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

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Look who else blames the school staff for the shooting.

Pfft! Judge Jackass is a flat out disgrace to her profession.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

I put most of the blame on the parents. But part of it is also on the school. They had a kid that they were worried about, told the parents he needed treatment asap, was caught looking for ammo online, a couple of teachers said after the fact they were worried he would do something and reported this to school officials. Yet after the meeting with the parents the school let him back into class, had no one keep an eye on him, let him wonder around alone.

So yes this is mostly on the parents, but why would a school that saw so many red flags and were concerned let this kid walk around freely? They should have to explain this.

What should the school have done? Kick him out? Then he might’ve shot up a shopping district or a city park, maybe break back in the building for his rampage. Call the cops? Without a legitimate reason beyond a suspicion he was potentially violent, police wouldn’t have done a thing. The PARENTS bought that kid the gun, the PARENTS knew he was unstable, the PARENTS refused to take him out of school when told about his mental state. In hindsight, playing the blame game is a useless exercise, but, in my mind, the lion’s share belongs to the parents.

[babyblob]

What should the school have done? Kick him out? Then he might’ve shot up a shopping district or a city park, maybe break back in the building for his rampage. Call the cops? Without a legitimate reason beyond a suspicion he was potentially violent, police wouldn’t have done a thing. The PARENTS bought that kid the gun, the PARENTS knew he was unstable, the PARENTS refused to take him out of school when told about his mental state. In hindsight, playing the blame game is a useless exercise, but, in my mind, the lion’s share belongs to the parents.

Maybe have some one keep an eye on him till the end of the day since they didnt send him home with the parents. Maybe dont let a kid that many in the school were worried about and scared of, one that was looking for ammo on the internet just a couple days before wonder the halls by himself.

Yes this is 90 percent on the parents but yes some of it is on the school. if it is victim blaming to ask questions of the school so be it. But they do have a couple questions they should answer. Kids get sent home all the time foe being a behavioral issue. Would he have come back on his own maybe. Not saying he wouldnt have. But just saying "Well he is clearly a danger as we related to his parents." and as many people are saying they felt and said after the face maybe dont just let him roam around on his on. Coudlnt have said "Hey we are going to leave him here in the office the rest of the day were we can watch him? At my school people would sit in the vice principals office all day. There was a room students would get sent to fi they couldnt be sent home. Is that not a thing anymore?

[Tami]

Fearing a Repeat of Jan. 6, Congress Eyes Changes to Electoral Count Law

WASHINGTON — Members of the select congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack at the Capitol are pressing to overhaul the complex and little-known law that former President Donald J. Trump and his allies tried to use to overturn the 2020 election, arguing that the ambiguity of the statute puts democracy itself at risk.

The push to rewrite the Electoral Count Act of 1887 — enacted more than a century ago in the wake of another bitterly disputed presidential election — has taken on new urgency in recent weeks as more details have emerged about the extent of Mr. Trump’s plot to exploit its provisions to cling to power.

Mr. Trump and his allies, using a warped interpretation of the law, sought to persuade Vice President Mike Pence to throw out legitimate results when Congress met in a joint session on Jan. 6 to conduct its official count of electoral votes.

“There are a few of us on the committee who are working to identify proposed reforms that could earn support across the spectrum of liberal to conservative constitutional scholars,” said Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California and a member of the Jan. 6 committee. “We could very well have a problem in a future election that comes down to an interpretation of a very poorly written, ambiguous and confusing statute.”

Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming and the vice chairwoman of the committee, said on Thursday that “the 1887 Electoral Count Act is directly at issue” and that the panel would recommend changes to it.

“There are a few of us on the committee who are working to identify proposed reforms that could earn support across the spectrum of liberal to conservative constitutional scholars,” said Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California and a member of the Jan. 6 committee. “We could very well have a problem in a future election that comes down to an interpretation of a very poorly written, ambiguous and confusing statute.”

Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming and the vice chairwoman of the committee, said on Thursday that “the 1887 Electoral Count Act is directly at issue” and that the panel would recommend changes to it.

[Tami]

Accident? Stupidity? Or Freudian Slip?

Trump Accidentally Posts Statement Blasting His Own ‘Stupid’ Election Lies

Twice-impeached former President Donald Trump blasted out a brief statement on Saturday night that appeared to unintentionally refute his own long-running (and bogus) claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him. “Anybody that doesn’t think there wasn’t massive Election Fraud in the 2020 Presidential Election is either very stupid, or very corrupt!” the statement read.

Trump’s (apparently) accidental double-negative means the opposite of what Trump and numerous conservatives have been falsely insisting about the 2020 presidential outcome. During the end of his presidency, Trump led a failed, anti-democratic, and at times deadly GOP crusade, based on baseless claims of election fraud, to try and overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 victory. Trump and various figures in the Republican Party have continued pushing these lies in their efforts to execute an increasing number of election and voting crackdowns across the country.

Trump spokespeople did not respond to messages Saturday seeking clarification about whether the ex-president and current leader of the GOP meant the opposite of what he said in his written statement, or if Trump was in fact admitting that he was either incredibly dumb or astoundingly corrupt.

[JB]

Sexual misconduct allegation leveled against fired CNN anchor Chris Cuomo
https://nypost.com/2021/12/05/chris-...mer-co-worker/

A former co-worker of Chris Cuomo made a sexual misconduct allegation against the former CNN anchor, who was fired Saturday for misleading the cable network about the extent of the role he played trying to mitigate the sexual harassment accusations that took down his brother, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

A well known employment lawyer who represents the accuser contacted CNN Wednesday to tell them of the allegation, according to The New York Times.

The woman who leveled the unknown accusations against Chris Cuomo, 51, was a former “junior colleague” at another news network, according to Debra Katz, the accuser’s lawyer, the paper said.

It was unclear if the woman’s claim influenced CNN’s choice to fire its star prime time anchor, according to the report. Cuomo was suspended from his reported $6 million a year job indefinitely on Tuesday.

[Tami]

Big whiny baby alert | Sheneman

I’ll give you one guess which party is throwing a fit over perfectly reasonable public health restrictions at the statehouse. Yeah, it’s the Republicans. I thought that would be harder. No I didn’t.

Emboldened by their not quite red wave this past November, New Jersey’s Republicans have decided they want to be just like their Washington colleagues and throw a s@#$ fit over COVID restrictions being imposed at the statehouse as a new variant of a virus that has killed 7 million people globally and more than 28,000 locally surges through the populace.

Aren't the majority of Republicans in government acting like children these days?

[Tami]

India's military kills 15 villagers in Nagaland state, mistaking them for militants

Angry villagers have burned army vehicles in protest after more than a dozen people were killed by soldiers who mistakenly believed some of them were militants in India's remote north-east region.

Nagaland state's top elected official Neiphiu Rio ordered a probe into the killings, which occurred on Saturday.

He tweeted, "The unfortunate incident leading to the killing of civilians at Oting is highly condemnable."

An army officer said the soldiers fired at a truck after receiving intelligence about a movement of insurgents in the area and killed six people.

As irate villagers burned two army vehicles, the soldiers fired at them, killing nine more people, the officer said on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to talk to reporters.

One soldier was also killed in the clash with protesters, he said.

An Indian army statement said it "deeply regretted" the incident and its aftermath, adding that "the cause of the unfortunate loss of lives is being investigated at the highest level and appropriate action will be taken as per the course of law."

India has insurgents?

[babyblob]

It plays to their base and it works sadly. The GOP fights and spreads vaccine misinformation, fights mask mandates lies about the science. Then when covid spikes happen they blame Biden and rile up the base and man does it work. Only the GOP can take credit for their guy getting the vaccine made when he was president and at the same fight that vaccine and come out smelling like roses to their base.

I have never in my life seen a group so good at creating spin and controlling the narrative in my life. I hate the GOP but it is damn impressive how they can spin and control so much of the narrative. The Dems need to take a page from their playbook.

[JB]

Harris allies want her to take the reins as a staff shakeup looms
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/1...s-staff-523732

Less than a year after assembling a mostly new team to help settle her into the vice presidency, key members of Harris’ orbit are leaving and even more are eyeing the exits.

Some Harris confidantes and Democratic allies are urging her to more aggressively embrace the concept of a reset, arguing that she needs to put her rocky first year behind her and openly embrace the idea that she’s entering a new phase. But others, including some top aides, are resistant to signaling a major shift is afoot, suggesting that the internal restructuring only feeds a narrative of disorder and that most of the new blood coming to the vice president’s office won’t be visible to the wider public anyway.

[Username taken]

It plays to their base and it works sadly. The GOP fights and spreads vaccine misinformation, fights mask mandates lies about the science. Then when covid spikes happen they blame Biden and rile up the base and man does it work. Only the GOP can take credit for their guy getting the vaccine made when he was president and at the same fight that vaccine and come out smelling like roses to their base.

I have never in my life seen a group so good at creating spin and controlling the narrative in my life. I hate the GOP but it is damn impressive how they can spin and control so much of the narrative. The Dems need to take a page from their playbook.

It’s happening like that because the Democrats aren’t doing enough to get out in front of the narrative at all. Some of us here that have family outside the US are actually surprised by how much conservative misinformation dominates social media. If anyone thinks that “good policy” is enough nowadays then I have a bridge to sell them.

This is the mass media age, everything is about the narrative whether it’s true or false. The Democratic leadership should simply tie the unending COVID crisis to the GOP and their opposition to vaccines and mask mandates. However, for some reason that doesn’t seem to be the case. As it is, the conservative machine and whoever is behind it has almost taken complete control of the narrative.

[Kirby101]

It’s happening like that because the Democrats aren’t doing enough to get out in front of the narrative at all. Some of us here that have family outside the US are actually surprised by how much conservative misinformation dominates social media. If anyone thinks that “good policy” is enough nowadays then I have a bridge to sell them.

This is the mass media age, everything is about the narrative whether it’s true or false. The Democratic leadership should simply tie the unending COVID crisis to the GOP and their opposition to vaccines and mask mandates. However, for some reason that doesn’t seem to be the case. As it is, the conservative machine and whoever is behind it has almost taken complete control of the narrative.

It won't matter, the mass media always takes the Conservative narrative. They frame things in the way the Right wants it and use the right wing talking points to question the Democrats.

[Mister Mets]

Harris allies want her to take the reins as a staff shakeup looms
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/1...s-staff-523732

This is probably a good opportunity for a shakeup, as we're getting out of Covid (there may be spikes due to the Omichron variant and people staying inside more in northern states, but it won't be as bad as last year with most at-risk people vaccinated.) She can use that as a face-saving reason for changes (IE- making more public appearances.)

The main thing she needs to do is to figure out some kind of way to get positive media. Previous Vice Presidents have had more Washington experience than the President (the exceptions being Agnew and Quayle who were unpopular) but she can't do that. It's hard to take advantage of her record as a prosecutor, given the Biden administration's correct push to keep the justice department independent of the President.

Given Biden's promise to make the next Supreme Court nominee a woman of color, Harris should be the public face of the process as well as the nominee's sherpa to the Senate. We don't know when that's going to be, so she's going to need to do other stuff, but that is experience that would be useful to reference during a presidential campaign.

That's the thing, RBG probably thought she was putting the country first by staying as long as she could. Let's be honest, even while Democrats controlled the House and Senate during Obama's term, there was no guarantee he could've gotten a liberal to replace her, not while Republicans would've moved heaven and earth to stonewall the pick (i.e. Mitch McConnell blocking Merrick Garland's nomination) until he left office. That might've played a big part in her reason to stay, now, did RBG ultimately screw the pooch by staying? Yes, but, again, without set age limits, you couldn't tell her to leave when she clearly didn't want want to. While I'm at, I suspect Democrats from Obama on down were scared to death of asking her to step down and never broached the subject because they knew they'd catch hell for trying to force out perhaps THE most renowned and popular Justice in a generation or more. Stupid thinking? Absolutely, but that's what I think happened.

RBG's popularity among the left backfired in a big way if it discouraged her from resigning when Democrats had the presidency and the Senate (and it was known in early 2014, there was a good chance they would lose the Senate.)

The bigger problem for Democrats when it comes to the courts is their inability to explain a vision for it. Say what you will about originalism and textualism, these are visions for the role of the courts as one of the branches of government. Following political discussions one could conclude that the Democratic party's vision of the courts is to provide policy outcomes they want using whatever pretext is available, which is presumably not the actual vision.

I've asked before about progressive legal theory, and I got some good responses here but this is something that Democrats are bad at messaging.

https://community.cbr.com/showthread...=1#post5056915

Perhaps Harris should give it a go, articulating the Democratic party's vision on legal matters.

Accident? Stupidity? Or Freudian Slip?

Trump Accidentally Posts Statement Blasting His Own ‘Stupid’ Election Lies

I don't think he understands how double negatives work.

On the other hand, until he corrects himself, this is an acknowledgement that the people who believe the election was stolen are stupid or corrupt.

Fearing a Repeat of Jan. 6, Congress Eyes Changes to Electoral Count Law

This may be a good idea.

Much of the push for election reforms didn't really address the plan by some of the Trump supporters (reject election results from states that Republicans control and have the legislators send in their own electors under the rationale that the vote is uncertain.) Even if odds are low anyone would pull it off, it's better to codify restrictions against that approach.

[Mister Mets]

What should the school have done? Kick him out? Then he might’ve shot up a shopping district or a city park, maybe break back in the building for his rampage. Call the cops? Without a legitimate reason beyond a suspicion he was potentially violent, police wouldn’t have done a thing. The PARENTS bought that kid the gun, the PARENTS knew he was unstable, the PARENTS refused to take him out of school when told about his mental state. In hindsight, playing the blame game is a useless exercise, but, in my mind, the lion’s share belongs to the parents.

These are tough questions.

One argument is that the school should be expected to do more, because these people have training on how to handle this kind of situation. This likely results from an inflated sense of what a professional development session can accomplish.

For all the questions about what should be done, we should keep in mind that school shootings are a relatively rare occurrence in a country of 310+million people. Obviously zero is preferable, but a child's odds of dying from a school shooting are very low.

It's very likely to have overcorrections which can have implications. There are going to be a lot of false alarms, and aggressive responses can backfire.

Ironically, Cuomo said on his program in March 2021 that he could not cover any issues regarding the sexual harassment allegations against Governor Andrew Cuomo on the program, acknowledging his obvious conflict of interest. By helping his brother, he created his own conflict of interest which he has been trying to avoid.



Italian Americans do try to help their family. They are reputed to have strong and close family bonds Blood is thicker than water. What kind of Italian American turns his back on his brother, especially who looked after him, while their father Mario was away on his gubernatorial duties?

Andrew and Chris, being 12 years of age apart, have a close relationship almost like a father and son. Andrew used to act as a substitute father to Chris when their father Mario was busy with his job.

Chris Cuomo wanted to avoid the appearance of conflict of interest. He was fine with it as long as viewers (and his bosses) didn't know.

Masks work. Yes, in schools too.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/mornin...-mandates-work

Is there specific evidence that schools with mask mandates have statistically different results than schools without mask mandates (adjusting for other factors)?

It plays to their base and it works sadly. The GOP fights and spreads vaccine misinformation, fights mask mandates lies about the science. Then when covid spikes happen they blame Biden and rile up the base and man does it work. Only the GOP can take credit for their guy getting the vaccine made when he was president and at the same fight that vaccine and come out smelling like roses to their base.

I have never in my life seen a group so good at creating spin and controlling the narrative in my life. I hate the GOP but it is damn impressive how they can spin and control so much of the narrative. The Dems need to take a page from their playbook.

There's no master plan from the GOP here. Democrats consistently exxagerate the harm of Covid and Republicans consistently downplay it.

https://www.brookings.edu/research/h...and-behaviors/

This is not intentional. It's more about the type of people who are going to be members of the big government party, as opposed to people who belong to the party that thinks government is too big.

[babyblob]

It’s happening like that because the Democrats aren’t doing enough to get out in front of the narrative at all. Some of us here that have family outside the US are actually surprised by how much conservative misinformation dominates social media. If anyone thinks that “good policy” is enough nowadays then I have a bridge to sell them.

This is the mass media age, everything is about the narrative whether it’s true or false. The Democratic leadership should simply tie the unending COVID crisis to the GOP and their opposition to vaccines and mask mandates. However, for some reason that doesn’t seem to be the case. As it is, the conservative machine and whoever is behind it has almost taken complete control of the narrative.

This is 100 percent the case. I have said many times that the Dems take the high road too often. They do not call the GOP out enough.

They need to just flat out say, The GOP are not passing voter restriction laws because of security it is because of Racism. Why is covid the huge issue it is? because the GOP spread vaccine lie, lies about science, and lies about masks. That is why this country has the issue we do with covid.

When Lauren Boebert made her racist joke what did the Dems do? Oh that is bad she should be removed from her committees and after a couple tweets they were pretty silent on it. Ilhan Omaris really the only one who spoke out loudly. The Dems need to flat out say she made that joke because she is racist, it played to her base because they are racist. but they are worried about offending people who will never vote for them anyway.

When the GOP calls themselves the party of Law and Order the Dems need to scream you voted against the Jan 6th commission and are calling those people heroes.

I would love to be a reporter in the room on Nov 9th 2022 so I can ask Nancy Pelosi who will most likely be minority house leader "Hey how does the high road look right now? Do you think maybe things warranted more attention then a couple tweets and months of silence? As the GOP shuts down the Jan 6th commission, passes more and more anti abortion laws, keeps passing BS voter restriction bills, roll back Covid measures. Stop all Climate Change measures, are you still going to stick to the high road?"

Ill bet 100 bucks that if Trump wins in 2024 a day later Biden will still give the same old speech about how the GOP and Dems can work together and he is very confident he will get the support he needs on his BBB.

If Trump had the bible thumpers cheering when he held a bible upside down what till he starts his speeches on how he appointed 3 judges that helped over turn Roe Vs Wade and saved the lives off all the inborn babies. They will be ready to build him a gold statue!

It angers the Heck out of me sometimes. The HOP is doing openly dangerous, racist things and our leaders are too scared to strongly call them to task because they dont want to hurt anyones feelings.