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

[Tami]

It's happened many times before and will happen many times again. I'll admit I have a fairly biased opinion concerning this particular social/cultural conflict, and it doesn't surprise me at all that the deplorable Arlene Foster continues to bash Sinn Fein with every breath she takes.

I have ancestors who came from Northern Ireland and the surrounding area. Though I am not unfamiliar with the basics, I'm still learning about it's history.

[Hellion]

I have ancestors who came from Northern Ireland and the surrounding area. Though I am not unfamiliar with the basics, I'm still learning about it's history.

I do too, and it's fascinating. Won't claim to have a perfect grasp of all of it, but I did major in History in college and focused on Ireland and Scotland. My ancestral loyalties would align me with Sinn Fein and the rest of the Catholic community, but I acknowledge they and the IRA have committed the same atrocities that the Unionist side has over the decades and centuries of this conflict.

It does seem per the BBC however that this most recent spate of riots are the fault of Unionist gangs and paramilitaries lashing out against Brexit and a UK they feel has betrayed and abandoned Northern Ireland.

[Agent Z]

The Biden administration says it may restart construction of the border wall to fill 'gaps' left by Trump

https://africa.***************.com/n...o-fill/pmezt01

[JackDaw]

Well if Britain was going to leave the EU, then you would either need to draw a border between Northern Ireland and the south, which would piss off the Republicans, or impose internal border controls between NI and the rest of the UK, which would piss off the Unionists. There is no compromise that can get around this problem, aside from maybe convincing everyone there to stop being such pea-brained sectarian ghouls and maybe try living a normal life like everyone else, but given the trends in the UK and Europe at large, I don't see that happening anytime soon.

There was a border between North and Southern Ireland before Brexit...even when both countries were in EU, each country still had different governments, tax regimes, different currencies, different rules in all sorts of areas..so it was always necessary at some level to know what was being done where in order to pay right taxes to right government.

But..of course..pre-Brexit that border was regulated in a very relaxed manner...although some detailed rules were different there was enough harmony (both in terms of the rules being similar and relative goodwill between the governments) to not use really onerous border checks, no one really feared possibility of large scale smuggling.

Where Brexit has made a difference is way in which that borders are operated...deep down I think it is being policed far too rigorously now, because actually EU/ UK trade standards are still very, very similar. (But guess in long term standards might diverge and EU/ UK do need to develop faster, less invasive ways to do checks. Not impossible with goodwill on both sides, but proving difficult now.)

I actually agree with the spirit of what you said...was just quibbling on detail. (And just had a quick look at BBC story and see EU/UK did opt for imposing new sea border between NI and mainland UK...and it is that new border that is being policed pedantically rather than the Southern Ireland/ Northern Ireland that existed pre-Brexit...something I should already have known, but less interested in politics than I was.)

[PwrdOn]

I do too, and it's fascinating. Won't claim to have a perfect grasp of all of it, but I did major in History in college and focused on Ireland and Scotland. My ancestral loyalties would align me with Sinn Fein and the rest of the Catholic community, but I acknowledge they and the IRA have committed the same atrocities that the Unionist side has over the decades and centuries of this conflict.

It does seem per the BBC however that this most recent spate of riots are the fault of Unionist gangs and paramilitaries lashing out against Brexit and a UK they feel has betrayed and abandoned Northern Ireland.

The sad thing about that is, while the Northern Irish keep trying to re-fight battles from 500 years ago, the rest of the world has kept on moving in the meantime, and the identities that they are clinging to so desperately have largely ceased to be relevant. Britain is not a globe-spanning empire anymore, and modern Ireland is more of a glorified tax haven for American companies than a proud Celtic republic, the only chance that the region has to remain remotely relevant going forward is to set aside their differences and work together.

[Tami]

Students' hoax Covid messages put an entire class in quarantine

ZURICH — Students in the Swiss city of Basel falsified positive Covid-19 results in a bid to skip school, resulting in the entire class being put in quarantine, and now disciplinary measures against the perpetrators after the hoax was discovered.

Three students in Basel's Kirschgarten High School falsified SMS messages from Switzerland's Covid-19 contact tracing app, the Swiss newspaper Blick reported.

That forced about 25 classmates to be confined to their homes for some 10 days. Several teachers were also affected by the incident just before spring break in March.

[worstblogever]

It was on this day in both 2015, as well as 2016, that “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled Scott Brown, who after being defeated by Sen. Elizabeth Warren in Massachusetts in 2012, carpet-bagged his way up to New Hampshire to attempt a challenge of Sen. Jean Shaheen in the 2014 midterm elections, also failing there. In that 2012 campaign, he falsely sent out fundraising e-mails claiming that MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow was running against him, and then made a series of misogynistic attacks against Elizabeth Warren once she entered the race, including having his staffers go to her rallies and try mocking her for putting Native American heritage on her college forms by war-whooping and doing a tomahawk chop (which obviously made them look far more like the ***holes). During his campaign against Jean Shaheen, he reversed position and denied climate change existed, accused illegal immigrants crossing the U.S./Mexico border of bringing the Ebola Virus with them (which makes zero sense), and gave out free alcohol to college students at a tailgate fundraiser, leading to viral videos of Dudebros for Brown chanting, “F*** Jean Shaheen” and “F*** her right in the p****”. Because that’s effective campaigning. And yes, Brown once modeled nude for in Cosmopolitan magazine back in 1982 as a male centerfold. Brown spent 2016 campaigning for Donald Trump, but did not returned into the fold as a candidate since 2014.



On this date in 2017, 2018, 2019, as well as 2020, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” had its original profile to discuss Ken Weyler, a member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives who originally served nine terms in that body from 1990-2008, before taking a loss in 2008 and laying low for two years. He returned to office in a 2010 special election, garnered some attention when he argued against insurance covering mental health problems because, as he claims, “mental illness is an elaborate racket” where “by cutting the amount of help we're willing to offer, we'd like them to discover that some of these people can be cured.” That probably should have alarmed people, as should his voting record, since Weyler has taken the hardest of hard lines on most issues across the board, be it sponsoring the effort by New Hampshire Republicans to sue the federal government over the Affordable Care Act, voting for obviously unconstitutional legislation to force public school students to stand for the pledge of allegiance, opposition to New Hampshire’s SB 390, which would have prevented housing discrimination against victims of domestic violence, and a vote against a bill which was written to establish a buffer zone outside of abortion clinics to keep protesters from getting close enough to bar the door, or attack those going in.

Now, it’s not Ken Weyler’s legislative record that really made him stand out to us. It was when he made the news in February of 2016 as he submitted testimony to a state House committee hearing for a bill he co-sponsored that would prohibit "any member of a foreign terrorist organization from receiving public assistance, medical assistance, or food stamps." That already sounded xenophobic and bigoted, but it got worse during the hearing, as Weyler argued that giving public assistance to Muslims amounts to “treason”. And that quote is most definitely not just the heat of the moment, because the prepared remarks that Weyler had included his opinions that In his written testimony, Weyler said that all "terrorist attacks of the last twenty years have been by Muslim fanatics" (which is false when you have people like Dylann Roof and James Dear running around, to name a few). Weyler then went on to rant about the Tsarnaev brothers, who perpetrated the Boston Marathon bombing and claimed both where not just “raised on public benefits” (reports are their mother did in their youth), but wasn’t satisfied and lied to claim Tamerlan still was because, " one of them married and put his wife on public benefits. If he had to support his family, he might have had more devotion to his job and not to bomb building and radicalizing his brother." Weyler continued in his testimony, admitting that there are "Muslims in our community who are working hard to be economically successful", but calling for an end to any welfare for Muslims because, “if one does not have to be responsible for what all the rest of us do to support ourselves, then ‘The Devil has work for idle hands." Weyler then meandered back into an argument that all Muslims are responsible for terrorism (which would be news to the IRA up in Ireland), charging that Islam is not a real religion.

"You may hear from some opposition to this bill, but I must remind you that in the Muslim religion the word ‘taqiyya’ describes how its adherents are expected to lie to non-believers to advance their cause. I say cause rather than religion because this is an ideology posing as a religion. Islam is intolerant and deceitful, and its adherents are ordered to overthrow our way of life and to replace it with ‘sharia’ law. Anyone who attends a mosque is expected to contribute. Ten percent of the contributions are labeled ‘zakat’ and are used to fund ‘jihad’ or religious war against us.”

We wish we could report that being that much of an intolerant piece of garbage was enough to deny Weyler re-election in the 2018 elections, but alas, he was one of only four Republicans who ran for office for the four seats in the New Hampshire House of Representatives, guaranteeing his re-election. He has since returned to office to vote against all sorts of common sense legislation, such as a bill to raise the minimum wage to $9.50 in his state (during the greatest period of income inequality in our country in a century), voted against a prohibition on the death penalty (that received bipartisan support) and voted against a commission to properly investigate any sexual harassment complaints that should come forth in the legislature.

Ken Weyler was, regrettably, elected to a seventeenth term in the New Hampshire House of Representatives in 2020. He is currently part of an effort of several GOP legislators to strip power from the state’s governor, outraged that Gov. Chris Sununu had any ability to help make executive orders to stop the spread of Covid-19 and dared to use it.

Because of course he is.

[Zauriel]

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation...-kids-3-adults

Former NFL player Phillip Adams killed 5 people including 2 children, then killed himself,

Why did he do it? What made him murder innocent bystanders and then commit suicide? Was he mentally deranged? Or Was it CTE? It's not unusual for NFL players to have CTE. Chris Benoit also had CTE.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation...-kids-3-adults

Former NFL player Phillip Adams killed 5 people including 2 children, then killed himself,

Why did he do it? What made him murder innocent bystanders and then commit suicide? Was he mentally deranged? Or Was it CTE? It's not unusual for NFL players to have CTE. Chris Benoit also had CTE.

I heard about this story an hour ago. Absolutely horrific, and seemingly senseless as hell.

[worstblogever]

Sounds like Joel Greenberg is gonna plea guilty to lesser charges to avoid spending the rest of his natural life in prison, and turn state's evidence against Matt Gaetz.

It's not exactly speculation, given Greenberg's lawyer just left the courthouse and told the press, "I'm sure Matt Gaetz is not feeling very comfortable today."

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Sounds like Joel Greenberg is gonna plea guilty to lesser charges to avoid spending the rest of his natural life in prison, and turn state's evidence against Matt Gaetz.

It's not exactly speculation, given Greenberg's lawyer just left the courthouse and told the press, "I'm sure Matt Gaetz is not feeling very comfortable today."

That goes without saying. No wonder Matty Perv tried to get Trump to give him a blanket pardon. Despite his protestations, Gaetz KNEW what was coming.

[The Cool Thatguy]

Sounds like Joel Greenberg is gonna plea guilty to lesser charges to avoid spending the rest of his natural life in prison, and turn state's evidence against Matt Gaetz.

It's not exactly speculation, given Greenberg's lawyer just left the courthouse and told the press, "I'm sure Matt Gaetz is not feeling very comfortable today."

Sucks to be the big fish in this pond, lol

[The Cool Thatguy]

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation...-kids-3-adults

Former NFL player Phillip Adams killed 5 people including 2 children, then killed himself,

Why did he do it? What made him murder innocent bystanders and then commit suicide? Was he mentally deranged? Or Was it CTE? It's not unusual for NFL players to have CTE. Chris Benoit also had CTE.

I was watching TV with my father, when they were discussing a mass shooting. We thought it was about the guy from the NFL.

Nope! New one in Texas.

[AnakinFlair]

Looks like there was also multiple people shot in Texas today in a separate incident.

[Jack Dracula]

Y'know, instead of picking on Boehner because he was a Republican in the House of Representatives once upon a time, maybe we should give him some credit for saying the "obvious" about Trump instead of trying to deflect / spin the truth so that Trump looks like a misunderstood champion of the American people?

Boehner also has less-than-kind things to say about Ted Cruz, so that should be something else that may make him a tad preferable to many Republicans in the present-day House and Senate.

I and others have a beef with him because he was in a position of power at the time when some sort of push-back could've been made against the extremists in his party. Instead, he threw up his hands and left office.
He doesn't get a pass now because he says mean things about Ted Cruz.
If he'd been interested in stemming the tide of crazy in his party then we may not have experienced the Trump administration or the resulting fall-out.