***Official Political Discussion Thread***

[RustyShackleford]

and another reminder

Oh the horror, people might use stimulus money to....check notes....stimulate the economy.

 

[Sharpshoeter13]

Venturing on that side of Twitter requires an impenetrable sense of what's true and what isn't. The currents of disinformation are strong and unrelenting.

 

[Mark Antony]

I'm like wait what? They'll clear debt and contribute to the economy? Like is this what their base wants? "Hey don't bring that settling debt and stimulating the economies round here boy"

 

[Wargames]

The republican senators can’t be so dumb as to vote against $2000 right? I mean come on......

 

[Kim Fatty the Third]

Eat a ****, Kevin.

Kentuckians knew what type of time that pale POS was on, yet they still voted for him. Disgusting.

Don’t mean to come off as insensitive, but I hope the people that did vote for him starve to death.

 

[Sharpshoeter13]

The republican senators can’t be so dumb as to vote against $2000 right? I mean come on......

 

[RustyShackleford]

My guess is that the GOP will present a bill for $2000 checks, but with major poison polls. That way they can vote yes on it, force the Dems to vote no, and try to act like Dems are the roadblock to bigger payments, not them.

 

[elpablo21]

 

[Sharpshoeter13]

For ****’s sake man, do us all a favor and make it happen

 

[dwalk31]

My guess is that the GOP will present a bill for $2000 checks, but with major poison polls. That way they can vote yes on it, force the Dems to vote no, and try to act like Dems are the roadblock to bigger payments, not them.

Will probably get to see whether the Dems think business covid liability immunity is worth $1400 in additional direct payments to people in need.

 

[rexanglorum]

Oh the horror, people might use stimulus money to....check notes....stimulate the economy.

I figure this dude is making this critique in bad faith, he doesn’t want stimulus at all since he wants people to remain in debt and he wants UI to be high as it keeps wages low.

Now there are some dumb dumbs out there, who would make this in good faith, and all I can guess is that they only consider stimulus to be stimulus if it’s spent locally on small businesses or it’s used to start or expand a business. Basically, supply side economics has permeated the brains of a lot of GOP voters. Even the ones, who are not motivated by outright cruelty towards people who don’t look like them, think that the state should only act to increase production and that that increased production will magically meet all unmet human needs, all empirical evidence to the contrary be damned.

 

[Betonblck]

My guess is that the GOP will present a bill for $2000 checks, but with major poison polls. That way they can vote yes on it, force the Dems to vote no, and try to act like Dems are the roadblock to bigger payments, not them.

They can try but you can't just throw in anything like an amendment to bring back slavery in there and say the Democrats are the problem for not voting to bring back slavery with a $2k check. It doesn't work like that.

 

[RustyShackleford]

Will probably get to see whether the Dems think business covid liability immunity is worth $1400 in additional direct payments to people in need.

Oh yes

Making the Dems chose between selling out vulnerable workers whose lives are being put in danger, and the vulnerable public that needs more help, will say more about the Dems than the lowlife Republicans.

 

[Mark Antony]

They can try but you can't just throw in anything like an amendment to bring back slavery in there and say the Democrats are the problem for not voting to bring back slavery with a $2k check. It doesn't work like that.

But they do all the time and it works all the time. Look how many doofuses were like "******* Nancy!" this past year.

 

[Betonblck]

Will probably get to see whether the Dems think business covid liability immunity is worth $1400 in additional direct payments to people in need.

Business liability immunity has nothing to do with sending people more money.

 

[Betonblck]

But they do all the time and it works all the time. Look how many doofuses were like "****ing Nancy!" this past year.

You are right but this time is different because the message given to the public is that this is only about $2k stimulus checks and nothing else because the stimulus bill has already been signed. Usually it is under a giant "stimulus" bill, which is different and the public can't parse all the details.

 

[RustyShackleford]

They can try but you can't just throw in anything like an amendment to bring back slavery in there and say the Democrats are the problem for not voting to bring back slavery with a $2k check. It doesn't work like that.

The thing is, people have a hard time identifying what is a poison pill and what is not.

People will pick up on obvious stuff, but a lot of folk don't understand how detrimental many policy changes would be.

In the stimulus thread you had people get pissed at Pelosi because she didn't roll over and give Trump what he wanted, just because he was cool with more checks.

 

[dwalk31]

Business liability immunity has nothing to do with sending people more money.

It will if that’s what’s added

 

[dmbrhs]

Oh the horror, people might use stimulus money to....check notes....stimulate the economy.

Maybe they only think of the word "stimulate" as a term for sexual arousal? Or, doing piles of cocaine? Well, that can't be it, because they'd probably be all for that.

 

[Cashflow]

 

[Belgium]

 

[dinyc3st]

I'm all for the pettiness.

 

[RustyShackleford]

Delk remix...

Watchdog sees massive potential loan fraud at SBA, sparking fight with agency

SBA's inspector general raised red flags about more than $78 billion in aid approved for businesses under the agency's Economic Injury Disaster Loan program.

www.politico.com

 

[dmbrhs]

I all for the pettiness.

Dude is about to read War & Peace cover to cover...thrice.

 

[gry60]

France Is Flooding Africa With Fake News

The former colonial power isn’t just a victim of Russian disinformation. It’s waging a similar propaganda campaign in Mali and other countries in the Sahel region.

newrepublic.com

In a strange twist, the French influence operation—which Facebook and its partners have been careful to attribute to members of the French military and not to the state itself—has found itself butting up against an opposing Russian campaign of fake news and disinformation designed to boost Russia’s standing in the region. At times, accounts from the two sides went at each other on Facebook, accusing the other of being fake, posting derogatory comments and other forms of trolling. “When they clashed in CAR, they resembled one another,” says a recent report from Graphika and the Stanford Internet Observatory, both Facebook partners. (While the French government had reported suspicious Russian activity to Facebook, it was unaware that the social network was investigating France’s own behavior.)
The Graphika/Stanford document offers a revealing look at the present and future of online influence campaigns. It also helps to fill in a picture of just what governments are up to in trying to adapt old forms of propaganda to new technologies and digital social spaces. It connects the Russian operation to the Internet Research Agency, a troll farm run by Evgeny Prigozhin, who got his start catering for President Vladimir Putin before moving on to bigger things, like disinformation campaigns and mercenary work. The IRA has been a favored cutout for the Russian government, in part because it offers a level of deniability—albeit a rather specious one, with its activities now widely known. The IRA apparently paid locals to post on its behalf in Mali and CAR, imparting a thin veneer of grassroots authenticity. The pro-France campaign operated differently. In CAR, the posts, secretly authored by French military personnel pretending to be locals, tended to be less overtly political and focused more on Russian interference in the country. In Mali, fake accounts praised France for helping to fight jihadists.

Following Facebook’s example, the Graphika report avoids attributing the operation to the French government or military, especially regarding “institutional involvement”; instead, Graphika says that the operation is “linked to individuals with ties to the French military.” But in a statement to the regional news site Sahelien, the French defense ministry didn’t deny that the campaign had French military links. “We are not surprised by the Graphika study’s conclusions,” it said. “We are studying them and at this stage cannot attribute possible responsibilities.”

Interesting times...