Politics Thread!

[F-ZeroOne]

Well, he has designs on Greenland again, which presumably eventually will be seized using the all-powerful "Trump class" "battleship":

https://www.twz.com/sea/what-we-know-ab ... battleship

If you anything at all about naval warfare, you'll know that this is proposal... raises questions. If you don't know anything about naval warfare, heres a concise summary: insane.

[grue]

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog ... s-tensions

So, Venezuela's oil reserves are the biggest in the world, and it has nothing to do with the attack...

[PFVA]

Of course not.
And the fact they choose to sell it to China is a mere coincidence too.

The USA of Trump is not very diplomatic about things, to say the least.
And I really don't like Maduro either.

[grue]

Of course not.
And the fact they choose to sell it to China is a mere coincidence too.

The USA of Trump is not very diplomatic about things, to say the least.
And I really don't like Maduro either.

You don't have to like a country leader to be against the crimes against the population.

[SuperMappy]

Well, he has designs on Greenland again, which presumably eventually will be seized using the all-powerful "Trump class" "battleship"

I always had the impression that several smaller and faster battleships would be a much bigger threat that one huge one.

[F-ZeroOne]

Well, they do plan to build over twenty of the things. With the first commissioning in less than three years. Good luck with that!

I know just enough about the subject to know what I don't know, there are plenty of YouTubers who have covered this is much more detail. I will say the term "battleship" is a little bit of a loaded one, and while there are aspects of the idea that aren't entirely whacko, the project as depicted is clearly meant to distract the Orange One until someone sensible (or at least, less obviously ga-ga) takes over.

[grue]

https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... rels-to-us

So, here we go...

[F-ZeroOne]

Well, ICE have just murdered a woman in Minnesota because she was of course THE GREATEST THREAT TO AMERICA, after of course Greenland:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... lled-woman

[KlaxonCow]

Trigger warning: Uncensored footage of the incident. And it happens fast - there's no appeals nor negotiation nor anything, just "get out of the car" and when she tries to drive off, one of the ICE agents just repeatedly shoots her in the face. It's also very clearly not "self defence", as apologists are trying to claim. And second trigger warning that the camera person does go up to the vehicle, so you get fleeting footage of the body.



This will inevitably be removed, as there's already a wave of censorship and removal on this. Understandably so, as it basically shows a murder.

[Mayhem]

Just going to repost something I posted elsewhere.

This is going to rumble onwards but it’s the making of how ICE has been allowed to operate and the personel they have recruited that has manifested the incident. Frankly I'm shocked it’s taken this long. Is it partly the female driver’s fault? Yes. But let’s look at the evidence.

You’re a woman, and most of us here are not so we’ve generally not had to live under the circumstances that women deal with instead in life. You are in a car and several masked, unidentified men (they never state at any point who they are from the video footage I've watched, but I'm led to believe she does know they are ICE), one with a weapon out, approach and scream at you to exit the vehicle. Do you:

A) exit the vehicle (which has ALWAYS gone so well for women in that situation based on past evidence ) or

B) get the fuck out of Dodge when they try to reach in and then open the door?

So, no, I don’t really blame her for picking option B and you can see she turns the wheels to drive off to the right and not actually at the officer. He’s already drawn his weapon while the vehicle reverses and stops before it then moves forward. We need his bodycam footage to assess his position better. Bet they didn’t have it rolling though.

From Title 1, U.S. DOJ Policy on Use of Force:

“Firearms may not be discharged solely to disable moving vehicles. Specifically, firearms may not be discharged at a moving vehicle unless: (1) a person in the vehicle is threatening the officer or another person with deadly force by means other than the vehicle; or (2) the vehicle is operated in a manner that threatens to cause death or serious physical injury … and no other objectively reasonable means of defense appear to exist, which includes moving out of the path of the vehicle.”

Also, placing oneself in the path of a moving vehicle constitutes officer-created jeopardy and undermines any claim that deadly force was necessary. The apologists are noting the first half of Title 1 point 2 here and claiming she was using it as a weapon, but failing to understand or mention the second half about getting out of the way. Which he quite easily did.

It has the potential to ignite matters again like George Floyd did.

[KlaxonCow]

Okay, we have our first documented use of AI editing for government propaganda.

ICE released the bodycam footage (this is an unlisted video from the Guardian, but it does seem to embed when I look at it in preview):



This would initially seem to confirm that the officer was hit by the car as it turned.

Except there's a glaring problem. Where are the gun shot sounds?

This is the "officer" who shot the woman - no-one on either side is disputing that, we're just establishing whether he had cause to do so - so we're at "ground zero" of where the gun was fired. How the hell can we not hear the gun shots?

This footage does not match up with other angles and it doesn't make sense that there's no gun shot sounds and, frankly, according to this footage, he had no time to unholster his gun and fire - fire more than one shot - so the shooting never even took place, if we believe this footage. Footage which also conveniently wobbles about to miss any useful details at the crucial moment.

The only people who'd have access to this bodycam footage would be ICE. ICE has only released this to the press, because they've edited it to match their account before release.

Except, sorry, the AI you used forgot to "hallucinate" the gun shot sounds, which makes no sense. And it doesn't marry up with the other angles - as none of the other angles show him being thrown about, as this footage implies.

So, here we are. The first use of AI to manipulate footage for government propaganda. A botched attempt - as it does not make sense that we can't hear the gun shots, and it does not marry up with other angles of what happened.

Indeed, I look forward to the inevitable YouTube videos that stitch these together to prove that this footage simply just doesn't fit with the others.

The New York Times already did - before this footage was released - an analysis from every angle and concluded that the Trump narrative is wrong:

https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/100000 ... video.html

And they focus on an obvious "smoking gun" in the footage - the angle of the wheels, as she was clearly turning away from the "officer" who shot her (or, according to this new footage, hit her with a car but - oops - forgot to do the bit that involves actually shooting her, so that doesn't make any sense) and we can see that her car rolled along to the right to confirm this. But the angle of the wheels show that she'd already steered hard right - the wheels turn before the car does, so it shows her intent.

As does this footage, because you can her say "I'm not mad at you". Maybe they should have edited that bit out as well, as it shows a perfectly calm and nice person, with not an inch of anger to her, to want to run the officer down two seconds later.

[F-ZeroOne]

The Trump-aligned response really does feel like they're seriously misreading the room; anyone with half a brain cell who has seen unedited footage can see that the "official" account does not match up with what actually happened. If it wasn't for the victims sexual orientation, I'd suspect they'd be having an even harder time making their version of events stick. They probably don't care, but I suspect it will eventually hurt them more than they think it will.

[F-ZeroOne]

Oops, sorry, double-post.

[snaff]

Well, he has designs on Greenland again, which presumably eventually will be seized using the all-powerful "Trump class" "battleship":

https://www.twz.com/sea/what-we-know-ab ... battleship

If you anything at all about naval warfare, you'll know that this is proposal... raises questions. If you don't know anything about naval warfare, heres a concise summary: insane.

Denmark will have to give up Greenland, they have no bargaining power.

USA can threaten to back off from NATO and EU will force Denmark to sell. Won't cost USA more than a couple billion.

[tufty]

The US have already backed off from NATO, and the EU have nothing to gain from acquiescing.

If the US start making noises about backing off more, every EU / European country sends the US troops on their land back home, as a potential invasion force. US loses all support and foothold across Europe. Bad idea.