This is needless escalation.

First, yeah, a joke on a tv show doesn't warrant a letter from an Ambassador, and is needlessly escalating things.

Next though, Noah's response is unwarranted too, and is needlessly escalating again. Worse still, Noah goes for the throat against the ambassador implying that the ambassador is party to the problem of calling troublesome immigrants African and successful ones simply French.

So, I googled Gerard Araud for a minute to see what I could about where he stood on immigration. That came to the link below after a round of Islamic terrorist attacks within France.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/01/14/377262623/french-ambassador-to-u-s-outlines-predicament-of-immigration

"France is a country of 65 million inhabitants. There are between 5 and 6 million Muslims. And I guess 99.9 percent of Muslims are peaceful citizens. All the polls are showing their commitment to France. They are French; most of them are born in our country. So the message that we have to send to them is, they are part of the nation. They are a full part of the nation."

So he seems like an ally who already unequivocally put himself out there fully supporting (largely Arab and African)Muslims in the heat of a terrorist attack 3 years ago. So, not so much a fair whether friend only embracing French citizens of diverse backgrounds when they are champions, but in the much much harder time when the press coverage was terrifically negative.

So, the face value reason for the Ambassador's letter of not legitimising the neo-nazi right notion that true French citizens are "white/christian" looks absolutely his true intent.

The escalation here is not to be celebrated, it is needless division between people with the same good cause. The racists don't need the help of the rest of us fighting with one another.

https://www.justice.gov/file/1015126/download
"On or about December 29, 2016, FLYNN called a senior official of the Presidential Transition Team ("PTT official"), who was with other senior ·members of the Presidential Transition Team at the Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, to discuss what, if anything, to communicate to the Russian Ambassador about the U.S. Sanctions. On that call, FLYNN and 2 Case 1:17-cr-00232-RC Document 4 Filed 12/01/17 Page 2 of 6 the PTT official discussed the U.S. Sanctions, including the potential impact of those sanctions on the incoming administration's foreign policy goals. The PIT official and FLYNN also discussed that the members of the Presidential Transition Team at Mar-a-Lago did not want Russia to escalate the situation. "

^The Trump campaign knew about him breaking the law conducting affairs with a foreign adversary but still kept him in the White House until it was clear he was going to be indited.

Also, Flynn and Kushner (again this is prior to swearing in, aka illegal) https://www.wsj.com/articles/flynn-promoted-nuclear-plant-project-while-in-white-house-1505328226

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I can go through the rest, but see for yourself
https://www.justice.gov/sco
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^All the indictments hosted on the justice department's website.

I could go through all of them like I did Flynn above, but thankfully, people are already compiling a list of contacts and the denials associated with said contacts: https://cdn.themoscowproject.org/content/uploads/2018/06/14110352/MoscowProject-TrumpContacts-0618.pdf

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And last but not least, those denials about contact that were made to the investigators arguably constitute obstruction of justice, the thing Nixon and Bill Clinton were impeached for.

Here's a quote from Nixon's first article of impeachment:
"The means used to implement this course of conduct or plan included one or more of the following:

making false or misleading statements to lawfully authorized investigative officers and employees of the United States;

withholding relevant and material evidence or information from lawfully authorized investigative officers and employees of the United States;

approving, condoning, acquiescing in, and counselling witnesses with respect to the giving of false or misleading statements to lawfully authorized investigative officers and employees of the United States and false or misleading testimony in duly instituted judicial and congressional proceedings;

interfering or endeavouring to interfere with the conduct of investigations by the Department of Justice of the United States, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the office of Watergate Special Prosecution Force, and Congressional Committees;"

http://watergate.info/impeachment/articles-of-impeachment


Honestly now, has Trump made any false or misleading statements about his team's contact with Russia? Has he withheld any relevant evidence?




Did he endevor to interfere with the conduct of an investigation?

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So did he collude with Russia? who cares, no one is being charged or investigated with collusion.

Did he obstruct justice by misleading any US official or interefere with said investigation? That's debateable, and we'll have to see all that Meuller is going to put in the public record before anyone can make a clear decision. But it sure as hell looks bad, and it's very much NOT "Still no crime Still ZERO ZIP NADA"

If you look at the timeline for Nixon or Bill Clinton's impeachment, a lot of staffers (human shields) went down before the investigators got to the top.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Watergate_scandal
http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/history/johnson/clintontimeline.htm

That escalated quickly...

Your video, That escalated quickly, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

@eric3579 -- I agree that that is a sticking point. I have trouble buying it because there are already limitations on the "right to bear arms".

The 2nd amendment:
A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.


Certainly, one could argue that licensing / registration of firearms would count as infringing on the right to keep and bear arms. However, "arms" is rather unspecific. Merriam Webster defines it as "a means (such as a weapon) of offense or defense; especially : firearm".

The government has already decided that limiting the access to some "arms" is fine, and doesn't infringe on the constitutionally guaranteed right to bear arms. For example, in many states it is "legal" to own a fully automatic, military use machine gun. BUT:
1) It had to be manufactured before 1986
2) Said machine gun has to be registered in a national database
3) The buyer has to pass a background check

So there's 3 things already infringing on your constitutional right to bear a specific kind of "arm". A firearm -- not a missile, grenade, or bomb or something "obviously" ridiculous. And actually, even "destructive devices" like grenades are technically not illegal to own, but they require registration, licenses, etc. that the ATF can grant or refuse at their discretion. And their discretion generally leads them to NOT allow civilians to exercise their right to bear that particular sort of "arm".

If those limitations / exceptions aren't an unconstitutional infringement on the right to bear arms, certainly reasonable expansion of the same sort of limitations might also be OK.

I empathize with pro-gun people's fear of "slippery slope" escalating restrictions; the potential to swing too far in the other direction. But at some point you gotta see the writing on the wall. To me, it seems like it would be better for NRA-types to be reasonable and proactive so that they can be part of the conversation about where and how the lines are drawn. In other words, accepting some reasonable "common sense" limitations (like firearm licensing inspired by driver's licensing) seems like a good way to keep any adjustments / de-facto exceptions to the 2nd amendment reasonable (like the laws about machine guns). Otherwise, you're going all-in. With a not particularly good hand. And that's when you can lose everything (ie., 2nd amendment removal rather than limited in sane ways that let responsible people still keep firearms).

Excellent.

"The problem is that very dangerous people have very easy access to very dangerous weapons."

So, there's 3 issues there. Address any ONE of the three, and things would get better. Maybe not "job done" better, but better. Take moderate, corrective steps on all three, and we'd be MUCH better off.

1) Dangerous people. How could we take dangerous people out of the equation? Background checks. Licensing. Revoking gun ownership privileges for convicts and people diagnosed with mental health problems.

2) Easy access. What could we do better to sensibly and fairly restrict access to firearms? Well, lets see ... fucking anything stands a better chance of working than the nothing that we're doing now. So again, background checks, licensing, registration. Enforcement of said requirements.

3) Dangerous weapons. I think a legitimate criticism of "the left"s typical stance on gun control is that they might be a bit TOO focused on this one.
There is some core truth to the NRA harping "guns don't kill people, people kill people." If a murderous psycho decides that they want to kill a bunch of people, they can find ways of doing it that don't necessarily require guns.
However, it is also true that easy access to weapons designed for war can escalate the degree of tragedy quickly.

Basically, this one and #2 are a trade-off. Bolt action rifles and shotguns might be OK with fewer restrictions. Semi-automatic? High capacity? Doesn't it make sense at some point to at least be a bit careful about who we allow unfettered access to these things?


Trump's parroting of the NRA plan to put MORE guns in schools would be laugh out loud stupid if it wasn't guaranteed to end in tragedy rather than comedy. I can't fathom how anyone, even the nuttiest of gun nuts, could think that is a good idea. And I'm actually rather pro-gun. But, c'mon ... some limitations and restrictions just make obvious sense.

A car is a much better and more legitimate general-purpose "tool" than a firearm. But improper use is dangerous and potentially deadly, so we take some common sense steps to try to limit that. Want to drive? Get a license. Pass a safety test. Pass physical and medical tests to show that you are capable of controlling the vehicle. Periodically re-test to stay current. And, expect to LOSE your license if you drive irresponsibly (drunk, moving violations, etc.).

I don't think those are unfair requirements to be granted the privilege of a license to drive a motor vehicle. To me anybody that has a proper respect for the utility of a firearm, and also a respect for the damage that improper use of firearms can do, should be in favor of sensible restrictions and limitations placed on the privilege of being allowed to own and use a firearm, just like we accept for cars.

As a former employee under both Jobs and Cook, I can tell you exactly what is wrong with Apple.

When I started with Apple, every thing we were concerned with was innovating. What could we come up with next? Sure, there were plenty of misses, but when we hit, we hit big. It was ingrained in the culture of the company. Managers wanted creative people, people who might not have been the best worker bee, but that could come up with new concepts easily. Sometimes corporate rules were broken, but if you could show that you were actively working towards something new, then you were OK.

Fast forward to when Cook started running the show, Steve was still alive, but had taken a backseat really. Metrics became a thing. Performance became a watchword. Managers didn't want creative thought, they wanted people who would put their nose to the grindstone and only work on things that headquarters suggested. Apple was no longer worried about innovating, they were concerned with 'maintaining'.

Two examples which might help illustrate further:

1. One of the guys I was working with was constantly screwing around in any free moment with iMovie. He was annoyed at how slow it was in rendering, which at the time was done on the CPU power. Did some of his regular work suffer, yeah. But he was praised because his concepts helped to shift some of the processing to the GPU and allow real time effects. This functionality made iMovie HD 6 amazing to work with.

2. In a different section of the company, the support side, a new manager improved call times, customer service stats, customer satisfaction, and drastically cut down on escalations. However, his team was considered to be:

a. making the other teams look bad

and

b. abusing the use of customer satisfaction tools, like giving a free iPod shuffle (which literally costs a few dollars to make) to extremely upset customers.

Now they were allowed to do all of these things, no rules were being broken. But Cook was mostly in charge by that point and he was more concerned with every damn penny. So, soon after this team blew all the other teams away for the 3rd month in a row, the new manager was demoted and the team was broken up, to be integrated into other teams willy-nilly.

Doing smart things was no longer the 'thing'. Toeing the line was. Until that changes, nothing is going to get better for Apple. I know I personally left due to stress and health issues from the extreme pressure that Cook kept sending downstream on us worker bees. My job, which I had loved, literally destroyed my health over a year.

Fighting on the street isn't even comparable to MMA. Not to take away from the hardness of any MMA fighter, but MMA is a sport. There are rules, and it's a safe environment (as safe as can be considering what happens in the octagon). You don't have to worry about the other guy poking your eye out or biting you, you probably won't die, etc.

The best thing for self defense is to be able to identify a dangerous situation, and get away from it using any means necessary, before it escalates. Getting into your car and driving away is the best thing you can do.

The other part of it is not looking like a victim, it's a body language thing.

And in these cases, Aikido is as good as any other martial art.


Having said that I'd still love to see someone use Aikido in an MMA match just for entertainment, because the only videos I've ever seen are ones like this, where the partner is going with the flow to avoid injury.


Actually now that I think about it, are you allowed to dislocate/break joints in MMA? Because the damage is likely to be permanent.

Good and interesting stuff in there.

I think Sharpe is right that this escalation happened for a pretty silly reason (known blowhard and mouth-runner Trump runs his mouth, news at 11), and the NFL vs Trump skirmish detracts from the root issue that Kaepernick was trying to bring attention to a year ago.

On the other hand, I kinda agree with the other guy that maybe bringing attention to that skirmish will also bring attention to the original issue, so maybe it is a net good thing.

Yeah, the owners aren't going to give a fuck until shit lands on their doorstep. Yeah, calling people a "son of a bitch" rates at about a 2 on the "Trump just said what?!" scale. Sharpe's cynicism about how we got here makes a lot of sense.

I didn't care about Kaepernick sitting for the anthem a year ago enough to pay attention. I wasn't against it. I didn't think the was trying to "disrespect" the flag / soldiers / country / whatever, but I wouldn't have really cared if he was. Aren't people allowed to be anti-war? Opposed to mindless nationalism?


Fast forward to today. The billionaires that Sharpe mentioned who donated big sums to Trump's campaign finally get upset when his shit lands on their door. His (comparably tame) "Twitter attacks" on the NFL kick off a dog-and-pony show that may possibly have been cunningly intended to distract from the much more weighty stuff that Kaepernick was trying to draw attention to in the first place, but I seriously doubt that Trump is that clever.

However, something good did come of it: I went from "meh" to paying attention. I went back and listened to Kaepernick's interview about why he was sitting for the anthem from a year ago (embed below), which I didn't watch at the time. I heard a rational, honest, and eloquent young man calmly and clearly explain what he was doing and why he was doing it.

He saw injustice, and wanted to do something about it. He had access to a soapbox that very very few of the people on the receiving end of that injustice have. So, he made up his own mind to do something to try to get conversations started. He was surprised and confused that anyone would see his actions as disrespectful towards soldiers / military, and was later persuaded (by a Navy SEAL) to kneel as opposed to sit for the anthem in an effort to make that more clear.

He seemed aware that he can only control what he does -- not how people will try to spin it, and not how people may react to it. And he also clearly accepted that his actions could have consequences, and that he didn't want to rope anybody else in to acting with him unless they were prepared to accept those consequences also.

So, yeah. Some good came of this recent escalation, even if it came for the wrong reasons. Because some of the people that get drawn in to the dog-and-pony show might decide that they care enough to go back and take a deeper look at it, like I did. And when they look deeper, they're going to see Trump's standard, everyday twitter nonsense on one side compared to a lot of more rational stuff like, say, perhaps actually listening to words of the person that got the ball rolling on the other side (Kaepernick, and others). I like the way that scale balances out.

Wow that escalated quickly which was no surprise to my black friend, but a cop calming down and letting someone drive off who doesn't have any ID did not compute on his operating system.

As an adjunct to this video, there is this interview with 2 BLM activists that is part of the documentary.

The awful irony is that in the documentary, Daryl has far more reasoned and polite conversations with dyed in the wool white supremacists than he does with fellow members of his race.

After the two interviewees walk out, a 3rd BLM member steps in and launches an escalating tirade, but storms out without even bothering to listen to a different viewpoint.

This is what I think is the issue. When people who proclaim that black lives matter can't even sit there and listen to the opinion of a black man, what's the fucking point?

Perhaps the most poignant part of this video is the last minute (from 10:00 onwards).

(speaking about one of the BLM members)

"He was very definite that white people could not change. How is he going to advance any agenda in this country, as diverse as it is?"

Really. Can you name a number of Nazi marches that didn't end in violence then? I can't.
Nothing was traded, the right still wears their hoods....more than the left wears black, btw. The left has never courted these people, and doesn't excuse them. The right can't say the same about Nazis and the KKK.

No, sorry, they're confused kids. Fascism is not liberal...not extreme liberal either. They might think, because their goals are quasi-liberal, that makes them liberals, but their methods are totally antithetical to liberal ideals.

Liberal and Democratic leaders have denounced them repeatedly. Just because Fox tells you they embrace them doesn't make it true.

Huh? Leaders calling the cops doesn't help? Really. It's seemed to disband them in the past without campus burnings...what are you talking about? How do you arrest them without calling the cops? What?! The alternative? Just let the nazis/fascists and the antifascist fascists fight in public.

So, there you go, again, the right escalates the violence to the next level, murder, and you blame the left. Typical Bob.

Not that any of this is acceptable, but it's funny how your video omits the part where the armed and armored (clubs, helmets and full body pads) right wingers violently pushed into the counter protest crowd, starting the violence you now decry, and that this video edits to look one sided.

At this point, it's more than probable that nothing will get Trump reelected, but if the right is successful painting these anarchist asshats as liberals, and by extension liberals as these asshats, it could get another Trump like feculent demagogue elected.
That's why I think it's important to denounce them (antifa) at every opportunity. Fascists against fascism are still fascists, just incredibly stupid ones. They don't stand for what I think the left is about, and I certainly don't stand with them.

I agree, horrifyingly, this is apparently escalating towards gunplay. I'm not at all sure which side will shoot first. Don't fool yourself into thinking the left and the anarchists don't have guns too, though, or that totally non political citizens won't take up arms against rampaging Nazis and fascists (hopefully fascists left and right). Just something to consider when you're standing next to one hoping a gunfight breaks out.