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

[Amadeus Arkham]

Maybe I don't get out enough, but I had no idea he was such a racist scumbag:

‘Dilbert’s’ Scott Adams: ‘White people should get the hell away from Black people’

A Trump supporter is a racist wacko? Shocker! What else is new?

Also he made this:

[CaptainEurope]

Chancellor Scholz is in India, meeting PM Modi. Just as with his Brazil visit, it's mostly about creating new ties to leaders that are easily tempted by Putin's promises.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Yo, Trumpers and right wingers here, YOU own this hag too:

Tulsi Gabbard Shocks Fox News Host by Comparing Biden to Hitler

Tulsi Gabbard on Friday made the wild claim that there’s a historical “connection” between Nazism and the diversity-minded personnel choices made by the Biden administration—a statement that Fox News host Jesse Watters couldn’t get behind.

Gabbard, who seemingly hasn’t missed a chance to bash the Democratic Party as a Fox News contributor since she announced her departure from it last October, said “identity politics” was one factor in her decision.

“You see how their agenda of identity politics is directly undermining the traditional democratic values that were expressed so beautifully and clearly by Dr. Martin Luther King: that we should judge each other not based on the color of our skin, but based on our character,” Gabbard said, citing what was recently dubbed “the right’s favorite MLK quote.”

Furthermore, this fucking bitch needs to get Dr, King's name OUT of her filthy mouth!

[InformationGeek]

Scott Adams has been very bad for quite some time now.

Indeed. My Little Pony was even calling dunking on him years in advance.

[shooshoomanjoe]

A Trump supporter is a racist wacko? Shocker! What else is new?

Yea, once a person supports trump politics you kind of know that person's views.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2015, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” ran a profile of Andy Tobin, a former member of the Arizona House of Representatives and failed Congressional candidate in the 2014 elections. Tobin, in his time as a legislator, had voted to legalize the use of gold and silver as legal tender, among a lot of other strange bills including a "religious freedom" bill to legalize discrimination against gays, and random, warrantless searches to be conducted of abortion clinics whenever law enforcement felt like it. Tobin is also decidedly anti-immigrant, having not only supported Arizona's controversial law, SB 1070, but also once telling the public that people sneaking across the U.S./Mexico border were bringing Ebola Virus with them (which isn't true, given it is an African virus). Tobin also sent out fundraising e-mails promising to hold President Obama accountable for "what happened in Benghazi”, so there's that, as well. Tobin was last seen being appointed to a cushy job on the Arizona Corporation Commission by Republican Governor Doug Ducey.

On this date in 2016, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” posted a profile of Rick Berg, a former one-term Congressman from North Dakota who failed to win election to the U.S. Senate against Heidi Heitkamp back in 2012, mostly because Berg portrayed himself as a "centrist Republican", which is kind of hard to buy considering that as a state legislator he voted to make abortion a felony offense, even including cases where the pregnancy is from rape or incest, without exception. Looking back even further, to 2005, they found Berg supported the privatization of Social Security by the Bush Administration, in an assembly vote. As election day approached in 2012, Rick Berg was starting to sweat about how closely he and Heidi Heitkamp were polling, not just because of his record, but because of his business ties to a shady real estate company, Goldmark Property Management, that was the target of dozens of tenant complaints and fire safety violations. It also didn't look so good that he had missed 38 votes in his one term in office in the House. Berg grew desperate enough that in his final debate against Heitkamp, he decided to try and make up ground by attacking the Affordable Care Act, brazenly lying about its effects on the national debt, and claiming it took money from Medicare (when it actually cuts costs that caused less spending on Medicare, which wasn't the same thing). Berg lost by a few thousand votes to Heitkamp, and has yet to reemerge as a candidate for any office.

On this date in 2017, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” profiled Tom Price, the former U.S. House Representative from Georgia’s 6th House District for six full terms from 2005 through early 2017 who went on to become the not-long-tenured Cabinet Secretary for Health and Human Services in the Trump Administration. For those who weren’t paying attention to the Bizarro World way that Donald Trump picked his cabinet, in almost all instances he chose individuals who seemed tailor fit to destroy the government institution they were placed in charge of, who had made previous statements or dedicated their careers to acting as antagonists to the very post they were appointed to. While Tom Price is, at least, a former orthopedic surgeon with a medical background, is a founding member of the GOP House’s Tea Party Caucus, has been accused of violating the STOCK Act, and committing insider trading, and has long been touted as a member of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, a conservative group that argues that the government should do NOTHING in regards to healthcare, whatsoever, and to allow socialized medicine is “evil” or “immoral”. That’s not even the weirdest thing about the AAPS, as its journal has published articles in the time Tom Price served in Congress with such fine topics as a discussion about rescinding the citizenship of so-called “anchor babies,” (the children of undocumented immigrants), who it falsely claimed were responsible for increased leprosy rates, others that pushed the myth of a link between vaccines and autism, another that suggested a link between abortion and breast cancer, and one that questioned the relationship between HIV and AIDS. The AAPS also once requested the U.S. Supreme Court should to release post-mortem photos of Vince Foster, the Bill Clinton White House counsel whose suicide conspiracy theorists believe actually was an assassination. Oh, and the AAPS was a top source for all the rumors during the 2016 elections swirling about Hillary Clinton’s supposed “failing health”, as well. If you needed any other evidence that Tom Price is hanging out with a bunch of kooks, the AAPS website once published an article about how President Obama’s powerful oratory could actually be a form of hypnosis, and that he won the presidency by hypnotizing impressionable voters like young people and Jews. In any other Cabinet nomination process, Tom Price would have been laughed out of the Senate, but he’s somehow one of the more “normal” or “qualified” members of the Trump Cabinet, relatively speaking. Tom Price is also a bit of a homophobe, as virtually all of the Trump Cabinet is, and it’s not hard to find evidence to that fact even outside of his anti-LGBTQ voting record. When a guy releases a statement reacting to the Obergefell v. Hodges ruling and declared it a “sad day for marriage”, it’s a pretty open and shut case that he’s bigoted towards gays, you know? And as far as women’s rights go, well, Tom Price isn’t just anti-abortion, he’s against birth control. In fact, Price didn’t just co-sponsor the Right of Life Act that would have given Constitutional rights to zygotes, he argues that there’s no such thing as a woman without access to birth control in the country. Price’s voting record was, as you might expect, hyper-partisan, and his time as a member of the Cabinet came to a quick end when he was forced to resign after it was discovered he was abusing his travel budget at taxpayer expense to do things like fly to Nashville on the urgent business of having lunch with his son. Tom Price is now out of the political spotlight (although his wife is a state legislator worthy of being profiled at some point).

On this date in 2018, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” profiled Jon Stanard, a member of the Utah House of Representatives from 2012-2018, and whose downfall will not take us very long to explain. You see, Stanard is a “family values” Republican, who quite predictably was caught cheating on his wife (allegedly). But wait, there’s more. He cheated on her with a porn star, Brie Taylor. But wait, there’s still more. He cheated on his wife with a porn star who he was paying for sex, and therefore his name isn’t just Jon, he was a john with a prostitute he frequents. But wait, THERE’S STILL MORE to make it worse… Jon Stanard was billing the taxpayers for the hotel he was banging an ex-porn star turned prostitute behind his wife’s back. But of course, you could look through his voting record and laugh at the level of hypocrisy in Stanard’s votes to “defend marriage” and in other matters, like how he wanted to block legislation that would prohibit discrimination against an individual based on their sexual orientation. He was shamed into resigning and is likely out of office for good.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2019, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” profiled the former candidate to be the U.S. House Representative from Florida’s 22nd Congressional District, Adam Hasner. Hasner was a member of the Florida House of Representatives from 2002 through 2010, hitting term limits as the Tea Party came to power. He served in that body along side future Senator Marco Rubio, and by 2007, was the Majority Leader serving in that body, and was frequently criticized for his partisan extremism by colleagues. At one point, video even emerged of Hasner boasting that he was “the most partisan Republican in Tallahassee”. The least offensive thing about Adam Hasner might be that he’s just a hypocrite, as he campaigned for Congress against politicians who “raise their pay” and “pad their pensions”, and meanwhile, he had a history of doing exactly that as a state legislator. But really, it’s the rolling with hate groups that bothers us more. During Hasner’s first two years out of office in 2011 and 2012, and around the time he started trying to build momentum for his Congressional run, he suddenly took a huge turn for the Islamophobic. And not limited to the ways you might expect. While some Republicans were content to foment fears of the Muslim Brotherhood infiltrating the Democratic Party like bigoted twits, Hasner went “next-level” in his fearmongering. During a speech before the Republican Liberty Caucus of East Central Florida where he said that "there has also been an infiltration of the conservative movement by stealth jihadists in this country." He also bizarrely imagined that President Obama had aligned himself against Occupy Wall Street and that the group also had in its ranks “ranting anti-Semites who want to destroy Israel." Before long, Hasner had opted to appear in public with hate group leaders like Pamela Geller, the leader of the anti-Muslim hate group ACT!, legendary Islamophobe Frank Gaffney, as well as Dutch white nationalist Geert Wilders. While raving about Sharia Law all the time was one thing, his opinions that Jews in Israel had “superior claims” to the land than Palestinian Arabs was a bit more extreme of an opinion than one would hope for. Maybe when he went so far as to boycott an imam’s prayers in the Florida State Legislature, it should have become pretty clear that he was an outright bigot. Adam Hasner ended up losing in 2012 to Lois Frankel, getting 45% of the vote. Since, he has still floated behind the scenes in Florida politics, and he was a delegate at the 2016 Republican National Convention.

On this date in 2020, as well as 2021, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” profiled Candice Keller, a member of the Ohio House of Representatives from District 53, who first won office in her extremely conservative district back in 2016. It has not taken her long to draw headlines for being a raging bigot with a twisted worldview where anyone that isn’t white and straight are the cause of all the ills of the world. That might sound a bit harsh, but it was only a few weeks into her freshman term in office that Keller submitted a bill that would place any lawmaker who tried to do anything to protect a sanctuary city in jail. She tried justify it by claiming that over 8,000 immigrants in Ohio had gone on a crime spree, but were being protected by sanctuary cities. Now, if It wasn’t abundantly clear that maybe Ohio’s newest state legislator was a screaming racist, Keller went on to promote her bill by going on a radio show hosted by Sonny Thomas, a white power advocate and explain its intent. When she was justifiably called out by the media for hanging out with a professional hatemonger, she claimed she actually intended on being interviewed by a different radio host from Cincinnatti, Brian “Sonny” Thomas. That isn’t the only controversy Keller got herself into. Back in March of 2018, she attacked the Parkland survivors, dismissing their activism by saying they just are “eating Doritos and playing video games”. In August of 2020r, she responded to a mass shooting in Dayton, not with “thoughts and prayers” or to break from her party to call for reasonable gun control… instead, she posted a rant on Facebook where she blamed thousands of deaths a year in mass shootings on President Obama, video games, drag queens, and children without fathers: We’ll also note that already in her career, Keller has compared Planned Parenthood to Nazis, and expressed her belief that the U.S. will soon fight a second Civil War… over abortion. And as discouraging as we might find it that someone could be elected to office with such an ugly agenda, we’ve got some even more frightening news… Candice Keller isn’t just running for re-election to the Ohio House of Representatives in 2020… she’s seeking to move up into the upper chamber by running for Ohio State Senate in District 4. She lost in the GOP primary in that attempt, only getting 32% of the vote. With any luck, she does not make another run for office, and this is the last time we have to mention her. As She is now out of office, we will set aside his profile at this time to cover another wacky Republican today instead. (Current crazy/stupid scoreboard, is now 1080-50, since this was established in July 2014.



On this date one year ago, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” had its first profile of Chris Miller, who is currently serving District 110 of the Illinois House of Representatives, first winning office for that seat back in 2018, and in 2022, he hopped over to District 101 in the Illinois state house instead, looking to still get re-elected in spite of what made him an infamous member in 2021. You see, while Miler does have an outrageous voting record, but it’s not his time as a legislator that has sparked us to write up a profile on him…

You see, our concern was how on January 6, 2021, Miller was at the U.S. Capitol at the Save America Rally before Donald Trump’s militia clowns supporters threw a collective tantrum and carried out a coup attempt against the legislative branch of the government. On that day, Miller posted a video to his public Facebook page where he vilified "dangerous Democrat terrorists" and said "we’re in a great cultural war to see which worldview will survive." And his activities that day are even more in question because during the attack, he posted his own pickup truck in a restricted area next to the Capitol, which has upon it a decal of the logo of the extremist Three Percenters domestic terror outfit. This would be the same Three Percenters who have had several of its members charged with crimes associated with the attack. The fact that Chris Miller’s wife, Congresswoman Mary Miller, gave a speech that day that had some nice things to say about Hitler in it also doesn’t paint a nice picture of the couple.

Chris Miller was censured for his seditious activities by the Illinois House of Representatives on March 18th, 2021. Which may have been a damning thing to ruin his political career, had anyone actually bothered to run against him in 2022 for his new district. Yes, a seditious weasel was censured, but then was so much of a problem that the GOP didn’t bother running anyone against him in a highly conservative district, so he’s just going to keep on trucking along in his traitorous career like everything’s fine.

Shortly after Election Day, he gave an interview where he continually dodged the question when asked if Joe Biden won in 2020, and claimed that there was never an insurrection, but January 6th was a “peaceful protest” meanwhile Black Lives Matter and Antifa were “burning cities” a few months before (neither claim is true). Some people really need consequences in their lives. Chris Miller is decidedly one of those people.

[Dalak]

The math checks out, especially since females are more likely than males to identify as trans.

I pointed this out a while back.

https://community.cbr.com/showthread...=1#post6032471

When you say the math checks out by just saying it does without providing proof and TheWeek didn't put forward that idea, you are once more making up claims without facts to back them and also misrepresenting TheWeek's actual article again. All this falsehood to avoid admitting you were wrong, and when we look at the elected GoP across the country it's clear this is exactly how they act and they want their voters to as well.

[Tami]

Alone and Exploited, Migrant Children Work Brutal Jobs Across the U.S.

It was almost midnight in Grand Rapids, Mich., but inside the factory everything was bright. A conveyor belt carried bags of Cheerios past a cluster of young workers. One was 15-year-old Carolina Yoc, who came to the United States on her own last year to live with a relative she had never met.

About every 10 seconds, she stuffed a sealed plastic bag of cereal into a passing yellow carton. It could be dangerous work, with fast-moving pulleys and gears that had torn off fingers and ripped open a woman’s scalp.

The factory was full of underage workers like Carolina, who had crossed the southern border by themselves and were now spending late hours bent over hazardous machinery, in violation of child labor laws. At nearby plants, other children were tending giant ovens to make Chewy and Nature Valley granola bars and packing bags of Lucky Charms and Cheetos — all of them working for the processing giant Hearthside Food Solutions, which would ship these products around the country.

This is insane.

[CaptainEurope]

Trans men are a lot more accepted in society and usually find it easier to "pass". Of course trans folks who were assigned male at birth would be more hesitant to transition, as it will expose them to hatred and violence at a much larger rate than trans men.

[Tendrin]

The diverse, evolving language used to describe gender identities can also lend to difficulty with accurate identification of TGNB individuals, particularly for non-binary individuals. In future efforts to characterize TGNB populations, appropriate identification may be achieved by a two-step approach: by asking individuals their current gender, followed by their sex assigned at birth (14,15). This method avoids pathologizing TGNB status, and in the healthcare setting may facilitate conversations between patients and providers regarding gender identity. Electronic medical record systems have begun to include gender identity questions within their data intake fields, adhering to U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services mandates (16,17).

https://tau.amegroups.com/article/view/25593/24252

As visibility of transgender identities have increased in recent years, so too has the prevalence of GCS. Gender affirming care is highly effective for treating gender dysphoria in transgender individuals who seek it, but a number of sociopolitical and economic factors have limited access to care. Further developments in patient-reported outcomes research, transgender-specific provider education, and technical advancements to GCS procedures will all be necessary to meet the healthcare needs of a growing TGNB population (18,43).

[4saken1]

Anecdotal evidence could be considered, but this should be done carefully.

I'm a teacher in New York City. I don't think this should mean that I get to tell anyone here discussing education issues to shut up because I know more about it than they do.

An individual's lived experience can be meaningful, but it's possible to draw the wrong conclusions.

Not only is it possible to draw the wrong conclusions, if one's own personal experience is in conflict with mountains of data that suggest otherwise, it is almost certain! Also, with conservatives it tends to be "I have anecdotal evidence X, therefore Y is true", or "I have anecdotal evidence X, so empirical evidence A-W have zero effect on what I believe. Therefore I will completely and utterly ignore them and just claim liberal bias".

[4saken1]

Florida's new higher education bill has had its text released and its as nightmarishly bad as you'd imagine.

https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bil...Text/Filed/PDF

Here's a thread breaking down just *how* censorious and fascist it is.

https://twitter.com/jeremycyoung/sta...70290745790464

"Courses based on unproven, theoretical, or exploratory content" are banned from gen ed

Good thing he is banning religious teachings from most of the cirricula, though!

[ed2962]

A Trump supporter is a racist wacko? Shocker! What else is new?

Also he made this:

He thinks he's making a point, but for generations there have been in fact black people who could and have pass for white...

[ed2962]

Yo, Trumpers and right wingers here, YOU own this hag too:

Tulsi Gabbard Shocks Fox News Host by Comparing Biden to Hitler

Furthermore, this fucking bitch needs to get Dr, King's name OUT of her filthy mouth!

She caught on to the fact that what you say not only doesn't have to be true, it doesn't even have to make sense...as long as you look like you're attacking Biden or "The Lefttm" the Fox News audience will eat it up.