Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[Breccia]

It will probably be tossed out on the merits, but might have enough "but this is used to make anitfreeze therefore it has antifreeze in it" pseudo science to prevent penalties.

Except it objectively isn't.

[Edge-]

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/09...abbott-voting/

Gov. Greg Abbott on Thursday called for Texas lawmakers to increase the penalty for illegal voting — less than a month after he signed a bill that would lower the maximum punishment.

The crime of illegal voting was scheduled to go from a second degree felony to a Class A misdemeanor in December, after the passage of Senate Bill 1, a sweeping bill that restricted the state’s voting process and narrowed local control of elections.

Class A misdemeanors are punishable by up to a year in jail, but can be resolved with a fine. A second degree felony in Texas is punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

But in a letter to the Texas Senate on Thursday, Abbott added legislation that would reverse that change to the list of items lawmakers can consider during the current special session of the Legislature.

I just can't even with these fuckin retards anymore. Seriously. I can't even. Their voter restriction bill that THEY FUCKIN WROTE lowered penalties, fine and whatever, but now Abbott wants them raised up. Why not veto the bill and send it back with the request to remove that change to begin with?

I hate the sheer incompetence of these people.

[Hollycakes]

The English language needs a word for people that do this.
Or the act of flipping so fast like this.
Like Cruz etc that we've talked about.
I don't even know what to call an about face like I see them do so much now.
The Swedes have words for everything, help us out.

The act of completely reversing your opinion, ideals, stance or beliefs quickly and without thought whilst being totally false in your convictions to begin with.

[Breccia]

I just can't even with these fuckin retards anymore.

Yes you can.

Abbott wants it in effect, but doesn't want to be the one responsible during re-election when the brown people trying to vote are convicted of felonies for trying to vote. It sends a bad message in 2022 when its his fault. He doesn't want to be seen as a dictator, but still wants to win without a majority vote.

[Endus]

https://www.washingtonblade.com/2021...w-of-the-land/

Say you don't support marriage equality without saying, "I don't support marriage equality"!

"I support the law of the land."

Man, McCarthy really is just always a massive piece of shit, ain't he.

It's also a meaningless turn of phrase.

It literally means "I have no opinions on this matter one way or the other and cannot see any path to where I could form such an opinion in any way". Supporting the status quo for being the status quo is lazy as fuck, and when it comes down to basic human rights issues, as you say, it demonstrates you're a massive piece of shit.

If you're playing a Paladin in Dungeons and Dragons, and your stance is "I support the law of the land, no matter what that law might be", there's a word for that alignment. It isn't "lawful good". It's "lawful stupid". It means you're as happy with the law allowing surplus food to be given to the poor as you are with the law about taking gnome babies and spitting them alive and then roasting them with a honey glaze as a special treat. It means you're an idiot.

[Azadina]

The English language needs a word for people that do this.
Or the act of flipping so fast like this.
Like Cruz etc that we've talked about.
I don't even know what to call an about face like I see them do so much now.
The Swedes have words for everything, help us out.

The act of completely reversing your opinion, ideals, stance or beliefs quickly and without thought whilst being totally false in your convictions to begin with.

Let me try to offer a solution. First thing that comes to mind, is "Full of shit", but that's three words rather than one word. To condense that into one word while fully keeping the meaning and essense intact.... perhaps...yes: Trumpkin.

[gondrin]

The English language needs a word for people that do this.
Or the act of flipping so fast like this.
Like Cruz etc that we've talked about.
I don't even know what to call an about face like I see them do so much now.
The Swedes have words for everything, help us out.

The act of completely reversing your opinion, ideals, stance or beliefs quickly and without thought whilst being totally false in your convictions to begin with.

There is. It is called Waffling.

[Benggaul]

Thursday's report:

113,922 new cases; about 21k fewer than last Thursday.

Top 10:

Fuck Florida.
Texas: 11,192 new cases; 325 deaths
California: 7,708 new cases; 142 deaths
Ohio: 6,530 new cases; deaths not reported
Pennsylvania: 4,891 new cases; 75 deaths
Georgia: 4,876 new cases; 151 deaths
North Carolina: 4,765 new cases; 80 deaths
New York: 4,383 new cases; 47 deaths
Tennessee: 4,118 new cases; 50 deaths
Indiana: 3,399 new cases; 33 deaths

Cases continue dropping across most of the nation and hopefully it'll continue falling precipitously over the course of the next few weeks. I know several experts are still saying there won't be another wave as devastating as last Winter but you'll forgive me if I remain skeptical given the extent of anti-vaxx bullshit that--while present before Trump--flourished beyond all reason under his administration. Alaska, West Virginia, Montana, Wyoming and Kentucky are all listed as "Severe" risk while California, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, Connecticut and Massachusetts are all at "High". The rest of the nation remains at "Very High" risk, which isn't terribly encouraging. Texas and Florida still have around double California's new infections per 100k pop and Alaska's 176 cases per 100k is nearly double the next-highest West Virginia at 90. Alaska is so fucked right now.

1,812 deaths is over 400 fewer than last Thursday and brings the total to 716,847. Texas didn't have another 400+ day, but 325 is still pretty damned high. So many Texans have been mastering the pandemic in the past month. Florida and Georgia round out the top 3. We should be seeing more of a defined drop in deaths over the course of the next week, so hopefully we won't be seeing many more 2k+ days if any.

Related news:

Biden officials split on Covid-19 boosters as they plot course for winter--I'm personally of the mind that boosters should just go to the most vulnerable because there's still a huge chunk of the world that hasn't even had their first shot and those need to be addressed first, but what do I know?

Merck says experimental pill cuts worst effects of COVID-19--Potentially good news, though I feel this needs further study. This also will not help people who are already hospitalized with COVID as it needs to be taken within 5 days of the first symptoms appearing. Still, if it pans out it should cut hospitalizations and deaths dramatically and be a welcome tool in the fight against the virus.

Louisiana public schools may allow parents to choose whether a child quarantines after Covid-19 exposure--Proof that Trump country does not fucking learn from its mistakes. Louisiana reached comparative peaks to rival Florida.\

Stay safe, folks.

[Hollycakes]

Oh nice ty @gondrin.
Oddly I'd heard the British version of that and not the US one and couldn't think of a word for it.
Still seems more lighthearted and less devious than what I was going for lol.

Also, some funny bits in this weeks:

[Dontrike]

More news out of Texas, this time of the haha variety.



https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_6....co/9TOSYkbYhZ

Basically Jones didn’t provide documents required by discovery. He was given every incentive possible to do so, still wouldn’t. So the Judge did the only thing she could at this point. A default judgement. Hilarious.

I hope they bankrupt him into the ground.

[Poopymonster]

More news out of Texas, this time of the haha variety.



https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_6....co/9TOSYkbYhZ

Basically Jones didn’t provide documents required by discovery. He was given every incentive possible to do so, still wouldn’t. So the Judge did the only thing she could at this point. A default judgement. Hilarious.

Texas sized twist: The jury, in their impotent and infernal wisdom, will deem he owes the plaintiffs....1 dollar.
Trump Bless Alex Jones, y'all.
/s

[Breccia]

So while keeping my friends close and my enemies closer, I stumbled across a FOX News article -- no I'm not going to link it -- which can be summarized as such:

Some alt-right conspiracy theorist claims the media stopped attacking DeSantis because Florida started mastering the pandemic without any vaccines or lockdowns

Naturally my first thought was "obviously this alt-right conspiracy theorist is lying". Then I did some checking and found the seed of truth from which this lie sprung: Florida's death rate and case rate are falling faster than the overall USA.

"So they are doing well?"

Fuck, no. Florida's a suicide pact in the shape of a diseased penis. But the key word is "overall" and that's what they're hiding behind.

Cases continue dropping across most of the nation and hopefully it'll continue falling precipitously over the course of the next few weeks. I know several experts are still saying there won't be another wave as devastating as last Winter but you'll forgive me if I remain skeptical given the extent of anti-vaxx bullshit that--while present before Trump--flourished beyond all reason under his administration. Alaska, West Virginia, Montana, Wyoming and Kentucky are all listed as "Severe" risk while California, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, Connecticut and Massachusetts are all at "High". The rest of the nation remains at "Very High" risk, which isn't terribly encouraging. Texas and Florida still have around double California's new infections per 100k pop and Alaska's 176 cases per 100k is nearly double the next-highest West Virginia at 90. Alaska is so fucked right now.

Yep, Florida's not doing all that great compared to where they should be. They're just getting "help" by Texas and other red states who are standing in the fire.

EDIT: COVID is killing rural areas twice as fast as urban.

To be fair, Florida's numbers are falling...if their numbers can be trusted. But "falling" only means "better" not "good". Florida might be about on level as NYState, and might even be better shortly (due to the cold's effect), but they should have been there months ago.

The real reason I didn't link that FOX News article was the comments. Most of them were "God bless DeSantis, Biden is a murderer, Clinton eats babies" etc which weren't a lot of help nor anything new.

Three stood out.

One guy claimed Florida had reached herd immunity. Bullshit. Yale Medicine has a lengthy article on the subject but they point out that previous diseases required 80 to 95%. Earlier figures for COVID were 60 to 70%. Florida has reported 3.5 million cases and a 57% fully vaccinated rate, statewide. Even if there was no overlap between them ("pulling a Ron Paul") that's 73% of Florida's population. That's enough to think you're protected, but not enough to be protected.

In 2019, there was a measles outbreak in Clark County, Washington, when the vaccination rate in public schools went down to 77 percent. That’s what happens when the vaccination numbers dip

Oh yeah, remember that time a mass outbreak happened on Trump's watch that changed his opinion on vaccines? I posted on that personally.

A second person claimed that cases and deaths were marching all over blue states. I don't need to further post on that, Benggaul took care of that. Red states are still leading the way.

A third person posted, I'm not making this up, they had a nasal spray that was 80% effective against COVID.

"Oh, what's the name of the spray?"

He didn't specify and I think the comment was fake. We haven't seen a single comment here even once about a magical nasal spray. I think someone planted that info intentionally to get people killed.

---

Speaking of intentional misinformation, known insane person Mike Lindell is on the move again. Specifically, in Idaho for...some reason. Seems like a complete waste of time, but whatever. Lindell, as we all know, claimed he had ironclad proof of voter fraud but couldn't show anyone because someone gave him a high-five Antifa Chinese Hoax. Well now that the failure of a symposium is over, he's suddenly remembered that his proof is magically effective if nobody's there to see it. Specifically, he found screenshots -- you remember his screenshots from his tech guys, right? -- of all 44 counties in Idaho having their votes hit by electronic interference.

All 44.

Including the 7 that are too small to use them.

Yep, there are 7 counties in Idaho that hand recount everything because they get something like 1,000 votes each election so why not? They don't use any electronic equipment. But the Idaho executive branch had to deal with this intentional misinformation because Trump's rabid fanbase insist on believing it, despite no evidence and despite Trump winning Idaho. Special note: the article does mention a few votes' swing in a few counties, with Trump generally losing more than he's winning, but everything 1% or lower.

Somewhere along the line people need to draw a line in the sand and say this is irrational. It doesn’t justify the expense of wholesale going out and looking for what you think may possibly be a needle in what you think may possibly be a haystack.

-- Idaho SecState official

It's good to see classic Republicans pulling away from the "our state engaged in widescale fraud" baseless claims, but Team Trump has made them their only campaign issue. Election officials have been getting death threats, even the ones in deep red Idaho (as the article says).

It seems the only urge in the Party of Trump stronger than the urge to kill themselves because of willful ignorance, is the urge to kill others for it.

- - - Updated - - -

Basically Jones didn’t provide documents required by discovery.

So Jones was asked to turn over his evidence that it was crisis actors and, big surprise, couldn't do that. Or, more realistically, was asked to turn over communications about his claim there were crisis actors and he knew, if he did, there would be proof he made that shit up. Either one. Doesn't matter. No wonder Jones is on his seventh lawyer -- anyone who had the privilege to see it fled in horror or disgust. And these were people who intentionally took a case for Alex Jones.

From the looks of this article and others citing the same incident, Jones being hit by these penalties is rare because nobody else is as stupid or obstinate as he is. He had already been fined for failing to turn evidence over, and still held out. Like Cyber Ninjas, like Lindell, like Powell, like Trump, he refuses to show where he came up with information because he knows the information is a lie, and wants to sell the lie. Jones even recanted later but still knew, at the time, it was a lie but still wanted to sell the lie for money. Turning over records would prove this, and the judge clearly knew that. All he did was delay the inevitable. Jones can't even claim "witch hunt" because he recanted.

Texas might run red, but hopefully, even a Trump-Abbott-infested state won't let Jones walk away with a slap on the wrist. If they do, they're basically begging for people to make up evil shit about Republicans, and sell that lie for money. They'll have proven they don't care.

[Milchshake]

BREAKING: Brett Kavanaugh has COVID.

TIL: Budweiser causes Covid.

Also, how does one make effective voodoo dolls? Asking for a friend.

[Breccia]

how does one make effective voodoo dolls?

Don't bother, he's already been stuck with needles. This is a breakthrough case, he'll be fine.

[cubby]

Except it objectively isn't.

I hear you loud and clear. And believe me, I categorically detest making the argument for the side I do not trust/believe. However, it comes with the territory. And I might not have been clear, either. All I meant was that they could argue that there is one ingredient, in the vaxx, that while harmless and necessary, is also included in antifreeze, for obvious and different reasons. And based on that, make the argument that "it contains" antifreeze.

They would be wrong, of course, but it's where shitty lawyers and dipshit clients can avoid sanctions.

[Drutt]

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/09...abbott-voting/



I just can't even with these fuckin retards anymore. Seriously. I can't even. Their voter restriction bill that THEY FUCKIN WROTE lowered penalties, fine and whatever, but now Abbott wants them raised up. Why not veto the bill and send it back with the request to remove that change to begin with?

I hate the sheer incompetence of these people.

Hey, I'm all for stiffer penalties given that fraudulent votes from the last election inevitably seem to have been some crackpot loon who voted for Trump 15 times.

[Edge-]

Hey, I'm all for stiffer penalties given that fraudulent votes from the last election inevitably seem to have been some crackpot loon who voted for Trump 15 times.

I'm all for stiff penalties for fraudulent malicious votes. Not shit like Kris Kobach going after a senior citizen who voted on everything at his primary home and voted only on local measures for his second home and didn't think he was breaking the law. That's shit where you educate the voter, maybe given them the lightest slap on the wrist you can, and move on. The problem is the laws, as I understand them, don't really differentiate.

[Breccia]

@Breccia he wasn’t just asked, he was previously penalized for not complying with the order

Indeed, he was fined too. $150,000 or so. Again, he would only have done this if he realized handing over the required documents would have fucked him harder.

All I meant was that they could argue that there is one ingredient, in the vaxx, that while harmless and necessary, is also included in antifreeze, for obvious and different reasons.

They could argue that, but it would still be objectively false. It's not the same chemical. This isn't even "there's chlorine in table salt" level of misleading, since organic compounds use different rules. It's purely an objective scientific falsehood. The two items do not share any complex chemicals in common, and any doctor or pharmacist that didn't know that would know within 15 seconds by reading the labels.

EDIT: Which, again, is why I'm wondering if there are penalties for this. I don't believe "Your Honor, I filed this statement under oath while not understanding how this worked, therefore, I am not liable for any sanctions" should work. Ignorance as a defense has its time and place, but not when you're the one filing lawsuits in court based on them. If you don't know the difference between a mony- and a poly- you shouldn't file a claim in court claiming they have the same effect.

EDIT EDIT: If it seems I'm especially irate at this topic, bear in mind I am a science teacher, work with other more applied science teachers routinely, and come from a family of them. What this sworn affidavit is, is asking to me suing Firestone Tires because their product is made of pumice, based purely on it being a "fire stone", while of course any tire made of pumice would be shredded to fine dust almost instantly.

[DarkTZeratul]

I'm all for stiff penalties for fraudulent malicious votes. Not shit like Kris Kobach going after a senior citizen who voted on everything at his primary home and voted only on local measures for his second home and didn't think he was breaking the law. That's shit where you educate the voter, maybe given them the lightest slap on the wrist you can, and move on. The problem is the laws, as I understand them, don't really differentiate.

Or a mother released from jail who cast a provisional vote because she thought she was allowed to, but her voting rights actually didn't come back for two more months so she was sentenced to more YEARS in jail.

[Endus]

Or a mother released from jail who cast a provisional vote because she thought she was allowed to, but her voting rights actually didn't come back for two more months so she was sentenced to more YEARS in jail.

Like, how is that even a crime?

"Oh, she's not entitled to vote. Discard that ballot." Done. Problem fuckin' solved.