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

[Tendrin]

Oh no, you made something a trans voice says an absolute truth. And all others are automatically wrong

I said the article was very good. I did not say it was 'absolute truth', though it's certainly far more accurate than anything ever uttered by Jesse Singal, and more in line with what we know about transgender care.

[PaulBullion]

Of course, anyone - even folks in the scientific community - who dare question and/or criticize are automatically branded as “transphobes”.

Huh, I wasn’t commenting on Singal, I was making a wider point.

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

[worstblogever]

In 2014, 2015, as well as 2016, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” published profiles of Rick Santorum, the former U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania, a two-time failed candidate for President of the United States aka “The Frothy One” . We're talking about a guy who demonizes the LGBTQ community, compares homosexuality to bestiality and relating his fight against marriage equality to the war on terror after 9/11. He also declared children conceived during rape to be "a blessing in disguise", said JFK's speech about his faith not excluding him from the presidency made him nearly "throw up in his mouth", and a variety of other race-baiting lines about minorities on welfare. His presence in the 2012 elections drove the GOP so hard right that candidates were falling all over themselves to compete with him to match his opposition to BIRTH CONTROL, in a day and age where 98-99% of Americans have no problem with it. Santorum was inexplicably the runner-up to Mitt Romney for the GOP nomination for the office of President of the United States in 2012, and briefly threw his hat into the ring as a presidential candidate in 2016.

It was on this date in 2017, as well as 2018, that “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” profiled Danny Tarkanian, who repeatedly tried parlaying his family name into a career in politics, but in Nevada state-wide elections since 2004, is a six time loser. Yes, that is SIX times. In 2004, he lost a bid for U.S. Senate. In 2006, he failed to become Nevada's Secretary of State. In 2010, he had a second losing bid for U.S. Senate. In 2012, he bumbled away a shot at becoming the U.S. House Representative from Nevada's 4th Congressional District, and he tried carpet-bagging himself into Congress again unsuccessfully in 2016, losing against Congresswoman Jackie Rosen in Nevada’s 3rd Congressional District. And in 2018, Danny Tarkanian again had designs on Nevada’s 3rd Congressional District, only to lose yet again to Susie Lee. For those who think his surname sounds familiar, Danny is the son of Jerry Tarkanian, the former head basketball coach of UNLV who led the Runnin' Rebels to a national championship, but also had the reputation of running some of the most corrupt programs in NCAA history. Going back years, Danny Tarkanian was also deeply involved in anti-immigrant rhetoric, so much so that he was endorsed by the anti-immigrant militia group known as the Minutemen, and in 2016, he endorsed Donald Trump's disastrous plan to build a border wall along the U.S./Mexico border. Immigration, of course, is not Danny Tarkanian's only extremist political stance, as he also believes there should be zero restrictions on the right to bear arms, and on abortion, believes there should not even be exceptions for incest or victims of rape. We also have to factor in Danny Tarkanian's shady real estate ventures, like the 2007 land deal that saw him lose a $17 million settlement, where his only defense was that it was the bank's fault (a bank which collapsed during the 2007-2008 financial crisis) for giving him a loan that he would never actually be able to pay off. Truly, another example of hos the GOP is the Party of responsibility, right? Tarkanian has impotently threatened to sue the past two Democrats who trounced him for running attack ads bringing up his shady financial dealings and bankruptcy, that will, of course, be laughed out of court.

On this date in 2019, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” profiled Kevin Nicholson, a 2018 candidate for U.S. Senate from Wisconsin, who was also a man who was such a terrible candidate that his own parents donated the maximum amount to his potential opponent, Sen. Tammy Baldwin, to defeat him. In a move that was the latest in GOP “Christian values”, Nicholson responded by writing an op-ed to rip his own parents, and claim that this was an example of “the intolerance of the Democartic Party”. In a later radio interview, Nicholson attacked the “cognitive thought process” of veterans who support Democrats, claiming that they “abandoned the Constitution”, and that they “have shown overt disrespect to our veterans”. (We’ll remind you that Nicholson backs Donald Trump, a draft dodger who attacks Gold Star families, questions the honor of the late Sen. John McCain, and has repeatedly whined about not being able to violate the rights of others as they are granted in the Constitution.) Bizarrely, in 1999-2000, Kevin Nicholson was the leader of the College Democrats of America, which earned him a bit of a double-take from Republican Primary voters, given his statements. His time with the group was highly tempestuous, though, as he acted more like someone conducting a coup than a progressive. Serving in the military during the war on terror only seemed to have turned him into a conservative nationalist, though, make no mistake, as he vocally supported Tump’s immigration policies and failed economic policies with tariffs on China. Anyway, Kevin Nicholson couldn’t woo Republican voters by bagging on his parents, and lost in the GOP Primary to Leah Vukmir. We’re pretty sure we’ve not heard the last of him, given that he is still in his early 40s, however his first foray onto the political scene wasn’t exactly overwhelming.

On this date in 2020, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day”, where we’ll be discussing Steve Von Loor, a candidate for U.S. House of Representatives for North Carolina’s 4th Congressional District in both 2018 and 2020. Von Loor, who was born in Alabama but grew up in Ecuador, was of course, able to take nothing personally from his international experiences, instead being a die-hard supporter for Donald Trump’s immigration policies, focusing on an end to family-based immigration. Von Loor’s xenophobia was focused more extensively on his intolerance for Muslims. In May of 2018 on social media, he posted a debunked Islamophobic meme that the entire religion was banned in the United States decades ago by the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act to make the claim that “ISLAM IS NOT ALLOWED IN THE USA!” and claimed, “Islam is trying to destroy America.” Not surprisingly, was endorsed by rabid Islamphobe Dinesh D’Souza, and commented on the social media feed of white nationalist Nick Fuentes, whom he practically begged to be interviewed by. If Steve Von Loor’s issues with Muslims and immigrants weren’t off-putting enough for voters, it was then revealed that he had a long history of allegedly committing domestic violence against his ex-wife. To say nothing about how he conducts himself online, as several stories came forward of Von Loor making inappropriate comments in the social media feeds of models he was lusting after. These problems had a lot to do with why Steve Von Loor lost in 2018 with only 24% of the vote. Steve Von Loor has become even more unhinged of late, as several times while campaigning for the nomination to challenge Congressman David Price in 2020, he began posting on Twitter while using Qanon hashtags, if not outright posting the Qanon slogan. It didn’t help him much, as he failed to even exit the GOP Primary, finishing a distant third with only 17% of the vote.

On this date in 2021, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” profiled Mike Cargile, a 2020 candidate in California’s 35th Congressional District, another proponent of the Qanon conspiracy theory and ran for Congress as Republicans in 2020, committed enough to put the Qanon slogan on his campaign page. But Mike Cargile was not committed to just one reality-detached conservative quest. He also was a Covid-19 truther who refereed to the crisis as a “scamdemic”, claimed the virus was“NOTHING compared to the diseases and plagues headed this way via the rats and the homeless”; and has praised the lie-filled Plandemic video as “EXACTLY why I'm in this race! As Media Matters continued digging into Cargile’s social media profile, they found he repeatedly had made homophobic posts, to the extent he advocated for “Straight Pride”, posted xenophobic ignorance about how “Two illegal aliens having an anchor baby does not equal an American.” (The 14th Amendment of our Constitution would disagree, and not use inflammatory language to explain it.), and he went on a racist rant where he not only used the n-word, but chided African Americans by saying, ”Quit blaming white folks for your problems. Take your black ass out there and show them kids there's a better way than husslin' on the street.” And… that was finally enough to get the California Republican Party to retract their endorsement of Cargile. Not that they condemned him, either, they just pulled his endorsement off their website quietly and hoped no one would notice, because of course they’re craven s***s afraid of enraging the Qanon wing of their flock. Mike Cargile ended up getting wrecked by 39 points at the ballot box when Election Day rolled around, and as the California GOP seem unlikely to support him in another run for office, we will set aside his profile at this time to cover another wacky Republican today instead. (Current crazy/stupid scoreboard, is now 1143-55, since this was established in July 2014.

[worstblogever]

Burgess Owens

Welcome to what is the 1143rd original profile here at “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day”, where profiling Burgess Owens, the sitting U.S. House Representative for Utah’s 4th Congressional District who once played safety in the NFL for 11 seasons, including getting a Super Bowl XV ring as a member of the 1980 Oakland Raiders. He first reached office in 2020 by getting his profile boosted by Fox News, Tucker Carlson’s Daily Caller, and other conservative outlets, impressing Republican primary voters by criticizing Colin Kaepernick for kneeling to protest police violence during the National Anthem, arguing against slavery repartations, and then he unseated Democratic Congressman Ben Adams in a extremely close race that Owens won with a mere 47.7% of the vote, after a general election campaign where he kept changing his stance on the repeal of the ACA depending on which way the wind blew. And our reason for profiling Burgess Owens this early into his Congressional career?

Qanon. Yep, It seems Burgess Owens went on a Qanon program and asked the audience of it for money and support after claiming Democrats “want misery” and they have “an evil leadership that will use, abuse, and discard anyone for their power, even people within their own race.” At the end of the broadcast, Owens told the hosts, hosts “thank you for all you guys are doing, because I’m just part of the team.”

Repeatedly, Owens has spewed bile claiming that Democrats are “Marxists and socialists”, sometimes even adding that they are “anti-white” or “anti-American” which he apologized for in late January 2021, what not wanted to be associated with the sorts of folks who staged a coup attempt and seeking to avoid being associated too strongly with them… Only to resume that stupid-ass rhetoric three months later on Fox News, around the same time he was also defending Georgia Republicans passing the harshest voter suppression bill in decades, saying it was “insulting to compare it to Jim Crow.”

His voting record, thus far:

• January 7th, 2021: Burgess Owens votes for the objection to the electoral college’s votes in the 2020 election, a failure to send any sort of message that he wasn’t intimidated or sympathetic to those who attacked the Capitol to attempt a violent coup.
• January 13th, 2021: Rep. Owens votes against the second impeachment of Donald Trump, because the Republican Party no longer feels like they should be accountable for anything, including failed coups that result in the deaths of both their participants and police officers.
• February 4th, 2021: Burgess Owens votes to keep Marjorie Taylor Greene’s committee assignments, because he wouldn’t want her to be accountable for all the bigoted remarks and conspiracy theories she’s spread online (probably because she’s a kindred spirit).
• February 25th, 2021: Owens votes against HR 5, the latest version of the Equality Act, that would provide workplace protections for LGBTQ Americans.
• March 3rd, 2021: Rep. Owens votes against HR 1, a bill created to prevent the corruption of money in politics, and protect voter access to the ballot box.
• March 3rd, 2021: Burgess Owens votes against the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2021.
• March 10th, 2021: Owens votes against the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, because he feels people deserve to die in poverty during a pandemic.
• March 17th, 2021: Rep. Owens votes against the re-authorization of the Violence Against Women Act, likely because they feel the 2nd Amendment remaining absolute is more important than preventing people with a history of domestic abuse from owning a firearm (which statistics show, makes them more likely to use those firearms against women in their lives).
• May 19th, 2021: Rep. Owens votes against HR 3233, the creation of a commission to investigate the Capitol Attack.
• May 20th, 2021: Owens is one of 63 Republicans who vote against the Covid-19 Hate Crimes Act.
• November 5th, 2021: Burgess Owens votes against HR 3684, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
• March 31st, 2022: Owens votes against HR 6833, the Affordable Insulin Now Act, which would limit the cost that drug companies could list insulin at to $35 and make sure no diabetic was priced out of surviving their condition. Burgess Owens would rather they be gouged by pharmaceutical giants and/or die.
• May 18th, 2022: Burgess Owens is one of 192 Republicans who votes against HR 7790, to create supplemental funding for infant formula (while claiming to be pro- life).
• May 18th, 2022: Rep. Owens votes against HR 350, the Domestic Violence Prevention Act, because these days, a plank of the Republican Party is ostensibly domestic terror.
• May 19th, 2022: Owens votes against HR 7688, a bill which would help prevent gas companies from gouging customers on prices.
• July 15th, 2022: Burgess Owens votes against House Amendment 262, which would require the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, and Secretary of Defense to publish a report on the infiltration of American law enforcement by Neo-Nazis and white supremacists, offer measures to be taken to remove them from their ranks, and prevent further infiltration by others.
• July 13th, 2022: Owens votes against the Honoring Our PACT Act, to provide healthcare to veterans affected by toxic burn pits while serving in the War on Terror that leave them more susceptible to forms of cancer.
• July 21st, 2022: Owens is one of 195 Republicans who vote against the Right to Contraception Act, which codified the right of Americans to have access to birth control.
• August 19th, 2022: Burgess Owens co-sponsors a bill submitted by Marjorie Taylor Greene, to make it a felony for a doctor to give gender-affirming care to anyone under the age of 18, punishable by up to 25 years in prison.

After ducking out on several debates so far this year, Burgess Owens won the GOP Primary for his seat, and now faces Democratic challenger Darlene McDonald and January Walker of the United Utah Party (it’s what “moderate Utah Republicans” did to no longer have to shame themselves by calling themselves Republicans) in the general election. It’s hard to predict this three-way race, given how close Owens’ win was two years ago, and now with a third party split for “recovering Republicans”, there’s a real chance that McDonald can flip this seat blue in a surprise.

The sooner Owens is sent packing, the better.

[SquirrelMan]

The National Archives still has not received all the documents from the Trump WH that they should have.

[Tami]

From a legal standpoint, this could be interesting. Interesting in how it relates to the liability of the former president.

NEW: Jan 6 defendant Vitali Gossjankowski notifies court he intends to mount a "public authority defense" and argue:

"He was and believed he was directed and authorized to engage in the conduct set forth in the indictment by Donald J. Trump and his agents and representatives"

Twitter Link

[Catlady in training]

And now for something completely different.

2nd grader kicked out of Christian school after parents refused to photograph her in the bathtub

I mean... the assignment was stupid enough on multiple levels. But expelling a kid over it? REALLY?!

But, don't conservatives want the parents to have a say in what their children do in school?

I would like to see an exercise: show people the headline "2nd grader kicked out of school after parents refused to complete a homework assignment" and see how many people get angry, thinking it must have been some homework about racism/slavery.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

From a legal standpoint, this could be interesting. Interesting in how it relates to the liability of the former president.

Twitter Link

Trump’s lawyers will toss all sorts of word salad, saying their client didn’t directly order clowns like this guy to engage in that aforementioned conduct. Caramel Caligula has more to worry about from DOJ and Documentgate than some brainless drone who stormed the Capitol, but, that’s just my opinion.

[Catlady in training]

Russian troops forced out of eastern town Lyman

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-63102220

I've seen some great comments about this: Lyman becomes first russian town to be liberated.

[Tendrin]

Russian troops forced out of eastern town Lyman

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-63102220

I've seen some great comments about this: Lyman becomes first russian town to be liberated.

As I saw on twitter, "Russian forces victoriously retreating from Lyman, Ukraine advances after them in panic.'

[Username taken]

Liz Truss is making history.



Putting a Reagonomics fanatic in power during a time that requires, well, a kind of socialism is certainly fascinating from an academic viewpoint, but I am worried about all the people in the UK affected by this.

This is something:

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.

[Mister Mets]

Russian troops forced out of eastern town Lyman

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-63102220

I've seen some great comments about this: Lyman becomes first russian town to be liberated.

Good.

But, don't conservatives want the parents to have a say in what their children do in school?

I would like to see an exercise: show people the headline "2nd grader kicked out of school after parents refused to complete a homework assignment" and see how many people get angry, thinking it must have been some homework about racism/slavery.

Conservatives want parents to have a say, although this doesn't mean parents should be able to change private school assignments. The parents have the choice of sending their kid to another private school or one of the local public schools.

The school picked a really dumb fight here, but I'm not sure if there's any solution here beyond allowing the private school to torpedo its reputation.

Reminder that Chris Christie coached Trump on how to trigger Biden's stutter during one of the debates.



In other news, elections in Brazil today. Let's hope Bolsonaro will accept the expected defeat at the polls, and not pull a Trump.

What's your source?

Politifact says that one's bullshit.

https://www.politifact.com/factcheck...it-bidens-stu/

I imagine DeSantis' response to this hurricane will shape if he runs or not, but that would be funny

One point I heard is that Florida has a pretty good infrastructure for disaster management which makes it pretty easy for Governors to look good in the moment. The main thing DeSantis will be judged on is the month between the hurricane and the election.

How quick is the cleanup? Were funds allocated correctly? That's going to matter more than whether he has a decent press conference at a command center.

I can't imagine the Tories controlling the government for much longer.

We'll see.

We're likely to have a fifty year period where only one person has won majorities for Labour.

Obama's kiss of death to Chris Christie after Hurricane Sandy... in the short term, that killed his 2016 chances. It did, however, make Christie behind the 8-ball, and unable to take out Trump, only to cave to him out of desperation to stay relevant.

Christie was rather popular after Hurricane Sandy, and there was a lot of talk about him as a leading Republican contender when he stomped to reelection.

https://www.politico.com/story/2013/...clinton-101030

The main thing that took him out was Bridgegate.

[Mister Mets]

Lol, I knew someone would try to bring up famously transphobic ‘journalist’ Jesse Singal.

https://twitter.com/rottenindenmark/...vN8Wmb1vqSoCcQ

https://twitter.com/epistemophagy/st...vN8Wmb1vqSoCcQ

https://twitter.com/atinygreencell/s...OYUObxAwWCJPhQ

Here is the most important link: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/...9.2022.2100644


Jesse Singal has been concern trolling and lying about trans issues for actual years. Anyone still indulging the Huge Spike In Transgender People is just ridiculous at this point and Singal has been relentlessly wrong for actual years.

There is a significant increase in the percentage of kids identifying as trans, and seeking medical resources.

That is not a question of controversy. In a recent pew poll, five percent of adults between 18-29 identify as trans or nonbinary compared to 0.3 percent of adults over 50.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tan...gned-at-birth/

As for the claims about Singal's comments, his point seems valid that the only claim about Emily Bazelon's New York Times piece is that it was used as evidence by bad people. That's a criticism that's valid if the evidence is incorrect, and St. James doesn't make that argument.

I've written about Bazelon's piece before. It seems reasonable as an overview of the current discussion, and I am suspicious of anyone suggesting it should not have been published. That seems like an extreme position.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/15/m...r-therapy.html

It does appear obvious that this is a topic mainstream journalists and science reporters are nervous to touch. It's important enough that there will be some pieces about it, but it seems to result in much more internal scrutiny than other topics. And if Emily Bazelon's argument is seen as beyond the pale, it's going to make people on the left too afraid to look at the topic, even if to push against the likes of Singal.

Of course, anyone - even folks in the scientific community - who dare question and/or criticize are automatically branded as “transphobes”. But linking a Vox opinion article written by a trans woman, with zero scientific background, is automatically absolute truth! Well done, Trump would approve that type of approach.

This gets a bit messy in that it is standard for journalists to write outside their initial area of expertise.

Emily St James started out as a television critic, but has written several articles about trans issues. She appears to have done a lot of research on the topic, beyond her own personal experiences.

Granted, the argument that people talking about trans issues are not experts on it is more likely to be used when it's about critics of the most extreme left positions on this topic.

[Tendrin]

There is no 'spike'. You can keep repeating it but the 'increase' that does exist is explicable entirely through the cohort effect. Singal is a virulently abusive transphobic concern troll who harassed trans women who criticize him. He is not a good faith broker on the matter of trans children and as noted, WPATH SOC 8 pretty much demolished him, and it is not even all that trans friendly. He will selectively ignore it because that's what he does.

Mets, of course, will unsurprisingly double down on this just like he has the words of other virulent transphobes like Abigail Shrier.

So, no spike, no ROGS, no 'trans trend', the blockers are in fact safe and reversible (no one had any issues with them when the’re used to stop precocious puberty after all) and the list goes on and on about all the things Shrier and now Singal have been wrong about, but none of that is going to matter, and the words of a massive number of people who work directly with transgender individuals and transgender children aren't going to matter either

jessesingal .jpg

[Tami]

Americans captured by Russia detail months of beatings, interrogation

Drueke and Huynh, who met in Ukraine, went to the country despite stern warnings from the U.S. State Department that taking up arms against Russian forces was unsafe and ill-advised. They joined the International Legion of Territorial Defense of Ukraine, a force comprising hundreds of Americans, Europeans and other foreign nationals who responded to public entreaties from the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky.

Drueke and Huynh said they are grateful to be alive and free, and to have had each other’s support and friendship through their captivity. They expressed no regret. Their goals now, they said, are to draw attention to Ukraine’s military needs, and raise awareness about another American veteran with whom they were imprisoned, Suedi Murekezi, who shared a cell with them for weeks but was not included in the prisoner swap. He’s among the handful of U.S. citizens detained by Russia for whom a diplomatic breakthrough has so far proved elusive.

Drueke, a U.S. Army veteran, and Huynh, who served in the Marines, said they were compelled to act after seeing images, early in the war, of Ukrainian families fleeing their homes as Russian forces leveled cities in their savage but ultimately failed bid to seize the capital, Kyiv, and topple Zelensky’s Western-backed government.

Drueke had been living with family members in Tuscaloosa, Ala., after being diagnosed as a 100 percent combat disabled veteran with post-traumatic stress, he said. He’d grown enthusiastic about long-distance mountain hiking. Huynh, a California native, had moved to northern Alabama to be with his fiancee, taking community college classes and working as a delivery driver for O’Reilly Auto Parts.

Huynh left the United States on April 8 to join a humanitarian group helping in Ukraine, he said. Drueke left four days later, believing that his experience during the Iraq War and familiarity with Western weapons could prove helpful to Ukrainian forces, he said.

Within days, they signed contracts with the foreign legion in Lviv, in western Ukraine near Poland’s border, joining the same battalion and receiving AK-74 rifles for training far from the fighting. They had brought their own camouflage uniforms and other equipment.

Drueke and Huynh declined to detail the precise location or nature of their capture, but acknowledged opening fire during the ambush. After they were taken into custody, they were stripped of their gear and weapons, and bound. As they crossed the border into Russia, Drueke said, their captors noted their new location, slugged them in the gut, and said “Welcome to Russia.”