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

[worstblogever]

WOOOOO!!! RETIRING JOE ARPAIO'S PROFILE!


On this date in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" published profiles of former Arizona Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the man who has embodied a bigoted, corrupt, and aberrant image of "justice" for Maricopa County for decades. During his lengthy tenure, Arpaio oversaw a prolific amount of inmate deaths in Arizona’s prisons, looked the other way and not investigated hundreds of rapes and child molestations in the town of El Mirage, buddied up to xenophobic militia groups and illegal immigrant patrols (travelling down to the border and far outside his jurisdiction to do so) and has been investigated by the Department of Justice and been discovered to have pervasive racism throughout his department. The self-proclaimed “America’s Toughest Sheriff” prides himself on cruelty, bigotry, and ignorance, trying to overcome the $140 million in lawsuits (you read that right, $140 MILLION) that have been filed against him, including for letting actor Steven Seagal drive a SWAT tank into a residence on a reality TV show and killing the homeowners’ puppy, through publicity stunts to appease his more racist constituents, like an “investigation” into President Barack Obama’s birth certificate. His persona of being "tough on crime" is more important to him than actually serving and protecting the populace he is elected to, and he has vindictively battled against any political figure who has even dared to suggest that more oversight or transparency into his department is needed (he won't disclose what taxpayer dollars are actually spent on in the MCSO). Arpaio was found guilty of racial profiling after the Department of Justice investigation into his department, had deputies testify that he ordered them to defy the orders of federal judges and continue racist policies, and after being found guilty, was caught during the appeal process hiring private investigators to shadow the judge’s wife and try to find something he might be able to blackmail him with. He admitted doing this under oath, but Sheriff Joe had the audacity to try and declare that now the judge was “biased” and should be taken off the case a month later. Shortly after Donald Trump made his announcement for president and said that Mexicans coming across the U.S. border were “criminals and rapists”, Joe Arpaio came to his defense, and said that criticism of Trump amounted to “violating his First Amendment rights”… which isn't how freedom of speech works, Sheriff, but hey, what can you expect from a man who once arrested the publishers of the Phoenix New Times for writing stories about corruption in his department that he didn’t like? Now, some people might have wondered why CSGOPOTD has focused on a county sheriff on a yearly basis. Well, let's put it this way... not only has Arpaio been a bane on civil rights, and embraced racial profiling as standard policy during his tenure... he's been hailed a conservative hero for it, primarily because his target is often non-whites. Is he influential in Arizona politics? Absolutely, every GOP candidate in the state seeks his endorsement to claim they're "Tough on immigration". And it's not just Arizona. This dithering xenophobic methuselah endorsed Donald Trump for president and was granted a speaking slot at the 2016 Republican National Convention while it was still being considered whether or not Sheriff Arpaio would face criminal charges for contempt of court. His remarks were delivered only a day after a federal judge stripped Arpaio of having oversight over his own Internal Affairs Department. Furthermore, when people talk about Republicans who “keep bringing back the specter of racism”, Joe Arpaio has waved it like a battle flag for all of his 88 years on this earth. He’s the proof that it never really went away. Somehow, nobody ever batted an eye about the fact that he's a county sheriff who can amass an election war chest of $11.3 MILLION dollars. Stop and think about that... being an octogenarian, openly racist, criminal, overtly fascist, taxpayer-paying lawsuit-magnet was not enough to have stopped Republicans from donating $11.3 million in money to his re-election in 2016. There was at least, good news that Democrats managed to have retired Phoenix police officer Paul Penzone elected as County Sheriff, looking to end a quarter-century of racial bigotry from law enforcement in Arizona’s most populous county. The news would get even better… On July 31st, 2017, Joe Arpaio was found guilty upon appeal. He was scheduled to be sentenced on October 5th, 2017, and while his sentence could have carried up to a six-month jail sentence, the most common belief was that he would get house arrest for his crimes, because… well, cops don’t do well in prison if they’re sent there. There’s no way an 85 year old man who spent decades tormenting his own constituents would manage to avoid harassment from fellow inmates, right? Well, long story short, Donald Trump is an ***hole. After a poorly-attended rally in Phoenix, Arizona, where roughly 4,000 people came to see him speak, and 10,000 protesters showed up… Donald Trump followed up his heinous response to Charlottesville that White Nationalists interpreted as his blessing by talking about a pardon for a man who ignored the Constitutional rights of minorities for 24 years. His rabid supporters applauded, and that was enough for Trump to give a pardon to Arpaio as Hurricane Harvey made landfall in Texas, because you have to prioritize helping out fellow racist fascists over saving people from flooding the likes of which the nation has never seen. And he did it before Arpaio was EVER SENTENCED. Now, this was while Donald Trump was feuding with Arizona’s U.S. Senators. Not just John McCain, but in particular, Jeff Flake, who he promised in 2016 he would sponsor a primary challenger against. Most thought Trump was going to back former Arizona State Senator Kelli Ward, a former CSGOPOTD who once hosted a town hall on Chemtrails and pals around with people who talk about black helicopters doing all sorts of government conspiracies to the good people… but in January of 2018, Joe Arpaio announced he was running for U.S. Senate at the age of 86. The “specter of racism” will never leave Arizona as long as Joe Arpaio can soil its politics, as he seems insistent upon. Arpaio mercifully finished third in the GOP Primary for his seat in that race, getting just shy of 19% of the vote. And… we were hoping that 2020 would be the first year on this date that we wouldn’t have to talk about Joe Arpaio, and Arizona might have removed a bigoted stain upon the tapestry of its long, sordid, state history for the last time… BUT NO, NOT YET. Joe Arpaio decided he would run for Maricopa County Sheriff again at the age of 88… yes EIGHTY-EIGHT, in an attempt to avenge his 2016 loss to Paul Penzone. He remained as racist as ever, because when he was asked what he might do court Hispanic voters back to his side, he responded that he would “go where the good Mexican restaurants are.” Alas, Joe Arpaio’s comeback failed in a big way, and he narrowly lost to his own former subordinate, Jerry Sheridan, in the GOP Primary for sheriff. There’s nothing good we’ll ever be able to say about this man until he’s dead in the ground, and at least serving as good fertilizer. As it seems unlikely he will win his office back now that he’s approaching the age of 89 in the year of our lord 2021, we will set aside his profile at this time, however, to cover another wacky Republican today instead. (Current crazy/stupid scoreboard, is now 1020-50, since this was established in July 2014.

[worstblogever]

Josh Barnett

Welcome to what is the 1020th original profile here at “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day”, where we’ll be profiling Josh Barnett, who was a 2020 candidate for U.S. House of Representatives Arizona’s 7th Congressional District, hoping to unseat Democratic Congressman Ruben Gallego in his Phoenix/Tempe district. While he got through the GOP Primary in that race unopposed, folks paying attention to Qanon supporters running for office in 2020 immediately added him to the list of Republicans running for Congress who fit that description.

After seeing an NBC News story covering Twitter’s plans to take action against Qanon accounts on its site, Barnett posted “Weird to be so paranoid about something that is not real, right?” Meanwhile, all over Facebook and Instagram, Barnett was tagging his posts with Qanon hashtags, but as he got called out for propagating the spread of Qanon, Barnett threw red-pilled folks under the bus, saying QAnon is “not even a real thing” and claiming his repeated use of hashtags was because he was “retweeting the article” (which wouldn’t be true on Facebook and Instagram posts). His campaign page has an interesting focus on “Child Sex Trafficking” and he frequently rants about “The Deep State” on Twitter to this day, so… it doesn’t seem like he hasn’t let go if his focus on “Q”, on the surface.

On Twitter, Barnett has a habit of reposting content from white nationalist pundit Jack Posobiec, and continually shares other conspiracy theories, including about Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, various posts featuring misinformation about Covid-19 treatments, and Barnett supported the disastrous “audit/fraudit” upon Maricopa County’s 2020 election that only existed to support Donald Trump’s “Big Lie”, and calling for a second one to be done for Arizona’s Pima county, as well. Josh Barnett got stomped in the 2020 election by Ruben Gallego in AZ-7, and his website indicates that in 2022, he may be attempting a primary challenge to David Schweikert in Arizona’s 6th Congressional District, instead. We’re convinced that he has no business in any elected office.

[Mister Mets]

It's just ironic that Republicans are the ones clamoring to force schools open while at the same time being these Marxist indoctrination factories that teach children to hate themselves. School is NOT supposed to be a glorified daycare and teachers are NOT there to raise your kids because you can't be bothered to. Yeah remote learning sucks and isn't as effective as we'd like to it be, but let's be honest here, if your kid is playing Fortnite instead of paying attention then he likely isn't paying much attention in the classroom either. It's just a lot easier to pretend like your special boy is a perfect little student when he's away at school and being someone else's problem rather than yours, but that doesn't make it any more true, and certainly not worth putting everyone at risk for.



"Cleaning up" the legal system means making it EASIER for people to immigrate legally, not harder, because if your goal was to cut down on illegal immigration why the hell would you want to make it MORE difficult to get in through the proper channels? And anybody who has actually had to deal with the INS at any point in their life will tell you, it is an absolute clusterfuck that seems to be designed to be as humiliating and discouraging as possible, as if whoever was in charge just wanted it that way so you would give up and go home.

And if your goal is to make border enforcement so stringent that no one dares to cross, AND to make the legal process so difficult that no one will bother applying, then you will have to be okay with pretty much lighting a giant pile of money on fire for practically no result. The push and pull factors that drive immigration are simply too strong at this point for any type of policy to reverse. The only sensible route is to have a logical and humane process that lets enough people in, while in the long term making the right foreign policy decisions to try and correct a lot of the structural inequities that are driving immigration to begin with.

Frankly, we are extraordinarily lucky in that most prospective migrants still admire American values and views American citizenship as a privilege to aspire to, and so many of them, despite being educated in their home countries at considerable public expense, are willing to bring their talents here and contribute to our society instead. However, the more that the fine "natives" of this country seem hellbent on showing their ass and exposing our supposed values as utter horseshit and the "American dream" as just a giant Ponzi scheme to get cheap labor from overseas, the more that skilled and educated immigrants will stay away, even as the poor and desperate ones keep coming.

On schools, the idea that schools function as babysitters while parents are at work isn't limited to the right. Kamala Harris recommended increasing funding so that schools will function at the time parents are at work, rather than at a different calendar. I think it's an approach worth considering although there comes a point when the funding should come from places other than education (HUD, Health or Labor department) when other considerations are involved.

Kids have less self-control because they're kids, so there are benefits to having them supervised by professionals, who can make sure they're working on Math rather than playing Fortnite. The people concerned about indoctrination often want schools to focus on things that are objective, concerned about declining performances of American students relative to the rest of the world.

https://www.usnews.com/news/educatio...rnational-exam

The kids can learn about citation formatting, and the uses of the Pythagorean theorem without being indoctrinated.

The indoctrination question is complicated. An issue is that ordinary people are often unable to differentiate between advocacy of their views, and giving children tools to come to their own conclusions on issues where reasonable people disagree. This includes teachers, as well as many of the parents who would be okay with politically simpatico teachers indoctrinating children.

On immigration, my suggestions were for a net increase in legal immigration, so it would be easier to get in legally than under current policy, with the family reunification numbers remaining the same, and an increase in skills-based immigration.

[BeastieRunner]

Feds ask Marjorie Taylor Greene to account for over $3.5M of unitemized donations.

Whoops!

Well, they wanted to “drain the swamp” so that they could make room for their swamp creatures.

Every conservative accusation anymore ends up as a confession.

[Mister Mets]

Very weird news involving the father of Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa. He's been arrested for treason and conspiracy in Nicaragua (a nation that does not have a great reputation for trustworthy government.)

https://deadline.com/2021/09/riverda...ua-1234828636/

[PwrdOn]

On schools, the idea that schools function as babysitters while parents are at work isn't limited to the right. Kamala Harris recommended increasing funding so that schools will function at the time parents are at work, rather than at a different calendar. I think it's an approach worth considering although there comes a point when the funding should come from places other than education (HUD, Health or Labor department) when other considerations are involved.

Kids have less self-control because they're kids, so there are benefits to having them supervised by professionals, who can make sure they're working on Math rather than playing Fortnite. The people concerned about indoctrination often want schools to focus on things that are objective, concerned about declining performances of American students relative to the rest of the world.

https://www.usnews.com/news/educatio...rnational-exam

The kids can learn about citation formatting, and the uses of the Pythagorean theorem without being indoctrinated.

The indoctrination question is complicated. An issue is that ordinary people are often unable to differentiate between advocacy of their views, and giving children tools to come to their own conclusions on issues where reasonable people disagree. This includes teachers, as well as many of the parents who would be okay with politically simpatico teachers indoctrinating children.

On immigration, my suggestions were for a net increase in legal immigration, so it would be easier to get in legally than under current policy, with the family reunification numbers remaining the same, and an increase in skills-based immigration.

As with most things, the problems with schools are just a symptom of our broader societal issues, and as you start to peel back the onion you see a lot of the same core issues that turn up time and again. Because dual incomes are pretty much a requirement to raise a family these days, much more of the burden of raising children has fallen on teachers. And yes, there are always going to be those teachers who relish the opportunities to mentor kids and help them along in their personal development, but let's be clear, this is NOT the job that teachers are trained for, and the need to babysit a gaggle of unruly kids day in and day out absolutely takes its toll and detracts from their primary job of teaching their actual subjects. Everybody knows the real reason why parents want schools open again - because they have to go to work and hiring a babysitter would be too expensive, so why not just drop them off at school and make it the teacher's problem? So somehow dealing with just a couple of kids is too much for most parents to handle, but a teacher is supposed to manage a class of dozens on a daily basis, on top of actually teaching them their subjects, and dealing with a virus that, even if kids are a reduced risk of contracting, they certainly are not.

And this all goes hand in hand with declining academic performance. In countries that do well on these metrics, education is largely seen as a collective responsibility and families will pool all their available resources and energy into making sure a kid has the absolute best possible chance to succeed. Granted, this is often not the best for the child's mental health, but it does deliver the intended results. Contrast that with many American parents, who seem content to just drop their kids off at school and interact with them for maybe a couple of hours per day, and then act all shocked and appalled when they don't become perfect little scholars and blame everything on the teachers. If parents didn't offload so much of the responsibility of raising their kids onto teachers and actually took an active role in furthering their development and interests, then maybe teachers would have more time and energy to do their ACTUAL jobs properly.

As for that indoctrination bit, whenever any parent starts complaining about that it just tells me that they've never actually spent any time thinking about what their kids are actually doing at school. Teachers have a lot on their plate already, most of them would be happy just making it to the end of the school year without going insane. And if the goal was really to indoctrinate kids, school would be the absolute WORST place to do it because most of the time the students aren't really paying attention and are just counting down the minutes until they get to go home. You'd get a lot farther with video games, social media, and internet memes, kids pay a LOT more attention to those.

[GOLGO 13]

The current GQP leadership position on Covid-19, guns, and climate change:

Goddamn! This is some savagery right there. Bravo worstblogever!!!

[AnakinFlair]

Gov. Abbott tells everyone not to worry about the new anti-abortion bill, because he's going to eliminate all rapists in Texas.

Sigh.

[worstblogever]

Gov. Abbott tells everyone not to worry about the new anti-abortion bill, because he's going to eliminate all rapists in Texas.

Sigh.

"I'll get Covid spread to all these rapist sum bitches! That'll kill them all! YEE-HAW!"

[BeastieRunner]

Gov. Abbott tells everyone not to worry about the new anti-abortion bill, because he's going to eliminate all rapists in Texas.

Sigh.

You can be 2 weeks late for your period for a lot of reasons and menstruation can fluctuate due to diet, stress, etc.

6 weeks can be too late for a lot of rape victims.

Anti-science is GOP.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Gov. Abbott tells everyone not to worry about the new anti-abortion bill, because he's going to eliminate all rapists in Texas.

Sigh.

I don’t know what’s worse about that claim: A) He said it, or B) He actually believed it, and, frankly speaking, I doubt he did.

[BeastieRunner]

Media can be sued for Facebook comments, rules Australian court.

On Wednesday, the Australian High Court ruled that media organizations can be sued for defamatory content posted on their social media pages, including in the comments section. To avoid liability, media organizations will need to become content moderators.

Oh boy ... that is going to be fun ...

[Username taken]

Media can be sued for Facebook comments, rules Australian court.



Oh boy ... that is going to be fun ...

What will likely happen is that a lot of social media providers will shut down their comments section.

[green_garnish]

I wouldn't assume that everyone trying to get into the country is up to no good. But it still doesn't mean that every decent person who wants it should be granted citizenship.

Why not? What do you think are the appropriate disqualifications? Not high enough IQ? Not enough ability in sports? Origin point not violent enough? Social class not high enough? Not enough influence in domestic politics? Didn't spend enough years going through diplomatic channels? Skin color too incorrect? Not neutered? Don't have employment or education figured out? Origin point not below a certain level of poverty? Or any other condition that doesn't put lives at risk sufficiently? Didn't score high enough in a US History test? Doesn't speak English?

When you are entering the country for the reason these people are entering, it's important to remember they are fleeing, not invading, and as a Christian (or even un-Christian, just with a sense of common decency) , civilized nation we should be welcoming them with open arms, open hearts, and a complete sense of justice.

[Ragged Maw]

Gov. Abbott tells everyone not to worry about the new anti-abortion bill, because he's going to eliminate all rapists in Texas.

Sigh.

Was that even a planned part of his speech or something he wildly threw in at the last second when hit with the question?