What is wrong with America

[hypochondriac]

In other news, I saw that Brigitte Macron is prepared to provide proof that she is a woman in her lawsuit against that odious piece of rubbish Candace Owens. Let's hope she rinses her for all she has.

[hypochondriac]

Just now, Farmer Saint said:

It's arguable, but honestly I don't think it's anywhere near enough to sack someone. It's not like saying something like, oh, I don't know, abortion is worse than the holocaust.

I don't think he should be sacked. It's likely though that with his contract ending soon, Disney probably didn't think it was worth the hassle given it's still arguable like I said. He's not valuable enough for them to bother with and he was silly to put himself in that position.

[spyinthesky]

3 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

In other news, I saw that Brigitte Macron is prepared to provide proof that she is a woman in her lawsuit against that odious piece of rubbish Candace Owens. Let's hope she rinses her for all she has.

Apparently quite a few MAGA supporters think Michelle Obama is a man.

I wonder who else is on the list?

[Farmer Saint]

4 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

I don't think he should be sacked. It's likely though that with his contract ending soon, Disney probably didn't think it was worth the hassle given it's still arguable like I said. He's not valuable enough for them to bother with and he was silly to put himself in that position.

I don't disagree with that.

It's a shame, I've watched him for years and years, and he is a great broadcaster, the "I'm f***ing Matt Damon" and "I'm f***ing Ben Affleck" stuff back in the day with then girlfriend Sarah Silverman was properly funny. He wasn't a fire-breathing lefty, he just thought Trump and his followers were morons, and there is no real argument there.

[LVSaint]

15 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

Who knows what the reason is. All we know is it's definitely not a freedom of speech issue.

It absolutely is. Jimmy Kimmel took the piss out of Trump on a daily basis. He got under Trump's incredibly thin skin all the time. Some punditry shows, like Bill Maher for example have noticeably toned it down in recent months with their criticism of the president. Maher, not long ago had dinner with Trump at the White House. Which is fine, but.....you know. The Kimmel incident will potentially set a president on what can or can not be said and others may or may not follow the narrative. (John Oliver's fucked then)

[Farmer Saint]

2 minutes ago, LVSaint said:

It absolutely is. Jimmy Kimmel took the piss out of Trump on a daily basis. He got under Trump's incredibly thin skin all the time. Some punditry shows, like Bill Maher for example have noticeably toned it down in recent months with their criticism of the president. Maher, not long ago had dinner with Trump at the White House. Which is fine, but.....you know. The Kimmel incident will potentially set a president on what can or can not be said and others may or may not follow the narrative. (John Oliver's fucked then)

I want to see Jon Stewart's reaction as well.

Bill Maher is a sell-out dick sucker.

[hypochondriac]

13 minutes ago, LVSaint said:

It absolutely is. Jimmy Kimmel took the piss out of Trump on a daily basis. He got under Trump's incredibly thin skin all the time. Some punditry shows, like Bill Maher for example have noticeably toned it down in recent months with their criticism of the president. Maher, not long ago had dinner with Trump at the White House. Which is fine, but.....you know. The Kimmel incident will potentially set a president on what can or can not be said and others may or may not follow the narrative. (John Oliver's fucked then)

Explain how any of that impinges on free speech ?

[whelk]

11 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

Explain how any of that impinges on free speech ?

You aren’t that stupid

[hypochondriac]

1 minute ago, whelk said:

You aren’t that stupid

Indulge me. Do the FCC rob American citizens of their first amendment rights?

[whelk]

9 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

Indulge me. Do the FCC rob American citizens of their first amendment rights?

If you’re too dense to see any connection, I’m afraid I am not going to explain it to you. 

[egg]

Kimmel says something contrary to the narrative. Threat then made, essentially, to pull ABC license unless he's dealt with. He's then taken off air. Of course it's a freedom of speech issue. 

[hypochondriac]

2 minutes ago, egg said:

Kimmel says something contrary to the narrative. Threat then made, essentially, to pull ABC license unless he's dealt with. He's then taken off air. Of course it's a freedom of speech issue. 

The FCC can take you off air for a host of different reasons. If Ofcom uphold complaints from someone on GB news and they are removed from air as a result, in what way are they prevented from speaking ?

[hypochondriac]

If Kimmel were put in jail to prevent what he's saying then I'd wholeheartedly agree his free speech is in jeopardy. He's free to tweet exactly what he said on telly now if he wanted. He could put it on YouTube and probably get multiple millions of eyeballs on him immediately.

Edited Thursday at 19:13 by hypochondriac

[egg]

Just now, hypochondriac said:

If Kimmel were put in jail to prevent what he's saying then I'd wholeheartedly agree his free speech is in jeopardy. He's free to tweet exactly what he said on telly now if he wanted. He could putnitnon YouTube and probably get multiple millions of eyeballs on him immediately.

Jeez. You don't get this do you. 

[hypochondriac]

2 minutes ago, egg said:

Jeez. You don't get this do you. 

It doesn't threaten his free speech. It's not completely the same but Lawrence Fox was kicked off GB news as a contributor because he made a crass comment about not shagging someone. That wasn't a free speech issue either.

[LVSaint]

5 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

The FCC can take you off air for a host of different reasons. If Ofcom uphold complaints from someone on GB news and they are removed from air as a result, in what way are they prevented from speaking ?

I thought you'd alluded to it earlier in the thread though?

Nexstar are about to do a mega deal merger with another company which needs Trump's...sorry, FCC's authoritarian, sorry, authorisation to complete. Nexstar own lots of local tv channels that air networks, like ABC. That's the way it's done here. FCC says you can merge, however, Kimmel's got to go, have a word with ABC will ya? FCC chief Carr, in effect had already said that a few days ago.

[hypochondriac]

5 minutes ago, LVSaint said:

I thought you'd alluded to it earlier in the thread though?

Nexstar are about to do a mega deal merger with another company which needs Trump's...sorry, FCC's authoritarian, sorry, authorisation to complete. Nexstar own lots of local tv channels that air networks, like ABC. That's the way it's done here. FCC says you can merge, however, Kimmel's got to go, have a word with ABC will ya? FCC chief Carr, in effect had already said that a few days ago.

I don't disagree. It's quite possible there were elements of this involved. I don't think that's a good thing and I don't support him being kicked off. Even if there are dirty dealings to get him off air, he's not been prevented from speaking has he. He still has freedom to say what he likes, just not on ABC.

[badgerx16]

57 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

I don't disagree. It's quite possible there were elements of this involved. I don't think that's a good thing and I don't support him being kicked off. Even if there are dirty dealings to get him off air, he's not been prevented from speaking has he. He still has freedom to say what he likes, just not on ABC.

And amy platform he puts it on will immediately ban him because.....Trump.

[Holmes_and_Watson]

1 minute ago, badgerx16 said:

And amy platform he puts it on will immediately ban him because.....Trump.

Before a black van picks him up for another beating, he can stand in rags on any street corner and say what he likes. So really nothing impinging his free speech.

[egg]

2 minutes ago, badgerx16 said:

And amy platform he puts it on will immediately ban him because.....Trump.

Indeed. 

The point still being missed is that pushing for the booting of someone prominent, after threats to the broadcaster, is as obvious an attempt to restrict speech via that platform (and clip the wings of that platform) as you could see.

That other platforms are available, doesn't alter the intent to restrict the platform and control the narrative. 

[hypochondriac]

42 minutes ago, egg said:

Indeed. 

The point still being missed is that pushing for the booting of someone prominent, after threats to the broadcaster, is as obvious an attempt to restrict speech via that platform (and clip the wings of that platform) as you could see.

That other platforms are available, doesn't alter the intent to restrict the platform and control the narrative. 

So banning Trump on twitter was an infringement of his free speech rights ?

[whelk]

2 hours ago, hypochondriac said:

If Kimmel were put in jail to prevent what he's saying then I'd wholeheartedly agree his free speech is in jeopardy. He's free to tweet exactly what he said on telly now if he wanted. He could put it on YouTube and probably get multiple millions of eyeballs on him immediately.

Fucking hell you need to get some balance to whatever feeds that come your way. 

[whelk]

2 hours ago, egg said:

Jeez. You don't get this do you. 

No, he absolutely doesn’t because he is partisan and you can predict every time where his view will lie

[hypochondriac]

5 minutes ago, whelk said:

Fucking hell you need to get some balance to whatever feeds that come your way. 

How many times? I don't think he should have been kicked off ABC. I don't think someone should use dodgy dealings to get someone booted off a TV network. I don't believe that someone doing that- even though I disagree with it- is a removal of someone's right to speech. It's a removal of his ability to speak on ABC which isn't the same thing.

Edited Thursday at 21:27 by hypochondriac

[hypochondriac]

1 minute ago, whelk said:

No, he absolutely doesn’t because he is partisan and you can predict every time where his view will lie

Sad. I thought you could see the nuance.

[whelk]

1 minute ago, hypochondriac said:

Sad. I thought you could see the nuance.

I can see your style and in many ways respect it. Never too committal and give some balance and measure but it is nearly always clear where your sympathy lies. There are so many sinister moves by this Trump administration.

what do you think of this? I will admit - very much Democrats sympathisers https://vm.tiktok.com/ZNdpYbSuw/

[hypochondriac]

47 minutes ago, whelk said:

I can see your style and in many ways respect it. Never too committal and give some balance and measure but it is nearly always clear where your sympathy lies. There are so many sinister moves by this Trump administration.

what do you think of this? I will admit - very much Democrats sympathisers https://vm.tiktok.com/ZNdpYbSuw/

I just prefer to save cries of free speech loss when it's actually someone losing their freedom of speech and not just being booted off a TV network even if it is in a potentially underhanded manner. That's a more interesting discussion for me than just pages and pages of how evil Trump is.

I consider Trump to be a largely clownish cartoony figure but in my opinion the major reason he was elected was due to the problems with the opposition. It really should not have been difficult to keep him out after the last time but amazingly they managed to fuck it up so much of this is on them and a bit of introspection from the Democrats would be a welcome thing if they want to get in next time.

Unfortunately I don't have tiktok on my phone so it doesn't open. I listen to a lot of those types of podcasts fairly regularly even though I disagree often with a lot of the presentere because I think it's healthy to listen to what people you disagree with are saying. It's one reason for hanging out in the lounge on here. I disagree with you all the time but you often make decent points that I can appreciate. 

[Gloucester Saint]

I know America doesn’t have leaders of the opposition in the same way most of the European Parliaments do but where are the Democrats?

Unless something is happening to their individual state from Trump eg Californian wildfire arguments e.g. Gavin Newsom hits back nicely, they just aren’t coherent or cohesive against a really unpleasant and dangerous authoritarian government. Sanders is the most public and he’s now an independent. 

[egg]

Donny definitely not trying to restrict free speech via MSM. Definitely not. Nope. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cr4qe0rz2zvo

 

[sadoldgit]

16 minutes ago, egg said:

Donny definitely not trying to restrict free speech via MSM. Definitely not. Nope. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cr4qe0rz2zvo

 

It’s almost as if Trump was going through Dictatorship For Dummies chapter by chapter. No doubt his supporters and apologists will be telling us it is for the good of the US and that it is all above board. Trump is protecting Free Speech and America’s right to say absolutely anything they like as long as it meets Trump’s approval and is complimentary towards him.

I expect Starmer is breathing a sigh of relief that the Orange dummy managed to get through the visit without doing too much damage, but again, he used the state visit to feed his own vanity. Despite the massive amount of attention and sucking up, he still couldn’t resist using the presser to blow smoke up his own arse and slag off Biden. How he gets away with telling blatant lies God only knows. Zero illegal immigration in his watch? Where did that come from? The best I can find is a reduction of 10% which still means that it is 90% above zero (not that Trump understands percentages). 
Apparantly on the flight back he mentioned that he asked for Sadiq Khan not to attend the banquet and that Khan had wanted to be there. No he didn’t. We have become so used to his perpetual lying that it has become the norm now. We are all living in Trump’s reality. The scary thing is the number of people who buy into it and support the loony. Still, as many people say to me, we learn nothing from history. He is building a big beautiful society like no one has seen before. He is the best President ever, so people say. I’ve been told that he can walk on water and turn water into wine. Many people say that.

The bloke is beyond parody and if the consequences weren’t so tragic for all of us, Trump would be the biggest joke of the century. It’s frightening that one man can cause so much damage to a country’s standing in the so called free world. If we are not careful we could go the same way as the US in the next few years.

[Farmer Saint]

 

 

 

Edited Friday at 07:43 by Farmer Saint

[badgerx16]

I bet the Albanians are delighted that Donnie managed to bring an end to their terrible war with Azerbaijan.

[east-stand-nic]

Where was the uproar when trump and many others right of centre, were banned from social media platforms? How many TV people were cancelled under the left loons of Biden and Co. God, the hypocrisy here is just amazing. 

[egg]

20 minutes ago, east-stand-nic said:

Where was the uproar when trump and many others right of centre, were banned from social media platforms? How many TV people were cancelled under the left loons of Biden and Co. God, the hypocrisy here is just amazing. 

Genuine question, how many? Who? 

Regardless, you cannot address every issue by seeking to find an equivalence.

What else may have happened previously, doesn't alter the fact that what's happening is wrong.

[badgerx16]

29 minutes ago, east-stand-nic said:

Where was the uproar when trump and many others right of centre, were banned from social media platforms? How many TV people were cancelled under the left loons of Biden and Co. God, the hypocrisy here is just amazing. 

If it upsets you so much you could just go away and never read the thread. 

It's all a question of "free speech".

Edited Friday at 08:29 by badgerx16

[badgerx16]

 ‘Should the government censor speech it doesn’t like? Of course not. The FCC does not have a roving mandate to police speech in the name of the ‘public interest’.’

 'A newsroom’s decision about what stories to cover and how to frame them should be beyond the reach of any government official.'

‘...political satire is one of the oldest and most important forms of free speech. It challenges those in power while using humor to draw more people into the discussion. That’s why people in influential positions have always targeted it for censorship.’

 '...free speech is the counterweight – it is the check on government control. That is why censorship is the authoritarian's dream.’

 

Brendan Carr, prior to being appointed as FCC Chairman by Donald Trump.

[benjii]

13 hours ago, whelk said:

You aren’t that stupid

We can't be sure.

[benjii]

3 hours ago, Gloucester Saint said:

I know America doesn’t have leaders of the opposition in the same way most of the European Parliaments do but where are the Democrats?

Unless something is happening to their individual state from Trump eg Californian wildfire arguments e.g. Gavin Newsom hits back nicely, they just aren’t coherent or cohesive against a really unpleasant and dangerous authoritarian government. Sanders is the most public and he’s now an independent. 

Yeah, it's a strange system.

Where is Congress? Half of what Don does is unlawful but the system/mechanics are not stopping it.

Shows how fragile democracy can be.

[JohnnyShearer2.0]

1 hour ago, east-stand-nic said:

Where was the uproar when trump and many others right of centre, were banned from social media platforms? How many TV people were cancelled under the left loons of Biden and Co. God, the hypocrisy here is just 

Who is doing the uproaring?

I'm pretty certain the bans were in line with the then social media platforms rules and guidelines. So what's the issue?

Can you list which people were banned on tv? 

[Farmer Saint]

1 hour ago, east-stand-nic said:

Where was the uproar when trump and many others right of centre, were banned from social media platforms? How many TV people were cancelled under the left loons of Biden and Co. God, the hypocrisy here is just amazing. 

Who?

[tdmickey3]

1 hour ago, east-stand-nic said:

Where was the uproar when trump and many others right of centre, were banned from social media platforms? How many TV people were cancelled under the left loons of Biden and Co. God, the hypocrisy here is just amazing. 

Clueless as always 

[swannymere]

On 18/09/2025 at 08:36, hypochondriac said:

Batman's point was that you can get arrested and harassed by the police for tweets. It's a fair bit more than simply irritating. People have a right to express themselves however they like online as long as it's not direct incitement or similar. Let's ignore the Lucy connolly case and look at the many lesser examples of police visiting houses because someone has complained about a tweet that has upset them.

I'm not a fan of over zealous policing, but i don't think the police would visit someone over a singular tweet unless it is inciting violence; there's usually a whole lot of other things going on. 

[hypochondriac]

16 minutes ago, swannymere said:

I'm not a fan of over zealous policing, but i don't think the police would visit someone over a singular tweet unless it is inciting violence; there's usually a whole lot of other things going on. 

O rly? Although this appears to be more than one post- I did say tweet not tweets although there are other examples of police visits for just the one post-  it certainly doesn't seem like this policeman had better things to do with his time than try to get an apology from someone who he didn't arrest. You can 100% disagree with everything this lady says by the way and still find this sort of thing objectionable. This follows hot on the heels of four police feeling it necessary to arrest Graham Lonehan as he stepped off a plane for two tweets that even the government suggested was an overreaction 

 

Edited Friday at 10:33 by hypochondriac

[AlexLaw76]

https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/police-totalitarian-attack-free-speech-apology-5HjdDDC_2/

At least it was not 5 armed officers. 

 

There appears to be a need to slow the police down from 'visiting' you over tweets

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/police-mark-rowley-tweets-social-media-arrests-farage-b2822248.html

Edited Friday at 10:45 by AlexLaw76

[hypochondriac]

Also the case of Harry Miller of course who in 2019 tweeted a trans joke and was visited by,the police in order to check his thinking. This was challenged in court with the judge finding that the police had acted disproportionately. Kate Scottow arrested for social media posts the same year with the court of appeal ruling that the prosecution had been unlawful. Darren Brady for putting up a swastika made of pride flags online was arrested for causing anxiety with the charges eventually being dropped. A teen in 2020 who posted rap lyrics including the N word in tribute to a friend who died was visited by the police who recorded it as a non crime hate incident. There are of course many more examples but the point is simply untrue that police don't visit people for a tweet or tweets unless they incite violence. There's loads of examples I'm afraid. I wish they didn't!

[hypochondriac]

10 minutes ago, AlexLaw76 said:

https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/police-totalitarian-attack-free-speech-apology-5HjdDDC_2/

At least it was not 5 armed officers. 

 

There appears to be a need to slow the police down from 'visiting' you over tweets

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/police-mark-rowley-tweets-social-media-arrests-farage-b2822248.html

If it wasn't happening the.there wouldn't be a desire from the police to clarify the law. It's obviously happening as there are loads of examples, many of them filmed.

[Farmer Saint]

1 hour ago, hypochondriac said:

Also the case of Harry Miller of course who in 2019 tweeted a trans joke and was visited by,the police in order to check his thinking. This was challenged in court with the judge finding that the police had acted disproportionately. Kate Scottow arrested for social media posts the same year with the court of appeal ruling that the prosecution had been unlawful. Darren Brady for putting up a swastika made of pride flags online was arrested for causing anxiety with the charges eventually being dropped. A teen in 2020 who posted rap lyrics including the N word in tribute to a friend who died was visited by the police who recorded it as a non crime hate incident. There are of course many more examples but the point is simply untrue that police don't visit people for a tweet or tweets unless they incite violence. There's loads of examples I'm afraid. I wish they didn't!

Is it not to investigate potential hate crime incidents though?

[hypochondriac]

2 minutes ago, Farmer Saint said:

Is it not to investigate potential hate crime incidents though?

What evidence was there for hate crime? The courts established that there were no hate crimes in most of those cases or they were dropped before they got to court. Some of the judgements were highly critical of the police for their overreactions and wasting time. Spme in charge of the police believe there is too much wasted time spent policing tweets which involves visiting people's homes to check their thinking. The claim made by @swannymere was that police had not visited people for tweets or a singular tweet. That's not true they have visited. The latest case, he hadn't visited to check for evidence of hate crimes (something that would have been ludicrous and a complete waste of time given they should have more important things to do), he went seeking an apology. Since when is that good use of police time?

Edited Friday at 11:59 by hypochondriac

[Farmer Saint]

5 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

What evidence was there for hate crime? The courts established that there were no hate crimes in any of those cases. The claim made by @swannymere was that police had not visited people for tweets or a singular tweet. That's not true they have visited. The latest case, he hadn't visited to check for evidence of hate crimes (something that would have been ludicrous and a complete waste of time given they should have more important things to do), he went seeking an apology. Since when is that good use of police time?

Eh? A swastika made of pride flags? Transphobic tweets? You're flying quite close to the sun there. Not every visit from a police officer (a) ends in arrest (b) ends up with the person being charged (c) ends up with a conviction.

I'm not really sure what you're arguing here - that potential crimes shouldn't be investigated? Or you don't think potential hate crimes should be investigated?

Edited Friday at 12:04 by Farmer Saint

[hypochondriac]

7 minutes ago, Farmer Saint said:

Eh? A swastika made of pride flags? Transphobic tweets? You're flying quite close to the sun there. Not every visit from a police officer (a) ends in arrest (b) ends up with the person being charged (c) ends up with a conviction.

I'm not really sure what you're arguing here - that potential crimes shouldn't be investigated?

I think it's quite clear what I was arguing because I wrote it in the post. It is not the job of the police to intimidate people by visiting their homes and seek apologies or check the thinking of individuals for non criminal tweets. I am also challenging the post from earlier who said that police don't visit people for a tweet because they do. After the linehan debacle it seems that those.i charge agree. Oh and lol at transphobic tweets .

Edited Friday at 12:10 by hypochondriac