Gas Bandit's Political Thread V: The Vampire Likes Bats

I would say this, but also a lot of the groundwork was laid during the Reagan Years. It's when Fox News started as well, and that isn't a coincidence. It just became painfully, horribly obvious when the lunatic fringe, the Tea Partiers, the conspiracy nuts, etc. became embraced rather than dismissed.
Your occasional reminder that the same Roger Ailes who founded Fox Noise, was the one who gave us the Willie Horton ad during the 1988 presidential campaign.
 
Don't forget that Fox News was created as a consequence of Watergate. There were a lot of conservatives who didn't believe Nixon should have resigned, but it was seen as impossible for him not to, because the media kept posting all the damning information / tapes in a single chorus of "This is wrong, bro."

Fox News was created to be an echo chamber of counter arguments versus anything that was damaging to Republicans politically. If they existed when Nixon was around, you can bet every news broadcast would have been trying it's best to make all the stuff people were seeing on other channels as "Not that big a deal." or "He had every right to find out the democrats corruption!" or some shit. Reagan simply helped them get off the ground because they finally saw there was a big enough audience of people that would bite the hook and never let go (plus all that juicy deregulation). Their entire purpose is to muddy the water.
 
Don't forget that Fox News was created as a consequence of Watergate. There were a lot of conservatives who didn't believe Nixon should have resigned, but it was seen as impossible for him not to, because the media kept posting all the damning information / tapes in a single chorus of "This is wrong, bro."

Fox News was created to be an echo chamber of counter arguments versus anything that was damaging to Republicans politically. If they existed when Nixon was around, you can bet every news broadcast would have been trying it's best to make all the stuff people were seeing on other channels as "Not that big a deal." or "He had every right to find out the democrats corruption!" or some shit. Reagan simply helped them get off the ground because they finally saw there was a big enough audience of people that would bite the hook and never let go (plus all that juicy deregulation). Their entire purpose is to muddy the water.
It's also worth mentioning that some cable packages only offer OANN and FoxNews as part of their basic package and not things like CNN, MSNBC, or the BBC. As such, it's basically the only "national" news many Americans consume in some markets.
 
Are you, like me, a complete ghoul? Then you might like this site.


—Patrick
 

—Patrick
 
Same people often bring up how Joe Rogan got COVID but got over it in like two days, ignoring the fact that he is likely vaccinated. Yes, he has not outright said he has been, and seems to talk about anti-vax bullet points, but read anything about the dude and you learn he kept his office as COVID free as possible with his offscreen crew having to wear masks and obsessive sanitation protocols, COVID tests, etc.. The chance of him NOT getting the vaccine when it first became available is likely less then a percent, he just wouldn't risk his audience by being open, so like most online personalities he just avoids the question or redirects.
 
I'll probably be the only one who doesn't see a problem with this. First of all, it looks like it's part of an entire unit on the Trail of Tears, and item #10, at that, so I suppose it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to think that there's a prompt asking for a written perspective from the Cherokee side. Secondly, I think it's critically important that students, and people in general, understand the motivations of people and why they do the things they do. I had Chinese students literally arguing against their own national interests in a mock UN debate on the South China Sea in Wuxi, while posing as other claimant nations. It's one thing to say "Trail of Tears bad" and another thing to understand how/why someone might think it's a swell idea in order to prevent such tragedies in the future.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
I'll probably be the only one who doesn't see a problem with this. First of all, it looks like it's part of an entire unit on the Trail of Tears, and item #10, at that, so I suppose it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to think that there's a prompt asking for a written perspective from the Cherokee side. Secondly, I think it's critically important that students, and people in general, understand the motivations of people and why they do the things they do. I had Chinese students literally arguing against their own national interests in a mock UN debate on the South China Sea in Wuxi, while posing as other claimant nations. It's one thing to say "Trail of Tears bad" and another thing to understand how/why someone might think it's a swell idea in order to prevent such tragedies in the future.
Ehh, I think exercises in philosophical and moral relativism that require the rhetorical justification of genocide definitely fall within the questionable end of the spectrum, especially given the current push to eliminate all "critical race theory" from the curriculum. If all things were equal, maybe so. But all things are not equal, and there is an ongoing and tangible pressure toward white supremacy going on right now both in education and out.

By the way, did you see that the Florida State Senate just advanced a bill to make it illegal to teach anything in school that "could" make white students "experience discomfort?"

 
Ah, I see we're into the actual serfdom part of our regression. "AT WILL" employees ordered by judge that they cannot quit their current jobs until replacements are found, despite them all already having jobs lined up.

See, the confusion here is they thought the workers will was a part of it, but it never was.
 
Diseased shit like this continues to make me want to walk directly into the man made lake down the path behind my house and just letting whatever stocked fish are still alive in it eat me.

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Honestly how the fuck did blame the failures of capitalism on socialism become such a trope?
Right-wing Capitalist supporters blame Capitalism's failures on "Corporatism", which they see as left wing oligarchs deciding who gets to "win" at capitalism via government involvement, despite the fact that Right Wing Neoliberals very much control virtually every wing of the government at federal, state, and local levels right now.
 
Right-wing Capitalist supporters blame Capitalism's failures on "Corporatism", which they see as left wing oligarchs deciding who gets to "win" at capitalism via government involvement, despite the fact that Right Wing Neoliberals very much control virtually every wing of the government at federal, state, and local levels right now.
Which is also weird cause the state has always been the hammer of capitalists.
 
Honestly how the fuck did blame the failures of capitalism on socialism become such a trope?
As the pendulum swings back and forth between Right and Left, a pattern emerges: While the Right are in power, they place a huge take-out order for a giant pile of shit. Then, when their order is delivered to the Center er, "Left" 2-6yrs later, the Right makes a big show of, "Look how deep their pile of shit is! They must be failing SO BAD for their pile of shit to get that deep!" all while trying very hard to get people not to look too hard at where it came from.

--Patrick
 
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GasBandit

Staff member
Sometimes it isn't even years. People were (and are) blaming Biden for giving Afghanistan to the Taliban despite Trump literally bragging he did it, and did it in such a way that the Democrats couldn't stop it. Turnaround time of mere months.

And it's definitely true that Republicans only (pretend to) care about budgets and spending when they don't hold power. Whenever they get power, they outspend Democrats.
 
Sometimes it isn't even years. People were (and are) blaming Biden for giving Afghanistan to the Taliban despite Trump literally bragging he did it, and did it in such a way that the Democrats couldn't stop it. Turnaround time of mere months.

And it's definitely true that Republicans only (pretend to) care about budgets and spending when they don't hold power. Whenever they get power, they outspend Democrats.
The withdrawal from Afghanistan was borked up by both sides. Both made stupid decisions. But the fundaments of the problems lie with Trump setting dates and promises nobody could meet.
 


As Gas said, "Here we go!"

--Patrick
Mesdames et messieurs, faites vos jeux! "how long will Sinema and Manchin block a new nomination?"
Possible answers:1 until too short before the midterms to get it done, or 2 until after the midterms, whining all the way that if only the left agreed to "compromise" by nominating a "moderate" like, say, Marjorie Green, they could have achieved so much.
 
Just wondering : if an extremist were to literally gun down 4 or 5 Supreme Court justices, would there be any reason or incentive for the Senate and President to be moderate or fair in replacing them?
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Just wondering : if an extremist were to literally gun down 4 or 5 Supreme Court justices, would there be any reason or incentive for the Senate and President to be moderate or fair in replacing them?
The problem with the supreme court nomination process is a lot of it is tradition and unwritten rules. Pre-2000, it was a given that the President pretty much always got the nominee he wanted, albeit sometimes the Senate would rake the nominee over the coals for a bit first if they didn't like him (Clarence Thomas). The "advice and consent" part of the process was mostly pomp and circumstance. In exchange, it was courteously expected that the nominee would generally not be a hardliner.

Now, the precedent has been shattered, reset, and shattered again - so all bets are off. Because there's no written codified reason to not pick a party apparatchik, they've all been that, and there's no reason not to invoke the on-paper-but-previously-mostly-unused ability of the senate to send a nominee packing - and now can be done just because of their politics.
 
This is as infuriating as it is stupid. What's the point of flying a Trump 2024 flag on Parliament Hill? Do they think Trump is going to run for Prime Minister or something up here?

 
On a completely different subject: I decided to click through a FB post on Forbes ranking of the most conservative and most liberal cities in the US.

Guess whose home town topped the Most Conservative list.
 
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