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

[Kirby101]

I'm not too plugged into the details of economics, but has anyone been able to adjust to Keynesian model to handle stagflation? I remember reading that that's exactly what killed faith in it, as Keynes considered the two halves to be opposing forces, and his work was useless against it as a result.

Not that Neoliberalism is a good answer, except possibly as a short term bandage (certainly not as a long term model as this 2nd Gilded Age can attest to), but we do need a better understanding of the systems so that the basic foundations aren't broken again.

IIRC, Keynesian large stimulus is not meant to be a permanent policy. Rather a response to a economic crisis, like the Great Depression, or the 2008 crash or a worldwide pandemic. Things that large tax cuts don't help and since they are the biggest cause of deficits, harm the country's ability to response. But the Right's answer to these is useless and harmful austerity, something else proven to fail.

[Tami]

New Jersey gym owner is first US Capitol rioter to plead guilty to assaulting a police officer on January 6

(CNN)A New Jersey gym owner and former MMA fighter pleaded guilty on Friday to assaulting a police officer during the January 6 insurrection, marking the first time a Capitol rioter has been convicted of violence against police.

Scott Fairlamb, 44, also pleaded guilty to obstructing an official proceeding. He could face a sentence of more than three years in prison, according to his agreement with prosecutors read at his plea hearing on Friday. He has also agreed to pay $2,000 in restitution for damage done to the Capitol.

The plea is a significant development in the sprawling federal investigation and could set a standard sentence of multiple years in prison for the many rioters facing assault charges. Fairlamb has not yet been sentenced, and the amount of time he serves will be up to the judge.

Body camera footage shows Fairlamb following and taunting officers as they made their way through the mob. At one point, Fairlamb shouts "you have no idea what the f**k you're doing," shoves an officer, and then punches the officer in the head, the footage shows. He is among the small group of Capitol riot cases from which CNN and other media outlets have obtained and made public video evidence showing the alleged violence up close, from police perspectives that were captured on body-worn cameras.

His sentance should have been much harsher.

[Tami]

St Vincent leader attacked by anti-vaccine protester – video

Ralph Gonsalves, the prime minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines, has been taken to hospital after a protester threw a rock at his head during a demonstration led by nurses and other workers in the eastern Caribbean island.

The protest was organised by unions representing nurses, police and other workers who claimed that the government planned to mandate vaccines for certain employees. Gonsalves clarified that he would not make vaccines mandatory

[Tami]

The Capitol Rioters Attacked Police. Why Isn't the FOP Outraged?

The FOP does not often have to clarify its position on matters of public concern; the organization is usually rather strident in expressing its views. For example, in 2016, the FOP demanded that Walmart cease selling Black Lives Matter T-shirts. It denounced Nike for its ad campaign involving Colin Kaepernick, who was purged from the NFL for protesting police misconduct. If you go to the FOP’s Twitter feed, you can find a steady stream of clips from conservative outlets such as Newsmax and Fox News showing FOP representatives attacking policies like bail reform, slamming Democratic elected officials, and blaming Black-rights activists for the recent rise in homicides. These posts are interspersed with tributes to homicide victims, attacking “rogue prosecutors,” “activist judges,” and “progressive policies” for their deaths.

What you won’t find on the national FOP Twitter feed, however, are condemnations of the Capitol rioters who attacked police officers on January 6 deploying this sort of unrestrained bombast. You won’t find any clips of FOP members on Fox News confronting its prime-time hosts for mocking the testimony of police officers who faced the mob that day. You won’t even find the FOP highlighting the compelling testimony of those officers, whose recollections paint a vivid picture of the rioters and their motives. You will find only the FOP’s careful statement seeking to clear up “confusion” about its position, a deeply unusual situation for the FOP to be in.

Officer Harry Dunn, who is Black, testified that he was called the N-word by rioters who were infuriated that he had mentioned voting for Joe Biden. Sergeant Aquilino Gonell, an Army veteran and immigrant, testified that he was called a “traitor” and said that, “for the first time, I was more afraid to work at the Capitol than during my entire Army deployment to Iraq.” By contrast, D.C. Metropolitan Police Officer Daniel Hodges, who is white and who can be seen on video bloodied and being crushed by rioters, said that some of them tried to “recruit” him, with one asking, “Are you my brother?”

The apparent discrepancy is simple to explain. The officers were seen as treasonous by the rioters because they were supposed to join the mob in overthrowing the constitutional order and casting down the liberal usurpers, as well as the illegitimate multiracial coalition that brought Democrats to power. They viewed the officers holding to their vow to defend the Constitution as betraying their true obligations, as Trump and the mob understood them.

Because the right hold the police in such high regard, the Fraternal Order of Police is uniquely positioned to disabuse conservatives of the idea that the rioters were heroic or that the riot itself was carried out by leftists, and any other manner of conspiracy theories deployed to obfuscate what happened on January 6. The organization is ideally suited to pressure Republican lawmakers to support the commission examining the incident, and to criticize those who seek to turn that process into a circus or rewrite the events of the day. The union could use its stature to attack the legitimacy of right-wing political violence, and to reject the harmful notion that the role of American police is to act as a partisan militia, rather than to impartially enforce the law.

The FOP has chosen instead to remain meekly silent on the Capitol riot, in effect reserving harsher language for protesters against police brutality than for a mob that brutalized police. When asked by CNN’s Jake Tapper why the FOP was not more forcefully defending the Capitol Police officers, FOP President Patrick Yoes offered a tame paraphrase of the group’s press release, and insisted that he had not seen Fox News hosts maligning these officers as emotionally weak cowards on the network that he and his subordinates frequently appear on for friendly interviews. (The FOP did not respond to a detailed list of queries from The Atlantic.)

The officers who defended the Capitol have noticed the FOP’s relative silence. Officer Michael Fanone, who also testified this week, told CNN that he spoke with Yoes. “I asked him to publicly denounce any active-duty or retired law-enforcement officer that participated in an insurrection at the Capitol on January 6 and in doing so betrayed their oath of honor,” Fanone said. Yoes, he added, would not commit to doing so.

[thwhtGuardian]

The Capitol Rioters Attacked Police. Why Isn't the FOP Outraged?

[Malvolio]

St Vincent leader attacked by anti-vaccine protester – video

You have a right to protest. You don't have a right to throw a rock at the Prime Minister. That guy should be arrested and charged with attempted assassination.

[Scott Taylor]

St Vincent leader attacked by anti-vaccine protester – video

When protesting turns into "I'm just a big crybaby" mode.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

The Capitol Rioters Attacked Police. Why Isn't the FOP Outraged?

Because the rioters were white? Just a guess.

[worstblogever]

Because the rioters were white? Just a guess.

You're warm. I'll let Mr. De La Rocha remind us:



Cops were among those arrested thus far by the feds as being among the rioters on 1/6.

[worstblogever]

In 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, as well as 2020, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" published profiles of the U.S. House Representative from Alaska’s “At Large” Congressional District, Don Young whose photo above, we still assure you is not doctored in any way (he’s protesting the Obama administration calling for harnessing energy from wind turbines). Don Young is a twenty-two term Congressman, and we’ll save you the trouble of doing the math… he’s held office since 1973, meaning he was around during Watergate, and was actually congratulated on being elected to office at the White House by Richard Nixon.

Our first take on Rep. Young address his protestations of the use of green technologies to harness wind power (yes, he put that hat on willingly). This is a man who has blurted out words like “buttf***ing” in front of school children while paying them a visit (to say nothing of when he uses racial slurs like "wetback" and then defends it), and he remains, to this day, the only member of Congress to have ever brandished a walrus penis bone on the floor of the House or Senate (that’s not a metaphor, he swung an oosik at the head of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services) and. Young also assaulted a Congressional aide informed him he was trying to access a door where admittance was not allowed, and Young grabbed him by the wrist and twisted until he was allowed to pass... while on camera. Oh, and in 2019, he stooped to shoving a female reporter. He once took to the floor of the House when and complained about how gray wolves are a protected species, and then threw out the idea that the wolves should be turned loose on America's homeless population as a way to reduce their number.

In our second look at Don Young in 2015, we had to talk about how yet again he embarrassed himself while visiting a public school, where during a 45 minute question and answer session, when he as asked about what could be done to reduce suicide rates, he gave an answer that blamed it on the family and friends of the victims. In our 2016 update, we noted that Don Young had another brilliant idea while talking about the potential legalization of marijuana... instead we could lower the number of people being incarcerated for marijuana by suggesting capital punishment should be applied to all drug dealers. (That’s… a lot of executions, at least 90,000 in federal prison alone).

Don Young is still one of the worst Congressman when it comes to the environment, throwing a tantrum and arguing that not building a road through the middle of the Arctic Wildlife Refuge was “killing people”, which not only makes zero sense, but then again, it’s against the advice of the Dept. of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services, his old nemesis (at least he didn’t wield a walrus dong at them this time).
In February of 2018, he made the bizarre and insensitive argument about gun control that the Holocaust would not have been as bad if Jews had just been packing heat to defend themselves:

‘How many Jews were put into the ovens because they were unarmed?”

Don Young reversing his supposed position on the House GOP’s attempt at repealing the Affordable Care Act because it would cause health insurance premiums to skyrocket, he reversed course and

And yet… Don Young was re-elected yet again in 2020, this time with only 53% of the vote and still underperforming the +12 lean that his district is supposed to have, by far.

• December 18th, 2019: Young ignores his Congressional duty to hold a president who has been proven to commit high crimes and misdemeanors accountable and votes against the first impeachment of Donald Trump.
• May 15th, 2020: Young votes against the HEROES Act, to further support the healthcare industry and citizens affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
• January 13th, 2021: Rep. Young 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: Don Young votes to keep Marjorie Taylor Greene’s committee assignments, because he wouldn’t want her to be accountable for all the bigoted conspiracy theories she’s spread online (probably because she’s a kindred spirit).
• February 25th, 2021: Young doesn’t ever bother to vote on HR 5, the latest version of the Equality Act, that would provide workplace protections for LGBTQ Americans.
• March 3rd, 2021: Rep. Young doesn’t bother to vote on HR 1, a bill created to prevent the corruption of money in politics, and protect voter access to the ballot box.
• March 3rd, 2021: Don Young votes against the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2021.
• March 10th, 2021: Young votes against the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, because he feels people deserve to die in poverty during a pandemic.

Don Young’s career now stretches 49 years, and he won re-election in 2020 at the age of 87. He's also made light of the tens of thousands of deaths from Covid-19 by referring to the disease as “the beer virus” while hosting campaign events where no one was wearing masks during his re-election effort and arguing to force members of Congress in person.

It seems like in spite of that carelessness, he’s going to end up celebrating a full half-century of lunacy come 2022, when he’ll be 89. He won’t be willingly retiring, having stated his intention to run for re-election already.

[InformationGeek]

Something just occurred to me WBE. Trump's profile is coming up. Still gonna update it one more time? Probably should since he's been booted from office and all of the fallout from that.

[worstblogever]

Something just occurred to me WBE. Trump's profile is coming up. Still gonna update it one more time? Probably should since he's been booted from office and all of the fallout from that.

I've... uh... had trouble writing it. Like, there's not enough alcohol to motivate me to want to discuss ALL the things. August 2020-January 2021 is a lot of death, a lot of fascist attempts to stage a coup, and a lot of insanity that it boggles the mind that nobody had the balls to pull the trigger on the 25th Amendment, or that the GQP propped him up in a second impeachment trial to the bitter end.

The only good news is, from January 2021 through August, he's been off Twitter, so there's been a lot less to cover during that eight months. Still things, but nothing like it would have been if social media didn't punt him.

Regardless, yes, I have to update Trump again, because he's still the front-runner for the GQP nomination in 2024 right now, and insists on running to grift off his most gullible supporters, and to hope he can get back into power before the feds catch up to him on tax evasion and the... y'know, coup attempt.

[Tami]

I've... uh... had trouble writing it. Like, there's not enough alcohol to motivate me to want to discuss ALL the things. August 2020-January 2021 is a lot of death, a lot of fascist attempts to stage a coup, and a lot of insanity that it boggles the mind that nobody had the balls to pull the trigger on the 25th Amendment, or that the GQP propped him up in a second impeachment trial to the bitter end.

The only good news is, from January 2021 through August, he's been off Twitter, so there's been a lot less to cover during that eight months. Still things, but nothing like it would have been if social media didn't punt him.

Regardless, yes, I have to update Trump again, because he's still the front-runner for the GQP nomination in 2024 right now, and insists on running to grift off his most gullible supporters, and to hope he can get back into power before the feds catch up to him on tax evasion and the... y'know, coup attempt.

Suggestion regarding update. Instead of writing it yourself just add a bibliographic list of all the books that have been written about him and his administration. I can get the list for you if you want.

I'm serious about this, there is way too much for even one book to handle, much less a blog post.

[4saken1]

The Capitol Rioters Attacked Police. Why Isn't the FOP Outraged?

The FOP does not often have to clarify its position on matters of public concern; the organization is usually rather strident in expressing its views. For example, in 2016, the FOP demanded that Walmart cease selling Black Lives Matter T-shirts. It denounced Nike for its ad campaign involving Colin Kaepernick, who was purged from the NFL for protesting police misconduct.

These are the very same people who supposedly hate 'Cancel Culture".

[WestPhillyPunisher]

You're warm. I'll let Mr. De La Rocha remind us:



Cops were among those arrested thus far by the feds as being among the rioters on 1/6.

Two things the FOP won't touch with a ten foot nightstick:

--black gun owners who get into trouble with the law

--white cops who run amok at insurrections