exactly!
i thought it was funny in an absurd way,because the shit i find funny is absurd half the time.

there is a reason why i tagged it comedy and parody.

*this video should not to be taken seriously in any fashion.

@harlequinn

i have witnessed many of my more right leaning friends on social media ask a very similar question,but ignore that the attorney general is first,and foremost,an agent of the court.

sally yates did nothing illegal.she simply was upholding a lawful injunction passed down from ninth circuit court federal judge william orrick.(who is a republican,for what it is worth).

what yates DID do was ignore an executive order commanding her to challenge the injunction,which she refused and told her subordinates to do the same.which is considered gross insubordination,and the reason she was fired,but she had every right and legal cover to ignore that EO.

the DOJ,and subsequently the attorney general,are not their for the presidents leisure.they are part of the judiciary branch,which is separate from the executive.though every president has replaced the current attorney general with one that most aligns with their politics.

the fact that so many diehard rightwingers see what yates did as anti-patriotic is a stance that i find very disturbing.that somehow by disobeying the president,she crossed some imaginary line,and therefore should be punished for her disobedience.

which she was! she was fired.

but to imply that disobeying an executive order is tantamount to treason,goes against the very ideology of our constitutional republic.the president is not KING.he does not wield absolute power.

and to pretend what yates did as illegal,and treasonous, for disobeying the president.... is fascism 101.

no vote?

*promote

that is exactly what i was thinking!

@newtboy
i like the 'failing liver" analogy.
appropriate and easily understood.

and i can understand where milkmandan is coming from,but my perspective is more aligned with yours newt.

what consistently baffles me,is how so many people are willing to simply accept this short term strategy from our politicians.

there is no surprise when corporations push for this,they are just focusing on their own interests and bottom line,which is short term profit.

or the politicians who bow to their neoliberal masters to receive those tasty campaign contributions.

or even the banks,who again focus on their short term gains.

these players are all behaving as they always have:for their own self interest.so there should be no shock or surprise when they act exactly as they have always acted.

but when i see everyday,normal people defend the behavior and actions of oliticians,financial institutions and multi-national corporations.it baffles me as to why they would choose to do such a thing.

we can understand why those players seek to retain a system which benefits them,their shareholders and their bottom line,but that system no longer serves the interests of the people,community and society as a whole.

so why make arguments defending it?

it is,quite frankly,killing us slowly as a species.

look at germany.
that country has slowly been recruiting,educating and now poised to corner the market in:new energy,renewable energy and are leading the world in breakthrough technologies in all energy fields.

germany has long played the long game.
they now dominate the entire EU in finance,and are now focusing on dominating the globe with new energy technology.

and what are we doing here in america?
pushing through more and more neoliberal policies that immiserate the working poor,both here and abroad.desperately continuing our destruction of entire ecosystems to exploit our natural resources for:oil and gas.military conflicts,which only make this country less safe,all to exploit other nations and extract THEIR oil and gas,and the cost in human lives is absolutely indefensible.

all of it.
every single bit of it for short term gains for an extremely small minority.

and here we are,with trump opening the flood gates to further exploit and destroy our natural resources with no thought or plan for the future.no investment in our communities,nor our society as a whole.

and for those who wish to make an argument that hillary would be better.i will only concede that on a domestic level this may have been true,but hillary is a neoliberal corporatist,and she would have pushed for even MORE military intervention in the middle east.MORE sanctions against countries unwilling to play ball,in order to politically squeeze them out,and even MORE of this countries policy of "regime change" to exploit and extract from those countries their precious resources.

i strongly suspect Iran would have been next on her agenda.

so when are some of these people going to step up,and realize that both trump AND clinton are (or would have been) disasterous for us as a community,a nation and as a species?

because they both only offer short term solutions to long term problems.and those short term solutions only benefit a minority of the population.

we could turn this ship around TODAY,right now,if we so choose.
we need more politicians like elizabeth warren and tulsi gabbard.we need more integrity in our media and journalists willing to do their job and criticize power,not bow to it just for access.we need the people to become engaged and confront their representatives,and make them uncomfortable,not treat them as celebrities.

and we need to reject the system where rich people choose who we get to vote for,and begin to dismantle this two party duopoly.

because trump vs hillary?
this election cycle has just revealed that both these candidates are not the disease,but rather the symptom of a very broken,and dysfunctional political system.

we need to begin to invest in the future.
and reject the status quo as no longer being viable for the continued existence of the human species.

and with the newly energized american public,who are growing in numbers daily,and is a direct response to the unmitigated disaster that is trump.there may be hope for us yet.

because if we stay on this trajectory,we are fucking doomed.

how did this thread steer into climate change waters?
heh...god i love this site,and i love all you fuckers as well!

i don't really understand the rehashing of the election,trump is president.it is a done deal.

which is probably why i am struggling with the hillary diehards.politics is not a binary equation,so stop acting like it IS,and for the love of god stop with the condescension directed at people who did not vote YOUR way.ya'all are acting like we are your wayward dog who just took a giant dump on your carpet.

just LOOK at what you have done! LOOK at it! bad dog..baaaad dog.

@Stormsinger and @MilkmanDan were kind enough to share who they voted for,but they should not be put in a position to defend their vote.their vote,their choice and their right.

you may disagree,and that is fine,but to place all the blame on them,and their "like-minded compatriots" is arrogant,presumptuous and condescending.the reason hillary lost is not simply due to a few small holdouts.there are a myriad of reasons,and in my opinion,hillary should take most of the blame.

and what is this purity test @bareboards2 ?
do you mean a person standing by their principles?
remaining steadfast in their moral values?
showing us all that they would rather lose,than give up one ounce of integrity?

are you seriously criticizing people for holding to their own standards of morality and decency?

politics is not binary,there a many mitigating factors and political affilliation is only one aspect.

i have seen friends who voted for trump,and were extremely vocal about their support in the run up to election day,only to become eerily silent the further we got into trumps presidency.many of these people had voted for obama..TWICE..they wanted change.were desperate for change,and now they are finding out,that change may not be what they were expecting.

because the trump presidency is going to one helluva horror show,but there are also positives to consider.it is not a total loss.

i have the seen the very same people who have ridiculed and berated fundamentalist christians for being ideologically rigid,and philosophically immovable.turn around and express the exact same rigidity,and binary thought processes when it comes to their girl hillary clinton.

i was talking the other day with a man i highly respect and admire,who flippantly and casually called me a racist.
my crime?
i had the audacity to criticize obama.
which he doubled down and accused me of being sexist for not supporting hillary,and being critical of her as well.

how is this NOT ideological rigidity?
that to critically examine two prominent public figures automatically equates to:racism and sexism.

this is the metric that i see so many hillary supporters use when dealing with someone that they may disagree.this is a cheap,ill thought and ultimately WEAK counter to valid criticisms.

at what point do hillary supporters stop labeling other people the most vile of terms,simply because they did not step into line with THEIR thinking,and begin to examine the very REAL problems that both the hillary campaign,and the DNC,created for themselves?

or is everybody simply a racist and sexist?
that's it..no discussion.

this is akin to the fundamentalist christian labeling anybody who disagrees with their religion,or has brought up solid criticisms,as being an agent of satan.

" i do not like what you are saying about hillary,so therefore you must be a sexist".

the easiest,and most human,thing we do when faced with information and/or criticism that is in direct opposition to our long held beliefs.is to demonize the person making those claims,and therefore silence any further disruption to our own subjective belief system.

so when i talk about "insulated bubbles",and "echo chambers".that right there is what i am referring to,and it is dangerous.

i refuse to judge anybody on how they voted.they had their reasons,and i may even disagree with those reasons,but they have a right to their vote and who am i to judge them?

rehashing the election,or assigning blame based on ideological differences,accomplishes nothing.the REAL work starts now.trump is in office,and he is gearing up to be an unmitigated disaster.

so get involved.head to your next town hall meeting and speak your piece.start to connect with the political movements in your area and start to put pressure on your local representative.

i think we can all agree that trump is awful on so many levels,but to witness the american people become so politically engaged,so politically active,more active than they have been in decades.it really is inspiring,and all this is due to trump.

if hillary had won,would we see the same kind of newly energized,and politically active public?

i don't think so.

so let us stop with the rehashing.
stop with the blaming.
and get off our asses,step outside our own little,insulated echo chamber and start to engage.

don't know how to step outside your own bubble?
there is an app for that:
https://videosift.com/video/it-is-time-to-pop-your-social-media-echo-chamber-bubble

*oh,and even though i may have alluded to who i voted for.let me state clearly that i voted for hillary.i stick by my dislike of the "lesser of two evils" but come on...trump in the white house?

yeeesh....

so YOU are the other person who saw this movie in the states!
we must be related,and thanks for the multiple promotes.i hope it gets sifted,it is a great scene from a great movie.

chaplin had really become a tour de force in regards to politics eh?
and it appears he brought his kids right along with him.
i find chaplin a fascinating public figure.

@ChaosEngine

lol.i just deleted a massive ramblomatic that broke down the entire history of the ACA.

figured i better just stick to basics.

many of the early protests you saw were partisan diehards who had been riled up by their favorite demagogue.

socalism!!
communism!!

but really the two great things from the ACA,and were provisions obama fought very hard for were:
pre-existing conditions
and while the ACA did not allow negotiating pharmaceutical prices,they DID put a cap on them.

and while the ACA was not perfect,far from it,those two provisions did a lot of good for people who suffered from long term illnesses.

but when anericans are asked pointed questions,without being directed for a specific goal,the majority support a single payer system.even republicans.

because you are right.it is a no-brainer.
americans already pay into a system:medicare/medicaid.
which operates on a 3% overhead.
and if basic,preventative care is offered early in peoples lives,the resulting savings totals into the 100's of billions.

and when presented to the american people like that,the majority are all for it.

*note( in the first three weeks of debating the ACA,the big 3 health insurance companies(blue cross,humana and cigna) spent a whopping 300 BILLION!

by the end it was almost a trillion they had spent to combat the passing of the ACA.

@Drachen_Jager
yeah,the way i am reading it is that this new plan is going to defer much more control,and therefore responsibility,to a state level.

considering that many local municipalities are broke,bankrupt or on the verge of both.i do not see this ending well.with local and state governments being forced to trim plans to non-existent coverage,or raise premiums.

as it is written right now,this is a lose -lose for the republicans.

and to answer your question @ChaosEngine,the american people are down with single payer according to the polls (when the right questions are asked),and this includes moderate republicans.

so it is not the american people,it is the multi-billion dollar health insurance industry,and THEIR politicial bullshit is an entirely separate conversation.

let's just say they are cunts,and leave it at that.

story of my life.

i love kate mckinnon,she just keeps getting better and better.

ok,that is not fair,i adore that piece from the oatmeal but it really does not apply to this current discussion.

at least in my case,and my commentary.(i do not want to speak for anybody else).

i simply was using the very same metric prager was using to make HIS point,and turned it upon itself,because his logic is obviously biased,and flawed.i was using HIS parameters to come to a different conclusion.

i am not coming from ideological standpoint.i was simply pointing out the flaw in his logic.my own,personal biases and prejudices,have nothing to do with my conclusions.

so what exactly is unbelievable?

that people pointed out that his argument is weak,facile and totally without merit? do you think this is due to some partisan bias? some emotional adherence to an economic or political system?

or maybe his conflation of a socio-economic political system and murderous,despotic tyrants was an incredibly weak tactic to make the argument that communism was "evil".

now you are free to believe whatever you wish,and maybe you think that communism is actually "evil",but if that is the case,then i would suggest that you do not utilize the tactic prager uses in this video,because HIS argument is incredibly weak and flawed,and easily de-bunked.

personal biases and predjudices have nothing to do with this mans shitty argument.

and no offense mate,but countering that people disagreeing with this video is somehow due their own partisan,political philosophy,is just as weak as pragers shitty argument.

prager made a shitty argument,based on extremely flawed logic,in order to push his own biased agenda.we exposed that flaw,plain and simple.

political affiliation had nothing to do with it.

perfection my friend.

luuuuub joooooo