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Senate The US Politics discussion

Discussion in 'Community' started by Ghost, Dec 6, 2012.

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anakinfansince1983 Skywalker Saga/LFL/YJCC Manager Staff Member Manager

Registered:

Mar 4, 2011

Slate article on Ken Cuccinelli's obsession with sex

Someone could fertilize the entire state of Virginia with his "but...but...but the children!" claims.

anakinfansince1983 , Aug 7, 2013

#1651

Iron_lord and Juliet316 like this.
VadersLaMent Chosen One

Registered:

Apr 3, 2002

Elysium come sout this week. It is of course commentary on rich vs poor. But go ahead and keep voting GOP.

VadersLaMent, Aug 7, 2013

#1652

anakinfansince1983 likes this.
Darth Guy Chosen One

Registered:

Aug 16, 2002

It's also a ripoff of Final Fantasy XIII! Kind of!

...what?

Darth Guy, Aug 7, 2013

#1653

Ramza likes this.
Obi-Zahn Kenobi Force Ghost

Registered:

Aug 23, 1999

Ted Turner already owns that big chunk.

Obi-Zahn Kenobi, Aug 7, 2013

#1654
Ghost Chosen One

Registered:

Oct 13, 2003

Right-wing militia has taken over small town in Pennsylvania:
http://politicalblindspot.com/media-blackout-militia-is-holding-pennsylvania-town-hostage/

Welcome to Gilberton, Pennsylvania, where men with loaded guns, propping up a suspended police chief accuse all other citizens of being “tyrants”. It is a place where men with Swastika tattoos claim the “other people” are the Nazis. What, didn’t you hear about this on CNN, Fox, MSNBC, or really anywhere else? Isn’t NPR even interesting in this story? For whatever the reason, no one is touching this. Perhaps the Federal government fears a stand off and doesn’t want this to snowball, or inspire other towns with similar demographics to go the same route. Whatever the reason, this is a true case of media blackout. Here’s what’s going on…

Gilberton, Pennsylvania is a small borough which is currently living under the constant threat of terroristic violence. Armed men block the entrance to public meetings. Public officials openly threaten every member of society who holds a different political view than they do, and councilmen are strip searched and arrested without cause if they don’t fall in line with prevailing opinions.

Anyone who tries to fire the Police Chief is be forced to live in fear of retaliation from a militia of armed terrorists. Pennsylvania police chief Mark Kessler is the head of a political organization which refers to itself as “The Constitution Security Force.“ Kessler was recently given a thirty day suspension, for using police property as props in a video where he threatens and insults “libtards,” otherwise known as people who hold political views which differ from his own.

In a second video, Kessler can also be seen threatening the life of a federal government official, Secretary of State John Kerry.

On August 1st, Kessler called on the militia to attend a meeting of the Gilberton Borough Council, where disciplinary actions against Kessler (for the videos) were being discussed. A State Police helicopter was called to the scene, as more than a hundred armed men and women arrived at the meeting, brandishing AR-15 assault rifles. Armed members of the microcosmic police state “militia” blocked the doors of the public building where the meeting was held, in order to prevent those who wished to speak from entering. According to the Huffington Post, members of the group ”angrily confronted Michael Morrill of Keystone Progress, who delivered petition signatures from 20,000 Americans who want Kessler fired.”

In an email Morrill explained, “I have been organizing for four decades. I have faced Klansmen in Kentucky, Ustase in Bosnia and police indiscriminately beating demonstrators in Italy. [Wednesday] night in Gilberton was more frightening than any of those situations.”
Due to mounting tensions and no doubt, concerns over increasing threats of violence from Kessler and his armed political faction, only a small number of residents were given the chance to speak during the meeting. Of those who did speak, however, many said that they themselves, or members of their families, are living in fear of Kessler and his militia.

Others who were allowed to speak referred to Kessler as a “nut,” a liability and a detriment to the small community. Many who wanted to speak were prevented from doing so, either because they were blocked from entering the building or because they were too afraid of retaliation to come forward. On July 31, 2013, the borough’s insurance carrier also contacted local officials, stating that they believe that Kessler may be a liability, as well.

...

The people of Gilberton borough are also rightfully concerned about Kessler’s irrational behavior. In 2011, while off duty, the police chief fired his weapon during a bar brawl, shooting himself in the hand by mistake. At the time of the incident, police and media reports show that the bar was “packed” with people. In a report from the Republican Herald, published shortly after the incident first occurred, an officer under Kessler is quoted as saying: “He got mixed up. Why, at this point, is still under investigation.”
Click to expand...

(language warning for video)

In other news, there's this happening:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/08/12/130812fa_fact_stillman

On a bright Thursday afternoon in 2007, Jennifer Boatright, a waitress at a Houston bar-and-grill, drove with her two young sons and her boyfriend, Ron Henderson, on U.S. 59 toward Linden, Henderson’s home town, near the Texas-Louisiana border. They made the trip every April, at the first signs of spring, to walk the local wildflower trails and spend time with Henderson’s father. This year, they’d decided to buy a used car in Linden, which had plenty for sale, and so they bundled their cash savings in their car’s center console. Just after dusk, they passed a sign that read “Welcome to Tenaha: A little town with BIG Potential!”

They pulled into a mini-mart for snacks. When they returned to the highway ten minutes later, Boatright, a honey-blond “Texas redneck from Lubbock,” by her own reckoning, and Henderson, who is Latino, noticed something strange. The same police car that their eleven-year-old had admired in the mini-mart parking lot was trailing them. Near the city limits, a tall, bull-shouldered officer named Barry Washington pulled them over.

He asked if Henderson knew that he’d been driving in the left lane for more than half a mile without passing.

No, Henderson replied. He said he’d moved into the left lane so that the police car could make its way onto the highway.

Were there any drugs in the car? When Henderson and Boatright said no, the officer asked if he and his partner could search the car.

The officers found the couple’s cash and a marbled-glass pipe that Boatright said was a gift for her sister-in-law, and escorted them across town to the police station. In a corner there, two tables were heaped with jewelry, DVD players, cell phones, and the like. According to the police report, Boatright and Henderson fit the profile of drug couriers: they were driving from Houston, “a known point for distribution of illegal narcotics,” to Linden, “a known place to receive illegal narcotics.” The report describes their children as possible decoys, meant to distract police as the couple breezed down the road, smoking marijuana. (None was found in the car, although Washington claimed to have smelled it.)

The county’s district attorney, a fifty-seven-year-old woman with feathered Charlie’s Angels hair named Lynda K. Russell, arrived an hour later. Russell, who moonlighted locally as a country singer, told Henderson and Boatright that they had two options. They could face felony charges for “money laundering” and “child endangerment,” in which case they would go to jail and their children would be handed over to foster care. Or they could sign over their cash to the city of Tenaha, and get back on the road. “No criminal charges shall be filed,” a waiver she drafted read, “and our children shall not be turned over to CPS,” or Child Protective Services.
“Where are we?” Boatright remembers thinking. “Is this some kind of foreign country, where they’re selling people’s kids off?” Holding her sixteen-month-old on her hip, she broke down in tears.

Later, she learned that cash-for-freedom deals had become a point of pride for Tenaha, and that versions of the tactic were used across the country. “Be safe and keep up the good work,” the city marshal wrote to Washington, following a raft of complaints from out-of-town drivers who claimed that they had been stopped in Tenaha and stripped of cash, valuables, and, in at least one case, an infant child, without clear evidence of contraband.

Outraged by their experience in Tenaha, Jennifer Boatright and Ron Henderson helped to launch a class-action lawsuit challenging the abuse of a legal doctrine known as civil-asset forfeiture. “Have you looked it up?” Boatright asked me when I met her this spring at Houston’s H&H Saloon, where she runs Steak Night every Monday. She was standing at a mattress-size grill outside. “It’ll blow your mind.”

The basic principle behind asset forfeiture is appealing. It enables authorities to confiscate cash or property obtained through illicit means, and, in many states, funnel the proceeds directly into the fight against crime. In Tulsa, Oklahoma, cops drive a Cadillac Escalade stencilled with the words “This Used To Be a Drug Dealer’s Car, Now It’s Ours!” In Monroe, North Carolina, police recently proposed using forty-four thousand dollars in confiscated drug money to buy a surveillance drone, which might be deployed to catch fleeing suspects, conduct rescue missions, and, perhaps, seize more drug money. Hundreds of state and federal laws authorize forfeiture for cockfighting, drag racing, basement gambling, endangered-fish poaching, securities fraud, and countless other misdeeds.

In general, you needn’t be found guilty to have your assets claimed by law enforcement; in some states, suspicion on a par with “probable cause” is sufficient. Nor must you be charged with a crime, or even be accused of one. Unlike criminal forfeiture, which requires that a person be convicted of an offense before his or her property is confiscated, civil forfeiture amounts to a lawsuit filed directly against a possession, regardless of its owner’s guilt or innocence.
Click to expand...

Ghost, Aug 11, 2013

#1655
Arawn_Fenn Chosen One

Registered:

Jul 2, 2004

Obi-Zahn Kenobi said: ↑

and sexual permissiveness (the strip club) are conservative ideals?
Click to expand...

Yeah, you'll never find a conservative in a strip club.

...what?

Arawn_Fenn, Aug 11, 2013

#1656

Jedi Merkurian likes this.
Lord Vivec Chosen One

Registered:

Apr 17, 2006

Summer Dreamer, do you have a mainstream or legitimate news source about that? I can't seem to find any that isn't from an "alternative" or blogspam news.

Lord Vivec, Aug 11, 2013

#1657
Ghost Chosen One

Registered:

Oct 13, 2003

Lord Vivec said: ↑

Summer Dreamer, do you have a mainstream or legitimate news source about that? I can't seem to find any that isn't from an "alternative" or blogspam news.
Click to expand...

Yes, but not as much detail:

http://www.kltv.com/story/23084013/police-chief-suspended-after-posting-video-of-him

People in one Pennsylvania town are calling for their police chief to step down after he posted video that shows him cursing and firing guns. Despite the controversy, Gilberton, PA police chief Mark Kessler says he has the right to express himself and bear arms.
Some in Gilberton are calling for him to go, though.
"Kessler is a detriment to the borough, so my wife is afraid of him, so I'm going to be afraid of him too," said one Gilberton resident.
The borough council met on July 31st to suspend Kessler for 30 days. Kessler posted about the meeting on his Facebook page, saying, "I am expected a large crowd of anti-gunners and anticonstitutionalist [sic] to show up."
A couple dozen or more armed men showed up at the meeting.
Kessler offers no apologize for the videos. He broke no laws and says he was expressing his constitutional rights of free speech and to bear arms.
"Everybody is entitled to their opinion and I would hope everybody express their opinion under the constitution, just like I have in my videos," said Kessler.
Click to expand...

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/2...profanities/36EgdGVURazeUgV3wcMFcM/story.html

http://www.myfoxphilly.com/story/22984625/gilberton-police-chief-suspended-for-30-days

Even with more than 100 armed supporters by his side. The police chief of the small coal mining town of Gilberton has been suspended for the next 30 days.
Women came with high heels and side arms. Men with their camo and rifles. Almost all of them came to support Gilberton police chief Mark Kessler.
But most people outside Gilberton know the town by it's gun-shooting profanity spewing police chief. He appears in a series of controversial videos that he posted recently on YouTube.
And some in town weren't happy either with their chief who is also a member of the local school board.
"Upsetting. The profanity. And that what has me upset. It's a reflection on our borough," says Rose McCarthy of Gilberton. "Guys won't listen unless somebody got colorful!!!! He enlisted violence which is wrong"
Tensions were high as a state police helicopter flew overhead and nearly 20 troopers were stationed nearby. The tiny borough hall was crammed with people as borough leaders voted to suspend Kessler for posting those videos and using borough owned guns in the videos.
"Coming from a small Christian community. The vulgarity. The violence. It was like watching an R-rated movie," says Mary Lou Hannon, the Gilberton Mayor.
Since posting the videos, Kessler says he's gotten death threats. People from across the country are also calling for his resignation. But there is also a ground swell of support, people here proudly packing their weapons.
One guy came all the way from Michigan.
"Do I think he used strong words? That's up to him. But I'm still standing behind him because of what he believes in," says Kenneth Rhoades of Michigan
Kessler says he shot the videos because he wants America to wake up. He says he wanted to get your attention.
"I stood up for my country. I stood up for what I believe in. I stood up for military personnel who fought and died overseas," says Mark Kessler, our newly suspended police chief. "They're entitled to their first amendment right like I am."
Gilberton's mayor says she hasn't talked to Kessler about the videos but plans on doing so. She also says she's hoping the chief will be back on the job a month from now.
Click to expand...

Not as much detail about him intimidating the rest of the town and going somewhat outside the law, but just having these armed supporters for this irrational police chief around would be enough to make me feel threatened, personally.

Ghost, Aug 11, 2013

#1658
Lord Vivec Chosen One

Registered:

Apr 17, 2006

Those are a lot less sensational than "Pennsylvania town held hostage by militia"

Lord Vivec, Aug 11, 2013

#1659

Summer Dreamer likes this.
Obi-Zahn Kenobi Force Ghost

Registered:

Aug 23, 1999

Yeah . . . A right to free speech means that the government can't persecute citizens for it. For example, as a student, I am protected from sanction by my state university if I go around cussing (outside of class).

It doesn't mean employers, even government employees, can't be fired for private behavior. As Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said, "There may be a constitutional right to talk politics, but there is no constitutional right to be a policeman."

It frustrates me when people think they can say any inane or stupid thing and be free from consequences because of freedom of speech.

On a more serious note . . . I really don't understand how his publishing videos of him shooting and cussing affects his ability to do his jobs. Where I am from, cops do a lot of both. The mayor who said "It was like an R-rated movie" made me roll my eyes.

Obi-Zahn Kenobi, Aug 11, 2013

#1660
Jabba-wocky Chosen One

Registered:

May 4, 2003

Part of the issue is that his behavior is arguably not truly private. He can no more used his employer-issued firearms for personal recreation than can an ambulance driver hijack his vehicle for a midnight run to McDonalds. Using official equipment implies official sanction for his activities, and thereby reflects poorly on city government. Regardless of whether we personally would have dismissed him or not, I think they are well justified in doing so.

Jabba-wocky, Aug 11, 2013

#1661

Juliet316 likes this.
Rogue_Ten Chosen One

Registered:

Aug 18, 2002

i dunno he does come off like an eight-year-old boy throwing a tantrum which is pretty embarrassing for the city. i would think that would be grounds for him being fired

Rogue_Ten, Aug 11, 2013

#1662
Jabba-wocky Chosen One

Registered:

May 4, 2003

That is, not coincidentally, the same level of maturity implied by thinking it's cool to make video about using firearms.

Jabba-wocky, Aug 11, 2013

#1663
Rogue_Ten Chosen One

Registered:

Aug 18, 2002

actual footage from the gilberton police department

Rogue_Ten, Aug 11, 2013

#1664
Lord Vivec Chosen One

Registered:

Apr 17, 2006

Rogue_Ten said: ↑

i dunno he does come off like an eight-year-old boy throwing a tantrum which is pretty embarrassing for the city. i would think that would be grounds for him being fired
Click to expand...

Sheriff Leekenobi

Lord Vivec, Aug 11, 2013

#1665

Rogue_Ten likes this.
VadersLaMent Chosen One

Registered:

Apr 3, 2002

Oh noes! McDonalds hamburgers will cost $20 if minimum wage goes up.

And just in case you missed it or Fox News is your only news source the Deficit has been dropping rapidly for years

VadersLaMent, Aug 14, 2013

#1666
VadersLaMent Chosen One

Registered:

Apr 3, 2002

Texas councilwoman caught on tape

It's 15 minutes long, but just the first minute is ridiculous where homosexuality is placed in the same category as incest and marrying animals. Normally when you hear this it comes from folks like Beck and Limbaugh who are full of it and they know it. This is a recording they did not know was happening.

VadersLaMent, Aug 17, 2013

#1667
Juliet316 Time-Traveling F&G Manager Staff Member Manager

Registered:

Apr 27, 2005

“Chan is only focused on her political future,” he continued. “She’s not focused on the policy itself and how it’s going to really affect the city. We spent 80 percent of that meeting talking about how disgusting homosexuality is.”

Welp, it looks like she has no political future now.

Edit: Apparently from reading the comments (which are surprisingly okay ATM), she's a Democrat, so, yeah, really no political future at this point as other Democrats won't dare be caught near her.

Juliet316 , Aug 17, 2013

#1668
anakinfansince1983 Skywalker Saga/LFL/YJCC Manager Staff Member Manager

Registered:

Mar 4, 2011

LOL. Karma is awesome.

Dear politicians: in this age of modern technology, you cannot expect to act like an ass and not get caught. Ask Mitt Romney, he knows.

anakinfansince1983 , Aug 17, 2013

#1669

Jedi Merkurian , Juliet316 and Jedi_Dajuan like this.
anakinfansince1983 Skywalker Saga/LFL/YJCC Manager Staff Member Manager

Registered:

Mar 4, 2011

Double posting but I'm way out of edit time.

LMAO. I wondered how long it would take for this to happen:

Conservatives angry over Elysium

I actually do think the film is political but that's hardly the point. If conservatives are getting this pissed off over it, the shoe must fit. It's not as if the film explained how Earth turned into one large bad neighborhood, nor does it ever say that income inequality policies got society to the point where a handful of rich people were able to escape Earth's squalor. The viewer is left to draw his or her own conclusions about how Earth in 2151 got to such a point.

If conservatives were not advocating the idea that concentrating all the wealth into the hands of a few is perfectly acceptable, if they were not advocating policies in which only the wealthy should be able to access health care, workers should do as they are told no matter how dangerous it is, and illegal immigrants should be dealt with forcefully--why would they take this film so personally?

anakinfansince1983 , Aug 17, 2013

#1670

Iron_lord , Violent Violet Menace, Jedi Merkurian and 5 others like this.
VadersLaMent Chosen One

Registered:

Apr 3, 2002

What's funny is that when asked if this world was possible in the future Blomkamp said, "No, this is happening. Now." It is a political film. The rich smashing the poor.

VadersLaMent, Aug 17, 2013

#1671

Adam of Nuchtern, Juliet316 , Rogue_Ten and 1 other person like this.
Rogue_Ten Chosen One

Registered:

Aug 18, 2002

of course its a political film. why shouldnt it be? why do americans (particularly conservatives and so called "independants") seem to feel like art (even popular culture) should be free from meaningful social commentary?

Rogue_Ten, Aug 17, 2013

#1672

Violent Violet Menace, Jedi Merkurian , Adam of Nuchtern and 1 other person like this.
anakinfansince1983 Skywalker Saga/LFL/YJCC Manager Staff Member Manager

Registered:

Mar 4, 2011

They're fine with Atlas Shrugged. In fact, some have blamed the "liberal media" for the fact that it didn't do very well in the theater.

It's only when the commentary is negative towards them that they yell "How dare anyone make a political movie!"

anakinfansince1983 , Aug 17, 2013

#1673

Violent Violet Menace and Jedi Merkurian like this.
VadersLaMent Chosen One

Registered:

Apr 3, 2002

Science fiction is great for commentary. It is easy for scifi to get away with examinations of the human condition because people think of it as "that silly scifi stuff". The example that always pops into my mind is the first interracial kiss on tv; Star Trek.

VadersLaMent, Aug 17, 2013

#1674

Violent Violet Menace, Jedi Merkurian , Juliet316 and 1 other person like this.
Juliet316 Time-Traveling F&G Manager Staff Member Manager

Registered:

Apr 27, 2005

Yep. I often prefer intelligent sci - fi with some sort of commentary on current events than sci - fi that's brainless and filled with explosions.

Juliet316 , Aug 17, 2013

#1675

Jedi Merkurian likes this.

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