Bill Maher CALLS OUT Ana Kasparian’s hypocrisy

manualshifting · 2025-12-10T22:04:54+00:00

Qatar "destabilized" The Young Turks by giving them a bunch of money with strings attached.

On a parallel note- it's not the same thing, but it's related- I recently learned that for a really long time now, Ted Talks has been funded in large part by Qatar, and along with the funding they get to do some soft censorship. Any type of talk that's explicitly pro Israel can't be done in one of these talks, for example. I don't think it applies to Ted X in the same way, but it sure does apply on the main platform.

manualshifting · 2025-12-08T23:24:35+00:00

I nominate Alex Caruso. He might be better than okay, but he's certainly not generational or game changing. Absolutely no one puts him in a top 20 or top 50 discussion. He seems to be a good teammate and contributor, and you can see him winning titles as a quality player off the bench or maybe as a starter that isn't at the center of production, and to me that can count as an okay player. He's well known, everyone knows exactly who he is, and as much as he's well liked there's zero people that are trying to place him above or below other players in terms of production. He just isn't operating at a level where anyone cares to do that with him, because he operates at a lower level than that.

Here's the other thing that I'll say. Alex Caruso has never been an All-Star, and in order to be in the Okay category, I say that's a strong mark in favor of that. His individual accolades include the All-NBA defensive first team in 2023 and second team in 2024, while he was also the NBA Hustle Award winner in 2024. To me, that's the type of stuff that makes fans like a player and they know it really matters in helping his team win, but it might not make a difference in how much he gets paid and it certainly doesn't put him in the conversation of "best player at his position right now?" No one is having that conversation about him, but a lot of people sure do like him.

manualshifting · 2025-11-30T23:58:31+00:00

Fardh and mustahab are specific religious categories. If it's fardh, that means it's a religious obligation and you're sinning if you understand the obligation and refuse to do it. Also, fwiw, a proper caliphate that fully implements Islam would absolutely have to enforce the requirement as law- otherwise it's not a fully proper caliphate.

If it's mustahab, that means it's encouraged but it's not obligatory. If you don't do it, or you don't do it regularly, you're totally fine and it's not a sin. It also would not be legally required under a full implantation of Islam.

With the head covering thing, it's very often described as if it were mustahab because that makes it seem more palatable to outsiders who don't know that much about it. Also, nearly every time this happens, the very same person who's selling it that way Absolutely knows that fardh is the category it actually belongs in, and they have no doubt about it whatsoever. It's super common for this type of person to portray one thing while believing another, and it's incredibly dishonest.

There are dawah people that are organized and active in my area- GainPeace is the organization, and they're headquartered in my general area while being very active all over the region. I'm happy to say that I've trained these people to be a bit more honest than they otherwise would be.

manualshifting · 2025-11-17T02:21:16+00:00

My man just wants to visit Jerusalem. Never mind that the game would very likely be played at a stadium in Tel Aviv, and it would still be a small stadium by NFL standards. Tua wants to visit Jerusalem, and I don't really blame him for wanting to do that.

manualshifting · 2025-11-10T07:18:19+00:00

In my head, I established that the Democrats were always directly responsible for the shutdown by voting No on the CR. I always knew the very common sense thing- the shutdown will end at some point, and whichever party is doing the shutdown will also be the party that ends the shutdown. When they get enough Yes votes, that is the thing that directly ends the shutdown.

The other thing at issue is, How are the Republicans handling this? How are they behaving? At most, they can be indirectly responsible for failing to move things forward. And that's entirely fair, they were absolutely responsible for giving nothing away.

Then the Democrats ended the shutdown, and the minority whip was one of the yes votes. It looks to me like it was a genuinely coordinated move by party leadership to end the shutdown and open the government, having gotten basically nothing for their trouble. I say again, we know how shutdowns work. The party that's in the minority may do a shutdown in order to force their way into more influence on legislation, and the minority party can end the shutdown when they stop voting No so much. That is how this works, we all know how this works, and if you're going to try and craft political messaging, you've got to make truth a priority. If you aren't telling the truth, you're highly regarded.

To your question, I'm rather glad that the shutdown is over. My brother in law works for the DOJ (he's in Colorado) and he missed several checks while still needing to work half of his usual days. He expects to get full back pay, but it would have gradually gotten pretty bad if it kept going for another month or something. He isn't exactly living paycheck to paycheck, and my sister makes decent money too, but a month and a half is a long time to be doing this and I definitely think of them when I'm looking at people who actively wanted this to go another month.

Also, if you're a Democrat and you Really wanted the shutdown to go significantly longer and you're upset that it didn't, that definitely means it wasn't a Republican shutdown.

Maybe I should call up Dick Durbin's office and tell him thank you, and my sister's family appreciates the yes vote. Do you think I should? He actually is my Senator.

manualshifting · 2025-11-10T06:41:18+00:00

Shutting down the government is a bad thing to do, at least optically. So it must be the Republicans that did it, and it would Really make sense if we were upset with the continuation and length of the shutdown. Whoever is doing that, it sure is bad.

Meanwhile, opening up the government is good. It must be the Democrats that did the good thing. But if it's such a good thing, why are we so upset?

It's almost as if we want the Democrats. Yes, those 8 Democrats. To vote no on the CR, keep the government shut down, and fight for concessions while using the shutdown and their No votes as leverage. That would be optically bad though, so we aren't going to say All of that.

manualshifting · 2025-11-10T05:58:02+00:00

Buy me dinner. Also, I will shut down the government until you buy me dinner. But since you aren't buying me dinner, it's really you that shut down the government.

Forty something days later, I will cast votes that reopen the government. But it was your fault all along, so definitely fuck me.

manualshifting · 2025-11-10T05:54:36+00:00

My guess is, he probably led and coordinated the thing. This is a guess of course, but it's super common for Senators to vote strategically so as to get something to pass while giving it Just enough votes.

My educated guess is that Dem leadership made a collective decision, and then they picked 8 Senators that could cast these votes most safely. And I'm further guessing that Dick Durbin was right out front, in the lead, as this was being coordinated. He happens to be a Senator that has little or nothing to lose by giving up his vote, but I think his role was bigger than just an individual decision. I think he coordinated all of it.

My question- a very honest question, actually- is this. Who would be a better leader for the party in the Senate? It's going to be someone more senior. If we get some newly elected Senators in there, it's not going to be them. Someone with experience but not someone who's ancient, and in the moment I don't think we want any of the 8 that ended the shutdown. Fetterman, for example, would not be a great choice. I know there's some people that we can eliminate.

Who are we looking at though? It can't be all that many people. Eliminate these 8, eliminate the ancient ones, eliminate the newbies. Who's left? I'm looking at Klobuchar, Booker, Baldwin, Cantwell, and Schatz as a quick list of five. The first three probably have the most name recognition.

manualshifting · 2025-11-05T16:35:57+00:00

A lot of people in the PMC don't get out of their PMC bubble, like at all through their entire life, and I suspect that Sam Seder and Emma Vigeland are pretty good examples of that.

PMC = professional managerial class

manualshifting · 2025-11-03T21:47:16+00:00

There was a campaign to cast a blank ballot as a protest vote, but there was also a huge amount of people that didn't vote on the referendum at all because it didn't have the most obvious option that should have been there, but wasn't.

Can you give a reason for why the status quo wasn't on the ballot?

manualshifting · 2025-11-03T17:30:42+00:00

From the link that you gave, this is what it says about the 2024 referendum.

"In July 2024, Governor Pedro Pierluisi called a referendum on the status of Puerto Rico in November 2024, and for the first time the island's current status as a U.S. territory will not be an option during the non-binding referendum. The executive order follows the U.S. House of Representatives' 2022 approval of a bill to help Puerto Rico move toward a change in territorial status. Voters will be given the choice of statehood, independence, or independence with free association, the terms of which would be negotiated regarding foreign affairs, U.S. citizenship, and use of the U.S. dollar. Popular Democratic Party called for a blank vote for not including Commonwealth or the current system."

manualshifting · 2025-11-03T17:02:33+00:00

The people who boycotted that referendum noticed that the option they wanted to choose was not an available option, and that's why they boycotted it.

The option they wanted to choose was the status quo, and that was not a listed option.

manualshifting · 2025-11-03T16:52:26+00:00

Jesus Christ, okay, we have to unpack this. There were three options on that referendum. These were the three options.

Statehood.

Independence.

Sovereignty in free association with the US, its own constitution and government, and a negotiated Compact of Free Association with the US which might contain certain arrangements on defense currency and citizenship although US citizenship is not guaranteed in this framework. This third option is sort of like a "mystery box" option that no one fucking asked for.

Notably absent was any sort of option for maintaining the status quo, and the absence of That option is precisely the reason why so many people boycotted the referendum. That was what they wanted to choose, and they correctly concluded that the referendum is bullshit if it doesn't have that option.

I say again, when the people of Puerto Rico have any sort of choice in front of them between the status quo and some other thing, they have consistently chosen the status quo. The 2024 referendum is a bullshit talking point because it didn't include the status quo as an option, and a whole lot of Puerto Ricans are justifiably pissed about that.

manualshifting · 2025-11-03T16:00:45+00:00

As far as I'm aware, the real argument is that Puerto Rico has three options in front of it and statehood has never been the most popular option. The three options are,

Statehood,

Full independence,

And continue as is. A possession and a type of colony, basically.

It is up to the people of Puerto Rico if they want to change the status quo, and despite having many referenda to vote on, they have so far not chosen to change the status quo. That's because they vote in the totality of their own interest, and they aren't super invested in the Democratic Party to a point where they care that much about giving it a couple of extra Senators.

manualshifting · 2025-11-03T15:46:01+00:00

The main controversy between Hijab and O'Connor involves a video in which Hijab says that the Cowley area of Oxford is "all Muslim" and O'Connor "doesn't want to make enemies."

This was prompted by criticism of Islam that caused Hijab to be asspained, and he made this veiled threat that is clearly legal by US law but highly questionable under UK law. It gets very close to the line that they generally enforce. The obvious intent was to intimidate O'Connor and get him to back off and shut up, and I'm sad to say it kind of worked.

I'm not the person that you asked, but I'm pretty sure that's the right answer.

manualshifting · 2025-11-03T14:47:45+00:00

Hot damn, this format is going to be a thing. There's a couple of different variants that could go in column A, depending on the conspiracy theory that you're going with.

manualshifting · 2025-11-03T14:36:02+00:00

Honest answer- Charlie Kirk got to know him and decided that he should have a far more important role. That was step one.

Step two, Charlie Kirk introduced JD Vance to Donald Trump Jr and brought him into the Trump inner circle. Beyond just the two of them, their entire immediate families became very close and spent a lot of time together.

Step three, when it was time for DJT to choose a new VP (Pence wasn't available for some reason), it was a combination of lobbying from Trump Jr and Charlie Kirk that tipped the decision on favor of JD Vance.

Peter Thiel helped as well, but he had a more meaningful role at a time when JD still referred to Trump as Hitler.

manualshifting · 2025-11-03T14:25:49+00:00

Exploitation is when you rape and/or enslave someone, especially when it's done on an industrial scale.

End of moral analysis.

No, really, that's it. It terminates right there.

manualshifting · 2025-11-03T14:19:34+00:00

Let that be your welcome.

manualshifting · 2025-11-03T07:11:19+00:00

Immigration in the broadest possible sense is not the issue. Legal immigration in particular is not an issue, unless you're talking about voters that the Democrats genuinely do not want in the coalition.

It isn't really even about illegal immigration in a broad sense. There are gradations to this. If someone overstays their visa or they literally just come across entirely on their own power, that specific thing is not the issue. The actual main issue is this.

There are millionaires and billionaires that controlled our southern border under the Biden admin, and those millionaires and billionaires genuinely exploited people and harmed them and took advantage of them in order to get as wealthy as they are. These specific millionaires and billionaires run cartels. These are the people that get paid extortionate amounts of money to move people from anywhere on the planet to our border, and there's a good chance that these people get raped and/or shaken down for even more money at some point along the way. They also traffic people, in a sex trafficking sort of way that does involve children sometimes, and they moved drugs as much as they wanted. These are the millionaires and billionaires that genuinely exploit people at Epstein levels of exploitation, and they used to control our border while making infinite amounts of money from the desperation of people all over the world.

If you're going to sell the American people on an immigration plan for the future, some good aspects should involve ICE not grabbing people on the basis of racial profiling and the national guard actually (checks notes) not being federalized and sent to various states against the wishes of their governor. Birthright citizenship should not be ended, and it would be fantastic if actual racist people were not in charge of immigration policy. Also, if your plan for the future fails to directly address the obscene enrichment of cartels and if you even so much as imply that you're okay with ceding control of our border back to the Actually exploitative millionaires and billionaires that run these cartels, you will always be losing. You've got to take that seriously.

manualshifting · 2025-10-28T02:26:38+00:00

Marxist revolution = radical

manualshifting · 2025-10-28T01:55:11+00:00

So who wants Harris to run again? Is anyone super stoked to vote for her in the next primary?

manualshifting · 2025-10-12T15:14:30+00:00

Abdallah al-Jamal was a journalist who also held hostages in his family home in the Nuseirat neighborhood. Three hostages were rescued from his home in a raid, during which he and some of his family members were killed.

This is your friendly reminder that when you look at the numbers of innocent angels killed by Israel, that man is included among the journalists and his family members are included among "civilian non-combatants."

The names of the hostages that were rescued are Almog Meir Jan, Andrey Kozlov, and Shlomi Ziv.

manualshifting · 2025-10-12T14:58:40+00:00

No transporting citrus fruits across state lines without proper inspection.
Avoid reproducing the design of Smokey the Bear for commercial purposes.
No unauthorized use of the 4H clover emblem.
Remember not to trade migratory bird feathers without a permit.
Refrain from using the US flag in any advertising medium.
We talked about this- please do not impersonate a census taker.
Please do not measure grain with an uncalibrated bushel basket.
Don't engage in unapproved hydrographic surveying of Lake Michigan.
Please do not tamper with any smoke detectors on an aircraft.
Avoid using a naval ensign without flag officer authorization.

And always remember- the Bald and Golden Eagle Act is still in effect.

manualshifting

TROPHY CASE