually began to force out the liberal Republicans, calling them RINOs, and over time the Northeast, once a Republican stronghold, switched to the increasingly liberal Democrats, while the conservative South switched to the increasingly conservative Republicans. The parties, which had both once had both liberal and conservative wings, became polarized on the liberal-conservative axis.
monitor.noaa.gov/150th/images/dmap6_lg.jpg
freedomslighthouse.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/2012electoralmapresultsfinal110812.jpg
The relationship between these maps is not coincidental. Nor is the fact that Kim Davis was a "Democrat" who had views espoused by Republicans - she, like many, was loath to change her party affiliation for a long time, but her actual views were not really consistent with the Democratic party.
Incidentally, this is the reason why the Republican party has historically nominated more moderate people for president than you'd expect; the blue-state Republicans, who are now overwhelmed by Democrats, continue to vote for the more moderate candidates, though the liberal Republicans are almost all gone now, with only some diehards like Colin Powell remaining. The feelings of much of the Republican base being taken advantage of by the establishment is in fact absolutely correct - the entire point of the arrangement was to fracture FDR's New Deal coalition while getting themselves elected by the poor white trash they shamelessly appealed to then did little to actually appease. They were always intended to be pawns for the businesspeople to advance their interests. The trouble is that as the base becomes increasingly difficult to control, they're thinking that THEY'RE in charge now, which was never supposed to be the deal.
The fence is a scam and an enormous waste of money. It can't keep people out; it is easy to climb over, go under, or otherwise circumvent. And, as noted, most people just don't bother; they just come here on a visa and then stay here. It is just a way to shovel money to their contractor friends, as it is mostly worthless for keeping people out.
On the one hand, I understand why people don't like this.
On the other hand, not liking something doesn't mean it shouldn't be done anyway. I find it distasteful, but whatever. The reality is it has to happen because having 10 million people here illegally is a much bigger problem than the "slap in the face". It causes all sorts of problems (and tax evasion). Also, immigration is a lot harder today than it was when your ancestors came here; it is unnecessarily convoluted. Simplifying the immigration process would be a good thing.
Of course, it was very simple when MY ancestors came here. They were like, "Oh, look at all this empty land! Never mind the Native Americans." And so New England and New France were born. And even before that, my NORSE ancestors said the same thing, except that the Native Americans had a bit stronger policy against illegal immigration back then. :V
Tch.
Though my personal canon is that he is a citizen because Equestria loves dragging in other species, and having a dragon citizen got another achievement for Celestia in her Civ game. Plus he's Twilight's little brother.
3603699 Well it does have "reindeer threesome" in the link.
Also
I wear them. Well it's actually a hat, with normal twosomes, and a lot less conspicuous... Please don't judge me.3604556 Just out of interest, how many words is that?
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Sometimes, it is better not to know.