All-purpose news and politics thread: Two Steps Beyond!(Part II)

[Kirby101]

So whens everyone reckoning Trump will go ?

January 2021.

[PwrdOn]

So whens everyone reckoning Trump will go ?

There's no real sense in impeaching Trump unless the rest of the GOP leadership gets implicated in the fallout and need to resign in disgrace as well. We don't want a situation where they can just point at him as being some kind of lone instigator and continue on with their terrible policies as if nothing had happened. At the very least, we need some pretext for yanking Gorsuch and Kavanaugh off of the Supreme Court, or else the GOP will still win out in the long run.

[Mister Mets]

Kirsten Gilbrand, as one person on Twitter commented, will find that Al Franken is her 'Albatross'. I don't think the public or the media is going to let her forget it.

Her explanation of why she helped push out Franken was excellent.



I'm curious if there's any part of the statement you disagree with.

There is a different issue that someone who has ever been a political opportunist (IE- someone who had a different voting record as an upstate New York congresswoman than as a New York Senator planning to run for President at some point) is going to have their motives heavily scrutinized.

[worstblogever]

The mother of the kid from Kentucky who bailed from the March of Life so he could go harass the Native American Vietnam veteran in DC yesterday decided to defend her son...

You see, she says it's not her son's fault, it's the "Black Muslims" fault.

Well, clearly no one in a MAGA hat was motivated by bigotry, eh?

[WestPhillyPunisher]

As a black man, this is offensive in more ways than I can possibly describe:

Pence Likens Trump and His Offer to End Shutdown to Martin Luther King

[Mister Mets]

The mother of the kid from Kentucky who bailed from the March of Life so he could go harass the Native American Vietnam veteran in DC yesterday decided to defend her son...

You see, she says it's not her son's fault, it's the "Black Muslims" fault.

Well, clearly no one in a MAGA hat was motivated by bigotry, eh?

It does seem the media got the story wrong.

Robby Soave of Reason looks through the material, and links to what is available.

Partial video footage of students from a Catholic high school allegedly harassing a Native American veteran after the anti-abortion March for Life rally in Washington, D.C., over the weekend quickly went viral, provoking widespread condemnation of the kids on social media. Various media figures and Twitter users called for them to be doxed, shamed, or otherwise punished, and school administrators said they would consider expulsion.

But the rest of the video—nearly two hours of additional footage showing what happened before and after the encounter—adds important context that strongly contradicts the media's narrative.

Far from engaging in racially motivated harassment, the group of mostly white, MAGA-hat-wearing male teenagers remained relatively calm and restrained despite being subjected to incessant racist, homophobic, and bigoted verbal abuse by members of the bizarre religious sect Black Hebrew Israelites, who were lurking nearby. The BHI has existed since the late 19th century, and is best describes as a black nationalist cult movement; its members believe they are descendants of the ancient Israelites, and often express condemnation of white people, Christians, and gays. DC-area Black Hebrews are known to spout particularly vile bigotry.

Phillips put himself between the teens and the black nationalists, chanting and drumming as he marched straight into the middle of the group of young people. What followed was several minutes of confusion: The teens couldn't quite decide whether Phillips was on their side or not, but tentatively joined in his chanting. It's not at all clear this was intended as an act of mockery rather than solidarity.

One student did not get out of Phillips way as he marched, and gave the man a hard stare and a smile that many have described as creepy. This moment received the most media coverage: The teen has been called the product of a "hate factory" and likened to a school shooter, segregation-era racist, and member of the Ku Klux Klan. I have no idea what he was thinking, but portraying this as an example of obvious, racially-motivated hate is a stretch. Maybe he simply had no idea why this man was drumming in his face, and couldn't quite figure out the best response? It bears repeating that Phillips approached him, not the other way around.

And that's all there is to it. Phillips walked away after several minutes, the Black Hebrew Israelites continued to insult the crowd, and nothing else happened.

You can judge for yourself. Here is video footage of the full incident, from the perspective of the black nationalists. Phillips enters the picture around the 1:12 mark, but if you skip to that part, you miss an hour of the Black Hebrew Israelites hurling obscenities at the students. They call them crackers, faggots, and pedophiles. At the 1:20 mark (which comes after the Phillips incident) they call one of the few black students the n-word and tell him that his friends are going to murder him and steal his organs. At the 1:25 mark, they complain that "you give faggots rights," which prompted booing from the students. Throughout the video they threaten the kids with violence, and attempt to goad them into attacking first. The students resisted these taunts admirably: They laughed at the hecklers, and they perform a few of their school's sports cheers.

It was at this moment that Phillips, who had attended a nearby peace protest led by indigenous peoples, decided to intervene. He would later tell The Detroit Free Press that the teenagers "were in the process of attacking these four black individuals" and he decided to attempt to de-escalate the situation. He seems profoundly mistaken: The video footage taken by the black nationalists shows no evidence the white teenagers had any intention of attacking. Nevertheless, Phillips characterized the kids as "beasts" and the hate-group members as "their prey":

"There was that moment when I realized I've put myself between beast and prey," Phillips said. "These young men were beastly and these old black individuals was their prey, and I stood in between them and so they needed their pounds of flesh and they were looking at me for that."

Again, all the evidence suggests that Phillips got it backward.

He also claimed that he heard chants of "build the wall." While I cannot rule out the possibility that some of the kids indeed chanted this—those who were wearing MAGA hats are presumably Trump supporters—I did not hear a single utterance of the phrase in the nearly two hours of video footage I watched. Admittedly, the kids do a lot of chanting and it's not always possible to tell what they are saying. Their stated explanation is that they engaged in a series of school sports chants: That's what one student told a local news reporter. His account largely tracks with the video.

"We are an all-male school that loves to get hyped up," said this student. "And as we have done for years prior, we decided to do some cheers to pass time. In the midst of our cheers, we were approached by a group of adults led by Nathan Phillips, with Phillips beating his drum. They forced their way to the center of our group. We initially thought this was a cultural display since he was beating along to our cheers and so we clapped to the beat." According to this student, the smiling student was grinning because he was enjoying the music, but eventually became confused, along with everyone else. (Indeed, multiple people can be heard to shout, "what is going on?")

It would be impossible to definitively state that none of the young men did anything wrong, offensive, or problematic, at some point, and maybe the smiling student was attempting to intimidate Phillips. But there's shockingly little evidence of wrongdoing, unless donning a Trump hat and standing in a group of other people doing the same is now an act of harassment or violence. Phillips' account, meanwhile, is at best flawed, and arguably deliberately misleading.

Unless other information emerges, the school's best move would be to have a conversation with the boys about the incident, perhaps discuss some strategies for remaining on perfect behavior at highly charged political rallies—where everybody is recording everything on a cell phone—and let that be the end of it.

The boys are undoubtedly owed an apology from the numerous people who joined this social media pile-on. This is shaping up to be one of the biggest major media misfires in quite some time.

Rep. Massie of Kentucky posted about it. I learned about Massie's response through Jake Tapper on twitter.

I was uncomfortable when I saw the video & description that first went viral, so I understand the initial reactions to the CovCath video. I chose to wait for more facts before responding because the narrative did not match what I know to be the character of these students.

The honorable and tolerant students of Covington Catholic School came to DC to advocate for the unborn and to learn about our nation’s Capitol. What they got was a brutal lesson in the unjust court of public opinion and social media mobs.

I’ve now watched over an hour of other videos from 4 different cameras of the incident in front of the Lincoln Memorial. I urge everyone to watch the other videos before passing judgement. Would you have remained that composed at that age under those circumstances?

In the face of racist and homosexual slurs, the young boys refused to reciprocate or disrespect anyone. Even when taunted by homophobic bigots, which was obviously bewildering to them, they insulted no one.

In the context of everything that was going on (which the media hasn’t shown) the parents and mentors of these boys should be proud, not ashamed, of their kids’ behavior. It is my honor to represent them.

CNN had a spotlight on the controversy, including the arguments with the Black Hebrew Israelites, who taunted them about incest babies, and yelled about how they worship blaphemy. That's when Phillips came in to (successfully) defuse the situation.

https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2019/0...p-news-videos/

[Tazirai]

context--------

Cult of Dusty
28 minutes ago
So in my video I ended up leaving out that some of the MagaHat kids were doing Tomahawk-Chops at the Native American man and many have said this is a clear sign of mocking. It absolutely might be. To play devil advocate though, the kids themselves had just finished their own school's battle-cry and in interviews they said that they thought the Indian gentleman was coming over to play his drums in support of them.Obviously, the first thing that comes to kids minds when they hear an Indian playing a drum is the Tomahawk Chop warcry from the Florida State University Seminoles, Atlanta Braves baseball team, and the Kansas City Chiefs. Its very possible in that situation they are just doing it out of reflex and not in an attempt to mock.
Either way, its definitely cringy /culturally insensitive and is fine to call out. Destroying their lives over it though seems a bit much.

Nathan Phillips Says He Was Playing Peacemaker When MAGA Students Taunted Him
“There was that moment when I realized I’ve put myself between beast and prey,” Phillips says

The incident appeared to begin when a small group of Black Hebrews were making anti-Trump remarks on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. The Covington students, many wearing “Make America Great Again” memorabilia, crowded around the group and started yelling at them. Although it’s tough to make out what the students were saying in the video, it’s clear they are taunting the Hebrews.

[Tazirai]

Why People Deny Science
A new study further shows that people are inconsistent in how they justify their beliefs.

Further, people find many ways to deny the science, either a specific scientific conclusion, or science itself. We hear these various excuses all the time – there are “other” ways of knowing, we don’t need science to know what works, I am the evidence, etc. Sometimes people respect science, but just get it wrong. They might misunderstand the placebo effect, overestimate the significance of studies, not understand the nature of p-hacking, or fail to realize the potential for self deception in less-than-rigorous studies.

Then there are those who will dismiss entire swathes of science out of hand. This is commonly done through an appeal to conspiracy theories, such as references to “Big Pharma”, or the notion that doctors lie to make money, that the system is broken and cannot be trusted, or even that science itself is broken.

Why we should stop labelling people climate change deniers
December 3, 2018 5.06pm EST

For many, climate facts are not convincing nor do they speak for themselves. And because people are not necessarily swayed by climate change facts but rather the communicator of facts, the nature of communication, their personal affiliations and networks, and their personal experience, labelling someone who is confused about climate change as a denier does not advance us to a world of collective effort to confront climate change.

We are not doing a good job of communicating climate change. Maybe we can do a better job if we recognize that people are not just passive receivers of climate change facts, but actors with their own history and knowledge in place and interpretations of how climate change fits into their own stories.

‘Just a lot of alarmism’: Trump’s skepticism of climate science is echoed across GOP

Sen.-elect Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee said falsely in the lead-up to her campaign that the Earth has started to cool, and argued inaccurately that scientists have not reached a consensus on climate change.

In Florida, which has been pummeled by hurricanes, Sen.-elect Rick Scott has acknowledged rising and warmer seas could be harmful to his state but won’t attribute it to human activity.

And Sen. John Neely Kennedy, who is expected to announce Monday whether he will run for Louisiana governor, told reporters last week that while the Earth may be getting hotter, “I’ve seen many persuasive arguments that it’s just a continuation of the warming up from the Little Ice Age.”

As President Trump’s rejection of climate science isolates the United States on the world stage, illustrated by the small U.S. delegation dispatched to this week’s United Nations climate summit in Poland, he has also presided over a transformation in the Republican Party — placing climate change skepticism squarely in the GOP’s ideological mainstream.

[aja_christopher]

It would be impossible to definitively state that none of the young men did anything wrong, offensive, or problematic, at some point, and maybe the smiling student was attempting to intimidate Phillips.

And maybe many of the people wearing the MAGA hats are simply following in the racist footsteps of the man they support -- Donald Trump.

But "plausible deniability" and all of that -- after all, it worked for for Steve King for years until he finally made it too obvious for even Republicans.

[worstblogever]

And on the Covington incident... yet again I;m seeing Republicans demonstrate how their party has been conditioned to reflexively defend what is clearly racism and not trust our lying eyes.

It's no wonder how the GOP is becoming a white nationalist party.

[aja_christopher]

And the only Republican on this forum again shows how his party has been conditioned to reflexively defend what is clearly racism and not trust our lying eyes.

It's no wonder how the GOP is becoming a white nationalist party.

It's the black Muslim Obama's fault.

------
"Hate crimes up for third year in a row: FBI"

"Hate crimes increased in the U.S. for the third year in a row in 2017, rising 17 percent from the previous year, according to an FBI report released Tuesday.

Law enforcement officials reported 7,175 hate crime incidents last year, up from 6,121 in 2016, with more incidents motivated by racial, ethnic or religious bias than in previous years.

Last year saw the largest single-year increase in hate crimes since 2001, according to the FBI, when a terrorist attack on U.S. soil resulted in a significant spike in anti-Muslim crimes.

Racial and ethnic bias continued to be the largest motivators for hate crimes in the U.S., driving 59.5 percent of the total hate crimes reported. More than 2,000 anti-black hate crimes were reported in 2017, nearly half of all crimes motivated by racial or ethnic hatred.

There was also a nearly 23 percent increase in religion-based hate crimes in 2017, with a 37 percent increase in anti-Semitic hate crimes, according to the FBI.

Attacks against Jewish people accounted for 58.1 percent of crimes motivated by anti-religious bias last year, a 4-percent increase from 2016, while anti-Muslim crimes were down.

Anti-Muslim offenses accounted for 24.8 percent of anti-religious hate crimes in 2016 compared with 18.7 percent in 2017. Anti-Islamic crimes continue to remain at historic levels, and anti-Arab hate crimes doubled to 102 incidents..."

https://thehill.com/policy/national-...-year-in-a-row

[ed2962]

On a lighter note, Cardi B and Tomi Lahren are having a twitter fued over the Shutdown. Cardi to Tomi, "Leave me alone or I will dog walk you."

https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/20/enter...eud/index.html

[Tendrin]

I also saw Tomi getting referred to as 'Food Court Barbie'.

[Mister Mets]

And maybe many of the people wearing the MAGA hats are simply following in the racist footsteps of the man they support -- Donald Trump.

But "plausible deniability" and all of that -- after all, it worked for for Steve King for years until he finally made it too obvious for even Republicans.

But we shouldn't make high school students into a national story on a maybe. There should be no doubt about it.

And the only Republican on this forum again shows how his party has been conditioned to reflexively defend what is clearly racism and not trust our lying eyes.

It's no wonder how the GOP is becoming a white nationalist party.

What specifically have I said that you disagree with?

[WestPhillyPunisher]

But we shouldn't make high school students into a national story on a maybe. There should be no doubt about it.

Sorry, but those snot nosed punks made themselves the story by wearing those goddamn MAGA hats, I don’t give a **** if they’re high schoolers, they’re old enough know better. They’ve earned every bit of scorn they’ve gotten, and more.