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

[BeastieRunner]

Beastie's Cartoons of the Week

[kidfresh512]

Oof Kristen Sinema getting crucified for whatever that was she was doing while voting down the 15 dollar minimum wage. That is going to be a gif for ages. So disrespectful

[PaulBullion]

Oof Kristen Sinema getting crucified for whatever that was she was doing while voting down the 15 dollar minimum wage. That is going to be a gif for ages. So disrespectful

What is she, 12?

[kidfresh512]

What is she, 12?

I mean how is it not a big FU to every single constituent of hers that this would have helped. Not to mention the rest of the country. Being against it for "reasons" is one thing. But, that whatever it was was just a slap in the face.

[TheDarman]

One is for children, one is not.

If WAP was aimed at children, people would be having the same problem. Probably more so.

This is precisely correct.

And, also, it seems weird to me to being having a discussion about cancelling Dr. Seuss after I had to hear from Conservatives when The Lorax movie was coming out that it was all Liberal propaganda.

[TheDarman]

I mean how is it not a big FU to every single constituent of hers that this would have helped. Not to mention the rest of the country. Being against it for "reasons" is one thing. But, that whatever it was was just a slap in the face.

I can understand that her argument was mostly, it seems, about process. And how she might have viewed it as a parallel to McCain's vote to not torpedo the ACA (he was concerned about the completely partisan process that it was undergoing). But McCain's vote ultimately protected health care for millions of Americans. Hers ultimately looked to deprive millions of Americans a raise for work that has been deemed "essential" throughout a pandemic. It's not a good look for her.

I doubt she would've tanked the COVID bill if it had made it under the Parliamentarian's rules. Manchin...is a different story here. But it isn't necessarily like he is showboating this way. Either way, I think the vote was unnecessary and it only makes it harder to unite the caucus around future issues. Manchin is going to look like a pariah after this vote and, while that may in some ways be of political benefit to him, I don't see how it benefits Democrats to consistently play up how at odds the party as a whole is with its most conservative member.

[MajorHoy]

Between the nursing home COVID deaths and the sexual harassment claims, Cuomo looks to have one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel. While he's said that he won't resign, the more is learned about the former which I consider more important than the latter, Cuomo might not have a choice but fall on his sword.

Has anybody heard how Eliot Spitzer is reacting to the Cuomo mess?

[skyvolt2000]

One is for children, one is not.

If WAP was aimed at children, people would be having the same problem. Probably more so.

Not all of them.

Go visit the school library or even the kid's section of the library to see what books are there.

Heck at the main library in my city-graphic novels like Preacher are there with kids graphic novels.

Some of the folks are the ones letting their kids listen to WAP or let them see Deadpool.

Yet will be the main one on camera screaming about Kevin Keller, Ms Marvel, Dr Seuss and Mr Potato Head being harmful to kids.

[worstblogever]

Oof Kristen Sinema getting crucified for whatever that was she was doing while voting down the 15 dollar minimum wage. That is going to be a gif for ages. So disrespectful

What is she, 12?

She did a McCain impresssion... over the MINIMUM WAGE.

Which over 3/4 of the country approve of. Including 2/3 of Republicans, and 86% of Democrats.

She's three years away from a primary challenger, and whoever it is (please, Ruben Gallego), they're gonna beat her in that primary in a cake-walk.

[Mister Mets]

Maybe the Democratic Party needs the equivalent of a Tea Party...a strong faction within it to force it leftwards, as the Tea Party forced the Republicans to the right??

The equivalent in the UK (the Momentum group that acted to force the Labour Party left, leading to election of Jeremy Corby as Labour Leader) wasn’t really successful.

But conditions aren’t that similar in US..and US left can actually point to policies that in US are regarded as impossible fantasies ( universal health, better gun control, smaller prison populations, less dangerous policing) actually happen in other countries.

Granted, I'm to the right of standard Democrats, but a progressive version of the tea party is probably a bad idea.

The tea party was useful for Republicans in terms of allowing them to rebrand after the screw-ups of the Bush administration.

But it also led to unqualified and/ or extreme candidates winning primaries and losing elections they should have dominated, which likely had ripple effects in other elections.

It's unlikely that we'll get a woke party when Biden's in the White House. There are some exceptions (the anti-war left emerging under LBJ) but new movements tend to happen when the other party is in power.

[Mister Mets]

One is for children, one is not.

If WAP was aimed at children, people would be having the same problem. Probably more so.

It is kinda messed up that Ebay has delisted the Dr Seuss books.

https://www.cbr.com/dr-seuss-banned-...delisted-ebay/

[Tami]

Kentucky bill would make it a crime to insult a police officer

A bill moving through Kentucky's Senate would make it a crime to insult or taunt a police officer during a riot. Supporters say the bill targets people who unlawfully "cross the line" but opponents call it a blatant attempt to crush protests and a violation of First Amendment rights.

Senate Bill 211 mandates up to three months' imprisonment for a person who "accosts, insults, taunts, or challenges a law enforcement officer with offensive or derisive words," or makes "gestures or other physical contact that would have a direct tendency to provoke a violent response from the perspective of a reasonable and prudent person."

A person convicted of this misdemeanor charge could also face a $250 fine and be disqualified from public assistance benefits for three months.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2015, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” ran a profile of Kent Sorensen, who was the lynchpin in a bribery scandal during the 2012 Republican Presidential Primary, when for the sum of $73,000 paid by staffers in a few large sums from the Ron Paul campaign, he switched his allegience to Paul from Michelle Bachmann. Perhaps no one should be surprised he held such little respect for the law, as he was also formerly convicted of dealing marijuana in the 1990s. That, of course, made his decision to support drug testing welfare recipients decidedly hypocritical. But Sorenson was quite the all-around flamethrower, literally promising prior to beginning his career in the Iowa state legislature that he'd go to the capitol and "burn the place to the ground", sponsoring Birther legislation, trying to impeach Iowa State Supreme Court Justices, tried to nullify the Affordable Care Act, and was considered "too extreme on gun rights for even the NRA". Since Kent Sorensen is currently appealing a 15 month prison sentence he received, and suffice to say, will not be a figure in politics going forward.

It was in both 2016, and in 2017, that “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” posted profiles about Mike Willette, who believe it or not, originally ran for the Maine House of Representatives back in 2008 as a Democrat-In-Name-Only, however, and shortly after he won re-election in November 2010, he proved that by crossing the aisle and becoming a Republican and strongly supporting the agenda of the also-quite-insane Maine Governor Paul LePage. Alas, the Democratic voters of Willette's district were less than pleased with him abandoning their party, and in 2012, voted him out of office in favor of Robert Saucier. For two years, a bitter Mike Willette went on social media to immerse himself in the hard right wing echo chamber, and his frequent shouting in it would come back to haunt him after he managed to get elected to the Maine State Senate to serve District 2 by a mere 232 votes over Michael Carpenter, only 49% of the actual total. To put that in perspective, 587 ballots in the race were left BLANK. The most disgusting part of the tale of Mike Willette we're telling today has nothing to do with his voting record, and everything to do with the social media forays he makes that we talked about earlier. The stinky stuff hit the fan in a big way on March 1st, 2015, when Willette got on his Facebook page to post about President Obama, and share a meme about how our sitting president that insinuated he wouldn’t do anything about ISIS because he would “deal with them at the family reunion.” Reporters then checked back farther through Willette's Facebook timeline, and sharing a number of other racist rants he had started about the first African-American president over the years, and several Islamophobic ones, as well. Willette also took time to post a defense of Paula Deen after her own racist controversy, and after the murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, he shared an image of an African American youth holding a gun, and falsely identified it as Brown. So, yeah, there's that, too. Willette's various comments were lambasted by his colleagues, the NAACP, and really, anyone who isn't a racist ***hole who heard about them. He gave a meager apology, but refused calls to resign from the legislature, instead opting to only resign from a committee he co-chaired as a half-assed concession. While Mike Willette finished out his term without resigning, he mercifully did not run for re-election in 2016.



On this date in both 2018, 2019, as well as 2020, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” first profiled North Carolina State Senator Warren Daniel, who was first elected but when else… in the 2010 Tea Party Wave. And while there are plenty of Republicans in the North Carolina state legislature who are dangerously deranged, Warren Daniel might not be the craziest, but his hands have been all over some of the craziest legislation in the Tar Heel State over the past seven years that concerns us enough to give him a profile. It’s not shocking to see a member of the North Carolina GOP who rails against gay marriage, and that boasts of an “A” rating from the NRA. But to see someone who’s still upset about ACORN almost a full eight years after it existed (and was never proven to have committed any wrongdoing in the first place, outside of Breitbart reports from noted fraud James O’Keefe), and is proud to have voted for nullification legislation to try and prevent implementation is a cause for concern.

It’s not just that Daniel votes conservatively, he’s the idiot who sponsors the worst bills in the first place. Whether it’s North Carolina’s idiotic “abortion motorcycle safety law”, a “Sharia Law ban” that turned into yet another abortion law, or a bill to try and allow prayer in public schools, this man’s fingerprints are on some of the most backwards-ass bills you can imagine, from co-sponsoring legislation to try and block the Medicaid Expansion in North Carolina, to voting for HB 392, another of those insane GOP bills that seek to drug test welfare recipients, then lose a state a ton of money on the cost of drug testing only to find no significant drug use until lawsuits against the laws succeed to prove the law is a violation of the 4th Amendment rights of those it seeks to test. He voted for the Repeal of the Racial Justice Act, several “stricter Voter ID laws” North Carolina Republicans push during her tenure aimed at suppressing the vote, and HB 465, a TRAP law aimed at creating abortion regulations so restrictive that they would effectively force the closure of all abortion clinics in the state for failing to be able to meet them. He voted for both SB 2, a bill to allow state officials to refuse to perform “certain marriage duties” if they have a “sincerely held” religious objection, and co-sponsored HB 2, North Carolina’s disastrous anti-LGBTQ law, that resulted in boycotts over the law cost the state well over a trillion dollars of revenue from business boycotts and the tourism industry.

Warren Daniel was re-elected to a sixth term in 2020 with 72% of the vote. He has spent the past several years kicking and screaming at court rulings regarding attempts by the North Carolina GOP to continue to gerrymander the state legislature, and now is using his social media account to repeatedly spread lies about supposed election fraud that doesn’t exist. Yes, this nitwit does intend on failing up, but to find his way into higher office, he’ll need voter suppression and gerrymandering to do so, as North Carolina is trending more blue all the time.

[Tami]

It is kinda messed up that Ebay has delisted the Dr Seuss books.

https://www.cbr.com/dr-seuss-baned-books-delisted-ebay/

That link is 404, but there is this:

Libraries oppose censorship. So they're getting creative when it comes to offensive kids' books

(CNN)It's a wondrous thing to introduce a child to a beloved book, to read with them as they enter a literary world generations before them have enjoyed.

But the nostalgia and thrill of bonding over a book makes it all the more crushing when an offensive paragraph stops the young reader in their tracks.

It's an ugly surprise present in classics like "Little House on the Prairie," "Peter Pan" and several Dr. Seuss picture books -- racist depictions of indigenous, Black and Asian characters that mar some of the best-loved works in children's literature.

It's hard to imagine a children's library collection without those titles. It's up to librarians, then, to determine whether those books and others with racist content still deserve a spot on their shelves, said Deborah Caldwell Stone, director of the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom.

"We may make a reevaluation of those books and their place in the canon," she told CNN. "It doesn't mean that people should stop reading the books or not have them in their collection, but they should be thinking critically about the books and how they are shared with young people."

The American Library Association vehemently opposes literary censorship. Rather than remove the offending books from their collections, librarians have come up with creative solutions to educate young readers, so while they may still delve into Laura Ingalls Wilder's pioneer adventures or Seuss' zany world of anthropomorphic animals, they'll come away knowing what's wrong with those stories -- and which books get diverse stories right.

[Gray Lensman]

One is for children, one is not.

If WAP was aimed at children, people would be having the same problem. Probably more so.

Plus, the decision on Seuss' books was made by the Seuss Estate. If it was outside pressure there might be a little more 'there' there, but they did it themselves.