Fight the American Stasi with Mockery
Posted By: sagman, 1/3/2022 9:38:49 AM
In a 2019 article for The Atlantic, “The Lingering Trauma of Stasi Surveillance,” Charlotte Bailey explores how many of the thousands of Germans who were victims of the The Ministry for State Security—commonly known as the Stasi—still suffer from psychological trauma. The Stasi were part of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Before its collapse in 1989 after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the GDR, as Bailey describes, “went to extraordinary lengths to spy on and control its citizens.”
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Fight the American Stasi with Mockery
15 replies
In a 2019 article for The Atlantic, “The Lingering Trauma of Stasi Surveillance,” Charlotte Bailey explores how many of the thousands of Germans who were victims of the The Ministry for State Security—commonly known as the Stasi—still suffer from psychological trauma. The Stasi were part of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Before its collapse in 1989 after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the GDR, as Bailey describes, “went to extraordinary lengths to spy on and control its citizens.”
Rubio and the Tech Robber Barons
4 replies
America took a jump backward about 100 years last week, and it was an interesting sight to see.
At issue was Sen. Marco Rubio and an op-ed he wrote for USA Today. Rubio announced a surprising change of position — specifically, that he backed Amazon workers at a facility in Bessemer, Alabama, in their effort to unionize against the e-tail giant.
Republicans throwing in behind unions? Is this a sign of the apocalypse?
You’d think so, but according to Rubio’s op-ed it isn’t much of a sea change in the GOP’s economic policy. Instead, he’s taking the stance as a result of Amazon’s toxicity in the culture wars:
We have Had Enough Lockdown
11 replies
Take off the masks and remove the “social distancing” circles from the floors. Open the schools, liberate college campuses, fill the restaurants and the gyms and the churches and the salons. Enough.
If 2020 wasn’t twisted enough, the current political imbroglio centers around a verboten visit to a California boutique for a routine blow-out. (Snip) The incident is the latest in a series of “rules for thee but not for me” gut punches from the ruling class; whether it’s mask-free trips to the park or crowded funerals for anointed heroes or casual meals munched indoors, the government-ordered shutdowns apply to everyone except the sadists running government who order said shutdowns.
Trump and His Campaign
Are Being Outclassed 40 replies
Are Being Outclassed 40 replies
Joe Biden delivered a solid, if overhyped, speech last night accepting his party’s nomination for the highest office in the land. It effectively put a cap on the Democratic National Convention (DNC) and summed up the Democrats’ case thus: Joe Biden is a good and kind man; Donald Trump is not. Biden’s decency has been hugely exaggerated, as my colleague Ramesh Ponnuru has explained at Bloomberg Opinion, but he does seem a Boy Scout compared with his opponent. (Snip) Trump and his team have played right into Biden’s hands too.
Poll: Trump takes lead over Biden
22 replies
A new poll released this weekend shows President Donald Trump, the incumbent GOP president, has taken a national and battleground states lead over his Democrat challenger presumptive nominee former Vice President Joe Biden.
The survey, from the Democracy Institute commissioned by the Sunday Express newspaper, shows Trump leading Biden 48 percent to 46 percent. What’s more, Trump has opened up a bigger lead according to this poll in the crucial battleground states, meaning the president by this pollster’s estimates currently is projected to win 309 electoral votes—more than he did in 2016.
Former 2016 Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina has stated she plans to vote for former Vice President Joe Biden (D) in November.
Fiorina, who says she is not pleased with President Donald Trump’s presidential conduct and was also Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) prospective running mate in 2016, made her remarks during an interview with the Atlantic’s “The Ticket” podcast.
“I’ve been very clear that I can’t support Donald Trump,” Fiorina said in the interview. “And elections are binary choices.”
Father Daniel Moloney is the latest victim of cancel culture’s inquisition against all who question the Black Lives Matter movement. Moloney was forced out of his job as the Catholic chaplain of MIT last week after a university administrator deemed his writings on the death of George Floyd “deeply disturbing” and the Archdiocese of Boston asked him to resign.
In a blog post and an email to students published at the beginning of June, Moloney spoke out about the errors of the new approach to fighting racism (snip) and called instead for a Christian path of charity and solidarity.
Until Thursday, Donald Trump’s reelection chances were not looking good. The booming economy — the lynchpin of his reelection campaign — lay in a COVID-induced coma, his near-daily jousting with a contemptuous press corps was yielding diminishing returns, and the Democratic leadership was salivating at running the cardboard-cutout version of Joe Biden against their hated enemy, trapped in the White House by the coronavirus panic.
What a difference a couple of days makes. With the stunning announcement Thursday that the Justice Department was dropping all charges against Mike Flynn, Trump’s short-lived first national security adviser, the tables have suddenly turned.
About Those Press Conferences
45 replies
President Trump seems increasingly ambivalent about the utility of the daily and sometime marathon press conferences. He should be — and for reasons besides just their length and frequency.
First, Trump gets bogged down into long, back-and-forth jousts with the touché Washington press corps. His impromptu skills, honed both as president and in his years on television, usually ensure him tactical victories. He is not peremptory but retaliatory in his put-downs. Fine. Most Americans don’t especially like the Washington press corps. So they don’t mind them earning the repartee that their rude provocation deserves.
But Trump’s victories are becoming Pyrrhic.
Fox News Channel made the decision Friday to cut away from the daily White House coronavirus task force briefing in order to have a panel discussion during The Story, which is hosted by Martha MacCallum.
Critical information that Fox News viewers missed after the cutaway included statements from Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue, certain doctors, and company CEOs who discussed their plans to get lunches to homes for children.
It’s time for the Trump haters to ditch their “unfit” trope. (snip) Somehow, they claim, a combination of incompetence, mental illness, and excessive fast-food consumption all render Trump incapable of executing his duties.While this has been an absurd and ugly lie since Trump’s inauguration, these stalwart naysayers now should see that Trump is entirely equipped to do his job. Trump’s critics surely will disagree with his policies and decisions. But the last few weeks should make even them admit that, whether they cheer or jeer his actions, he actually is performing as president, and effectively so.
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A team of nine black climbers is attempting to scale Mount Everest to tackle the mountain's 'intentional lack of access for black people' and mountaineering's 'colonial history'. The Full Circle Everest Expedition, which climbing leader Fred Campbell described as 'the first all black and brown expedition to the highest place on earth' in an Instagram video, is hoping to change the future of mountaineering. The first two men to ever complete the climb to Mount Everest's summit were Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, from Nepal, and Sir Edmund Hillary, from New Zealand, in 1953. In fact, many people from the Sherpa community climb the mountain daily during peak season to carry
Alec Baldwin has said Halyna Hutchins' death is 'the worst situation' he has 'ever been involved with'. The actor, 63, accidentally fatally shot the cinematographer on the set of the Western film Rust last year, and in a lengthy video, reflected on 2021 and how thankful he is to have gotten 'so much goodwill from people'. He said: 'I've had more people who have been kind and thoughtful and generous of spirit than I've had people who are malignant about the death of Halyna Hutchins.
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will deliver remarks at the US Capitol on Thursday to mark the first anniversary of January 6th insurrection. The pair will speak in one part of a series of events organized by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats in 'solemn observance' for the officers who died protecting the Capitol from the rioters.Although it is unknown what the pair will say Thursday, Biden has repeatedly condemned the rioters who breached the Capitol while Congress was certifying the 2020 presidential election and has referred to the insurrection as a 'dark day' in American history.
Should Donald Trump run in 2024?
44 replies
With the turn of the calendar to 2022, Republicans are not only looking to the 2022 midterm elections but to the prospect of Donald Trump running in 2024. Trump is hugely popular with the party’s base and that popularity freezes the plans of other possible candidates for the 2024 nomination. Trump’s hold on that nomination is brittle, however, because of his age. On election day in 2024 Donald Trump will be 78 years old. That is one year older than Ronald Reagan’s age when he left office in 1988.Looking at the 2024 contest from the other side of the race, there is no reason to expect that Joe Biden
Liz Cheney, one of two Republicans on the unconstitutionally assembled January 6 Committee, rebuked GOP voters for their support of former President Donald Trump on Sunday.
“We can either be loyal to Donald Trump or we can be loyal to the Constitution, but we cannot be both. And right now, there are far too many Republicans who are trying to enable the former president, embrace the former president, look the other way and hope that the former president goes away, trying to obstruct the activities of this committee,”
Ten years ago, baby-faced men were passed over in Hollywood for rugged looking stars with more traditionally masculine looks. But today more feminine-looking actors with delicate features, shorter stature and symmetrical faces are more in demand because they appear to younger viewers, experts claim.Gen Z audiences are drawn to celebrities like Tom Holland, Timothée Chalamet and Harry Styles who embody a 'brand of enlightened non-toxic masculinity', according to beauty expert Laura Kay.
New York Attorney General Letitia James slammed former President Donald Trump's children, Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr., after ABC revealed they are refusing to comply with the subpoena in her investigation over whether their father committed fraud by misrepresenting his company's asset values.'Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and Ivanka Trump are trying to stop my office from interviewing them under oath as part of our investigation into the Trump Organization and Mr. Trump,' James tweeted. She added: 'Over two years of delay tactics won't stop our investigation because no one is above the law.'
WASHINGTON — Days before the anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced the Senate will vote on filibuster rules changes to advance stalled voting legislation that Democrats say is needed to protect democracy. In a letter Monday to colleagues, Schumer, D-N.Y., said the Senate “must evolve” and will “debate and consider” the rules changes by Jan. 17, on or before Martin Luther King Jr. Day, as the Democrats seek to overcome Republican opposition to their elections law package.
“Let me be clear: January 6th was a symptom of a broader illness — an effort to delegitimize our election process,”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is expected to step down at the end of this Congress after nearly two decades in Democratic leadership, and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries is the new favorite to lead the party. While Jeffries, N.Y., chair of the House Democratic Caucus, is the favorite, the debate over who will succeed Pelosi, Calif., could lay to bare the deep divide between progressives and moderates. Future leaders of the party could differ in their ideas for how to counter the GOP, as they brace for the possibility of serious losses in the midterm elections.
Furious drivers stranded on I-95 in Virginia for more than 19 hours without gas, food and water are demanding that Governor Ralph Northam speed up rescue efforts. Virginia State Senator Tim Kaine is one of the hundreds of travelers stuck along a 50-mile stretch of Interstate 95 - between Dumfries Road, which is nearly an hour to Washington, DC, and Carmel Church, only 8mi from the Capitol - after a snowstorm dumped at least 11 inches of snow on the road and a crash involving six tractor-trailers.Kaine revealed that he is one of the people stuck in the snowy pile-up in a tweet early Tuesday
The Manhattan district attorney’s office has dropped a probe into Andrew Cuomo over allegations he mishandled nursing homes during the initial coronavirus outbreak, the ex-governor’s lawyer said Monday.
Cuomo’s spokesman forwarded a statement from Elkan Abramowitz, an attorney who had repped the governor’s office under Cuomo. “I was contacted today by the head of the Elder Care Unit from the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office who informed me they have closed its investigation involving the Executive Chamber and nursing homes,” Abramowitz said. “I was told that after a thorough investigation—as we have said all along—there was no evidence to suggest that any laws were broken.”
Elite commando teams with the authority to shoot-to-kill were deployed in Washington, DC on January 6th last year to protect ex-Vice President Mike Pence and members of Congress gathering to certify the 2020 election results, a new report claimed on Monday.
A year ago today, senior leaders of multiple federal special forces teams met to discuss contingency plans and possible threats ahead of the Joint Session of Congress where President Joe Biden's electoral victory was sealed, Newsweek reported.(Snip)Agents from the FBI's Baltimore, Maryland Field Office, the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team, an FBI nuclear explosives rapid response team known as 'Render Safe,' as well as
Comments:
Judge ends the article by saying a potent weapon to use against the "American Stasi" is mockery. I've been retired from the satire game for some time, but this crew may get me off my duff.