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

[Mister Mets]

I am sorry you reacted that way but at some point it's important to drive home the reality of what American Conservatism has come to represent.



Well you said this:



And that's a definition of contrarian. If you had said that my stands tend to piss off people on all sides but that's not my intention, that might have allowed you to skirt it.



In so far as people who espouse ideas don't reckon with what those policies effected in reality actually look like...yeah!

Surely you can appreciate that, it's a classic Conservative rhetorical flex. Thatcher used it quite often and during the Cold War it had validity in that Armchair Communists didn't want to reckon with the Gulag, with the Cultural Revolution, with the Cuban government's persecution of homosexuals in the '60s and '70s. But it cuts both ways like all rhetorical flexes do.

I think that your discussion of conservatism in the present Post-January 6 world is hopelessly abstract and naïve, it fails to account for the stakes, and indulges in lame sophistry to deny the danger (which has consensus across different sectors of US society) America is in now. So making quibbles and insisting people not compare Trump and his supporters to the Nazis after they committed a Putsch and saying they haven't killed as many as Hitler or Stalin is basically downplaying the gravity of situation under the guise of an academic quibbling over categories. Conservatives used to pride themselves on recognizing reality, which usually of course was a reality that excluded other people, but at least it did have some resemblance to the real world. Now such talking points appear become hopelessly abstract and primitive.

To quote the wisdom of X-Men comics, "While you slept, the world changed."



How exactly? After all GOP flips was a negligible factor in Biden winning.

You misread some earlier statements. A willingness to piss off people to my left and right does not mean that I say things in order to upset people. It just means I will give my honest opinion.

It is irrelevant how I reacted. What matters is whether an attack is wrong.

If you believe that I have no principles, you are mistaken. I think we can agree that factually wrong personal attacks are things we should avoid saying.

If you make that kind of personal attack without believing it, it reflects even worse on you as an individual.
In either case, your statements are suspect.
I have expressed quite a few explicit or implicit principles in posts over the last few days...
- People should be consistent.
- People should consider the implications of preferred policies.
- A Senator who won in a swing state and was the difference between Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer being Senate Majority Leader may know what she's doing even if she has upset the base. If you want to turn it into a broader principle, elected officials doing things of consequence may have local knowledge which informs their decisions in ways national detractors do not appreciate.
- The obvious ineffectiveness of proposed legislation about guns suggests that it can be reasonable for individuals to oppose something that looks good on paper.
- Implicit in my comment that NRA spending isn't as consequential as the signal sent to votes is that in order to understand what politicians are doing, we should have an accurate understanding of their incentives.
- I noted a 1982 Senate report on the right to bear arms in a discussion about Supreme Court interpretations. The principle would be that one should support their understanding with credible sources, in this case the result of a bipartisan investigation that itself includes documentation about the legal understanding of a topic under contention.
- I posted an editorial about whether caste discrimination should be illegal in the United States because it is valuable to consider moral questions that haven't made the mainstream and may not map onto existing political divides.
- Voters should be practical about how to maximize their impact.
- Activists should be practical when it comes to combating voter suppression, making the best possible legal arguments, while using sketchy behavior by a political party to mobilize voters against it.
- When politicians are making legal and political arguments, they should be explicit even if it is unpleasant.
- It's necessary to be aware of the specifics of a decision to discuss it.
- By articulating where the other side is coming from, I am demonstrating the principle that it is important to understand the other side's position. I may very well be mistaken about key facets, but in this case I'm providing the opportunity for anyone else to clarify their arguments.
- By providing numerous sources about the debunking of the debunking of the lab leak hypothesis. I am demonstrating the principle that when making a factual claim that is in contention, it is necessary to have sources.
- By noting sources from progressive outlets, as well as decisions by Democratic officeholders, I am treating people I often disagree with with respect, selecting sources they would find credible.
- The ostensibly nonpartisan media has an obligation to be accurate.
- Groupthink is bad.
- Something's wrong when well-informed intelligent people are mistaken on a factual matter.
- By referring to people I disagree with as well-informed and intelligent, I am modeling the idea that on sensitive topics of life and death, which is most political discussions taken to the logical extreme, we should disagree without being disagreeable.
- I support federal matching of small donations, as a way to increase the impact of ordinary voters while making it harder for no-hope candidates to live off federal financing.
- Pretext should be identified. We should strive to use legitimate evidence, like the decisions of members of a swing state legislative body, when suggesting elected officials or political candidates are acting without integrity.
- I'm suspicious of an effort to create an independent body without clearly expressed goals (IE- a standard by which we should determine if*they're acting appropriately.)

Some of these are stuff most of the people here will agree with me. Some are not. But these are clearly expressed and considered.

On a side note, the idea of a post-January 6 world smacks of recency bias.

Biden's win was so narrow that he would not be in the White House if not for GOP flips. Without that small percentage of Republicans, Biden loses Arizona, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Georgia.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...-2020-victory/

I do think the idea that someone should move from where they've grown up because they disagree with elected officials is an ugly one. I will note that I've lived under candidates elected on the Republican line in New York City from 1994-2013, but that's beside the point. It's an argument that would make it very difficult for there to be any change in politics, because Democrats would not be allowed to move to red states and make them competitive. It also mandates ideological conformity.

[Mister Mets]

Josh Marshall has the correct take on the 'lab leak' bullshit.

That's not an accurate summary of the timeline.

https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-...came-credible/

Yes, they were. Anyone who's willing to march with a Nazi is, themselves, a nazi.

The use of the term Nazi to identlfy scum has rhetorical power if it is used sparingly and accurately. I don't think you're doing that.

Even back then, the American media was obsessed with clearly deranged fascists "pivoting" to become business as usual. Exhibit A, what the New York Times wrote about on A. Hitler on his release from jail where he was locked up for treason after the Beer Hall Putsch:

There are some major differences between January 6 and the Beer Hall Putsch, but an additional factor is that not every asshole who gets arrested for political violence becomes Hitler.

yea I laughed when my aunt went to it and she was like there is no way to leave a comment. I was like Why would he want any form of free speech and a way for people who are not boot lickers to tell him what they think?

That does seem like a pretty basic mistake.

Although I guess another problem with having a comments section is that he would have to own some really ugly stuff. As much of a problem as it would be for Trump when people who don't like him comment, it could be a bigger problem to have people who do like him comment about critics who are Jewish, African-American, women, etc.

That thing was a jangled mess at best.

My guess is that the main reason he tried it was that he didn't want a platform that could kick him out.

Yes. The best way to stop the anti-democratic erosion being committed by the GOP is to be okay with the idea of giving them more power in 2024 when most of the same people will still be in office. This makes a whole lot of sense.

What's the advantage in people announcing they won't support the GOP in 2024? How would get that result in better candidates for the Republican party, or in Democrats doing anything to get the vote of people who aren't politically simpatico with them?

I think what Mets was saying there was that he advocated voting for Biden in early 2019, months before Biden announced his candidacy. So he was prescient about Biden running and winning the nomination.

Consistent support for the guy who beat Trump would suggest an answer to the question of whether I like Trump. It is not the only time I said I didn't like him.

I will take credit for being prescient about Biden's abilities as a general election candidate, rather than his abilities with a voting body I don't belong to.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

You misread some earlier statements. A willingness to piss off people to my left and right does not mean that I say things in order to upset people. It just means I will give my honest opinion.

If you believe that I have no principles, you are mistaken.

Then why do you treat the GOP with a silken glove after they failed to impeach Trump a 2nd time, after they uphold the big lie, after they ousted Liz Cheney, after they blocked the Jan 6 commission.

- People should be consistent.

Okay if you are a conservative who dislikes Trump and votes Biden why are you so resistant and so quick to exculpate the current GOP from failing to hold him to account and divorce its party from his legacy.

- A Senator who won in a swing state and was the difference between Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer being Senate Majority Leader may know what she's doing even if she has upset the base.

It was Warnock and Ossoff who made Schumer Sen. Maj. Leader...on the morning of January 6 as it happens. Sinema wasn't even on the ballot on 2020.

- The ostensibly nonpartisan media has an obligation to be accurate.

So why not a word against Fox, a newsmedia that literally caused several thousand deaths thanks to vaccine disinformation over decades?

- Groupthink is bad.

And again why is there no word against the current House Leadership for their cowardly behavior under Kevin McCarthy?

On a side note, the idea of a post-January 6 world smacks of recency bias.

People used Post-9/11 literally weeks after the attacks. Don't clutch those pearls just yet.

Biden's win was so narrow that he would n, ot be in the White House if not for GOP flips. Without that small percentage of Republicans, Biden loses Arizona, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Georgia.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...-2020-victory/

Here are stuff that say otherwise:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...oting-in-2020/
https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/13/opini...ton/index.html
https://www.brookings.edu/research/t...us-data-shows/

The fact is 2020 was a Pandemic election which played a part in spiking up turnout from both Dems and the GOP. The GOP know this, hence the voter suppression bills across the states (of which you have not voiced any protest) rather than say trying to moderate to woo back GOP voters who moved away from them. There was negligible and fairly insignificant amount of vote flips in Arizona and other places. To the extent there were vote flips, it seems to be the kind that went red-to-blue and unlikely to go back again.

I do think the idea that someone should move from where they've grown up because they disagree with elected officials is an ugly one.

Well try and live in reality with the rest of us for a change, rather than go to an imaginary fantasyland of conservative principles which the GOP obviously cares or thinks about far less than you seem to do. Come back to reality, and nobody will have to make that comment again.

[babyblob]

I I never thought I would miss when things were this simple with the GOP. now its treason, and Q nut jobs.

[Panfoot]

It was never simple, it was just better hidden.

[Tendrin]

That's not an accurate summary of the timeline.

I'll need to take a closer look but his summary seems largely correct to me.

https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-...came-credible/[/quote]

The use of the term Nazi to identlfy scum has rhetorical power if it is used sparingly and accurately. I don't think you're doing that.

No, I'm pretty sure I'm right about anyone who'd march alongside folks shouting 'jews will not replace them' and not immediately walk away from that or considers them ideological fellow travelers on the right, Mets. You're just willfully blind.

There are some major differences between January 6 and the Beer Hall Putsch, but an additional factor is that not every asshole who gets arrested for political violence becomes Hitler.

Yes, the major difference is that Ludendorff and Hitler marched with the people they were hoping would overthrow the government for them. Modern conservative 'leaders' are more willing to rely on stochastic separation to apply a veil of deniability to themselves than they are to actually walk the walk. The end goal in both cases was the same: the overthrow of a constitutional republic and the installation of a chosen authoritarian leader.

[numberthirty]

...

It was Warnock and Ossoff who made Schumer Sen. Maj. Leader...on the morning of January 6 as it happens. Sinema wasn't even on the ballot on 2020.

...

Ah, let's at least be realistic there for a second.

Abrams/Trump probably had more to do with handing the Senate to him than the two that you mentioned.

While it could very well happen again?

We need to at least be reasonable about that the races in question could be the exception and not the rule in a few election cycles.

[Agent Z]

Woman arrested for painting ‘Police Lives Matter’ on Manhattan sidewalk

Am I a horrible person for finding this funny?

[Tendrin]

Nancy Mace is claiming her home was vandalized by Antifa.

Apparently, Antifa did it with hand writing that looks a lot like Nancy Mace's.

https://twitter.com/PiaGuerra/status...46917777633285

[CaptainEurope]

There are some major differences between January 6 and the Beer Hall Putsch, but an additional factor is that not every asshole who gets arrested for political violence becomes Hitler.

The thing about fascism is, though: It only takes one. My country only had one Hitler. Look what he did.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

The thing about fascism is, though: It only takes one. My country only had one Hitler. Look what he did.

BINGO! And look at what Trump NEARLY had done, and might well have done if he won a second term.

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

Trump’s Justice Department Secretly Seized Phone Records Of NYT Reporters

New York Times Executive Editor Dean Baquet said the act “profoundly undermines press freedom.” I'd say that wasn't exactly legal.

**********

Woman Accused Of Saying Mob ‘Coming For’ Pelosi Is Arrested In Assault Of Capitol Cop

Audrey Ann Southard-Rumsey pushed a police sergeant with a flagpole, according to an FBI affidavit. Oh, my stars and garters, such a nice lady. Find them all. Arrest them all. CHARGE THEM ALL. Meanwhile....

**********

The 139 Republicans Who Lied, Fueled An Insurrection And Then Voted To Cover It Up

Don’t forget the names of these GOP lawmakers who chose Donald Trump over American democracy. Twice. SAY. THEIR. NAMES. They're all enemies of democracy, plain and goddamn simple. Meanwhile....

**********

Democrat Kyrsten Sinema Says The Filibuster ‘Protects The Democracy Of Our Nation’

Last week, Senate Republicans filibustered a bill to establish a bipartisan commission to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on democracy at the U.S. Capitol. Qpublicans are laughing their asses off at that harridan who's unwittingly doing their dirty work of wrecking the nation's democracy.

**********

Netanyahu Opponents Reach Coalition Deal To Oust Israeli Prime Minister

If approved by the Knesset, or parliament, centrist Yair Lapid and his diverse partners will end the 12-year rule of Benjamin Netanyahu. Bye-bye, Bibi!

**********

Texas Mother Accidentally Shoots Her Son While Firing At Dog: Police

The woman allegedly fired three shots at a puppy running across a street, striking her son with a ricocheting bullet. Well, shit! Of course that happened in Texas! THIS is why some people should NOT own guns!

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, as well as 2019, as well as 2020, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day posted profiles of the current U.S. House Representative for West Virginia’s’ 2nd District, Alex Mooney, who we noted had carpetbagged his way across the Maryland border after serving for years as a state legislator, and waiting in vain for former U.S. House Rep. Roscoe Bartlett to retire, eventually just getting annoyed enough to move to West Virginia and try to run for office there. During his time as a Maryland state legislator, though, Mooney became synonymous with the issue of LGBT rights, and his extreme opposition to them. At one point during a 1999 debate on hate crime legislation, Mooney sarcastically asked if people who commit beastiality should also be protected under the law, and in 2008, during a debate on same sex marriage, went as far as to claim its legalization would lead to the gay community "oppressing" religious figures and they would be "coming for the children". Mooney also has pushed for legislation to allow the display of religious monuments in public buildings (which is a violation of the Establishment clause of the First Amendment that guarantees a separation of church and state), considers any compromise on immigration to be amnesty, and speaks publicly about "gun-grabbers and pro-abortion zealots" (because that's totally the direction things have trended the past six years or so in our country). In September of 2015, Mooney also took to the floor of the House to give a speech where he accused Planned Parenthood of harvesting “baby parts” based on lies from the Center for Medical Progress, so there’s that, as well.

Now, we’re going to go ahead and lead our further discussion of Alex Mooney by pointing out that on March 28th, 2018, Alex Mooney recycled an idea from the Ron Paul school of thought regarding the American economy… he wanted to go back to the gold standard, and actually introduced legislation to try to make it a reality. Now, if that doesn’t mean anything to you, it’s because the United States hasn’t used the gold standard in 1971. That’s right, we’re approaching fifty years since we were on the gold standard. And guess what? Some folks in the 1980s were whispering in Ronald Reagan’s ear about doing this, and guess what they determined? Doing that would cripple not just the American economy, but the global economy. Yet every now and then, some hard right goofball from the Libertarian wing of the GOP starts flogging that dead horse to see if it will come back to life, even though almost 100% of economists oppose doing it, and it’s thought of as part of the reason it was so hard for the United States to recover from the Great Depression.

And, after he won re-election in 2020 with 63% of the vote, let’s just say Mooney has yet to dial back his extremism:

• October 23rd, 2019: Mooney is one of 41 Republicans who, while staring down the possibility of Donald Trump being impeached, stage a ridiculous publicity stunt in response by crashing a classified impeachment inquiry hearing for a “protest”.
• December 18th, 2019: Rep. Mooney ignores his Congressional duty to hold a president who has been proven to commit high crimes and misdemeanors accountable and votes against the impeachment of Donald Trump.
• May 15th, 2020: Mooney votes against the HEROES Act, to further support the healthcare industry and citizens affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
• December 10th, 2020: Mooney signs his name to an amicus brief to the Supreme Court, begging them to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The same election that she won re-election in.
• January 6th, 2021: Alex Mooney 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. Mooney 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: Alex Mooney 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.
• February 25th, 2021: Mooney votes against HR 5, the latest version of the Equality Act, that would provide workplace protections for LGBTQ Americans.
• March 3rd, 2021: Rep. Mooney 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: Alex Mooney votes against the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2021.
• March 10th, 2021: Mooney 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. Mooneyvotes 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: Alex Mooney votes against HR 3233 the creation of a commission to investigate the Capitol Attack.
• May 20th, 2021: Mooney is one of 63 Republicans who vote against the Covid-19 Hate Crimes Act.

We will note that Alex Mooney might be in a bit of trouble headed into the 2022 elections, even though his district is one of the reddest in the country… and that’s because the three Republicans holding House seats will have to play musical chairs, what with the state’s population radically dropping enough that it lost a Congressional seat. Meanwhile, Mooney won’t be earning himself any friends from the not-cult-members of his party, demanding that any Republican who doesn’t continue to support Trump’s “Big Lie” about the election having been stolen from him be censured, wherever they might be.

Of the three Republicans representing districts in West Virginia right now, Alex Mooney is the s***tiest. It’s not necessarily a runaway win, but if he’s the odd man left out in 18 months, we won’t be upset.

[JackDaw]

The thing about fascism is, though: It only takes one. My country only had one Hitler. Look what he did.

He must have been a busy guy to do it all by himself!

Seriously it takes much more than 1 person.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

He must have been a busy guy to do it all by himself!

Seriously it takes much more than 1 person.

In the words of professional historians like Ian Kershaw -- "no Hitler no Holocaust".

Without Hitler, the Nazi Party in Germany would have become like Moseley in England or other fringe right-wing extremists who failed and only made noise.

There have been wild paranoid demagogues in American history who lied and snarled their way to power - McCarthy for instance - but all of them failed and Trump went further than them all. Trump is far more dangerous then McCarthy was, then Barry Goldwater was, then even Nixon was.

So under the context, obviously the threat and danger of Trump and his evil movement is quite high and should be treated with the greatest danger.

[JackDaw]

In the words of professional historians like Ian Kershaw -- "no Hitler no Holocaust".

Without Hitler, the Nazi Party in Germany would have become like Moseley in England or other fringe right-wing extremists who failed and only made noise.

There have been wild paranoid demagogues in American history who lied and snarled their way to power - McCarthy for instance - but all of them failed and Trump went further than them all. Trump is far more dangerous then McCarthy was, then Barry Goldwater was, then even Nixon was.

So under the context, obviously the threat and danger of Trump and his evil movement is quite high and should be treated with the greatest danger.

We can never know that. The conditions in UK and Germany were fundamentally different...there were many more differences than Oswald Mosley being one country’s fascist leader and the other having Adolf Hitler.

Germany had been treated appallingly by other countries in the years leading up to the Second World War, and severe trouble was in store regardless of the figurehead in charge.

I can certainly agree that a lot of the detail would have been different if Hitler had never be born...but it wasn’t all down to one man. A lot of other people actively participated in various evils, and many more offered no active resistance.