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

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Jack forgot Mark David Chapman, John Lennon's killer.

America produces so many killers it's hard to store it all in memory.

And the main reason for them is gun culture. Oswald bought the rifle that whacked JFK from an American gun company from a Chicago Sporting store who mailed it to him. Mark David Chapman also bought the gun from a store. Paul McCartney was in the march for gun control in NYC and he said that his friend got shot nearby because of ease of gun access.

The NRA and their poisonous gun culture advocacy is one of the main causes for this radicalization across the board, including Greene with her AR-15.

Oswald himself liked to take pictures holding the rifle after he bought it and tried to assassinate the retired General Edwin Walker before murdering Kennedy and Officer Tippet. That's not so far from Marjorie Taylor Greene posing with that AR-15 targeting AOC, Omar, and Tlaib.

[Tami]

America produces so many killers it's hard to store it all in memory.

And the main reason for them is gun culture. Oswald bought the rifle that whacked JFK from an American gun company from a Chicago Sporting store who mailed it to him. Mark David Chapman also bought the gun from a store. Paul McCartney was in the march for gun control in NYC and he said that his friend got shot nearby because of ease of gun access.

The NRA and their poisonous gun culture advocacy is one of the main causes for this radicalization across the board, including Greene with her AR-15.

Oswald himself liked to take pictures holding the rifle after he bought it and tried to assassinate the retired General Edwin Walker before murdering Kennedy and Officer Tippet. That's not so far from Marjorie Taylor Greene posing with that AR-15 targeting AOC, Omar, and Tlaib.

Imagine if Greene goes postal in Congress....on second thought, don't imagine and just pray it never happens.

[Malvolio]

Still too cool. I like Jack's idea. All three names, like most deranged assassins.

I like what someone on another message board called her: Empty G.

[Malvolio]

Once I started having to sign my name a lot to paperwork, it was amazing how letters began disappearing from name . . .

My Mom used to work in a bank where she had to sign her name so often that it turned into a scrawl where all you could really identify was the capital S and capital M of her name.

[Agent Z]

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin Orders ‘Stand Down’ Across the Armed Forces in Effort to Address Extremism in the Ranks

The attempted insurrection at the Capitol last month left many of us shocked and horrified. Within the Pentagon, that horror was only compounded by the realization that many service members—both active duty and retired—participated in the riot. In an effort to address the extremism within the military’s ranks, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has ordered a “stand down.”

CBS News reports, the order was issued by Austin in a meeting with all the service secretaries and service chiefs on Wednesday. The stand down will implement a break in the regular activities of service members and is intended to allow “each service, each command and each unit can take the time out to have these needed discussions with the men and women of the force,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told reporters Wednesday.

The stand down is slated to take place over 60 days in order to give commanders the flexibility and time needed to schedule the events and discussion they deem necessary.

The stand down is meant to reiterate what behavior is expected of service members, as well as to find an understanding of the scope of the issue, according to KCTV 5. Beyond that, it’s not clear what these discussions and events could look like.

https://www.theroot.com/defense-secr...cro-1846200663

[Tendrin]

https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics...ill-would-bar/

A Utah lawmaker has filed a bill that would exclude transgender girls from competing in female sports in colleges and public and private grade schools — a move that LGBTQ advocates say would alienate young people who are already at higher risk of suicide.
Titled “preserving sports for female students,” the legislation sponsored by Rep. Kera Birkeland would require schools or collegiate institutions to categorize all athletic activities as “male,” “female,” or “coed.” Students of the “male sex” would not be permitted to join in sporting events designated as being for women, according to the bill, which defines sex as the “biological, physical condition of being male or female, determined by an individual’s genetics and anatomy at birth.”
The bill, HB302, also opens the door for legal action against schools that don’t comply, stating that students who lose an athletic opportunity or feel harmed by a violation of the mandate could sue for damages. Whistleblowers who face repercussions for flagging an infraction could also sue, as could institutions that suffer harm from a governmental entity, licensing or accrediting group or athletic association, according to the measure.

Disgusting. WBE, another transphobe for your hall of shame.

Naturally, the text of this bill is pure discrimination and has no basis in science.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Imagine if Greene goes postal in Congress....on second thought, don't imagine and just pray it never happens.

I second that thought. It's not enough for Greene to be relieved of her Congressional duties, she needs to be kicked out altogether. Sadly, Qpublicans don't have the guts to do what needs to be done.

====================

Democratic Lawmakers Give Emotional Testimony On Experiences Of Capitol Attack

Democrats in Congress spoke passionately on the House floor, some in tears, about Jan. 6, the day of the armed insurrection by pro-Trump rioters.

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House Impeachment Managers Ask Trump To Testify Under Oath

In a response, a Trump adviser said the former president won’t testify. A good call, Trump would perjure himself inside of thirty seconds, and that's a generous estimate.

**********

Feds Drop The Hammer On The Capitol Insurrectionists

Recent grand jury indictments connected to the U.S. Capitol attack show the feds aren’t messing around. Find them all. Arrest them all. Charge them all. JAIL THEM ALL.

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Smartmatic Hits Fox News With $2.7 Billion Lawsuit Over Election Coverage

“Defendants’ story was a lie,” the suit alleges. “All of it. And they knew it. But, it was a story that sold.” GOOD! Sue the shit out of Faux News. Sue them the hell out of business.

**********

Rudy Giuliani In A Huff After His Own Radio Show Offers ‘Insulting’ Disclaimer

“They’ve got to warn you about me?” the former New York City mayor asked, complaining that nobody told him the message would play. Sounds like Rantin' Rudy wasn't too happy about that. Heh!

**********

Johnson & Johnson Files For Emergency Approval Of Its Single-Shot Vaccine

The COVID-19 vaccine is less effective than two others, but requires only one dose and can be stored in regular refrigerators.

[Mister Mets]

Good riddance to bad rubbish.



I'd say it was all bullshit. Greene was doing nothing more than covering her ass.

Yeah, she was definitely not sincere.

Someone who is sincere would not imply she's being persecuted for being a Christian.

https://twitter.com/mtgreenee/status...49031558217729

They are only set out to destroy Republicans, your jobs, our economy, your children’s education and lives, steal our freedoms, and erase God’s creation.

And the bloodthirsty media are their henchmen who help them by relentlessly attacking anyone in their path.

We know who they all are.

We owe them no apologies

We will never back down.

We only serve the ONE who created us ALL, and we only bow to HIM.

And we know who we are, free and saved by HIS grace.

No matter what.

Incidentally, Nancy Pelosi is Catholic, Steny Hoyer is Baptist and Jim Clyburn is a member of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

Granted, I don't go out of my way to read what she said, but I don't see any indication that she acknowledges that people had legitimate reason to be upset by what she had done, and were targeting her for that and not because she bows down only to Christ.

[Kirby101]

Yeah, she was definitely not sincere.

Someone who is sincere would not imply she's being persecuted for being a Christian.

https://twitter.com/mtgreenee/status...49031558217729

And actually, she is there to serve the Constitution and not "only Christ". So she should disqualify herself from Congress for not being able to fulfill her duties.

[GindyPosts]

https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics...ill-would-bar/



Disgusting. WBE, another transphobe for your hall of shame.

Naturally, the text of this bill is pure discrimination and has no basis in science.

Besides the blatant discrimination, there's one additional problem.

Most high schools that I know of don't have coed athletics for budgetary or other reasons. So, that would lock transgender athletes from competing altogether.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Amanda Marcotte has a good article on Salon about some Dem mischaracterizations and misconceptions of the Q-Phenomenon and Greene, and some own goals they are making.
(https://www.salon.com/2021/02/04/don...eir-minds-too/)

In the weeks after Donald Trump sent a violent mob to rampage the U.S. Capitol on January 6, a lot of focus has risen on the role played by QAnon and other lurid conspiracy theories in radicalizing Republicans. Unfortunately, a lot of that discourse has centered around the idea that QAnon and similar conspiracy theories are the result of poor education or economic stress. Blame it on years of misleading media coverage misattributing the rise of Trumpism on "economic anxiety." Sadly, even Democratic leadership has slipped up and drawn a false equation between educational privilege and immunity to QAnon-style conspiracy theories.

"They can do QAnon, or they can do college-educated voters. They cannot do both," Sean Patrick Maloney of New York, the chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, told Politico in an interview published Tuesday.

Maloney is spearheading the move to make Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a newly-elected Republican from Georgia, the face of the GOP, complete with her love of violent threats against Democrats and conspiracy theories about fake school shootings and space Jews with laser beams. So far, the strategy has been effective, as the Republican minority in the House voted against removing Greene from her committees and even reportedly gave her a standing ovation. Politically and ethically, it's a smart move for Democrats, because it helps highlight for voters that the nutty faction has completely consumed the Republican Party and the supposed "reasonable adults" are non-existent.

But this rhetoric from Maloney does expose a potential downside. Falsely attributing QAnon and other conspiracy theories to poor education has the potential to reinforce ugly and often unfair stereotypes of Democrats as a "liberal elite" that looks down its nose at ordinary Americans and even the working class.
[...]

This framing isn't just likely to backfire on Democrats, it's also flat-out untrue. There is no reason to believe that QAnon is the result of a lack of educational opportunities. As with the Trumpism that gave birth to QAnon, the phenomenon is the result largely of privileged white people losing their minds because of perceived threats to their social status from people of color and cosmopolitan liberals.

Greene is being called things like "trailer trash" and "white trash" by liberals on Twitter who really should know better. But, as many of them are plainly shocked to discover, Greene graduated from the University of Georgia, inherited a successful construction business from her father, and is a millionaire who even owned a CrossFit gym.

This is more common than not with the high profile supporters of QAnon. Tucker Carlson, who defended QAnon as an exciting "forbidden idea," has money from the Swanson frozen foods empire, was educated at a boarding school and graduated from Trinity College. Sidney Powell, one of the Q-inflected lawyers leading the charge to overturn the election, graduated from the University of North Carolina. She spent her career as a well-regarded corporate lawyer on the right, especially for her work defending the high-profile wealthy executives caught up in the Enron scandal. Lin Wood, the Atlanta attorney who has also been heavily pushing Q-related election lies, graduated from Mercer University's law school. Q-promoting Michael Flynn is a former lieutenant general and graduate of the University of Rhode Island. Trump and his conspiracy theory-loving son Donald Trump Jr. are both literally Ivy League-educated, having graduated from the University of Pennsylvania. His other son, Eric Trump, has promoted QAnon conspiracies and graduated from Georgetown University.

We don't have much good information on rank-and-file QAnoners, who are largely anonymous internet users. But anecdotal evidence from r/QAnonCasualties, a message board for exasperated friends and family of QAnoners, suggests that it's quite common for people with high levels of education to fall down the rabbit hole. A sample of descriptions of people lost to the QAnon cult from their loved ones: "a highly educated and intelligent person," "a graduate of one of the United States Military Academies" with "a nearly 4.0 GPA," "intelligent, educated", "college degree, smart and inquisitive, high responsibility position in an energy firm," "an exec at an Investment Bank," and "has a college degree and has a MBA."

This reality should have been exposed by the stories and arrests that exposed the identities of the Capitol insurrectionists, all of whom were motivated by conspiracy theories and many who are deeply into QAnon. As Adam Serwer at the Atlantic notes, they were "were business owners, CEOs, state legislators, police officers, active and retired service members, real-estate brokers, stay-at-home dads." And as Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Inquirer pointed out, the rioters "came from lush-green suburbs all across this land, flying business class on Delta or United and staying in four-star hotels with three-martini lobby bars." One of the most prominent QAnon figures in the riot, Jacob Chansley, lost 20 pounds because he refuses to eat the cheap, non-organic food served in jail. Buzzfeed reported recently on public schools struggling with teachers — a class of people who are required to be college-educated — promoting QAnon and related conspiracy theories in class.
[...]
To counter this, Democrats would do well to emphasize, repeatedly, how QAnon is the temper tantrum of a class of privileged white people, like Greene, who feel like their social status is being threatened by changing demographics and social justice movements. It's not only politically wise — it happens to be the honest truth.

The biggest mindf--k Trump ever pulled was convincing people who should know better that the core of his support was working-class whites or working-class. It never was. The "working-class white" thing is up-there with the "Columbine Kids were bullied nerds" in terms of early news speculation creating a false narrative that predominates even after later investigation debunked it.

People need to get over this stereotype that upper-middle class rich people are incapable of being radicalized...the 9/11 hijackers were of that class after all, as are a lot of militia type and the makeup of "the 6th" (which seems to be the name for the riot that caught on going by AOC's reference to it yesterday). People need to accept that money really can't buy you love or happiness and that people with money aren't going to be bribed into democracy especially if they feel that democracy is going to be more equitably distributed.

[DrNewGod]

...House Impeachment Managers Ask Trump To Testify Under Oath

In a response, a Trump adviser said the former president won’t testify. A good call, Trump would perjure himself inside of thirty seconds, and that's a generous estimate...

There's some theater going on here. The Dems had to know Trump's lawyers would never - ever - agree to Trump speaking under oath. Honestly, I doubt the Dems actually wanted the freakshow guaranteed to follow, both under the dome, and on the streets outside.

[Powerboy]

https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics...ill-would-bar/



Disgusting. WBE, another transphobe for your hall of shame.

Naturally, the text of this bill is pure discrimination and has no basis in science.

I still see youtube videos that allege that trans women athletes are trouncing cis women in certain sports regardless of actual records. But, hey, if a trans woman ever wins, it apparently means that's what happens all the time.

I think Joe Rogan is still on his Fallon Fox sample of one or that bike race where a cis woman alleged unfairness when she lost to a trans woman and conveniently failed to mention this was their tenth race against each other and the cis woman had won eight of them.

[CaptainEurope]

I could just use the letter C.

Using the letter Q would be less sexist, though.

[MajorHoy]

There's some theater going on here. The Dems had to know Trump's lawyers would never - ever - agree to Trump speaking under oath. Honestly, I doubt the Dems actually wanted the freakshow guaranteed to follow, both under the dome, and on the streets outside.

But then again, with Trump's ego, and providing him with a public forum to talk, one never knows what he might have decided to do (no matter what more reasonable people may be advising him not to do).