***Official Political Discussion Thread***

[boba85]

Dude, just stop lying!! He knows you by former screen name. Hell, you told me your old name in a PM (I kept it private but can't anymore, because you are NOT honest)!! Just STOP!!

Oh and you WERE banned. That's what you told me in the PM!

ok

 

[boba85]

I chuckled
Can we get back on topic
Would be appreciated

 

[biggie62]

by foraging he means he’s sitting on his horse while pointing at the mushrooms his peasants need to pick?

 

[Brownstone]

Is there a more caucasian activity?

 

[1995]

I see @trynafeelmink tryna troll in the reactions for attention

Hard to troll from outside the club

At first glance it's very strange to see him so invested in what has traditionally been a progressive cause

That is until you remember all of the antisemitic idiocy he's promoted over the years

Then it makes more sense

 

[Methodical Management]

At first glance it's very strange to see him so invested in what has traditionally been a progressive cause

That is until you remember all of the antisemitic idiocy he's promoted over the years

Then it makes more sense

He’s in his feelings because he got kicked out of the Israel thread for whining about getting kicked out of the Ye thread for “Jews control the media” conspiracy nonsense. People are expressing justifiable criticism towards skewed coverage of atrocities committed by the Israeli army in Gaza, which he thinks exonerates him because he can’t differentiate between the the Israeli government, Zionists, and Jewish people generally.

His last post in that thread was about the recently discovered tunnel in Crown Heights, which is related to Gaza only because it involves Jewish people.

I put him in time out, so now he’s pouting and cursing me out because he feels like I’m on the George Soros payroll or something. He’s outraged that NikeTalk stubbornly denies “free speech” to people whose very serious views are in complete overlap with Gryopers’.


It’s strange: the elders of respectability politics are all about “accountability” until it comes to their own behavior. The young people need to pull their pants up and stop twerking on the Tik Tok, but unjust message board rules about insults/hate speech are made to be broken. What Would Joe Clark Do?

I guess now he’ll have to get his news from blue checks on a site owned by a DEI hating, discriminatory mine heir who thinks the word “decolonization” is antisemitic hate speech. But hey, at least they both like Dave Chappelle.

He’s good at advancing up the ranks, he was good at winning a Senate race in a purple State, and he’s good at looking left wing while not pissing off reactionary interests. So in that respect, he’s great at politics, at least in the short run.

But let’s think about what his blood libel against migrants will do or contribute to over the next 10, 20, 50 years. Sure, telling regressive whites, who live that their woes can be blamed on Mexican and Central American, gives you a short-term boost with working class whites. But what about the future?

Mexican and Central American voters generally have a long memory and the level of betrayal is massive among a lot of politically active members of those groups.

That voting bloc also has a long memory on immigration (they aren’t single issue voters but immigration is a sensitive issue, for obvious reasons). Eventually, those elderly “blue dog” Dems will die off and be replaced by a younger, browner, more ideologically left cadre of voters (if Gen Z scares you politically, wait until an even more alienated and generation of iPad kids age into the franchise). At that point, American national politics will look like that of California right now.

And I’m sure you’re well aware that in the 1990’s, the massive increase in immigration to border States, forced Republican and Democratic Parties in those States to make choices. The Texas GOP choose a more pragmatic and humane approach. The California GOP choose to be maximally anti Latino immigrant. The California GOP today is less a party and more a giant, rent seeking, special interest group.

Stabbing migrants in the back could cause the national Democratic Party to meet that same fate over time. Moreover, the territorial integrity of the United States will be jeopardized. A declining empire, where vast swaths of it blame other racial and territorial tranches of fellow American citizens for their woes and that’s just the intra party strife? A civil war, dissolution, or the US existing in name only could be on the horizon, if we stretch out the timeline.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Let’s look at Fetterman’s own career path. If he wants to become president, what bloc within the Democratic coalition would he have in a fight for a nomination? Obviously, he’s not getting many people who voted for Bernie. Can he win over black voters, I doubt it and even then it’s hard to see him winning with the margins that Obama, Clinton, and Biden got. His left wing cosplaying and somewhat pro union stances will scare away the affluent, white professional class who backed Biden and Obama. Could he get a majority of women’s votes? Again doubtful, there will be women running for office who can own the reproductive freedom issue.

So what would Fetterman have in 2028? Oh an on going beef with a powerful and ever growing constituency who won’t forget his betrayal of migrants. That’s what he’ll have.

So it really all depends on what timeframe we’re talking about in determining if he’s really good at politics or not.

People are giving Rex a hard time over this, but if cherry-picked results from one poll are all that’s needed to evaluate the merits of someone’s policy positions now:

John Fetterman's support collapses among younger voters

Fetterman is substantially more popular with Pennsylvanians aged over 65 than those between 18 and 34, according to a new poll.

www.newsweek.com

When it comes to a refusal to compromise, moderates are the real radicals.

 

[IATT]

 

[Nike Jordan]

 

[IATT]

 

[Nike Jordan]

 

[IATT]

 

[IATT]

 

[DLF]

I found it funny. Just a classic right wing tactic to bring up someone’s past or unrelated policy to justify something that’s wrong

“Sure the black guy was wrongfully killed by the cop but did you know he Had 8 DUI in the past”

 

[wavycrocket]

Trump posting Vlad clips lmao.



Vlad TV x Trump was an inevitability

 

[IATT]

 

[IATT]

 

[1995]

I'm convinced some of these internet folks would put David Duke in the "good guy" pile just because he opposes Israel and is pro-Palestine

 

[Brownstone]

Oh how cute, she thinks she has real power and influence

 

[DLF]

 

[RustyShackleford]

I found it funny. Just a classic right wing tactic to bring up someone’s past or unrelated policy to justify something that’s wrong

“Sure the black guy was wrongfully killed by the cop but did you know he Had 8 DUI in the past”

I know you thought this comment was gonna be a banger when you hit that "post reply" button

 

[RustyShackleford]

 

[05fordgt]

I'm thinking it's time for the 11th Circuit to do another reprimand! If anyone says she isn't obviously biased, they are blind!

 

[05fordgt]

Oh how cute, she thinks she has real power and influence

Well, it was the Republicans who changed the rules to allow 1 single member to start the process to vacate, hence how Matt Gaetz got rid of McCarthy. I say go ahead and do it. Let the American people see just how of a clown show the Republican party really is.

 

[gry60]

Here's an interactive map of all Houthis attacks in the article below:

23 attacks in 2 months: All Red Sea ships targeted by the Houthis

***

www.haaretz.com

The question is, why did the US shoulder the responsibility of protecting worldwide shipping lanes anyway, and why do they need to respond to Houthis' attempts at destabilizing commercial shipping in the area?



Long story short: having a single entity monitoring and insuring the openness of maritime shipping lanes has pretty much eliminated privateering and piracy. This is especially important in international waters, where warfare on commercial ships was common prior to the rise of the British navy due to the inherent territorial neutrality of the oceans. While the UN has a convention pertaining to the rules governing the use of the seas and oceans (UNCLOS), it is not an enforcement body, and they cannot enforce these laws without the cooperation of the US.

It should be noted that the US has not yet ratified the treaty (even though they have helped draft it) because they object to Part XI of UNCLOS III (and we have the usual suspects - the GOP - to thank for being at odds with the rest of the international community, just like with the US ratifying the Rome Statute).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_and_the_United_Nations_Convention_on_the_Law_of_the_Sea

For the US, the obvious benefit of this arrangement comes in the form of a significant amount of global influence, and the tradeoff is the monstrous costs associated with maintaining and improving a fleet that's larger than the next three largest navies combined. For other countries, including China, this arrangement allows them to participate in global trade while bypassing the costs needed to create and maintain a blue water navy and to protect their commercial fleet of tankers/container ships. That's why most countries generally don't reject American military operations that aim to thwart disruptions to global trade.

Finally, some interesting points have been made here regarding the future of the US as guarantor of global trade:


rexanglorum you mentioned freedom of navigation and the Israeli blockade, so I found this 2010 article that covers its legality:

https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE65133D/

 

[IATT]