Grrl Power #758 – Dabbler(‘s non-terrestrial origin) revealed!
I think the press will ultimately have a bit more of a negative reaction to being lied to about Dabbler’s origin, but it was always the plan to come clean about it once existence of aliens was undeniable. It’s just happening waaaay sooner than anyone thought it would. I initially thought about having some of the press grumbling about it after Dabbler spills it on panel 4, but as usual, Suzie just rolls with it and cuts to the chase.
While these events unfolding the way they did aren’t Sydney’s fault, it definitely would have all gone down differently if she hadn’t been involved. Although, the Alari colony ship making its way to Earth would still have probably happened.
Hmm. Well, if the team hadn’t interfered with Sciona’s portal, she would have arrived on Alar before whatever those things were attacked. Sciona’s plan was to lead a force back through and begin a takeover of Earth. Though Sciona hadn’t planned on just launching an offensive. She was going to do it behind the scenes, so… honestly it’s hard to say if Sydney decelerated or accelerated the extra terrestrial reveal.
I’m still not sure about that green top for Dabbler. I tried a number of colors there, but purple skin with teal stripes does make certain color combinations difficult for her. A peach top actually looked pretty good, but it also kind of looked like she was nude and wearing purple opera gloves. And a bunch of purple makeup on her face I guess. Blue is usually a good solution for her, as long as it’s doesn’t match her hair color too closely, but with the blue drape in the back, and the sky blue UN flag behind her, nothing looked good besides a green that didn’t match her stripes, black, or red.
And yes, I know the US flag is hung wonky. People have said it’s supposed to be flipped around with the stars on the left side when it’s hung vertically, but that seems crazy to me. When it’s horizontal, the stars are at the top left, then if you rotate it 90° clockwise, it winds up how I have it. To put it the ‘right’ way, you have to first flip the horizontal flag left to right, then rotate it 90° counterclockwise. That makes no sense to me. It’s stuff like that which makes the world unnecessarily complicated.
I try not to get political with the comic, but dealing with military personnel and civilization shifting press conferences, it’s hard to at least not dip into that realm just a bit from time to time. I wasn’t sure how else to end this page, but I thought a gag about citizenship would be fitting. Someone in the press corps would definitely ask about it, so Dabbler preempted it. Of course, it’s not like she could be an illegal alien. The government knows she’s here. At the very least she’d have some sort of work visa, right?
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Yeah, well the cat’s out of the bag no matter how you angle it.
Never keep kitties in bags! Bad human! Use a proper pet carrier, if you have to transport them.
i think the origin of that old saying is when unscrupulous individuals would attempt to sell a cat in a burlap or otherwise non-transparent sack, claiming it was a pig; at some point the understandably annoyed animal would escape; cat claws are great on fabric, as many cat servants (we call ourselves owners but who are we kidding) will affirm
I prefer the version which says it originated from the cat of nine tails being kept in a bag. So if someone revealed a shipmate’s punishable secrets, they would be ‘letting the cat out of the bag’. Although Snopes cannot support either origin, we are free to pick the ones we
The last time I saw animals being carried in a bag (which was open at the neck, rather than tied) were puppies, next to a guy riding a horse and cart, in Bulgaria. Our speculation was that he was going door to door trying to sell them. Which was never going to work in a poor village, where we were struggling to find homes for others.
I subsequently managed to rescue two of them, abandoned in a nearby path, covered in blood, ticks and fleas, and with no sign of their siblings. They are doing fine, with friends of mine, to this day. Although they did turn out to have 75 to 80% wolf dna!
The sayings about cats in bags and pigs in pokes have been recorded in medieval and renaissance England rather before the recorded use of the cat of nine tails in the British Navy, though certainly the whip has been around a lot longer than that, just not the ceremony that the Navy used for punishment, which involved the bag holding the ‘cat.
CC:
I think that’s ‘A pig in a poke’.
It’s both, actually.
‘Never buy a pig in a poke’ – two sayings for the price of one!
“Never a poke a pig in its eye”
“As my mother used to say, ‘Don’t poke that pig, boy’. In this context, it works perfectly.Sea Pig, sea pig…“ (NSFW, as many of you probably already know.)
My life is better for having seen this…
Win win. :-D
SUCH a win win.
Sadly, I think that this one might be it. The other, more terrible alternative, is that it refers to the way that people used to put cats in bags to drown or beat them to death, as cats were, for a long time, considered servants of the Devil, or otherwise unwanted verminous creatures. One of the big reasons the Black Death was as bad as it was (aside from a lack of basic hygiene) is that in medieval Europe cats were routinely killed if they were seen, and thus were not able to keep the rat populations in check.
Kitties enthusiastically put themselves into bags (brown paper). While I have never seen. Kitty go into a carrier willingly.
I have, but that cat is weird, even for a cat. Which is saying something. Love my fluffy little satan with every fiber of my being though.
We put those little cat beds inside our carriers. The cats voluntarily sleep inside the carriers during cold weather because it’s a cozy enclosed space that holds their body heat.
I home you mean something like sleepypods, that said, anyone tring to use one of those obsolete hard carriers as anything but a static bed for older pets have found themselves up on animal cruelty charges around here because of how dangerously use that those actually
I really like how they’re “catering” to Suzie News. She’s got a bright future as an ArcLiaison.
There is no doubt she is Arianna’s most preferred reporter.
And rightly so!
I was going to complain that they need to move on to the other reporters. But then I noticed that most of the other members of the audience do not have faces, so it would be kind of pointless to give them the microphone.
It is obviously because the Veil is failing and the galactic news outlet representatives’ disguises are failing.
Headcanon accepted.
She’s really good at asking the right questions at the right time. Probably why he have a habit of going to her for questions and interviews.
Also she’s a very pro-Archon reporter, so they’re obviously going to want to cultivate that sort of relationship and promote her for the positive press.
I doubt Fox and Friends would do that since she’s working with the American Military.
And not that it’s relevant to the in-series year of 2012, but recently Fox has become more moderate as they’ve gotten wider viewership as a result of other Mainstream News Outlets become heavily untrusted after blasting “Russiagate” for two years only for it to turn out to be nothing
*peers at my 10 foot pole* still not long enough.
Yeah, not in this place.
I do recommend to anyone that tells me that, that they read the report. Especially the footnote referencing preventing tapes from being released.
https://www.justsecurity.org/63708/word-searchable-version-of-mueller-report/
Seriously, would Republicans EVER let it drop, if a Clinton had a report like this out? So why do they expect that for Trump? It makes no sense.
They did not let it drop when every single Litigation agaisnt Hillary failed:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1Lfd1aB9YI
So it is not even a guess. It is more like another “can they be any more hypocritical”.
@ Chirstopher
“Can they be any more hypocritical?”
I ask my self that question almost every morning, and by the end of the day I have my answer.
“Yes they can.”
It’s pretty clear to me that there were two simultaneous forms of corruption, and that both are ongoing. We have upwards of 20 career people fired or demoted for their actions around that first investigation, clear documented partisanship by the investigators, either perjury or at a minimum intentionally misleading Congress by actors in charge of the investigation at points, partisan leaking of confidential information, including FALSE information, by one or both sides, and so on.
Considering that Mueller does not seem familiar with the details of “Mueller’s report”, and that in several places the tone switches from factual timeline to innuendo without source or actors… a common thing in political speeches, and one of the ways that interrogators identify lies and omissions by the person being interrogated… I wouldn’t put a whole lot on expectation on anyone believing the implications of footnotes unless they were already certain which side of the fence they were on, and what they wanted to believe.
That being said, I’d be pretty likely to believe that Trump is making money manipulating markets right now, but the Democrats have poisoned their own well with so much stupidity that even if there were clear evidence, it would be hard to move on it.
They made such a big deal out of 35 Russian trolls supposedly influencing the election, and now we find out it’s likely that Facebook and Alphabet’s professional staff… across the world… had thousands of times that level of effect with illegal manipulation and collusion in the opposite direction… crickets…
Look at the definition of “in kind contributions” if you don’t understand why it’s illegal.
They are longer Trumps, sweetheart. They are criticizing him, on Fox “news:.
Yeah, that’s my point
Ohhhhhhhh, I sooooooooo could get into that, but that is politics. Winning an argument on politics and/or religion is an oxymoronic concept. Besides, this comic today is all about picking on the stupidity of the press, and there is a LOT of stupidity in that topic. And ego. And often quite willful ignorance. Especially on both FOX and MSN. And there is a reason I call CNN the Comedy News Network.
To the majority of people I know Fox has been and still is pretty far to the right they are NOT moderate.
If it seems they have gone more moderate, it might mean that your views have shifted to the right.
Russiagate wasn’t what people expected, but to say it was nothing is a false statement either:
– There was Russian interference in the election
– Russia did offer dirt on Clinton, to Trump campaign
– Trump campaign was willing to accept such dirt
– The Trump campaign had a meeting to accept dirt
– The Trump campaign say the dirt was nothing, so they didn’t proceed.
These are just facts that have been confirmed by both sides.
Problem was to make it a strong case they would need to prove that they where actively working together, and that is where the investigation came short.
The investigation didn’t say it didn’t happen. It just said that it couldn’t prove this part.
if that is because the investigation wasn’t good enough, or because it didn’t happen, or that in a way they managed to obstruct it enough is debatable. But the other parts are pure fact. There was something going on. It is just that nothing is happenin because the senate keeps their ranks closed and rather have an unpatriotic narcist Republican president than to be patriotic and be honest at what is happened.
The GoP needs to be more like Cartment in southpark to Butters in “The China Probrem” At a certain point they should just take their loss, striaghten their backs and stand up for what is right and patriotic than be: “a nation of unethical dick shooters”
That said the trust worthyness of Fox is still the amongst lowest in the USA. But all main stream media have terrible biases. The USA had moderate media and right wing media on TV there is no significant Left wing media outlet outside social media.
i heartily agree with your last paragraph, i get random newsfeed recommendations in my YouTube videos and the different channels all have their own spin on things and sometimes the wording is just so obviously inflammatory
Pointing out media bias/ignorance is clearly on topic. But we should avoid this becoming a specific debate about contemporary political issues. Especially such an emotive one as ‘would we have the same PotUS, without Russian interference?’ That is a political hot potato for a good reason, but something we should avoid discussing here, because politics is the one thing the author asks us to avoid.
I agree. Also I would rather discuss this delightfully silly and funny webcomic.
Maybe if the author wants us to avoid discussing politics here, he shouldn’t include his own political bias in his comic. Don’t start none, won’t be none.
Do try to distinguish between having a poke at the media and attacking a political party. And please take a moment to appreciate the irony. If news peddlers were politically unbiased then it would not be so easy to make such an association!
This comic is set in the real world, even if it has a lot of hidden elements not visible to us. Where there are media organisations which do sensationalise illegal immigration (on both sides of the Atlantic, and other parts of the world, for that matter). Which can also come across as being xenophobic, when viewed from a hypothetical neutral viewpoint.
And I say ‘hypothetical’ advisedly here. Because no media organization can be totally unbiased. Here I will talk about the BBC, as it actually has a mandate to be politically neutral. Which it makes a fair attempt at. However it has had its flaws (for instance when dealing with ‘the Troubles’ in Northern Ireland).
Then, at times, it tries TOO hard to present both sides of a debate evenly. For instance the one doctor who tried to discredit the MMR vaccine. They gave him equal air time to the rest of the medical community, who were trying to debunk him. Vastly increasing the traction that his sole voice (in the professional community) provided. Since his research has been discredited (he actually manipulated his results, on top of them being just badly conducted) and has been struck off the medical register. But the damage was done due to the years of unwarranted publicity he got (and the cult-like social media following that sprang up as a result).
The moral here though being that it is very hard to cover any political news story without some bias. But some do show it far more than others. It is not unreasonable to call Fox out for that, in its own right mind. Although I agree that is pushing a bit close to the quick (so recognise your complaint as not being without merit).
However it is very pertinent from the point of view of non-Americans (and aliens even more so as they are even more outsiders than people from elsewhere on Earth). Fox leaps out to me (as a Brit following the news) simply because of the number of times that they have made factually inaccurate claims about the UK, in order to score political traction for some domestic issue (be that gun violence, immigration or otherwise).
The ones which are factually based, or that make fair points (even if strongly political) don’t get much notice here. But the others leap out and get big headline coverage (including during the period the comic is set in). So Fox has not got a great reputation even with a major ally of the US. Let alone the public from countries that it actively disparages at other times!
Dabbler is smart enough to have picked up on this, and the implications it may have about their reaction to her. Pro immigration media outlets do not pose a credible threat to her, but anti ones do. It is in her character to confront issues head on.
TLDR if you look at the world from Dabbler’s perspective, this is a perfectly reasonable impression to have formed, and wholly within her nature to speak about it forthrightly.
Tombworld does make a fair point though.
Umm, no they don’t
There was no politics mentioned in the last two comics, and yet people still talked politics in the comments (me included, butt that was after others already started slanging Shtrump)
Um, yes Tombworld does make a fair point Guesticus. The comments are not the comic itself. People will make political comments about ANYTHING nowadays, but at least the comic itself was relatively devoid of partisanship. This strip was politically partisan, which is never a particularly good idea for getting as big an audience as possible.
No, Tombworld said “Don’t start none, won’t be none”, and yet, DaveB didn’t ‘start none’ butt people still started it themselves the other day, which, personally believe, led to todays strip (specially the last panel, not a coincident that Dabbles is looking ‘directly into the camera’)
Well, technically DaveB did ‘start some’ in that he could have just used a generic news name, like whoever the ginger-haired journalist from a few strips ago works for, and could have made the same exact joke without using the name ‘Fox and Friends.’
How is that politics? Please tell me there is a new party called “Fox and Friends”
And again, go back two pages, tell me where DaveB mentioned politics on either of those pages
It’s partisan because of the whole ‘Trump is an avid watcher of ‘Fox and Friends” and equating watching ‘Fox and Friends’ with illegal aliens. Fox News is a ‘leans right’ news network, and singling it out for criticism was partisan.
Also, DaveB mentioned politics on this very page.
“I try not to get political with the comic, but dealing with military personnel and civilization shifting press conferences, it’s hard to at least not dip into that realm just a bit from time to time. I wasn’t sure how else to end this page, but I thought a gag about citizenship would be fitting.”
That’s what Tombworld meant when he said ‘Don’t start none, won’t be none.’ Not sure why you’re bringing up 2 strips ago, when this happened in THIS strip.
Bringing it up because they are using that “Don’t start none, won’t be none” as an excuse when there wasn’t none one or two strips ago when the comments still turned political
And still stand by the (personal opinion) claim that DaveB made both statements (in and out of comic) on this page in response to the previous page(s)
DaveB literally explained in his own words why he brought it up. He did not reference any previous pages.
Yea. But I did acknowledge that.
Interestingly one of the reasons it does not seem such a big deal to me as a Brit, whereas it clearly has upset a number of Americans, is because the issue just does not transfer across the Atlantic in the same way.
If somebody had a poke at the Sun, for a particular issue, there would not typically be a leap to take that as an attack on the Labour party. Nor a taunt directed at the Telegraph ending up being taken as insulting the Conservatives. Not even when you bring in a specific polich which both (respective) have in common (like the immigration hot potato).
Feel the same way, have a Yorpie
Nom nom
*wags tail politically*
Going to read that as ‘politely’ :)
“There is no significant left wing media outside of Social Media”
And you’re wrong. The AP newsfeed is very, very heavily “left” slanted.
As for Russian collusion, it existed. In Hillary’s campaign.
By her own admission, she hired Christopher Steel to go to Russia, and find, or make up, dirt on any of her opponents, especially Trump.
He came back with a dossier, he himself will not stand behind.
Combe, the former FBI head, took said dossier to the FISA court, stamped his name on it as “verified,” hoping to sweep in as a knight on a white horse and “rescue” Hillary from her own criminal act of receiving classified, or higher, on an unsecured server, available to any hacker, including the Russians, and then summarily deleting them, and physically destroying all her devices, the moment they came under a federal subpoena.
Then when his engineered heroics blew up in his face, Hillary (rightly) lost the election, and Combe himself got fired because Trump had the cheek to listen to the Democrats demanding he be fired, for cause, Combe, by his own admission, leaked classified documents to the press through a third party, just to force Muller to launch the investigation, which … Proves Trump innocent, after 2 years, and millions of documents, absolute total compliance without resistance from Trump in any way.
Now the “moderate” media is screaming that Trump must somehow be guilty of obstruction for the crime of being innocent.
A much better demonstration of modern media bias in the comic would have been a CNN newsfeed with “Aliens celebrate mass human kidnappings” when Cora was speaking.
In what way is the AP feed slanted left?
I’ve had quite a number of people state that facts they do not like are “slanted”. Which is impossible, facts cannot be slanted, they are facts. Stating them in extreme emotional terms can be “slanting”, but that does depend on the facts in question. One does expect some emotion when reporting on such items as school shootings, for example, and one does not expect the reporter to be yattering about how great it would have been if even more gunfire was present on the premises. To expect such a thing is foolishness and contrary to human nature when confronted with tragedy.
@PD – “Facts cannot be slanted”. ROFL. You’ve never been to a journalism class, I gather, or written fiction, or “creative nonfiction”.
Juxtaposition of facts creates inference. True statements — or, more often, contentions or merely *arguable* sttatements — can be placed next to one another in sequence in order to make the reader believe that the inferences are factual, when they are not.
Also, the narrator or commentator or “journalist” may conveniently ignore, or keep the camera turned away from, anything that does not fit their desired viewpoint.
This is the vast majority of what constitutes “journalism” today on both sides. If you don’t have a VERY careful look at the things you happen to agree with, it’s completely transparent to you, and you don’t notice the overpoweringly you-colored filters on the facts.
Uhl – you did the same thing as Zanquis, but in the opposite direction.
No, Hillary did not hire Steele. Hillary’s campaign hired FusionGPS, they hired Steele. The difference is significant, and omitting the intermediaries is a kind of lie that erodes your credibility with everyone who isn’t in a partisan tank.
Best to make a rational case with the real historical facts, rather than joining the nut jobs on both ends.
In general, media and entertainment are slanted left, because theyare headquartered in big cities. Big cities make people more “left” because they see and use government services more often. In big cities: police, firefighters and ambulances go by on emergencies several times a day, people gather in public parks rather than backyards, people of all income levels take mass transit, rules and regulations are very necessary for that density of people with different cultures to live together. All of these things lead to a more “pro-government ” worldview.
“here is no significant Left wing media outlet outside social media.” Incorrect, there is some on YouTube, TYT The Young Turks.
Um, YouTube is Social Media…
Any sources that aren’t Social Media?
Um… sources of left wing bias that are not social media.
CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC, NPR (mostly), BBC, Netflix, about 95 percent of Hollywood media source owners (at least as recently as the last 2018 donation amounts would suggest).
The main sources of right wing bias tend to be either Fox News (mainly because of Newscorp, although not Fox Entertainment, which tends to actually be more on the left or center) and talk radio.
People who claim that most of the ‘traditional’ media is not heavily skewed to the left tend to be living in a bubble. I’m not even saying this figuratively. There has been actual statistically valid evidence of this in scientifically valid research polls, even done by companies like Alphabet and Facebook. Apparently, people who tend to be on the left end of the political spectrum only get their data from left wing sources about 90 percent of the time EXCLUSIVELY (the 10 percent that get their information from both sides tend to be left libertarian-leaning), while people who are on the right end of the political spectrum tend to get their data from a combination of left AND right wing sources about 70 percent of the time. I can present the studies if you’d like? :) It’s sort of fascinating, although I normally try to stay out of politics on this comic comment forum.
You have no idea how much I’m holding back on saying anything about certain threads currently being talked about which ARE heavily about the law (something of which I’m actually knowledgeable), but it will become a quagmire if I do.
Thank you, don’t get any of those channels (unless the local news uses one of those channels as part of a bigger report, and then it’s clearly used simply because there isn’t any other available source on whatever they are reporting on)
And it was more a reply to Sasha‘s comment which listed a social media source as an example of sources other than social media
Are you one of those people that ‘cut the cord?’ :) Can’t say I blame you if you did. Alternative media is where the future is at.
No idea what you mean, simply that, as not a USAsian nor European (that includes the UK), we simply don’t get those channels unless we look for them online
The closest would be the local version of MSN (which only browse the headlines, rarely ever read the article), and even that usually links to other sources if it’s not a local news report, like that report on the human-ape hybrid being created in China by Spanish scientists
‘Cutting the cord’ is something a lot of people have been doing in the age of streaming and alternative media on places like youtube and podcasts, especially young people, since cable subscriptions are insanely expensive with a bunch of stupid, overpriced hidden fees.
It basically means you pay for just an internet connection, not for cable TV and usually not for a landline phone, since the internet connection alone can get you pretty much all the same stuff as cable TV, what with Youtube, Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc, which people might have for different reasons, and would cost a lot less than the monthly cable TV subscription after 1 year.
Nope, have a landline phone (for mum) that comes with broadband WiFi (even though we have forgotten the password years ago), we still watch news on TV
Thing is, even if Russia had given dirt to the Trump campaign there’s nothing illegal about that. Depending on the circumstances they might have had to report it as an in-kind donation, but it would have been perfectly legal to take it and use it, just as it was perfectly legal for the opposition to compile the Steele dossier the contents of which were ever so slightly 100% russian in origin.
Did the Russians stick their fingers into the election? Sure, almost certainly (Theres a *small* possibility that it was just individual Russians amusing themselves by trolling, rather than government action.), although I think the goal wasnt to influence who won but to weaken whoever won by giving the losers a reason to bitch and disrupt the winner. (Which is working out magnificently btw) But theres nothing unusual about that- the US and Russia having been dicking with other countries elections for a century, up to and including BOTH sides assassinating or trying to assassinate leaders/potential leaders they didnt like (Castro and the Orange Revolution guy forinstance); its hardly new.
Its just political grandstanding from the Dems. I particularly liked Mueller in the latest hearings saying that the Steele Dossier, the thing that started this whole mess, the very core of the Russia Interference issue, was “beyond his purview” so he didnt bother investigating if its contents were provided as a Russian misinformation operation. These are not serious people.
A hostile, foreign country offered them assistance and dirt on their opponent.
Which was confirmed during the hearing:
[Your investigation reveals a sweeping effort by Russia to influence the election.]
[Correct.]
[The Trump campaign accepted this help.]
[Correct.]
Something that’s very much not legal.
***
“Steele Dossier”
Something not being under Mueller’s specific purview doesn’t mean it wasn’t verified.
Blonk – The Trump campaign organization did not receive any direct aid from “Russia”… or even from “Russians”. It was partially offered to them by a private foreign individual associated with FusionGPS, and they demurred.
It is important to note that the external actions of a third party cannot create a conspiracy… and there has to be either an agreement to an illegal act by the campaign, or coordination of the efforts, to violate campaign law.
Thus, the sweeping manipulations of Google, Twitter and Facebook to favor Hillary are NOT an illegal campaign contribution **on Hillary’s end**, even if on the corporate end they were an illegal in-kind contribution of man-time, and were illegal partisan discounts of advertising dollars to push her messaging and candidacy.
Mueller says they specifically got assistance from Russian agents and the report supports this. He even admits that if Trump wasn’t a sitting president he would have been indicted.
The only thing protecting Trump from legal consequences right now is his political position.
Blonk – Exact reference to what page and paragraph for your first sentence, please.
Your second and third sentences are hogwash, directly contradicting Mueller’s testimony, but please feel free to provide a reference for either of those as well, if you can find any.
For my first claim:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/meghan-mccain-confronts-adam-schiff-show-me-your-smoking-gun-on-trump-collusion-now
And during the live testimony, this an exact quote:
“Your investigation reveals a sweeping effort by Russia to influence the election.”
“Correct.”
“The Trump campaign accepted this help.”
“Correct.”
****
As for my second claim:
He actually spelled it out very well, both in the report and in his statement. If he made a determination, he might conclude that Trump should be indicted. But it would not be fair to Trump to announce that Trump has committed a crime, without Trump having the opportunity to clear himself with a trial.
What Mueller didn’t say (as far as I can tell) is that the OLC opinion says that you can’t indict a sitting president even if you delay prosecution until after he leaves office. Announcing that he would have indicted Trump if he wasn’t president has all the bad effects of indicting him and delaying prosecution.
Blonk, I’m really getting close to feeling to respond and refute every single thing you said. I’d rather not since I don’t want to get political.
You clearly have not read the report, you have not watched the testimony (most likely you’ve watched or read a one-sided assessment instead), you didn’t see the testimony where Mueller winds up backing off the quote you actually just used, and you don’t seem to understand the very basic point of the law and what a prosecutor’s job actually entails.
“I don’t want to get Political.”
*Then proceeds to get very political.*
And is this “a prosecutors job” a part of that last ditch effort attempt the Republicans made to discredit Mueller by claiming exoneration isn’t possible?
(Which I always found strange; Trump trying to claim exoneration while the GOP say exoneration isn’t possible, yep the GOP totally came prepared that day.)
Pander – I looked at the testimony and didn’t find that quote at all. Did you watch, and was there a quote like that? If so, then could you please correct the exact wording?
I find lots of phrasing where Schiff and company are trying to get a clear answer like the faked one that Blonk posted, and Mueller is refusing their characterizations, or this is the most positive line I found:
“I think we have – we report in our – in the report indications that that occurred, yes.”
That’s pretty far from a “Yes” in legal language.
Oh believe me, I could have gotten a lot more political than that, because your post does not even remotely represent what was actually in the report.
And to Dal – here’s the exact wording where he completely backtracks in his testimony:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-T25HsnxeM
He also backtracked on collusion:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAsgwAgCvms
Page 180 of Volume 1 of the report btw.
Blonk – I asked for page and paragraph of the Mueller report, and you give me the Daily Beast’s opinion, and then your own personal analysis? That’s not how you gain credibility. That’s how you prove you don’t understand how to verify facts.
I searched the internet for that exact quote “The Trump campaign accepted this help.” and it was not present anywhere in actual news or the transcripts of the testimony.
That quote is apparently from something some person typed on a site called https://forums.spacebattles.com on the day of the testimony.
You got played.
Here’s the facts – the word “accepted” appears exactly once in the real transcript of the Mueller testimony, found here and fully searchable – https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/full-transcript-robert-mueller-house-committee-testimony-n1033216
“This is about knowing that the day you ***accepted*** this role you had to be aware…”
That’s it. That ONE use of the word in the testimony, no others.
Thus, that purported quote, both question and answer, is a fake.
Feel free to do some real research and come up with something else, if you’d like. But, try and make it real next time.
It appears to have been abbreviated:
SCHIFF:
Thank you, Director Mueller. I recognize myself for five minutes. Director Mueller, your report describes a sweeping and systematic effort by Russia to influence our presidential election. Is that correct?
MUELLER:
That is correct.
SCHIFF:
And during the course of this Russian interference in the election, the Russians made outreach to the Trump campaign, did they not?
MUELLER:
That occurred over the course of – yes, that occurred.
SCHIFF:
It’s also clear from your report that during that Russian outreach to the Trump campaign, no one associated with the Trump campaign ever called the FBI to report it. Am I right?
MUELLER:
I don’t know that for sure.
SCHIFF:
In fact, the campaign welcomed the Russian help, did they not?
MUELLER:
I think we have – we report in our – in the report indications that that occurred, yes.
SCHIFF:
The president’s son said when he was approached about dirt on Hillary Clinton that the Trump campaign would love it?
MUELLER:
That is generally what was said, yes.
SCHIFF:
The president himself called on the Russians to hack Hillary’s emails?
MUELLER:
There was a statement by the president in those general lines.
Btw can someone tell me why we’re talking about the Mueller report, when the joke was about illegal immigration and Fox and Friends?
I’m sort of missing where the tangent brought things to this point.
You can read the exchange of replies and find out for yourself just fine, Pander.
Blonk, I have read the exchange of replies. It mainly comes from you making tangents, but for the life of me I can’t understand what prompts you to repeatedly take off on the tangents half of the time.
If you can’t understand despite the words bring right in front of you, then that’s your problem.
Everyone else on the forum manages just fine.
If facebook adds will change what someone votes, then maybe their vote is not so important anyway?
True dirt on people in office should be celebrated. The truth coming out about those that the people pay to work for them, is a good thing. I don’t really care where the information comes from.
Snowden is a damned American hero. Assange too.
If you can reveal secrets that the people should know. That’s a good thing.
When I say good, also realize that I mean good for the people. Not good for the established powers that be. I don’t care about them. I care about the people’s best interest.
Why should the people know? Because they are being kept a secret? o_O
Which one of those ‘patriots” leaked information put agents’ (and their families) lives at risk?
Not to play devil’s advocate, but actually no one’s lives were put at risk. What the government was doing was blatantly illegal, and it wouldn’t have come out if Snowden hadn’t been a whistleblower.
So foreign agents’ lives (and their families’ lives) weren’t at risk?
Or was that different case?
Still the question: why should the people know?
Haiiro claimed they only care about the people’s best interest, how is informing the people of secrets in the best interests of the people?
Correct, no foreign agents’ lives were put at risk because of Snowden’s whistleblowing. Their lives were not put at risk in any way. The whistleblowing was that the US government was spying illegally on US citizens, without even a warrant. That’s unconstitutional, and no one was put at risk because of it overseas as a result of anything that came out.
Thank you, like said, barely pay attention to what goes on in the US, butt was sure had read something about one whistleblower’s actions putting lives at risk (Manning possibly?)
Oh, and governments have been ‘spying’ on their own citizens for thousands of years, it’s the only way to keep an eye on things before they get to the point they need to start cracking heads
How do you think the Brits were able to stop Guy Fawkes and Co?
The point is, you shouldn’t give them reason to look closer
Yes, governments have been spying on their own citizens for thousands of years, but the United States has a Constitution with Amendments which specifically spell out that the government is not allowed to do that without a warrant and due process, which is admittedly pretty unique in the history of the world, although I’m assuming other countries have since incorporated at least some similar elements (I’m an attorney in the US, and passed the bar in a few states, but my knowledge of the laws of other countries are limited unless we’re talking UN resolutions and international treaties/compacts).
Also I probably wouldn’t compare modern law to England 400 years ago. Things are slightly different now where it comes to individual rights and privacy. :)
The point is, the only way they are going to know that someone needs to be watched, is if they are already being watched, by someone
The whole deal with warrants and ‘due process’ is so that, if they find something they can prosecute them for (or simply take action against), they have all the paperwork to so do legally
That’s the whole point in the US. You cannot spy on people unless you go through the proper, legal, constitutional means in order to protect citizens’ rights to privacy and due process, which the US government was not doing. The US government is not allowed to violate the law. The law is in place to protect the citizens from an overreaching government, at least in the United States, and it’s been that way since the creation of the U.S. Constitution as an underlying bedrock of the nation’s legal framework, political structure, and social fabric.
What Snowden did was to expose that the government was violating that, and was spying on its own citizens without following the Constitutional requirements. It was not putting people in harm’s way. It was preventing the US government (or rather, the deep government or bureaucracy and investigative elements within the government) from getting away with itself committing massive violations of citizen’s privacy rights and constitutional due process protections.
You do understand with the right information and psychological pressure I can make you vote anyway I like you to vote right. So yeah all those votes count, you are implying these people are easily manipulated. The type of warfare begin waged against us is very subtle and uses the methods that target a person directly and in a manner to sway how they think. Isn’t hard and Facebooks makes it all the easier to do.
As for Snowden and Assange being hero’s. Assange is a Russian assist that is no longer useful for them, and Snowden is a criminal and a coward. There is a proper way to gain access to and release that information, I would be the first one to say that the Government in recent decades has a bad habit of classifying information that shouldn’t be. But putting lives at risk like these two Libertarian ass hats did is not being a hero’s it is being a cheap thrill seeker and trouble make that gets good people killed.
There is 0 evidence that a single person has had their life at risk because of Snowden.
You are just repeating government lies to attack someone that did you a favor.
What I would like to know is why, in a democracy, where the people are meant to be the ones who have power and who should be correctly informed about matters ‘of public interest’, that there is no official route by which whistleblowers can expose things being held secret for no good reason?
The only way it works at the moment is for members of the public (or public servants) to approach the media and have them take up the cause.
Our society has failed to provide a court of arbitration for whistleblowers to take their facts to, for them to be examined in a secure manner, yet by a body which the public could have faith in. Given that failure there is only one route available to those who perceive an injustice, and who are not willing to accept what they believe is immoral.
If one believes that ‘state secrets must be kept regardless’, then we can see the consequences in the death camps during the Nazi regime. In a democratic country. Would they have been able to get away with it so readily, if there was a strong, unbiased court, with powers to order active investigations, which could have concerns about the ‘holiday camps’ examined?
USA is not a Democracy, it is a Republic that let’s its People talk (all the damn time)
The titles that countries give their form of government often do not match the actual way that their government runs. There are, for example, many that proclaim themselves to be ‘democratic’, yet are in actuality, dictatorships.
In actuality the USA is a representative democracy.
Actually, Guesticus is entirely correct. The United States is a Republic. If you look through the Constitution, the word democracy never appears. The word republic, on the other hand, appears in Article IV, Section 4. Specifically it uses the word to describe the form of government which is the United States.
Article IV, Section 4: “The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a republican form of government.”
We do vote our representatives into power though, in Congress. Originally, the Senators were not voted in, they were appointed. That was changed in 1914 with the 17th Amendment to the Constitution, but we are still a Republic, not a Democracy. Mainly because the Founders decided that a pure democracy was subject to tyranny by the majority, and could easily squash the rights of any minority.
Yea, i know. Currently brain dead though after two days of 12.5 hour shifts (and a real tough one today).
I googled “difference between a republic and a democracy”
Top hit:
“In a republic, laws are made by representatives chosen the people and must comply with a constitution which specifically protects the rights of the minority from the will of the majority. The United States, while basically a republic, is best described as a “representative democracy.””
https://www.thoughtco.com/republic-vs-democracy-4169936
Sorry brain not up to conducting my own reply. Which irks as you deserve better.
Thing is, they didn’t need to go to another country to look for dirt on Killary Clintbomb: just prior to her throwing her wig into the ring as opposition, she was being publicly investigated for warcrimes, which conveniently ended after she joined the race and still hasn’t been resumed
“Russia did offer…”
That is a false statement. Factually, one person offered, or claimed to offer some type of dirt, but she was not credible so they didn’t believe she had anything.
The woman was factually NOT working for the Russian government… she was directly associated at that moment with FusionGPS and a private organization… nor was she identified to the Trump campaign as working for the Russian government.
So, your claim is completely false.
If you want to do a factual roundup, then please do an accurate factual roundup. When you erode important distinctions in a partisan direction, you erode your credibility with regard to anything you said that might have been correct.
People can’t be bothered to fact-check the rest of the claims by someone who can’t get their first two facts straight.
Not to wade too heavily into the politics, but one of my big frustrations with public perception is actually based on what you’re talking about.
Too many people seem to believe the Russia matter was “nothing.”
If I may paraphrase the Mueller report here, he was never going to indict a sitting president or decide on collusion. That’s not to say there was no collusion or crimes, but collusion is not a matter of legal process; conspiracy is. It’s much like the difference between libel and perjury; one is a civil matter with no crimes broken, the other is a criminal offense. Similarly, Mueller made it VERY clear that he was refusing to even come to a conclusion of obstruction of justice, and there’s a reason for that. A president can walk into Congress, point a gun at a random senator, make sure it’s being livestreamed, shoot that senator in the face, present the gun, bullets, and all DNA and fingerprints right to the police, and the president STILL could not be indicted for a crime. First, they would need to leave office either through impeachment or the end of their term, and only then would police and the department of justice consider indictments.
But what WAS found, and was researched heavily, and did end up with multiple indictments against others, and what we keep getting warned about, is that there was heavy and direct influence from Russia in our last election, and that they are still doing more of it now. It’s not even much of a surprise to people who do virus removal and malware removal; we already know how many proxy servers, botnets, spam advertising, and the like have their origins in Russia because we’ve been dealing with these things for literally years.
We keep getting warned, over and over, that this is a problem. I just hope enough acknowledge the problem. :(
Fair points. And I should, for the sake of balance, mention that there are counter arguments that have been raised. But I would ask those who wish to iterate them to avoid doing so, in order that we can avoid this degenerating into a heated political debate. This is extremely sensitive (not just to Americans, but to anyone around the world who cares about democracy). However contemporary politics is the one taboo subject in this forum.
May I suggest that anyone wishing to pitch in does so following the more general themes, such as public perceptions of issues in general. Or even ways to avoid overseas interference in future elections.
Thank you Yorpie. Yeah. I really am on the edge of writing a few dozen pages in posts because of how irritating it is for people to not understand (or are ignoring because of politics) the basic concept of presumption of innocence and how a prosecutor’s function is to see if there’s enough evidence to prosecute, and if there is not, then the defendant is de facto ‘exonerated’ (although exoneration is not a legal term in any area of the law, and I’m going to sit on my hands now before I type more).
Going to take a deep breath now :)
Yorp and Pander, oh how I have missed you two…
I haven’t commented much since the Vehemence fight, and you two are my favorite debate/discussion people. :D
@Yorp, I agree wholeheartedly on keeping things on more general terms. I HOPE I did a decent job; the OP just hit so heavily on one of my more frustrating points. I deal with a lot of people of older generations, who do skew to the right on a number of matters, and I find myself dicussing this matter so. very. often. that it’s become one of my biggest headaches.
I have found the metaphor I used, of the Presidential Public Serial Killer, to be the best in explaining the problem. I’m open to better examples, for the record.
@Pander I feel ya pain, man. My step-mom’s a paralegal who works in insurance. I hear SO much about this stuff.
Side note, you two might recognize me as either Mycosa or Longnight83. I haven’t posted in a long time, so… I don’t remember how to log back in with my old names! :D
I wouldn’t remember names, as I have a clinical problem with them. Well I can actually remember names, but the difficulties I have means that (for various reasons which would take too much comment real estate to describe) it usually takes me five serious attempts to memorise a name, for it to stick. And that has to be over a relatively short duration, and to have other significant factors associated with it to make it memorable enough for that to be successful.
The biggest issue though, with this community, is that there are simply so many commentators, that it overwhelms my brain and it goes on strike if I try to commit names to memory.
This has served well though, on a few ocasions though, because it ensures that I do not show undue bias. It is hard to hold a grudge against someone, if you can’t remember their name. Likewise it prevents favouritism.
Although, of course I do recognise a number of the most prolific individuals. But if they don’t post for a protracted period, then I find that I loose the associations with their names fast. I often need some serious hint, as a reminder ‘hang on, I know that name’. So the name, on its own, will not light up any recognition. But if I see it in context, of a thread, then my (otherwise fairly good) memory can start lighting up.
We must share the same brain: have the same problem with names as you, it’s one reason not comfortable going out, will see someone that kinda looks familiar butt not sure why (also have speech problems which makes me uncomfortable talking to people in general :( )
Yea, I am certain that you and I have exactly the same name-specific condition. Although we diverge on associated complications. Contrasting to you I am very lucky in having ‘the gift of the gab’, and can get along very well with people, in person. One of my compounding problems is odd, namely insomnia.
Any time I get too little sleep my effective IQ plummets. And that interferes with all the stratagems I have devised to cope with the condition. Fully alert I estimate it takes 60% of my concentration to make sure I am using the correct name. And still get it wrong at times.
With my current job if I use the wrong name, somebody could die. Person X needs urgent medical attention, but I tell them that it is person Y. By the time I am next on shift we could have a corpse. So I make sure everybody I deal with knows my issue. Many refuse to believe it. So I go to lengths to prove it to them.
On top of which though I always carry the names of all the people for whom I have responsibility (and everybody else who I may need to temporarily do so) along with other key information (not name related) to guarantee they are uniquely identifiable. Any time I have to say something critical, that sheet is in my paw.
Especially on days when I have not had enough sleep.
Fortunately my strategies for dealing with my insomnia work well enough (in my current job) that I almost always have my ‘minimum safe sleep’. Meaning that I can call in sick, if I have less.* Which has only happened once this year (and had another medical issue involved, so I did not even have to mention insomnia).
You and I have a life-dominating condition, that most people we meet do not even believe is real!
“Oh yea, I have a problem with names too”.
“No, you have a normal problem with names. Your brain is not fucked up like mine!”
* Years ago, when I had a job which (clinically) depressed me, that badly impacted the anti-insomnia strategies. But there were no safety critical aspects to it, and I could still do the job well even with half the effective IQ.
I did though have to turn down a (massively) lucrative promotion. Because the new role would need me to use names a lot. Which, with my all too frequent insomnia, I would constantly get wrong (in an environment where looking at a name sheet would not be a viable option).
You have a problem with too little sleep, whereas with me it is too much sleep :(
Hi Michael! :) Yeah oh my, the year-long Vehemence fight.
My main concern about not having politics in the comic is it causes…. exactly what’s happening right now. People start arguing about Fox news, then they start talking about other politics, like the Mueller report and Trump, even though…. Obama’s President in the Grrlpower universe, since it’s several years ago, and definitely before 2016. It’s one of the reasons the ‘Fox and Friends’ joke falls flat in my opinion, as does the worry about illegal immigration (since during Obama, there were actually a lot of deportations, but no mention of it on Fox OR CNN OR MSNBC). Plus people start making personal attacks, which just devolves the comments into ad hominem-slinging attacks too often. Like I said, it poisons an audience.
Sorry I didnt really comment directly on your OP, but I was sort of trying to minimize my political talk (although that’s sort of failed). In any case, I’ll mention my comments about your OP. :) I’ll try to limit ot to legal analysis though, since that’s where I can speak with some level of authority. I’m going to try very hard to ONLY base it on legal analysis.
1) With respect to the Mueller report, the point of the Mueller investigation was not whether there was any meddling, but rather whether the Trump administration had been involved in any meddling. I’m pretty sure there is regular meddling from multiple governments in elections, although they tend to not actually influence that much for one rather important reason – the electoral college. It literally prevents meddling from having a major effect, mainly because it requires knowing which states, in advance, will be the close calls and swing states within a margin necessary to actually sway an election. Ironically, if we were based on a pure population vote, in addition to every election being decided essentially by about 4 states (and letting those states dictate for all the other states), it would also make it a LOT easier to tamper with the election, since any meddling, anywhere, would affect the outcome.
2) While there were several indictments made, none of them had anything to do with either the President, nor with anything that happened during Trump’s campaign. Here are the indictments and why the people were indicted:
a) George Popadopolous – indiced for making false statements to the FBI. The false statements had nothing to do with the President. It had to do with a conversation between Popadopoulos and a Professor about how there was ‘dirt’ on Hillary Clinton. Trump never was involved, and never received any information, and the conversation itself was not illegal. I also believe that the conversation wound up actually having something to do with something that had NOTHING to do with even the Clintons in the end. But he did lie about there not BEING a conversation. Basically it was like the Martha Stewart case, where you get arrested for lying, not because you’re lying about doing anything illegal. He got a 14 day sentence.
b) Paul Manafort – He was indicted of 8 counts of financial crimes … but again, it had nothing to do with the President. It happened 10 years BEFORE Trump even ran for President. Plus during that time, I believe that Trump was still a Democrat with no plans to even run for President. It literally had NOTHING to do with Russian interference in any election.
c) Rick Gates – He pled guilty to one count of making false statements, again not about Russia, but about unregistered lobbying and money laundering. Again, not having anything to do with the Trump campaign.
d) Michael Flynn – You might notice a pattern that most of the indictments, except for Manafort, are about false statements, not about any underlying crimes. Michael Flynn also pled guilty to making false statements to the FBI. Again, not about anything involving the Trump administration or Trump campaign with Russia.
e) 13 Russian nationals and 3 russian conspiracies – indicted on conspiracy charges of identity theft. Again, nothing dealing with the Trump campaign. In fact, a lot of that had ties to the Clinton campaign via the Steele Dossier, but Mueller didn’t bother digging deeper on that, oddly.
f) Richard Pinedo – California man charged with identity theft. Again, not affiliated with the Trump administration in any way. He was a fake ID salesman in California.
g) Alex van der Zwaan – again, made false statements to the FBI about his contacts with Rick Gates. Not having to do with the Trump campaign.
h) Konstantin Kilimnik – Longtime business associate of Manafort, charged with tampering with Manafort’s case, who was charged with a financial crime that happened years before Trump even had considered running for President, back when Trump was, I believe, still registered as a Democrat.
i) Michael Cohen – Pled guilty to 8 counts of tax and bank fraud, related to his finances and taxi business. The only thing involving Trump was that he lied to Congress about his involvement in efforts to build a Trump Tower in Russia. Again, before Trump was even running for President or even thinking of it.
j) Roger Stone – indicted for 7 countsof lying to the House Intelligence Committee about his efforts to get in touch with Wikileaks. Although he never actually succeeded in… getting in touch with Wikileaks. Again, he was indicted for lying about his attempt, not because he actually did it.
You’ll notice a common theme with most of the indictments – they all tend to be about lying about things, most of which were things that, themselves, were not illegal. IE, the Martha Stewart trap. The only one who really was accused of anything serious was Manafort, and that was so long before Trump even campaigned that it’s sort of ridiculous, given none of the indictments actually wound up touching on the main scope of the investigation – ie, the Trump campaign colluding with Russia.
That’s why Mueller did not say that Trump was guilty of collusion. And if you can’t prove guilt of a crime, in the United States, you are innocent, since innocence is the default presumption, rather than the other way around.
Btw, everything I wrote here has absolutely nothing to do whatsoever with the comic. Just with your post. :) Since the comic had nothing to do with russian collusion at all. It seems to be mainly a dig at Fox and Friends, and the only real tie I see of that to Russia is Trump likes to watch Fox and Friends, and the Mueller investigation was investigating Trump.
My main problem, personally, with the joke was it doesn’t make sense since Fox and Friends never says stuff about illegal immigration far as I’ve seen, and even if it does more recently (which I havent seen but lets give the benefit of the doubt that they have), they wouldnt have been saying anything to attack illegal immigration back when Obama was President, since Obama was deporting quite a few illegal immigrants, and the basic joke is ‘Fox and Friends is conservative’ – which would mean they would not be agreeing with something that Obama did in regards to illegal immigration.
Also Michael, I emphasize with your step-mom. Paralegals do soooo much more work than the attorney in several of the firms where I’ve worked :).
Meh. I was in charge of the firewall for a rather large US military installation, and got asked, about fifteen years ago, how many attempted intrusions we had per day.
So I opened the firewall logs, told it to gimme a total of blocked connections for the last day, and told em’.
I think she hid under her desk.
Heh. I work for a school district, not even an especially big one, and back when our main web server was on site (it’s hosted elsewhere these days) I logged over 10,000 attacks per day. I can only imagine how many a site that actually has something worth going after gets.
That’s actually my main gig these days… helping folk like y’all understand what their data is telling them, and get ahead of it.
Yes… and even heavier influence by alphabet and Facebook in 2016 and 2018.
That DOJ legal department memo (not law), needs to be forever burned. The last version of that shit was written under Nixon, just before he got raked over the coals. The memo got reissued under George W. Bush. Two Republican presidents seeking some kind of ass covering for the crimes they were or possibly would commit. Now it’s being used as a flimsy cover by a third. It’s a bunk faux-legal document with no precedence besides itself.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHCOUGHCOUGHHACKpaPHMMMPHHHsssssssssssssss(almost pukes from laughing so hard then runs to bathroom) false alarm just gas, oh you poor innocent child. Others have pretty much covered it. But the innocent blind naivety saved you from a flaming. I’ll just say, those with inability to read between lines and have reading comprehension issues should not be in these discussions.
Keith- I cant be bothered to backread to figure out which side of the argument youre on but Ad Hominem is not a valid or useful contribution, whichever side it is.
If you think Fox has become moderate, this really means that your views have moved towards the far right. They have just become less right-wing than you.
Viewed from other countries, the US media (and US politics) vary from centre to extreme right-wing. The national average has become a harsh nationalism, combined with a deep lack of sympathy for the less fortunate. And alleged “Christians” have the lowest sympathy. They give more to their church than to the poor.
Speaking as an individual from another country, viewed from other countries, the US media doesn’t have as much meaning as USAsian’s would like to believe: surprisingly enough, most other countries have their own media
And other countries have no fucking clue how the US Government even works: do they even have an opposition leader? do they have an opposition party?
About the only time there is mention of ‘Republicans’ and ‘Democrats’ is when one is slagging off the other, or every four years when some random person gets pushed to the front and declared to be their nomination for the next President
As for “giving more to their church than to the poor”, isn’t that what they are supposed to do? They give to the church, the church pools all that money together,
the priests go on a vacation to Thailand and visit the Red Light area and hire young boys by the hourthe church provides assistance to the local poorMuch more effective than simply handing some random person on the street $5
I too am an individual from another country but in my case the country is Canada so I get as much US media as our own. With that, and an actual education in the matter, means I do know how the US Government is suppose to work (and how it doesn’t).
Let’s just say ‘I’m not impressed.’
The US media does a horrible job of explaining a lot of things, and our education system is so thoroughly broken that not even a majority of US residents understand how our government works. Something like 2/3 of our population can’t name the three branches of our government. People are just brought up from childhood and told to vote for a party, and they do it until they die or educate themselves.
It’s something that infuriates me on a daily basis, but I don’t know what to do about it except be angry.
Agree, on all points.
And I would like to add that the alleged “Christians” I know give more to the bartender at the golf course than their church.
American “Christians” tout the fact that they “give more to charity than atheists”. However, when you break down the giving, it turns out that most of their “charity” pays for preachers and churches, which is legally deemed to be “charitable”. Atheists give vastly more to real charities, like the poor, the sick, the starving and the homeless.
Similarly, wealthy Americans give money to “charitable” causes. Again much of it is religious. And when they give to “educational purposes”, it means they fund a lecture hall for their kids in Harvard, not a classroom in a poor part of Detroit.
Interesting claim, One-Eyed Mike…
… and just plain false.
From a 2013 study: “The more important religion is to a person, the more likely that person is to give to a charity of any kind, according to new research released [November 25, 2013].”
“About 75 percent of people who frequently attend religious services gave to congregations, and 60 percent gave to religious charities or nonreligious ones. By comparison, fewer than half of people who said they didn’t attend faith services regularly supported any charity, even a even secular one.”
Christians give more non-tithe money on average than atheists give total.
“A typical American family gives median $375 to congregations, $150 to religiously identified nonprofits, and $250 to secular charities in 2012.”
The Atheist median charity giving is less than $200 TOTAL annually.
Understand, just cast off clothing and an occasional house item would accrue more than $200 a year.
Do you have a reference study for YOUR claim?
Regardless of whether you might personally like FOX News or not, a government agent attacking a major network during a press conference is what is known as a “BAD IDEA”.
In real life, someone who did that would get raked over the coals by her superiors. (The US president gets away with it only because he doesn’t acknowledge that he has any superiors.)
Federal agents are technically allowed to criticize any political, news station, or group that they like without legal consequence. But unlike a president, such commentary can lead to serious reconsideration of their employment.
Ugg and here i invested in spandex, spears, tridents, whips, and torches….
The spandex and whips will get you a good return.
The torches will probably break even. Folks will have to signal to space ships somehow, and there is always the budget end of the market looking for something that might work in a pinch.
The flag doesn’t change orientation when hung on a 45° pole…
At what point does it get flipped?
Say what you like about the Union Jack (technically only on ships, Union flag otherwise), but at least it doesn’t arbitrarily flip.
Unless you can’t tell which way up it should be (far too common)
The flag is flown with the stars toward the end of the flagpole, regardless of the angle of the flagpole; reversing it is an internationally-recognized sign of distress (the same for the U.K. flag, but I have to say I can’t tell the difference). When mounted on a wall, the stars are always on the left, whether horizontsl or vertical. If worn on a sleeve, the stars are always to the front, so it will not look like it is retreating. If it is displayed with another flag, it is always on the left. It gets complicated with more than 2 flags.
For the (British) Union Flag, the trick is to look at the diagonals. The red is offset within the white, giving wider and narrower white bands.
The wider white band should be on top [i] on the side where the flag attaches to the pole, [ii] on the left when hung/painted on a wall, either horizontally or vertically, and [iii] on the side towards the direction of travel when painted on a vehicle* or worn as an arm badge (flagpole at the front). Which sounds, from what I’ve heard/seen, like the same alignment rules used for the USA flag and probably most other asymmetric ones.
*Ironically enough, an actual flag on a sailing boat would therefore show the opposite alignment to one painted on its hull! The boat doesn’t move as fast as the wind blowing it, so the flag streams out ahead of the boat. Motor boats tend not to have that problem.
“At what point does it get flipped?”
When hung on a wall, vertically, the stars are meant to be in the top left corner (as opposed to the way we saw above and on previous pages).
“Say what you like about the Union Jack (technically only on ships, Union flag otherwise)”
It is even more specific than that, I’m afraid. Traditionally it was only when hung on the flagship of the fleet that it was referred to as the Union Jack. A bit like a plane only becoming ‘Airforce One’ when it is transporting the PotUS.
Of course common usage trumps tradition, in linguistics. So it has evolved from its roots.
Folks can get very twitchy about how to correctly display national (and regimental etc) flags mind. When people die in service, carrying them, that does tend to gain a strong respect for the associated traditions. Quirky and hard to remember though they may be to a lot of civilians (myself included).
Well one i noticed the flag flipped was on the footage of the Appolo 11 moonwalk. I cab see why it happened, from the xameras point of view.
I read a pamphlet from one of the veterans’ organizations. (American Legion, I think)
There used to be actual laws regarding how the flag was displayed. (Now the laws are reduced to etiquette, but that’s a different point.)
One of the laws was regarding hanging a flag outside, over a street. In that case, the stars should be North. The language is more complicated, but that’s the easy version.
If inquiring minds want to know, here:
http://www.usflag.org/uscode36.html
The flag code is a guideline for display of the flag by government bodies, it’s not and never was an enforceable law. Even within government organizations, the organizations could decide how they wanted to adhere to it and it has always had zero application to civilians.
The flag code was considered a law, but it was left up to the individual States to decide how/if any enforcement or punishment would happen. The National level never carried any punishments, true; but, it wasn’t merely aimed at gov’t agencies. It was also for civilian use. For example, if you lived in D.C., and you wanted to hang flags over the street between your house and your neighbor’s house, then the code would be applicable. (Hang the flag with the stars North on an East/West street, and hang the stars East on a North/South street.)
I mean, I imagine that some groups, like the military take it more seriously and try to make sure all displays are in line with the code. But if the Secretary of HUD decides he wants a flag hung on the wall in the wrong orientation, that’s up to him.
The flag is normally displayed with the field to the viewer’s left, which puts it on the flag’s right side. This goes back into the rules of heraldry in which the right side was the “proper” size. It is related to the rule that a right facing eagle is a legitimate son while a left facing is an illegitimate son (bastard). Also, the triangular fold was actually taken from the British Navy’s habit of folding it’s ensigns (flags) in the same manner which keeps the flag neatly folded while in storage. Thus, the 13 “folds” of the flag have no significance what so ever. Interestingly, the Union Jack/National British Flag is not folded in the triangular manner.
It doubtful that Fox and Friends would do that as she’s working with American Military
And not that it too relevant to the in-series year of 2012, But in recent years Fox has actually become more moderate as a result of increased viewership from people across the board as the other Mainstream News Outlets went nuts with “Russiagate” and just delved further to the Far-Left
There is no far left mainstream media in America. You have moderate to extreme right- at least relative to the rest of the world.
I’m gonna have to go ahead and call BS on that statement there, Slim. First off, Fox, though admittedly a right wing news agency, has, as others have noted above, tried to become more moderate in their reporting, with a modicum of success. As far as left wing mainstream media, seriously? Is CNN supposed to be your example of moderate? Not even close. There are loads of news outlets with left wing biases and even far left wing pundits. The majority, on the former. CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NPR (though I admit, though they report on left wing topics, they present them in as unbiased a manner as possible, incredibly refreshing).. If you can name one other right wing mainstream media outlet other than Fox, I’ll be surprised. As far as extreme left wing reporting, things like that are pretty well relegated to the web such as Root, Vox, The Mary Sue, .Mic and many others, etc, and I gotta tell you, financially, many of them aren’t doing well. The only ‘extreme’ right wing outlet I can think of is the daily stormer, about as extreme right as you can get and they’re just ‘news’ for bigots, racists and a-holes.
And before you go calling me biased, I’d just like to point out that I don’t watch much mainstream news, SPECIFICALLY because of bias. I want facts, not the opinions of overpaid, over-inflated talking heads who’s egos out-mass their brains by several orders of magnitude. Conversely, I do think that a healthy news cycle consists of a variety of opinions. Well, less the daily stormer, they can f*** right off and go to hades. But there is a heavily left wing bias in the news today, if you don’t see it, you’re probably so far left that the overton window is struggling to catch up with you.
Madock is referring to how America as a whole is more of towards the right compared relative to the rest of the world. The news agencies might be left leaning in America, but compared globally they are pretty moderate.
He specifically said mainstream media in America, which is what I was referring to.
When you declare ‘almost everyone else is to the left,’ you are pretty much openly declaring ‘I am far to the right.’ As for another right-wing media outlet, if you think the wall Street Journal isn’t openly carrying water for Republicans… well, that just reinforces the point. Your own personal definition of ‘moderate’ as ‘me’ does not change what ‘moderate’ actually is.
You also may be declaring “the center is defined as where the center was before the Overton window moved to the left.”
Most of what are considered “normal left” ideas today would be considered “bat shit insane” in 1980.
What is considered “conservative” today would be considered “very liberal” in 1960. A rough plurality of people who who call themselves conservative today have ideas and positions that make them, down the line, classic liberals.
I didn’t declare anything, I suggested it. Further, pew research supports my suggestion, but I guess that would make them ‘far to the right’ in your opinion. https://guides.lib.umich.edu/c.php?g=637508&p=4462444
Really, I can turn your statement around to suggest that because you think media isn’t left leaning, and I am ‘far to the right’ because of my observation of that (again, supported by pew research data), that in fact, you are the one who is ‘far far’ to the left.
Let me just make one thing clear: nobody gets to define my identity, political, sexual or otherwise, only I get to do that. I find it as laughable when lefties call me an alt right, russian bot nazi when I support secure borders, small government, second amendment rights, a free market, lower taxes, less bias in the media and politics and support of the military, police, ems and firefighters as I do when right wingers call me a libtard snowflake because I support immigration reform, prison reform, LGBTQ rights (I’m one of the Qs in that group) de-criminalization of drugs and drug use, universal healthcare, sensible gun laws, conservation and environmental protection.
These philosophies are neither left nor right. They are sensible. They are humane.
And brother, if that all makes me ‘very very right’ to you, so be it. I can’t change your opinion on that, but my observation of mainstream media stands; it’s got a majority left wing bias. If they’re not left wing enough for you, that’s your cross to bear.
I think CNN is to the left even by global standards, but yeah. America in general is right-wing. Most of our “left wing” news would be moderate in Europe, but we do have our left-wing extremists. And as Sigurther pointed out the worst of them are not doing well financially, probably because they’re more focused on their agenda than their business.
In general, though, don’t trust American “news”. The only relatively honest major outlet we have – for a given value of “major” – is NPR. All the rest of them apply spin to their stories to the point of it being more entertainment than news. And, sadly, the size of NPR’s audience pales in comparison to the audiences of all the infotainment providers.
And America has no “East coast” if your measuring point is in Europe.
These things are properly measured relative to the center of the country they’re in, not relative to some other country’s political center. America just happens to be the most right-wing major country in the world, you’d naturally expect most American media to be “right wing” by European standards. Most American media are actually considerably left of the center of American politics.
Say rather that America’s East coast is still in the Western Hemisphere, relative to Greenwich Village.
There’s international standards for these sorts of things, and by any international standard, America is further Right than almost any nation that isnt an outright theocracy.
I think you mean “relative to Greenwich”.
“Greenwich Village” is in New York.
Fox is more right-wing then ever. Nobody outside of their bubble trusts them at all mate, and you shouldn’t either. Fake News was created to describe “Faux News”, not the other way around, long before Trump stole it.
Other US publications are also heavily biased to the right. The fact that you think that AP news (who do not have an editorial section and almost exclusively post facts as-is) is “heavily” bias just shows how far down the rabbit hole you are.
Also: The Russian Investigation has resulted in 34 arrests/guilty pleas, and “made” roughly 3.5 million in seized assets. It was never intended to unseat the President (no matter what Faux and Friends told you), but it certainly did throw a lot of bad actors in the inner circle of his campaign in jail and paint a HUGE “this man is probably guilty” at Individual 1. Mueller stated himself he could not exonerate the president. He simply can’t charge the POTUS while in office. The second Trump leaves there will be charges levied, if he isn’t removed first.
Get help. Please.
I call this the “Ptolemic falacy”; Assuming the center of politics must be exactly where you’re located, and thus deciding that almost everybody around you is “right” wing because you’re to the left of them, or “left” wing because you’re to the right of them.
Yes, and roughly 25 demotions, firings and criminal charges for the investigators. It’s certainly been a wild ride, and those of us who wish a pox on both their houses have not been disappointed… because the show is still going on…
“Of course, it’s not like she could be an illegal alien.” So she is a legal alien. Like Sting.
Oh no! It looks like Jamerson is in charge of Fox News again. Next thing you know we’ll have to worry about Webhead propaganda every day of the year
Lol. Fox is propaganda. Super partisan.
“Spiderman! Threat or Menace?!”
That headline is still one of my favorite headlines from Spiderman. There’s a lot of ways in how we ask a question that indicates the bias of the questioner. My other personal favorite…
“Ser Candidate, have you stopped beating your spouse?”
JJ Jameson is priceless. :)
Because no one wants to pay a nickel for him :P
That man is a national treasure, I tell you! J.K. Simmons as well.
Not going to comment on an actor have only seen in two roles (and one of them a movie haven’t seen, and probably won’t)
Even national treasures can be a joke, it wasn’t long ago that Mini Mac (aka Shane McMahon) was touting that his daddy was a National Treasure and didn’t deserve getting a ‘Superman Punch’ from a Roaming Samoan (and then Mini went on to personally assault the father of another wrestler, while still saying that fathers should be respected :rolleyes: )
And yes, do know that everything involved with the WWF is scripted, including the resent storyline between Brock and Rollins (if it wasn’t scripted, then Brock would be arrested for assault, plain and simple: everything he did, including stopping an ecnalubmA and using a gurney as a weapon, was outside of a match) :P
You haven’t lived a full and contented life until you’ve seen J.K. Simmons as J.J. Jameson.
Especially this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFJ6UZ0SkYY
Memeworthiness. Extraordinaire.
That’s the movie(s) have seen, it’s the other one, that deals with interdimensional doppelgangers (or something) that haven’t seen (and probably won’t)
Oh. Yeah I’m not bothering to see Far from Home either. Much as Holland makes a good Spider-Man (although not as good as Toby McGuire), I thought Homecoming was pretty meh, and not worth the price of the ticket. I don’t think Far From Home will be worth it either. Probably will wait for it to come out on Netflix, if I bother seeing it at all.
“Ser Candidate, have you stopped beating your spouse?”
There’s only one safe (type of) answer to that question. Cluedo she usually wins, Catan I usually win, Carcassonne it’s 50/50.
Flags.
I think the point of contention with the US flag is that the stars are always supposed to be ‘top left’.
Many countries have similar rules and quirks.
(just try to figure out which edge is top and bottom of the British flag… )
Scandinavian flags have a cross, and the ‘short end’ is usually portraayed to the left when drawn, but if you take a close look at a uniform sleeve, you’ll see that it’s the opposite way. ‘We’re moving forward, the flag hangs that way’ my Sergeant told us in boot camp.
It goes back to how pennons were used in medieval times. When passing in review before the king, you always proceed their right to their left (which is still the way parades pass the reviewing stand today, btw). As you approach, your lance is seated vertically, so the pennon floats out behind you. As you pass, you salute the king by dropping the lance to horizontal, which drapes the pennon.
Do this with the U.S. flag, the canton will stay at the upper left either way. We’re just modeling this bit of ancient courtesy when we nail the flag to the wall (which is against the rules, since the flag should always float freely).
Interesting. Learned something today. :-)
Uh oh, the Succubus it out of the bag! Here it comes, and after her demonic reveal …
Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling!
40 years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes!
The dead rising from the grave!
Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria!
OK maybe just the latter.
The demon reveal could be good for the pitchfork industry.
It’s a constant up and down with Dabbler.
Up and down, side to side, backwards, on the furniture, she’s not picky.
It’s true – this succubus has no dick.
What’s that? Oh, my mistake, she actually has a collection of them. “Museum of Terrestrial Phalli”. So that’s what that building is…
Obvious, really – not many cylindrical towers built anymore…
just remember this
Hot dogs are made of 30% beef, 12% pork, 45% hell hound, 3% Rat, 8% filler, 1.8% souls of the damned, .15% tofu, .05% PETA human meat.
There is a shop not too far from me that sells “Vegetarian Shoes”.
Which has a big picture of a cow, in the window, in case anybody did not get it.
On the second to last picture Xuriel is missing a green stripe under her right eye…
Oh yea, well spotted … err striped.
That’s a cheeky wink ;)
She has eyes? Sorry, for a bit there I was distracted by something hypnotic.
Just be glad she isn’t her original model, she had four hypno-boobs originally. You’d never have recovered!
She’s not winking at all
So is this where Dabbler reveals her hobbies?
I bet she has made at least one crop circle!
Her hobbies or her secondary food source? “Hmm, yeah you look good enough to eat. Do want to come with me? I will give you an exclusive opportunity at participating in some of the things I do here at Archon. Oh, you might want to call in sick for tomorrow.”
She has at least a crop circle, a flogger triangle, a whip square, and a dodecahedron cat o’ nine tails.
Can we use Tiki torches? That way we can express out bigotry and keep the mosquitos away at the same time.
No, citronella is like catnip for the elder gods.
The Elder Gods can take a hike.
Insanity and the end of the world?
Can’t compare to when a swarm of mosquitos come to party…
Dabbler should give the world their money’s worth with her story….! And I thought she was a succubus!!!
All of the above, including some heritage from a trimorphic species.
Succubi are technically considered aliens, IIRC. Also, Dabbler may be mixed race.
Does anyone NOT think Dabbler would love the look that peach top would produce?
She would pair it with matching shorts. Maybe bedazzle a couple of “appropriate” spots on each.
I was thinking that skin colour clothing making her look nude is really her style.
The Hulk is green, but wears blue pants, at least he used to. I think having a purple Dabbler wearing green is the perfect contrast.
Hulk’s pants have always been purple, and unaccountably stretchy.
This is because of the “villain color” rule that secondary colors — purple, orange, green — are villainous while primary colors — red, blue, yellow — are heroic. White and black vary but black is frequently villainous or at least “anti-heroic” like Batman.
Other than dialog, what is panel 6?
Chainmail.
The cameraman got obsessed with Dabbler’s hypnoboobs and kept zooming in the lens toward them. All he ended up with is a really good close-up view of the microphone covering.
Good answer!
(Too bad there’s no ‘like’ button.)
Stars
As someone that worked in Journalism for a time, you actually did the journalists reaction to the reveal they were lied to here fairly accurately. Put simply, ACTUAL journalists wouldn’t care. When dealing with military matters, there’s a professional courtesy in understanding that info given isn’t always going to be the truth, for strategic/classified reasons. Its why military press confrences tend not to get as much press as political ones, and just summed up later.
Suzie, being new, is the only one that really bothers to draw attention to it because she’s knew.
I say true journalists, as in the ones that are there to get the facts and present them to the people for them to make their own determination. The talking heads on the 24 hour news channels would have a field day with it….for a news cycle, then talk about the next thing that comes up in the next news cycle.
There’s a good reason why non-political cartoons should not delve into politics – the risk of (…er) alienating half of tbe readership.
Today was amusingly handled, but please don’t do it often.
As for most of the comments, I disagree but don’t have time to refute you before work.
At worst Dabbler would be referred something like the SIV program at the National Visa Center. Special Visas handles anything unusual or covert – like Afgani or Iraqi interpreters and informants fleeing after helping the US. Or anyone the State Department deems necessary.
Speaking of trying not to get political, there’s only so much real-world I can take intruding on my comics. Maybe I’m alone in this but I think it would be nicer if you could come up fake news stations instead of real ones- I can handle parody a lot easier than jabs at any IRL entity.
+1
Not alone, not even a little. Dave has a choice to make, and he can either leave this joke and move on with the comic or he can go full LICD and lose readers who are tired of Soapbox Comics. I want to read about superheroes and for years this has been the only comic I’ve consistently read that hasn’t decided my personal and political opinions are a blight on society.
The irony is I don’t watch much of anything on Fox because I dislike what they’ve become. Get my Hannity on iHeart and sometimes watch a fun Tucker, but that’s it. This isn’t about this joke, it’s about what I and others have experienced in the past, that this COULD become the opening salvo of a change in tone in what we used to find entertaining. Because, normally – once again based on experience, pick up or link up any comic made in the last 8 years – the joke that comes next week or next month is “oh, and anyone who leans politically right is a bigot.”
So, what will it be Dave?
Completely agreed. I’ve been worried about what happens if this comic becomes popular enough that it becomes affordable to drive away parts of the audience. Hopefully that won’t be the result, but the entertainment sector as a whole has had that very bad trend.
I’ve never bothered with FOX; They’re not an actual right-wing channel, you know. They’re the result of a left-winger deciding that right-wing money spent just fine, and that it would be worth catering to an unserved market. But as a result, FOX often tries to appeal to a moderate left-winger’s idea of what conservatives are like, not the real deal.
And, agreed about that concern. I come here for the entertaining plot line and a bit of cheesecake, not politics. Politicized comics are boring comics. Yes, I pick up on the fact that Dave’s politics are about 23 light years to the “left” of mine, that doesn’t bother me so long as he doesn’t start portraying everybody to the right of Bernie Sanders as some kind of overweight hick gun nut who likes girls who lisp…
But… Fox IS a fake news station…
Quantify that. Fake News or News station, that is fake in itself?
Was wondering that distinction as well, wasn’t sure how to phrase it
Legally classified as entertainment and with no obligation to actually inform viewers, despite calling themselves a news channel.
Thank you
I bet that Dabbler would have liked a peach top best after noticing how the humans reacted to it.
In favor over purple with teal’c stripes.
(I wonder how Arianna managed to talk her out of it…)
My guess is it’s pretty easy to talk Dabbler out of any given piece of clothing. Talking her *into* something else, well, that’s more of a challenge.
I saw that, and I understood that reference.
Jounalists are the special forces of the news. they’re usually found tackling unsuspecting victims I mean news stories. then being chased by angry poodles
I feel like that “one reveal at a time” thing basically gives it away. There are only really two reveals possible in most cases and superfolk are a special case. It’s either sci-fi or magic. We’ve already god si-fi *and* superheroes so magic is basically the only other major revelation left (at least of which species is relevant) and given that information and Dabbler’s whole deal, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone made the succubus link pretty quickly too.
Isn’t magic a bit out of the bag already? They had cameras rolling while they fought Vehemence, and Dabbler put him down with a sleep spell. I think the big reveal waiting is the Veil, and the various other non-human species that prefer not to be exposed at this point. So ‘Vampires and werewolves are real’ is still pending.
The difference between magic and super powers is pretty esoteric. The layperson probably wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.
Then, what’s the problem just revealing them at the same time?
Missed the stripe on Dabbler’s right (panel left) cheek in the next-to-last panel.
Having been a news reporter for a community newspaper, I must say that Suzie News is growing on me. I hope we see more of her. Granted, her role right now seems to be taken up mostly as a Plot/Author Device, but I see some real potential for more.
I knew it!!!! Fox and friends are not journalists!!! they are Jounalists ( please, DaveB, do not “correct it”, keep it like that, it is perfect )
I know that Fox not being trustworthy is a meme. But what I’ve seen from them lately has been more than fair. While CNN and the like have been very much less than fair. Outright lying even.
Fox even had Bernie Sanders on, and gave him the time and opportunity to make his case without harassing him with stupid questions. That would never happen with Trump on CNN.
Just two weeks ago they called AOC a communist that hates America.
Doesn’t seem all that moderate to me.
I’m pretty sure she calls herself a communist? And she does kinda hate a lot of American values (read: the constitution)
(P.S. I’m not even American)
1)She’s never called herself a communist.
2)When did she ever say she hated the constitution?
Haiiro. She calls herself a Socialist, different thing altogether.
Umm, who (or what) is an ‘AOC’?
Please, for all the foreign (and alien) readers, don’t use abbreviations just because it is common in the US
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. AOC is an accepted shortening of her 10 sylable name, just as Mayor Pete Buttigeg goes by “Mayor Pete” even in formal settings, because of the unpronouncability of his last name. (budda-judge)
Is that how it’s pronounced? It looks like Butt – Gigg.
I’ve taken to pronouncing AOC as “ayuk”.
Again, the point is, while it may be accepted in the US, not everyone who reads this is from the US and has no idea who minor political nobodies are
Unless you are one of those people (and not putting them down) who have to pronounce in their head (or out loud) words they read, writing out the full name is okay, just takes an extra one or two seconds
Calling her a “minor political nobody” is technically accurate, but you wouldnt know it by watching our sensationalized “news” channals. While most of our polititions are happy to make deals behind closed doors and let the President tank all the good and bad popularity that comes from those deals, she is going for “celebrety whistleblower”, which plays well in the ratings on CNN and keeps uncovering republican and corporate democratic dirty laundry, which earns her the attention of the right wing “five minute hate” programs.
That’s the thing: don’t watch your news channels, sensationalized or otherwise
So, she’s basically a ‘Celebrity Politician’: like how Jamie Oliver is a ‘Celebrity Chef’ rather than a legit chef
Two of our last 4 republican presidents have been TV stars. This isnt a new thing.
Reagan and who else?
Donald Trump.
Oh right, thought of him more as a multi-billionaire real estate mogul who simply appeared on reality TV a few (too many) times
That’s kinda like saying Obama is a TV star because he’s been in the news a lot
usually we have to separate “elements of Fox”
Chris Wallace and Shepard vs Hannity, Tucker, and Fox and friends
I know CNN is many times biased in sense that they spotlight facts favorable to their view and lessen or hide unfavorable facts, but many of the “opinion personalities” of Fox will “fabricate outright lies and unproven allegations as facts”
Not a meme reality.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/fox-news-is-less-trusted-than-cnn-and-msnbc-fox-news-graphic-shows-2018-04-09
Stop watching Fox you will be better informed
https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2016/07/21/a-rigorous-scientific-look-into-the-fox-news-effect/#2195c42212ab
Lol, you linked to an article about how trusted fox is, with people. not how trustworthy they are.
I found a similar article about the same thing. And it also showed that the people questioned were liberaly biased themselves. https://puu.sh/E03o8/3a6399261f.png
My statement was that Fox not being trustworthy is a meme. So of course more people will believe that to be true. It’s unlikely that the liberals that answered that survey ever even watch Fox.
Not to mention that even in your own link CNN is still at the level of opinion pieces. Not news reporting.
If you look at sites that actually try to do a fair assessment of bias, not just opinion polling:
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/fox-news/
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/cnn/
CNN and fox are equally biased.
Stop watching CNN and you will be better informed…
Actually, you should watch both. And also watch alternative news as well. You should get as much information from as many sides as you can. So that it’s easier for you to discern fact from fiction.
If you really don’t like republicans you should watch Fox more than anyone else, so that you know what they are thinking. Not less. But most muricans only watch one of them. And hate the other. THAT’s stupidity.
I don’t know why I should bother watching News stations that are purposefully misleading. I’d prefer regularly visiting a reliable source.
Meh, we always seem to forget that media outlets are entertainment companies. They’ll shift their focus to fit their demographic and too often will do unsavory things to stay competitive.
Their goal is NOT to inform the populace about anything. Their goal is to make sure we stay glued to the TV for as long as possible so they can shove commercials down our throats and make their profits.
Absolutely. The way that news outlets in the United States operate makes a lot more sense when you realize that their business isn’t reporting the news. Their actual business is selling viewer eyeballs to advertisers. Who cares about the accuracy of their reporting as long as they get a bump in the ratings?
I can understand some people considering this too on the nose, but even when discussing real world things, Dave’s comedy is still spot on.
He’s been doing this for a while now, and they’ve only lasted for a page or 2.
Now Dabbblers hypnotic cleavage have been exposed to most of the Earth’s population. Think of all the possible effects that could have.
I love that we can’t edit mistakes on these forums. Yes honestly. This is forum posting on hard mode. Not the place for weaklings who have to correct themselves.
Is it possible you were ‘distracted’ by something as you were typing?
Back in my teens the hypnotic power of Dabblers boobs would probably have been strong enough to break the fourth wall and distract me.
Back in my teens all boobs were hypnotic.
Personally like that shade of green on Dabbles, would look better neatly draped over a chair in the bedroom mind… ;)
I wonder why Dabbler became a citizen. She’s a civilian specialist not a soldier so she didn’t have to become to join Arc. For that matter you don’t have to be a citizen to join the military in the first place. And if there are restrictions on what kind of jobs and information non-citizens can have access to I imagine she could get a waiver.
Was it just something to make navigating the bureaucracy easier? Does it help her deal with some aspect of intergalactic law or magical rules to be a citizen of a specific country?
Or does she actually want to commit to the United States as he new country and is taking the citizenship thing seriously?
Maybe she likes the US. Though I have difficulty imagining Dabbler taking anything seriously.
More likely Earth law.
The Operation Paperclip rocket scientists were taken to Mexico then brought back to the US
so the paperwork would say that they had entered the US legally.
Taxes. it was just easier for the U.S. government to naturalize her than to figure out how to report IRS stuff to a government (or non-government) that it didn’t have a tax treaty with.
Possibly also a bit of forethought by Ari on how the eventual reveal might go.
Also as a citizen she can apply for patents on all of her tech and have a better legal standing to prevent it from being copied by some nefarious businessman *cough* Deus *cough*.
There’s a host of legal rights and benefits that become accessible to a person when they have citizenship to a particular country. Having literally no “country of origin” from which she could have a legal standing on this planet, she needed at least one held citizenship to access those rights.
Human rights can be – and have been – applied only to humans, not the other species native to this world. We’re getting better about it now that we’ve begun to realize that what we’re doing to those others is also coming back to haunt us, too.
The human fear of the “Other” is well documented – the clever extraterrestrial will seek cover under legal protection ASAP if they’ve paid any attention to how we treat “outsider” humans.
For sex. This is Dabbler we are talking about. With her appetite she ought to weigh about 360 lbs!
If she was only in the US with a visa, those are temporary, so she might get cut off from her source of yummy tasting supers. Whilst she could go to other countries, America is one of the bigger industrialised ones, so has a higher proportion of supers than most. Having citizenship gets around that.
Regarding the flag, the stars are always in the upper left when hung on a wall. Always. Doesn’t matter whether the flag is vertical or horizontal, those stars are on the upper left. I’m not sure why that is, just as I’m not sure about the whys of a lot of other parts of the flag code, but that’s how it is. It’s not so much that the flag gets flipped and rotated as there’s just that one important part that’s supposed to be displayed a certain way.
And, for the record, I’m often in company where hanging a flag wrong would (has, actually) get me a stern lecture.
Blah blah blah political crap blah blah blah.
Blah blah blah hate some political party blah blah blah
Blah blah accusations just because blah blah
Something something blah blah.
Fox & Friends xenophobic panic?
Where the hell did that come from?
Is this comic going to morph into a DNC platform?
Makes sense for Dabbler to say something like that. Ariana and Max are sure to scold her later for it off camera.
Probably a dig at the commentators who keep going on about it
Same with the crack about governments keeping secrets: everyone including your mail deliverer keep secrets!
as the previous poster said about adnauseum politics, I see it as a 4th wall breaker
David’s personal politics do leak (rarely) and it has cost him patreon support in the past.
Adam Warren’s Empowered shows a more deft hand with the issue of politics.
Wasn’t it CNN and MSNBC crying about poor brave journalists attacked by President Trump?
Lets flip over to CNN and see their ticker after Dabbler announces her naturalized status:
“Xenomorph refuses to answer direct question proving Trump-Alien collusion! Direct Link to Malaysian Airlines flight 370”
Meanwhile over on MSDNC:
Bigot Alien Skips To The Head of Line, Taunts Detained Immigrants With Racist Threats of Pitchforks and Torches, Maddow Weeps
+1 internet
this post is a perfect example of the biggest evil in today’s world
the “both sides are equally bad” BS that lets people wallow in their ignorance instead of facing facts.
even you have to agree these are laughably convoluted while the “fox” remark is right on money. this comment is more a sign of your own Cognitive dissonance then a reflection of reality. CNN doesn’t randomly draw connections to discredit trump. there is a very real crime that people have gone to jail for and trump is linked to he just “can’t” charged until he’s out of office (which is BS)
and MSDNC doesn’t call people racist for no reason its just you personally don’t see what that people said as racist because you agree with it. that doesn’t mean what they said wasn’t racist (treating someone as lesser because of where they were born, color of their skin or religion) and you don’t like to be called that because that makes you feel bad even tho the facts fit.
CNN literally once suggested that a black hole might have swallowed up a lost aircraft. And yes, they do call people racist who were not. Case in point – Covington. Usually, I find when someone starts calling others racist without being able to back up the claim and just say ‘it’s obvious’ or start insulting when questioned about the particulars, it’s because there are no particulars, or it’s just an ad hominem attack.
Btw I’m not sure if you calling MSNBC MSDNC was on purpose as a dig against the network, or an accident.
But this is sort of the problem of having political digs in an otherwise apolitical comic – people are going to start taking sides, and then you have the audience just fighting with each other, calling each other racist or ignorant or Repugnantans or Libtards, etc. It poisons the audience, who would otherwise at least be civil with each other, even if arguing.
dexdrako – That’s hilarious. “Racist” has been a generic attack word for use against conservatives for at least 30 years. They called BOB DOLE racist.
When Trump won the primaries, there were all kinds of liberal commentators repenting and saying, “We shouldn’t have exaggerated about all those other Republicans, because we really need people to believe us that TRUMP is the real thing!”
Heck, after Tulsi Gabbard completely clobbered Kamala Harris in the Democrat debates, they’re calling Gabbard a pawn of Russia.
Tulsi Gabbard. Anti-war, former armed forces, Democrat US representative from Hawaii (the most liberal state in the country, even moreso than California, and where I was born btw). That Tulsi Gabbard. They’re calling her a russian pawn because Kamala Harris’s campaign di after Gabbard let loose all of Harris’s dirty laundry, all of which was completely true and on the record.
And yes I actually recall someone saying something similar to what you just said in your second paragraph :) I need to find out which one it was though. I’ll post it when I find out who it was. I think it might have been Bill Maher, actually.
Just had a nasty thought. Is it possible that this press conference will have the same effect on aliens and the Veil that the first Archon conference had on supers? Will random aliens like Jeannie/Greenie now start to get outed by a weakening Veil?
Oh yeah , once you have SEEN the succubus on national TV then all those vampire stories must be real too. Does not matter if it is an alien, you look deeper and you question your reality to see the faults.
But it really is depressing to think how many people in African countries will get attacked for being a witch or Aliens for Blasphemy in rural Pakistan after you have this kind of reveal.
Probably less than in the American Bible Belt.
Ummmm no.
I was going to write more but … no I’m not going to. Just no.
Actually I’ll also post this link:
https://www.livescience.com/8515-belief-witchcraft-widespread-africa.html
Sadly it already happens even without the reveal. Each year many albinos and even just random children get killed so that bits of them can be used in ‘magic’ rituals. Even national politicians sometimes get implicated as being customers for prosperity spells using such.
Took me some time to notice…
“What do you want? …”
“Can you at least tell us how you do that with your fingers??”
(I tried and found myself unable to do it.)
1) weave your fingers together in the usual way.
2) remove your index and middle finger from the weave so you can lean on them with your chin without hurting things.
3) have long fingers. (I don’t.)