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

[numberthirty]

Just ran across this one one the local news...

It seems like the EPA testing might have misidentified the cancer causing agent or the level of that agent at Sterigenics that got Bruce Rauner into trouble during the election season. Depends on what you see/read.

No telling how this one works out.

https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/loca...501044891.html

Level of Cancer Chemicals Related to Sterigenics May be Incorrect, EPA Says

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Chief Justice Defends Judicial Independence After Trump Attacks ‘Obama Judge’

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. defended the independence and integrity of the federal judiciary on Wednesday, rebuking President Trump for calling a judge who had ruled against his administration’s asylum policy “an Obama judge.”

The chief justice said that was a profound misunderstanding of the judicial role.

“We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges,” he said in a statement. “What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them. That independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for.”

That blunt statement may represent a turning point in the relationship between the heads of two branches of the federal government, which until Wednesday had been characterized by slashing attacks from the president and studied restraint from the chief justice.

[Tazirai]

Foreign media outlets keep showing how to cover politics in the age of Trump. Will U.S. outlets learn their lesson?
Access journalism and softball interviews fail the American people. U.S.-based media need a reality check.

[Malvolio]

In case anyone forgot about this abominable decision by Trump:

Trump Says U.S. To Stand By Saudi Arabia Even If MBS Ordered Khashoggi Murder

“It could very well be” that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman “had knowledge of this tragic event,” the president said.

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Judge Blocks Mississippi’s ‘Unconstitutional’ Ban On Abortions After 15 Weeks

In a blistering opinion, Judge Carlton W. Reeves struck down one of the country’s most restrictive abortion laws. I'm sure evangelicals won't like that. GOOD!

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White Man Accused Of Pulling Gun On Muslim Teens At Minnesota McDonald’s

An employee at the Eden Prairie franchise ordered the group to leave despite being told a gunman was outside. More madness inspired by our Xenophobe-in-Chief.

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Donald Trump Says Troops At Border Are ‘Tough’ Enough To Miss Thanksgiving

President Trump has deployed thousands of troops to the U.S.-Mexico border to respond to caravans of migrants seeking asylum. What about the wives and children of those troops who's loved ones were forced to leave them to satisfy Trump's ego? What about them?

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Students Who Survived Parkland Shooting Receive International Peace Prize

Archbishop Desmond Tutu awarded the March for Our Lives organizers the 2018 International Children’s Peace Prize.

It's not about how "tough" the soldiers at the border are. They're always tough enough. That's why they're soldiers. It's about whether or not it's worth it. And it isn't.

[worstblogever]

Three years ago, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" ran a profile of Mark Souder, who was a big proponent of abstinence-only sex education, who just so happened to have been caught sleeping with the wife of a Republican County Commissioner. The same wife who he once went on a local Indiana talk show to promote... you guessed it, abstinence. Further adding to his hypocrisy is the fact that he was in office long enough to have voted for the impeachment of Bill Clinton for... lying about being unfaithful to his spouse. Souder's hypocrisy goes even deeper, when you also include the fact that he filed legal challenges to stop same sex marriages from taking place in Washington, D.C. to "protect the sanctity of marriage" when he wasn't even protecting the sanctity of his own. The fact that Souder was also a big ally of Rick Santorum, with both claiming they were victims of discrimination for believing in intelligent design and creationism while denying the science of evolution.


In 2015, 2016, as well as 2017, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” posted profiles of Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who in our first profile, we discussed his three terms as Texas Attorney General where he worked with Gov. Rick Perry, serving as one of the front line soldiers in the sorts of Fundamentalist conservative culture wars the state of Texas has fought against equality, and frankly, facts over the past decade and a half, including filing 27 separate lawsuits against the federal government in the first five years of the Obama presidency alone, once joking that his daily routine is "I go into the office in the morning. I sue Barack Obama, and then I go home.” The great majority of those legal challenges were obviously doomed to fail upon review by judges at some level, but that didn't stop Abbott from filing them anyway to prolong a constitutional battle at of partisan spite at a cost of millions of dollars to Texas taxpayers. No ridiculous legal statute passed in Texas is beneath him, including his obsessive quest to make sure that dildos cannot be sold in the Lone Star State, but fighting tooth and nail to make sure that firearms can be purchased without a background check. In 2007, The Washington Post reported Attorney General Abbott declined to pursue charges against employees of a Texas youth prison who were sexually abusing underage inmates after a Texas ranger had sent e-mails to him with evidence and asking him to put a stop to the abuses for TWO YEARS. Greg Abbott is a man who violated the tenets of our very democracy to suit partisan ends by gerrymandering in his own state, and then sued when the Department of Justice tried blocking the racist policy by arguing it wasn’t racist, by pointing out it was just wholly partisan based on party affiliation, writing, ”DOJ’s accusations of racial discrimination are baseless. In 2011, both houses of the Texas Legislature were controlled by large Republican majorities, and their redistricting decisions were designed to increase the Republican Party’s electoral prospects at the expense of the Democrats.” Prior to the 2012 elections, Abbott threatened to arrest poll watchers from Europe, who were monitoring the ethics of American elections, and claiming there were “closely affiliated with ACORN” which was amazing because ACORN ceased to exist three years prior to the election. In 2016, he sued the federal government (and lost) because he didn’t want Texas to resettle any refugees fleeing Syria, and threatened to sue any Christian organizations that would, y’know, follow the Bible and take in refugees like it preaches.

Greg Abbott is also an opponent of all kinds of immigration, be it legal or otherwise, fights back against equal pay for women, is a gay reparative therapy supporter, and a climate change denier who is beyond “hands off” with giants of industry, arguing that the government should not regulate chemical giants and that if citizens wanted to be aware of what chemical agents were being used by them, they should just “drive around and ask”, and the companies would simply acquiesce. Gov. Abbott is hyperpartisan enough that he has been quoted saying that “Democrats are a more dangerous threat than North Korea” and has thanked supporters for referring to his opponent in the 2014 elections, Wendy Davis, as “Retard Barbie”.

Perhaps the most egregious example of Greg Abbott being a paranoid lunatic, though, was over the summer of 2014, when several radical conspiracy theorists, the kind who are avid fans of Alex Jones and InfoWars, were frothing at the mouth in fear of routine military exercises known as Jade Helm 15 that they, as kooks are wont to do, imagined to be a government invasion coming to take their guns away, ship them off to work as slave labor in WalMarts (as if WalMart needed any help with that) and impose Sharia Law upon the imprisoned populace. Abbott actually sent the Texas State Guard to “monitor” the activities of the joint exercise between the Green Berets and Navy Seals, our own armed forces, just in case they really were going to swoop in when no one was looking and conquer poor Texas (which is still already a part of our country). Unbelievably, Gov. Abbott decided to waste taxpayer money to keep a watchful eye on American troops to make sure they didn’t come for us all in the night, rather than just dismiss an insane conspiracy theory, that he seemingly also fell for (or exploited). Fast forward a few weeks, though, and after Texas had a series of storms that left the state flooded, Greg Abbott’s mistrust of the federal government was gone when he started asking for relief aid funding to be sent to his state. Because apparently, he also has the memory of a goldfish.

Gov. Abbott won re-election in 2018, and he’s already hitting the fear-mongering hits by sending out fund-raising letters to drum up fears of an “immigration coup”. and warning about how gun control will just lead to Hitler, when people asked about maybe changing Texas gun laws after a lunatic murdered a couple dozen people in a Sutherland Springs church, which maybe shows you his priorities are a bit f***ed up.

It was only after another mass shooting at a high school in Santa Fe, Texas, that Abbott finally started to make noise about doing something about mass shootings in his state, but so far, that’s just empty rhetoric (especially ahead of an election). All that he really accomplished was postponing his campaign giving away a shotgun at a campaign rally. We are almost certain we’ll have more strange outbursts from Abbott now that he has a second term in office, and considers it a mandate on his general insanity for the next four years.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Scientists Slam Trump’s Clueless Climate Change Tweet: ‘He’s A Clown’

On the eve of what’s expected to be a cold Thanksgiving in the Northeast, the president asked: “Whatever happened to Global Warming?” To quote the esteemed Bugs Bunny, wotta maroon!

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Ivanka Trump’s 2009 Book Warning On Dangers Of Email Comes Back To Haunt Her

“People can be so incredibly slapdash with their electronic messages,” wrote Donald Trump’s daughter and senior adviser. And you would know, dear.

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5 Reasons Why Matthew Whitaker Isn’t Qualified To Be Acting Attorney General

He may have broken the law by receiving political donations, for one. My, my! What a fine, law abiding citizen.

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Rep. Tulsi Gabbard Brands Donald Trump As ‘Saudi Arabia’s Bitch’

The day before, the president brushed aside the Saudi crown prince’s alleged role in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. Sick burn! Meanwhile....

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Donald Trump Is An Accessory To Jamal Khashoggi’s Murder

Until Oct. 2, Jamal Khashoggi was a legal resident of the United States, a columnist for The Washington Post and a critic of human rights abuses by Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the mercurial 33-year-old known as MBS.

That day Khashoggi entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to obtain paperwork necessary for his forthcoming marriage. What happened next is reportedly recorded on an audiotape possessed by Turkish intelligence and shared with the U.S., which captures in horrific detail the utter contempt for human rights that Khashoggi decried.

Awaiting Khashoggi was a 15-man Saudi death squad studded with agents tied to the crown prince, including its leader, Maher Mutreb. The murder was neither random nor merciful: The killers severed Khashoggi’s fingers, cut off his head and dismembered his body with a bone saw. One of them, a doctor of forensics, advised listening to music on headphones to ease the stress of butchery. Thereafter, depending on the account, the murderers either gave the dismembered corpse to a “local cooperator” or dissolved it in acid before flushing it down a drain.

That MBS ordered this atrocity is beyond serious doubt. Since his accession, he has pushed to arrest, kidnap or otherwise forcibly repatriate dissenters living abroad.

Trump’s entire response to the murder has consisted of lying and dissembling to protect MBS. Tuesday’s statement once again feigned ignorance of the CIA’s finding that MBS ordered the assassination ― even though Trump has seen the evidence. Worse, he absolved MBS and his regime of any further consequences. Through these cynical and deliberate acts of dereliction, America’s president has become an accessory after the fact to Khashoggi’s murder.

In moral terms, Trump is telling MBS that he can flout human rights, undertake dangerous regional adventurism, repress dissent and murder those who displease him with impunity. But even as realpolitik, Trump’s complicity is feckless.

As usual, our presidential apprentice is bargaining against himself: The Saudis need our military hardware, the best in the world, and America is energy self-sufficient. An end to military assistance would ground the Saudi air force; the threatened oil boycott would wind up benefiting America and devastating the Saudi oil industry. Moreover, once King Salman dies, some within the Saudi royal family reportedly hope to replace MBS with a saner man, his uncle. Given all that, any competent president would figure out how to use our leverage to separate the interests of Saudi Arabia from those of Mohammed bin Salman.

As matters stand, Congress must take the lead. One obvious measure is to cut off support for the murderous Saudi campaign in Yemen ― a horror that bears America’s fingerprints ― and support a U.N. inquiry into war crimes by both sides. If America saves innocent lives by kneecapping Saudi brutality, Jamal Khashoggi will not have died for nothing.

[Tami]

Girl, 13, Who Wrote Essay on Gun Violence Is Killed by Stray Bullet

When she was in sixth grade, Sandra Parks wrote an award-winning essay about gun violence and crime in her hometown, Milwaukee.

This week, two years after she described how “we are in a state of chaos,” she was fatally shot when someone outside fired a gun at her home and a stray bullet went into her bedroom.

The shooting happened Monday as Sandra, 13, was watching television at the time, her sister, Tatiana Ingram, told the television station WISN.

“My sister took it like a soldier: She just walked in the room and said, ‘Mama, I’m shot,’” Ms. Ingram said. “She was only hit one time, in her chest. The bullet wasn’t even for her.”

Her essay, as posted on twitter

[Tami]

1. Back in 1990, a bunch of New York Times reporters - including me - who wrote about Trump were all discussing him. There was a debate - was it an act or was he nuts? This was not a political debate. He was only a bizness guy who was looney, and the question was whether this...

Twitter Thread

Some Thanksgiving reading.

[Tami]

Trump:
Down with the U.S. Justice System/Supreme Court
Up with MSB and the Saudi Government


and this in a speech (televised, since he'd never go there in person) to the troops.

[Tami]

Facebook policy chief admits hiring PR firm to attack George Soros

What is wrong with Facebook? Everything it seems.

[Jack Dracula]

Denmark’s government is introducing a new set of laws to regulate life in 25 low-income and heavily Muslim enclaves, saying that if families there do not willingly merge into the country’s mainstream, they should be compelled.

COPENHAGEN — When Rokhaia Naassan gives birth in the coming days, she and her baby boy will enter a new category in the eyes of Danish law. Because she lives in a low-income immigrant neighborhood described by the government as a “ghetto,” Rokhaia will be what the Danish newspapers call a “ghetto parent” and he will be a “ghetto child.”

Starting at the age of 1, “ghetto children” must be separated from their families for at least 25 hours a week, not including nap time, for mandatory instruction in “Danish values,” including the traditions of Christmas and Easter, and Danish language. Noncompliance could result in a stoppage of welfare payments. Other Danish citizens are free to choose whether to enroll children in preschool up to the age of six

.

Some proposals have been rejected as too radical, like one from the far-right Danish People’s Party that would confine “ghetto children” to their homes after 8 p.m. (Challenged on how this would be enforced, Martin Henriksen, the chairman of Parliament’s integration committee, suggested in earnest that young people in these areas could be fitted with electronic ankle bracelets.)

[InformationGeek]

It's Thanksgiving/Turkey Day! How about a tale of two presidents?


Over with Trump:

Trump was just asked, at Mar-a-Lago, what he’s thankful for. His answer was himself. “I’ve made a tremendous difference in this country.”

Over with Obama:

Former President Barack Obama surprises a Chicago food bank, volunteers and helps prepare Thanksgiving meal bags

[Malvolio]

Denmark’s government is introducing a new set of laws to regulate life in 25 low-income and heavily Muslim enclaves, saying that if families there do not willingly merge into the country’s mainstream, they should be compelled.

COPENHAGEN — When Rokhaia Naassan gives birth in the coming days, she and her baby boy will enter a new category in the eyes of Danish law. Because she lives in a low-income immigrant neighborhood described by the government as a “ghetto,” Rokhaia will be what the Danish newspapers call a “ghetto parent” and he will be a “ghetto child.”

.

Does the Danish government not remember the last time a European government defined the area that certain ethnic groups lived in as a "ghetto?"

[Starter Set]

Does the Danish government not remember the last time a European government defined the area that certain ethnic groups lived in as a "ghetto?"

It's a sad fact that human beings, for all their intellectual capacities, have a quite sad tendency to forget what shouldn't be forgotten.

[Iron Maiden]

Facebook policy chief admits hiring PR firm to attack George Soros

What is wrong with Facebook? Everything it seems.

I turned on the news this morning to see a live feed of Trump teleconferencing various military units across the globe. I could only take about 5 minutes because he drifted off into criticizing the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and reminding them how big the military spending has been. In other words, mostly talked about himself.