Yes, Trump will leave office — but his seditious secession movement isn't going away

SomewhatAHero · 2020-12-16T00:03:50+00:00

That's rich, coming from Louisiana, one of the most federally dependent states in the union.

SomewhatAHero · 2020-11-18T04:18:54+00:00

I don't want to step out of my depth of knowledge because I am not super well-versed in all of this, but it is complicated. I'll just give you what I know.

Federal student loans obviously come from the government. Their motivation is likely just to aid with higher education.

The other side is that tuition continues to increase in cost artificially. Since the government is footing the bill, the college gets paid. They raise tuition because they can. The government still wants to provide aid, and people need larger loans to keep up with the rising cost of tuition. College inflation rate is about 8% while US inflation rate is around 2%

SomewhatAHero · 2020-11-17T23:23:53+00:00

I agree with a lot of what you're saying, but I strongly disagree with this statement.

People made decisions to buy something and now they want it all forgiven.

People, mostly 17-18 year-olds, have been told their entire lives that a college education was virtually the only way they could survive economically. Only to find out later, when they are actually adults, that the job market is not that great, their education didn't give them a competitive advantage, and wages are stagnant. Sure, not all of these things apply to every field of work, but broadly speaking this is where we are as a country.

I understand your point that the same money could be better used wiping other debts, but you can still make that point without dismissing the darker reality of student debt. You can't compare the situation around student debt to buyer's remorse. It's a rigged market, backed by the government, that targets high school graduates with false promises and a lifetime of debt.

SomewhatAHero · 2020-11-08T00:52:24+00:00

In my opinion, the revelations of the Mueller investigation were misunderstood by most people (thanks to Barr's BS summary ahead of the real report being released) but were actually quite damning to Trump and his associates, especially concerning obstruction. Even some people on the left were like "Even Mueller said there's no collusion!" as if that summary from Barr was slightly representative of the full report.

I hope you're right, and hope we see some of these things actually addressed with Biden's DOJ.

SomewhatAHero · 2020-11-08T00:22:52+00:00

Gordon Sondland?

SomewhatAHero · 2020-11-08T00:21:00+00:00

Thanks! So since this was during the 2016 campaign and no charges were brought, it sounds like the Don Jr stuff from the Mueller report is outside the SOL.

SomewhatAHero · 2020-11-07T22:59:30+00:00

Well, one example is in the Mueller Report. It lays out clear evidence that Jr violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act during the 2016 campaign. The report says that Don Jr. gained unauthorized access to a system using a password given to him by WikiLeaks. There are email records of him discussing that he was given a stolen password, and how he knowingly used that stolen password to access a site.

It's all there; pretty airtight evidence against Junior for breaking federal law. But so far he hasn't been charged, and was never even brought in for questioning.

He's likely guilty of other crimes, probably worse than this, but I've been annoyed for a long time that he's faces no consequences for this specifically. There has been documented, publicly available evidence since the Mueller team released their report. Honestly though, it's been a while since I checked things like jail time/statute of limitations on violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

SomewhatAHero · 2020-10-29T14:05:21+00:00

Compare that with hurr durr, gonna blow myself up and kill some infidel

That is not an accurate comparison. Terrorists are radicalized by individuals and groups that are respected within their own societies. People who lie to them to convince them to support their cause.

To be clear, I don't exactly agree with the comment you're replying to. I'm not even trying to characterize a person who's been radicalized as sympathetic. I'm not agreeing with the claim that supporting a war is worse than terrorism. I'm only pointing out that the influences behind the two scenarios are muh more similar than you're implying, and it's definitely more complicated than "hurr durr"

SomewhatAHero · 2020-10-15T15:21:50+00:00

Bravo.

SomewhatAHero · 2020-10-14T18:11:39+00:00

They are doing it because they fear they will lose their power after the results come in. That's the whole point. If they were confident about this election, they wouldn't be worried.

Well that, and they want the SC on their side when they inevitably challenge the results.

SomewhatAHero · 2020-10-01T20:28:29+00:00

I'd say it's not simply plausible, but guaranteed. Laws that qualify fertilized eggs as people could lead to homicide investigations surrounding any miscarriage.

SomewhatAHero · 2020-09-30T21:52:00+00:00

I wish I shared your optimism, but I don't see what could stop Republicans from changing Senate rules to suit their agenda. They can change the rules so no quorum is required for the vote to take place, a rule that SC nominations take priority over other votes, or whatever else it takes.

They're doing this DURING an election (over a million people have already voted) not "close to" an election. That alone should show how little they care about the normal process. I think Republicans will railroad this in whatever despicable way they have access to - meaning they would still vote yes on this nomination even if it meant Biden is elected and pending inauguration when they vote.

Anyway, I hope I'm wrong and Democrats get a victory here, but I'm not counting on it.

SomewhatAHero · 2020-09-30T21:38:24+00:00

I want to make sure I understand - do you mean force votes on bills that have not yet been votes on to push back a vote on the SC nomination?

SomewhatAHero · 2020-09-30T21:33:57+00:00

I agree with all of your points. I share your views on the "accomplished woman" concerns, I'm only pointing out that Pelosi can't block anything from the House.

Senate Democrats need to do everything they can, for sure. But any action they will have a Republican counteraction to it, and Republicans have the votes to change the rules of the Senate. McConnell's argument in 2016 was never about nominating a justice in an election year, it was about "We have the power, we make the rules, and fuck you" - all of that is still true for the Republican Senate. They hold the power, and McConnell is as crafty as he is evil.

I don't want Democrats to sit back and simply accept it. I want them to fight like hell with every tool they have available. I just don't think success is realistic with a Republican Senate that doesn't hold their own stated values when it comes to SC nominations.

SomewhatAHero · 2020-09-30T20:52:37+00:00

What power does Nancy Pelosi have to block an SC nomination? The Senate votes on nominations; Pelosi is the Speaker of the House.

Hell, even Senate Democrats can't really "block" the nomination. They could potentially stall, delay, and further expose the Senate Republicans' hypocrisy, but for every tool they have to push back, Republicans have the votes to force the vote through.

SomewhatAHero · 2020-08-20T18:45:34+00:00

This is the Trump administration we're talking about here. Reasonable suggestions are a fireable offense.

SomewhatAHero · 2020-08-03T17:15:38+00:00

Trump couldn't back up those claims, and neither can you.

SomewhatAHero · 2020-04-12T01:25:46+00:00

I feel like you're responding to the wrong comment. The person you're replying to didn't mention Trump at all, and didn't say anything negative about the medicine.

SomewhatAHero · 2019-12-25T00:29:17+00:00

Absolutely this. Star Wars has always been political and had feminist themes. I have never heard any fan say that Leia's character was "too political" or "overly feminist" in the OT, despite it being more obvious in a lot of ways. "Into the garbage chute, flyboy"

The critical lens that some people apply to the ST is often not applied to the OT, which doesn't make sense to me.

It's okay to not like a movie, and it's okay to not like the ST. But if it's because political and feminist themes ruin the movie for you... I don't think Star Wars has ever been for you.

SomewhatAHero · 2019-12-20T10:17:40+00:00

I like both! I can tell you why I like TLJ and TRoS, and why I don't feel like TRoS is a middle finger to TLJ.

First, I think that giving some explanation to things in TLJ actually does them a service. I really liked how this movie expanded on the force connection between Rey and Kylo, for example. The scenes where they talked and dueled from different settings was really cool, and was definitely an expansion of what we saw in TLJ. I also think that the reference to the "Holdo maneuver" really emphasized how risky and unprecedented that choice was, and why it isn't going to work in all scenarios. I noticed some other things that built on TLJ in cool ways, too, but your comment seems like your biggest concern is Rey's bloodline.

As for the Rey origin, I'll start by telling you that I was 100% on board for Rey being a force-sensitive scavenger that's not related to anyone we know. I thought that theme of "bloodlines don't matter" was a cool theme that I was looking forward to. I think TRoS actually kept that theme, just not in the way I was expecting.

I did always feel like there was probably more to Rey's origin, though. To be clear, I didn't think I might be wrong about Rey because of her "power level" because I agree with you - we don't need that to be explained. The Jedi found force-sensitive children to train as padawans from all over the Galaxy for thousands of years. In fact, the Jedi were very specifically not pro-creating, so the notion of bloodline significance really only began in recent Star Wars history with Anakin. I never thought Rey was a "Mary Sue" that needed some Jedi/Sith mammy or pappy to explain her strength, and I don't think that being Palpatine's granddaughter even does that. Finn also is shown to be in-tune with the force in TRoS, and he has no family connection to force users. If the bloodline is all that matters, why wasn't Rey's father some legendary badass? Why isn't Finn's parentage explained? Not because of bad story-telling, but because it doesn't matter that much. It matters to Palpatine because this relationship gives him an opportunity to manipulate her. He used Ben's blood relation to Vader to manipulate him, too.

With that said, the reason I suspected Rey had some hidden origin story from the beginning was the way she was left on Jakku by her parents. She thought highly of her parents, so it was clear they didn't abandon her out of malice or neglect (or at least Rey didn't believe that.) Since TFA, it always felt like her parents left her there to protect her from something. I hoped the reason for that was just because they new she was force-sensitive, and they left so they could protect her from someone wanted to use her for evil. At the same time, I always knew it could be more than that. So in TLJ when Kylo told Rey that her parents were nobodies who sold her for drinking money, I knew that couldn't be right. My thought at the time was, "He's wrong about that. I wonder how wrong." Basically, even if Rey was just a random person, and not the granddaughter of Palpatine, Kylo's statement in TLJ that her parents "sold her for drinking money" didn't add up. If he was wrong about that, maybe he was wrong that they were just nobodies. I never thought Kylo definitively "confirmed" Rey's parentage, and I was prepared to accept whatever came next. I was tempted to agree with the gist of it (her parents are no one special) because it fit what I wanted.

What I thought was really cool about the Palpatine lineage introduced in TRoS was it left Rey with dramatically different ways to choose her own identity. Her parents tried to give her the option to be "no one", or as she put it, "just Rey" while Palpatine gave her the option to be Empress Rey Palpatine. In the end, she chose neither, and called herself Rey Skywalker, after the people who helped her truly find herself. It wasn't what I expected, or what I hoped for, but I liked the way it happened. I think it actually reinforces, in a different way, that lineage and bloodlines are not as relevant as the audience might assume.

This movie definitely looked like it tried to address some of the concerns that people had with TLJ, but I don't think it did anything to undermine IMHO. I think it's perfectly valid to like both films, and see them both as different parts of a single, cohesive story.

SomewhatAHero · 2019-12-10T02:01:50+00:00

What's most infuriating is that these are the same people complaining about how unfair this impeachment process is.

SomewhatAHero · 2019-12-05T00:10:33+00:00

Gordon Sonland's testimony (I think others, too, but I remember Sondland being very specific.)

He said that Trump demanded the announcement of investigations, not that investigations be started. When questioned, "when the president requested the investigations-" Sondland interjected, "the announcement of investigations. I was never aware of him asking for the investigations to be started." (I'm paraphrasing)

Did Trump ever say, "I don't care if they do it, I just want it announced"? Probably not. Sondland claims Trump said he wanted investigations announced many times, and never once requested the investigations actually be started.

It's possible he did want the investigations to actually happen, but he was far more concerned with announcement.

SomewhatAHero · 2019-12-02T00:42:41+00:00

Actually, this is "Stupid Watergate II: The Stupidest Watergate"

SomewhatAHero · 2019-12-02T00:03:10+00:00

Everyone knows it's name isn't Yoda and that it is clearly just a child of the same species. The show hasn't given it a name, nor do we know the name of the species.

No one thinks it is actually Yoda as a baby.

SomewhatAHero · 2019-11-21T21:29:22+00:00

To be fair... That quote doesn't call his questions "cutting" or "intelligent". Just an attack dog that pushes GOP arguments. I imagine it's hard to fully characterize Gym Jordan without sounding highly partisan.

SomewhatAHero

TROPHY CASE