[h8kurdt]

Thought you said you were done with this? Alright, look at it this way. Nirvana never wrote a political song, save for downer, however their actions as a band made them political. Exact same situation with sonic youth.

Your obsession that because it's not "overt" (word of the week people) it's not political is glib. Think it's a desperation to hide the fact that your political views are the exact opposite of sonic youth's.

[h8kurdt]

Originally Posted by Bytor Peltor

I don’t have access to the WSJ and I’m not paying! The only reason I knew of the article is due to it being mentioned on a radio show. Truth is, h8kurdt, I have zero desire to discuss the number of countries that allow mail-in ballots. I don’t have a dog in that fight!

My response was regarding States within the United States of America who choose to not use mail-in ballots. Each does so for various reasons and I believe the most prevalent reason is population......but I could be mistaken! Guess what, it doesn’t matter what myself or any of you think. Mail-in ballots are a legitimate policy dispute and Americans are free to come down on whatever side they choose......but nothing good comes from changing how America votes six months prior to an election!

More importantly, if Americans can stand in socially distant lines at the grocery store and marijuana dispensaries, they can stand in line to vote!

The subject of my response was questioning why twitter chose to fact check President Trump this week simply because he tweeted about a policy. Twitter has had opportunity to do so in previous years and twitter chose not to until this week. For many this move reeks of censorship.

So you link me to read a piece without having read it yourself? Eesh.

Best way trump can avoid having the fact check pieces is by, y'know, not lying. Of course that would be too difficult to do.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by h8kurdt

Thought you said you were done with this? Alright, look at it this way. Nirvana never wrote a political song, save for downer, however their actions as a band made them political. Exact same situation with sonic youth.

Your obsession that because it's not "overt" (word of the week people) it's not political is glib. Think it's a desperation to hide the fact that your political views are the exact opposite of sonic youth's.

overto from overton needs overtness! or else!

[Screaming Skull]

Originally Posted by h8kurdt

Thought you said you were done with this? Alright, look at it this way. Nirvana never wrote a political song, save for downer, however their actions as a band made them political. Exact same situation with sonic youth.

Your obsession that because it's not "overt" (word of the week people) it's not political is glib. Think it's a desperation to hide the fact that your political views are the exact opposite of sonic youth's.

Sonic Youth's recorded output is, what, +/- 300 songs? We are struggling to cobble together a list of 5 political songs; therefore, my conclusion is they are not a political band.

I'll concede Youth Against Fascism, Peace Attack, Chapel Hill (one of my all-time favorite SY songs), and Shoot (you missed that one). The rest are a stretch, IMO.

[The Soup Nazi]

Originally Posted by Screaming Skull

Sonic Youth's recorded output is, what, +/- 300 songs? We are struggling to cobble together a list of 5 political songs; therefore, my conclusion is they are not a political band.

Oh, so it's about percentages. Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen are not and have never been political at all, then.

EDIT: You are one disgusting piece of shit, man. Pulling dumb fucking arguments out of your ass to move the goalpost. Fuck off already.

[GeneticKiss]

Originally Posted by h8kurdt

Did think you'd say it isn't political. How can it not be? Especially given what followed it.

Dude Ranch Nurse-Bush
Paper Cup Exit-Bush
Do you believe in rapture-right wing evangelist
Society is a hole-Regan/Reganomics
Teenage riot-pretty obvious
Chapel Hill-Murder of peace activist Bob Sheldon. Suspected to be by the CIA.
Anti-orgasm-Kommune 1
Rain on tin-9/11 as already said
Youth against facism-Disagree with GeneticKiss on this. Clearly a simple anti-fascist song
Peace attack-Bush Iraq

Here's an explanation of what all of them are about. And a colouring book too.

I'm fairly certain I had read somewhere that it was supposed to be a parody on some level. Plus, the "immaturity" of some of the lyrics ("impotent jerk/fascist twerp") combined with the way Thurston delivers the line, "We're gonna bury you, man!" sounding very #Kony2012-esque (even if that..ahem..."movement" was years off). That he keeps repeating "It's the song I hate" implies that the narrator is aware they're being had.

Not to say it's a bad song or that it somehow takes away from the band's leftist stance, but it's more of an indictment of young people who wear activism like a fashion trend. Calling someone out as a fraud when you've already shown yourself to be genuine in other cases is an affirmation of that stance.

[!@#$%!]

In Union There Is Strength

I have watched this week’s unfolding events, angry and appalled. The words “Equal Justice Under Law” are carved in the pediment of the United States Supreme Court. This is precisely what protesters are rightly demanding. It is a wholesome and unifying demand—one that all of us should be able to get behind. We must not be distracted by a small number of lawbreakers. The protests are defined by tens of thousands of people of conscience who are insisting that we live up to our values—our values as people and our values as a nation.

When I joined the military, some 50 years ago, I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Never did I dream that troops taking that same oath would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the Constitutional rights of their fellow citizens—much less to provide a bizarre photo op for the elected commander-in-chief, with military leadership standing alongside.

We must reject any thinking of our cities as a “battlespace” that our uniformed military is called upon to “dominate.” At home, we should use our military only when requested to do so, on very rare occasions, by state governors. Militarizing our response, as we witnessed in Washington, D.C., sets up a conflict—a false conflict—between the military and civilian society. It erodes the moral ground that ensures a trusted bond between men and women in uniform and the society they are sworn to protect, and of which they themselves are a part. Keeping public order rests with civilian state and local leaders who best understand their communities and are answerable to them.

James Madison wrote in Federalist 14 that “America united with a handful of troops, or without a single soldier, exhibits a more forbidding posture to foreign ambition than America disunited, with a hundred thousand veterans ready for combat.” We do not need to militarize our response to protests. We need to unite around a common purpose. And it starts by guaranteeing that all of us are equal before the law.

Instructions given by the military departments to our troops before the Normandy invasion reminded soldiers that “The Nazi slogan for destroying us...was ‘Divide and Conquer.’ Our American answer is ‘In Union there is Strength.’” We must summon that unity to surmount this crisis—confident that we are better than our politics.

Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead he tries to divide us. We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership. We can unite without him, drawing on the strengths inherent in our civil society. This will not be easy, as the past few days have shown, but we owe it to our fellow citizens; to past generations that bled to defend our promise; and to our children.

We can come through this trying time stronger, and with a renewed sense of purpose and respect for one another. The pandemic has shown us that it is not only our troops who are willing to offer the ultimate sacrifice for the safety of the community. Americans in hospitals, grocery stores, post offices, and elsewhere have put their lives on the line in order to serve their fellow citizens and their country. We know that we are better than the abuse of executive authority that we witnessed in Lafayette Square. We must reject and hold accountable those in office who would make a mockery of our Constitution. At the same time, we must remember Lincoln’s “better angels,” and listen to them, as we work to unite.

Only by adopting a new path—which means, in truth, returning to the original path of our founding ideals—will we again be a country admired and respected at home and abroad.

James Mattis

[The Soup Nazi]

"Can we just now admit we're living in a third-world country and yes, we have a dictator?"

—Kim Gordon

[The Soup Nazi]

Paul Krugman's newsletter, June 17:

Giving irrational exuberance a bad name

The public’s broad approval of the Black Lives Matter protests has been a revelation. It seems that America has made more moral progress than anyone realized. And one of the side benefits of this remarkable upwelling of tolerance has been watching the palpable frustration of the Trump administration and other purveyors of hate. They’re trying the usual tricks — making baseless claims about violence, falsely asserting that a vast left-wing conspiracy is orchestrating the demonstrations — but to their consternation, the tricks aren’t working. What has happened to this country?

We are, in this respect, a far better nation than we used to be, and better than we knew.

On the other hand, we’re still blowing bubbles. And the bubbles keep getting stupider.

I began writing for The Times at the beginning of 2000, right in the middle of a huge run-up in tech stocks that has joined the ranks of legendary bubbles, up there with tulips in the 1630s and Japanese real estate in the 1980s.

That bubble, by the way, didn’t pop all at once. Somewhat like Bitcoin investors now, tech investors in 2000 were true believers, with a faith based on a combination of technobabble and free-market derp, and they didn’t give up easily. As this chart shows, the Nasdaq made several partial recoveries as die-hard bulls rushed in to buy what they insisted was a temporary dip:

 

In the end, however, things went very badly indeed.

Still, foolish as the tech bubble was, at least investors had the excuse that something was truly new in the economy. Information technology really was changing the game; while many favorites of the time ended up worthless, tech giants did eventually come to dominate market valuations.

The next bubble, however, was much less excusable. The internet was something new; the housing market has been around for centuries. It was truly remarkable to see investors buy into the notion that a few financial innovations had made risk disappear and justified values far out of line with historical experience. And the bursting of the housing bubble did far more harm than the bursting of the tech bubble a few years earlier.

But even the housing bubble seemed sensible compared with what has been going on the past few weeks.

Today’s column was devoted to the stock run-up that began in May, which appears to have been driven by individual investors who pay little or no attention to fundamental valuations. The pile-on into Hertz — which has already declared bankruptcy — is only the most striking example.

What are these investors thinking? I don’t think they are thinking — not really. The conventions of financial reporting more or less require that articles about market action ascribe rationality to investors, so stock movements are attributed to optimism about economic recovery, or something. But the reality is that we’re largely talking about young men, many with a background in sports betting, who have started buying stocks and are bullish because they’ve made money so far.

It’s possible, of course, that more conventional investors were too pessimistic, and that the “retail bros” will end up being vindicated. But history is not on their side.

Still, we shouldn’t be surprised that they haven’t given up despite steadily worsening news on the coronavirus. At this point it’s not just money that’s on the line; it’s egos too. That’s why we’ll probably see a series of temporary recoveries before the awful truth finally sinks in. But sink in it eventually will.


Quick Hits

How’s reopening the economy going? Not well.

The economics of irrational exuberance.

If sports bettors are driving the stock market, they’re probably Trump supporters.

A “flight to crap.”


Facing the Music

Mandolin Orange makes tragedy into beautiful music.

[The Soup Nazi]

Dotard J Turd tries to block publication of John Walrus Bolton's book

[h8kurdt]

Originally Posted by The Soup Nazi

Dotard J Turd tries to block publication of John Walrus Bolton's book

And his niece's! With all these books about him portraying him in a negative light you've got wonder whether they're true not...

[The Soup Nazi]

Originally Posted by h8kurdt

And his niece's! With all these books about him portraying him in a negative light you've got wonder whether they're true not...

His niece's book speaks of a jizzbucket behaving privately the same way we've all seen that jizzbucket behaving publicly, and the facts check out with serious reporting over the years, so I give it the "believable, why not" rating.

John Bolton has certainly proved one thing over the years: he doesn't give A FLYING FUCK about making himself look good. This is a guy who said the U.N. shouldn't exist, that instead there should only be the United States and a bunch of sycophant countries and their will should be the law of the planet. This is a mook who wants to bomb Iran, Venezuela, and possibly California ASAP. And apparently he digs the sick shit he sees in the mirror. And he agreed to work for Agent Orange for 17 months, so he's no #nevertrump Republican. So in this case I give him the "completely believable" rating.

The "WAAHHHH, THEY'RE DOING IT FOR THE MONEY!!! TRIPLE EXCLAMATION POINT!!!" tweets that will follow (or are they already here?) are of course as horseshitty as all the fucking tweets that preceded them. Everybody wants money. I want money right now! Doesn't mean I'm gonna lie about stuff to get it; if I earn it by telling the truth, more power to me.

Trump is a fuckface
Barr is a fuckface
Bolton's the walrus!
Goo goo goo joob!

[h8kurdt]

You get I was taking the piss when I asked about if they're truthful, right?

[The Soup Nazi]

Originally Posted by h8kurdt

You get I was taking the piss when I asked about if they're truthful, right?

I do, I do. I was just giving my US$0.02, which is about 15 in local currency. (Nothing to get excited about, as a subway ticket is 800...)

[The Soup Nazi]

It always gets worse.

Trump asked China’s Xi to help him win reelection, according to Bolton book

Of course, we shouldn't be knowing this now from John fucking Bolton's book, but from the testimony of John fucking Bolton that never was because Mitch McFuckingConnell blocked it, you follow.

More: https://news.google.com/stories/CAAq...S&ceid=US%3Aen

[Bytor Peltor]

John Bolton
April 2018 - becomes National Security Advisor (highest level of classified clearance)
September 2019 - removed as National Security Advisor
June 2020 - wants to release a book

The DOJ’s lawsuit filing
”This is a civil action by the United States to prevent Defendant John R. Bolton, a former National Security Advisor, from compromising national security by publishing a book containing classified information—in clear breach of agreements he signed as a condition of his employment and as a condition of gaining access to highly classified information and in clear breach of the trust placed within him by the United States Government.“



“our intent is not to censor the publication or to squelch any First Amendment rights that Ambassador Bolton may have in talking about things but to make sure in a pre-publication review, which is ongoing and which he wants to short circuit, to make sure that top-secret information, sensitive intelligence information that he and maybe only he has gotten is not disseminated to the detriment of the United States.”


William Barr
“We don’t believe that Bolton went through that process — hasn’t completed the process — and, therefore, is in violation of that agreement,” Barr said. The Trump administration is “trying to get them to complete the process — go through the process — and make the necessary deletions of classified information,” Barr said.”

[h8kurdt]

Man, I've missed this place. Bytor desperately defending Trump, Skunk being lawyerly whilst missing the point, Symbols with his ol' drunkel bob lines.

Never die on us, sugar pie.

[_tunic_]

Kayleigh McEnany just compared an indoor Trump rally to ... baseball

Reply from CNN: "Being hit by a batted ball isn't contagious"


And also from CNN:
Fact-checking Trump and Barr's attacks on John Bolton's book

[tw2113]

Originally Posted by h8kurdt

Man, I've missed this place. Bytor desperately defending Trump, Skunk being lawyerly whilst missing the point, Symbols with his ol' drunkel bob lines.

Never die on us, sugar pie.

Don't forget me randomly stating we're all doomed and the end is nye.

[The Soup Nazi]

Originally Posted by tw2113

the end is nye.

New Year's Eve?