The Left: Robespierre did nothing wrong

Discussion in 'The Mainboard' started by bricktop, Jan 17, 2017.

  1. Prospector

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    St. Louis Fed: Conventional wisdom on college degree’s worth is changing
    Campus Talk
    Finance
    by Wesley Brown ([email protected]) February 16, 2019 11:08 am 341 views

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    A new report by the St. Louis’s Fed’s Center for Household Financial Stability notes that while a college degree is usually associated with higher pay and a better financial future, the extent of those benefits today depends on your demographics.

    In the Center’s report, called “Is College Worth It? It’s Complicated,” the St. Louis Fed’s economic researchers help answer that question by commissioning original research from leading scholars in the fields of economics, sociology, education and public policy. The results of the findings, they said, are rich and varied.

    “We corroborated the conventional wisdom that, on average, a college degree is associated with higher family income and wealth over one’s lifespan,” William Emmons, the Center’s lead economist, said in a Feb. 7 research note. “However, the extent of the returns depended on several demographic characteristics — most notably, when people were born and their races or ethnicities. In particular, the financial benefits one can expect from a college degree appear to be lower among people born in the 1980s, and they remain unequal across racial and ethnic groups.”

    Emmons and his research team also found that the likely payoff to a college degree depends on whether you have a college-educated parent.

    “First-generation college graduates typically receive an income and wealth boost, but they fall short of college grads whose parents also have college degrees,” he said.

    In the report, the researchers from the Federal Reserve’s expansive Eighth District that includes Arkansas and other Mid-America states examined the income and wealth of college graduates and postgraduate degree holders born between 1930 and 1989 and found two consistent trends.

    First, the average college and postgrad income premiums, which is the amount a family headed by a four-year or postgrad degree holder earns in excess of an otherwise similar family, have declined somewhat across successive birth-decade cohorts but it remained substantial.

    In terms of earnings, college is clearly still worth it. This was true for all races and ethnicities, including non-Hispanic white, black, Hispanic and all other families. At the same time, the college “wealth premium” has declined more noticeably over successive generations of college grads and precipitously for people born in the 1980s.

    “Disturbingly, the wealth benefits of college and postgraduate degrees were much lower among non-white family heads born in the 1970s and 1980s,” the Fed researchers state. “In terms of wealth accumulation, college is not paying off for recent college graduates on average — at least, not yet.”

    So, is college still worth it? On average — that is, across all birth years, races and ethnicities — college is still worth it in terms of earnings, the Fed researchers conclude.

    “We found that college and postgrad degree holders generally earn significantly higher incomes than nongrads. However, for recent generations and for non-white students, the payoffs are somewhat lower than average. This is especially true for wealth accumulation. Considering all of the evidence, we conclude that the conventional wisdom about college is not as true as it used to be,” the report stated.


    U.S. ‘skills gap’ is real: HR professionals can’t find suitable job candidates
    Manufacturing
    Talk Politics
    by Wesley Brown ([email protected]) February 16, 2019 11:10 am 709 views

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    A recently released report by the nation’s top human resource trade group said the “skills gap” in the U.S. is real and getting worse as four out of five hiring professionals say they’ve had difficulty recruiting suitable candidates in the past year.

    The recent research from the Society for Human Resource Management, commonly referred to as SHRM, highlights the urgent need to address the training of workers and improve public-policy governing work, officials said.

    “A majority of Americans (63%) believe what employers facing difficulty in recruiting have known for some time — there is a skills shortage in the workforce,” said SHRM President and CEO Johnny Taylor. “What is now clear is that innovative thinking and resolute action are needed, and public policy must change.”

    According to the most recent SHRM Skills Gap Survey report, 52% of HR professionals said that the skills gap has worsened or greatly worsened in the past two years. Another 83% said they have noticed a decrease in the quality of job applicants, with one-third citing a lack of needed technical skills.

    The gap is evident in the trades, middle-skilled positions and highly skilled STEM positions, the report said, with carpentry, plumbing, welding and machining among the technical abilities most lacking in the workforce. Data analysis, science, engineering, medical and finance are other areas in short supply.

    More than one-quarter of HR respondents said their businesses collaborate with schools to build a pipeline of job candidates. But almost one-half believe that the education system has done very little to help address the issue. For some jobs with labor shortages, employment-based immigration is the right remedy.

    A supermajority of about 85% of HR respondents to the SHRM Employment-Based Immigration Survey said it was very important to recruit workers regardless of their national origin. While about three-quarters of survey respondents said foreign-born workers contribute positively to U.S. economic growth and help drive innovation, more than one-third said their businesses were challenged by an insufficient number of employment-based visas, such as H-1Bs, to recruit these workers.

    One-third said the employment-based immigration process was lengthy and complex with unpredictable results. Respondents also called for the removal of roadblocks to ensuring a legal workforce. What is needed now are more employment visas, mandatory E-Verify, and a trusted employer program for low-risk, immigration-compliant companies, the survey said.

    The SHRM Skills Gap Survey polled 1,028 HR professionals and the SHRM Employment-Based Immigration Survey polled 785 HR professionals. Both were conducted in September 2018. To view the report, click here..
     
  2. Bishop

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    Wife works in HR for a Manufacturing Company she says its hell for recruiting. With everyone looking its good to be a skilled employee. Hell if you just have a Forklift License you can easily find a handful of jobs. Skip College and become a Welder!

    The high amount of Truck Drivers that are going to be leaving the job force in the next 10 years is really going to hurt.
     
  3. herb.burdette

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    My wife worked her way through undergrad at Ohio State and paid as she went. Granted, she had a really good job waiting tables at about $35,000 a year in the late 90’s, but she graduated with only about $10,000 in debt.

    I’m not sure that’s possible today.
     
  4. Name P. Redacted

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    Yeah that’s full time job money.
     
  5. Pile Driving Miss Daisy

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    Haha, I see you :awesomeface:
     
  6. ~ taylor ~

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    "Waiting tables" eh?
     
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  7. herb.burdette

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    I waited there too, it’s how we met, we’re good.
     
  8. Prospector

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    Conservative ideology is based in the belief white people are the true victims in American society


    [​IMG]
    According to anonymous sources, the Chicago Police department’s investigation into the alleged racist and homophobic attack by Trump supporters on actor Jussie Smollett has "shifted" from identifying potential assailants to focusing on the 'Empire' star himself, as police reportedly believe Smollett paid two men to orchestrate the assault. The fallout from the story has been latched onto by conservatives as evidence of media bias and an example of why they don't "believe" stories about Republican malfeasance.
    Tom Wolfe’s 1987 novel The Bonfire of the Vanities has been called “the quintessential novel of the 80s” in satirizing the racial and class politics of New York City during the era, which saw the city severely divided after multiple incidents where white and black people had different perspectives about what was right and what was wrong. The novel, which depicts a clusterfuck of awful people using a car accident involving a wealthy, white bond trader and a young African-American in the Bronx to advance their various agendas, both hits upon ideas about white fears of being around black people and the exploitation of that racism for wealth and fame...
    Bonfire also reiterates similar themes present in a lot of Wolfe’s work as a journalist and writer, mainly the idea of appearing concerned about an issue while really using it for personal gratification. Wolfe coined the term “radical chic” after composer Leonard Bernstein and his wife Felicia hosted a fundraiser for the Black Panthers in the Bernsteins’ Park Avenue apartment, implying the assorted group of rich, white liberals cared more about looking “fashionable” in their association with Black Panthers than actually doing something about the underlying causes which created the group. Wolfe, who passed away last year, became more vocal in these conservative sentiments as he got older, stating in 2004 he supported George W. Bush because of “resentment” against a liberal elite who want to impose their “East-Coast pretensions” on the rest of society.

    Whether Wolfe’s writing or The Bonfire of the Vanities are worthy of the acclaim they’ve gotten over the years is a question I’ll leave for another time. But what I’ve found interesting is how the views surrounding the novel speak to the current mindset of conservatives and alt-right fascism about the impact of racism, progressive ideology, and objective truth. I’ve written in the past about how the most vocal Republican voters are presenting themselves as the true victims of American society.

    The essential nature of the past 50 years of the conservative movement is predicated on re-purposing white people as the victims of liberal agendas who need to be saved by Jesus and freedom to be made great again. The reason manufacturing jobs have disappeared is not mismanagement or corporate greed, but “libtard” regulations which care more about unions and spotted owls than "working people." The problem with public schools or why one’s kid couldn’t get into a good college has nothing to do with shitty parenting or the subjective merits of the academic system, but Title IX taking Jr.’s football dreams away to give funds to little girls, and affirmative action and its “reverse-racism” against whites wrongly valuing diversity as a strength. And racism is bad, but liberals are just so “mean” for saying it.

    All of these are rationalizations for why it’s okay to be an asshole and not give a shit. This leads to people claiming all the sides suck and are out to fuck everyone, so why should anyone care about anything? And it all becomes a big joke. Because, if there’s anything conservative trash excels at, it’s the ability to devalue people into concepts and things, even when their value is self-evident, because we can rationalize being terrible to “things” with little to no moral consequence.

    This leads to some interesting observations about the current controversy surrounding actor/musician Jussie Smollet, and whether the alleged racist and homophobic attack against him by Trump supporters is actually a hoax.

    At least at present, Smollet maintains his story. But as the scrutiny about Smollet’s story has increased, the number of cracks in his version of events has become bigger and bigger as unnamed sources and rumors have dominated the news. Conservative media has latched onto this incident as an example of “fake news,” reporters and activists jumping to conclusions because of a bias against everything Trump, and a reason why Republicans will not believe reports of Trump’s lies and abuses. Similar to how some conservatives interpret the meaning of Wolfe’s The Bonfire of the Vanities as being about a “palpable yearning among the liberal establishment for guilty white people they could put on trial” to answer for cultural sins, it is now a certainty within right-wing circles that Smollet’s allegations are not only not true, but evidence which discounts all allegations of this sort. Because, as we all know, truth and the facts have mattered so much to conservatives over the years.

    Let’s accept as a given there’s something to be said in examining evidence before believing every story, and that if Smollet is lying his actions are both deeply repugnant and extremely damaging to other victims. Maybe this should give the media and blogs pause in drawing broad conclusions about what things mean until some facts are known and established, since it only hands ammunition to these pricks if the story turns out to have holes.

    However, let’s also examine this hypocritical bullshit for what it’s worth.


    As Doctor House said: “Everybody lies.” The extent and severity of those lies among individuals, and the context in which they’re told, distinguish them. Lies which waste resources that could be used for real crimes, make it harder for real victims to be believed, and done for someone's own personal aggrandizement should be sharply condemned and severely punished.

    However, just because there are more than enough lies to go around, and too many horrible people telling them, doesn’t invalidate the concept of objective truth or mean the issues which surround them are imvalidated. It does not mean because one can point at mistakes, silly demagogues, and awful charlatans that reality becomes whatever one wants to believe it is and there are no real victims

    Beyond this basic common sense there’s the fact this criticism and rationalizing might have more weight if it wasn’t coming from a group of lying hypocrites. The same people who claim to be the victims of bias and half-truths are the one who put their faith in a liar as their champion. And not only a simple liar: a liar who lies about everything every day, that they then lie to protect.

    EVERY. GODDAMN. DAY.


    From Zack Beauchamp at Vox:

    From their point of view … It reveals a culture where white men are acceptable targets of hate who deserve no sympathy and no due process, and where the left-wing mob wields tremendous power through its command of the public sphere.

    That view connects to a broader assumption shared by many conservatives: that white Christian men are a persecuted minority in modern America.

    To non-conservatives, this sounds absurd. White men are the country’s most powerful and privileged citizens. The party they dominate currently controls two and a half branches of government, and they sit in a disproportionate number of powerful seats in the private sector. But in this argument, conservatives follow a maxim generally attributed to the late provocateur Andrew Breitbart: “Politics is downstream from culture.” By this, Breitbart meant that the balance of power in day-to-day politics is determined, in the long run, by the cultural ideas that shape the way people approach politics.

    With liberal elites largely in charge of the country’s entertainment and higher education, in the Breitbart-conservative view, that means they control the commanding heights in our society.

    The concept of white men being the persecuted in America largely comes down to being told they’re wrong, or freaking out over nothing when they're told it's something by the right-wing outrage machine. And within the “commanding heights,” whether it be scientists, Hollywood, the media, or Democrats, calling stupid ideas stupid has somehow become “elitist” and evidence of bias. It’s one of the most bitter ironies that the people who bitch and moan about political correctness and wear shirts saying “fuck your feelings” are the ones whining about respect whenever a TV show or movie has a story which steps on their toes, or a science article actually advocates … you know, science which goes against one of their beliefs.

    It’s as if we are trying to placate children who want people to hold their hands and play along while they wish really hard for unicorns to be real.

    From Reeeves Wiedeman at New York Magazine:

    [​IMG]
    Stephen Miller came out of the womb an asshole.
    After work one day in January 2007, Scott McConnell left his office at the magazine The American Conservative in Arlington, Virginia, and walked to a nearby Thai restaurant that was hosting a panel discussion about the Duke lacrosse scandal … McConnell and his magazine had largely ignored the scandal; identity politics weren’t top of mind for conservative media then, and most outlets weren’t especially interested in defending a group of rich jocks who had hired a stripper. But by January, the case was imploding. The accuser had changed her story more than half a dozen times, one of the players had a well-documented alibi, and DNA tests found no match with any member of the team, a fact the prosecutors initially hid from the defense. McConnell was reminded of The Bonfire of the Vanities, Tom Wolfe’s novel about 1980s New York in which an overzealous prosecutor, the media, and the city’s liberal elite rushed to condemn an innocent white man accused of killing a black man. “There was this palpable yearning among the liberal establishment for guilty white people they could put on trial,” McConnell said, of the lacrosse case.

    McConnell and one of his editors, Michael Dougherty, went to the Thai restaurant panel hoping to find someone to write about the case. They knew most of the speakers — an economics professor, an editor at the WashingtonTimes, a men’s-rights blogger — but their talks were so boilerplate that neither McConnell nor Dougherty could recall much about them. The fourth speaker, however, was a Ph.D. candidate in Duke’s history department who delivered a blistering critique of the Duke faculty’s rush to prejudgment. “Scott and I both thought, Here’s a young guy, he presents himself well, and his talk was the most interesting of the night,” Dougherty said recently. “God, I hate to think that we were part of creating this.”

    Richard Spencer, the fourth speaker, is now America’s most famous self-identified white nationalist. “In this funny chain of events, the Duke lacrosse case changed the course of my career,” Spencer told me recently. “My life would not have taken the direction it did absent the Duke lacrosse case.” The speech at the Thai restaurant — “Ironic, isn’t it?” he said — pushed him from an academic track toward a more activist one. McConnell commissioned Spencer to write a piece for The American Conservative about the case, and, by the end of the semester, Spencer had dropped out of school to work at the magazine full-time. A year later, he coined the term “alt-right.” … It not only launched Spencer’s career, but that of White House adviser Stephen Miller, too. On the morning of Spencer’s talk at the Thai restaurant, Miller — who was then a senior at Duke — published a column in the student newspaper titled “A Portrait of Radicalism,” just a few days after he appeared on Bill O’Reilly’s Fox News show to chastise Duke’s faculty. Donald Trump didn’t have much to say about the scandal at the time; he hadn’t yet joined Twitter and was devoting his cable-news appearances to his simmering feud with Rosie O’Donnell. But Miller seemed interested in little else. He had become known to some at Duke as the “Miller Outrage Machine” for his willingness to take controversial stands in his biweekly “Miller Time” column, which he wrote for the campus newspaper as a way, he says, to “defend the idea of America.”

    This sort of behavior is also present in conservative women. Recent research and ponderings attempting to identify why white women support Republicans and conservative policies more than their non-white sisterhood have largely explained the difference through gender roles and subservience to their partners. For example, during the recent hearings for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Republican women (who are for the most part white) were the only demographic among which support for Kavanaugh increased as the process went along.

    Why is that?

    Republican women are “loyal to party” rather than caring about any criticisms about sexism, threats to women’s rights, or discrimination against females as a group. Taking all of this into account, conservative women seem to interpret criticisms of Republicans and conservative interests as a larger part of the believed victimization of (white) America.

    For instance, in 2008, vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin set the example of the strong Republican woman who could raise five children, maintain a professional career, and hold her own in the combative world of politics. She called herself a “hockey mom” and “Mama Grizzly” who would protect her cubs at any cost.

    During the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings, Donald Trump provided a culturally acceptable “out” along these lines for conservative women who wanted to support the Republican judge but worried that doing so might be seen as a betrayal of female survivors of sexual assault.

    Despite the fact that studies conducted in the past 12 years indicate that false reporting for sexual crimes is rare, Trump constructed an imaginary choice, urging Americans to protect their sons against “false accusations” by women. Pretending to be a wrongly accused son about to lose his job, he said, plaintively, “Mom, what do I do? What do I do?”

    Republican women who wanted to support Kavanaugh could stand firm in their roles as mothers and, just like Palin’s “Mama Grizzly,” fiercely protect their cubs (sons), in this case against “false accusations.”

    Now, whether these points explain Republican women’s behavior is a matter of debate. But the central problem with all of this is hypocrisy.

    I can’t feel sorry for someone who thinks I'm their victimizer just because I ask them to treat people fairly. Why should I reach out to people who think I’m a demon because I’m a Democrat and I vote for people who have a (D) next to their name? The reason many of us feel antipathy to the point of outrage is because the other side is wrong. We know they’re wrong, and they piss on our feet and call us liars for saying it’s not rain. We know they’re wrong, and they enjoy the suffering their wrongness causes. And then they believe themselves to be victims? If it causes “libtard” tears, then it must be good for some of these nuts.

    So ... sympathy for these sons of bitches for feeling persecuted? Never.
     
  9. DEAD7

    DEAD7 Well-Known Member

    [​IMG]
     
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  10. Bishop

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    Needs to do something. He got killed in the south.
     
  11. Prospector

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    Liberal Redneck Is Worried About The Democratic Primaries and We Should Be Too


    [​IMG]
    Trae Crowder, Liberal Redneck
    Trae Crowder is committed to “draggin’ Dixie out of the dark,” and that’s the title of his book. In his most recent broadcast, he notes that Bernie Sanders is in the presidential race now and he makes a point that we need to bear first and foremost in our minds: “the other side sticks together more than we do.” This is the biggest issue confronting us, not healthcare, not the economy — Republican cohesiveness vs. Democratic cat herding. The Republicans derive their power from acting in concert, to the point of absurdity. Simply put, they don’t care what kind of a scumbag misanthrope racist a given candidate may be, if s/he has an “R” after his/her name, they stick behind their candidate. “They walk the line, man, in a way that we just don’t,” says the Redneck.
    While they’re walking the line, Democrats are busy weeding out impurities. We are known for our purity. And if we don’t watch out, we’re going to purify ourselves to extinction.

    Liberal Redneck makes the salient point that whomever we vote for for our ticket, we know who’s going to be on theirs, and that is nothing short of a set up for political armageddon take two.

    At our worst, Democrats are like a herd of cats. But at our best, when we actually unite, we are like a pride of lions. We’re majestic. We rock the world.

    We need to unite for the 2020 election, like we have never united before. The stakes have never been higher and the contrasts between parties so black and white. This is it. The time to start winning in 2020 is this minute.

    [Clip is 3:27 long]


    Remember Will Rogers’ line, “I’ve never been a member of any organized political party — I’m a Democrat?” We need to do the one and only thing that the Republicans do right, and that’s stick together. If we stick together and get out the vote, we’ll retake the White House, plain and simple.


    If you haven’t seen this in a while, or ever, it’s worth the watch.
     
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  15. Prospector

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    from dk

    What I Learned From Knocking On 4,000+ Doors In 2018
    Here are some valuable things I learned from my time politic-ing over summer vacation and the Fall months:

    The Democratic Party is slowly losing African-American voters. Despite the fact that African-Americans are the party’s most loyal supporters, I talked to many black voters in my D+21 district that were less than excited to vote. One of them was kind enough to take the time to explain to me why he was choosing not to vote in 2018. He told me there was no point and nothing would change, especially for black people. While I disagreed that voting in more (and better) Democrats wouldn’t change anything, it’s a narrative that I’ve heard before. I’ve listened, watched, and read about/from many black people who felt betrayed by the Democrats. And they’re kinda right. Flint received no help, Chicago is still broken, Obama and the Dems signed a Blue Lives Matter bill instead of a Black Lives Matter bill after Ferguson. This Vice video on black conservatives echoed a lot of this type of stuff. It’s something we Dems should take note on. The black vote is taken for granted too much and we will lose more and more of it if we continue to take it for granted. On the same note, I would not be surprised if the vital Virginian black voters don’t come out for Democrats in 2020 after all of this crap.

    Asian-Americans don’t vote enough. As a Korean-American, I have seen this with my own family. They just don’t care. I don’t know if it’s because they don’t see how politics will personally affect them (similar to unenthused black voters) or if they just genuinely dislike politics. It seems as though the only thing that makes Asians care about politics is when their kid doesn’t get into Harvard lol. But on a serious note, the Democratic Party can get a lot of new voters if they make a concerted effort to engage this demographic with the lowest turnout rate. At the same time, it’s also up to Asian-Americans like myself to get other Asian-Americans to vote.

    The 2016 Primary lives on. One of the most memorable conversations I had was with one older white woman who hated, hated Bernie. Like, I am used to that kind of wrath on Bernie-Hillary online, but I never expected that someone would direct that level of hatred to me in real life. After hearing my spiel of Medicare For All, no corporate money, tuition-free college, and absolutely not one peep about Bernie, she full-out (no joke) scolded at me on my possible love (remember, she didn’t even know I liked Bernie) for Bernie. She took it up to the level of blaming “us stupid kids” for giving Trump the election like young people were the biggest Trumpers. This divisiveness pains me. I didn’t enjoy that argument; that’s not what we should be doing now. Unfortunately, this was far from the only encounter I had where 2016 came up. So to y’all saying Bernie voters are the only ones picking fights: it’s not one-sided. It was both Hillary and Bernie supporters who brought up 2016. But back to the point: people are so not over 2016.

    Latino-Americans (at least in Kent and Seattle, WA) love progressives and really want to abolish ICE. Like black people, while by no means Trump lovers, some Latinos were a bit lukewarm about coming out to vote for Dems. But unlike black people, they were far more excited about Sarah Smith, a progressive candidate (who FYI I volunteered for). Two conversations really stood out to me. One was with a single mother who was not thrilled to see me at first but took a door hanger and read it. Moments later, she earnestly told me that she will open her ballot for the first time in years to vote for Sarah. What influenced her? The fact that instead of deporting in record numbers and tear gassing migrants like Obama did, Sarah was for abolishing ICE and pledged to decriminalize immigration. The other conversation was with an older Latina woman who broke down into tears after talking about ICE and immigration. “I feel so alone and like no one cares at my work about immigrants,” she explained, “this gives me happiness.” (Disclosure: this was a conversation that one of my fellow Sarah Smith 2018 canvassers had, but it belongs in this diary).

    Being a woman candidate helps. I can’t tell you how many people (mostly women) have told me they will support Sarah simply because she is a woman. And I cannot tell you how happy I was to hear that after being on the losing side of that argument during the 2016 Primaries. But seriously, people validly want more women in office. And consequently, women candidates had an electoral edge in 2018. FiveThirtyEight actually did a study that also showed women performed better than men in 2018. Should you only vote for someone because of their gender and party affiliation? I don’t think so, but being a woman (or black, Latino, LGBT, etc.) does have merit. And in 2018, voters agreed.

    Republicans like progressives. This was unexpected. Very unexpected. We saw this not only in Sarah’s race in WA-09 but in California’s Senate race. Kevin De Leon, a progressive, won virtually all the Republican areas in CA. Sarah also won a lot of Republican support, especially in the reddest parts of the district. There are multiple reasons why I think this may have occurred in the WA-09 race:

    1. Republicans really hate Adam Smith, the incumbent Democrat.
    2. Uninformed Republicans thought Sarah was challenging Adam from the right.
    3. Republicans actually like progressive policies more than neoliberal policies.
    I think #1 is most likely the reason why. But it’s possible many Republicans actually do like progressives better than establishment moderate Dems. I had some luck with Republican voters (it was a minefield though: one wrong word and they’d shut the door). Talking about 4th amendment rights worked a lot, especially since Adam really loves the NSA spying on us. Also hammering on the fact Adam wants to raise everyone’s taxes (this is code for raising poor people’s taxes) worked. And another thing worked well too (see next).

    Everyone hates corporate money. I mean, who likes corporations buying our elections, right? This is another thing, perhaps the biggest thing, that worked with courting Republican votes for Sarah. Laying it down that Sarah did not take corporate money (and Adam Smith did) worked very well with Republicans who were forced to choose between two non-conservative Democrats. So candidates (Democrat and Republican) if you want to win, don’t take corporate money. It will help you win over voters, and, it’s just the right fucking thing to do.

    Israel is a touchy topic for old Jewish voters. As if what happened to Ilhan wasn’t clear enough, Israel is a touchy subject for many, especially older Jewish voters that are old enough to remember the Holocaust and the formation of Israel. (PLEASE READ: I really don’t want to talk about my thoughts on Israel here and now. So please readers, don’t attack me (or support me) for my stance on Israel right here. I just want to talk about what I learned while canvassing.) So, I knocked on a Jewish home (I didn’t even know they were Jewish until the man told me) and he almost right away asked me about Sarah’s stance on Israel. I responded, “Sarah believes Israel needs to held accountable for their human rights abuses.” Mind you, I did not even know he was Jewish but this was still not even that inflammatory. Nevertheless, he immediately exploded. But unlike the anti-Bernie woman I mentioned above, it really hurt me. There’s something about being called an anti-Semite by a Jewish man who was probably alive to see the genocide of six million Jews in Europe that hits you hard. It hurt for a whole week. I was scared to go to Jewish households (there I also learned Jewish homes have that small piece of wood nailed to the frame of their front door, so I also learned how to spot a Jewish home). But enough self-pitying. That day I learned that Israel is an extremely emotional and personal subject for Jewish voters. But I still hope it’s an issue we can discuss, debate, and grapple with in the coming years.

    Thank you for reading my diary! I might make a Part 2 if I think of more stuff and I am up for writing it down.
     
  16. Prospector

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    crony capitalism and the death of the pretense of meritocracy in 3 acts

    Windstream, Uniti stock largest decliners on Nasdaq; Wall Street hedge fund mocks company executives
    by Wesley Brown ([email protected]) 11 hours ago 81 views


    Shareholders of Windstream Holdings Inc. and closely-tied Uniti Corp. fled both companies’ stocks in Tuesday’s trading session after a Wall Street hedge fund mocked the Little Rock telecom’s response to an adverse federal court ruling over the weekend related to the 2015 spinoff of its fiber backbone assets.

    At Tuesday’s (Feb. 19) closing bell, Windstream shares had lost nearly two-thirds of their value as the company’s stock collapsed by a whopping 61%, or $2.06, at only $1.31 on the NASDAQ stock exchange. Uniti, the publicly held real estate investment trust (REIT) that split off from Windstream nearly four years ago, plunged by 37.4%, a decline of $7.47 at $12.51.

    Late Friday evening, U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman for the Southern District of New York ruled Windstream violated bond agreements after splitting off the former Communications Sales & Leasing (CS&L) into the state’s first publicly-held real estate investment trust now known as Uniti Corp. nearly four years ago.

    The decision arose from challenges by Aurelius Capital Management and U.S. Bank National Association that the spinoff was invalid under the terms of a debt exchange offer and consent solicitations in respect to senior notes issued by its Windstream Services LLC to its so-called “sale and lease back” deal to spinoff CS&L. The court in its ruling awarded Aurelius and the other winning parties a $310 million judgment.

    In an unusual turn Tuesday, Aurelius issued a terse news release that ridiculed the company’s confidence prior to the federal court ruling. In one highlighted statement by Aurelius from Sept. 14, 2018, Windstream CEO Tony Thomas confidently stated: “There’s no uncertainty here in my mind in terms of the outcome. … Obviously, we are going to win,” said Thomas, adding two months later, “As I have shared my view many times previously and will share here once again, the only uncertainty regarding this proceeding is when the decision will be issued.”

    In a statement that was strategically released during midday NASDAQ trading, Aurelius officials said the Wall Street firm was gratified by the Manhattan federal court’s decision that Windstream’s senior 6-3/8% notes due 2023 should not have been accelerated because the Arkansas broadband carrier violated an agreement for certain bonds.

    “Windstream’s professed ‘surprise’ at Judge Furman’s well-reasoned decision, issued after a multi-day trial and several volumes of exhibits and briefing, has only the modest virtue of consistency to commend it,” Aurelius said in a one-page statement.

    “We take no pleasure in Windstream’s resulting financial predicament. Windstream could easily have averted it – first by not playing fast and loose with its noteholders in 2015, hoping nobody would hold the company to account, and second by settling,” said the Aurelius statement. “Instead, Windstream wasted an exorbitant amount – more than would have been needed to settle with us at the time – on an ineffective exchange offer and then on litigation.”

    Aurelius also said Windstream’s management and board of directors “chose to bet the company.”

    “The company lost,” said the New York hedge fund headed by Mark Brodsky, a former bankruptcy attorney.

    Aurelius also said it welcomed the possibility Windstream would appeal the $310 million court judgment, which the company cited over the weekend as one of its options following the 55-page court ruling.

    “This is welcome news for our fund, as it will require Windstream to post a surety bond exceeding $300 million. That surety bond will pay in full the notes our fund owns when Windstream loses the appeal. We are happy to take the surety company’s credit over Windstream’s,” said Aurelius.

    The Wall Street hedge funded ended its broadside also deriding Windstream noteholders. “To (those) who chose to play the company’s game even after it had broken its promise, we wish you luck with your exchange notes. Between their dubious status and their OID (original issue discount) risk in bankruptcy, we suspect you will need it.” To view Aurelius’ full statement, click here.

    By end of the trading day, Windstream and Uniti were by far the biggest decliners on the tech-focused NASDAQ as both Arkansas-based companies saw more activity together than the next 20 concerns combined. More than 48.6 million shares of Uniti traded hands in the week-opening session, 28 times the Little Rock-based REIT’s normal volume.

    Windstream’s depressed stock had total volume of nearly 16.8 million shares, 20 times the normal trading activity. The Little Rock telecom did not respond to Aurelius’ statement, but on Monday postponed its fourth-quarter and yearly earnings report due to the federal court ruling.

    Exactly a year ago, after undergoing a workforce reduction that cut more than 50 jobs locally, Windstream said it had about 1,275 employees in Arkansas and about 13,000 nationwide. The Little Rock-based Fortune 500 broadband provider offers an array of Internet-linked services in mostly rural areas across 18 states on its 150,000-mile broadband network.

    UNITI: FOCUSED ON ‘WORKING THROUGH CHALLENGES’
    Uniti also issued a statement reminding shareholders that Arkansas’ first publicly-held REIT is not a party to litigation involving Windstream. The Little Rock REIT, which owns more than 850 wireless towers and about 5.4 million miles of fiber real estate across the U.S., is still on schedule to report its fourth quarter and year-end earnings on Feb. 28.

    “It is our understanding that Windstream intends to take action and pursue all available options. The validity of our master lease agreement with Windstream was not impacted by the ruling, and access to our network remains critical to Windstream’s operations and its ability to serve its customers,” said Uniti President and CEO Kenny Gunderman. “We are focused on working through the challenges related to the court ruling and continue to be committed to serving the interest of our stockholders, our customers, and our other partners.”

    Still, Uniti’s shares are closely tied to Windstream because the Little Rock telecom is the company’s largest customer and is obligated for more than 60% of its trust’s revenues due to a lease-back agreement with its former parent.

    Windstream inks $1 million per year, five-year employment pact with CEO; stock falls below $1 on credit downgrade
    by Wesley Brown ([email protected]) 10 hours ago 418 views


    One week after a federal judge handed down a ruling that could push Windstream Holdings into default, the Little Rock telecom’s board of directors inked a new five-year employment deal with the company’s chief executive officer even as the rural carrier’s troubled shares enter penny stock territory.

    According to a federal Securities and Exchange Commission 8K filing on Friday (Feb. 22), Windstream and Company President and CEO Tony Thomas entered into an employment agreement that “replaces and supersedes” his previous contract dated Sept. 1, 2017. Under the new terms of the agreement, Thomas will continue to serve as Windstream’s president and CEO, as well as keep his seat on the company’s nine-person board from Feb. 19, 2019 to March 1, 2024.

    Under the five-year pact, subject to annual renewals, Thomas’ annual base salary will not be less than $1,000,000 and his annual bonus target will not be less than 188% of his base salary, which amounts to more than $1.8 million. Following the deal’s signature on Friday, Thomas was also awarded a one-time cash award of $2 million that will vest in three years.

    Thomas, a former Alltel Corp. executive and Windstream CFO who took over the CEO’s role in December 2014, is also eligible to participate in all equity incentive, employee benefits and perquisite plans, programs and arrangements that are provided to other senior executives of Windstream, officials said.

    In the SEC filing, Windstream officials said the terms of the employment pact with Thomas are consistent with his previous employment contract, except that the term has been extended to March 1, 2024 and now includes the company’s operating subsidiary, Windstream Services LLC, as a party.

    Windstream’s board of directors also said that negotiations for the new employment pact began prior to the federal court ruling on Feb. 15 by U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman for the Southern District of New York that the Little Rock Fortune 500 firm had violated bond agreements after splitting off the former Communications Sales & Leasing (CS&L) in April 2015.

    “The Board of Directors initially discussed entering into the agreement in early February at its regularly scheduled quarterly board meeting. The Board of Directors and Mr. Thomas were finalizing the agreement at the time Windstream received a negative court ruling in the Southern District of New York,” the company explained. “Mr. Thomas’ continued leadership and performance are critical to the success of Windstream and provide the continuity and stability needed for the Company to focus on serving customers and all other stakeholders while the Board of Directors and management evaluate Windstream’s options.”

    The Windstream board, which is led by Chairman Alan Wells, a private equity investment banker, said it determined that extending Thomas’ employment is in the best interest of the company and its stakeholders “and confirms both the Board of Directors’ and Mr. Thomas’ long-term commitment and confidence in the future of Windstream.”

    Despite the confidence of the Windstream board of directors, Wall Street analysts, investors, bondholders and credit raters are not as assured that the Little Rock-based rural broadband provider can remain out of bankruptcy court following last’s week federal court decision.

    Furman’s decisive ruling arose from challenges by Aurelius Capital Management and U.S. Bank National Association that the 2015 deal was invalid under the terms of a debt exchange offer and consent solicitations in respect to senior notes issued by its Windstream Services LLC to finance the spinoff of a Little Rock-based REIT, CS&L, which is now known as Uniti Corp. The court further ruled that Aurelius was entitled to a $310.5 million judgement, plus interest from and after July 23, 2018.

    In an unusual statement on Tuesday, Aurelius issued a terse news release that ridiculed the Windstream board and Thomas’ confidence in the telecom’s future prior to the federal court ruling. In a statement mocking Thomas and the Windstream board, Aurelius officials said the Wall Street hedge fund was gratified by the Manhattan federal court’s decision that the company’s senior 6-3/8% notes due 2023 should not have been accelerated.

    “Windstream’s professed ‘surprise’ at Judge Furman’s well-reasoned decision, issued after a multi-day trial and several volumes of exhibits and briefing, has only the modest virtue of consistency to commend it,” Aurelius said in a one-page statement.

    “We take no pleasure in Windstream’s resulting financial predicament. Windstream could easily have averted it – first by not playing fast and loose with its noteholders in 2015, hoping nobody would hold the company to account, and second by settling,” said the Aurelius statement. “Instead, Windstream wasted an exorbitant amount – more than would have been needed to settle with us at the time – on an ineffective exchange offer and then on litigation.”

    MOODY’S: WINDSTREAM’S LIKELIHOOD OF DEFAULT HAS INCREASED
    On Friday, Windstream’s financial woes continued to worsen after Moody’s Investors Service downgraded the corporate family rating (CFR) of Windstream Services to Caa3 from Caa1. The Wall Street credit rating service also downgraded the probability of default rating (PDR) to Caa3-PD from Caa1-PD, noting that both downgrades were prompted by the federal court ruling.

    “Moody’s views this legal outcome for Windstream as a negative that increases default risk and impairs refinancing actions that might have further strengthened its balance sheet in the intermediate term,” said Neil Mack, vice president and senior analyst for Moody’s Corporate Finance Group.

    Mack also noted while the adverse ruling raises uncertainty, including the possibility of a restructuring or bankruptcy filing, Windstream indicated it was continuing to evaluate its options, including post-trial motions and an appeal.

    “However, Moody’s believes the likelihood of default has increased following the Court ruling. Moody’s believes Windstream’s efforts to resolve this adverse ruling in its favor and adequately address near-term maturities and liquidity needs will be difficult,” said Mack. “While the ongoing dispute remains unresolved, Windstream may encounter difficulties accessing funds to refinance its debt maturities, most notably the company’s $1.03 billion drawn revolving credit facility expiring April 24, 2020 and $78 million unsecured notes maturing October 15, 2020.”

    That ability to raise capital and improve cash flow could also be further impeded by the weeklong collapse of Windstream’s stock. At Tuesday’s (Feb. 19) closing bell, Windstream shares had lost nearly two-thirds of their value as the company’s stock declined by a whopping 61%, or $2.06, at only $1.31 on the NASDAQ stock exchange.

    By Friday, the Little Rock-based Fortune 500 telecom’s stock had slumped well below $1, declining 10 cents at 85 cents as more than 6.56 million shares traded hands. Under NASDAQ rules, Windstream stock must remain at or above $1 for 30 days to stay listed on the exchange.

    Uniti, the publicly held real estate investment trust (REIT) that split off from Windstream nearly four years ago, has also lost more than half of its market value in the past week. The company’s shares are closely tied to Windstream because the Little Rock telecom is the company’s largest customer and is obligated for more than 60% of its revenues due to a lease-back agreement with its former parent firm.

    At Friday’s close, Uniti’s stock ended the week at $9.23 on the Nasdaq, down 76 cents or 7.6%, with trading volume of 19.5 million shares. Since the federal court ruling on Feb. 15, the Little Rock REIT’s stock has declined 53.8%.

    Meanwhile, Windstream has postponed its fourth quarter and yearly earnings report until March 18. Uniti is expected to report its fourth quarter and year-end 2018 financials after the close of market on Thursday, Feb. 28.

    Windstream to file for bankruptcy
    by Talk Business & Politics staff ([email protected]) 18 hours ago 1,176 views


    Windstream Holdings Inc. said Monday (Feb. 25) that it plans to enter Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection immediately as the Little Rock-based rural telecom provider deals with the fallout of an adverse federal court ruling on Feb. 15.

    The Little Rock-based Fortune 500 telecom said in a statement that it and its subsidiaries have filed voluntary petitions for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. They will use the court-supervised process to address debt maturities that have been accelerated as a result of the recent decision by Judge Jesse Furman in the Southern District of New York against subsidiary Windstream Services LLC, it said.

    Chapter 11 bankruptcy allows a business to file a reorganization plan for its debt over a 120-day period.

    “Following a comprehensive review of our options, including an appeal, the Board of Directors and management team determined that filing for voluntary Chapter 11 protection is a necessary step to address the financial impact of Judge Furman’s decision and the impact it would have on consumers and businesses across the states in which we operate,” said Tony Thomas, president and chief executive officer of Windstream.

    “Taking this proactive step will ensure that Windstream has access to the capital and resources we need to continue building on Windstream’s strong operational momentum while we engage in constructive discussions with our creditors regarding the terms of a consensual plan of reorganization. We acted decisively to secure the long-term financial stability of Windstream, and we are confident that, upon completion of the reorganization process, we will be even better positioned to invest in our business, expand our speed and capabilities for our customers and compete for the long term.

    Thomas continued: “I want to express my appreciation for the continued focus of the entire Windstream team as well as the loyalty and patience of our customers, vendors, channel partners and other stakeholders. With approval from the Court, we will continue paying our employees, maintaining our relationships with our vendors and business partners and serving our customers as usual. We remain committed to providing critical voice and data services and ensuring customers realize the maximum benefit in transitioning to next-generation technology solutions and premium broadband services.”

    The publicly-traded telecom, which has nearly 1,500 employees in Arkansas and 13,000 nationwide, is seeking bankruptcy protection amid a lightning-fast collapse of investor and shareholder confidence in the company’s future over the past week.

    On Monday, Windstream’s shares had declined to only 65 cents, a 52-week low, as news of the company’s pending bankruptcy filing filtered throughout Wall Street. Over the past 10 days, the Little Rock-based Fortune 500 telecom’s shares have lost nearly 80% of their market value after Windstream’s board of directors pushed out a public statement saying the company is mulling its options going forward.

    Under NASDAQ rules, Windstream stock must remain at or above $1 for 30 days to stay listed on the exchange. Following the 2015 spinoffs of Little Rock-based REIT and a $1.1 billion acquisition of Atlanta-based Earthlink Holdings in 2017, Windstream now has outstanding debt of $5.81 billion on the books.

    In conjunction with the Chapter 11 filing, Windstream said it has received a commitment from Citigroup Global Markets Inc. for $1 billion in debtor-in-possession (“DIP”) financing. Following approval by the court, this financing, combined with access to the cash generated by the company’s ongoing operations, will be available to meet Windstream’s operational needs and continue operating its business as usual.

    The Arkansas publicly traded concern, which split off from the former Alltel Corp. in 2007, said it has filed a number of customary first day motions. These motions will allow the company to continue to operate in the normal course of business without interruption or disruption to its relationships with its customers, vendors, channel partners and employees, officials said. Company officials said they expect to receive federal court approval for these requests and intend to pay vendors in full for all goods received and services provided to Windstream after the filing date.

    The bankruptcy caps a roiling week of speculation after a court ruling on Feb. 15 by U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman for the Southern District of New York that ruled Windstream violated bond agreements after splitting off the former Communications Sales & Leasing (CS&L) in April 2015.

    Furman’s decisive ruling arose from challenges by Aurelius Capital Management and U.S. Bank National Association that the 2015 deal was invalid under the terms of a debt exchange offer and consent solicitations in respect to senior notes issued by its Windstream Services LLC to finance the spinoff of a Little Rock-based REIT, CS&L, which is now known as Uniti Corp. The court further ruled that Aurelius was entitled to a $310.5 million judgment, plus interest from and after July 23, 2018.

    Immediately, investors and financial analysts wondered if Windstream could cobble together the judgment, would appeal the ruling, or file for bankruptcy protection.

    Windstream’s financial woes worsened on Friday (Feb. 22) after Moody’s Investors Service downgraded the corporate family rating (CFR) of Windstream Services to Caa3 from Caa1. The Wall Street credit rating service also downgraded the probability of default rating (PDR) to Caa3-PD from Caa1-PD, noting that both downgrades were prompted by the federal court ruling.

    Read more on the last week of news from Windstream at this link.
     
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  17. fuxstockings

    fuxstockings Wayne Tinkle and the Beavers
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    fuck Windstream those rural area Monopoly having fucks
     
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  18. Bishop

    Bishop Future Member
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    Use to work with a bunch of people who had to use Windstream felt so bad for them. They would have Fiber Optics running up a main road but didn't have it running to the neighborhood roads so nobody had access to it.
     
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  19. Prospector

    Prospector I am not a new member
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    Cornyn less popular than Cruz in Texas: poll
    By John Bowden - 02/26/19 01:58 PM EST 28


    [​IMG]
    © Greg Nash
    Texas's senior senator, John Cornyn (R), has a lower approval rating in his home state than Sen. Ted Cruz (R- Texas), who narrowly won reelection in 2018's midterm elections, according to a new poll.

    The Quinnipiac University poll released Tuesday found that 43 percent of Texas voters say they approve of the job Cornyn is doing in Washington, compared to 51 percent who said the same about Cruz.

    More voters had no opinion about Cornyn's job performance than Cruz's, pollsters found, suggesting that fewer of them know the senior senator and his legislative record in the upper chamber.

    Cornyn's disapproval ratings were notably much lower than Cruz's: 26 percent of Texas voters disapprove of his performance, compared to 40 percent who disapprove of Cruz's performance.

    The poll comes as former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D), who lost narrowly to Cruz in November, has said he is considering a run for the White House in 2020 and has been pressured to challenge Cornyn in Texas.

    "I'm trying to figure out how I can best serve this country — where I can do the greatest good for the United States of America. So, yeah, I'm thinking through that and it, you know, may involve running for the presidency. It may involve something else," O'Rourke said earlier this month when asked whether he would challenge the senior Texas senator.

    "I won't be limited by, you know, the end of this month. But I expect to be able to get to a decision by the end of this month," he added at the time.

    Quinnipiac's poll of 1,222 Texas voters was conducted between Feb. 20-25. It has a margin of error of 3.4 percentage points.
     
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  20. jrmy

    jrmy For bookings contact Morgan at 702-374-3735
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    God I'd love to turn Texas's senate seats purple for 6 years
     
  21. Can I Spliff it

    Can I Spliff it Is Butterbean okay?
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  22. Truman

    Truman Well-Known Member
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    The second half of this video is an outstanding clowning of Prager U

     
    #12875 Truman, Mar 5, 2019
    Last edited: Mar 5, 2019
  23. timo

    timo g'day, mate
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  24. Bruce Wayne

    Bruce Wayne Billionaire Playboy
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    Paying a hospital in general to have a baby is a crock of shit
     
  25. Can I Spliff it

    Can I Spliff it Is Butterbean okay?
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  26. Can I Spliff it

    Can I Spliff it Is Butterbean okay?
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    lol just see it or don't. Sorry that some people want to think critically about their movies but lol at it effecting whether or not you will see it
     
  27. Name P. Redacted

    Name P. Redacted I have no money and I'm also gay
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    Pat Sajak sure is a whiny cunt for someone who makes millions and works a few weeks a year.
     
  28. ~ taylor ~

    ~ taylor ~ Well-Known Member
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    Trebek getting cancer while Sajak whines about political correctness is just more proof that god doesn't exist.
     
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  29. Can I Spliff it

    Can I Spliff it Is Butterbean okay?
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  30. Truman

    Truman Well-Known Member
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    If nothing else - "Democratic Socialism" is bad branding for all the reasons we're seeing. Idk what else you'd call it, but these ideas arent really all that socialistic by definition.
     
  31. timo

    timo g'day, mate
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    How about "going to the ER and ending up with a Dr. who is out of network shouldn't mean you have to survive on cat food for the next 9 years-ism"
    :twocents:
     
  32. Mister Me Too

    Mister Me Too Well-Known Member
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    If you call it something else it will still be bad branding because the few control the vehicles used to communicate the message.
     
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  33. timo

    timo g'day, mate
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    Jesus, maybe we should have a talk about how many fucking pesticides we use and how we're testing them.
     
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  34. brolift

    brolift 2sweet
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    Y'all's thoughts on Marx's alienation theory and its relation to the NZ shooting?
     
  35. Bruce Wayne

    Bruce Wayne Billionaire Playboy
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    Oh my god that is digusting

    :theswarm:
     
  36. Prospector

    Prospector I am not a new member
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    Shitposting, Inspirational Terrorism, and the Christchurch Mosque Massacre - bellingcat
    [​IMG]
    bellingcat.com/news/r...
    I don't know what bellingcat.com is
    Shitposting, Inspirational Terrorism, and the Christchurch Mosque Massacre
    March 15, 2019

    By Robert Evans

    On Friday, March 15th, one or more gunmen opened fire in two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. As I write this, three men and one woman have been taken into custody by local law enforcement. It is unclear to what extent they were all involved. The only thing we know is that one of the shooters went by the name Brenton Tarrant on Twitter. He posted pictures of the murder weapons there two days before the rampage. Said weapons are clearly visible in the video of the spree he livestreamed to Facebook.

    Shortly after the spree ended, New Zealand Police Commissioner Mike Bush confirmed that several improvised explosive devices had been disarmed by authorities. If those devices were meant as some kind of booby trap, they were not the only trap “Brenton” left behind. Immediately before carrying out his spree, he posted links to a manifesto on Twitter:

    [​IMG]
    In “The Great Replacement” repeats a variety of “white genocide” talking points, and claims his murder of several dozen Muslims is because they are “invaders” outbreeding the white race. All the evidence we have suggests these are, more or less, the shooter’s beliefs.

    But this manifesto is a trap itself, laid for journalists searching for the meaning behind this horrific crime. There is truth in there, and valuable clues to the shooter’s radicalization, but it is buried beneath a great deal of, for lack of a better word, “shitposting”.

    What is Shitposting?

    Shitposting is the act of throwing out huge amounts of content, most of it ironic, low-quality trolling, for the purpose of provoking an emotional reaction in less Internet-savvy viewers. The ultimate goal is to derail productive discussion and distract readers. “The Great Replacement” is a clear and brutally obvious example of this technique.

    In his manifesto, Brenton credits far-right personality Candace Owens with beginning his radicalization. He states that, “Each time she spoke I was stunned by her insights and her own views helped push me further and further into the belief of violence over meekness. Though I will have to disavow some of her beliefs, the extreme actions she calls for are too much, even for my tastes.”

    This detail was picked up instantly by many people online. Owens herself issued a response that seemed almost calculated to generate rage from those on the left:

    [​IMG]
    But in the context of the shooter’s online presence, and the rest of his manifesto, this was almost certainly misdirection. Here is what the author wrote immediately below the section crediting Owens for his radicalization. In it, he jokes that “Spyro the Dragon 3”, a video game, taught him “ethno-nationalism”.

    [​IMG]
    It is possible, even likely that the author was a fan of Owens’s videos: she certainly espouses anti-immigrant rhetoric. But in context seems likely that his references to Owens were calculated to spark division, and perhaps even violence, between the left and the right. At multiple points in the manifesto the author expresses the hope that his massacre will spark further attempts at gun control in the United States, which he believes will lead to gun confiscation and a civil war. He believes this civil war would be the best opportunity destroy the American “melting pot”. This idea is repeated often enough that it seems to be something the author legitimately believes in.

    Given the tone surrounding the Candace Owens passage, it seems clear that it was “bait”, thrown out to attract attention on social media and sow further political division. The entire manifesto is dotted, liberally, with references to memes and Internet in-jokes that only the extremely online would get. For example, take this passage from his Q&A:

    [​IMG]
    He goes on to repeat, at length, the Navy SEAL Copypasta, a humorous meme that originated on 4chan circa 2010. The whole manifesto is dotted with little bits like that. They are meant to distract attention from his more honest points, and to draw the attention of his real intended audience.

    This Was An Act of Inspirational Terrorism

    Before beginning his bloody spree, the Christchurch shooter- presumably the same person who wrote the manifesto- announced his intentions to 8chan’s /pol/ board. He opened by saying that it is “time to stop shitposting and time to make a real life effort”.

    [​IMG]
    Now there are some things the author truly believes, and those things are not hidden- although they are less obvious than his statements about Candace Owens. For one thing, the shooter repeatedly references Oswald Mosley. Mosley was the founder of the British Union of Fascists, a political party in the 1930s that sought to return England to a state of “autarchy”, or complete financial and cultural independence from the rest of the world. The author’s violent anti-immigrant rhetoric jibes completely with this. Mosley is not an entirely obscure figure, but he is also not a particularly prominent thinker in the 21st century right wing.

    The words painted on the shooter’s rifle offer further clues as to his ideology:

    [​IMG]
    The 14s, which are repainted in several locations on his weapons, are a reference to the “fourteen words” written by jailed neo-Nazi bank robber David Lane: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.” Lane was a member of a neo-Nazi terrorist group named The Order, which was inspired by a group of the same name in a White Nationalist fiction book titled The Turner Diaries. In The Turner Diaries, The Order succeeds in sparking a vicious sectarian civil war in the United States through a series of deadly terrorist attacks. This gels with the author’s repeated references to sparking internecine conflict in the United States.

    The author does not claim membership to any specific far-right group, and also denies being a Neo-Nazi. Instead, he expresses a sort of allegiance- and ideological sympathy, to several other mass shooters, including Dylann Roof and Anders Breivik. He claims to have been in contact with Breivik, and that the Norwegian mass-shooter’s manifesto was his “true inspiration”.

    [​IMG]
    Breivik’s manifesto has provided inspiration to a number of far-right killers and would-be killers, most recently Coast Guard Lieutenant Christopher Hasson. The author repeatedly states his hope that his spree, and his manifesto, inspires other people to kill.

    And that brings us back to 8chan. In addition to sewing discord and creating confusion, the Christchurch shooter’s repeated references to memes and in-jokes were him playing to this very specific crowd. The streamed video of his massacre begins with him telling viewers to “Subscribe to PewDiePie”. This is a reference to yet another fringe Internet meme. Yet another dumb, trollish move calculated to please the other shitposters on 8chan.

    And how did they respond to this massacre?

    [​IMG]
    Over and over again, through page after page of posts, anons celebrated this mass murder by one of their own.

    [​IMG]
    Most of the (very few) negative remarks found in the thread are from people, like one of the above posters, who fear this spree will mark “the end of 8pol”. The shooter’s frequent use of in-jokes and memes played extremely well with this crowd.

    [​IMG]
    They even remark on his choice of music during his drive to commit the massacre: “Remove Kebab”. The song is from a propaganda music video made by Serb Army soldiers as a tribute to war criminal Radovan Karadžić. (Remove Kebab was also written on one of the shooter’s firearms.)

    [​IMG]
    The shooter seems to have achieved his goal of providing the anons of 8chan with lulz, and with inspiration. One user hailed him as “the next Breivik”. And before much more than an hour had passed, there were already calls for other anons to follow in his bloody footsteps.
    [​IMG]
    many of the 45 comments are interesting
     
    Eamudo229 likes this.
  37. Can I Spliff it

    Can I Spliff it Is Butterbean okay?
    Donor

    Bellingcat is real good and was often cited in the middle east thread for a lpt of intelligence content
     
  38. Bruce Wayne

    Bruce Wayne Billionaire Playboy
    Donor
    Michigan Wolverines

  39. Bruce Wayne

    Bruce Wayne Billionaire Playboy
    Donor
    Michigan Wolverines

  40. Prospector

    Prospector I am not a new member
    Donor
    Utah UtesArkansas Razorbacks

    from dk
    wtf, but not surprised
    Command Sergeant Major with Apparent X-Ray Vision Sees Muslim Soldier’s Hair Through Her Hijab


    [​IMG]
    Sgt. Cesilia Valdovinos (Military Religious Freedom Foundation)
    As reported last week by the Army Times, Newsweek, Religion Dispatches, and numerous other news outlets, both here in the U.S. and internationally, on March 6, while attending a suicide prevention briefing at a base chapel, Sgt. Cesilia Valdovinos was forced to remove her hijab by her superior, Command Sgt. Maj. Kerstin Montoya, an egregious violation of her religious rights and a humiliating experience for a woman of the Muslim faith.

    According to Sgt. Valdovinos, who has an eyewitness who has corroborated her account and has offered to submit to a polygraph, Command Sgt. Maj. Montoya pulled her arm, saying, “You come with me,” and then ordered her to remove “that,”pointing at her hijab. Valdovinos asked Montoya if she was allowed to give that order, and when Montoya responded that she was, Valdovinos, not wanting to get in trouble for disrespecting a superior, removed the outer part of her hijab, leaving the undercap, which contained her hair. Command Sgt. Maj. Montoya then said “no, all the way off” and when Valdovinos removed the undercap told her to turn around. After putting her hijab back on, Montoya said to Valdovinos, “mmhmm” and to “get out of here.”

    Nothing was said about Valdovinos’s hair at the time of the incident. It was only after Valdovinos, on the advice of a Muslim chaplain, contacted the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) that Fort Carson officials issued the following statement claiming that the reason Command Sgt. Maj. Montoya demanded that Valdovinos’s hair was “visibly out of regulation.”

    “According to sources who were present, Sgt. Valdovinos’ hair was visibly out of regulation…. At no time did the senior non-commissioned officer touch Sgt. Valdovinos. The senior NCO did ask the Soldier to remove her hijab in order to verify whether or not her hair was within regulation. Upon removing the hijab, the Soldier’s leadership discovered that Sgt. Valdovinos’ hair was completely down, which is not allowed while in uniform. The senior NCO told Sgt. Valdovinos to put her hair back in regulation and to not let it happen again.”

    But, as Paul Rosenberg at Religion Dispatches points out, if Sgt. Valdovinos’s hair were already “visibly out of regulation” before she removed her hijab, there would have been no need for Command Sgt. Maj. Montoya to order Valdovinos to remove her hijab to see whether or not her hair was out of regulation.

    According to Sgt. Valdovinos and her eyewitness, her hair was not visibly out of regulation until she was forced to remove her hijab, which caused her hair to fall down and become out of regulation.

    Unless Command Sgt. Maj. Montoya has x-ray vision, she would not have been able to see Sgt. Valdovinos’s hair under her hijab.

    According to MRFF president Mikey Weinstein:

    “It appears to be a case of pure anti-Muslim harassment. They’re facing a formal EEO complaint. This was their chance to do the right thing. And if they don’t, among other things, we will file a formal complaint with the US Civil Rights Commission in Washington. We will take it out of DOD’s hands.”
     
    Anison and JeremyLambsFace like this.