Random Politics Thread

[Coriolis]

Noticed the posts about eggs - do people here know the price sky rocketed because we are in a livestock H5N1 pandemic? Entire farms are being put down. People are waiting for hours at local farms and stores have had $10/dozen.

Yes, I have been hearing about the livestock pandemic for weeks now. I mentioned it earlier in a reply to Red Herring. This is that perfect storm of bird flu, reduced regulations, inspectors pushed off the job, and no public health alerts. As I've said elsewhere, if only Trump supporters were affected, I would write it off as Darwin's Law, perhaps uncharitable but that's karma for you, or it should be. Unfortunately many of the rest of us will be affected by this massive malfeasance as well.

Yes, I'm in the united states and we are now seeing "The Gulf of America".
If you are not in the USA, you should still be seeing "The Gulf of Mexico."

Are you using Google Maps?

This was a Google thing, as they suck up to the Grand Orange Poobah.

I am using a VPN, but with an IP inside the US. I am not using google maps, though. Perhaps that is the reason.

 

[Totenkindly]

A lot of low level bureaucrats are likely feeling scared and confused right now resulting in rigidity and bad judgment calls. I would recommend going to a different location and try again and perhaps not wear makeup and look closer to birth gender. I would try again and again and again with a different person/location every time. This is something important to know about bureaucrats at the bottom of the power structure, sometimes they get really rigid and scared, but "rinse and repeat" until you statistically find one that will move the documents along.

I dunno. Basically they are now at risk losing their jobs if they choose to actually process it or they accidentally make a mistake and process it -- so this kind of advice means they are being taken advantage of by people on both sides.

I know the SSA stopped processing gender changes and had to note any requests as of Friday, Jan 31. There were posts on reddit that night from very sympathetic field office workers begging people to not try to do it because they were now not permitted to change it and people could have their papers confiscated for trying it and/or find themselves flagged for trying. Again, these were people who were extremely sympathetic and hated the sudden prohibition, but it is what it is. Trying to game the system will place multiple people (and their families who depend on their income) in the process at risk.

 

[Totenkindly]

Oh dear! I didn't realize it was that entrenched. I was mostly speaking from an experience I had trying to defer student loans years ago where my paper submission was rejected, but my phone application was accepted or something like that. I didn't realize people could have papers confiscated and the other results.

We have definite verification with passports: People outside the gender binary have been warned for two weeks NOT to send in any papers or try to apply for a gender changes on passports: the request is immediately frozen and materials are being held indefinitely for any attempt to change gender marker. (They're kind of screwed up / confused on how to handle intersexed people, they are just pretending intersexed does not exist at this point.)

I would be very cautious of trying to go outside the lines of anything regarding government at the moment, they are monitoring attempts.

 

[The Cat]

Unelected Billionaire runs rough shod over constitution...
Deaths ensue.
Money saved: 0.4%

The Fox is in the Hen House and its not looking pretty...

​

 

[Totenkindly]

Mitch McConnell Explains His Sad Lone “No” Vote on Tulsi Gabbard

The former Senate majority leader couldn’t get a single Republican to vote with him against confirming Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence.

www.yahoo.com

Ehhh. He can afford to vote "No" on much of this, since no one else will; and we're in this situation partly because of him, so even if he means it, there's no sympathy there. I hope it kills him inside, but I doubt it does, really.

 

[Virtual ghost]

Thousands sign petition for Denmark to buy California


Trollolololololololol.

 

[The Cat]

Hakeem Jeffries feels like a Collaborator.
Resist Fascism.
Do your job as an American Citizen.
Fight Fascism.​

 

[The Cat]

Call your democratic representative and raise holy hell.

 

[Virtual ghost]

Our current timeline is totally bonkers.

 

[Totenkindly]

I hope if Canada joins anyone it's the EU -- please don't become our 51st state.
SAVE YOURSELVES

 

[Virtual ghost]

I hope if Canada joins anyone it's the EU -- please don't become our 51st state.
SAVE YOURSELVES

That is exactly the bottom line.
Because as things stand Canada will probably have to choose who to "marry". Completely surreal sight but here we are.


However I posted this since there is logic behind this that goes much deeper than dramatic headline. The things is that Iceland is already in EUs borderless area called "Schengen area". What means that they are basically EU country and that they can travel around EU as they are a part of it. I think the same is regarding trade and tariffs. Therefore the current situation has reignited national debate that the island requests full membership in the EU instead of just being "associate".

Another major point in the story is that Trump openly wants Greenland, even if Greenland doesn't want to be 51th state either. They would rather stay with Denmark as things stand (if they had to choose). However there is a catch. In a sense the only way that Greenland doesn't for sure become a 51th state is that Canada moves heavily towards EU. What is indeed currently happening due to what Trump is doing. After all from what I understand in general Canadians are culturally more similar to West Europeans than to Americans (and especially Trumpists). In other words if Greenland becomes 51th state then Canada will be be quite boxed in. Therefore it is possible that it will become a 52th state eventually.

Another element of the whole story is that EU really needs many of the resources that Canada has plenty of. Therefore trade in such resources may go a long way in fixing Canada's financial problems (that aren't trivial from what I understand). I mean for those who didn't get it in that video Trudeau is in the lobby of EUs parliament and in company of the top two officials of the EU. Ursula von det Layen and Antonio Costa.
I mean Canada and EU will probably just become very good friends at the end of the day, but if Trump doesn't slow down all bets will be off even officially. Because the logic of Canada joing EU has fairly stable logic behind it. After all if Australia can every year participate in the contest of choosing the Europe's best song then Canada can become a member of the club.


It is completely bonkers to even open this subject, but here we are.

 

[Red Herring]

I'm so frustrated I could scream ...

Until a few months ago immigration was not exactly a top concern in Germany. People were mainly concerned about the economy, inflation and energy prices as well as some other topics. Then a series of apparently unrelated incidents happened quickly oe after another. Basically, it felt like almost every week somebody (invariably a recently arrived young Muslim male, in one case an older ex-Muslim male) commited a random multiple murder by attacking a crowd with a knive or driving a vehicle into a crowd. The most egregious case was a young Afghan male who attacked a group of kindergarden children in a park with a knive and killed several people including a 2 year old child. That has not only pushed support for the far-right but given the center-right an opportunity (or forced them - depending on how you look at it and whom you believe) to demand stricter border controls even if those go against European law.

The series of multiple murders are one thing, another sad fact the right are using for themselves is that -on average - there are two group rapes (definded as more than one perpetrator) happening in this country every day, one of them will be by a non-citizen. So - on average - every single day somebody gets raped by a group of foreigners. That also means that non-citizens - who make up 15% of the total population - make up about 50% of all group rapists. The largest group among those perpetrators is yet again young Muslim males, mainly people from Afghanistan and Syria. There are complicated reasons for this and it obviously only concerns a tiny part of the demographic, but you can't deny it looks really bad. I don't think religion is even much of a factor here. These are mostly young uneducated people with war trauma with serious mental health issues (in several of thee cases people had warned the police beforehand about the individuals in question, they were known to the police to be violent and mentally unstable and several of them were actually here illegally because they had already exhausted their legal recourses and would have had to leave if only the administrative decision to end their right to stay had been implemented more smoothly). The main issue is not laws being too soft but neither the administrtion nor the police doing their job properly. The guy who attacked the group of kindergardeners had already attacked somebody else a few months prior. And IIRC it was hom who was actually already sentenced to prison for several offences but the court was taking weeks or months to decide if and how to combine the prison sentences for his multiple crimes so he was still roaming free.


So...


We have federal elections in 10 days and, guess what, apparently this morning a young Afghan man drove a vehicle into a labor union demonstration, seriously injuring at least 20 people.

 

[Red Herring]

In my own home region there were two other cases that fall under "bad optics" and might help the far-right.

About half an hour from where I live the police was called to a school's sports building because there were concerns that even though the building had been rented for the night for a children's sport event there might be something else going on there. When the cops arrived they found a group of over 100 adults, some of them armed with knives, who appeared to be holding an islamist meeting (as in: a political meeting, not a religious assembly).

In a nearby town a man from Guinea-Bissau made headlines because he managed to accumulate some 50 or so offenses within a very short time after being informed that he would have to leave the country. Nothing serious or violent, but he repeatedly stole, insulted and harassed people, basically ran amok and had to wear a spitmask in court where he called the judge handling his case a "motherfucker". Once again, probably somebody with mental health issues but very bad optics.

 

[Virtual ghost]

Trump kept Germany’s Scholz in the dark about his Ukraine peace plan

So the plan is basically "I will freeze the conflict and Europe should be the caretaker of peace".
To be fully honest it could be way worse than this. This is kinda ok-ish if that is how it will be (all things considered).

 

[Red Herring]

Minor news but nice to know in a pretty dark world:

Chancelor Scholz (SPD) recently attended a private party in Berlin together with a lot of other politicians and celebrities. There was a heated argument and at one point he called Joe Chialo, the Berlin minister for culture, a "court jester of the CDU". Chialo was born in Germany to parents from Tansania, he's black. So the CDU jumped at this and tried to call out Scholz for supposed racism. Some even speculated if this might be the straw that could break his neck for good. A short storm in a teacup ensued in the media about whether or not the term "court jester" was racist. But it looks like the discussion ended before it caused any real damage when Chialo (CDU) himself declared that the term had been demeaning and hurtful but not racist and that as far as he is concerned the whole affair is over and done with.

I'm torn between rolling my eyes at some in the CDU for trying to turn this into a thing and respect for Chialo for a classy reaction.




The background of the original dispute is that Berlin, a traditionally leftist city, is now ruled by the CDU. The CDU has started to introduce significant budget cuts to the capital's extensive and generous culture scene. Additionally, Chialo has tried to introduce an anti-anti-semitism clause into public financing agreements for art projects which caused a severe backlash* and several attacks** on him by anti-Israel activists.


*The proposed anti-anti-semitism clause caused several people abroad including Judith Butler to call for a boycott of Germany.
**He had a microphone stand thrown at him and the words "Genocide Joe Chialo" sprayed at his private residence.

 

[Totenkindly]

We knew it was going to happen.
I think the train has been pretty much wrecked at this point, and Congress has pretty much rolled over and died.

 

[The Cat]

We knew it was going to happen.
I think the train has been pretty much wrecked at this point, and Congress has pretty much rolled over and died.

View attachment 32226

Pretty sure most of them are collaborators at this point.

 

[The Cat]

Where's the rich men north of richmond guy? Weird.

 

[The Cat]

Billionaires are Robber Barons.
​

 

[The Cat]

The richest man on earth is calling our social safety nets inherently fraudulent. He is trying to rob us of our money that we pay into the system. It's a Kansas City Shuffle. They're gonna take the money and run and we provide the bodies and they think they'll get away during the chaos of the inevitable depression.