To remind @bobknight33 in a place where he can’t erase it and pretend he doesn’t know what a baby criminal his MAGA daddy is, Trump, coward that he is, walked away from two retaliatory lawsuits today, one against Cohen for revealing the payoff to a porn star to hide his affair and humiliating sexual performance because he was absolutely terrified of being deposed by someone who knows his secrets, and the other against the judge hearing his NY fraud case Judge Engoron, and then he ran away in shame after saying he would show up in court every day to stand up to the judge and DA, but instead fled to Florida after 2 1/2 days of grumbling in his seat. 😂
Trump claims he will refile against Cohen after he wins his criminal cases, so never. Cohen will be filing if he hasn’t already to recover maybe millions for defending the frivolous lawsuit and he will win.

Trump was tossed off the Forbes richest Americans list, citing a $650 million loss on Toth Senchal, the closure of all of his New York businesses, and the absurdity of accepting his own valuations for his properties like $650 million to $1.5 billion for Maralago he himself said wasn’t worth $20 million last year in court in an effort to try to avoid taxes. Truth is he may be exceedingly deep in debt well beyond the true value of his holdings…in debt to hostile foreign powers and criminal organizations.

Republicans have finally realized rules they put in place make him ineligible for speaker…you might think they would have looked into that before floating the idea but no. You people are so inept and incompetent.

Again he’s been exposed showing top secret highest classification level military secrets to foreigners for no reason beyond braggadocio. This time exposing nuclear submarine specs including payloads and stealth capabilities to an Australian who instantly told everyone he knew and some he didn’t…making the military secrets public knowledge. That’s treason…you know the penalty for treason, don’t you? String him up! 😂

Big daddy T is having a very bad really terrible day/week/month/year. Couldn’t happen to a more deserving person.

Well, that would be absolutely terrifying. Such a misleadingly cute term...

Mostly the trouble depends on where you work and how publicly you make your statement. I'd mostly get called a racist, but working for a partially publicly funded place if I was vocal enough losing your job or being told to apologise and be quiet are real possibilities.

The not allowed to talk about it applies much more heavily to anyone in the media. A recent example would be an aboriginal man that was recently shot by a white farmer. The narrative on the national CBC media made a big deal about rampant racism in the region against aboriginals. In their coverage of local opinion it was even more one sided, as they described two sides, the grieving family of the deceased and their supporters, and then the racists who sided with the farmer because they hated aboriginal people. They very slowly, reluctantly and buried deep under a lot of disclaimers released more information on the case.

The young man that was killed was in a truck with 4 of his friends, and their story was that they got a flat tire and pulled into the yard to seek help with repairs. The CBC ran that much right away. They were much more reluctant to include that the RCMP had been called BEFORE the truck got onto that farm because they had been trying to steal a truck from a neighbouring farm already beforehand. It wasn't until during the trial that even more came out, and CBC again reluctantly included details from the friends that where with the victim. All the occupants of the vehicle had been drinking very heavily all afternoon. They admitted to 'checking cars' at the earlier neighbouring farm. They admitted to using the butt end of a rifle to try and break the windows of the truck at the neighbouring farm, but the stock broke off the gun. It was found at the neighbouring farm by police. Upon arriving at the final farm, they admitted trying to start up an ATV and going through and unlocked vehicle there as well, but disagreed on who was doing which. The trial even included text messages from the night before wondering if one of the friends would be able to "go on missions" tomorrow because they were hiding from police after a liquor store robbery. The farmer also mentioned being scared about what could happen the day of the shooting because he thought back to a story he'd been told about 2 farmers being killed on their yards a few years before he'd moved into the area. Only 1 media outlet in the country, and in 1 article checked out that the identity of one of those killers back then turned out to be the victims uncle. I had to go back looking for the original article from when those murders took place to be sure that the current news article wasn't just sensationalising things.

Now of course none of that means you want to see somebody getting killed over property theft. None of that means racism in any way shape or form is justified. However, when there was a rampant run of rural crime across the area and farmers were getting more and more fed up and nervous about their safety something bad was eventually going to happen. It's a tragedy, but our media was absolutely terrified of covering the full story because listing the facts I just laid out is considered racist. Your blaming the victim. My listing of the above facts is not supposed to be done without including many times more explanations and reasons that this was the white man's fault.

Ultimately, the absolute failure to talk openly about things in Canada is getting people killed. We absolutely need to be clear that stealing doesn't deserve a death penalty. We ALSO need to tell a group of young adults that were going farm to farm, with a loaded rifle, raging drunk, stealing and breaking into vehicles that doing that was a BAD idea and one of the reasons is that doing so might get you shot by someone that doesn't know if your going to hurt them or not. I really believe if the kids had been white that would have been the narrative, but because of race it wasn't. It just makes things worse and inspires more risky and dangerous decisions from people in the future and more people will continue to get hurt.

Well that would be absolutely terrifying.

*promote

Absolutely terrifying stuff. I would do everything I could possibly imagine to flag down those vehicles in that oncoming lane. To see all that black smoke come up after those semi's entered was just terrible, because you knew just what that meant--I worked for UPS and those things are NOTHING but fire fuel (they are practically mini-bombs once they catch on fire at a good enough temperature...).

It would make a good driver-ed video, UPS driver video, state leaders, and even our country's leaders. So we can Improve our systems, education, infrastructure, first response, and our view of the issue.

Nope, just another day. Remember when Obi-Wan got killed by Darth Vader? Remember?

(Oh, spoiler, sorry...)

That is absolutely incredible. Recently moved away from San Francisco after 15 years, counting my blessings that I only experienced one 6.1 tremor. That one was scary enough to make my knees shake on end for many minutes afterwards but also not exactly dangerous enough -to not be a little fascinating. But, once you start getting into 7+s, I'm sure it's absolutely terrifying beyond description, especially liquefaction, freaks me out!

very impressive - although too far away to pick up the absolutely terrifying noise these things make.

At about 9:54, the dude on the right asks:
"But why are you assuming that we would find out about it [something / anything shady] then [just before the general election]?"

Because that is when it would cause the most damage, duh. It is well possible that some parties on the right already have something, considering that Guccifer probably DID hack into her server. If any such people DO have anything (or if they get anything new), they are well motivated to hold their cards until revealing them would have the most impact -- ie., AFTER she's locked up the nomination, but just BEFORE the general election.

Cenk and other democrats are 100% right to be absolutely terrified by this. I don't know that I think it is *likely*, but the democrat establishment just glossing over it seems bizarre and shortsighted.

Also, I seriously doubt that Biden would ever attempt to pick up Clinton's hypothetical fumble and run away after the DNC. I figure the GOP bigwigs that are suggesting it just want to make it look like the democrat side is in just as much disarray as the republican side.

But if either party actually does any "contested convention" shenanigans, all they will accomplish is to bring up serious and legitimate questions about their legitimacy within their core base of supporters. This election is proving that large segments of BOTH parties are NOT going to be blindly loyal to their party line and the status quo. In that environment, pushing their luck by inserting some handpicked golden child as their candidate would be suicidally stupid for either party.

@Asmo
i get what you are saying but i think you are missing the insidious implications that this new system of indoctrination represents.

i think @ChaosEngine's term 'stealth totalitarianism" is rather clever..and apt.

i agree with you on the points of peer pressure and how people can easily be manipulated.we are all,to varying degrees,subjected to a plethora of propaganda and targeted rhetoric,all meant to mold and shape our opinions in order to sustain the status quo while giving the impression that somehow our conclusions are an organic and natural response,when in reality we have been duped.

on that point we agree that this is not actually something new or novel but an old,tried and true method of social control.

what is new about this 'gaming" system,is that it is not taking the more subtle and passive approach of what current and supposedly "free" societies now implement to control public opinions and attitudes in order to either remain in power,sway the public into policies against their own interest,or create an atmosphere of fear to foment opposition.

this new system is actually aggressive.
this system will actively use its own population to do the oppressing,manipulating and controlling FOR them.

it is brilliant in it's simplicity.
it will use very human attributes we all possess in order to enact a better system of control,all the while having the appearance of being a harmless and innocuous social media competition.

but it is anything but harmless.
nor innocuous.
it will and can affect every facet of someones life.from their job to where they will be able to live,to even HOW they live.

think back to the times of east germany and the stasi,or the weimar republic,or even the soviet union of the 80's.

all used elements this new gaming system is representing,but those systems of control,while relying on the public to do much of its surveilling,all had one thing in common that they ALL relied heavily on:fear.

fear of reprisal.
fear of exposure.
fear and suspicion were the driving forces that kept those systems in power and the people in a perpetual state of paranoia.

the dread of the midnight knock.
of jackboots and black bags.

but those systems of control were fragile and once even a little resistance was exerted those systems crumbled incredibly fast.

this new system is far more subtle and devious in my opinion,because it removes the spectre of an imposing and oppressive government that will respond with violence and replaces it with the citizen to do the work for them.

the government does not have to do anything.
your neighbor will,and not because of some fear-based reason but rather for points to propel their own ambitions.their own selfish desires.

the wholesale implications are absolutely terrifying if you really think about it.

i would speculate that within a very short amount of time dissent and criticism of the chinese government will all but have vanished.replaced by a obedient and compliant population.

not because they are afraid of reprisal from the government but rather fueled by their own selfish desires for a better job,better living quarters,more privileges etc etc.

so a seemingly benign system utilizing social media will become of a self-propelled system,where those who do not tow the party line soon face joblessness,homelessness and ostracization.

not because the government strong armed them into submission,but rather their own neighbors.

so you are right.
there is nothing new here,but this system has taken the old forms of social control and brilliantly utilized one of humanities greatest weaknesses:selfishness.

it is the simplicity that makes this so brilliant and yet so horrifying at the same time.

Wow. The dash-cam in the car is absolutely terrifying! I would most likely have crapped in my pants.

Don't worry about it, i don't know much about american politics. In fact, i don't know a great deal about politics, i've just been around long enough to see that all politicians want the same thing - to be more powerful/richer politicians. I just don't think they represent people any more. If i knew how to make people care or how to fix it, i would.

I have this horrible feeling especially in my country that there's some sort of status quo whereby generation after generation has been raised with this silent but certain belief that politicians are above reproach - they can't possibly be keeping us placid with lies about what their true aims are whilst furthering their own interests. But why should this era be any different to past eras where that sort of thing was commonplace? Because we have "society" and "civilisation" now?

Check that picture i linked. It's perverse, it's obvious, it's absolutely terrifying to think that they are the people in charge and what they care about most is what they get paid. I can't think of anyone i'd want less to be in charge of my future than that. Most of the people in the bottom picture were born into the right circles to get where they got.

Democracy was a great idea, but not in the form we have it. It isn't democratic anymore, and it needs a radical overhaul or i think we're going to be milked like cows for as long as the illusion holds. We're being milked now - the balance of wealth continues to fall out of balance, the big money organisations and corporations buy the guy in charge and as long as it's done in a certain way it's considered "legal" despite we know it's immoral, the masses get their news from TV and newspapers which are often owned by or have identical interests to the same people who own the politicians. Everyone seems to see it happening but no one seems to connect the dots.

The only people who benefit from instigating democratic change like we need are the people, and the people don't seem interested. I don't mean to sound like a tinfoil hatter, but i can only call things as i see them. And sorry for walloftext, i was pretty much pontificating there.

It's absolutely terrifying t me

If this is real, that's absolutely terrifying.

Your talk of "the present climate" is intriguing. What present climate exists for the most powerful nation and military force that has ever existed? You see American citizens are so absolutely terrified of everything that it's just gotten ridiculous. People believe that the Chinese are going to attack any minute, that Iran is off our coast with a nuclear weapon. Usually these threats exist coming from those who have our boot on their necks. The disparity of force is mind blowing.

I'm sorry but we are not in need of protection like this. We go around the world supporting terror and tyranny and you say that's for the greater good? I don't believe so, but it's interesting the way you say it, many people believe that we are somehow just about to be strangled by some crazy powerful threat. It's a part of a lot of literature, I suggest you look into the long history of fear in the US...it's not dissimilar to the German public and their fear of Jews that was dredged up.

This absolutely terrified me.