US Politics

[Tracker]

GOP Governor Nominee: Having Baby Could Be 'Healing' For Teen Rape Victims 

Michigan candidate Tudor Dixon has said she would not support legal abortion for a hypothetical 14-year-old rape survivor.  Michigan’s Republican gubernatorial nominee said she does not support abortion being legal even for child rape victims, suggesting that having the baby could be “healing.”

In a segment aired Friday, Fox 2 news anchor Roop Raj asked Tudor Dixon, who has been vocal about her anti-abortion views, where she stands “when it comes to rape, incest and life of the mother.”
Dixon said she supports exceptions if a woman’s life is in danger, though she added that the “health of the mother and life of the mother are two different things.” Raj then asked specifically about rape and incest, providing the hypothetical example of a 14-year-old girl who has been raped.

“Why not allow that person to have an abortion?” he asked.

Dixon replied that her stance came from talking to rape survivors who have given birth, as well as people who are the children of rape survivors.

“I’ve talked to those people who were the child of a rape victim, and the bond that those two people made, and the fact that out of that tragedy there was healing through that baby — it’s something that we don’t think about,” she said.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/tudor-dixon-abortion-rape-healing_n_63012ce6e4b035629bfb84f4

[Tracker]

11 minutes ago, Mark F said:

program tonight worth watching:

CNN SPECIAL REPORT RISING HATE: ANTISEMITISM IN AMERICA

Reported by CNN’s Dana Bash, Airs Sunday, August 21st at 9pmET

Antisemitism is finding new and terrifying footing in American society. Though it has always existed, this ancient hatred has grown in recent years, moving from fringe groups and obscure chatrooms to the mainstream, both online and on the streets of communities across the country. With white nationalists radicalized online perpetrating deadly shootings, and insidious conspiracy theories and tropes normalized by political leaders, CNN Anchor and Chief Political Correspondent Dana Bash takes an in depth look for a CNN Special Report Rising Hate: Antisemitism in America.

I don't understand why Jewish billionaires like the Kochs, Sheldon Adelson, support the Republican party, which harbours  many virulent Nazi extremists.

course the Kochs care only about themselves, so not surprising in their case. 

There have always been and probably always will be those in any group who will side with an aggressor to benefit themselves, if only in theory. There were Jews (mostly lawyers, alas) who helped the Nazis round up other Jews in Germany and elsewhere on the promise that they themselves and their families would be spared. However, as soon as their usefulness was at an end, they were put ontot he trains to Dachau.

In wartime England, Edward the 8th, who abdicated to marry and American divorcee, let the Germans know that he was willing to be their puppet ruler of England should they decide to conquer it. So it is in modern-day America. This is directly connected to Blacks, Hispanics, Semites, Asians Jews and women who support Trump and all he stands for to gain privilege for themselves and doom everyone else.

And BTW: one of the Koch brothers died about a year ago, so he has gone to his "reward". Hope he dressed lightly.

Edited August 21, 2022 by Tracker

[Mark F]

3 hours ago, Tracker said:

Hope he dressed lightly.

😂

@the watcher

my library has this book, so just requested it. good reviews.

"The Death of Democracy: Hitler's Rise to Power and the Downfall of the Weimar Republic Hardcover – Illustrated, April 3 2018 

by  Benjamin Carter Hett"

 

a riveting account of how the Nazi Party came to power and how the failures of the Weimar Republic and the shortsightedness of German politicians allowed it to happen.

Why did democracy fall apart so quickly and completely in Germany in the 1930s? How did a democratic government allow Adolf Hitler to seize power? In The Death of Democracy, Benjamin Carter Hett answers these questions, and the story he tells has disturbing resonances for our own time.

To say that Hitler was elected is too simple. He would never have come to power if Germany’s leading politicians had not responded to a spate of populist insurgencies by trying to co-opt him, a strategy that backed them into a corner from which the only way out was to bring the Nazis in. Hett lays bare the misguided confidence of conservative politicians who believed that Hitler and his followers would willingly support them, not recognizing that their efforts to use the Nazis actually played into Hitler’s hands. They had willingly given him the tools to turn Germany into a vicious dictatorship.

Benjamin Carter Hett is a leading scholar of twentieth-century Germany and a gifted storyteller whose portraits of these feckless politicians show how fragile democracy can be when those in power do not respect it. He offers a powerful lesson for today, when democracy once again finds itself embattled and the siren song of strongmen sounds ever louder."

definitely sounds a lot like usa right now.  misguided politicians.

ie.....Joe Biden, who said McConnell is an honourable man.

edit

this is very humorous... Rick Scott at work. hang on to your wallet 😂

 

National Republican Senatorial Committee funds declined to just $28.4 million by the end of June. (Photo: Manuel Augusto Moreno via Getty Images)

"A number of Republican strategists and consultants are growing increasingly dismayed about millions of dollars vanishing at the National Republican Senatorial Committee — just when the funds are needed most, The Washington Post reported Friday."

yahoo news. 

LOL.  

https://www.yahoo.com/news/republicans-demand-know-happened-vanishing-141539162.html

 

Edited August 21, 2022 by Mark F

[TrueBlue4ever]

5 hours ago, Tracker said:

Apparently you CAN fool some of the people all of the time. And they will pay handsomely for the privilege of being conned.

 

Just exchange “Republican” for “white” and “Democrat” for coloured”. 

[Tracker]

52 minutes ago, TrueBlue4ever said:

 

Just exchange “Republican” for “white” and “Democrat” for coloured”. 

This is a correct attribution, but it is to be remembered that this was a form of atonement for LBJ:

For two decades in Congress he was a reliable member of the Southern bloc, helping to stonewall civil rights legislation. As [biographer Robert] Caro recalls, Johnson spent the late 1940s railing against the “hordes of barbaric yellow dwarves” in East Asia. Buying into the stereotype that blacks were afraid of snakes (who isn’t afraid of snakes?) he’d drive to gas stations with one in his trunk and try to trick black attendants into opening it. Once, Caro writes, the stunt nearly ended with him being beaten with a tire iron.

[Goalie]

I don't really believe in God exactly but... honestly I hope Heaven and Hell are real cuz some of these POS people deserve to burn 

[Fatty Liver]

8 hours ago, the watcher said:

It's still shocking to read the details of what went and is still going on . How the US teeters on the edge. It is in some ways fascinating ( not in a good way ) for someone who enjoys history, to watch a country slide into outright fascism. I was always interested in how the German people ,the country as a whole slid into backing  Nazism. Just like this I suppose. Bit by bit. What is normal now would have been shocking 10 years ago.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/20/rusty-bowers-interview-trump-arizona-republicans

There are many documentary series on You Tube that explain how this happened, some of the best ones are German produced.

The Timeline series is very good.

I find the subject fascinating, but not sure I see a direct connection to what's happening in the US, as it takes a large majority of a population to fall in line and fanatically follow one maniac to destruction.  I still believe a vast majority of Americans would choose not to follow.

[Tracker]

2 hours ago, Fatty Liver said:

There are many documentary series on You Tube that explain how this happened, some of the best ones are German produced.

The Timeline series is very good.

I find the subject fascinating, but not sure I see a direct connection to what's happening in the US, as it takes a large majority of a population to fall in line and fanatically follow one maniac to destruction.  I still believe a vast majority of Americans would choose not to follow.

In a Sociology class I took in the early 1980's, we spent the whole time looking at the roots of the Nazi emergence in 1920's- 1930's and how it related to the typical German family life and values of that era. We did not compare it to the Reagn-Bush-Trump era but in retrospect, it sure as hell does. 

[Tracker]

Michael Cohen Predicts Trump To Use Files To Blackmail FBI

Michael Cohen makes wildly impossible-sounding predictions which then come true. Michael Cohen promised Congress that Trump would never peacefully give up power while we said, “Yes, but he’ll have no choice but to peacefully give up power.” We were wrong. So when Michael Cohen says that Trump is going to try to blackmail the FBI to keep himself out of jail. We should probably at least consider that it is a possibility, no matter how absurd it sounds.

“He’s gonna use it as a get out of jail free card. It’s a way to extort America turn around to say if you put me in jail, if you go after me — he’ll even say his children — I will have my loyal supporters who you do not know who has copies of information that may have been, and again this is my conjecture, that i would take those documents, I will release them to Iran, to China, to North Korea, to Russia. You want to take me down? I’ll take the whole country down.”

“Remember, and I’ve said this with you 1000 times, Mike, Donald Trump doesn’t care about this country. He doesn’t care about anyone or anything other than himself.”

It does sound like perfect Trumpian logic. And it may very well be what Trump plans to do with the files, though it seems unlikely that he would only use them for that purpose. They are, after all, worth a lot of money. But it would be a fairly bad calculation on Trump’s part.

There is a dawning awareness and appreciation now that this is more than domestic law enforcement and political problem. Given that the entire international community knows that these documents pertained to American nuclear secrets, this is a global stability concern, as well. Even if Trump threatened to release the documents through his own contacts if arrested, the FBI would know that Trump could release some or all of those documents down the road anyway, perhaps just selling them.

[WildPath]

2 hours ago, Fatty Liver said:

There are many documentary series on You Tube that explain how this happened, some of the best ones are German produced.

The Timeline series is very good.

I find the subject fascinating, but not sure I see a direct connection to what's happening in the US, as it takes a large majority of a population to fall in line and fanatically follow one maniac to destruction.  I still believe a vast majority of Americans would choose not to follow.

I don't find it a perfect match for what is happening in the states either, but it is the clearest example I can think of in seeing a type of mass-following of what from the outside seems obviously flawed, and in the case of the US, just outright stupid and lacking any logic.

@Mark FI've posted it somewhere on these forms before, but I found Authoritarian Nightmare: Trump and his Followers to be a good read. It more looks at the psychology of the followers and how they can champion a guy like Trump and hold the views they do. Previously I didn't know how anyone in their right mind could be a support Trump. Turns out that I just had to modify my definition of "right mind".

One of the authors was a U of M psych prof and his son was an MLA.

[Mark F]

11 hours ago, Tracker said:

Michael Cohen Predicts Trump To Use Files To Blackmail FBI

Michael Cohen should be listened to.  
 

and Trump, for all the blathering and analysing him, he is not complicated.

devoid of morals,, ethics, boundaries;  whatever helps him the most, he will do that.  If it involves making others suffer... even better.

look what he did with covid, sacrificed hundreds of thousands of people, to help himself.

blackmail?  Hold the country hostage?  of course. then sell the information anyway.

wierd how this kind of immoral sadist ends up in power so frequently. world wide.

 

Edited August 22, 2022 by Mark F

[Mark H.]

21 minutes ago, Mark F said:

look what he did with covid, sacrificed hundreds of thousands of people, to help himself.

Vaccine roll out and availability in the US, was quite a bit better than it was in Canada.

[Mark F]

Just now, Mark H. said:

Vaccine roll out and availability in the US, was quite a bit better than it was in Canada.

I guess you are unaware of Trump's record on covid.

[blue_gold_84]

2 minutes ago, Mark H. said:

Vaccine roll out and availability in the US, was quite a bit better than it was in Canada.

How was it quite a bit better?

[Goldkobra]

1 hour ago, Mark F said:

Michael Cohen should be listened to.  
 

and Trump, for all the blathering and analysing him, he is not complicated.

devoid of morals,, ethics, boundaries;  whatever helps him the most, he will do that.  If it involves making others suffer... even better.

look what he did with covid, sacrificed hundreds of thousands of people, to help himself.

blackmail?  Hold the country hostage?  of course. then sell the information anyway.

wierd how this kind of immoral sadist ends up in power so frequently. world wide.

 

It's not that weird. Nice people with morals and character don't get into politics. 

[the watcher]

12 minutes ago, Goldkobra said:

It's not that weird. Nice people with morals and character don't get into politics. 

I disagree. There are many politicians who enter politics for all the right reasons. Sometimes their beliefs are different  from Our own personal beliefs so we assume they are corrupt, not nice...... Sometimes they are shoved to the side by those in power or with more political punch. Sometimes when good politicians are in politics to long they slowly slide into corruption .But there are good ones.

But there are some that have neither good morals or character right off the bat. I would suggest the state of current US politics weeds out the good ones real quick and discards them on the trash heap pretty quick.

[the watcher]

15 hours ago, Fatty Liver said:

There are many documentary series on You Tube that explain how this happened, some of the best ones are German produced.

The Timeline series is very good.

I find the subject fascinating, but not sure I see a direct connection to what's happening in the US, as it takes a large majority of a population to fall in line and fanatically follow one maniac to destruction.  I still believe a vast majority of Americans would choose not to follow.

I think it's close to making that connection . I watched that timeline episode. It's good.. I also watched a Netflix series Hitler's Cicle of Evil that was an interesting look into the whole Nazi power group. The relationships between both them and Hitler and the relationships with each other is fascinating.  I also saw a connection or a mirroring with Trump and his group. 

The mass psychosis ( not sure if that's the term I need ) of a population  is again a fascination for me. How does an entire population buy in ? Or at least buy in enough to allow it to happen ? ( maybe thats a better comparable in the US ). How were millions of soldiers in WW1 convinced to live in a rat infested, urine, blood and gut  soaked , sub human hole then climb out and run straight into machine gun fire ? Voluntarily !  What made the depression of the 1930s last 10 years ? A 10 year period that scarred the lives of millions for the rest of their days. ( very pertinent for the discussion of Nazi Germany ). As a species we tend to run with the herd I guess.

 

[Mark H.]

1 hour ago, blue_gold_84 said:

How was it quite a bit better?

If I'd been living in ND or SD, I could've gotten jabbed quite a bit sooner. Eg. Walmarts had a steady suoply of vaccine. 

[Wideleft]

1 hour ago, Mark H. said:

If I'd been living in ND or SD, I could've gotten jabbed quite a bit sooner. Eg. Walmarts had a steady suoply of vaccine. 

In SD, it might be because the Governor denied COVID was a risk

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/19/kristi-noem-trump-strategy-denial-covid-ravages-south-dakota

until there was money in it.

https://www.salon.com/2021/03/04/south-dakota-gov-kristi-noems-family-got-600000-in-covid-relief-grants/

[Mark F]

51 minutes ago, Wideleft said:

SD, it might be because the Governor denied COVID was a risk

fully vaccinated south dakota march 2021... 18 % 😂

ohttps://www.google.ca/search?q=covid+19+vaccination+rate+south+dakota&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-ca&client=safari

still... 63 %. morons.

lot of unused vaccinations available at walmart. down south dakota way.

I remember when the Sturgis rally went ahead, with no covid restrictions, in the middle of the worst of it... and was proven to be a vector for outbreaks all over the  midwest.

Edited August 22, 2022 by Mark F

[blue_gold_84]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/covid-anthony-fauci-retirement-1.6558425

Quote

Dr. Anthony Fauci, his nation's top infectious disease expert who became a household name — and the subject of partisan attacks — during the COVID-19 pandemic, announced Monday he will depart the U.S. federal government in December after more than five decades of service.

Fauci, who serves as President Joe Biden's chief medical adviser, has been the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and chief of the NIAID Laboratory of Immunoregulation. He was a leader in the federal response to HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases even before the coronavirus hit.

"I will be leaving these positions in December of this year to pursue the next chapter of my career," Fauci, 81, said in a statement, calling those roles "the honour of a lifetime."

Fauci became the face of the government response to COVID-19 as it hit in early 2020, with frequent appearances on television news and at daily press conferences with White House officials, including then-President Donald Trump. But as the pandemic deepened, Fauci fell out of favour with Trump and his officials when his urgings of continued public caution clashed with the former president's desire to return to normalcy and to promote unproven therapies for the virus.

Fauci found himself marginalized by the Trump administration, increasingly kept out of major decisions about the federal response, but he continued to speak out publicly in media interviews, advocating physical distancing and face coverings in public settings before the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccines.

He was also the subject of political attacks and death threats and was granted a security detail for his protection.

[WildPath]

8 minutes ago, Mark F said:

fully vaccinated south dakota march 2021... 18 % 😂

ohttps://www.google.ca/search?q=covid+19+vaccination+rate+south+dakota&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-ca&client=safari

still... 63 %. morons.

lot of unused vaccinations available at walmart. down south dakota way.

I remember when the Sturgis rally went ahead, with no covid restrictions, in the middle of the worst of it... and was proven to be a vector for outbreaks all over the  midwest.

Covid was politicized in the US and regarding Covid restrictions and getting vaccinated became a political choice more than a health choice (remember the whole Trump refusing to wear a mask thing, ugh). Politicians aligned themselves according to how they could proper. We've seen the same in Canada (and still are), but to a smaller degree. Disregarding the health impacts, the mismanagement and politicization of the pandemic has cost the US economy much more than the impact we've seen in Canada.

[Wideleft]

11 minutes ago, Mark F said:

fully vaccinated south dakota march 2021... 18 % 😂

ohttps://www.google.ca/search?q=covid+19+vaccination+rate+south+dakota&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-ca&client=safari

still... 63 %. morons.

lot of unused vaccinations available at walmart. down south dakota way.

I remember when the Sturgis rally went ahead, with no covid restrictions, in the middle of the worst of it... and was proven to be a vector for outbreaks all over the  midwest.

Sturgis and this stupity.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-mount-rushmore-controversy-fireworks-personal-fascination/story?id=71595321

 

[the watcher]

50 minutes ago, Wideleft said:

Sturgis and this stupity.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-mount-rushmore-controversy-fireworks-personal-fascination/story?id=71595321

 

“Our nation is witnessing a merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values and indoctrinate our children," Trump said. " ... Their goal is not a better America. Their goal is to end America."

Or as I like to call it " telling the truth " about their history. 

 

[Mark H.]

3 hours ago, WildPath said:

Covid was politicized in the US and regarding Covid restrictions and getting vaccinated became a political choice more than a health choice (remember the whole Trump refusing to wear a mask thing, ugh). Politicians aligned themselves according to how they could proper. We've seen the same in Canada (and still are), but to a smaller degree. Disregarding the health impacts, the mismanagement and politicization of the pandemic has cost the US economy much more than the impact we've seen in Canada.

Yes. Both Trump and Biden handed out stimulus cheques to pretty much everyone, whether they needed them or not.