Stupid Republican idea of the day

[enipla]

@Fear_Itself

Republican state legislator resigns after it is revealed he used naked pictures of his girlfriend to catfish guys on Instagram.

Oh, and of course he was a member of a task force combatting sexual harassment.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/08/02/illinois-lawmaker-resigns-after-ex-girlfriend-says-he-used-her-naked-photos-to-catfish-men-on-instagram/?utm_term=.c63d36a8a090

Catfish

[El_Kabong]

Oh, and of course as soon as I typed out my last post, it turns out there’s already a MPSIMS thread on the whole “QAnon” thing:

https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=21123577&posted=1#post21123577

[Fear_Itself]

@enipla

Catfish

Catfishing is the practice of pretending to be someone you are not, usually on the internet to pursue romantic encounters. Some guys like to pretend to be women and talk dirty with other guys.

Catfishing

[D_Odds]

@El_Kabong

I hadn’t seen this mentioned yet:

What You Should Know About Far Right Conspiracy Theory QAnon | Fortune

Summary:

Given that 4Chan is apparently one of the places that this first popped up, I’m leaning more towards “sophomoric joke” than “entirely serious”, but I guess you never know.

Wish I could remember where I was reading, but it was a joke. But then it spread from its 4chan cellar and, of course, a certain significant subset of troglodyte far-righties believe it. How these people have lasted into adulthood is beyond me. Tell them anything anti-leftie, no matter how far-fetched, and they’ll take it in hook, line, and sinker.

[Measure_for_Measure]

@Fear_Itself

Catfishing is the practice of pretending to be someone you are not, usually on the internet to pursue romantic encounters. Some guys like to pretend to be women and talk dirty with other guys.

Catfishing - Wikipedia

Their possible motives are discussed here: Why do men pretend to be women online? - Salon.com

@D_Odds

Wish I could remember where I was reading, but it was a joke. But then it spread from its 4chan cellar and, of course, a certain significant subset of troglodyte far-righties believe it. How these people have lasted into adulthood is beyond me. Tell them anything anti-leftie, no matter how far-fetched, and they’ll take it in hook, line, and sinker.

The fact that it started as a 4chan troll joke is obvious. But the right wing media has picked up on it. One Breitbart nutcase tweets: [INDENT]I’ve been asked about the “Q” for a few months now. Not really knowing who or what it was in any sort of detail. Started researching this movement a few weeks ago and someone sent this to me today. Pretty much impossible to stop watching once you start [/INDENT] The ever helpful Vox.com offers a QAnon explainer: What is QAnon? The pro-Trump conspiracy theory movement, explained | Vox
[INDENT] The Russia investigation is a sham. It’s actually a cover story for special counsel Robert Mueller and Donald Trump working together to expose thousands of pedophiles hidden in plain sight — including Hillary Clinton (and Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama), who will soon be under arrest. (Or perhaps already have been and are on their way to Guantanamo Bay.)

The GOP lost the Alabama special election for Jeff Sessions’s Senate seat on purpose — a plan devised years ago to reveal the use of fraudulent voting machines and, ultimately, take down none other than George Soros. Or the Rothschilds. Or the Illuminati.

And there’s no White House chaos at all; in fact, despite legal scandals and special counsel investigations and bile-laden tweets, everything, absolutely everything, is going just as Donald Trump intended it.

Welcome to QAnon, sometimes referred to as “the Storm.” It’s a conspiracy theory that’s swept social media and is starting to break into the mainstream, with Trump rally attendees in Florida on July 31 holding signs and wearing T-shirts emblazoned with “We are Q” and the conspiracy theory’s main catchphrase, “Where we go one, we go all.” [/INDENT]

[Bryan_Ekers]

Makes me want to go to a Trump rally with a shirt that says:
I AM
Q
te

[Snowboarder_Bo]

This will end up in multiple threads, because I want to be sure that no one misses it. It goes here because 1) it’s Republicans and B) it’s stupid.

Trump wants the ACLU to do the government’s job and fix the child separation issue, because the Trump administration can’t figure out how the government could do it.

The Trump administration and the American Civil Liberties Union on Thursday revealed widely divergent plans on how to reunite hundreds of immigrant children with parents who have been deported since the families were separated at the U.S.-Mexico border.

President Donald Trump’s administration puts the onus on the ACLU, asking that the organization use its “considerable resources” to find parents in their home countries, predominantly Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. The U.S. Justice Department said in a court filing that the State Department has begun talks with foreign governments on how the administration may be able to aid the effort.

I’m sure the vast resources of the ACLU dwarf the capabilities of the United States federal government. :rolleyes:

The ACLU said. effectively, “Fuck off; we’re happy to help these families but this is your mess.”

The ACLU, which sued on behalf of separated parents, called for the government to take “significant and prompt steps” to find the parents on its own.

“Plaintiffs have made clear that they will do whatever they can to help locate the deported parents, but emphasize that the government must bear the ultimate burden of finding the parents,” the ACLU said in a filing. “Not only was it the government’s unconstitutional separation practices that led to the crisis, but the United States government has far more resources.”

The ACLU said it takes “a degree of detective work” to track down contact information for deported parents, some of whom may be hiding from persecutors.

The group said the government provided home-country addresses in U.S. immigration databases with no useful information for about 120 parents. Other addresses had limited use — for example, some had “calle sin nombre” (“street without a name”) or six addresses connected to one Honduran child, all in the Mexican city of San Luis Potosi.

What kind of numbers are we talking about? Good question; here’s the answer:

As of July 26, 431 children whose parents were outside the country were in the custody of the U.S. Health and Human Services Department.

Helluva supply of chutzpah, eh? To create a problem and then draw a plan for others to fix it? Sounds like something only the nuclear energy industry or the military or petro/chemical companies or drycleaners or the paper industry or… hmmm, I guess there is precedent in America for that after all.

Still: I don’t like it. The Trump administration should fix their own messes as long as they are still in control. Messing things up, letting Democrats fix them and then bitching about the fix is a GOP staple for the past 30 years and I think it’s time to end that game.

[Bryan_Ekers]

@Snowboarder_Bo

The Trump administration should fix their own messes as long as they are still in control.

There’s a certain unspoken assumption in this…

[iiandyiiii]

Latest stupid idea from a Republican (in this case, former exec director of the SC GOP): believing he is Jesus Christ reborn and sacrificing his dog.

Police Report: Ex-GOP Official Calls Himself Second Christ, Sacrifices Dog

[Folacin]

@iiandyiiii

Latest stupid idea from a Republican (in this case, former exec director of the SC GOP): believing he is Jesus Christ reborn and sacrificing his dog.

Police Report: Ex-GOP Official Calls Himself Second Christ, Sacrifices Dog - TPM – Talking Points Memo

It is hard to tell the difference sometimes between a Republican and a crazy person, but I think insanity has more to do with this story than Republicanism.

[Frodo]

South Carolina: Too small for a republic, to large for an insane asylum.

[ElvisL1ves]

Speaking of which, how’s Alvin Greene doing these days? (Yes, he’s a Dem, I know)

[Rick_Kitchen]

Orrin Hatch:
“I’m tired of partisanship and frankly, we didn’t treat their candidates for these positions the way they’re treating ours,”

POLITICO

Merrick Garland who?

[Kobal2]

Manafort’s lawyer :

Essentially, he argued that if Manafort had known he was doing something illegal, he wouldn’t have been so easy to catch.
“Nobody intending to violate the law would leave the evidence around for his accountant to find it,” Downing said in court.
Judge T.S. Ellis III made the same point, summarizing the defense as, “There’s a trail in these documents that would lead to the truth, and somebody who violated the law wouldn’t have done that.”

The old “Do you think I’d be dumb enough to keep the gun I shot my wife with ? I mean that she was shot with ?” defence. I don’t think that one ever worked, even on TV.

[Sherrerd]

@Kobal2

Manafort’s lawyer :

Essentially, he argued that if Manafort had known he was doing something illegal, he wouldn’t have been so easy to catch.
“Nobody intending to violate the law would leave the evidence around for his accountant to find it,” Downing said in court.
Judge T.S. Ellis III made the same point, summarizing the defense as, “There’s a trail in these documents that would lead to the truth, and somebody who violated the law wouldn’t have done that.”

The old “Do you think I’d be dumb enough to keep the gun I shot my wife with ? I mean that she was shot with ?” defence. I don’t think that one ever worked, even on TV.

I agree; it seems like an unsupportable conclusion from Ellis.

Which folder would be appropriate for discussing Ellis’ rulings, anyway? Great Debates? He’s making some that seem pretty shaky–even amounting to reversible error, perhaps. I’d be interested to know what others make of them.

For example, I’m thinking of his outlawing of the term “oligarch.” Also, his refusal to let the jury see any visuals that would demonstrate Manafort’s spending (photos of his Persian rugs and wardrobe and houses and landscaping, etc.). To make the case that Manafort had a bunch of money he wasn’t declaring for the purpose of paying taxes, and to make the case that Manafort had expensive tastes and therefore needed money badly, these images would be very helpful. Ellis’ claim that showing them would only prove that ‘Manafort is rich and he’s not on trial for being rich’ (basically) seems, again, shaky.

[kaylasdad99]

@Sherrerd

I agree; it seems like an unsupportable conclusion from Ellis.

Which folder would be appropriate for discussing Ellis’ rulings, anyway? Great Debates? He’s making some that seem pretty shaky–even amounting to reversible error, perhaps. I’d be interested to know what others make of them.

Is the concern that Ellis is making rulings that will tend to favor conviction, or that they will tend to favor acquittal?

[elucidator]

My nickel says the evidence is so strong the prosecution can handle the most restricting conditions. Cut them no slack at all, and they still win, and he doesn’t get all restless dreaming of appeals and reversals.

[Smapti]

New York man flying Nazi flag outside his house claims he’s not racist and was only flying the flag because he was “hacked”.

“It’s a distress call,” the Preble resident said. “It’s to get attention so I can tell people what’s going on and that someone is hacking me.”

Fish told the Post-Standard that as soon as someone helps him “correct” his hacking, he’ll take the flag down.

You just can’t fix this level of stupid.

[El_Kabong]

@Smapti

New York man flying Nazi flag outside his house claims he’s not racist and was only flying the flag because he was “hacked”.

You just can’t fix this level of stupid.

There’s a guy who, every couple days or so, shows up on the freeway overpass that leads to my place of work and displays a huge confederate battle flag to the passing vehicles below. I wonder what his excuse is. Er, not enough to stop and ask him, of course.

[Bryan_Ekers]

I was wondering why my copy of Windows 10 came with a Nazi flag…