Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[Breccia]

Man this was so predictable. What did Fox News air when the Boulder PD were giving their press briefing on the shooting yesterday?

A segment about Biden tripping while going up stairs.!

They shot themselves in the foot. (too soon?) The shooter had an ethnic name. Like me, they probably assumed it was a Trump supporter. Unlike me, they lose money when they're wrong.

[Edge-]

Unlike me, they lose money when they're wrong.

Not really. The beauty of the Fox News business model is that they don't even need to sell ads to make money. The money they make off cable bundles alone is massive. Don't watch Fox? Have cable? Congrats, you're (the royal you) unintentionally contributing to their bottom line.

[Shadowferal]

I never knew Biden was ever a member of parliament.

[Felya]

I never knew Biden was ever a member of parliament.

Deep state? So deep, he is a secret MP... that’s why that BBQ and beer guy was demanding freedom of the world from Biden...

- - - Updated - - -

You are not even trying, are you? Low energy. Sad.

I love how they keep saying Biden is so quiet... they don’t know what he is doing, so they assume their ignorance means he isn’t doing a thing. It’s a testament to their news sources being such shit...

[Benggaul]

58,705 new cases, about 5k more than last Tuesday. A handful of states haven't reported yet.

Top 5:

New York: 7,017 new cases; 21 deaths
Fuck Florida.
New Jersey: 4,803 new cases; 61 deaths
Texas: 4,713 new cases; 79 deaths
Michigan: 4,540 new cases; 20 deaths

It's beginning to look like we're heading back up again. Still a chance that today's increase is a correction, but the difference week to week has been shrinking for a while now and we had a few days last week that were also above the previous. Shit's not good. Even undertesting in Texas isn't enough to keep it out of the top 5 again. And gee, I wonder why Florida is up at number 2. I'm sure swarms of vacationing college kids in a wildly unregulated environment has nothing to do with it...and I'm sure their returning home to states across the nation afterwards won't cause any issues whatsoever...

936 deaths is about 300 fewer than last Tuesday and brings the total to 556,883. California is still topping this chart most of the time and will likely continue to do so for a while longer thanks to their explosion of cases in the beginning of the year, but their deaths per million pop is still lower than over half the country; lower than both Texas and Florida (and Florida's not even being honest with their death counts--Fuck Florida).

Related news:

New U.S. COVID-19 cases show weekly uptick for first time since January--This is what I've been trying to avoid saying since it was just my own untrained opinion, but yeah. It's not looking good. Over half the states have started seeing upticks again the past week and hospitalizations are starting to rise again in several of them. The good news is that daily vaccinations keeps increasing and setting new records and about 25% of the population has gotten at least one shot. It's nowhere near enough, but given we're just two months into an administration with actual adults at the helm I'd say that's a pretty damned good start.

Stay safe, folks.

[Breccia]

It's beginning to look like we're heading back up again.

You're the expert. Are we actually going up, or are states reporting correctly?

[Benggaul]

You're the expert. Are we actually going up, or are states reporting correctly?

Er, well...

Still a chance that today's increase is a correction, but the difference week to week has been shrinking for a while now and we had a few days last week that were also above the previous.

New U.S. COVID-19 cases show weekly uptick for first time since January--This is what I've been trying to avoid saying since it was just my own untrained opinion, but yeah. It's not looking good. Over half the states have started seeing upticks again the past week and hospitalizations are starting to rise again in several of them.

Not sure what else I can say about it.

[Captain N]

I'm not sure how other states have it but we've been pretty good at accurate reporting in Illinois and it seems we're slowly ticking upwards in Chicago at least. Over the last 10 days we've increased by .5% on our seven day rolling average. With all those people getting vaccinated and the count continuing to go up makes me really worried about the return from Florida with all those spring break numbskulls.

https://www.dph.illinois.gov/regionmetrics?regionID=10

[Breccia]

the return from Florida with all those spring break numbskulls.

As already posted, even Florida is worried about Florida. I can also tell you that, while my own Spring Break was canceled, there's gotta be hundreds of thousands of students with a year's worth of lockdown they want to shake off.

It's not going to be pleasant.

[unfilteredJW]

As already posted, even Florida is worried about Florida. I can also tell you that, while my own Spring Break was canceled, there's gotta be hundreds of thousands of students with a year's worth of lockdown they want to shake off.

It's not going to be pleasant.

It’s not. I’ve never seen it this bad before in the Panhandle. It’s usually contained in Daytona and Panama City Beach but this year is spilling out onto every fucking beach.

No masks. Giant groups of young people wandering around. Adults packing bars.

And I’m forced to work in these conditions while my industry has been considered essential but we don’t qualify for vaccinations.

[Breccia]

I’ve never seen it this bad before in the Panhandle.

I had a friend in the Panhandle. Had. Based purely on the reason we are no longer friends, I 100% believe you.

[Edge-]

https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/24/polit...ban/index.html

"Look, you have a former president in Trump, who is a racist, a sexist, a homophobe, a xenophobe, a pathological liar, an authoritarian, somebody who doesn't believe in the rule of law. This is a bad news guy," Sanders, who sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, said on the New York Times podcast "The Ezra Klein Show" when asked by Klein if there's "truth to the critique that liberals have become too censorious."

"But if you're asking me, do I feel particularly comfortable that the President, the then-President of the United States could not express his views on Twitter? I don't feel comfortable about that," Sanders continued.

Man, I never figured Sanders for the, "You can't remove a president from a private social media companies platform for being literally every awful thing he said they were!" Especially with the president like, having a literal press room and a whole press team with access to international press.

He ALMOST saved it with some nuance -

"So I don't like giving that much power to a handful of high tech people. But the devil is obviously in the details and it's something we're going to have to think long and hard on, and that is how you preserve First Amendment rights without moving this country into a big lie mentality and conspiracy theories," he said.

Which we can say there are some fair discussions to be had about....except he prefaced that comment with -

He also noted that while Trump was banned, "tomorrow it could be somebody else who has a very different point of view."

Damn, if you gave me that quote in that context without telling me the author I'd be hard pressed to guess it would be someone other than a Fox News host or Republican official.

I'm pretty bigly disappointed in Sanders on this.

[Endus]

https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/24/polit...ban/index.html

Man, I never figured Sanders for the, "You can't remove a president from a private social media companies platform for being literally every awful thing he said they were!" Especially with the president like, having a literal press room and a whole press team with access to international press.

He ALMOST saved it with some nuance -

Which we can say there are some fair discussions to be had about....except he prefaced that comment with -

Damn, if you gave me that quote in that context without telling me the author I'd be hard pressed to guess it would be someone other than a Fox News host or Republican official.

I'm pretty bigly disappointed in Sanders on this.

I lost a lot of respect for Sanders when he left the Democrats after his first failed Presidential run. It became pretty clear to me at that point that he's just in it for the cult of Bernie Sanders, not to effect meaningful change. He wants to be seen saying the right things, more than he wants to get his hands dirty trying to make real change. As opposed to, say, AOC, who's in the mix and fighting that fight.

This is really just par for the course. I've had a lot of question of how deeply he feels any of this crap, and these kinds of comments seem to indicate it's all pretty shallow.

[TigTone]

I lost a lot of respect for Sanders when he left the Democrats after his first failed Presidential run. It became pretty clear to me at that point that he's just in it for the cult of Bernie Sanders, not to effect meaningful change. He wants to be seen saying the right things, more than he wants to get his hands dirty trying to make real change. As opposed to, say, AOC, who's in the mix and fighting that fight.

This is really just par for the course. I've had a lot of question of how deeply he feels any of this crap, and these kinds of comments seem to indicate it's all pretty shallow.

Another way of looking at this is he is stepping back and letting the younger progressives lead the fight.

[Edge-]

Another way of looking at this is he is stepping back and letting the younger progressives lead the fight.

At least on the topic he commented on...what fight? The fight to force private companies to host content that violates their rules just because the person is POTUS?

[Elegiac]

https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/24/polit...ban/index.html

Man, I never figured Sanders for the, "You can't remove a president from a private social media companies platform for being literally every awful thing he said they were!" Especially with the president like, having a literal press room and a whole press team with access to international press.

He ALMOST saved it with some nuance -

Which we can say there are some fair discussions to be had about....except he prefaced that comment with -

Damn, if you gave me that quote in that context without telling me the author I'd be hard pressed to guess it would be someone other than a Fox News host or Republican official.

I'm pretty bigly disappointed in Sanders on this.

Same.

No, Bernie, it's not okay to platform unrepentant fascists. Go home.

[Themius]

https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/24/polit...ban/index.html



Man, I never figured Sanders for the, "You can't remove a president from a private social media companies platform for being literally every awful thing he said they were!" Especially with the president like, having a literal press room and a whole press team with access to international press.

He ALMOST saved it with some nuance -



Which we can say there are some fair discussions to be had about....except he prefaced that comment with -



Damn, if you gave me that quote in that context without telling me the author I'd be hard pressed to guess it would be someone other than a Fox News host or Republican official.

I'm pretty bigly disappointed in Sanders on this.

that last line doesn't sound like fox or republicans to me because a lot of people on the left were saying the exact same thing.

Why? Becuase through history some tough laws or actions against the perceived threat of the right typically is used by the right against the left.

[Endus]

Another way of looking at this is he is stepping back and letting the younger progressives lead the fight.

Feel free to consider my argument to apply to Sanders' entire political career as a whole.

What significant institutional change has Sanders authored?

To provide a comparison, I'll offer up Tommy Douglas, here in Canada. Elected in Saskatchewan as Premier as a democratic socialist (yes, not a social democrat, actual socialist, unlike Bernie). Crafted universal healthcare for Saskatchewan during his time in office (~17 years total), a model that was then used by the federal government in crafting Canada's healthcare system. Left office to become the first leader of the then-new NDP party, who've been a mainstay of Canadian politics ever since (if a minority voice). He's widely considered to be one of the most important and beloved Canadians to have ever lived.

Actually accomplished meaningful change in his own lifetime. Unlike Bernie Sanders, who at best gets given credit for a slight shift leftwards among Democrats, and even that's not directly attributable, it's just kind of . . . assumed to be true. The man gets way too much credit for a career of what's basically been grousing at the status quo and presenting no real alternatives that garner any meaningful support.

And there's plenty of moments, like this one, which demonstrate that his views are pretty shallow and kind of shitty to begin with.

[Elegiac]

that last line doesn't sound like fox or republicans to me because a lot of people on the left were saying the exact same thing.

Why? Becuase through history some tough laws or actions against the perceived threat of the right typically is used by the right against the left.

And those people are being silly because we aren't talking about the left or the right.

We're talking about platforming fascists, and Sanders as a Jewish man should know better than to engage in false equivalencies like this.

[Breccia]

I'm pretty bigly disappointed in Sanders on this.

Same.

If I was going to White Knight here, I'd say "I'm not comfortable putting people in maxsec prison, a place that sucks hard and isn't really interested in reform. But if they're a proven threat to society, I'll do it anyhow because it's the lesser of two evils." But I don't feel the need to White Knight someone whose platform is four to six significant figures higher than mine. He's a grown man, he can handle himself.

Oh, has Sanders protested by leaving Twitter?

(checks feed)

Nope. Posted multiple times today, including an hour ago. I don't know how "uncomfortable" he is, but not enough to quit in protest.