2024 Presidential Election Thread - Let's keep the party going.

[TexArcher 39078]

If we get to a point in a few months where Donald Trump has won elections over Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris, this country deserves to fall.

This still can't be real life, man.  God damn.

 

 

Edited August 7 by TexArcher

[The Dog 44870]

5 minutes ago, bluto said:

I am a little slow but realized the reason Trump has nothing in his bag is that he is too dumb/adhd/narcissistic to study or listen to a breakdown of his opponents.

and they have no ideas other than Project 2025 which they are trying to bury because it's so unpopular.

[Gatorubet 30795]

1 hour ago, Homercles said:

I thought TTom was banished to the shadow realm or some shit

he hasn’t mentioned pissing down our effeminate legs every three posts, so I don’t believe it’s TT. Sounds a lot like Swam, though.

[Gatorubet 30795]

11 hours ago, Pimphand said:

This is your stupid cock-smoking obedience worshiping shit IRL

I was today old when I learned that fossil fuel powered vehicles have never caught on fire. 

[Pancho 46376]

Vance doing a campaign event AT THE POLICE STATION? 

 

And they wonder why Blacks don’t trust the police…

[SubliminalHorn 7012]

36 minutes ago, immamac said:

I am fine with yarn if it worked for people I figured it was more widespread since there were other complaints. I've contacted them but never heard anything. 

Did you ask for the manager?

[Chad Fuck 18167]

[/url]  

Excitable Boy. Amen, amen.

[Red Five 41791]

Vance doing a campaign event AT THE POLICE STATION? 
 
And they wonder why Blacks don’t trust the police…

It ain’t easy to run a campaign on law and order when your candidate is a convicted felon who has spent the last year touring various courthouses.

[Chad Fuck 18167]

This guy is the best.

[locodos 5593]

6 minutes ago, Chad Fuck said:

This guy is the best.

Agree, but his speaker wire opinion is a minor misstep IMHO.

Rabbit hole :  http://www.roger-russell.com/wire/wire.htm

[HornPhD 1392]

12 hours ago, NAVY said:

Get Tom Hanks to reprise this in a Kamala ad, ahora. 

They lost that game

[WelfareBuysMyWeed 5663]

29 minutes ago, Pancho said:

Vance doing a campaign event AT THE POLICE STATION?

Real fucking talk? There should be laws against holding partisan rallies at police stations. It should be law that police stations are *required* to disengage with political posturing. If the pigs want to burn their money shoveling it into Donald Trump's gaping asshole, do it at their own house, not the publicly funded building.

[Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand 13638]

1 hour ago, immamac said:

I am fine with yarn

I'm aight with lamp.

[dcbc 14654]

2 hours ago, immamac said:

Do I just need a better gif search in the editor? Stop posting yarns. They don't work for anyone. 

Shouldn't this question be asked in the vice-presidential thread?  I can see them fine, which is why I posted them?  It seems like other people can as well.  But this is the first I've heard of yarns not working in a while, and I figured it was resolved since I could see them.  And why they don't work (for some) is above my skill set/pay grade.  I guess I should spend more time on the board discussion forum or read the newsletter.  Mea culpa

 

The fact that Pimphand can spend the better part of the day shit posting nonsense and I get called out for a linking Yarn is a head scratcher.

 

Edit to add that I resurrected the yarn thread in Board Discussion.  It hadn't been responded to since 2023 and mine was the last response.  I can see lots of yarns there.  I posted a Yarn and a question if anyone wants to participate in a productive survey.  Sorry for the threadjack.  The onboard gif search is not exactly the best.  

Edited August 7 by dcbc

[HenryJames 67474]

Should be asked on the Sonic has fucking smashburgers now? thread.

[dcbc 14654]

1 hour ago, Biff Tannen said:

This is the second time I’ve seen you espouse this. Yarns have always worked fine for me on any browser. Including the one above. 

They work on Chrome and Mozilla for me.  Maybe it's a Mac thing?

[Hank Kingsley 21814]

No doubt in my mind this freak has murdered couches. 

 

[Js1 87300]

So fucking weird 

[TwiceHorn 32111]

On 8/6/2024 at 8:47 AM, bolverk said:

I don't live in either the Houston area or DFW, but I'm hoping to see Collin become like Fort Bend in that the diversity effect tips the scales. I understand conservatives are moving into the northern parts of Collin, but what's going on in Plano and Allen? 

I'm going to guess that the nearer burbs are more expensive and attract a more "cosmopolitan" and diverse influx and residents moving into second generation are more educated and "removed" from the "rural ignorance" that characterized some of the original inhabitants and continues to do so in more rural areas.

[Hank Kingsley 21814]

 

[cmontexas 3378]

Say Her Name needs to be a new slogan.Disrespectful men calling women out of there name. Not how I was raised. Walz should call it out and seal it with a "I used to put kids in detention for that"

The Convention needs to be all about Kamala

Edited August 7 by cmontexas

[wildcat09 29601]

1 hour ago, Gatorubet said:

he hasn’t mentioned pissing down our effeminate legs every three posts, so I don’t believe it’s TT. Sounds a lot like Swam, though.

He hasn't threatened to kill me so it's definitely not TTom. 

[jimmyjazz 47345]

How exactly did Tim Walz lie about his service?  He was Army National Guard for 24 years.  He hasn't said anything other than that.

[C-Man 27836]

Just now, jimmyjazz said:

How exactly did Tim Walz lie about his service?  He was Army National Guard for 24 years.  He hasn't said anything other than that.

Apparently, though he attained the rank of general master sergeant or whatever it was, he was "just" master sergeant when he retired -- or something like that. Also, a nimrod social media acquaintance said Walz retired from the National Guard just before being deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan. (I didn't remind the guy that Walz was 40 or 41 at the time -- not sure those guys were being shipped off to engage in firefights.)

[C-Man 27836]

Old Hollywood takes on "The Nerd Reich"

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/politics-news/election-2024-hollywood-silicon-valley-1235967050/

Quote

If you were to stick a pin in a timeline at the exact moment Silicon Valley declared war on Hollywood, it would likely land on Aug. 29, 1997. That’s the date Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph got together in Scotts Valley, about an hour south of San Francisco, and started a little DVD delivery company called Netflix.

The rest is history: Within just a couple of decades, all the traditional pillars of the old entertainment order started to crumble. Linear television, cable TV, theatrical box office — nothing was left standing, at least not as tall as it once had. This we all know, all too well.

But here’s what’s new. Very recently, just over the past several weeks, there have been signs that Southern California once again is rising — or trying to, at any rate. This time, though, the civil war with the north isn’t over digital platform windows or online content protection; this time, it’s mogul-to-mogul combat on a much grander battlefield, as both sides — super-rich techno libertarians versus not-quite-as-super-rich old guard Hollywood liberals — clash over what sort of government the country should be electing in November. Today, they’re fighting over nothing less than the presidency of the United States.

As one studio executive succinctly sums up Hollywood’s new battle cry, “Fuck these Trump-loving techies.”

He’s referring, of course, to the slew of Northern California robber barons who’ve recently announced their support of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, including Elon Musk, arguably the richest man in history, with a net worth of $250 billion. Musk had pledged to donate $45 million a month to Trump’s campaign, although he later denied making that pledge, so who knows how much he’ll ultimately pony up (he’s now claiming to be channeling his money into his own pro-Trump political action committee, AmericaPAC). But there’s also Musk’s fellow PayPal co-founder, Peter Thiel, who went on to become CEO of tech investment firm Mithril Capital, where, in 2016, he hired a young Yale-educated hillbilly named J.D. Vance, then backed Vance’s 2022 Senate race in Ohio (reportedly spending $15 million on the campaign) and is widely believed to have helped finagle Vance into his current position as Trump’s running mate.

Now there still are plenty of liberals in Silicon Valley, like Steve Jobs’ widow, Laurene Powell Jobs, and Meta COO Sheryl Sandberg. There’s venture capitalist Reid Hoffman, another member of the PayPal mafia, who donated $7 million to the Democratic super PAC Future Forward (and who in July exchanged uncomfortable words with his old pal Thiel over their divergent politics at the Sun Valley CEO conference). Not to mention Hastings, who recently donated $7 million to a pro-Kamala Harris group called the Republican Accountability PAC.

Nevertheless, the number of pro-Trump tech billionaires is nearly as startling as the piles of cash they’ve been raising for his campaign: Supporters like Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, the twin bitcoin magnates who in 2004 sued Mark Zuckerberg for allegedly stealing their idea for Facebook (they were both played by Armie Hammer in David Fincher’s The Social Network); venture capitalist David Sacks (who recently hosted a $300,000-a-head fundraiser for Trump); Valor Equity Partners founder Antonio Gracias (who donated $1 million); Jacob Helberg, CEO of defense technology firm Palantir (another million-dollar pledge); tech entrepreneur Joe Lonsdale (also $1 million); Sequoia Capital’s Douglas Leone (another million); Shaun Maguire ($500,000); and tech investor Ben Horowitz (who has announced plans to make a “significant” contribution); among a dozen or so others. (Interestingly, two who seem to be conspicuously neutral this election cycle are Zuckerberg and Open AI founder Sam Altman, although Trump has said that Zuckerberg promised him that he wouldn’t back a Democrat and Altman, who once compared Trump to Hitler, urged Americans to tone down the rhetoric after the July assassination attempt on the former president, promising that the country would be fine no matter who won the election.)

Up until a couple of weeks ago, Hollywood’s own moguls seemed like they might be sitting out the 2024 race. After Joe Biden‘s 90-minute staring contest at the June 27 debate, pretty much everyone in town was shutting their checkbooks or, like Endeavor’s Ari Emanuel, saving their largesse for down-ticket congressional races. But then — just like George Clooney said he should — Biden stepped down, endorsed Harris, and literally overnight Hollywood’s elites were fired up and ready to go. And not just the elites. Within the first 24 hours of Biden’s announcement, Harris took in a record-breaking $100 million in donations from across the country. “The enthusiasm and support for the vice president has been euphoric,” says embattled DreamWorks co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg, now co-chair of Harris’ campaign (after a long stint as Biden’s co-chair). “It’s ignited people in a way I’ve never seen before.”

It’s ignited them, all right. Harris, a native Californian who owns a home in Brentwood, already had built a solid network in Los Angeles. Supporters of her 2020 run for president — before she dropped out and joined Biden’s ticket — included Steven Spielberg, J.J. Abrams, Ben Affleck, Reese Witherspoon, Reginald and Chrisette Hudlin, Jeff Shell, Donna Langley, Dana Walden, Jessica Alba, Mindy Kaling, Ron Meyer, Jeff Bridges and Shonda Rhimes, to name just a few. “Everybody I’ve encountered has been crazy enthusiastic,” says Jenny Frankfurt, a former literary agent who hosted several Harris 2020 primary fundraisers. “Some are crazy enthusiastic because it’s her, and some are crazy enthusiastic because they want that fresh start that Biden wasn’t giving them.”

And some, frankly, are crazy enthusiastic to stick it to their archrivals in Silicon Valley. “We’ve had a decade in which the Musks and Zuckerbergs and Sam Altmans of the world have been defining our culture, and the world is not better for it,” says one well-known Hollywood executive who’s supporting Harris. “These guys already have too much power as it is. We don’t need them setting policy and running the Oval Office. I think this campaign is a chance to even the scales.”

A top Democratic consultant agrees: “It’s no secret that Hollywood has never been very fond of these guys. Nobody relishes the thought of these people in bed with the Trump administration. There’s a shitload of money here in Hollywood, as well as a lot of disdain for these tech bros, and I think you’ll see people putting up a lot of dough just to teach these dudes they can’t buy an election.”

In truth, not all this hostility is over politics. Some of the resentment has as much to do with ego as ideology. After all, these Silicon Valley tech bros have been running roughshod over Hollywood for years, barging into town with their newfangled subscription services, busting up traditional broadcast and big-screen business models, imposing strange corporate cultures on an industry with its own cherished ideas about workplace etiquette (what was with those cubbyholes at Amazon that top executives got instead of C-suite offices?). Some cinephiles in Hollywood (Christopher Nolan, for one) are still peeved about Project Popcorn, Warner Bros.’ pandemic-era decision to release its entire theatrical slate on the studio’s streaming service, HBO Max, a plan cooked up by former WarnerMedia head Jason Kilar, also known as one of the founders of Hulu.

Still, there clearly are philosophical differences between the two camps. Hollywood may be filled with scoundrels, liars and backstabbers — but at least some of those scoundrels, liars and backstabbers have a social conscience. The town has a long tradition of classical liberalism, going back to the early days of the Civil Rights Movement (before Charlton Heston became a gun nut, he accompanied Martin Luther King Jr. to his 1963 speech at the March on Washington). Kirk Douglas, Henry Fonda (and daughter Jane), Gregory Peck, Katharine Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall — the list of old-time celebrity lefties goes on and on and continues to be replenished with ever-more progressive standard-bearers (Robert De Niro, Alyssa Milano, Larry David, Ryan Reynolds, Jake Gyllenhaal, just to scratch the surface). Despite the fantastical amounts of wealth sloshing around these parts, Beverly Hills and environs has remained one of the most indigo-blue spots anywhere in the country.

Up until recently, Silicon Valley shared many of L.A.’s values. Although it’s always leaned more toward laissez-faire libertarianism when it comes to taxes and regulations, it largely agreed with Hollywood on such cultural issues as gay rights, marijuana legalization and immigration (tech firms depend on foreign workers; the CEOs of Google and Uber are both from immigrant families). But something has clearly shifted in the political winds up north, and it’s not just Musk’s tweet storms decrying “woke-ism,” transgender activism and the “flood of illegals crushing the country.” How else to explain why so many Bay Area billionaires are now throwing their support — and their dollars — behind an adjudicated rapist with 34 felony convictions who orchestrated an insurrection the last time he ran for president?

“What makes me question humankind is the number of tech-bro billionaires who hold their noses and back Trump solely to make more money,” marvels Meridian Pictures CEO Eric Paquette, a longtime Democratic fundraiser in Hollywood. “I don’t get it. You’ve got $10 billion in the bank, and you’re still going to support Trump because he’s going to lower your taxes even more than he already has? There’s no justifying it. It’s a sad commentary on the lengths people go to protect their wealth at the expense of protecting our democracy.”

The fact is, there are reasons besides lower taxes that might explain why so many in Silicon Valley have gone full MAGA — much, much weirder reasons. “It’s not just about the money,” explains Christopher Wylie, the Cambridge Analytics whistleblower who testified during the 2018 Senate hearings on online disinformation in the 2016 Trump campaign and who knows the northern culture well. “It’s about ideology. What you’re dealing with here is a cult. These tech billionaires are building a religion. They believe they’re creating something with AI that’s going to be the most powerful thing that’s ever existed — this omniscient, all-knowing God-like entity — and they see themselves as the prophets of that future.”

Believe it or not, it’s gets even creepier. According to Wylie and others — like Émile Torres, a professor at Case Western Reserve who’s written books on the subject — this “religion” includes a whole range of far-out beliefs even beyond those found in sacred writs like “The Techno-Optimist Manifesto” (in which Mosaic creator Marc Andreessen predicts that “we are poised for an intelligence takeoff that will expand our capabilities to unimagined heights”). Concepts like “transhumanism” (the idea that people should be fused with technology to usher in the next phase of human evolution, presumably a race of brain-chipped borgs plugged into the omniscient ChatGPT hive mind), the rise of “the network state” (an online entity that one day will replace traditional geographical countries) and “radical life extension.” That’s right, these dudes plan on living forever.

“Their idea is to develop advanced technologies to radically reengineer themselves so that there’s no death,” says Torres. “Immortality is a key part of this belief system. In that way, it’s very much like a religion. That’s why some people are calling it the Scientology of Silicon Valley.”

Others in San Francisco are calling it “The Nerd Reich.”

To be clear, there’s no evidence Trump believes any of this stuff, or is even aware of it — although Vance is maybe more of an open question. As a former Thiel protégé, Vance comes from the tech world, and Thiel himself has been an outspoken believer in Silicon Valley’s eugenic TESCREAL screed (an acronym for … oh, never mind). As far as the tech bros are concerned, Trump doesn’t need to be a believer; all he needs to do is take their donations and follow their policy instructions — like shutting down the FDA and other regulators whose outdated restrictions on things like human experimentation are slowing down progress toward a technotopian paradise.

So far, Trump has proved more than eager to play ball. In July, he spoke at a crypto confab in Nashville, promising to make the United States the “crypto capital” of the world. This is the same guy who as president declared bitcoin “not money” and criticized it for being “based on thin air.”

“They see Trump as a useful idiot,” says Wylie. “He’s somebody who’ll do what they want.”

There are many in Hollywood who agree with that assessment, even if they’ve never heard of transhumanism, and it’s one of the things they find so chilling about Silicon Valley. “I think these guys see Trump as an empty vessel,” says the well-known exec who’s supporting Harris. “They see him as a way to pursue their political agenda, which is survival of the fittest, no regulation, burn-the-house-down nihilism that lacks any empathy or nuance.”

Those words may sound vaguely familiar. You’ve heard something like them before, in an old Arnold Schwarzenegger movie about a transhuman killing machine from the future who also didn’t feel “pity or remorse or fear.” Oddly enough, that date mentioned earlier, when Netflix started taking over Hollywood — Aug. 29, 1997 — also happens to be when Skynet achieved self-awareness in The Terminator.

And we know how that turned out.

 

[Chopper 17452]

7 hours ago, Hank Kingsley said:

No doubt in my mind this freak has murdered couches. 

Basically he's saying, "Being angry makes me happy." It's the story of the Fox News Generation along with a bunch of red-pilled, yellow-bellied, sanctimonious cunts out of Silicon Valley.

Edited August 7 by Chopper
*news

[jimmyjazz 47345]

2 minutes ago, C-Man said:

Apparently, though he attained the rank of general master sergeant or whatever it was, he was "just" master sergeant when he retired -- or something like that. Also, a nimrod social media acquaintance said Walz retired from the National Guard just before being deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan. (I didn't remind the guy that Walz was 40 or 41 at the time -- not sure those guys were being shipped off to engage in firefights.)

I'm aware of the rank reduction at retirement, but Vance is making it sound as if Walz either didn't actually serve for 24 years or that he has claimed duty served overseas.  

[Homercles 10206]

2 hours ago, Loch Ness Monster said:

Lots of policies discussed!

 

 

“He’s probably about the same as Bernie sanders. He’s probably more so than Bernie sanders.  He IS more so than Bernie Sanders.”  

“Wants this country to go communist immediately, if not sooner”. 
 

[C-Man 27836]

2 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

I'm aware of the rank reduction at retirement, but Vance is making it sound as if Walz either didn't actually serve for 24 years or that he has claimed duty served overseas.  

Oh, don't know anything about that.

[Chuckie Finster 23103]

4 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

I'm aware of the rank reduction at retirement, but Vance is making it sound as if Walz either didn't actually serve for 24 years or that he has claimed duty served overseas.  

They know that "stolen valor" is an easy term that everyone understands, while explaining a convoluted scenario of a long time member of the Guard retiring is complicated, so they are falsely using that phrase to ding him.  It's that simple.

[Kel Varnsen 8749]

It doesn't have to be true for MAGA to believe it.

[G650 14453]

5 hours ago, SydneyCarton said:

read it all. 

I'd prefer not to

[Biff Tannen 46208]

28 minutes ago, dcbc said:

The onboard gif search is not exactly the best.  

More to the point, yarn is far and away the easiest and best way to find movie and tv show quotes on the entire internet. 

[Red Five 41791]

They know that "stolen valor" is an easy term that everyone understands, while explaining a convoluted scenario of a long time member of the Guard retiring is complicated, so they are falsely using that phrase to ding him.  It's that simple.

Like everything else, good luck with that with Captain Bone Spurs at the top of the ticket.

['stache 22148]

9 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

I'm aware of the rank reduction at retirement, but Vance is making it sound as if Walz either didn't actually serve for 24 years or that he has claimed duty served overseas.  

It's not that difficult to understand. He's lying.

[TwiceHorn 32111]

4 minutes ago, Chuckie Finster said:

They know that "stolen valor" is an easy term that everyone understands, while explaining a convoluted scenario of a long time member of the Guard retiring is complicated, so they are falsely using that phrase to ding him.  It's that simple.

Here seems to be the most comprehensive discussion.  https://www.startribune.com/walzs-24-years-in-national-guard-get-renewed-scrutiny-from-gop-opponent-who-didnt-serve/600216280

The main thing seems to be that he retired from the National Guard before a deployment to Iraq.

[TexEx15 17960]

7 minutes ago, Chuckie Finster said:

They know that "stolen valor" is an easy term that everyone understands, while explaining a convoluted scenario of a long time member of the Guard retiring is complicated, so they are falsely using that phrase to ding him.  It's that simple.

This account digs into stolen valor claims and did a pretty good job of explaining it in a non-partisan way. TLDR: he reached the rank of and served as a Command Sergeant Major. However, he was reduced in rank administratively upon retirement because he did not complete the Sergeant Majors course before retiring. Like everything else the right says, it’s disinformation at best and a flat out lie at worst.

 

 

Edited August 7 by TexEx15

[HenryJames 67474]

Vance was in Public Affairs in the marines.

[Longhorn_Fan68 34108]

current look at the right:

[cmontexas 3378]

12 minutes ago, Chuckie Finster said:

They know that "stolen valor" is an easy term that everyone understands, while explaining a convoluted scenario of a long time member of the Guard retiring is complicated, so they are falsely using that phrase to ding him.  It's that simple.

"Lies" is an easy term that people understand and should be confronted with

[sidis 10020]

17 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

How exactly did Tim Walz lie about his service?  He was Army National Guard for 24 years.  He hasn't said anything other than that.

 

23 minutes ago, Hank Kingsley said:

 

 

11 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

I'm aware of the rank reduction at retirement, but Vance is making it sound as if Walz either didn't actually serve for 24 years or that he has claimed duty served overseas.  

 

1 minute ago, Red Five said:

Like everything else, good luck with that with Captain Bone Spurs at the top of the ticket.

 

Just now, TwiceHorn said:

Here seems to be the most comprehensive discussion.  https://www.startribune.com/walzs-24-years-in-national-guard-get-renewed-scrutiny-from-gop-opponent-who-didnt-serve/600216280

The main thing seems to be that he retired from the National Guard before a deployment to Iraq.

 

trump's campaign manager is chris lacivita. he was the consultant for the 527 swiftboat group that went all in on john kerry in 2004. he spearheaded their media campaign.

it was remarkably effective in 2004 against an actual vet on behalf of george w. bush who was a cosplayer. the hypocritical shamelessness of doing it on behalf of someone who blatantly exerted wealth privilege to avoid any actual service and calls military members suckers and losers and routinely shits on their memory is not really a surprise here. they are creating a strawman for their base to beat up on that is not rooted in reality...namely, that walz claimed to be something he wasn't and then disparaging that. can they demonstrate what he claimed that was inaccurate? no. but they generated the narrative and just hope it catches a viral wave - not unlike couch fucking.

it's an effort to reinvigorate boomer white male country club republicans. i doubt it will be effective and if i were dems, i would have kamala simply contrast his 24 year gaurdsman career with bonespurs at a rally.

[HenryJames 67474]

No, Tim Walz didn’t give Minnesota a Somali flag

Spoiler

No, Tim Walz didn’t give Minnesota a Somali flag

Philip BumpAugust 7, 2024 at 10:52 a.m. EDT

Someone holds Minnesota and American flags in front of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz's temporary governor's residence in St. Paul, Minn., on Wednesday. (Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)

In 2001, the North American Vexillological Association — an organization of flag enthusiasts — conducted a poll asking its members to rank the official flag of each American state and Canadian province.

The most-liked flags were those from New Mexico and Texas, simple flags with broad expanses of color and singular graphical elements. The least-liked were a coterie of similar flags, big fields of color with the state seal (or some equivalently complicated graphic) plunked down in the middle. Of the 72 flags that were considered, Utah’s flag ranked 58th. Minnesota’s ranked a miserable 67th.

Sign up for the How to Read This Chart newsletter

A bit over two decades later, Utah unveiled a new flag, stripped of the state seal in favor of a large beehive, a state symbol representing its motto, “Industry.” And earlier this year, Minnesota unveiled a new flag of its own.

The new flag has three elements, two fields of color and an eight-pointed star. In a report detailing the new flag (and an accompanying update to the state seal), the commission tasked with the redesign explained the significance of each. The dark blue represents “the night sky and the shape of the state of Minnesota.” The bright blue is a representation of Minnesota’s 11,800-plus lakes. The star is a reflection of the state motto — the North Star State — and a reflection of an eight-pointed star on the floor of the rotunda of the state capitol.

None of these elements should be particularly surprising. Minnesota used to be home to the basketball Lakers and the hockey (North) Stars, both reflections of the importance of these symbols in the state.

What the flag is not is some paean to the nation of Somalia.

As you are no doubt aware, Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday tapped Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) to be her running mate as she seeks the presidency. That led to a flurry of social media disparagements of the newly high-profile governor, including one that burbled up when the new flag was announced: The new Minnesota state flag was somehow meant to evoke Somalia’s, a woke tribute to the state’s large Somali population.

The reality — as is often the case with reality — is more banal and less nefarious.

In 2023, a state legislator from a suburb of Minneapolis (one that doesn’t have a significant Somali population) proposed revamping the state’s iconography. Speaking to a local news outlet, state Rep. Mike Freiberg (D) explained that the old flag, adopted in 1957, was not one that the state’s residents could embrace. That was in part because the seal at the center depicted a farmer tilling a field, with a Native American riding off on a horse in the background.

“It was designed very deliberately to depict white farmers displacing Native Americans,” Freiberg explained to CCX Media. “So it’s just not something that’s distinctive. It’s just not something that … at least I’m proud of.”

His bill calling for a new design passed the state legislature and was signed into law by Walz. It created a commission of Minnesotans and experts that would take submissions and decide on a new design.

The new flag is a modification of one submitted by Andrew Prekker, a resident of the small town of Luverne near the South Dakota border. It had a slightly different eight-pointed star and the light blue section was instead stripes of white, green and blue, but the design was otherwise the same.

“Each color was chosen to symbolize a different important aspect of Minnesota and its identity,” Prekker explained to Minnesota Public Radio. “For the stripes, white represents snow/winter, the green stripe represents our beautiful nature and the importance of agriculture and the light blue stripe represents the several significant meanings of water to our state.”

The existing flag, he said, was “a problematic representation of our state. It’s not a unifying symbol for everyone, and I wanted to create a flag that our Indigenous communities and tribal nations could see representation in as well.”

The modified design became the official flag of Minnesota in May. Even before then, though, the comparison to Somalia’s flag had been drawn.

On social media, state legislator Natalie Zeleznikar (R) compared Prekker’s original design to one from a particular region of Somalia. (It’s worth noting that the comparison depended on altering Prekker’s design significantly.) After the revised flag was adopted, the comparison drawn by critics — generally on the political right — was to Somalia’s national flag. It features a five-pointed star on a light-blue background.

In other words, the comparison depends on two elements that are omnipresent in flag designs: stars and the color blue.

After Walz was selected by Harris, the idea that the new flag was derived from Somalia’s gained new traction — as did the idea that somehow Walz was the person making the decision. (Again, the choice was made by the committee created under Freiberg’s legislation.) On X, owner Elon Musk offered his familiar “hmm, something to think about” emoji in response to a claim that the flag was related to Somalia’s.

The post to which he was responding was explicit in the reason for making the false claim: It’s an effort to cast Walz (and before his selection by Harris, the left in general) as anti-American, as beholden to immigrants from a country that is often presented as dangerous. (Somalia was one of the countries included in Donald Trump’s original travel ban.)

In the past, such nonsense would be relegated to the fringe of the political conversation and not elevated by prominent voices. But this is the present, in which false, pejorative claims are a form of currency on the right, particularly when targeting prominent politicians on the left. So the “Somali flag” claim gets new traction.

It’s also a reflection of a broader trend: taking an earnest, thoughtful community process aimed at rectifying a cultural (and vexillological) wrong and presenting it instead as nefarious and toxic. This case is exceptional only in how obviously and immediately divergent from reality that presentation is.

 

[yoladu 4191]

1 hour ago, TexArcher said:

If we get to a point in a few months where Donald Trump has won elections over Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris, this country deserves to fall.

This still can't be real life, man.  God damn.

I am not underestimating this country's inherent misogyny. It's going to be a battle.

I am often reminded that the 15th amendment and 19th amendment is separated by 50 years.

[Chad Fuck 18167]

41 minutes ago, Hank Kingsley said:

No doubt in my mind this freak has murdered couches. 

 

[Nice Guy Eddie 13744]

They're looking to swift boat Walz. 

For those that don't know in 2004, Bush's side attacked John Kerry saying that Kerry exaggerated his Vietnam war record. Even though everyone agreed that Kerry served in a war zone in Vietnam while Bush served by flying jets in SE Texas.

The end result was that some believed that Kerry was a draft dodger (spoiler: he enlisted) and Bush was Rambo.

[Hank Kingsley 21814]

 

[Constant 6936]

This feels accurate. Fox News has melted my grandpa’s brain the last 20 years. 

[Bozo_Casanova 26911]

4 hours ago, G650 said:

Dude John Cougar Uh Huh on vinyl. This guy can't get any cooler.

2 hours ago, immamac said:

Do I just need a better gif search in the editor? Stop posting yarns. They don't work for anyone. 

yarn is good and the people are for it

Edited August 7 by Bozo_Casanova

[BehoId, The Underminer! 11669]

14 minutes ago, HenryJames said:

No, Tim Walz didn’t give Minnesota a Somali flag

  Hide contents

No, Tim Walz didn’t give Minnesota a Somali flag

Philip BumpAugust 7, 2024 at 10:52 a.m. EDT

Someone holds Minnesota and American flags in front of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz's temporary governor's residence in St. Paul, Minn., on Wednesday. (Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)

In 2001, the North American Vexillological Association — an organization of flag enthusiasts — conducted a poll asking its members to rank the official flag of each American state and Canadian province.

The most-liked flags were those from New Mexico and Texas, simple flags with broad expanses of color and singular graphical elements. The least-liked were a coterie of similar flags, big fields of color with the state seal (or some equivalently complicated graphic) plunked down in the middle. Of the 72 flags that were considered, Utah’s flag ranked 58th. Minnesota’s ranked a miserable 67th.

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A bit over two decades later, Utah unveiled a new flag, stripped of the state seal in favor of a large beehive, a state symbol representing its motto, “Industry.” And earlier this year, Minnesota unveiled a new flag of its own.

The new flag has three elements, two fields of color and an eight-pointed star. In a report detailing the new flag (and an accompanying update to the state seal), the commission tasked with the redesign explained the significance of each. The dark blue represents “the night sky and the shape of the state of Minnesota.” The bright blue is a representation of Minnesota’s 11,800-plus lakes. The star is a reflection of the state motto — the North Star State — and a reflection of an eight-pointed star on the floor of the rotunda of the state capitol.

None of these elements should be particularly surprising. Minnesota used to be home to the basketball Lakers and the hockey (North) Stars, both reflections of the importance of these symbols in the state.

What the flag is not is some paean to the nation of Somalia.

As you are no doubt aware, Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday tapped Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) to be her running mate as she seeks the presidency. That led to a flurry of social media disparagements of the newly high-profile governor, including one that burbled up when the new flag was announced: The new Minnesota state flag was somehow meant to evoke Somalia’s, a woke tribute to the state’s large Somali population.

The reality — as is often the case with reality — is more banal and less nefarious.

In 2023, a state legislator from a suburb of Minneapolis (one that doesn’t have a significant Somali population) proposed revamping the state’s iconography. Speaking to a local news outlet, state Rep. Mike Freiberg (D) explained that the old flag, adopted in 1957, was not one that the state’s residents could embrace. That was in part because the seal at the center depicted a farmer tilling a field, with a Native American riding off on a horse in the background.

“It was designed very deliberately to depict white farmers displacing Native Americans,” Freiberg explained to CCX Media. “So it’s just not something that’s distinctive. It’s just not something that … at least I’m proud of.”

His bill calling for a new design passed the state legislature and was signed into law by Walz. It created a commission of Minnesotans and experts that would take submissions and decide on a new design.

The new flag is a modification of one submitted by Andrew Prekker, a resident of the small town of Luverne near the South Dakota border. It had a slightly different eight-pointed star and the light blue section was instead stripes of white, green and blue, but the design was otherwise the same.

“Each color was chosen to symbolize a different important aspect of Minnesota and its identity,” Prekker explained to Minnesota Public Radio. “For the stripes, white represents snow/winter, the green stripe represents our beautiful nature and the importance of agriculture and the light blue stripe represents the several significant meanings of water to our state.”

The existing flag, he said, was “a problematic representation of our state. It’s not a unifying symbol for everyone, and I wanted to create a flag that our Indigenous communities and tribal nations could see representation in as well.”

The modified design became the official flag of Minnesota in May. Even before then, though, the comparison to Somalia’s flag had been drawn.

On social media, state legislator Natalie Zeleznikar (R) compared Prekker’s original design to one from a particular region of Somalia. (It’s worth noting that the comparison depended on altering Prekker’s design significantly.) After the revised flag was adopted, the comparison drawn by critics — generally on the political right — was to Somalia’s national flag. It features a five-pointed star on a light-blue background.

In other words, the comparison depends on two elements that are omnipresent in flag designs: stars and the color blue.

After Walz was selected by Harris, the idea that the new flag was derived from Somalia’s gained new traction — as did the idea that somehow Walz was the person making the decision. (Again, the choice was made by the committee created under Freiberg’s legislation.) On X, owner Elon Musk offered his familiar “hmm, something to think about” emoji in response to a claim that the flag was related to Somalia’s.

The post to which he was responding was explicit in the reason for making the false claim: It’s an effort to cast Walz (and before his selection by Harris, the left in general) as anti-American, as beholden to immigrants from a country that is often presented as dangerous. (Somalia was one of the countries included in Donald Trump’s original travel ban.)

In the past, such nonsense would be relegated to the fringe of the political conversation and not elevated by prominent voices. But this is the present, in which false, pejorative claims are a form of currency on the right, particularly when targeting prominent politicians on the left. So the “Somali flag” claim gets new traction.

It’s also a reflection of a broader trend: taking an earnest, thoughtful community process aimed at rectifying a cultural (and vexillological) wrong and presenting it instead as nefarious and toxic. This case is exceptional only in how obviously and immediately divergent from reality that presentation is.

 

point of order: MN'a new flag is a powerpoint designed abomination

[chainsaw 10312]

1 minute ago, BehoId, The Underminer! said:

point of order: MN'a new flag is a powerpoint designed abomination

I think MN's flag looks fine