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

[Catlady in training]

I'm not sure if this is an American thing, but students can always go to the office to make a phone call to their parents.

But that is probably for emergencies, not stuff like "Can I go to XY after school?", or "I am really afraid of this test, tell me that's it's gonna be ok."

Actually those polices do exist.

HOWEVER what happens is teacher tries to get that phone and gets a BEATDOWN by the kid. And depending on which kid laid hands on the teacher-nothing happens to the kid and some teachers lose their jobs.

Something happens to the phone and it gets damaged or lost-guess who has to pay for it?

Bodycams for teachers?

[Malvolio]

At the high school where I used to work, many of the teachers had baskets in the front of the room where students would place their phones at the beginning of class and get them back when class ended. They could use their phones as much as they wanted during lunch or study hall, but not during class.

[worstblogever]

At the high school where I used to work, many of the teachers had baskets in the front of the room where students would place their phones at the beginning of class and get them back when class ended. They could use their phones as much as they wanted during lunch or study hall, but not during class.

Solid system. Same way you put up your backpacks in kindergarten, but your phones up, because you don't need anything in them while they're downloading learnin'.

[Robotman]

Florida joins conservative states severing ties with national library group

If you can’t ban them or burn them I guess they can just walk away.

Anything to prevent people from learning about history/facts, other cultures, new perspective, and all the other “evil” things conservatives hate.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, as well as 2022, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day posted profiles of U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, a man who we have to work up all of our energy to not just post, “F*** you, Mitch” in our update once a year, because he’s one of the final bosses of this generation who completely has broken the legislative branch of our government. And loathing this putrid husk pretending to be a human is hardly a partisan thing, as he was even booed when he took the stage to give a speech at the 2016 Republican National Convention by members of his own party. He is, for us, one of the most infuriating politicians in modern history, for his hyper-partisan tactics, and his apparent desire to bring all government action to a grinding halt in the name of simply obstructing the other side from being able to govern, as well. McConnell is a seven term senator (Jesus, really?) who has risen from unlikely beginnings as an ordinary turtle to being covered in radioactive ooze and forgoing a "teenage mutant ninja" stage to instead become a fixture in Washington, D.C. He has an extremely conservative voting record, which he does his best to misrepresent (y'know lie) about every six years to try and ensure his re-election while he airs some of the weirdest ads on his own behalf.

McConnell boldly stated his primary goal as Senate Minority Leader was to "make Barack Obama a one term president", so based on his own expectations, he's a complete failure. Under his leadership in the Senate from 2010-2016, McConnell led Republicans to double the usage of invoking cloture to filibuster laws, triple the number of filibustered nominees of any previous presidency, and has seen the GOP push back against confirming judges so that only 43% of judges nominated by President Obama for the bench were confirmed within 14 months of their nomination. Sen. McConnell’s filibustering ways were so out of control that he literally filibustered bills THAT HE HIMSELF WROTE. Mitch McConnell refused to hold confirmation hearings for Merrick Garland Supreme Court Justice for ELEVEN GODDAMN MONTHS after the death of Antonin Scalia.

So what happened when the 2016 elections got stolen by help from the Russians hacking American social media feeds, and widespread voter suppression of traditionally Democratic voters by Republicans in swing states? Well, guess what, Mitch McConnell got all lathered up and almost immediately changed the rules for the filibuster so that Democrats couldn’t prevent the Trump administration from stacking the courts full of conservatives even if they had a rampant history of racial bias, promoting conspiracy theories, or making sexist or homophobic statements that clearly showed they had no business serving as a judge, let alone a FEDERAL judge. And it was all so they could get people like Neil Gorsuch on the Supreme Court, who, for the record, is so much of a conservative f*** face that even John Roberts is getting sick of his s*** already,and even worse, a drunken fratboy accused of multiple sexual assaults with a habit of multiple perjury by the name of Brett Kavanaugh. Hell, upon learning of the accusations, McConnell moved the Senate to try and confirm Kavanaugh FASTER rather than have the FBI investigate the attack. And McConnell sees zero hypocrisy for that. Hell, only two years after insisting it would be wrong to confirm a Supreme Court Justice in the last year of a presidential term, inventing that “rule” on the spot, now this miserable, bloated tortoise has conveniently forgotten that it’s a rule, and is ready to confirm any Justices if needed in 2020.

So perhaps then, it’s at least satisfying to know that Mitch McConnell, who has orchestrated Kentucky politics to sustain his own four decade long political career and ensure no serious challengers can rise out of the state to cut his career short, is currently watching an incompetent he helped get elected to the White House and handed the reins of power to when he had never held any office turn on him for every perceived failure, and instead serve him a heaping helping of ridicule and humiliation casserole. People have noticed that when Sen. McConnell is forced into joint press conferences with Trump, he looks like he’s being held hostage and would rather be anywhere else.

But maybe that’s because he only has the courage to say he’s “upset” even when Trump can’t bring himself to criticize Neo-Nazis after they murdered an innocent woman in Charlottesville, Virginia. McConnell’s next Senate term is up in 2020, and we’re wondering that if McConnell is Dr. Frankenstein whole political maneuvering helped create a monster like Trump that he’ll get some kind of poetic justice for his part in that creation. Sometimes, it already has worked out for Democrats, as evidenced when the president was forced into a debt ceiling deal by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

Hell, Mitch McConnell is such an ***hole that Sen. John McCain flew in from Arizona from his deathbed to deliver a huge “f*** you” to the old tortoise back in July of 2017 with a dramatic thumbs down vote on a repeal of the Affordable Care Act. This would be a repeal attempt that McConnell knew he would only be able to pull off with a simple 50 vote majority (Mike Pence being his tie-breaker) to destroy the ACA after promising to do so for SEVEN YEARS. And NOPE, John McCain hateds McConnell more than he loves conservative dogma, and that’s saying something.

This man is enough of a loathsome twit that he can push for the biggest tax break for the wealthy in a century, and then feign concern about the federal deficit it created, but blame that shortfall on Medicaid and Social Security. (Just a quick reminder, older voters elected Mitch McConnell, and he’s going to f*** them over if he gets his way).

[Tami]

Florida joins conservative states severing ties with national library group

If you can’t ban them or burn them I guess they can just walk away.

Anything to prevent people from learning about history/facts, other cultures, new perspective, and all the other “evil” things conservatives hate.

The states can do as they wish, but the librarians have the freedom to join whatever professional organization they want. Which reminds me, I need to pay my dues. Been a member of the ALA and the SLA since I got my MLS.

[worstblogever]

So after McConnell has been Majority leader now for about three years of abject failure, people continue to call for him to step down from his position on both sides of the aisle. Commentators also have spread the meme that McConnell’s tombstone will read, “He Broke America”, and he and his wife Elaine Chao are getting shouted out of restaurants when they try to dine out in public back in Louisville, he’s so loathed. They’ve been chased out of establishments repeatedly, and that may have something to do with the fact that the would-be power couple have focused on aligning side deals between Kentucky businessmen, and Russian oligarchs.

Somehow, the motherf***er always has the gall to act surprised when people snub him.


McConnell actually has come to revel in being an obstructionist prick, to the extent that he enjoys killing whatever legislation that House Democrats send his way now that they have control of the lower chamber, giving himself the moniker “The Grim Reaper”. Yeah. This man has no qualms about killing legislation, or the actual lives that could be saved by passing it. McConnell outrageously even refused to allow witnesses in the impeachment Trial of Donald Trump, effectively making it a “trial” and a mockery of justice.

And then… this complete motherf***er… only about an hour and a half after Supreme Court Justice and ultra-badass Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away… after the stink he made in February of 2016 when Antonin Scalia suddenly passed on about how it’s wrong to hold hearings on a Supreme Court Justice in an election year… when early voting had already begun in parts of the country in this election… this ghoul announced he would be ready to get a new justice seated to replace her.

Again, an hour and a half after she died, and when medically, her body was literally not cold yet. Let alone before people had time to mourn her passing, or regard her legacy.

And guess what? If something happened to any Supreme Court Justice in late 2023 or early 2024? McConnell will go back to the mystery rule he broke about presidents not getting Supreme Court nominees in an election year and try to hold up the process again, because he is, quite plainly, a hypocritical bag of crap.

We cannot mince words here.

Screw Mitch McConnell with the chair he seated Amy Coney Barrett in. I know his body is turning purple and black at times because whatever bargain he made with Mephistopheles is coming due, and if there were any indication he’s devoid of any human empathy, it would probably be evidenced about how he chuckled when hearing over 200,000 had died of Covid-19 when the topic of Covid-19 stimulus came up during his debate with Amy McGrath.

Speaking of, after the Coney Barrett hearings, McConnell shoved his whole arm into a barrel of salt, then jammed it into the wound he’s created in this country by moving to adjourn the Senate STILL WITHOUT ALLOWING A VOTE ON A STIMULUS BILL THE HOUSE PASSED IN MAY, and it had to wait until February of 2021 when he was in the minority to get through. He’s still willing to hold the debt ceiling hostage, even though it would cripple the national, if not the global economy as a partisan stunt, and when he finally gets out-hustled on the votes by Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, any sound leaving Schumer’s lips is enough for McConnell to stamp his feet and pretend that he was somehow wronged and NEXT TIME, GADGET, he’ll do irreparable harm to the country rather than let a Democrat “win”. Not for nothing, McConnell also threw in the anti-Semitic line that Schumer “poisoned the well” in debt ceiling negotiations, because of course he’d use a centuries-old bigoted trope like that. What would you expect from a guy who gets tweaked when he thinks about the New York Times’ 1619 Project?

He’s used the filibuster time and again, and was willing to do so in 2021 to block a non-partisan investigation into the Jan. 6th attack, because how dare Democrats expect attempts by seven Republican members of Congress to turn a mob loose on the Capitol to murder Mike Pence and any Democratic Congress members they might find? Of course he’d block that, because it would reduce the odds he’d become Majority Leader after the 2022 elections to zero.

Were he not still an obstacle to all progress in our country, we’d probably be laughing at old Mitch these days, what with the Frankenstein the GOP helped create in Donald Trump staging a failed coup, and then refusing to just go away to Mar-a-Lago to disappear, still insisting on holding sway over the Republican Party to where what should have been a slam dunk for Republicans to retake a 50-50 Senate in the mid-terms were undone by Trump endorsing terrible Senate candidates like Herschel Walker, JD Vance, and Mehmet Oz, to say nothing of his sniping with Republican Senator Rick Scott, who got control of the National Republican Senate Committee and blew through their record fundraising on those terrible candidates without any clear indication to where all the money went. (Go figure, you put the guy who oversaw the greatest medical insurance fraud in American history in charge of a bunch of money, and it disappears… who’d have guessed?). Trump has been raging against McConnell at every opportunity, not just calling for him to be replaced as Senate Minority Leader, but including making threats and racist attacks against his wife, former Cabinet Secretary Elaine Chao.

But we can’t feel bad for him, because he’s still Mitch McConnell, and he was actively coordinating with Trump on his impeachment hearing strategy. Even though he blames Trump for his coup attempt on January 6th, he’s still spineless enough to pledge his vote for him in 2024.

And now, we come to a new phase in the story of Mitch McConnell… the man who fancied calling himself the Grim Reaper has become somehow pitiable by having moments where it seems like the actual one is coming to give him a cease and desist on the name, with emphasis on the “ceasing”. On two occasions, the nation has seen him “freeze up” in the middle of press conferences, which doctors believe to be some sort of mini-strokes related to a fall he took at home earlier this year.

Mitch McConnell is not just losing his grip on power, with people like Trump and now new House Speaker Mike Johnson ignoring him… he’s losing his mortality. We’re not about to feel bad for him, of course, given the decades of partisanship and cruelty he’s enacted with the power he wielded.

[Mister Mets]

But that is probably for emergencies, not stuff like "Can I go to XY after school?", or "I am really afraid of this test, tell me that's it's gonna be ok."



Bodycams for teachers?

I think any decent schools will allow students to go to the office to call home phone if there's a logistics question or a kid with anxiety who needs reassurance?

Bodycams for teachers will have an immediate privacy concern.

At the high school where I used to work, many of the teachers had baskets in the front of the room where students would place their phones at the beginning of class and get them back when class ended. They could use their phones as much as they wanted during lunch or study hall, but not during class.

That can work if kids consistently hand in phones.

There are workarounds, like claiming to be grounded or handing in a dead phone and pretending it's the one you use.

[Mister Mets]

1. You corrected me saying that what you said isn't what you said, and are continuing to do so despite proof being posted.

2.


Of the bolded answers, 1 is openly "My identity is not listed" so that makes you a liar again. Of them all, can you tell me if they were brought up as boys/girls? Can you tell me how they were assigned at birth? Can you tell me anything other than they were anonymous students who said they were Genderfluid/etc?

As it is impossible to do so from the data provided, you know exactly how The Week inflated their numbers in order to make the transphobic lie quoted here:

Everything else is used to disguise that fact & how you refuse to admit it, but I guess trying to paint me as a bigot for objecting to their/your lies is frosting on the cake.

3. First you tell me I'm not being persuasive because I called you a liar when you were lying, and now you say you don't understand why you brought my opinion into it . . . Well that's on you again, I don't know what to tell you. As for your vote, NY isn't going for Trump if he dropped $5 trillion on the streets of Manhattan like in Batman '85, but considering the vast majority of the GoP are his supporters regardless of what is said to the contrary your best bet to vote against them is to vote against them in the General election too. Unless you have Mitt Romney or Liz Cheney running for your local offices, your pickings are very slim for any non-Trump supporting Republicans anywhere on your ballot. But if I'm wrong there I'd love if you could tell me who the up-and-coming Republican star who's openly against Trump and the lies & bigotry spread by him (and so many other GoPers) that you know of in your area and are voting for. I'd genuinely be thrilled to have a moral Republican who's against all of what's stained conservatism in the US for a long time now to use as an example of what to do rather than what not to do.

1. I think I'm the top expert in what I meant. I assure that I did not mean to say anything that suggests it's reasonable to discuss the far right of the Democratic Socialists of America.

2. "My identity is not listed" was less than 0.5 out of 100. That's not close to enough to suggest that it is so obvious that a magazine like The Week was lying that anyone who disagrees with you should be called out years later.

3. I'm not lying. This conversation has been personal for some time. You have insulted me for years. I don't like it. I don't think it reflects well on you.

[Madam-Shogun-Assassin]

A poll showed that even 56% of Republican voters think enough brown children have been killed, but it's still not enough for the White House to ask for a ceasefire

[Mister Mets]

A poll showed that even 56% of Republican voters think enough brown children have been killed, but it's still not enough for the White House to ask for a ceasefire

So what will Hamas be doing during the ceasefire?

[Dalak]

1. I think I'm the top expert in what I meant. I assure that I did not mean to say anything that suggests it's reasonable to discuss the far right of the Democratic Socialists of America.

2. "My identity is not listed" was less than 0.5 out of 100. That's not close to enough to suggest that it is so obvious that a magazine like The Week was lying that anyone who disagrees with you should be called out years later.

3. I'm not lying. This conversation has been personal for some time. You have insulted me for years. I don't like it. I don't think it reflects well on you.

1. If you had said "I misspoke, I meant . . ." or words to that effect then what you meant to say would matter more. Instead you tried to correct others factually despite being wrong on the facts as you often do, and that deserves to be pointed out.

2. When you ignore the other 3.4% of respondents that were deliberately mislabeled by The Week, that deserves to be pointed out too. Nothing honest about this sort of behavior.

3. When you correct others despite being wrong on the facts and continue to do so after evidence has been pointed out, you are lying. When you act obtuse/act like you don't understand things which you are more than intelligent enough to understand, you are lying. To point out that someone deliberately telling untruths is a liar isn't an insult when evidence is provided, and the defense to such a statement is to point out the truth and show how the accuser is the one lying rather than complaining about it or asking others to report posts doing it to you only. Putting one or two posters on ignore only hides the problem as others will still point out your double standards and dishonesty.

If you are upset by having your dishonest actions pointed out, stop acting dishonestly and no one would have grounds to do so.

[Tendrin]

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — Only a week into the job, the North Dakota Republican Party's executive director has resigned after a media outlet publicized some of his social media posts that were demeaning toward women and dismissed concerns raised by Black people about racism.

The party announced the resignation Monday of Dave Roetman, who previously worked for the South Dakota GOP. He quit seven days after being hired and a few days after Forum News Service reported about his posts and replies on X, formerly known as Twitter. The posts dated from just over a year ago to as recently as this month.

https://www.newspressnow.com/news/re...678076d41.html

Just a fine and dandy political party, everyone. Nothing to see here.

[Tendrin]

An Israeli strike targeting a Hamas commander in the densely populated Jabalya refugee camp in northern Gaza has left catastrophic damage and killed a large number of people, according to eyewitnesses and medics in the enclave.

The devastation wrought by the strike triggered a fresh groundswell of grief over spiraling civilian casualties, as Gazans awoke to another communications blackout Wednesday morning.

Survivors and eyewitness spoke of apocalyptic scenes in the aftermath of the strike, which tore a massive crater through the middle of the crowded camp.

“I was waiting in line to buy bread when suddenly and without any prior warning seven to eight missiles fell,” an eyewitness, Mohammad Ibrahim, told CNN.

“There were seven to eight huge holes in the ground, full of killed people, body parts all over the place,” he said. “It felt like the end of the world.”

https://www.yahoo.com/news/israeli-s...175156552.html

[hyped78]

Stars of David spray-painted on Paris buildings 'recall events of 1930s' antisemitism

https://news.sky.com/story/stars-of-...mayor-12997891