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

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2019, the “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” profiled Tom Braund, who was very briefly nominated to be placed on the Alaska State Senate by Republican Gov. Bill Walker in February of 2018, but that nomination proved disastrous after the media reported some of Braund’s thoughts in Facebook posts, where he advocated for theocracy, compared women to dogs, and apparently urged the murder of abortion providers by cutting their hearts out with scissors. He also shared “A Theory Of Why Some Men Have Dogs And Not Wives,” which concluded, “To test this theory: Lock your wife &your dog in the garage for an hour. Then open it and see who’s happy to see you!” Because OF COURSE the anti-abortion fanatic thinks misogyny is hilarious. Braund has never made a run for office officially, and blew his chance at being appointed for one.

On this date in both 2020, as well as 2021, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” profiled the U.S. Senator from Georgia, David Perdue, who was first elected to office back in the 2014 elections, based on his resume of being the CEO of a variety of companies through the years including Sara Lee, Haggar Clothing, Reebok, and Dollar General, as well as being the cousin of former Georgia Governor (and Trump administration Secretary of Agriculture) Sonny Perdue. Ah, nothing more Republican than corporate elitism combined with nepotism… well, that if you add the fact that his business record includes investors suing companies he worked for because they were misreporting profits, times he took a golden parachute while a company filed for bankruptcy (both with Dollar General), and laying off workers and/or outsourcing jobs (pretty much everywhere else). It was not until May of 2020, when the media scrutinized his stock portfolio and how it was handled as the Senate was informed of the Covid-19 pandemic looming that he announced his financial advisors would no longer be buying and selling individual stocks… because of course no one with a career as a shady CEO would look to enrich themselves during a viral outbreak. The only reason he wasn’t scrutinized more is because Georgia’s other senator is Kelly Loeffler, who was even more brazen in trying to profit off of coronavirus. But while his track record of letting greed motivate him is troubling enough, David Perdue has given us more then enough reason through the years to be concerned that he isn’t a bigoted fascist. We first really focused on him as a potential candidate for a FRED profile back in June of 2016 when at that year’s Faith and Freedom Coalition’s Road to Majority conference, he quoted scripture to make a “joke” about President Obama, quoting Psalms 109:8 and saying, “let his days be few”. As a legislator, David Perdue has voted almost exclusively along party lines in the Senate, rubber-stamping every member of Donald Trump’s “Cabinet of Horrors” through, giving a free pass to every judicial nominee, including accused rapist Brett Kavanaugh, and voting to repeal the Affordable Care Act among the rare moments where Mitch McConnell has actually allowed a vote to the floor. He sponsored anti-immigration legislation that would not prevent illegal immigration as much as reduce the amount of people legally allowed to emigrate into the United States, because as we’re about to cover… Perdue’s got a bit of a track record for doing racist things in terms of policy and looking the other way when they happen in reality. And it’s just about two years from that point that Donald Trump tweeted out a video of some of his supporters in Florida yelling, “WHITE POWER!” that Perdue refused to comment on. Y’know, just coincidentally. Which shouldn’t come as a surprise, as Sen. Perdue developed amnesia about Donald Trump calling Haiti and African nations “s***hole countries” even though he was present in the room when it happened, and then only remembered it a few weeks later when his feet were held to the fire about it. Maybe it’s better that he wasn’t facing the media to comment, after all, we’re talking about the same David Perdue who in 2018 was being filmed while campaigning for current Georgia Governor (by way of voter suppression and kicking Democratic voters off the ballot) Brian Kemp by a student with their cell phone. And Perdue lost his cool and snatched the student’s phone out of his hand and away from them. Which is, y’know, not normal behavior for a member of the U.S. Senate. Recent headlines from the 2020 election, now that Perdue is up for re-election, have not done a lot to shake the image that maybe he’s got some serious problems with people of other races or religions, as his campaign opened up against his Democratic challenger, Jon Ossoff, by going “all-in” on anti-Semitic tropes. The first add released enlarged Ossoff’s nose in both length and width (interesting choice of photoshop there, Dave), and then the campaign followed by releasing an add of Ossoff standing with Sen. Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate Minority Leader who just so happens to be Jewish with the caption that Democrats are trying to “buy Georgia”. Perdue ordered his people to pull the ads after facing criticism and claimed it was an “idadvertant error” and not that he was employing people cribbing notes from Joseph Goebbels, which is what it was looking like. David Perdue was defeated by Jon Ossoff in the special Georgia runoff election in January of 2021. He then lost in the GOP Primary to Gov. Brian Kemp in the 2022 elections.



It was on this date in 2018 that “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” profiled Jan Morgan, a 2018 candidate for Governor of Arkansas who tried challenging Gov. Asa Hutchinson in the GOP Primary by running to his right primarily on the basis that she loves guns and hates Muslims more than he does. Really, that’s the long and the short of it. Morgan, an NRA activist now well into her fifties, entered the race with the support of Donald Trump and based on her own viral fame in 2014 when she declared her own gun range to be a “Muslim free zone”, presumably because she felt she was getting too long in the tooth to continue her advertising for the range by running ads where she posed as its “gun babe”. After facing criticism for that incident, she claimed, “Agents with the Counter-Terrorism unit of the FBI met with me last year to alert me that ISIS is in Arkansas… The agency feared I was going to be a target of opportunity, and I was directed to take EVERY SECURITY PRE-CAUTION necessary to protect my life and the lives of all people in my presence at all times.”

She also wrote on her own website in 2014 in a now deleted post, “Why would I want to rent or sell a gun and hand ammunition to someone who aligns himself with a religion that commands him to kill me or other innocent people simply because we refuse to submit to Islamic authority.” By January 2015, this revolutionary business practice of open bigotry expanded to skin color, when Morgan denied service to two men who were Hindu, who argue with her they “weren’t Muslim, just brown”. She has stated her belief that the 2nd Amendment should be unbridled, as well as her concerns that “Sharia Law” is taking over the United States (Hint: IT ISN’T), and tried gaining points politically against Asa Hutchinson for not signing a patently unconstitutional anti-Sharia Law that passed in the Arkansas state legislature. Mind you, she has also reflexively attacked Sen. Marco Rubio for defending the rights of Muslims to be at gun ranges by accusing him of “like a mouthpiece for the Muslim Brotherhood front organization CAIR.” We’re going to point out that that’s not just hyperbolic, it’s conspiracy-theory insane, because there is no link between the Muslim Brotherhood and the Council for American-Islamic Relations. CAIR, however, is often the target of anti-Islamic hatemongers for trying to improve relations between the United States and Muslims around the globe… so yeah, seems to make sense that Jan Morgan would weigh in that way.

It's not just the bigotry, it’s the level of “gun crazy” that is intertwined with it with Morgan, though, as she not only believes there should be no limits to the 2nd Amendment, but she actually had the backwards-ass idea that the solution to an increase in school shootings was to declare laws that school zones are “gun-free zones” to be unconstitutional. She was also proud enough to meet Trump Administration advisor and European Neo-Nazi member Sebastian Gorka that she took a photograph of the two of them together to post to her Twitter profile in September of 2018. Anyway, in the end, Jan Morgan still got a surprisingly good 30% of the vote in the GOP Primary against Asa Hutchinson in 2018, and just made a 2022 run for U.S. Senate, challenging for John Boozman’s seat while touting the endorsement of disgraced General Michael Flynn and Roger Stone and chastising Sen. Boozman for having certified the results of the 2020 election.

That new strategy of campaigning got her 18.6% of the vote, which is a bit of a relief that she did worse with friends like those backing her. We would like to wish her our finest “GOOD RIDDANCE” salutes at this time.

[kidfresh512]

Well, I am and have been nonbinary for nearly 50 years at this point, but I can't say I was ever counted as nonbinary. It's not like I've ever had the option, really. Since people like myself were largely invisible to the general population as recently as 20, even 10 years ago, I'm not sure when all of us older folks would have been counted.

And not joking in the slightest, this is a very real issue/question in my actual not-online life: To what degree am I required to become a standard-bearer, at this late stage? I mean, I have been misgendered and misunderstood on this into middle age ... on a personal level, is there any point in becoming super loud and vocal about it, now?

In my humble genderqueer opinion, kids today just have the language and the options to actually consider gender beyond what is assigned at birth. I think it's disingenuous to pretend this was always the case. Because, again, even ten years ago the vast majority of people were not having these discussions. (I can again personally testify to that part: I'd found the language to accurately define my identify myself by that point, but it seriously is not as if most people were talking about it at all.)

I'd imagine though that all of this probably just makes me biased, as opposed to particularly informed about the topic, in your opinion? That's a good way to turn even the loudest minority voice into a whisper.





(Edit: If it helps, I have also worked in mental health nearly 15 years, with kids specifically about 5, and just over a year that the majority of those have -- really, just happened to be -- trans/nonbinary kids. Not as if I set out with any particular goal to become any authority on trans kids -- but, I kinda think I am at least a little, anyway? Compared to folks for whom this is all an abstract?)

This is what people need to understand more than anything. And it seems like something simple and easy to get. But, there is an obvious and clear path to follow on why there would be an "increase" in people who identify as LGBT more than in the past. And why it would follow the larger fight for LGBT rights and general population's acceptance . LGBT in the past ,and in some countries still is, a death sentence or prison time, or a cause for medical confinement. So of course there were fewer that would accept who they were and just choose to hide themselves or shrink into the background and accept a lesser version of themselves to avoid the pitfalls of society.

So no it isn't "grooming" that you are now seeing more people start to identify as something recognizable to what they always have been. It is the possibility afforded to them by science and society catching up and allowing more people to be their authentic selves and find happiness they deserve. And ironically, it is that pursuit of happiness and acceptance of self that pisses off a lot of people on the right that would rather keep their boots on people's neck. They would rather live in a fantasy land where they could just label people as "freaks" or threaten and force people to conform to what they are comfortable with with no regard to how it hurts others.



__________________________________________________ ____________________________________
The Supreme Court Isn’t Listening, and It’s No Secret Why

The Supreme Court’s authority within the American political system is both immense and fragile. Somebody has to provide the last word in interpreting the Constitution, and — this is the key — to do so in a way that is seen as fair and legitimate by the people at large.

What happens when a majority of Americans don’t see it that way?

A common response to this question is to say the justices shouldn’t care. They aren’t there to satisfy the majority or to be swayed by the shifting winds of public opinion. That is partly true: The court’s most important obligations include safeguarding the constitutional rights of vulnerable minorities who can’t always count on protection from the political process and acting independently of political interests.

But in the bigger picture, the court nearly always hews close to where the majority of the American people are. If it does diverge, it should take care to do so in a way that doesn’t appear partisan. That is the basis of the trust given to the court by the public.

That trust, in turn, is crucial to the court’s ability to exercise the vast power Americans have granted it. The nine justices have no control over money, as Congress does, or force, as the executive branch does. All they have is their black robes and the public trust. A court that does not keep that trust cannot perform its critical role in American government.

The actual cause of its historic unpopularity is no secret. Over the past several years, the court has been transformed into a judicial arm of the Republican Party. This project was taking shape more quietly for decades, but it shifted into high gear in 2016, when Justice Antonin Scalia died and Senate Republicans refused to let Barack Obama choose his successor, obliterating the practice of deferring to presidents to fill vacancies on the court. Within four years, the court had a 6-to-3 right-wing supermajority, supercharging the Republican appointees’ efforts to discard the traditions and processes that have allowed the court to appear fair and nonpartisan.

The way the court went about eliminating the federal right to abortion is a prime example of this misuse of its power. First, the right-wing justices used the court’s “shadow docket,” which refers to orders issued in response to emergency applications without open hearings or any public explanation, to allow an obviously unconstitutional anti-abortion law in Texas to stand. They also agreed to hear a separate challenge out of Mississippi, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, that didn’t formally ask them to overturn Roe v. Wade. When they chose to do so anyway, the majority opinion, by Justice Samuel Alito, cherry-picked its historical examples and dismissed Roe as “egregiously wrong,” disdaining the work of earlier justices who had weighed the same constitutional questions carefully for decades.

As the dissent in Dobbs noted: “The majority has overruled Roe and Casey for one and only one reason: because it has always despised them, and now it has the votes to discard them. The majority thereby substitutes a rule by judges for the rule of law.”

In the coming months, the court will decide cases on affirmative action, the Voting Rights Act (yet again) and the power of state legislatures to ignore their own constitutions and even their voters. The rulings in these cases could dramatically reshape the country’s politics, and Americans should be able to trust that those rulings will be made by an impartial tribunal.

[Dalak]

It could be the drivers of the bread trucks. I've heard that in some areas, they have a strong union, and if they don't want to drive to areas that they think are still unsafe, they won't go.

Well I'm not sure that would affect all the trucks as Florida is a Right to Work state and actively hates unions, but it could be a contributing factor for trucks coming in from out of state.

[hyped78]

Right. My bad. "follks in the scientific community" clearly did not mean Singal, but Albert Einstein.

Singal is not in the "scientific community", or anything remotely close to that, nor did I imply that. Again, you're missing the context of a discussion that's been going on for ~4 months, not sure what your aim is.

The UK is a very interesting case.

I’ve never seen a party make so many “unforced errors”.

This is what happens when populism collided with reality and leaders that are supposed to tell their people the truth instead obsfucate to hold on to power.

"tell their people the truth" - that died the moment the Tories started lying about the realities of Brexit

There is no 'spike'. You can keep repeating it but the 'increase' that does exist is explicable entirely through the cohort effect.

What is the 'cohort effect'?

Only cis white men are 'unbiased', after all.

Everyone is biased to a degree

Brazil will head to a runoff election. Lula won the first round, but with a smaller lead than predicted based on polls.

Interestingly enough, the polls were more or less right on Lula's %. What they clearly got wrong was Bolsonaro's %. Analysts today are echoing Trump's "shy voters".

Yesterday, Liz Truss answered in the affirmative to this question: "Are you absolutely committed to abolishing the 45p tax rate for the wealthiest people in the country?"

Today, her government scrapped those plans.

On top of that, before scrapping the idea, she said this was Kwasi Kwarteng's (the Chancellor) idea, essentially throwing him under the bus. She's also reversing course on fracking plans, it seems.

She’s making Bojo look like a genius. A difficult task, but I feared all along she would be up to it.

I suppose at some level we ought to give credit for reversing an obvious error. But as one guy put it on a radio phone in this morning “Is it really too much to ask that really, really obvious errors are nearly always avoided in the first place?”

It does look particularly bad that measure was not discussed even at cabinet level (it was just discussed between PM and Chancellor), and it does seem surprising that 2 high level experienced politicians could not predict it would be profoundly unpopular.

Hope things improve. Not super optimistic.

She said it was Kwarteng's idea - that just comes off as a very wrong on many levels

I usually take the line that when Prime Minister is replaced in between scheduled General Elections that no there is no case for an early election…we don’t have a Presidential system in UK, and Prime Ministers have often been changed mid term.

But, Liz Truss’s clear intentions depart radically from the manifesto that got the Bojo government elected, the claim then (apart from “Get Brexit done”) was that the economy would be re-balanced to help poorer regions of UK (“levelling up”). Ms Truss has no intentions of “levelling up”. (Mind you not sure anybody ever knew what it meant.)

There is therefore a case in equity for an early General Election. But obviously not going to happen.

There is no way - politically, not legally - that they can get rid of Truss and choose another leader without calling a General Election. They can do it, of course, but at this point it would just be a political disaster.

The Tories' best chance, at this point, is to ride it out with Truss and hope for a manageable defeat in ~18 months.

[hyped78]

Actually a poll just came out here in the UK (Savanta ComRes):

Labour - 50%
Conservatives - 25%
Liberal Democrats - 11%
SNP - 3%
Green - 3%
Other - 8%

[hyped78]

I don't think your background would bias you.

I certainly agree that things are changing rapidly on this topic. I don't pretend that things have always been the same here, and am generally interested in figuring out what's going on.

There is marked increase in the % of folks in the US currently identifying as LGBTQ+, generation vs. previous generation and so forth. Whether that's just because it's easier to identify as LGBTQ+ than it used to be, or because the % has actually increased, or a combination of both - I have no idea (not sure if there are studies on that; there are also interesting demographic considerations from this).

For context, according to Gallup, in 2020 the % of American adults who identify as LGBTQ+:
- Traditionalists - 1.3%
- Baby Boomers - 2.0%
- Generation X - 3.8%
- Millennials - 9.1%
- Gen Z - 15.9%

https://www.statista.com/chart/18228...fying-as-lgbt/

[Rzerox21xx]

https://twitter.com/i/events/1577028721239900161?s=20

this **** makes me nervous and anxious.

[AnakinFlair]

https://twitter.com/i/events/1577028721239900161?s=20

this **** makes me nervous and anxious.

Okay, let's say the nutjob actually does it.

Would this be enough to unite most of the rest of the world to actually enter into a war with Russia? Would the US maybe sanction surgical strikes against their leadership, including Putin.

I'd have to think even China would be against Russia setting off nukes in the region.

[Mister Mets]

There is marked increase in the % of folks in the US currently identifying as LGBTQ+, generation vs. previous generation and so forth. Whether that's just because it's easier to identify as LGBTQ+ than it used to be, or because the % has actually increased, or a combination of both - I have no idea (not sure if there are studies on that; there are also interesting demographic considerations from this).

For context, according to Gallup, in 2020 the % of American adults who identify as LGBTQ+:
- Traditionalists - 1.3%
- Baby Boomers - 2.0%
- Generation X - 3.8%
- Millennials - 9.1%
- Gen Z - 15.9%

https://www.statista.com/chart/18228...fying-as-lgbt/

There's a lot we don't know.

One comparison I've heard is that this may be like the rise in left-handed people once we realize there's no shame in it, and a significant percentage of the population just happens to be left-handed.

That might be the case. If so, the overwhelming majority of people who identify as trans or nonbinary would identify that way in any society in which they're free to do so.

But we can't be sure.

On his substack the writer Frederick DeBoer notes a problem in modern western culture: Some people claim to have conditions they do not have.

https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p...address-online

On substance, Tatum Hunter’s piece fails the way so many others have failed in this milieu: it studiously avoids the possibility that some people who talk about their mental illnesses online don’t really have them. I’m not specifically talking about simple fraud and lies, which I suspect are rare, but rather the weird combination of hypochondria, Munchausen’s syndrome, and social contagion that we see all around us in these spaces. Spend any time at all in these communities on Tumblr or Tik Tok and you will find many people, most of them young, who are using mental illness as a means to self-define, to differentiate themselves from the hordes of other people they see online who are just like them. I’ve written again and again about why it’s a bad idea to want to be your mental illness, and it’s even worse to want to be mentally ill, period - not just bad for other people, but bad for you. But there are people who have become influencers and garnered hundreds of thousands of followers on their apps of choice by performing mental illness. People use their disorders to chase clout. That’s just reality.

Hunter considers the problems of misdiagnosis, of self-diagnosis, of people undertaking mental health care on the advice of internet randoms rather than under the care of a doctor, but nowhere does she seriously consider the possibility that the basic problem for many people is that they believe they have mental disorders they don’t in fact have. I think doing so is seen, at this point, as a kind of identity crime, and thus unlikely to be found in the Washington Post.

But hypochondria exists. Munchausen’s syndrome exists. Psychosomatic illness exists. I can get people to admit to those realities in the abstract, now, but they stay entirely in the abstract - to suggest that any group of people is suffering under those conditions, rather than under authentic mental illness, is treated as a sin. This was my biggest disappointment with Ross Douthat’s book on his chronic illness, which I quite liked overall; Douthat never stops his narrative to ask whether any of the people who believe themselves to be sick from chronic illness actually aren’t. (Surely he himself suffered, but because of the woo and mysticism found in that space, an accounting was necessary.) And I don’t know how we confront the spiraling number of people claiming to have illnesses for which there are no objective tests without being frank about the existence of hypochondria, Munchausen’s, and psychosomatic illness - particularly when people insist on deepening the social incentives by giving the sick more and more attention.

This might have limited implications in the trans policy debates, or this could be an explanation for a percentage of the increase. But there has been a significant change on this in the last few years.

[BeastieRunner]

Being LGBTQ+ is not a condition.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Okay, let's say the nutjob actually does it.

Would this be enough to unite most of the rest of the world to actually enter into a war with Russia? Would the US maybe sanction surgical strikes against their leadership, including Putin.

I'd have to think even China would be against Russia setting off nukes in the region.

Would they? I’m not so sure.

[Tami]

Where in the world is Tom Kean Jr. ?

Is it a bad sign when the cornerstone of your campaign strategy is to show the voting public as little of yourself as possible? Tom Kean Jr. certainly doesn’t think so. Dude’s been on the lamb for months now. Sure, he pops up on your TV every few minutes complaining about tomato prices but his ubiquitous presence on the airwaves stands in stark contrast to his engagement, or lack thereof, with the media.

Kean Jr. has been ducking the press like he owes them money. He’s been avoiding anything resembling a camera or microphone since he declared his run. He even refused to sit for The Star-Ledger Editorial Board’s endorsement interviews. I know these people, I was one of these people, and generally speaking, they are thoughtful, well-behaved and pleasant-smelling folks. Generally speaking.

Kean Jr. has come to the perhaps logical conclusion that the less people know about him, the more likely he is to win. He got a big boost from the demographics fairy when redistricting made a Republican win all the more likely and his plan to protect that baked-in advantage is to hide.

So where is he? He backed a good deal of the Trump agenda, whatever the hell that means, so maybe he’s hanging out at Trump National Golf Course and Mortuary Services in Bedminster. Has anyone checked Dr. Oz’s house?

[Adam Allen]

I don't think your background would bias you.

I certainly agree that things are changing rapidly on this topic. I don't pretend that things have always been the same here, and am generally interested in figuring out what's going on.

Thank you. I appreciate that. As far as what is going on ...

There's a lot we don't know.

One comparison I've heard is that this may be like the rise in left-handed people once we realize there's no shame in it, and a significant percentage of the population just happens to be left-handed.

That might be the case. If so, the overwhelming majority of people who identify as trans or nonbinary would identify that way in any society in which they're free to do so.

But we can't be sure.

On his substack the writer Frederick DeBoer notes a problem in modern western culture: Some people claim to have conditions they do not have.

https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p...address-online



This might have limited implications in the trans policy debates, or this could be an explanation for a percentage of the increase. But there has been a significant change on this in the last few years.

Yeah, as BeastieRunner points out, this is not a "condition". You know, how I mentioned working with kids in mental health, who just happen to be trans? That's not just how I'm describing it ... they may be treated for depression, anxiety, a whole DSM laundry list of psych diagnoses as well as medical ones; gender identity is not ever what they need help with. And yes, some of these kids have transitioned or are in the process of doing so.

I understand why you think there might be harm in it, but frankly, you are not inclined to doubt a cisgender boy or girl when they tell you their gender, so what makes you think trans kids should not be trusted when they tell you who they are?

With apologies, the heart of the problem is the way that you (and many others) are conceiving of gender, identity, and sexuality: You think of these primarily as discrete categories, male/female, gay/straight, and you imagine that variations in these simple binary categories accounts for the whole of the human population. The problem is that there are not truly discrete categories ... not universally, for every individual ... and there are more than two binary options defining every individual:

Genderbread-Person-v4.jpg

Note that's ten variables per person, and importantly, the categories pairs are not actually exclusive; many more people are born intersex or ambiguous than the general population is aware, and there have always been people who did not fit neatly into male/female categories of expression or identity. And obviously bi people exist.

The gist is that what seems like an "increase" in people identifying as alphabet mafia is just that you're getting a more true and complete picture of what makes up the full 100% if the population.

Yeah, the majority are cisgendered and heterosexual. But with so much variation possible, it seems ludicrous to think people who don't fit neatly into those boxes are ... well, what percentage do you think might be realistic, out of curiosity? You know, if everyone was completely free to be like whatever, with no stigma or negative repercussions (a fantasy possibility, but still curious), what do you think a "natural" percentage of non-cishet people would be?

[Tendrin]

The only 'condition' in this regard is dysphoria, which is fortunately very treatable!

I promise you, no one is going to go through everything we put a trans person through to get treated, along with all the social hatred we direct at them, just for funsies.

[Malvolio]

The only 'condition' in this regard is dysphoria, which is fortunately very treatable!

I promise you, no one is going to go through everything we put a trans person through to get treated, along with all the social hatred we direct at them, just for funsies.

Exactly. Even if you think being homosexual or transgender is hip and trendy, there are plenty of other ways to be hip and trendy without risking the possible backlash and abuse one can encounter as a member of the LGBTQ community.