Gabbard is fucking awful. She supports autocrats (Assad, Saudis, etc) and has ties to right-wing Hindu nationalist government in India. She actively campaigned against same-sex civil rights throughout the mid-2000s. Her family is part of a cult which, if we listen to those who have left it, has some rather disturbing practices. Yeah, she has done things which appear to be good like support Sanders in his run, criticise the NSA or Americas rampant interventionism but it's important to look at the motive behind these actions.

I'd really recommend reading some pieces on her before cheering her along. The New Yorker did a profile on her in 2017 and Paste Magazine did one in 2016.

Bowsette wrote:

The more entrants in the primary the better.

I'd disagree. The Republican party had two clown cars worth of entrants. It's precisely for that reason that some candidates were taken more seriously than others, even within their own party - a lot of people forget that there was basically a "kiddie table" secondary debate for a handful of candidates and it was arbitrarily decided. Trump was treated more seriously because he had name recognition and was given an equal voice at the table. Why should he have been treated more so than Jindal, Pataki, Perry or Gilmore? All of them were former Governors with executive experience in politics and most had legislative or at least legal experience of some sort. Trump had nothing but bluster. Who is to say that a good showing in the first debate would not have moved more people away from an obvious front-runner? Maybe Pataki would have been more palpable to more voters as a Anyone-But-Trump vote than Jeb or Cruz. We won't know because the party and Fox News put their fingers on the scale.

What if someone with real progressive bonafides attempts a run? Someone like Barbara Lee? I doubt most people know her outside of California or neighbouring states, similar to a certain socialist Jew once upon a time, but what if the extensive crowd of candidates leads to people we really should want to see in positions of power elbowed out before they even have a chance? This is not an unrealistic possibility.

Though part of me wants there to be about a dozen centrist dumdums who eat in Biden's lead and one or two strong progressives who can consolidate the left-wing of the party before some milksop moderate manages to beat out the rest of garbage candidates, like JIM WEBB.

I’m at least hopeful this means a lot more candidates and voters will remain energized and combat political corruption/nepotism.

I’m still annoyed and sick of the tv whenever they mention in passing that “it’s Hillary’s turn” like she automatically deserves the spot and no one else matters.

I had the same concern not too long ago, but the democratic establishment has no shortage of centrists in their ranks so theoretically that should benefit progressives if enough Jim Weebs and Lincoln Chafees run and have the effect of diluting their own chances as you allude to above. I could be wrong though.

The Democrats need to generate excitement on their side and a wide primary field of diverse candidates and personalities is one way of doing this. The low-energy, curated primary hurt the Democrats in 2016 while the GOP clown car primary worked to the GOP's benefit in the end as it was a magnet for the media spotlight and a source of free advertizement for Trump (who engineered a lot of it on his own, to be fair). Where the GOP provides its fair share of batshit candidates the Democratic answer should be to respond with its share of passionate candidates, and not call to limit the number of entrants. A primary filled with enough passionate Democrats and actual unfiltered debate can drive the media spotlight away from Republicans and Trump, it's already happening right now with AOC and Rashida Tlaib - we just need Democrats to take that energy with them into the primaries.

buzzfeednews.com/article/jason…wer-mueller-investigation


Well, what do you know, looks like Trump himself directed Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about the Moscow Trump tower discussions. Totally clears the President, thank you!

npr.org/2019/01/17/686188335/i…itizen-and-marine-veteran

fuck ICE and fuck Trump

Dear God. If it's true that he suffers from PTSD after his military service, this ordeal must have been terrifying for him.

I get why ICE exists, but I feel like the implementation is flawed. Track down people whose visas have expired etc., but present the option to renew their citizenship; don't jump straight to deportation. The threat of deportation only seems to A.) Make Dreamers or undocumented persons hesitant to apply for citizenship, and B.) Be an expensive process that often ends up in the person returning to the country undocumented, as it often happened with Obama's litany of deportations.

Our immigration practices can be firm and fair at the same time. The inability to strike this balance is a catastrophe.

Are we sure about the Saudis there? She came down on Trump hard after his non-response to the killing of Jamal Khashoggi.

This is apparently now being disputed by the special counsel. though the SC only mentioned that "BuzzFeed's description of specific statements to the Special Counsel's Office, and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office, regarding Michael Cohen's Congressional testimony are not accurate". They did not say that the statement that Trump directed him to lie was false. Looks like BF is trying to get more information on what is inaccurate, but I have a feeling they won't be hearing from them any time soon, as they seem to run a tight ship.

Shame though, as I've heard some GOP members are starting to jump ship after that report came out. This is just gonna renew his base...

What is everyone’s favorite blog/news website/twitter handle/ podcast/ etc?

I’m interested in where my fellow members get their news from.

I don't really go over news through podcasts (I listen to a lot of podcasts, I was a producer for two semi popular ones too) however I just discovered this new one (its not new but its new to me) and I'm honestly just lost with words about how much I hate it. I used to be a fan of this comedian by the name of Owen Benjamin. He was featured on some Laugh Factory clips and he seemed like a really funny guy.

I generally listen to podcasts that involve comedians like "Your Mom's House" with Tom Segura and Christina Pazsitzky or "The Handsome Rambler" with Hannible Burress and his dj DJ Trimm and sometimes "The Joe Rogan Podcast" (only if I recognize the guest and I have to skip through a lot of the stupid ass stuff Joe Rogan says). I've even listened to comedian Marc Maron's podcast "WTF" which can be insightful in regards to the comedian themselves.

When I discover a new comedian I like, I like to see if they were featured on a podcast (I'd like to hear more from them in a discussion based setting) so after enjoying some content from this comedian Owen Benjamin, I searched "Owen Benjamin Podcast" on YouTube and holyshit did I stumble on some really scary stuff...

For clarification, the comedy Stylings of Owen Benjamin (that I had seen so far) did not involve anything political at all and simply involved general topics and situational comedy like a small rant on Cold Play Lyrics and how stupid they were. But boy did I open up Pandora's box when I searched his name with podcast. He is apparently a popular conservative speaker who for the most part expresses generally the same ideology the very alt right and white supremacists do.

I used to scoff whenever I heard "Oh my god, this country is divided and the political climate is scary" because I guess I never really saw the blunt of what the current political climate truly was. Sure you see a crowd of people with the MAGA hats and the white supremacy rallies with the tiki torches but I always thought they were a small number of kooky people that when crowded together appear large. I guess I can identify with liberal ideology or the "left" so I generally agreed with like notable "left" leaning users on this site like Avalanche Mike who I always considered to be a bit aggressive when it came to political discourse because in the back of my mind I was always like "Its never that serous dude" which now that I think about it more and more, is just ignorance cultivated by my privilege for not being really affected directly by political issues. Granted, I am a minority but the whole white supremacy rallies just seemed comical and silly to me. I always brushed it off as just a bunch of "dumb racists" and I wasn't really directly affected. I was more humored and disturbed by such occurrences but I thought that that was just life.

Finally I stumbled upon the comedian Owen Benjamin's podcast and holy sh*t is it crazy. I am in genuine fear and panic mode now knowing people like him exist and think what they think and how literally thousands to almost hundreds of thousands of people follow and pay this guy to keep his video podcast show up on YouTube. He's like this crazy conservative guy who tries to demonize the left literally every episode and does these multiple hours essay shows on literally the most absurd things, generally with no evidence, and just goes on a tangent on various political topics that include serious messages claiming even more absurd things and ideas that I'd honestly would not like to reiterate because of how disgusting and vile these ideas are.

Its when I sort of realized where aggressive left folk come in like Mike where its sort of kind of justified in a way when these dangerous mind sets start to sort of become more and more popular that essentially spew racism, bigotry, sexism, violence, and outright absurd claims and lies. I would never have considered "living in a bubble" but I generally try to avoid extreme ideology such as Owen Benjamin's because its generally rooted in something I believe to be just either racism, ignorance, bigotry, or quite possibly mental illness. I used to think that rereading the same news from different news outlets would allow me to have a better sense of what going on politically and get insight in to both sides but holy crap did I not see how this extreme ideology existed and how kind of popular it is. I'm genuinely worried about the degree of this type of stuff.

I would highly recommend not viewing or looking up this individuals show on YouTube unless you're really going for a shock. I know that doesn't really answer the last post but its something relevant and I haven't really been on in awhile because I unsubbed from the thread thinking I was unsubbing to the Mafia War Room Thread but was too lazy to sub back likes months and months and months ago haha.

I suppose that would be a good question to expand on if a thread has yet to be made. Where do you get your news from? Its a good question in a time where media literacy is sort of...I can't really find a word.

Well you have instances like this where a community might obtain their news from WhatsApp and well... lead to horrifying outcomes like this nytimes.com/interactive/2018/0…tsapp-india-killings.html.

It sucks too because my parents do this occasionally where they consume a lot of false information through the very same app. You also had the whole Pizzagate scandal, etc. What I'm concerned with are the individuals who consume the type of content produced by Owen Benjamin or Info Wars with Alex Jones and other very odd and disturbing right wing (I'd deem propaganda honestly) content exclusively versus other various media. I used to think the whole media literacy thing in college was just common sense so I always scoffed at that too but good heavens, the world is a scarier place than it really seems. Yikes!!!

Maybe its because I don't have a Twitter account ( I don't have much to share and I'm already on Insta so most of the pop content on Twitter goes on Insta anyways) but the idea of receiving news on Twitter baffles me unless maybe you're following extended certified media outlets maybe? I don't know y'all I'm just scared in general now. Its currently 3 am as I write this so I suppose this too is another nonsensical rant about something like I always seem to do on ZU but oh well. I like venting about things, its very therapeutic. It sucks being sad and scared and unable to go to sleep because you know now that ***hats like the aforementioned ones exist and can cause true direct damage. You can physically see indecency within our political hemisphere and shame doesn't begin to describe one of the many emotions I am feeling right now.

yall see that white kid be a piece of shit to the that indigenous elder?

That smirk was just as disgusting as the ideology he blindly subscribes to. Its just plain sad and disappointing for literally everyone involved including his parents and the very same political atmosphere I was writing about.

And now the right is rushing to his defense and claiming that the man had come to "incite confrontation" or some shit.

Colleges should take a good look at all the students in that video, a lot of them look like they're of the age where they're applying

There's at least one gofundme I've seen for the main kid.

I have a few friends on Facebook who are more right leaning, and you can probably guess they are jumping to their defense as well.

I have yet to view the video but it wouldn't surprise me that the maga hat folk would try to intimidate someone like that. Tolerance isn't what they're known for.

There's a little more to the story than the first video let on.

The kids from the Catholic high school were in DC attending an anti-abortion rally. Nearby, there were several other rallies going on, including the Indigenous Peoples March, but there was also a group representing the Black Hebrew Israelite. Other videos showed the latter hurling a number of awful insults toward the Catholic high school students (including homophobic and borderline, if not, outright racist remarks) which were inappropriate regardless of what group 'started it'. Apparently, the Black Hebrew Israelite members disparaged those involved with the Indigenous Peoples March, too.

The Catholic high school students and the Black Hebrew Israelite group were getting hostile toward one another, which prompted Nathan Phillips, the Indigenous man we know from the videos, to move in and attempt to diffuse the situation. The Catholic high school students sort of surrounded him as he approached them, while shouting things like "Build the wall!" and making the tomahawk gesture.

From all of the videos I've watched, it doesn't seem that the young man who stared down Nathan Phillips did anything absolutely heinous. Maybe he was still shouting racist remarks or making racist gestures before the 'faceoff'. I don't know for sure. His friends definitely said/did some terrible stuff, though.

The ironic thing here is that, by electing to just stare down Nathan Phillips with what can only be described as a taunting smirk, the kid in question made it pretty much impossible to interpret his actions as anything other than downright disrespectful. Actions speak louder than words, after all, and in a video where lots of people are shouting and chanting at once, it can be really difficult to determine what's being said (nevermind who's saying it). But placing yourself right in front of someone and staring at them with a smirk like that? That's something everyone's gonna see, and that's something anyone can recognize.

You wear that red cap, then you support a man responsible for modern day concentration camps in the States. Fuck that boy and everyone wearing that damn cap in that video.

As it turns out, the school they came from is twelve minutes from where I live