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

bobjr

You ask too many questions
Staff member
Moderator
Biden will 100% run again unless there’s an open health problem or death, since they lie about President health conditions all the time since the US was formed.

Plus look at the options if he doesn’t, it’ll likely be Kamala and imagine that disaster
 

Phillies

Well-Known Member
The military probably would've branded them terrorists and enacted a massacre.
All you have to do is look at the response to when the BLM protest came to DC and then look at the response to the Capital rioters before they came.
One of my dad’s friends made jokes about Biden and questioned if he was even fit for office since he seems to forget things. I reminded that friend that Ronald Regan had shown signs of Alzheimer’s a couple years into his first term and he forgot parts to speeches and he still got a second term. I don’t think Biden will run for re-election given that he’d be in his 80s by then and it’s not a good idea to have a President that old in office as he could die at any given moment. I sort of think there should be an age limit to being President where you can’t be 80 or older unless you were elected between 75 to 77 and your term ends after you turn 80.
You are a lot kinder than I am. I don't think anyone past retirement age should be able to run. The job is just way too stressful. Just look at a before and after picture of Obama. While they are at it there should be term limits for Congress and the Supreme court as well. I'm so sick of career politicians acting like the world runs the same today as it did 20 or 30 years ago.
 

Litleonid

Well-Known Member
The giant orange wants to pardon all of the Jan 6th rioters if he runs again and wins. This is precisely why he should be banned from attempting to run for President ever again. It’s his fault that the riot happened since he told them to go to the Capitol and did nothing to stop it when it happened. And he did let the Covid situation get out of control and didn’t listen when told that the situation was worse than he thought.
When Trump held that rally, I think its very clear that this wasn't a man preparing to run for POTUS. This was a man preparing his base for war. On top of saying he would pardon all of the insurrectionists, it felt like he was telling his base be prepared to fight if he is indicted for his role in the insurrection. He's well aware that he faces the possibility of criminal charges, but he's not going to go down without a fight. I genuinely hope that he is indicted before the midterms because if the GOP retakes the house and senate, they are going to do everything in their power to stop the investigation. They are going to go all out on a petty war path designed to punish the left.

Also, if Trump is able to run again, we are truly in a lose-lose situation. We face two possibilities and none of them are good.
  1. Trump wins and we have no choice but to sit back and watch him set out on a vindictive warpath to punish the left and any group of people he hates. After escaping conviction twice, he knows he can get away with many things. He knows there's very little he can do that will make his base and the GOP turn on him. He is more dangerous now than he was from 2017 to 2021 and a 2nd term will be significantly more damaging to the US.
  2. If Trump loses, he is obviously going to repeat the same lies he's been repeating ever since his loss in 2020. Trump has never been able to accept loss. Only this time, I think the aftermath will be significantly worse. I can see him riling up his base yet again, only this time, their inevitable insurrection will be worse. I can imagine widespread riots not too long after the election is called.
 
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Captain Jigglypuff

Leader of Jigglypuff Army
When Trump held that rally, I think its very clear that this wasn't a man preparing to run for POTUS. This was a man preparing his base for war. On top of saying he would pardon all of the insurrectionists, it felt like he was telling his base be prepared to fight if he is indicted for his role in the insurrection. He's well aware that he faces the possibility of criminal charges, but he's not going to go down without a fight. I genuinely hope that he is indicted before the midterms because if the GOP retakes the house and senate, they are going to do everything in their power to stop the investigation. They are going to go all out on a petty war path designed to punish the left.

Also, if Trump is able to run again, we are truly in a lose-lose situation. We face two possibilities and none of them are good.
  1. Trump wins and we have no choice but to sit back and watch him set out on a vindictive warpath to punish the left and any group of people he hates. After escaping conviction twice, he knows he can get away with many things. He is more dangerous now than he was from 2017 to 2021 and a 2nd term will be significantly more damaging to the US.
  2. If Trump loses, he is obviously going to repeat the same lies he's been repeating ever since his loss in 2020. Only this time, I think the aftermath will be significantly worse. I can see him riling up his base yet again, only this time, their inevitable insurrection will be worse.
Is it possible to permanently ban a person from running for Office? And I was thinking even if he did win, he’d be pretty close to 80 years old and might drop dead from old age a couple months in and we’d be free from any other possible chaos that he could have created. Heck even a simple trip over a bump in a rug could kill him so it might be best not to dread anything that could happen if he gets into Office again.
 

Litleonid

Well-Known Member
Is it possible to permanently ban a person from running for Office? And I was thinking even if he did win, he’d be pretty close to 80 years old and might drop dead from old age a couple months in and we’d be free from any other possible chaos that he could have created. Heck even a simple trip over a bump in a rug could kill him so it might be best not to dread anything that could happen if he gets into Office again.
It is possible. There is two ways, though their first option failed. If they were able to convict Trump, they could have held a separate vote to bar him from holding office again, which only requires a simple majority rather than a two-thirds's majority.

The second option is through section 3 of the 14th amendment, which states:
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

I don't know if criminal charges can prevent him from running, but there are options to prevent it. If they can prove he played a role (Which honestly, he did with the lies he spread and speeches he's made that day. And then look at Rudy Giuliani's "Trial by combat" remarks that day.), he can be barred through this. The two-thirds thing also I believe applies to undoing the removal of them through this section.
 
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Zora

perpetually tired
I wanted to briefly touch upon The EARN It Act, which does two things.
  • Removes Section 230 Protections for any Platform having Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM). Section 230 explained: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/2...-section-230-communications-decency-act.shtml but roughly, §230 means no website is legally liable for user generated content.
  • Removes end-to-end encryption protections for platforms suspected of possessing CSAM. Governments wants to have the right to surveillance your private digital messages if used on a platform that can create user generated content. I cannot begin to fathom how this will be abused.
Edit 1: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/02/its-back-senators-want-earn-it-bill-scan-all-online-messages <--better description than I could write up about EARN IT.

On the surface, this law might look fine; after all, child sexual abuse, and subsequently CSAM, is objectively bad. But this a very dangerous law. To add some points:
  • First, more likely than not, bigger websites would rather ban all adult content (unless it's their business) than actually target the outstanding material--see tumblr--and smaller websites will shrivel out of legal concerns--exactly what happened after SOSTA/FESTA. In particular, evangelical organizations tend to go after credit card companies to goad the entire internet to become more or less puritan.
  • Moreover, it'll probably not help CSAM victims. There's a much bigger discussion to be had on how to stop child sexual abuse, including recording/publication thereof; however, most CSAM isn't made for profit, but abuse. Addressing how widely shared this material can be, i.e. through §230, does not address at all why the content is created in the first place nor is CSAM granted a blanket §230 allowance afaik.
  • Third party encryption makes ending e2ee generally pointless for cases of CSAM. Stopping e2ee is likely something the FBI wants broadly, and not for this specific case, which is highly suspect.
Although tumblr, given that this story is relatively new and not many people are paying attention, I do feel sharing social media posts have merits.


----------------------------
To segue larger discussion, but I think it's *very* important to recognize §230 carveouts like EARN IT and SOSTA/FESTA are part of a broader project to turn the Internet into a puritan's wet-dream by, to quote another article, "[lumping] porn, prostitution, and "sexual objectification in media" into the exact same bucket as child abuse and sex trafficking, even though there's a massive difference there." The most prolific example is how Nicholas Kristoff's article "The Children of Pornhub," while highlighting a very real issue, succeeded in asking credit card companies to deny payment to Pornhub, which, as an aside, the request to credit card companies hurt many sex workers who used pornhub as a platform. Moreover, the petition he cited, TraffickingHub,was from Exodus Cry, which outright says they want to see the commercial pornography industry gone with all the energy of a SWERF. Point being, the reason for laws like EARN IT isn't to stop CSAM at all, it's to provide a tool to desexualize the Internet and society at large. Within a broader context, desexualizaiton is a particular nefarious tactic, because you get racists banning Maus (Jewish-perspective fiction biography hybrid comic book that talks about holocaust frankly) because * checks notes * "it has nudity." But turns out "think of the children" is an effective rallying cry. Anyway, this post has devolved into some sort of rambling, so I'll stop here.
 
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WishIhadaManafi5

To Boldly Go Where No One Has Gone Before.
Staff member
Moderator
I'm not thrilled about that bill. It's trying like those before it, to use the old, think of the children bull, in order to push over the top surveillance. It's even worse then SOSTA and FESTA.
 

lemoncatpower

Cynical Optimist
convoy gets most funding from abroad

so the U.S. crazy right wing politics and trump fanatics have officially taken foot in Canada.

Most of this terrorism funding is from the U.S.A.
thanks guys. /s

But if you haven't heard, Canada is going through multiple downtown occupations that are terrorizing citizens. They are blaring horns everywhere and blockading our major border crossings also. We also have to see Nazi flags, confederate flags (wtf this has to do with Canada, idk), and Trump flags, which again has NO place in Canada. The past week or so have been a huge disgrace for our conservative governments and for our police forces across the country.
 

Captain Jigglypuff

Leader of Jigglypuff Army
convoy gets most funding from abroad

so the U.S. crazy right wing politics and trump fanatics have officially taken foot in Canada.

Most of this terrorism funding is from the U.S.A.
thanks guys. /s

But if you haven't heard, Canada is going through multiple downtown occupations that are terrorizing citizens. They are blaring horns everywhere and blockading our major border crossings also. We also have to see Nazi flags, confederate flags (wtf this has to do with Canada, idk), and Trump flags, which again has NO place in Canada. The past week or so have been a huge disgrace for our conservative governments and for our police forces across the country.
Honestly I would have thought Canadians wouldn’t really care about Trump or even pay much attention to him because they are Canadians and Trump has no power or significance to them and he really can’t do anything to them.
 

Divine Retribution

Conquistador de pan
Trumpism is a cult, and unfortunately you don't have to be American to buy into his ass backwards beliefs. As long as you're classist, racist, xenophobic, and utterly and willfully clueless, there's a MAGA hat somewhere with your name on it. Oh, and being white helps a lot too.
 

bobjr

You ask too many questions
Staff member
Moderator
Never forget the Ford family, who have a lot of living members really into Qanon
 

lemoncatpower

Cynical Optimist
Never forget the Ford family, who have a lot of living members really into Qanon
Ford as in Gerald Ford, or Ford as in the company?
or do you mean Doug Ford, conservative Premier of Ontario (the province Ottawa is located in)? He also has family members into the Qanon like his daughter.
Honestly I would have thought Canadians wouldn’t really care about Trump or even pay much attention to him because they are Canadians and Trump has no power or significance to them and he really can’t do anything to them.
You would think so, but even that Paul Alexander guy who worked for Trump is in our capital spouting a bunch of bs. We are HEAVILY influenced by your politics on the right in the USA because our alt-right anarchists LOVED trump for trying to "drain the swamp". Our liberals and NDP are our main left wing parties, and theyre a bit more progressive than the Democrats so that influence isn't as big as on the right. We even have a new political party called the PPC (People's Party of Canada) who would probably somehow put Canada under Trump's rule if they were to win, but alas they got no one elected lol thank goodness.
 

Litleonid

Well-Known Member
So I saw Mitch McConnel finally admitted that January 6th was not "legitimate political discourse" and it was indeed a violent attempt to overthrow the results of a fair election. I don't think anyone should give him too much credit though. He might be breaking away with Republicans like Liz Chenney, Adam Kinzinger, and Mitt Romney, but I think he's only doing it to cover his own ass in the event Trump actually gets charged with criminal indictments for his role in inciting the insurrection.
 

Auraninja

Eh, ragazzo!
Doug Ford, his daughter is especially a nutter about it on social media
Guess I should have made, "or something else" an option.

So I saw Mitch McConnel finally admitted that January 6th was not "legitimate political discourse" and it was indeed a violent attempt to overthrow the results of a fair election. I don't think anyone should give him too much credit though. He might be breaking away with Republicans like Liz Chenney, Adam Kinzinger, and Mitt Romney, but I think he's only doing it to cover his own ass in the event Trump actually gets charged with criminal indictments for his role in inciting the insurrection.
Didn't Mitch McConnell condemn the actions of the January 6 rioters just to backpedal on it later?
Maybe I'm getting events or people mixed up, but I swore that was a thing.
 

Litleonid

Well-Known Member
Didn't Mitch McConnell condemn the actions of the January 6 rioters just to backpedal on it later?
Maybe I'm getting events or people mixed up, but I swore that was a thing.
I can't recall, but I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out he did backpedal. I'm not giving him too much credit though for this.
 

RileyXY1

Young Battle Trainer
It is possible. There is two ways, though their first option failed. If they were able to convict Trump, they could have held a separate vote to bar him from holding office again, which only requires a simple majority rather than a two-thirds's majority.

The second option is through section 3 of the 14th amendment, which states:


I don't know if criminal charges can prevent him from running, but there are options to prevent it. If they can prove he played a role (Which honestly, he did with the lies he spread and speeches he's made that day. And then look at Rudy Giuliani's "Trial by combat" remarks that day.), he can be barred through this. The two-thirds thing also I believe applies to undoing the removal of them through this section.
They're planning to use Section 3. Not on Trump, but instead on ultra-conservative NC Congressman Madison Cawthorn.
 

bobjr

You ask too many questions
Staff member
Moderator
The GOP has to appease their base, who mostly believe Trump won and was cheated and agree with the Jan 6 insurrectionists, and those who are turned off by it, so you’ll see this back and forth with them as long as it stays relevant
 
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