Amusing that the rather obvious counter to the threat of merely being a “smooth brained political shill” is self-reflection and ongoing reanalysis of ones positions, which is something of which one who would characterize all who disagree as “smooth brained political shills” is self-evidently entirely incapable.
Since Trump has an unbroken record of bowing and scraping in the presence of autocrats, I think we can safely disregard anything he might say about anyone else’s attitude towards them.
Exactly.
He’s one of the most loathsome pieces of shit to have ever sleazed his way into office anywhere - a foul, noxious, utterly repugnant psychopath who bears personal responsibility for tens of thousands of murders and for the undue suffering of millions. And he gets fucking standing ovations from people who have the gall to consider themselves worthy representatives of the American people.
It’s grotesque. It’s so far removed from human decency or even sanity that it defies any sort of valid explanation. Sincerely, the only conclusion I can reach is that the lunatics are in charge of the asylum - that somehow we’ve ended up with a society led by monsters - by amoral, loathsome, foul wretches who are so clearly depraved that they likely shouldn’t even be allowed out in public unaccompanied, much less entrusted with power.
It’s insane. Literally, completely, staggeringly insane.
Are we actually asking if an utterly vile, demonstrably corrupt, entirely self-serving psychopath who’s overseeing a genocide, a violent incremental land grab and repeated attempts to provoke wars with four different neighbors has “finally lost America?”
Every time I think this timeline couldn’t possibly be more fucked up, it shocks me yet again.
I would go so far as to say that it’s vital that Biden handles court reform, because it has to be done before the election.
We can already be sure that Trump and his backers are planning legal challenges on whatever grounds might vaguely appear to be something resembling legitimate in the event that he loses, and we can also be sure that at least Thomas and Alito will rule in their favor, no matter how ludicrous their arguments might be, simply because they’re entirely and completely compromised. They’ve already demonstrated that law is irrelevant - that they serve demagoguery, shallow self-interest, bigotry and corruption. And given the chance, they WILL do their parts to destroy democracy in the US.
We can’t afford to give them the chance.
And that could be Biden’s legacy - the president who led the efforts that saved America from a fascist coup.
I’ve seen no evidence that they are.
What little organic commentary I’ve seen has been cautiously optimistic at worst.
The barrage of anti-Harris stuff that all started appearing at essentially the same time reeks of astroturf.
It (Israel) submitted written comments, saying that the questions put to the court were prejudiced and “fail to… acknowledge Israel-Palestinian agreements to negotiate issues, including “the permanent status of the territory, security arrangements, settlements, and borders”.
Imagine how brazenly dishonest one would have to be to actually, unironically try to condemn an international body for supposedly “fail(ing) to acknowledge Israel-Palestinian agreements to negotiate issues” when the specific matter at hand is ones ongoing policy of coming onto land that’s clearly desgnated as Palestinian territory, throwing the residents off (and killing them if they dare to resist), then building an Israeli-only settlement on the Palestinan land you’ve just forcibly occupied.
That might as well read “Five year old with a faceful of crumbs rejects call for immediate inquiry into who ate all the cookies.”
I’m often reminded of a bit on Top Gear years ago, when they were talking about “turbo” as a marketing tool in the 80s, when you could buy “turbo” sunglasses or “turbo” watches or “turbo” after-shave.
How is it that the world is so deeply insane?
Surely I’m not the only one who sees it, right?
I mean - as just one example, we have here a country that launched a military invasion of another country, and is now trying to characterize attempts by that country to defend itself as “escalation.”
The only possible “logic” behind that is that the Russian position is that the only acceptable thing for Ukraine to do is to meekly submit to Russian rule, and that anything else is such an affront that it justifies even more violence and murder.
That’s stark, raving, bug-eyed insane. And it’s not some derelict on a street corner spouting that insanity - it’s s nation. And it’s not the only national level insanity happening - hell - it’s not even the only national level insanity happening today. Even as I type this, it’s guaranteed that some country or some national level politician somewhere, and probably more than one, is doing or saying something at least as mind-boggling insane as that, and it just keeps going, moment-to-moment, day-to-day.
How does that even work? Seriously - is it some sort of conspiracy of silence or something? Some (potentially unspoken) agreement around the world that yeah, we know that these people are stark staring mad, but let’s just pretend that the shit they spew has some merit, mmkay?
Or is it that the rest of the world is so insane that they don’t even notice? (Or, it suddenly struck me, so drunk that they don’t?)
I just don’t get it. It’s not even just countries and their leaders doing and saying things that are a bit questionable, but countries and their leaders doing and saying things that are screechingly insane - that don’t even bear a passing resemblance to logic, reason, truth or reality. Day in and day out, and without even a whisper about how patently insane it all is.
I don’t understand how that’s even possible.
I wonder if that’s now another of the Biden-era policy decisions Trump plans on overturning…
Fight the urge to immediately get off the train.
Even with as many episodes of Star Trek as I’ve seen, I’m sure I’d want to rush right out and start exploring.
Neither really. Sort of.
There are certainly inherently repugnant beliefs, but beliefs in and of themselves are harmless - they’re just a particular pattern of firing neurons in a brain. They literally cannot bring harm to others just in and of themselves.
The thing that makes some beliefs horrible is not the mere holding of them, but the things one who holds them is likely to do. It’s those acts that are the real evil - the beliefs are just a foundation, or a trigger.
Now, all that said, I would hazard that it’s exceedingly rare at best (and arguably impossible) for anyone to hold noxious beliefs without them in some way affecting their behavior, so the mere holding of noxious beliefs can certainly serve as a justification for the conclusion that the person in question is in fact horrible. Still though, to be (perhaps overly) precise, I’d say that it’s not the belief itself that makes them a horrible person, but merely that the belief makes it quite likely that they’ll act in ways that make them (or reveal them to be) horrible people.
It’s a hosting site for free ebooks.
The site admins don’t provide any of the ebooks themselves - they just host files that are uploaded by whoever wishes, and provide for downloads for whoever wishes. (Not that that alters its legal status - just by way of explanation).
It’s notably popular among college students, as a source to download free versions of obscenely overpriced textbooks.
And Netanyahu rejects it out of hand in 3… 2… 1…
I’m roundaboutly reminded of one of my favorite novels - Greener Than You Think, by Ward Moore.
It’s a science fiction story about the end of the world that was written in the late 40s. The proximate cause of the end is all of the landmasses of Earth being smothered by a gigantic and very aggressive strain of Bermuda grass, but the real cause is the utter and complete failure, due to ignorance, greed, selfishness, short-sightedness, incompetence, arrogance and so on, of every attempt to combat it.
Even “the pot calling the kettle black” isn’t enough to sum this up.
It’s more like “the pot calling the salad bowl a pot.”
In a somewhat metaphorical but nonetheless very real sense - most politics is effectively snake oil.
There’s a set of people who exhibit a particular combination of mental illness and natural charisma, such that they feel an irrational urge to impose their wills on others, a lack of the necessary empathy to recognize the harm they do and the personal appeal necessary to convince others to let them do it.
There’s another set of people who feel an irrational sense of helplessness - who want to turn control of their lives and their decisions over to others, so they can just go along with a preordained set of values and beliefs and choices rather expending effort on, and taking the risk of, making their own.
And just as in any more standard “snake oil” dynamic, the first group, exclusively for its own benefit, preys upon the weakness and hope of the second. Just as in any other such dynamic, the people of the first group make promises they have no intention of keeping ultimately just so that they can benefit, and the people of the second group continue, irratiomally, to believe those promises, even as all of the available evidence demonstrates that the promises are empty.
Is there a dictator Trump hasnt publicly fellated?
I can’t think of one…