The Trump Presidency – 2016

[Warhammer]

Let me get this straight. High school kids go to DC. They go to a memorial. There is a black hate group shouting at them. The kids begin to do school cheers. Then some native americans march towards them for some reason, march up to this one kid who has no idea what to do and the kid essentially looks at him for 3-4 minutes while the native american beats his drum. Yet, the kids are at fault?

Look, I have no doubt, there were probably one or two kids saying crap. But, in the 10 minute video I watched, I heard much more, "What is happening?" or "What is going on?" than anything else. Yet, the narrative is that these kids are vile, reprehensible people. If you look at the chatter on FB, half the comments are along the lines of, "They are wearing MAGA hats, nothing else needs to be said."

Is this what we have come to? No one bothers to do their own digging. Their minds are immediately made up based upon the looks of things. Additionally, the diocese these kids are from are so anxious to not make waves, they immediately throw the kids under the bus.

What the hell?

[Marc Vaughan]

Let me get this straight. High school kids go to DC. They go to a memorial.

This wasn't a memorial - they were basically shipped in as part of a pro-life march (by their school apparently), not a memorial .... why a school would put teenage kids into what is going to be a divisive situation is beyond me, why they would have them dress with hats which are likely to encourage confrontation is also beyond me.

That being said free-speech is a good thing and while I believe people have the right to decide what happens to their own bodies, I understand a section of society would prefer to dictate to others and having those beliefs is their right ...

With the confrontation itself I think all three sides made mistakes, I think the native American while well intentioned could have done things better (trying to talk to the kids might have been helpful for instance), I think the black protestors were behaving incredibly poorly and I don't think the kids are quite as sneaky clean as they make out either.

[JPhillips]

Originally Posted by Marc Vaughan

With the confrontation itself I think all three sides made mistakes, I think the native American while well intentioned could have done things better (trying to talk to the kids might have been helpful for instance), I think the black protestors were behaving incredibly poorly and I don't think the kids are quite as sneaky clean as they make out either.

This. There really isn't a need to pick good and bad guys.

Except the black Israelites, those guys are in the same category as the Westboro Baptist creeps.

[HerRealName]

Originally Posted by Warhammer

Let me get this straight. High school kids go to DC. They go to a memorial. There is a black hate group shouting at them. The kids begin to do school cheers. Then some native americans march towards them for some reason, march up to this one kid who has no idea what to do and the kid essentially looks at him for 3-4 minutes while the native american beats his drum. Yet, the kids are at fault?

Look, I have no doubt, there were probably one or two kids saying crap. But, in the 10 minute video I watched, I heard much more, "What is happening?" or "What is going on?" than anything else. Yet, the narrative is that these kids are vile, reprehensible people. If you look at the chatter on FB, half the comments are along the lines of, "They are wearing MAGA hats, nothing else needs to be said."

Is this what we have come to? No one bothers to do their own digging. Their minds are immediately made up based upon the looks of things. Additionally, the diocese these kids are from are so anxious to not make waves, they immediately throw the kids under the bus.

What the hell?

Did you miss the warchanting and tomahawk chops? It's at the beginning of this video and I think it was shortly after the Phillips group walked over.

MAGA Kentucky Covington Catholic High Boys mock Native elders - YouTube

My daughter and her friend were called whores by anti-abortion protesters when they were walking to school from her friends house. They weren't the only ones that day. The next day, a large group of kids counter protested. They treated the anti-abortion assholes better than these kids treated the Native American group. It was a weird reaction by the Covington group.

[JPhillips]

Apparently Trump's immigration "compromise" includes unannounced major restrictions and limits to the asylum process for Central Americans.

[illinifan999]

Originally Posted by NobodyHere

3: Why is there not more attention on the Black Israelites. .

Well because it doesn't fit the narrative...

[Radii]

https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/21/opini...ey/index.html?

A-fucking-men

There's no way to sensibly defend the Hebrew Israelites. Their ugliness fanned the flames that became a storm this past weekend. Still, there's an important element to the relative power represented by the Hebrew Israelites and the students from that mostly-white Catholic high school. Only one of them supports a man who has both spouted hate-filled language and has the power to roll back Obama-era oversight of law enforcement to curtail police brutality and unwanted shootings -- and that's the one those students chose to proudly align with.

[Radii]

dola, "mostly-white" is an understatement. 100% of the teachers are white and over 90% of the students, with reports of unrelenting bullying and transfers away from the school from minorities that go there.

[JPhillips]

Originally Posted by illinifan999

Well because it doesn't fit the narrative...

I don't think so. People in East coast cities probably have experience with these cultists, they hang around monuments, subway stops, big events, etc. In short, for people living there they are normal and the Native American and kids were the things out of place. If it were just about a narrative, why is almost everyone with the power to push narratives apologizing and backing off?

[cuervo72]

Originally Posted by https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/01/nick-sandmann-nathan-phillips-maga-video.html

None of this might have mattered—and the clip certainly would not have gone viral—if Sandmann and many of his peers were not wearing red Make America Great Again hats. Racked reported in 2017 that the hats had become popular souvenirs among white teenage boys visiting Washington, in part because they invite “instant attention, instant discomfort, easy transgression.” Boston Globe columnist Renée Graham wrote last summer about seeing more than a dozen white teenage boys in MAGA hats at the National Museum of African American History & Culture. “Clearly, this was meant as a provocation,” she wrote. I’m inclined to believe that Sandmann, too, is smart enough to understand that the MAGA hat is not a symbol of peace and reconciliation, especially when the bill of that hat is inches from the nose of a Native American.

I think this is absolutely correct.

[MrBug708]

Originally Posted by Marc Vaughan

This wasn't a memorial - they were basically shipped in as part of a pro-life march (by their school apparently), not a memorial .... why a school would put teenage kids into what is going to be a divisive situation is beyond me, why they would have them dress with hats which are likely to encourage confrontation is also beyond me.

A couple things because the amount of incorrect information has been staggering. The memorial is the Lincoln memorial, where this took place. The actual March was on Friday, so I would imagine spending time in the capital for HS Juniors is probably a pretty cool idea. You already take US History as a Junior and tjeu probably already finished studying the Constitution. So the can probably double up on things by going to the March (they are all over on Friday) and then see DC. So being at the Mall isn't really out of character to have HS Juniors in the area, a lot of high schools go. I can't verify, though maybe you have a link, but I haven't seen where the school allowed or made them where those hats. You can buy them on any corner on the Mall I bet, when I wasthere last, vendors were everywhere. The kid claims, and it hasn't been refuted, but that was the gathering spot for the bus back. Who knows if that's true and a chaperone/teacher probably should have been the only other adult in the area, but I'm going to bet there were probably only parents around to monitor them at the moment and they were probably indifferent at best. I would imagine this was probably an extra cirricular activity, school trips usually are, but being so close to DC and being a private school, it could have very well been rolled into the cost.

[illinifan999]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

I don't think so. People in East coast cities probably have experience with these cultists, they hang around monuments, subway stops, big events, etc. In short, for people living there they are normal and the Native American and kids were the things out of place. If it were just about a narrative, why is almost everyone with the power to push narratives apologizing and backing off?

Children from Kentucky probably do not have experience with those cultists. Why is there little to no discussion about racist, hatred speech towards children from a group of black extremists?

The power to push narratives comes from the mainstream media which is overwhelmingly biased towards a certain party.

[MrBug708]

Speaking of the Black Isrealites, over here in Pasadena, we had a group called the Black Jesus's. They would stand on the sidewalk with a bunch of speakers, shouting at anyone and everyone. The main guys would speak loudly and belligerently, though no threatening. But they had other people who would talk more respectfully to passer bys. Spoke with them on multiple occasions and they had some rather thoughful beliefs on the appearance of Jesus, but I think in the end, they were disappointed I wasn't bothered that Jesus might not have looked like the way he is often portrayed, as light brown hair with blue eyes. That was like 20 years ago and I havent seen them since, which means the leader probably passed away.

[illinifan999]

Originally Posted by MrBug708

Speaking of the Black Isrealites, over here in Pasadena, we had a group called the Black Jesus's. They would stand on the sidewalk with a bunch of speakers, shouting at anyone and everyone. The main guys would speak loudly and belligerently, though no threatening. But they had other people who would talk more respectfully to passer bys. Spoke with them on multiple occasions and they had some rather thoughful beliefs on the appearance of Jesus, but I think in the end, they were disappointed I wasn't bothered that Jesus might not have looked like the way he is often portrayed, as light brown hair with blue eyes. That was like 20 years ago and I havent seen them since, which means the leader probably passed away.

We had a similar group that would setup outside the main strip of bars at our oceanfront. They were very "militaristic" with one main leader who would yell commands for the rest of the group. They setup cameras and relentlessly screamed hatred towards any white individuals or any POC that was associating with a white person all in the name of their "religious beliefs". We had to prevent countless fights as a result. I'm not in patrol anymore so I have no idea if they are still out there.

The funny thing is one time I unknowingly pulled a group of them over on their way to their hate spot, and they were one of the most respectful groups of people I stopped.

[JPhillips]

Giuliani tells NYer he's "been through all the tapes" and that's how he knew BuzzFeed misreported. Pressed on what he means by tapes, Giuliani: "I shouldn’t have said tapes." Pressed again, says, "I have listened to tapes, but none of them concern this."

Oh my.

[HerRealName]

Originally Posted by illinifan999

The power to push narratives comes from the mainstream media which is overwhelmingly biased towards a certain party.

You have this completely backwards. The right wing PR machine swung into full action on Sunday. Scott Jennings wrote the kid's response.

There was a twitter storm on Saturday that the media followed. Yes, some on Twitter took it too far. There will always be people on Twitter taking it too far. Then the right wing PR gets called in and the media reverses its story and now we get a full dose of both sides just as predicted.

Yes, the black Isrealites are shitheads but the maga hat kids were shitheads too. I don't think we are going to have any luck changing the black Isrealites but maybe if conservative adults stop acting like the following video... maybe, we can expect better behavior from teenagers on school trips in maga hats.

[albionmoonlight]

When my kids act like assholes, I punish them and try to teach them personal accountability instead of running to PR firms to shelter them.

But I'm not a MAGA conservative.

[MrBug708]

Originally Posted by albionmoonlight

When my kids act like assholes, I punish them and try to teach them personal accountability instead of running to PR firms to shelter them.

But I'm not a MAGA conservative.

Has your kid ever received death threats? I'm not sure how I would handle that as a parent.

[albionmoonlight]

Originally Posted by MrBug708

Has your kid ever received death threats? I'm not sure how I would handle that as a parent.

The other thing I am missing is that maybe these parents are disciplining their kids out of the public eye.

Certainly, when my kid acts up in public, I tend to wait until we are in private before punishing him, in part because that's private family business and in part because I don't think that public shaming is an effective component of punishment.

So I should not have been as harsh in my post because I am assuming a lot (that these parents are ok with their kids' actions) about something that is their private business and that I have no idea about.

[JPhillips]

All of this could have been avoided if the adults would have moved the kids as soon as they started to engage with the black Israelites. I still don't understand why no adult stepped forward to move the students to a different area.

[PilotMan]

I have purposely been avoiding all conversations and responses, despite the fact that red MAGA hats cause me to have a negative opinion of those wearing them, and that the group in question is associated with organized religion, and that the school in question exists about 15 minutes from my house, I have waited.


I guess my thoughts on it are this:


No accusations in this situation have gotten anyone shot, drug behind a car and/or lynched; and that for a very large portion of our American population, those realities are very much a genuine fear.

The real conversations that should be taking place start with examining the how and why we got here, to deal with the issues, not the noodle lashings in the aftermath looking for a great sound byte. Those conversations are deep, hard, complex and basically avoided because they involve real hard, fucking work and they take time, cooperation and trust. Piling on at this point, on either side, is simply lazy, and not worthy of being taken seriously.

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

All of this could have been avoided if the adults would have moved the kids as soon as they started to engage with the black Israelites. I still don't understand why no adult stepped forward to move the students to a different area.

Yeah, agree with this. Where were the teachers/chaperones?

[JPhillips]

An AZ state rep is proposing that all computers sold in AZ be blocked from porn, but that buyers could pay 20$ to restore access. All money collected would go to help build a border wall.

[MrBug708]

Originally Posted by Edward64

Yeah, agree with this. Where were the teachers/chaperones?

Usually on these trips you need an admin and a teacher, while the rest tend to be parents. Probably either tracking down the bus or on their phones or just not worrying about it. Total fail on their part.

[SackAttack]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

An AZ state rep is proposing that all computers sold in AZ be blocked from porn, but that buyers could pay 20$ to restore access. All money collected would go to help build a border wall.

That is a glorious level of fail wherein just about every single tenet would, if enforceable, be the proper responsibility of the federal government, not the Arizona state government.

[bronconick]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

An AZ state rep is proposing that all computers sold in AZ be blocked from porn, but that buyers could pay 20$ to restore access. All money collected would go to help build a border wall.

So, this rep believes in Ted Stevens' internet tubes?

[Thomkal]

Supreme Court by a 5-4 vote ends the hold on Trump's transgender ban while litigation takes place in the lower courts

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by MrBug708

Usually on these trips you need an admin and a teacher, while the rest tend to be parents. Probably either tracking down the bus or on their phones or just not worrying about it. Total fail on their part.

It was reported the kids asked for permission to do their pep rally/haka/chants etc. So I think there were some adults around that saw what was happening

[JPhillips]

A group of white kids from KY doing a fake Polynesian war chant has problems all on its own.

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

A group of white kids from KY doing a fake Polynesian war chant has problems all on its own.

That is true. When I read "haka" somewhere I thought that would be cool to see. When I saw the video, somewhat disappointed.

[spleen1015]

So much wrong with the BS with these KY kids.

First, I spent 6 years in DC as a kid. I lived in SE DC and went to Jr High in NW DC. On the school bus every day I rode by all of the monuments, etc and I saw every type of protester at one time or another. So, none of this stuff with the protesters is new.

Second, I firmly believe in sticking up for yourself when needed, but any responsible teacher/chaperone in this situation is an idiot to let these kids engage with these protesters. You have to be responsible for these kids and not let them escalate the situation.

Lastly, the only reason this is a story in 2019 is because the kids were wearing MAGA hats combined with the way the internet works today. It is very easy for something like this to blow up like it did.

I'd like to think that at some point the over reaction to these types of things will get old eventually and we'll find something else to worry about.

[albionmoonlight]

Originally Posted by spleen1015

and we'll find something else to worry about.

I'm fine with getting back to worrying about the government not being open.

[JPhillips]

Brutal polling on the shutdown today for Trump and the GOP. Any other President would be scrambling to get out of this mess as soon as possible.

[NobodyHere]

We need a law saying that if the government is shut down for a month then new elections are required for every house and senate seat, as well as for president.

[albionmoonlight]

Originally Posted by NobodyHere

We need a law saying that if the government is shut down for a month then new elections are required for every house and senate seat, as well as for president.

I'd also be fine with a law (1) eliminating the debt ceiling (it does nothing to reduce the debt and as long as it is around, there's a risk it will cause global depression); and (2) saying that if Congress does not renew a CR or a budget (lol, I know), then it automatically resets with an across-the-board 3% COLA increase. Congress would always have the right to pass spending bills to re-allocate money and change things, but the default for political paralysis would be to keep things running as they are.

[bob]

Originally Posted by NobodyHere

We need a law saying that if the government is shut down for a month then new elections are required for every house and senate seat, as well as for president.

This would just encourage the party not in power to shut down the government all the time.

[NobodyHere]

Originally Posted by bob

This would just encourage the party not in power to shut down the government all the time.

If the public blamed them then they would just lose more seats.

[bob]

Sure, but we both know that won't happen.

Do you know anyone that would have voted republican but won't now because of this shut down (or the other way around)?

[NobodyHere]

Originally Posted by bob

Sure, but we both know that won't happen.

Do you know anyone that would have voted republican but won't now because of this shut down (or the other way around)?

I can't claim to know how'd they vote, but I do know some former military who are very upset that the coast guard is working without pay.

[bronconick]

Originally Posted by NobodyHere

We need a law saying that if the government is shut down for a month then new elections are required for every house and senate seat, as well as for president.

My personal idea was an Amendment (because we can't cut their pay) where everytime it shuts down there's no money or perks for the executive and legislative branch, and the only things that can be voted on are declarations of war, impeachment hearings, or funding to reopen the government. Personally, I'd lock them all into the Capital with nothing but bread and water until they're done but I'm not sure how to put that in legalese.

[Neon_Chaos]

It’s interesting how the US doesn’t have a provision to reenact the previous year’s budget until a new one is drafted.

We have that over here. No new projects get funded since it’s just assuming the same from previous year, but it makes sure that bills and government salaries get paid.

It also prevents either branch to hold government employees hostage with deferred salaries.

[bob]

We are terrible at passing budgets:

20 Years Of Congress’s Budget Procrastination, In One Chart | FiveThirtyEight

[albionmoonlight]

Pelosi putting some flamethrowers on the Oversight Committee (i.e. the thorn in the President's side committee).

With every passing day, I can understand why the GOP was so excited by the idea that Pelosi might not become Speaker. They knew.

[spleen1015]

Originally Posted by bob

We are terrible at passing budgets:

20 Years Of Congress’s Budget Procrastination, In One Chart | FiveThirtyEight

We are terrible at picking who we want to run the country. We should replace them all with people that give a damn.

[bob]

Agreed - my point is we have been terrible at electing people for a long time now.

[Atocep]

Originally Posted by albionmoonlight

Pelosi putting some flamethrowers on the Oversight Committee (i.e. the thorn in the President's side committee).

With every passing day, I can understand why the GOP was so excited by the idea that Pelosi might not become Speaker. They knew.

Republican attacks on her during midterms should have been a sign that's she's the perfect person to lead the House. If she wasn't good at her job they would have cheered her being selected.

[kingfc22]

So when is the breaking point to run with Obstruction of Justice? Is it when a witness delays testimony for fear of retribution from the President and his merry men?

[digamma]

Originally Posted by albionmoonlight

Pelosi putting some flamethrowers on the Oversight Committee (i.e. the thorn in the President's side committee).

With every passing day, I can understand why the GOP was so excited by the idea that Pelosi might not become Speaker. They knew.

It's helpful that she knows how government and procedure works. These letters today...

[albionmoonlight]

Originally Posted by kingfc22

So when is the breaking point to run with Obstruction of Justice? Is it when a witness delays testimony for fear of retribution from the President and his merry men?

This isn't a direct response to your question, but it is a good reminder:

Impeachment is a 100% political process that is entirely given to the House and Senate. Fair, right, wrong, criminal, non-criminal, just, unjust, ain't got nothing to do with it:

Front Office Football Central - View Single Post - POL - the whole spying mess

[Thomkal]

Cohen cancels his appearance before the House citing threats against his family by Trump and others. Dems say they will subpoena him.