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

[babyblob]

And the Gop talking point of letting parents get to decide what is taught in schools is 100 percent right.

As long as the parents sue for that right.

Parents of students int the Fairfield School district are planning in the next week to file a law suit after the school board cancels Diversity Day and bans the teaching of discrimination in their schools.

[shooshoomanjoe]

After the Supreme Court overturns Roe, Biden nominates anti-abortion judge. WTF is he thinking?

Democrats are blasting President Joe Biden for agreeing to nominate an anti-abortion Republican to a lifetime federal judgeship in Kentucky, less than a week after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

"The president is making a deal with the devil and once again" and "the people of Kentucky are crushed in the process," Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Charles Booker tweeted after The Courier Journal broke the story Wednesday night.

"At a time when we are fighting to protect human rights, this is a complete slap in the face."

[Dalak]

After the Supreme Court overturns Roe, Biden nominates anti-abortion judge. WTF is he thinking?

Did you read any of the discussion about this earlier in the thread?

[shooshoomanjoe]

Did you read any of the discussion about this earlier in the thread?

Not everyone has the leisure to read every post, every day.

[CSTowle]

Believing the sworn testimony of a White House insider is Qanon stuff?

How am I supposed to take your posts seriously from here on?

Rudy Giuliani was a White House insider. Steve Bannon was a White House insider. Stephen Miller was a White House insider. Way more inside than this young woman. And I'd still give almost zero credence to anything that came out of their mouths if they were under oath and swore on a stack of bibles, or copies of "the Art of the Deal". Even if it were direct testimony, and not hearsay like this is.

What's Qanon-like is wanting to believe facts that fit your favored narrative at the expense of what's either true or most likely to be true. It's pushing back on any criticism of that favored narrative with emotional attacks and insults instead of reasoning and rational arguments. It's trying to marginalize dissenters as "not serious" so you don't have to engage with their arguments and do what is really not much (but perhaps a bit too much) heavy lifting by instead dehumanizing and marginalizing so as to dismiss the argument entirely. It's what the kids call an "Ad Hominem".

Many here (including myself, which you'd have noticed if you'd considered what I've been writing rather than reflexively lashing out at me for not agreeing with you 100%) would like these things to be true. Some also seem to believe it's true. Others have doubts. Reasonable people should be able to have those discussions without treating this like we're all part of a religious organization where any word against the Favored Narrative makes us heretics to be stoned or exiled.

If you disagree, then by all means state so and give your arguments. Expect that you might get arguments back. Expect also that I'm as likely to change my mind as you are to change yours, though I will point out that I did concede Mets had proposed a far more likely scenario than any offered before it. But if you're unable to present arguments without resorting to insults or attempts to dismiss then maybe it's you who shouldn't be taken seriously. But I'll continue to respond where warranted, because I enjoy debating/discussing politics (this is likely my most interacted-with thread) and it's a fun way to pass the time.

[numberthirty]

Rudy Giuliani was a White House insider. Steve Bannon was a White House insider. Stephen Miller was a White House insider. Way more inside than this young woman. And I'd still give almost zero credence to anything that came out of their mouths if they were under oath and swore on a stack of bibles, or copies of "the Art of the Deal". Even if it were direct testimony, and not hearsay like this is.

What's Qanon-like is wanting to believe facts that fit your favored narrative at the expense of what's either true or most likely to be true. It's pushing back on any criticism of that favored narrative with emotional attacks and insults instead of reasoning and rational arguments. It's trying to marginalize dissenters as "not serious" so you don't have to engage with their arguments and do what is really not much (but perhaps a bit too much) heavy lifting by instead dehumanizing and marginalizing so as to dismiss the argument entirely. It's what the kids call an "Ad Hominem".

Many here (including myself, which you'd have noticed if you'd considered what I've been writing rather than reflexively lashing out at me for not agreeing with you 100%) would like these things to be true. Some also seem to believe it's true. Others have doubts. Reasonable people should be able to have those discussions without treating this like we're all part of a religious organization where any word against the Favored Narrative makes us heretics to be stoned or exiled.

If you disagree, then by all means state so and give your arguments. Expect that you might get arguments back. Expect also that I'm as likely to change my mind as you are to change yours, though I will point out that I did concede Mets had proposed a far more likely scenario than any offered before it. But if you're unable to present arguments without resorting to insults or attempts to dismiss then maybe it's you who shouldn't be taken seriously. But I'll continue to respond where warranted, because I enjoy debating/discussing politics (this is likely my most interacted-with thread) and it's a fun way to pass the time.

The main issue is where the story came from to start with...

It's someone who is know to bend the truth, if not lie outright.

Once you have internalized that reality?

It is not that hard to come up with a completely plausible scenario where the guy was telling a lie to someone else inside of the administration that made Trump look like he didn't just get treated like a little kid when they took him back to the White House. That he was a "Tough..." guy when they tried to pull that garbage on him, and he wanted to be there at the capital.

That is easily a lie that I could see the guy in question cooking up. Add that to the fact that the guy has been known to lie, and it is kind of tough to accept said "Second Hand..." story like it is the Ten Commandments.

[Mister Mets]

On the Constitutional Convention, left-wing extremists are marginalized by centrist control of their party so they'd be fighting the centrists and the far-right. There'd be zero chance they'd have the votes to hijack the Convention. As far as Republicans being afraid to pass laws that p##s off voters, where have you been for the last few weeks? That's the point of this thing, to grasp power completely from a "tyranny of the mob" and enshrine minority rule among the chosen few.

I will give you credit for framing this Trump assault scenario in the most realistic case. If he saw these guys as attack dogs trained to jump on anything that was a threat to him but to stand and take it if he wanted to take a swing at them that might have given him the confidence to do so.

Certainly more likely than framing him as a "dangerous and violent" maniac willing to take on a Secret Service agent to be with "his people".

To be clear, I said "left-wing activists" rather than extremists, although they would be considered extremists from the perspective of conservatives who would love to be in charge during a second constitutional convention. It would be an unpredictable situation in which organization can matter.

[Gray Lensman]

Not everyone has the leisure to read every post, every day.

I'll give a brief sum up. The vacancy doesn't exist yet, which forces McConnel to deliver on his half of the compromise NOW, as opposed to his usual of getting his prize and then laughing off at delivering on his part. The headline is deceptive - rather than being the terrible self-own they present it as, it might actually be something fairly savvy. Time will tell on that one.

[Odd Rödney]

We're already racing head first into a future of frenzied bedlam due to the climate emergency. The Supreme Court decided to hasten that decline when they could have taken steps to mitigate it. Shame on those 6 corrupt justices.

[Dalak]

Not everyone has the leisure to read every post, every day.

Could have just said no and asked for a recap instead.

I'll give a brief sum up. The vacancy doesn't exist yet, which forces McConnel to deliver on his half of the compromise NOW, as opposed to his usual of getting his prize and then laughing off at delivering on his part. The headline is deceptive - rather than being the terrible self-own they present it as, it might actually be something fairly savvy. Time will tell on that one.

Thanks for saving me the trouble

[AnakinFlair]

Not to Defend Trump. I would for sure jump at the chance do to that! I watched WWF since I was a kid. Give me a chance at the biggest event of the year to do that? Im on it

No shame. I think every wrestling fan who watched the WWF/E would jump at the chance to take part in Wrestlemania. I sure did.

[Mister Mets]

We're already racing head first into a future of frenzied bedlam due to the climate emergency. The Supreme Court decided to hasten that decline when they could have taken steps to mitigate it. Shame on those 6 corrupt justices.

The Supreme Court is not supposed to make decisions about hastening or mitigating a climate emergency. Their role is to interpret the law, not to make it.

[Gray Lensman]

The Supreme Court is not supposed to make decisions about hastening or mitigating a climate emergency. Their role is to interpret the law, not to make it.

They just made law rather than interpreting it. They didn't rule an EPA policy to be unconstitutional, but their ability to do so was declared to be so. There was no policy in place, which would normally mean no one has standing to sue - a lack of standing was how they dismissed suits over the Texas abortion bounty law.

This is the most political court since the Dred Scott case was decided, and makes the Lochner era court look restrained.

[CSTowle]

To be clear, I said "left-wing activists" rather than extremists, although they would be considered extremists from the perspective of conservatives who would love to be in charge during a second constitutional convention. It would be an unpredictable situation in which organization can matter.

Activists/extremists, they're still treated the same way by the right-wing and the defenders of the status quo centrists (who I'd call the real conservatives in this country, there are many things I could label the MAGA GOP of today but "conservative" is not one of them) who control the Democratic Party. I'd love to think they'd try to pull this off and somehow Bernie Sanders gets an $18 minimum wage and 3 months maternity leave Constitutional Amendment on the books, but you know and I know that's not what would happen.

We'd more than likely see a move away from what the founders intended to something more like a theocracy/oligarchy. Like Russia today, but the sucking up to the church not being lip service. Again, hope I'm wrong and you're right and that it'll never come to pass or even come close. But a lot of things I thought would never come to pass in my lifetime are here or close to being here so I'm going to keep an eye out just in case.

The Supreme Court is not supposed to make decisions about hastening or mitigating a climate emergency. Their role is to interpret the law, not to make it.

As the Commander in Chief would say, "C'mon, man!" Whatever ideal they're supposed to adhere to you know as well as I do or anyone posting here that we're able to call this a 6-3 conservative (or again, radical right-wing activist) Court because that's the reality of things now. I can't say when that started, or if that ideal is like much of the American myth in that it's only ever existed as a possibility and aspiration to look towards but that has never actually manifested in reality. But I can say with absolute certainty that it's not the way things are now.

[kidfresh512]

Harris County looking into GOP-connected group asking residents to confirm voter addresses

The Harris County Attorney’s office on Thursday said it is looking into allegations a grass-roots group knocked on doors in Sunnyside and attempted to get residents to sign affidavits verifying the identities of registered voters living at their addresses.

The county attorney’s probe is based on a complaint from at least one Sunnyside resident who said two men came to her home and asked questions they said were to confirm the identities of registered voters who live at that address. The men gave her an official-looking affidavit form and asked her to sign it attesting to the residents at the address “under penalty of perjury.”

In a Wednesday evening news release, the elections office warned residents against “scammers” it said pretended to be from the county elections and voter registration offices and attempted to collect sensitive personal information from voters.

The two men, according to doorbell camera video footage recorded by a Sunnyside resident, wore badges identifying themselves as members of Texas Election Network, a conservative grass-roots organization formed in 2021.

James Slattery, senior staff attorney with the Texas Civil Rights Project, said for the average voter, the organization's name, badge and paperwork could convey a sense of an official visit by the government without explicitly doing so.

"I'm sure they'll say they're just a bland nonprofit, but to a voter who does not have a law degree, who does not have a background in law enforcement, you are a lot more likely to believe that this is some kind of quasi-official visit," Slattery said.

GOP grass roots "election integrity" team canvassing Houston's black neighborhoods. This is gross. If they were trying to get their "messaging out" or get some voters for their candidates that's one thing. But, this questioning about who can vote in the house and signing anything under the weird "badge" even if it isn't technically illegal is another tool the GOP will use to disenfranchise. And the group is "not paid, and divorced enough from the actual Texas GOP as to seem innocuous.

Imagine if they spent that energy going door to door talking about policies they had to help the citizens. Instead of this shady information gathering that will clearly be used to try and disenfranchise them.