All purpose news and politics thread part VI: This Is Not The Time For Posing

[babyblob]

I’ve been irreligious since I was 16 and my youth pastor assaulted me in the halls of the church and the church covered it up. I’ve been an atheist pretty much forever, though. I’ve never once felt a spark of ‘faith’ in anything divine, even as a small child. But I don’t hate Christians. My roomie is devout Lutheran, and we have great discussions about faith and religion. I don’t try to convert her, and vice versa. Christians aren’t the problem.

It’s the ‘Christians’ like those who vote GOP. Who spread lies and hatred in the name of their god. The ones who ghoulishly celebrate a death that clears a path to their long-sought subjugation others to their twisted version of the faith. They deserve no legitimacy. Theirs is not at ALL a real faith in Christ. It’s a justification for their evil, nothing more.

Anyway, I’d be curious to read that horrible email, personally. I like knowing what the enemy thinks. And make no mistake...people like that pastor ARE the enemy.

I am sorry you went through such a horrible thing. There are Christians who use the name of the lord for evil. But there are those who do believe and try and make their communities a better place. Sadly they are pushed to the back round by the hate mongers and nut jobs.

[Mister Mets]

... as usual, you pretend to completely fail to understand your own party and the breathtaking cynicism with which they operate.

They will offer nothing to the Democrats if they have 50+Pence. The Democrats have nothing they want. There is literally nothing in the world they wouldn't give up, even Mitch's precious senate majority, for a 6-3 conservative majority. Everything that they have done has been about locking in minority rule and they are on the cusp of doing that for generations.

Their offer to the Democrats will be 'whatcha gonna do about it, crybabies', and then they'll fill the seat. You think the GOP cares about the abolishment of the filibuster? Don't make me laugh. They know being out of power is a temporary situation, and they'll gladly find other ways to obstruct senate business without it, and then run on 'restoring protections to the minority' which they'll magically never do, as long as they can pummel democrats with it.

And the Democrats will protest, offer a lot of thunder, and then will realize that there is simply nothing they can do to stop it. Once again, the future of the Republic rests in the hands of the same people who have damned it, and have gleefully demonstrated over and over that the only thing they care for is the exercise of power and ensuring minority control of the Republic remains in their hands. There is no democratic institution they won't dismantle to do so.

We, unlike you, have no illusions about what Mitch meant when he said, "By contrast, Americans reelected our majority in 2016 and expanded it in 2018 because we pledged to work with President Trump and support his agenda, particularly using his outstanding appointments to the federal judiciary. Once again, we will keep our promise.
President Trump's nominee will recieve a vote on the floor of the United States Senate."

Either now, or in the lame duck session, they will lock aq 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court and there is not a thing any of us can do about it.

You misunderstood my point if you think I underestimate anyone's cynicism.

Republicans have the White House, 53 Senators, and a roster of potential justices who were already vetted in the previous fights.

It's up to the people who don't want Ginsburg next month to make the case to Republican elected officials that something else would be in their interests.

And of the potentials it should be noted that back then she was viewed as a worse ideologue than Kavanaugh. Kav was considered the safer pick. They just didn’t know he had a scandal

The main concerns about Kavanaugh on the right were whether he would be conservative enough, and whether he had too much of a paper trail after 12 1/2 years as a district court judge and a stint as white house staff secretary in the George W Bush administration.

Honestly all things considered... Gorsuch in application was not a huge loss for Democrats on an ideological perspective. Garland was already kind of a compromise pick because Obama didn’t want to make waves on Scalia’s replacement being too far left. Then I think Trump came in and gave a redder shade of Garland thinking Democrats wouldn’t make waves because theoretically the court went less right.

However that’s application. The problem always was the steal. If Obama got to nominate a guy who was going to be liberal most of the time, the yeah losing RBG sucks but it’s just Scalia and her successors flipping seats for a moderate conservative and a moderate liberal. Now Trump gets 3 picks that are going to be moderate conservative, hard conservative and if it’s Barrett/Cruz/Cotten you’ll get a paragon of fringe right wing. Add in Alito and Thomas. That’s your 5-4 majority. Then Roberts has to decide if he wants to be on the losing end of 5-4’s or if he wants to give it 6-3 majorities so that decisions are less controversial.

The other big danger is Breyer. He’s 82. He may have one more term in him, but he’s the danger of being the one who goes next. Kennedy retired at the same age Breyer is now so he could get Kavanaugh (a pupil) to be his successor. Someone really needs yo talk to Breyer and tell him that the second Democrats get power he needs to make a top 5 list and give it to whoever the President is and he prepared to enjoy retirement. Because you cannot afford to lose him (especially because I think Thomas is probably thinking the same if Republicans have power in the next 15 years)

Basically it’s numbers game and it’s being manipulated. I think that court is going to be a lonely place for Kagan and Sotomayor.

It is worth noting that the freakout over Gorsuch is part of the reason we're in this position.

It was one thing for Republican Senators to vote to nuke the filibuster on supreme court confirmations when Democrats were united against Gorsuch, a standard conservative judge who didn't really have any personal scandals and whose selection did not change the composition of the court. That decision would have been harder with the nominations of Kavanaugh and whoever McConnell could pick to replace Ginsburg.

[zinderel]

I am sorry you went through such a horrible thing. There are Christians who use the name of the lord for evil. But there are those who do believe and try and make their communities a better place. Sadly they are pushed to the back round by the hate mongers and nut jobs.

It was long enough ago that I only tell the story anymore to illustrate the corruption at the heart of the movement. But thank you. I’m glad it happened to me, though, and not the girl I was chatting with at the time. Of course, had he assaulted her, the church might not have been able to cover it up, but...*shrug*

In taking to my roommate, the Christians who actually follow the teachings of the guy they call god mostly stay quiet because they don’t want to delegitimize someone Else’s faith journey. Which is fair, I suppose, if you believe in that sort of thing. I don’t, though, so I’m happy to call it out. Loudly. Repeatedly.

[zinderel]

No, Mets. Once again, you put the onus on everyone else, when it’s really about your party needing to stop being corrupt ghouls who will do anything for power. It’s on YOUR party to stop being greedy, corrupt assholes who will HAPPILY watch the poor starve in order to provide billionaires a tax break. It’s on YOUR party to show that there’s any point to working with them. It’s on YOUR party to be better. Not on anyone else.

I got mocked for making the illustration that the GOP keeps saying ‘meet us halfway’ and the non-GOP keeps taking a good faith step towards the GOP, only for the GOP to step backwards and demand to be met halfway again.

Thank you for illustrating my point so beautifully.

“If the Democrats just give the GOP what they want, then the GOP will work with them...”

Bullshit, and you know it.

[Mister Mets]

The narrative of history must be driven by empirical evidence, otherwise the science of humanities will become completely discredited. If I have my work published in the Journal of American History and omit key data in my study, I am gong to get roasted in peer reviews, regardless of my political persuasion.

In terms of editorial judgments, that is a consideration for the commercial market, as your country has a culture of people writing history (Bill O Reilly, New York Times Journalists) that are not historians, and I do trust them to be politically unbiased when writing.

I am bothered by Trump's patriotic history idea, because Trump is the flip side to the left in the culture war, and he is also a big fan of Andrew Jackson.

I don't want to see a high school American textbook that talks about the glorious accomplishments of Andrew Jackson, but whitewashes the Indian Removal Act out of the text. I doubt this will be the case, but it is a concern nonetheless.

These are all valid concerns. I do certainly agree that Trump is not someone you want in charge of a Social Studies curriculum, given his ignorance and intellectual shamelessness.

Many conservatives recognize that to give Trump the power to control a patriotic history curriculum is the give the next Democratic President the power to make the 1619 project a national curriculum.

But this does raise some interesting questions about whether we should have a national curriculum. Should we insist that all students in the United States have knowledge about certain topics, and if so, how do we pick which topics?

The editorial judgments aren't just about the commercial market, since the people who make the textbooks are going to have to determine what to focus on and why.

It is also worth noting that historians will have their own biases. A big reason Ulysses S Grant has such a poor reputation in 20th Century America is that so much of history was written by southerners.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...56a_story.html

No, Mets. Once again, you put the onus on everyone else, when it’s really about your party needing to stop being corrupt ghouls who will do anything for power. It’s on YOUR party to stop being greedy, corrupt assholes who will HAPPILY watch the poor starve in order to provide billionaires a tax break. It’s on YOUR party to show that there’s any point to working with them. It’s on YOUR party to be better. Not on anyone else.

I got mocked for making the illustration that the GOP keeps saying ‘meet us halfway’ and the non-GOP keeps taking a good faith step towards the GOP, only for the GOP to step backwards and demand to be met halfway again.

Thank you for illustrating my point so beautifully.

“If the Democrats just give the GOP what they want, then the GOP will work with them...”

Bullshit, and you know it.

In politics, it's rare for people to give up power without getting anything in return.

When do Democrats do this?

[PaulBullion]

A letter with the toxin ricin was sent to the White House.

No word yet whether Karl Rove's finger prints were on the envelope.

[The Cool Thatguy]

In politics, it's rare for people to give up power without getting anything in return.

When do Democrats do this?

Affordable Care Act, and still the Republicans demanded more.

[zinderel]

These are all valid concerns. I do certainly agree that Trump is not someone you want in charge of a Social Studies curriculum, given his ignorance and intellectual shamelessness.

Many conservatives recognize that to give Trump the power to control a patriotic history curriculum is the give the next Democratic President the power to make the 1619 project a national curriculum.

But this does raise some interesting questions about whether we should have a national curriculum. Should we insist that all students in the United States have knowledge about certain topics, and if so, how do we pick which topics?

The editorial judgments aren't just about the commercial market, since the people who make the textbooks are going to have to determine what to focus on and why.

It is also worth noting that historians will have their own biases. A big reason Ulysses S Grant has such a poor reputation in 20th Century America is that so much of history was written by southerners.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...56a_story.html

In politics, it's rare for people to give up power without getting anything in return.

When do Democrats do this?

No.

Not doing this with you.

The issue is not Democrats. The issue is not how rare it is for politicians to give up power for the sake of doing the right things. That’s a fine conversation to have, but it’s not the one we’re having, no matter how much you wish it were so. The issue is Republicans being a party of corrupt assholes who make a big deal of their piousness while working to utterly undermine everything their supposed god stood for. The issue is the GOP celebrating that a GOOD woman’s death is going to give them the chance to drag our country into the regressive hellhole they’ve been working towards for decades.

I’m not playing this stupid JAQoff game with you.

You can go ahead and try to obfuscate or distract from the issues, but I see right through you.

Stop changing the subject. Stop leaning on semantics and legal definitions and address what people are saying.

But you won’t. Because GOP supporters are incapable of self reflection. Especially if avoiding self reflection means they gain more power and money at the expense of the rest of us. INCLUDING YOU.

[GindyPosts]

Affordable Care Act, and still the Republicans demanded more.

It's been 10 years, and they still argue that it's existence was one of the worst things in American history this side of Roe v. Wade.

Yet they rarely talk about a viable replacement. They just wanna kill it for the sake of killing it.

[PaulBullion]

Susan Collins says the president elected Nov. 3 should fill Supreme Court vacancy

[InformationGeek]

Susan Collins says the president elected Nov. 3 should fill Supreme Court vacancy

Mhm. That's what she says but will she is the question.

...eh. Not believing it until I see it.

[Mister Mets]

Affordable Care Act, and still the Republicans demanded more.

The Democrats couldn't go as far as many of them wanted with the Affordable Care Act because the moderates on the party were barely on board.

[Adam Allen]

I think that part of the problem with hoping that the Republican senators might do the right thing and wait until after the election to place a new Justice is that I doubt the majority (or any?) of the Republican voters want them to do that. Even being aware of what they did in Obama's last year, and how incredibly hypocritical rushing a judge through now would be, I find it hard to imagine people on the right actually wanting to see their politicians do the principled thing, and risk the possibility of losing the chance to shove another conservative judge through.

I guess I'm saying, I don't think the problem is just in how the politicians on either side think or act. I think the Republicans in office unfortunately do reflect, at least approximately, what the people who vote for them want in their government. I mean, there are voters whose only deciding issue has always been abortion. Of course those people don't want to see the Republican senators let this opportunity pass.

[Darkspellmaster]

But wouldn't it be great if we all didn't have to fight so fucking much all the fucking time?

It would be nice yes, but people have been fighting lo g before we were even born and long before the US was a thing. The fact is, even in the best of places you still have to fight because of how people do things. Then again we cant be apathetic either and forget what we are fighting for and why.

It was long enough ago that I only tell the story anymore to illustrate the corruption at the heart of the movement. But thank you. I’m glad it happened to me, though, and not the girl I was chatting with at the time. Of course, had he assaulted her, the church might not have been able to cover it up, but...*shrug*

In taking to my roommate, the Christians who actually follow the teachings of the guy they call god mostly stay quiet because they don’t want to delegitimize someone Else’s faith journey. Which is fair, I suppose, if you believe in that sort of thing. I don’t, though, so I’m happy to call it out. Loudly. Repeatedly.

In regard to your roommate, that's some weird way of saying they fear excommunication. Roman catholic here, and part of the issue with this is that way too many people of faith have been brainwashed because it really wasn't that long ago that there were protests for changes in the church when it came to not only the recent sex scandals, also may the pastor that did that to you burn in the seven pits of hell, but the whole split with the roman catholic church, from the Lutherans to the Protestant church to the Orthodox to the Baptist. People of the faith seem to forget that protest is a sign of faith, I mean even christ did it, as did Moses and Mohammed. I wanna know where this idea of, don't rock the boat came from.

A letter with the toxin ricin was sent to the White House.

No word yet whether Karl Rove's finger prints were on the envelope.

If only the idiot would have sent it to Mitch instead.

[Darkspellmaster]

It's been 10 years, and they still argue that it's existence was one of the worst things in American history this side of Roe v. Wade.

Yet they rarely talk about a viable replacement. They just wanna kill it for the sake of killing it.

It's because a black man helped develop it. If it was a white guy, they probably wouldn't be as hung ho, I mean they would, but race wouldn't be the big factor.

And the reason they don't know what to replace it with is that they never had a plan to.

Mhm. That's what she says but will she is the question.

...eh. Not believing it until I see it.

Yup, happy to hear this, but she better be held to it. Put her feet to the damn fire.