Malazan Empire: Political Comedy starring world leaders and local idiots - Malazan Empire

Aptorian, on 15 March 2021 - 12:40 PM, said:

'Ted Cruz Ridiculed for Calling Biden's First Six Weeks in Office "Boring but Radical"

Cruz on Saturday reiterated his Thursday suggestion to Fox News that Biden is deliberately being "very boring" in order to "hide his radical policy agenda." The dubious declaration reflects longtime right-wing conspiracy theories that claim Vice President Kamala Harris and other "radical left" factions of the Democratic Party are actually in control. [...] "Republicans have been juggling how to portray Biden as both bumbling and nefarious, both senile and dangerous" for months, even prior to his November election win.

"Three words to describe the first weeks of the Biden administration: boring but radical," Cruz tweeted Saturday morning, prompting rampant accusations that he and other GOP lawmakers "prefer disarray" in Washington.



https://twitter.com/...765939793408006

Cruz, who kickstarted a campaign to make "#BoringButRadical" trend this week, was mockingly referred to as a "radical centrist" and accused of botching the "Schrödinger's cat" thought experiment that says something can be both alive and dead at the same time. [...]

[...]

[Cruz] accused the Biden administration of being "willing to destroy your business. He is willing to destroy your job. He is willing to destroy your family." [...]

A longtime opponent of mask mandates, Cruz claimed to Breitbart Saturday that "there's no testing" going on for undocumented immigrants, but U.S. citizens are forced to remain in "lockdown."

Cruz reiterated on Fox News and to reporters this week his belief that Biden is purposefully being "boring"—as compared to Trump—in order to push through a "progressive" agenda.

Biden's $1.9 trillion stimulus relief package, which passed through Congress with zero Republican votes, did not include several proposals from progressives such as the $15 minimum wage hike. But Cruz nonetheless states that Biden and the news media are working in lockstep to promote a "boring but radical" image. [...]

[...]

"Competent government leadership is an existential threat to the modern GOP," remarked another top Twitter reply'

https://www.newsweek...radical-1575967

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 15 March 2021 - 02:42 PM

'Trump Names His Dream 2024 Election Opponent: Meghan Markle

[...] after a highly dubious report in Britain claimed she was plotting a future run. The initial rumor [...] cited an unnamed figure from the opposition Labour Party as saying that Markle has been networking among "senior Democrats" to plan her run. That pretty ridiculous claim reached Trump's ear Tuesday night when it was brought up during a Fox News Primetime interview [...] "I hope that happens. [...]" Trump said. He went on to say he's "not a fan" of Markle because of how she's treated Queen Elizabeth II, whom Trump appears to believe is his friend. "I know the queen, as you know," he said.'

https://www.thedaily...ponent?ref=home



'According to a recent study, 71% of ambulance providers don't take the patient's insurance. That same study found that 79% of patients who took a ground ambulance could be on the hook for an average fee of $450 after their insurance paid out. By comparison, air ambulances can cost the average patient $21,700 after the insurance pays out.'

https://www.cnbc.com...ted-states.html

'One patient got a $3,660 bill for a four-mile ride. Another was charged $8,460 for a trip from a hospital that could not handle his case to another that could. Still another found herself marooned at an out-of-network hospital, where she'd been taken by ambulance without her consent.

These patients all took ambulances in emergencies and got slammed with unexpected bills. Public outrage has erupted over surprise medical bills — generally out-of-network charges that a patient did not expect or could not control — prompting 21 states to pass laws over the years protecting consumers in some situations. But these laws largely ignore ground ambulance rides, which can leave patients stuck with hundreds or even thousands of dollars in bills and with few options for recourse[...]

[...]

Forty years ago, most ambulances were free for patients, provided by volunteers or town fire departments using taxpayer money[...] Today, ambulances are increasingly run by private companies and venture capital firms. Ambulance operators now often charge by the mile and sometimes for each "service," such as providing oxygen. If the ambulance is staffed by paramedics rather than emergency medical technicians, that will result in a higher charge — even if the patient didn't need paramedic-level services. Charges range from zero to thousands of dollars.

[...] he got a bill for $3,660, or $915 for each mile of the ambulance ride. His insurance had covered nearly half, leaving him to pay the remaining $1,890.50.

[...] If he had known what the ride would cost, he said, he would at least have been able to refuse the ride and "crawl to the hospital myself."

[...]

"You feel horribly to send a patient a bill like that," said Peter Racicot, senior vice president of Fallon, a family-owned company based outside Boston.

But ambulance firms are "severely underfunded" by Medicare and Medicaid, Racicot said, so Fallon must balance the books by charging higher rates for patients with private insurance.'

https://www.washingt...4512_story.html

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 17 March 2021 - 03:53 PM

Aptorian, on 15 March 2021 - 12:40 PM, said:

This is in no way a defence of Trump by comparison but wasn't one of Biden's first acts to ramp up bombing the middle east again?

What's the Middle East?

Aptorian, on 19 March 2021 - 12:45 PM, said:

Where American drones live or something idk

'Putin shrugged off accusations from [...] Biden that he was a "killer", saying: "It takes one to know one. [...]

That's not … just a children's saying or joke. We always see our own traits in other people and think they are like how we really are. [...]"

Putin then said he would tell Biden by way of reply: "I wish you health." His comments were made "without any irony or joke", he added impassively.

[...]

[...] the Kremlin recalled its ambassador to Washington in protest, for the first time in more than two decades. Russian officials launched their own rhetorical counter-blast, describing the US president as senile, irredeemably hostile and a world-class hypocrite.

[...] said Moscow would probably take further steps "if the American side does not offer an explanation or apology".

[...] said Biden's interview was "a triumph of US political insanity and old-age dementia of their leader"[...]

[...] said the "hysterical" US leader had "insulted the citizens of our country".

But there was no attempt by Moscow to engage with the substance of US accusations. [...]

Biden has previously said he does not believe Putin has a soul, an assessment that he repeated in Wednesday's [TV] interview.'

https://www.theguard...mand-us-apology

'Texas museum removes wax Trump figure after visitors kept punching it

A wax museum in downtown San Antonio, Texas[...]

Tussaud's Waxworks pulled the figure from public view after it sustained multiple beatings [...]

The effigy of the former president likely won't return to the display floor until the new wax figure of President Biden is added into the rotation. [Retaliatory strikes on the way?...]'

https://thehill.com/...ept-punching-it

'Statue of [Trump] apparently had deep gouges inflicted by museum patrons who clawed and punched it'

https://www.theguard...ttacked-reports

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 19 March 2021 - 04:34 PM

Elderly people falling usually isn't funny, but...



'Ford fell down the steps of Air Force One while president and was lampooned for it on Saturday Night Live by Chevy Chase, leading to the general impression, also conveyed for years by the mainstream press, that he was a bumbling klutz. There is, however, a retroactive sense that this was probably unfair to Ford, who was actually a national champion college football player in the 1930s and, compared with certain more recent presidents, was basically the definition of a dignified statesman.

[...] Pence tripped while boarding Air Force Two and no one made a big deal of it.

Right-wing media is already all over Biden's fall; the best reaction yet was probably given by [...] an anchor for the pro-MAGA conspiracy channel Newsmax, who posted a picture of the president's stumble on Twitter and wrote with grave concern that "Resignation should be considered." [...]

[...] assuming his sprightly finishing move at the top of the stairs means he was not seriously injured, [the video] admittedly has a certain comic timing to it'

https://slate.com/ne...e-punditry.html

'A Cold Welcome in Alaska

It's no surprise that the Biden administration's first meeting with Chinese officials went badly. Secretary of State Antony Blinken all but said in advance that it would, calling the session a "one-off," rather than the start of negotiations, and saying he'd use it as an opportunity for an "airing of grievances" about China's bad behavior.

It is surprising, though, that the meeting went so badly, and even more surprising that Blinken [...] seemed surprised that it did.

Blinken started [...] reading a two-minute statement—with reporters and cameras present—condemning China's [...] It should have come as no shock that China's top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, would return fire with a 16-minute barrage against America's sins—its endless invasions abroad, its coercive brand of diplomacy, its own cyberattacks (at which "the U.S. is the champion"), the killings of Black Americans, and the deterioration of American democracy.

Soviet diplomats ran the same game plan in the 1950s, answering any American criticism of the Kremlin's mass oppression and political prisons by citing lynchings in Alabama[...] the reply stung and had an impact in many third-world countries with Black or brown majorities, where Washington and Moscow were competing for influence. [...]

[...] Blinken and other officials had publicly said that they would be meeting with the Chinese from "a position of strength"—always a mistake, as it seems designed to provoke and also conveys an impression of weakness, as those truly occupying a position of strength generally don't feel compelled to say they do.

[...]

What were all of these diplomats doing? [...] tweeted that Yang was aiming his remarks at "an audience of one"—Chinese President Xi Jinping. "Yang has been criticized for being too soft on America," [...] "he has to perform." (In his demand for subordinates' total loyalty, Xi seems to be similar to Donald Trump.)

[...] A "senior official" said [...] the two sides "got down to business" and held "substantive, serious, and direct" discussions that went "well beyond the two hours we had allotted." This language—"substantive, serious, and direct"—is reminiscent of the term "frank and businesslike" invoked by public-affairs officials in the Cold War era to describe particularly tense meetings between U.S. and Soviet diplomats.

[...]

[...] Biden, Blinken, and Sullivan have all said that allies give the U.S. an edge in the competition, since we have them and China does not.'

https://slate.com/ne...ang-alaska.html

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 21 March 2021 - 03:13 PM

Quote

What a load of bullshit I've seen so many videos and pictures making fun of Trump and Pence every time they stumble or just step the slightest out of line.

I do so hate this whole "We're the good guys and totally better than the mean Republicans" schtick.

Aptorian, on 21 March 2021 - 05:54 PM, said:

Context: 'Trump took some grief for being extremely timid while going up and down stairs and ramps in public, which [...] involved some mean-spirited schadenfreude about a widely disliked figure experiencing the reality of age-related physical decline. On the other hand, [...] Pence tripped while boarding Air Force Two and no one made a big deal of it.'

Not Republican vs Democrat so much as 'Pence is not elderly, so a fall isn't interpreted as evidence he's too old to be vice president'.

'Trump rants about Dr Seuss and claims China will kill us all in return to Fox News
[...]

Speaking during a rare post-presidency appearance on Fox News on Monday morning, the former president claimed that the Democrats are using "woke" tactics in order to achieve their policy goals.

"In order to accomplish the Green New Deal nonsense, they are destroying it with woke - when China looks at woke they see the biggest problem we have is Dr Seuss.

"In the meantime they are building factories and trying to kill us in so many different ways," Mr Trump said without citing any evidence or listing examples.

"Frankly, they think our country is stupid when they look at us [...]

"Taking down the statues to great heroes and so many other things. I do not because I want to do what's right and they are destroying our country," he added, seemingly in reference to the removal last summer of several statues of members of the Confederacy and historical figures with ties to slavery.

[... Republican] House minority leader Kevin McCarthy released a bizarre five-minute video of himself reading Green Eggs and Ham.

[... Unlike Republicans,] Democratic politicians have not made the books being pulled from publication a concern since the announcement was made, as the Biden administration focuses on implementing its first policies.'

https://www.independ...a-b1820693.html


'Treasure Hunter, Satanism Expert, and Mike Lindell [MyPillow] Team Up

Trump and most of his supporters long ago gave up on efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. But in Arizona, the dream of a Trump victory lives on, drawing in a bizarre cast of characters intent on rooting out nonexistent fraud.

[...] the group organized a rally featuring Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) and "MAGA Hulk," a muscular pro-Trump personality.



Lindell, who has become one of the most visible backers of pro-Trump groups and media outlets, declared in a video played at the event that the group's work "should be heard around the world" and claimed that Trump would be back in office by this summer.

"Arizona is a hotbed," Lindell added. "We're gonna get to the machines."

[...] Dr. Lyle Rapacki, a far-right activist who has claimed "demonic" forces are afoot in the fight over the Maricopa ballots [...]

Rapacki knows about demons. Amidst the satanic panic in the 1980s, in which law enforcement, the media, and parents across the country became convinced of fictitious tales about children being abused by satanic cults that often centered around schools or daycares, Rapacki held himself out to law enforcement as an expert on satanism.

The author of a book called Satanism: The Not So New Problem, Rapacki claimed in a 1988 interview with The Oregonian that satanic forces are all around us, worshipped by doctors, lawyers, and other seemingly upstanding people in a generational satanic pact for power.

"True Satanism is a secret, serious, totally committed movement that has gone on for thousands of years,'' Rapacki said at the time. "They worship a deity called Lucifer like the Christians worship Jesus Christ.''

Despite his outlandish views, Rapacki has managed to gain some sway with Arizona Republicans. [...] "both a conservative political operative with influence on some Republican state lawmakers and an irrelevant crackpot." Much of Rapacki's clout in Arizona has come from "priority communications" he distributes to activists that purport to draw on intelligence sources, though critics have countered that they're often repackaged articles from fringe websites [...].

[...] After a conservative blog questioned his rights to use the title "Dr.," Rapacki claimed he was being targeted for fighting devil worshipers.

"I was among a handful of individuals who dared to stand and expose Witchcraft and the Occult in America," Rapacki wrote.

[...] One potential candidate for the recount: Jovan Hutton Pulitzer, an inventor who claims to have invented a mysterious technology to detect voter fraud. After the election, Pulitzer was heralded by Trump supporters who saw earlier, more conventional recounts fail to produce any evidence of voter fraud. Instead, they want a "Pulitzer audit," a ballot inspection premised on Pulitzer's little-understood technology.

[...]

Pulitzer originally gained notoriety during the dot-com boom as the inventor of the much-mocked CueCat, a cat-shaped barcode scanner that was meant to let people reading magazines scan barcodes in ads, taking them to related websites. [...] "one of the most ridiculed products of the internet era" [...]

Pulitzer resurfaced as an amateur treasure hunter in 2015 on a History Channel show, styling himself as the "COMMANDER of TreasureForce" and positing that a Roman sword ostensibly found on a Canadian island proved that ancient Romans had visited Canada. Scientific analysis showed that the sword was, in fact, a modern replica.

Pulitzer returned to notoriety in the weeks after Trump's defeat, claiming he had developed a technology that could detect "kinematic artifacts"—essentially, folds in paper—that would prove whether or not the ballots were legitimate. As Pulitzer's mystery technology was heralded by MAGA fans, it also came in for ridicule from elections officials, with the Georgia secretary of state dubbing Pulitzer a "failed treasure hunter."

[...] Pulitzer himself has retweeted calls for a "Pulitzer audit" in the county, which would rely on Pulitzer deciding whether ballots are legitimate based on a supposed technology that few, if any, people aside from Pulitzer understand.

"We want the best people to perform the audit, and if what Jovan has is going to give us what we need is the best, then we want Jovan," [...]

"Wrapped up physical evidence collection with a Purple Heart Vet willing to dumpster dive for his Country." [...]

"Camera footage shows that those three attempted to unlawfully pry open our warehouse doors, but were unsuccessful," [...] "They did, however, climb into the dumpster outside the building and remove trash."

A day after the dumpster-diving incident, ballot-hunters had a new conspiracy theory: the ballots were burned in barns holding chickens. On March 6, a fire broke out at a Maricopa County chicken farm owned by Hickman Family Farms, burning 160,000 chickens alive. Hickman's vice president, Clint Hickman, is also a Republican member of the Maricopa Board of Supervisors who has repeatedly shot down the idea that the election was fraudulent.

[...] drove out to the scene of the farm, reporting ominously in their newsletter that the air smelled less like burned chicken flesh and more like burned paper, like ballots.

"At the site it is rather peculiar that there is no rancid burning smells of animals or feathers," the newsletter notes. "The most predominate odor is that of burned wood or paper."'

https://www.thedaily...-win-in-arizona

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 22 March 2021 - 06:21 PM

'Judge Tells Off Rioter Accused of Attacking Officer Sicknick

George Tanios' family defended him in court on Monday, with his mom insisting the 39-year-old man is "not a bad kid."

[...] "Give me that bear shit," Khater allegedly said to Tanios[...]

"Hold on, hold on, not yet, not yet… it's still early," Tanios responded.

Prosecutors allege the pair intentionally timed their attack on the officers with the chemical irritant "to coincide with other rioters' efforts to forcibly remove the bike rack barriers that were preventing the rioters from moving closer to the Capitol building."

[...] insisted that her brother was never violent and that the family was brought up in the church. Describing Tanios as a "jokester who worked too many hours" running a bar and sandwich shop[...]

Prosecutors also alleged while arguing for his detention that Tanios may be a flight risk after an FBI tipster provided information that his mother planned to find a way to get her son to Lebanon, where they are originally from. When asked about the tip, [his mother] burst into tears, stating, "Who tell you that? ...This is my country. God bless the United States.… [...]"

Tanios owns the eatery Sandwich University in [...] West Virginia. [...] Its GrubHub page shows it publicly insulting those who left negative reviews and its own staff.

The store's Instagram offers insight into its misogynistic marketing taglines, and the now-suspended Twitter account included a number of pro-Trump and anti-mask tweets. [...]

[...] "bragged about going to the insurrection at the Capitol on Facebook" and that he owned the "Fat Sandwich" restaurant.'

https://www.thedaily...cknick?ref=home

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 22 March 2021 - 11:49 PM

Have you guys heard the news? Trumpitter coming soon. I'm going to do my darnedest to be in the first 100 accounts to sign up. *fingers-crossed. Do you have any advice?

Bring a towel.

See guys, if you pay attention you can detect glitches in the matrix. Now are ya gonna take the red pill and come to full understanding, or are you going to stay content with not knowing and take that blue pill instead?

Conspiracy Theorists Lose Their Minds After Biden's Hand 'Floats Through' Reporter's Boom Mic

Has it been covered here that Claudia Conway -- TikToking rebel daughter of George and Kellyanne -- was a contestant on the current season of American Idol, and made it to Hollywood Week with fairly consistent praise? And both of her parents appeared on camera -- albeit separately -- in very surreal if peaceful moments of Stage Parent-style support. This is not the best of all possible worlds.

In the best of all worlds American Idol wouldn't exist - but why is it as problem that the Conway's child is competing in a reality program?

It's not a problem in and of itself, but the context is that all last year she was very publicly feuding with both of them up to and including real concerns of child abuse occurring in her home, especially at the hands of her mother (who among other things, posted and then deleted a nude photo of her teenage daughter on the internet just a few months ago). Some of those more extreme concerns were downplayed by Claudia herself, after the fact, but it was already a very surreal, seemingly tumultuous situation leading up to this surprise appearance on AI. There's a weird mix of real threat/real power colliding with gross voyeurism with absurd reality TV lowest common denominator antics with a dash of truth-to-power optimism, which cast in a new light may or may not have been artificial at none, some, or all points.

This post has been edited by worry: 24 March 2021 - 09:27 PM