U.S. Politics: The Biggest Trade in WNBA History

[Auraninja]

The president wants to willfully ignore climate change by thinking that global warming means that's it's supposed to be hot everywhere year round without exceptions.

In his SOTU, he brags about America being the number one producer of oil and gas like that's a good thing.

I don't get the beef against alternative fuels; we have innovative people, but we have to shut them down with tired logic.

 

[Gamzee Makara]

I don't get the beef against alternative fuels; we have innovative people, but we have to shut them down with tired logic.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ says that. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ can persuade anyone to say bull.

We should make a period of working retail making and living on minimum wage mandatory for rich people so they can learn empathy.

 

[bobjr]

I'm glad to see that we can have an open Nazi in congress and several who want LGBT people dead, but the second one makes a reference that several are being paid off by a big Israel PAC that suddenly the wagons are circled and that person is left to the wolves.

Fuck AIPAC, if they wanted to be morally right they would support basic things like interfaith marriage, not sterilizing minorities without their knowledge, not shooting civilians, medics, and journalists, not using child shields and using white phosphorus as a weapon. It's really disgusting how as a country we're passing anti-speech laws for Israel. At least most forms of fascism only care when it's their own country.

 

[Power Up]

The president wants to willfully ignore climate change by thinking that global warming means that's it's supposed to be hot everywhere year round without exceptions.

In his SOTU, he brags about America being the number one producer of oil and gas like that's a good thing.

I don't get the beef against alternative fuels; we have innovative people, but we have to shut them down with tired logic.

Tbh, this new deal the Dems proposed isn't going to do much either

 

[Gamzee Makara]

Israel and the US are irreversibly invested in each other, lest the former become an eternal warzone and the latter be openly declared anti-Semitic and thus run by fascists and the KKK.

But if you call it out, you're the villain, because disliking the Israeli government makes you hate all Jewish people. News flash:not all Jewish people are loyal to, are agents of or want the CURRENT, neocolonial version of their homeland, only the theologically-described one. Assuming such is a gross misinterpretation of religious literature, based on either a desire not to be called racist and projecting that hatred on other people, a willfil ignorance based on partisan logic or hatred of the Israeli government's rivals, or both.

Hypocrisy doesn't make you wrong, but it suuuurree weakens your case.

Personally, I'm sick of people stanning the CURRENT Israeli government. Sure, not all of the complaints other nations make are valid about them, but, after hearing some stories from INSIDE Israel from Jewish citizens, it's pretty hard to deny that the Netenyahu administration isn't a fascist dictatorship. Maybe it's time for a change to either a true democracy or a separation of Jerusalem from ownership in Israel.

 

[bobjr]

This is a situation where it’s all on current Israel leadership. They just gaslight people into going “that means you’re anti-Semitic based on that issue alone” and you’re seeing a bigger split among younger Jewish people for it. Besides, one party in America thinks Soros controls everything and can’t even try to care about rising violence towards Jewish people in America, but easily verifiable records about money given to politicians to ensure weapons sales is what suddenly causes alarm.

 

[Scammel]

But if you call it out, you're the villain, because disliking the Israeli government makes you hate all Jewish people.

Agreed. Strong criticism of the current Israeli government is very important and isn't remotely anti-Semitic if it isn't couched in those tropes. The US does seem to have an inordinately strong interest in Israel's fortunes - it's a reflection of skewed US foreign policy priorities rather than inherent traits of a Jewish state.

News flash:not all Jewish people are loyal to, are agents of or want the CURRENT, neocolonial version of their homeland, only the theologically-described one.

Ehh. Zionism is an extremely mainstream position and desiring the abolition of the current Israeli polity is extremely suspect. 'Current neo-colonial government' might be better phrasing.

it's pretty hard to deny that the Netenyahu administration isn't a fascist dictatorship

Lay off the Coco Pops. Israel is currently governed by a nativist, right-wing, dodgy, democratically elected party. Netenyahu isn't Putin or Maduro.

 

[The Admiral]

Ehh. Zionism is an extremely mainstream position and desiring the abolition of the current Israeli polity is extremely suspect. 'Current neo-colonial government' might be better phrasing.

I feel this is a distinction without a difference. I ain't touchin' the other part, but I just want to say this.

 

[bobjr]

Of course today Omar is the one rep who really stands up go a literal War Criminal in Elliott Abrams. Here's a good intro for him, but remember flat out he was convicted of lying to congress, only to be pardoned right after. This is the same ****ing idiot who lost 10 million bucks of the Sultan of Brunei's money, which was gonna go to the ****ing contras, by giving them the wrong swiss bank account number

https://theintercept.com/2019/01/30/elliott-abrams-venezuela-coup/

Elliott Abrams is a violent hack who's spent his career lying to Congress and covering up war crimes and it's honestly so satisfying to see him treated the way he deserves to be treated. I'm glad Omar isn't just backing down over a perceived slight, but man am I disappointed in Dem leadership after yesterday, considering how they had to turn things around like the suddenly weren't following money.

 

[Trainer Yusuf]

AOC hasn't been helpful either, since she is too focused on helping Puerto Rico and the Green New Deal.

Speaking of US interventions it doesn't seem much has come about at the Warsaw Middle East summit, but we will see how the cookie crumbles.

 

[bobjr]

AOC hasn't been helpful either, since she is too focused on helping Puerto Rico and the Green New Deal.

Speaking of US interventions it doesn't seem much has come about at the Warsaw Middle East summit, but we will see how the cookie crumbles.

She’s done what she can, but it’s true that there are too few people like her who actually push for good policy. We have hundreds of congressmen and women, it shouldn’t be 4-5 we constantly have to rely on to not be the bad ones.

 

[Auraninja]

The Green New Deal at least is trying to take the right steps.

Then you have the GOP being stupid saying things like "They want to ban ice cream and hamburgers."

 

[bobjr]

That's the thing, right now the Green New Deal isn't a full bill yet, just a motion to push towards things like health insurance for all and fixing climate change as best as we can.

Anyone outright against it has no place in politics, they're only in it to destroy it all for everyone but the .1%

 

[Trainer Yusuf]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...s-to-continue-next-week-in-washington-xi-says
Lots of buzzwords in this article, but looking at the current situation of the US stock market it seems the trade war with China is effectively over.

Does this count as a win or loss? I would say it would be a win if a final deal is reached before a stock crash, but it seems in spite of the Christmas stock crash and Brexit this period might end up as the longest economic expansion in the modern US history if the market doesn't crash until/in June.

Edit: Also, speaking of Jews, Sanders is reentering the Presidential race. I guess the primaries are over now.

His new campaign manager is Faiz Shakir, who was one of the founders of ThinkProgress, which has been characterized as a Clintonite group. More details can be seen here.

Edit 2: Also, Trump loves "the gays" now:
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/na...ort-end-criminalization-homosexuality-n973081
Purely because it justifies intervention against Iran.

Edit 3: In a related note, 8 MPs from Labour and 3 MPs from Conservative Party have created a new parliamentary group called The Independent Group. I originally dismissed this since a lot of the MPs involved were Blairites, but the three conservatives changed the equation a bit.

As listed in the Wikipedia article, Labour has faced five splits, only one of them, SDP, was long lived. Unless this group becomes and actual party, it will be irrelevant, but it shows the overall route of UK politics.

 

[Pikachu52]

Time for a quick round up of the news of the week, and what a week it's been.

It's finally happened...After much speculation Trump has decided to declare a national emergency in order to obtain funds for "border wall."

President Dip**** announced his decision on Friday at a press conference in the White House Rose Garden, after signing a spending bill to prevent another government shutdown.

You can read the presidential proclamation here.

The proclamation is made under the National emergencies act of 1976, which gives the president the power to declare a national emergency, and gives the President a suit of extremely broad powers during the emergency, including to carry out military construction projects.

Critically, the act doesn't provide a definition of "National Emergency," and so on face gives the President wide discretion.

Even so, in making his announcement, the moron all but admitted that no such emergency existed, saying and I quote:

I could do the wall over a longer period of time. I didn’t need to do this, but I’d rather do it much faster

The reactions were predictable. Some Republicans, particularly in the senate, didn't want this to happen, but given Trump's almost messiah like status among the GOP base their spines have abandon them and they're unlikely to do much or anything to block it.

Congressional Democrats are obviously unhappy. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi went as far as to warn of reciprocity from a future Democratic President, specifically citing a potential use of the provisions to tackle gun violence.

And there are of course the Legal Challenges. 16 States are suing the administration to block the proclamation. As are the Centre for Biological Diversity, Defenders of the Wildlife and the Animal League Defense Fund. Others, including the usual suspects are likely to follow.

Alec Baldwin reprised his role as Trump on SNL in a wonderful parody of this circus act of press conference announcing the decision. Oh boy was Trump unhappy.

And if you thought this was the largest overreach of executive power Trump to happen this week, I give you Trump's speech on Venezuela, in which he demanded Venezuelan military officials back self declared interim president Juan Guaido over President Nicola Maduro and allow humanitarian aid into the country.

With a few fox new talking points thrown into the mix:

The twilight hour of socialism has arrived in our hemisphere...The days of socialism and communism are numbered, not only in Venezuela, but in Nicaragua and in Cuba as well...And to those who would try to impose socialism on the United States, we again deliver a very simple message: America will never be a socialist country

That twit can turn anything into a campaign event.

And, ironically, at the same time as he is apparently trying to orchestrate a coup in Venezuela, he took to twitter over the weekend to have a little cry about how the Russia investigation is coup against him after Andrew McCabe revealed on the program 60 Minutes that he and Rod Rosenstein had discussed invoking the 25th Amendment.

Finally, Bernie Sanders is now officially running for President.

 

[Auraninja]

Finally, Bernie Sanders is now officially running for President.

I just hope that, Bernie or not, liberals would vote for the Democratic nominee instead of throwing their votes away when they could combat Trump.

If the Republican nominee was moderate (or even pretended to be moderate), I could possibly understand, but this isn't the occasion.

The year 2016 was dominated by emotions. There is not a good reason to be butt-hurt over Bernie not winning then, and there isn't one now.

 

[AuraChannelerChris]

Will an eagle land on his podium this time?

 

[Trainer Yusuf]

Meanwhile in the region,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2019_Israeli_legislative_election
So, here's an interesting development in Israeli politics, Yesh Atid and Hosen Y'Israel(newly formed party led by Benny Gantz), the two highest polling opposition parties, have decided to have a united list. This means that as a collective they have a low chance of defeating PM Netenyahu, whereas previously they had none. This, combined with Arab parties' and leftist split, can show a similar political evolution we saw in Spain, UK, Macedonia and Turkey, where centre-left and centre-right parties have come together to block rise of authoritarianism to supplant the overall decline of left, and small leftish ethnic/nationalist parties become nationally important alongside far-right nationalist blocks.

Note: Israel is a parliamentary democracy, so even if the opposition wins the majority, they will still be unable to form the government without external support, thus lose PM position. And so far opposition cannot win a parliamentary majority without some government parties shifting to opposition.

Secondly, Trump is keeping troops in Syria:
https://slate.com/news-and-politics...l-peacekeeping-force-troops-kurds-turkey.html
Rather than a complete withdrawal, Trump will decrease the amount of troops substantially, keeping only an observer force to hold back Turkey and Assad/Iran. This is much better, but Trump is still unwilling to find a diplomatic solution to Syrian crisis to follow up on this.

I just hope that, Bernie or not, liberals would vote for the Democratic nominee instead of throwing their votes away when they could combat Trump.

That depends if there is a major corruption scandal in the candidate run. If Harris is found out to have shifted the campaign funds from other nominees like Clinton did(not just Bernie, but from senators and representatives as well, you know, the actually important members of the legislature) Harris will lose. Second issue is marijuana, but most candidates have evolved their perspectives on that (except seemingly Biden, if he runs), thanks to Canada.

Edit: Dow Jones Industrial Average has gone back to above $26,000. While the stock market is still volatile, it seems to look relatively healthy as the China Trade War is over.

Edit 2: Shanghai Stock Exchange A Share Index has gone back to above 3000 yuan. It needs to go back to around 3500 to achieve its yearly high and back to around 5000 to reach its pre-crash high, but chances are it will.

 

[Pikachu52]

The Nathan Phillips situation upsets me. It seems to me that every time some one of color stands up for themselves, they have to go through criminal history for them..

Speaking of which.

Nick Sandmann, the boy in the initial video from that incident, has filed a defamation lawsuit agaisnt the Washington Post - To the cheers of President Trump.

 

[Auraninja]

Speaking of which.

Nick Sandmann, the boy in the initial video from that incident, has filed a defamation lawsuit agaisnt the Washington Post - To the cheers of President Trump.

bobjr. has summed it up already where their encounter with Nathan Phillips wasn't the only morally unjust thing that they did.