All purpose news and politics thread part v: The quickening

[worstblogever]

There's another clip of just Ben himself saying something to the effect of Trump is barely smart enuff to eat a hamburger.

You mean HAMBERDER.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2014, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" ran a profile of Glen Urquhart, who ran for the “at-large” seat in the U.S. House of Representatives for Delaware in 2010. Urquhart famously claimed during that election year that Adolf Hitler was the first person to advocate for a separation of church and state, and not Founding Father Thomas Jefferson, and further bastardized our third president by claiming his statements on “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” confirmed his opposition to abortion. Urquhart has not run for any office since losing the GOP Primary for a seat in the Delaware State Senate.

It was in both 2015, and in 2016, that “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day posted profiles of Sheryl Nuxoll, who in December of 2012, hatched a plan to steal the election by having 17 or more states that voted for Mitt Romney boycott the Electoral College to prevent them from having a quorum and re-electing Obama. There was just one problem… her plan was bogus because it hinged on an incorrect interpretation of the 12th Amendment. Anyway, she also compared the Affordable Care Act to the Holocaust, saying, much like the Jews boarding the trains to concentration camps the federal government “will pull the trigger on the insurance companies." Through the rest of her second term, Nuxoll didn’t quite make headlines for the remainder of her second term, with the exception of when she and her Republican colleagues tried to circumvent the Environmental Protection Agency, with Nuxoll claiming efforts by the EPA to regulate sludge mining were harming the morale of American veterans, and therefore unacceptable. Since heading back in for her third term, in March 2015, Nuxoll angrily walked out of the state House after a Hindu clergyman read a prayer for them, and then went on social media to complain about it and say that Hinduism is “a false faith with false Gods”. When she was called upon to apologize for those statements and disparaging an entire faith, she refused, and stood by them, calling the United States a Christian nation. Religious leaders in Idaho from several different faiths condemned her for being intolerant, but she wasn’t quite done. A month later in April 2015, and Nuxoll was causing trouble again, holding up a bill that if not passed, would leave the state without $46 million in child support funding from the federal government. Her reason for doing so? She felt the bill would somehow be too permissive, and allow the spread of Sharia Law to begin in Idaho. Ah yes. The dread menace of Sharia Law that our separation of church and state already protects us from. And that if it was coming, probably wouldn’t fall upon us because of a CHILD SUPPORT bill.Nuxoll is, to the hilt, a deranged zealot, as in February of 2016, she actually submitted a bill in the Idaho state legislature to have the King James Bible available as a resource not just in classes like English or history where it be relevant, but to have it available as a resource in science classes in public schools. Nuxoll was unseated in the GOP Primary for her seat in the 2016 elections by 111 votes, and is now out of office.



It was on this date in 2017, and in 2018, that “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled Shannon Grove, who was first elected to the California State Assembly in… you guessed it, the 2010 Tea Party Wave. And, for three terms, Shannon Grove tried her damnedest to be an obstructionist force in the California State Assembly, impotently voting against some of the most common sense bills brought forth in her state while sucking up to nationally more-respected members of the GOP like Mike Huckabee, Ted Cruz, and Kevin McCarthy. Grove is also in pretty tight with the NRA, who in one of their manifestos criticizing California Democrats for actually passing effective gun control measures, they hit her up for a quote, and she gave the really pathetic response of:

“I would rather have a loaded Glock in my hand than 911 on the phone.”

(Note to self: Don’t ask Shannon Grove to call for help if in medical distress.)

Now, there are a lot of issues that when you look at them, are going to make you ask yourself “What the hell is wrong with Shannon Grove?” Perhaps the most glaring one was her vote against California’s law to curtail campus rape and sexual assault by better defining consent. One of the many measures it took was allowing state universities to expel students regardless of if they were found guilty in a court of law (say if a victim was intimidated into not pressing charges, the school would be able to keep the rest of the school safe. She defended her vote, saying:

“Those committing sexual assault within our college campuses should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law by our judicial system, not at a campus disciplinary proceeding.”

But we’re just getting warmed up. You see, back in 2015, while California was experiencing one of its worst droughts in decades, Grove stuck her foot in her mouth again, by commenting:

“Texas was in a long period of drought until Governor Perry signed the fetal pain bill. It rained that night. Now God has His hold on California.”

So hey, forget doing any superstitious rain dances, guys… the real solution is to make God happy with abortion bans, and he’ll up the precipitation levels. It’s a scientific fact, right? Unlike say, climate change or global warming, which Grove denies the existence of even though there’s like 98% of scientists who agree, “Yeah, that’s a thing all right.” I don’t know how many scientists link abortion and annual rainfall, but they’re definitely in Grove’s sphere of influence.

Here’s the kicker, though… for someone who’s totally pro-life and wants all the babies born that are conceived whether or not a woman gets raped, or if she’s at risk of dying by trying to carry that baby to term… you would think that Shannon Grove would love any government program that helps babies once they’re out of the womb, right? WRONG. Shannon Grove was left grousing after the California state legislature passed a bill so that people on government assistance with newborn children had some way to afford diapers, which she didn’t want them getting help paying for.

After choosing to not seek re-election to the California State Assembly in 2016, Shannon Grove has stocked her coffers to instead run for California State Senate District 16 in 2018. Her opponent in the general election was Ruth Messer-Lopez, and with the district being traditionally more conservative, Grove was still re-elected with 67% of the vote. She was named to be the California State Senate Minority Leader at the start of the new session, and currently is championing legislation to make it easier for police officers to murder citizens.

Because of course she is.

[Mister Mets]

I don't know what point you're trying to prove, unless it's "It doesn't matter, Republicans are all stubborn ***holes incapable of changing their minds because they're in a cult."

If that was what you were going for, bang up job.

I'm just wondering whether it makes a difference. You suggested this was bad for Republicans because the witnesses were being heralded as heroes, but that doesn't really indicate that anyone has been persuaded by anything. That's all.

There's another clip of just Ben himself saying something to the effect of Trump is barely smart enuff to eat a hamburger. Thing is, it doesn't take that much "strategy" to attempt to extort someone. Especially the way Trump did it.

It does depends on the statutes and the argument. Some of the regulations do require an officeholder to know that what they're doing is illegal, especially when it comes to cover-ups, so the mental state of the investigated official can be relevant.

There are other regulations that do not. And impeachment is ultimately a political question, due to the vagueness of "high crimes and misdemeanors."

[Tendrin]

I'm just wondering whether it makes a difference. You suggested this was bad for Republicans because the witnesses were being heralded as heroes, but that doesn't really indicate that anyone has been persuaded by anything. That's all.

Well, instant polling of those who watched says otherwise. As for the GOP itself, in its elected officials, of course not. They sold their souls long ago to preserve white supremacy and for a conservative judiciary to block any form of progressive change. The sunk cost for them is real.

[Mister Mets]

No form of conservatism is ever truly sustainable, since they all depend more or less on the assumption that the people at the bottom will just quietly accept their lot rather than agitating for a bigger slice of the pie. And sure, all the excesses of the 80s seem pretty cool in hindsight, just as I'm sure the antebellum South or the British Empire at its peak must look pretty magnificent from a certain point of view. But that's all forgetting that, even among the privileged classes living at the height of luxury, people were deeply unhappy and constantly fretting about trying to keep up with the Joneses or pondering the meaning of their lives, no doubt a reflection of the subconscious guilt they felt about building their society off the exploitation of others, and the impending collapse of these societies as the underlying contradictions began to unravel them from within.

I'd agree that no form of conservatism is sustainable, although no form of liberalism is either (for the purposes of this point I'm looking at the left, liberalism and progressive as one side, and conservatism and the right as another). We need both. We need liberals to push for policy solutions for problems, and conservatives to push for either the status quo or for non-government solutions. With social and technological changes, the problems are going to differ, so a system that works at one point won't be able to handle new solutions without some kind of change.

Conservatives will be blind to some problems, and we need liberals to push for solutions in those cases. But we do also need conservatives to keep liberals from going too far. In New York magazine, Andrew Sullivan looked at the work of Ibram X Kendi, author of How To Be An Antiracist, which shows an example of someone on the left going too far (Sullivan says the policies aren't liberal, although that's in the sense of classical liberalsim, which many conservatives advocate for, the principle of civil liberties under rule of law with economic freedom.

So, for the reader who is not interested in entertaining doubts, what does it take to become an anti-racist? Kendi finishes his book with a bathetic, platitudinous list of must-dos. Here’s one: “Invent or find antiracist policy that can eliminate racial inequity.” Here’s another: “Deploy antiracist power to compel or drive from power the unsympathetic racist policymakers in order to institute the antiracist policy.” He never gets more specific. Again, it’s hard not to notice that there is no room for changing minds and hearts in his worldview. The point is to get and use power. You do not vote racist politicians out of office, or persuade others to do so in a liberal democratic process. You “compel” them or “drive them from office” with “antiracist power.” And one is left to wonder what he could possibly mean by that?

Kendi is careful not to say the quiet part out loud. Hence the vagueness at the end of the book. But in a recent Politico symposium on how to fix inequality in America, Kendi did get more specific. He supports a constitutional amendment “that enshrines two guiding anti-racist principles: Racial inequity is evidence of racist policy and the different racial groups are equals.” This is how he thinks it would work:

“It would establish and permanently fund the Department of Anti-racism (DOA) comprised of formally trained experts on racism and no political appointees. The DOA would be responsible for preclearing all local, state and federal public policies to ensure they won’t yield racial inequity, monitor those policies, investigate private racist policies when racial inequity surfaces, and monitor public officials for expressions of racist ideas. The DOA would be empowered with disciplinary tools to wield over and against policymakers and public officials who do not voluntarily change their racist policy and ideas.”

There is, of course, no conceivable way such an amendment would succeed in the grueling process that is amending the Constitution. And this amendment is completely incompatible with many other core tenets of the American Constitution. But it really is a revelation to see the goal Kendi sets.

He wants unelected “formally trained experts on racism” (presumably all from critical race-theory departments) to have unaccountable control over every policy that won’t yield racial equality in every field of life, public or private. They are tasked with investigating “private racist policies.” Any policy change anywhere in the U.S. would have to be precleared by these “experts” who could use “disciplinary tools” if policymakers do not cave to their demands. They would monitor and control public and private speech. What Kendi wants is power to coerce others to accept his worldview and to implement his preferred policies, over and above democratic accountability or political opposition. Among those policies would be those explicitly favoring nonwhites over whites because “the only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.”

Every now and again, it’s worth thinking about what the intersectional left’s ultimate endgame really is — and here it strikes me as both useful and fair to extrapolate from Kendi’s project. They seem not to genuinely believe in liberalism, liberal democracy, or persuasion. They have no clear foundational devotion to individual rights or freedom of speech. Rather, the ultimate aim seems to be running the entire country by fiat to purge it of racism (and every other intersectional “-ism” and “phobia”, while they’re at it). And they demand “disciplinary tools” by unelected bodies to enforce “a radical reorientation of our consciousness.” There is a word for this kind of politics and this kind of theory when it is fully and completely realized, and it is totalitarian.

[worstblogever]

I'm just wondering whether it makes a difference.

Why, let's wonder if that might affect the opinions the millions of people watching live cable news who are seeing people testify against Trump, Guiliani, and the administration being cheered for their service, and for continuing by testifying against corruption.

HMMMM... WHAT EFFECT COULD THIS HAVE WHEN AMPLIFIED ON ALL MEDIA CHANNELS...?

[GindyPosts]

Why, let's wonder if that might affect the opinions the millions of people watching live cable news who are seeing people testify against Trump, Guiliani, and the administration being cheered for their service, and for continuing by testifying against corruption.

HMMMM... WHAT EFFECT COULD THIS HAVE WHEN AMPLIFIED ON ALL MEDIA CHANNELS...?

When you factor in the echo chamber aspect of cable news, is it no surprise that even when dirty laundry is being pulled out that they are coming off as if they got a visit from Snuggle the Bear?

And that's the cable news sane people are willing to stomach. How about the fringe, whacko outlets like One America News Network, which I had to put up with at a Popeyes over a week ago?

[Mister Mets]

Why, let's wonder if that might affect the opinions the millions of people watching live cable news who are seeing people testify against Trump, Guiliani, and the administration being cheered for their service, and for continuing by testifying against corruption.

HMMMM... WHAT EFFECT COULD THIS HAVE WHEN AMPLIFIED ON ALL MEDIA CHANNELS...?

The people watching cable news have largely made up their minds. The majority of Americans don't follow the news that closely.

I should note that I was asking if this is making a difference, rather than claiming that it isn't.

[Tami]

Are Republicans becoming the Party of Putin?

• Republicans’ Russia Problems May Run Deeper Than Donald Trump - May 18, 2017
• Republicans risk becoming the party of Putin - Jul 4, 2017
• Once, Republicans Hated Russia, But Now They Love It - November 22, 2017
• Republicans have decided to follow Trump off a cliff of treachery - Jul 17, 2018
• The entire Republican Party is becoming a Russian asset - July 20, 2018
• How Putin's oligarchs funneled millions into GOP campaigns - May 8, 2018
• GOP Congressmen Visit Moscow, Thaw Icy Relations Before Trump-Putin Talks - July 4, 2018
• Republicans More Positive on U.S. Relations With Russia - July 13, 2018
• Polling editor: Increased support for Russia among Republicans is 'disturbing' - 7/16/2018
• Paul Ryan just let Trump off the hook on Putin - Jul 17, 2018
• The Russia that Republicans love doesn’t exist - August 7, 2018
• Mitch McConnell should explain why he obscured Russian interference in our election - 12/07/18
• Trump-Loyal Senators Make Russian Oligarch’s Day - January 16, 2019
• Senate GOP Blocks Bid To Enforce Sanctions On Putin Ally - 01/16/2019
• The GOP has become the Soviet party - Jan. 21, 2019
• Attorney General Barr seems to embrace Republican talking points on Mueller Russia probe - April 10, 2019
• The Republicans-Trump-Putin Love Triangle - May 8, 2019
• The Republicans-Trump-Putin love triangle - May 13, 2019
• Trump-Drunk Republicans Are Choosing Russia Over the Constitution - May. 30, 2019
• What happened to the Republican outrage on Russia? - July 26, 2019
• Republicans and Democrats had similar views of Russia – until Trump’s election - July 30, 2019
• Russia “Would Like to Hope” White House Won’t Release Trump-Putin Calls - September 27, 2019
• The talking points Republicans are using to defend Trump are at odds with reality - Oct 7, 2019
• Common thread for Mueller, Ukraine and Syria: Russia Helps Trump, Trump Helps Russia - Oct 11 2019
• No, Putin Doesn’t Like Impeachment - October 20, 2019
• To Exonerate Trump, Republicans Embrace Russian Disinformation - Nov. 11, 2019
• AP FACT CHECK: GOP Presses Empty Ukraine Meddling Theory - Nov. 13, 2019
• Parroting Putin to Own the Libs - November 15, 2019
• Russia Loves the Impeachment Hearings Because GOP Is Parroting Kremlin Propaganda - Nov. 16, 2019

[PwrdOn]

I'd agree that no form of conservatism is sustainable, although no form of liberalism is either (for the purposes of this point I'm looking at the left, liberalism and progressive as one side, and conservatism and the right as another). We need both. We need liberals to push for policy solutions for problems, and conservatives to push for either the status quo or for non-government solutions. With social and technological changes, the problems are going to differ, so a system that works at one point won't be able to handle new solutions without some kind of change.

Conservatives will be blind to some problems, and we need liberals to push for solutions in those cases. But we do also need conservatives to keep liberals from going too far. In New York magazine, Andrew Sullivan looked at the work of Ibram X Kendi, author of How To Be An Antiracist, which shows an example of someone on the left going too far (Sullivan says the policies aren't liberal, although that's in the sense of classical liberalsim, which many conservatives advocate for, the principle of civil liberties under rule of law with economic freedom.

I'm not sure that trying to ridicule liberals for focusing on race is quite the winning play that conservatives think it is. There was never a time in American history when minorities didn't agitate for more rights, nor have whites ever wielded enough power to fully snuff out their aspirations, since the consumer economy is reliant on cheap labor and whites have never been able to fill that gap themselves. Just telling everyone to shut up about race is not working, and while all the gerrymandering and voter suppression might be helping the GOP win elections now, concentrating power in an ever shrinking rural white base is not going to be a good look going forward.

[Tami]

‘Absolutely No Mercy’: Leaked Files Expose How China Organized Mass Detentions of Muslims

HONG KONG — The students booked their tickets home at the end of the semester, hoping for a relaxing break after exams and a summer of happy reunions with family in China’s far west.

Instead, they would soon be told that their parents were gone, relatives had vanished and neighbors were missing — all of them locked up in an expanding network of detention camps built to hold Muslim ethnic minorities.

The authorities in the Xinjiang region worried the situation was a powder keg. And so they prepared.

The leadership distributed a classified directive advising local officials to corner returning students as soon as they arrived and keep them quiet. It included a chillingly bureaucratic guide for how to handle their anguished questions, beginning with the most obvious: Where is my family?

The directive was among 403 pages of internal documents that have been shared with The New York Times in one of the most significant leaks of government papers from inside China’s ruling Communist Party in decades. They provide an unprecedented inside view of the continuing clampdown in Xinjiang, in which the authorities have corralled as many as a million ethnic Uighurs, Kazakhs and others into internment camps and prisons over the past three years.

The party has rejected international criticism of the camps and described them as job-training centers that use mild methods to fight Islamic extremism. But the documents confirm the coercive nature of the crackdown in the words and orders of the very officials who conceived and orchestrated it.

Even as the government presented its efforts in Xinjiang to the public as benevolent and unexceptional, it discussed and organized a ruthless and extraordinary campaign in these internal communications. Senior party leaders are recorded ordering drastic and urgent action against extremist violence, including the mass detentions, and discussing the consequences with cool detachment.

Children saw their parents taken away, students wondered who would pay their tuition and crops could not be planted or harvested for lack of manpower, the reports noted. Yet officials were directed to tell people who complained to be grateful for the Communist Party’s help and stay quiet.

[worstblogever]

The people watching cable news have largely made up their minds.

It seems that you have. And you're trying to convince yourself that everyone thinks exactly as you do.

Meanwhile, Independents are becoming more pro-impeachment with each hearing.

[Malvolio]

Lex Luthor weighs in on Elizabeth Warren's Tax policy...

https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/...der-lex-luthor

This is some grade-A, hella-fine satire right here.

[Mister Mets]

It seems that you have. And you're trying to convince yourself that everyone thinks exactly as you do.

Meanwhile, Independents are becoming more pro-impeachment with each hearing.

How do you know that independents are becoming more pro-impeachment?

That's generally been my question. You say stuff like "Independents are becoming more pro-impeachment with each hearing" or "Two hearings over the past three days, and the witnesses are being heralded as heroes. GOING GREAT FOR YOU, PARTY OF TRUMP." but you're not establishing that it's making a difference.

It could be making a difference, but you're not really demonstrating that. You could just be convinced that everyone thinks as you do.

Tendrin pointed out online polls, so he's able to make the case that it's making the difference.

Incidentally, as a Republican who doesn't like Trump, I am definitely aware that the majority does not think as I do.

[jetengine]

How do you know that independents are becoming more pro-impeachment?

That's generally been my question. You say stuff like "Independents are becoming more pro-impeachment with each hearing" or "Two hearings over the past three days, and the witnesses are being heralded as heroes. GOING GREAT FOR YOU, PARTY OF TRUMP." but you're not establishing that it's making a difference.

It could be making a difference, but you're not really demonstrating that. You could just be convinced that everyone thinks as you do.

Tendrin pointed out online polls, so he's able to make the case that it's making the difference.

Incidentally, as a Republican who doesn't like Trump, I am definitely aware that the majority does not think as I do.

For a guy that doesnt like Trump you stan for his party and their values consistently. Like we accept that in every party theirs good and bad. But the GOP have becone so cartoonishly villainous that anyone still going "Well I'm a Republican....but not a trump one!" is kind of rendered irrelevant when taken in the whole.