US 2024 Presidential Election

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Bedinsis

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I think this at minimum calls for an investigation into how ICE conducts their business. In less than a month two people not posing a threat have been killed by ICE agents.
 

tstorm823

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You know they were not, but your sole concern here is the honour of the government spokespeople.
My sole concern here is the accuracy of your perspective. All you have to do is say the truth without exaggeration.
 

Silvanus

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My sole concern here is the accuracy of your perspective. All you have to do is say the truth without exaggeration.
Then tell me you genuinely believe those were ambiguously "defensive shots".

That were fired into an unarmed man on the ground, the first into his back as he is held down by 5 other men, and the following 10 shots that were fired into his prone body over the course of 6 full seconds.

Tell me you genuinely think it's ambiguous whether they were "defensive shots".
 

tstorm823

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Tell me you genuinely think it's ambiguous whether they were "defensive shots".
Well, they were certainly shots, that's unambiguously true. And defensive is a question of the intention of the shooter, who in the video, looks quite spooked, though not with particularly good justification. I would say there's plenty of ambiguity to handle that.

You should take issue with the manipulative framing, making it sound as though he was actively wielding a gun when they shot him. There's no chance they didn't prepare those statements aware of the misleading implications. It's pretty egregious. But I'm also confident that somewhere someone related to the victim is pondering whether they can sue her for defamation, and a lawyer is telling them they don't have a case, because every part of the statement is carefully crafted to be technically true information.
 

Silvanus

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Well, they were certainly shots, that's unambiguously true. And defensive is a question of the intention of the shooter, who in the video, looks quite spooked, though not with particularly good justification. I would say there's plenty of ambiguity to handle that.
I was wondering if you would degrade yourself like this.

You have used the term "lying" to describe others many times. I had a quick peruse, and you are not shy with that description. And in example after example, you apply it to people offering statements more ambiguous or more defensible than what was said by Noem or Bovine.

Yet here, when your party is under fire, you'll offer this limp waffle in defence of someone who shot an unarmed, prone man on the ground 11 times, and the government dept head who threw unsubstantiated accusations at the victim. That's where your line is, where your sole concern is. It is genuinely sick.
 
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Agema

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Democrats once
"Whatabout. Whatabout, whatabout whatabout whatabout. Whatabout. Whatabout whatabout whatabout..."

while DC went 85% to Mondale.
You're aware that Washington DC is a city right, and they lean Democrat? And majority black as well? What 85% means is that Reagan probably got about half the non-black vote. And I can bet you that painfully few of the black residents of DC in 1984 were civil servants. (The civil servants were probably mostly in the suburbs in Maryland and Virginia.)

Project 2025 exists because that doesn't work in this moment...
[citation needed]

That's all waffle. Unverified trash. Myth..

Like you trying to magic up this "90:10" idea for civil servants. People have done studies, and it's reckoned about 50:30:20 the last 30 years (Democrat : Republican : Independent). This is a modest lean to Democrats, and probably doesn't represent that much at all. Not least because most civil servants have ethics of neutrality, and most just knuckle down and do their job irrespective of which party is in power. (Note the hypocrisy as you scoff at the accusations cops are murderous thugs, but you casually throw this other profession under the bus.)

I can give you a really good reason why Trump got so little done in his first term. It's because he never had any plan or vision, or any particular interest in doing anything. (There are even rumours he originally ran just to negotiate his fee up for The Apprentice, until he turned out to do so well.) Then he grabbed a load of people, many of them dodgy or unreliable, to do stuff without much direction or clarity. And also kept firing them: it plays merry hell with getting stuff done if you keep changing the staff because every new one has to get up to speed. You don't need to make up some deep state conspiracy: Trump's first administration was transparently chaotic and incompetent. But anyway.

But what this myth does do is allow you to support Trump gutting the independence of the civil service, courts, etc. It is in fact remarkable how, when being asked to defend the gutting of the civil service and replacement with partisans, you reach to such a vague, unevidenced-to-false narrative. You've just absorbed the superficial party line, no thought, no analysis, no insight, no profundity.
 
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tstorm823

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You have used the term "lying" to describe others many times. I had a quick peruse, and you are not shy with that description. And in example after example, you apply it to people offering statements more ambiguous or more defensible than what was said by Noem or Bovine.
Yes, I take no issue with you calling this lies. It is for precisely those times I would call things lies that I make this decision, the dishonesty is being done through implication. I do call out lies when I see them, and you are exactly the person who jumps in to say "well actually, what they said could technically be seen as true in one very specific interpretation, so they aren't lying." I'm not even saying that, I'm just telling you to understand that the lies are told with ambiguity, not unambiguously.
Like you trying to magic up this "90:10" idea for civil servants. People have done studies, and it's reckoned about 50:30:20 the last 30 years (Democrat : Republican : Independent). This is a modest lean to Democrats...
Your "modest lean" is still just about 2:1...
(Note the hypocrisy as you scoff at the accusations cops are murderous thugs, but you casually throw this other profession under the bus.)
Again, you prove that you don't care at all what they're doing, you only care about who is doing it. If monolithic party control is bad in principle, it's not a statement against any civil servant in particular that them all just agreeing on everything is dangerous. You don't seem to believe that in principle, you are just upset at the idea of the party you don't like having that power.
It's because he never had any plan or vision, or any particular interest in doing anything.
Yes, but there are parties, organized parties, who have many ideas. There's a whole Republican infrastructure that brought Trump plans and visions and methodologies, and many of them failed... Do you know what Project 2025 is? Who made it, and why? It's precisely the plans by precisely the people who didn't succeed last time coming back with the methods needed to overcome the obstacles that stopped them.
 

Silvanus

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Yes, I take no issue with you calling this lies. [...] I'm just telling you to understand that the lies are told with ambiguity, not unambiguously.
Then what a pointless little quibble this has been.

I'm not crediting the possibility that he thought he was acting "defensively", any more than I'm crediting the possibility that Clinton thought he was being honest when he said he didn't have those sexual relations. You could make a meaningless, credulity-stretching semantic case to insert some manufactured ambiguity if you want. But we both know they were just lies.

A man was pointlessly shot to death in the street and this has been your sole concern expressed here. How do you not get a little ashamed?
 

tstorm823

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How do you not get a little ashamed?
Because this is how you treat every other issue. When I'm arguing with communists about big picture things that you broadly agree with me on, then you derail the whole thread nitpicking single words in defense of viewpoints you don't even agree with.
 

Agema

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Your "modest lean" is still just about 2:1...
So what? It's still no evidence that specifically Democrat civil servants have seriously impeded Republican government business (more below).

Again, you prove that you don't care at all what they're doing, you only care about who is doing it. If monolithic party control is bad in principle, it's not a statement against any civil servant in particular that them all just agreeing on everything is dangerous. You don't seem to believe that in principle, you are just upset at the idea of the party you don't like having that power.
If you want me to be bothered about monolithic party control, you actually need to demonstrate it. Where's the evidence? Do you understand what bullshit is? It's communication with little regard for truth, accuracy, evidence, or logical consistency. Seriously, if your views stem from gross misconceptions like that 90% of civil servants are Democrats plus mere waffle, your views are junk.

Do you know what Project 2025 is? Who made it, and why? It's precisely the plans by precisely the people who didn't succeed last time coming back with the methods needed to overcome the obstacles that stopped them.
😂

Have you actually read Project 2025? This isn't a manifesto to "move the needle" in the way we've been arguing, it's a manifesto to completely revolutionise the state. Take a read buddy, they want to dynamite whole departments and established ways of doing things. Stuff that's borderline crankery opposed by most of everyone including business, like curtailing Fed independence and return to the gold standard (!), for heaven's sakes. It pursues a doctrine of near-total presidential authority: that's not justified by a few civil service roadblocks.

And indeed, some of the voices strongly opposed to Project 2025 and warning it opens the door to authoritarianism are Republicans: because plenty of Republicans also believe in democracy, transparency, accountability, separation of powers, etc.

Project 2025 is a deeply ideological manifesto that goes so far beyond alleged civil service bias it's laughable to think that's the motivation.
 

Silvanus

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Because this is how you treat every other issue. When I'm arguing with communists about big picture things that you broadly agree with me on, then you derail the whole thread nitpicking single words in defense of viewpoints you don't even agree with.
So, whataboutism again. You think I've "nitpicked" on broad-strokes questions in the past, so therefore its fine for you to excuse slanderous lies thrown at the victim of a shooting.
 

Agema

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Again, you prove that you don't care at all what they're doing, you only care about who is doing it.
Ah, projection. So projection is when you think other people think like you.

You see, you thinking this is an artifact of your own narrative. You see the world in an intensely partisan R v D way. So when someone points out what the Republicans do wrong, your response is "but the Democrats do it too". By doing so, you shift the framing from the act itself to R v D, from which you can accuse them of only caring about who is doing it.

You do so because it is you who does not care what they are doing. Authoritarianism, corruption, incompetence, venality in office: you are rarely if ever here making fundamental objections about any of them. I swear, just about the only things you appear to have clear values on are opposing abortion, homosexuality and immigration. Your other arguments are all about defending the Republicans, and claiming the Democrats are as bad or worse than the Republicans.

And do you know what, it's your incredibly stupid arguments like "Trump is a Democrat" that really demonstrate this. At some level you realise Trump is deeply problematic, but he's run as a Republican and voted for by Republicans. You can't really accept that, and thus "Trump is a Democrat": the pain in your soul is ameliorated, because you can no-true-Scotsmanlike pretend that he isn't really a Republican. Thus it's not what they're doing that matters, so long as you get to believe the Democrats are worse.
 

Thaluikhain

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People talk about the gold standard, but in the older days of some 150 years ago, the US was on the gold and silver standard. Nobody cares about the silver standard anymore.

(Mucking around with precious metals as standards in 1873 was one factor in what was at the time called "The Great Depression", later renamed "The Long Depression" after another one some 50-60 years later took that name)
 

Hades

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Warning: SA content. Link spoilered for sensitivity reasons.
Considering its ICE I'm already surprised they don't molest the woman and children they arrest. Or at least not to the public knowledge.