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

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Trump Is Making Presidential Politics Weird Again







Bottom line, I think Trump might very well announce a run, spend the next few years raking on money and support from other Republicans, then back out at the last minute out fo fear of losing or be unable to run due to legal issues. Which, then leads to there being no Republicans entering the race, or if they do they will be scrambling to do it last minute. Trump might just be handing the Democrats an easy win in 2024.

It was no surprise Trump is itching to run again. For four years, he was arguably the most powerful man on the planet, and for a raging narcissist like Trump, that’s a drug WAY too powerful to resist. After having been banished from social media after the part he played in what happened on 1/6, he’s desperate for the attention he constantly craves like an addict, and nothing does the trick like a presidential run. As for the scenario Tami laid out, it makes sense he could screw over the GQP if this turns out to be just another scam to line his pockets, but hey, that’s fine by me.

On the ivermectin front. Tami posted a link to a story about a woman here in Ohio that sued to have her husband put on ivermectin. A judge agreed. The hospital is suing to appeal this but the man has been given regular doses of ivermectin.

This is happening in my area so it is on the news like crazy here. A good thing is the man's breathing rates while still bad are showing slight improvement. The down side is last night and this morning there have been floods of people going on about how "See ivermectin does work." And this morning a local well known doctor has said maybe the drug deserves a second look after all.

So now the ivermectin nuts are going to get a shot in the arm on this dumbass conspiracy because a man who was given it in a hospital has shown very slight imporment.

When that guy takes a turn for the worse, and, it stands to reason that could happen, what will the anti-vaxx idiots do next?

[thwhtGuardian]

Yes, eugenics was a program embraced by some progressives in the early quarter of the 20th century but the thing is it died out when it was shown just how ugly that path was. There was a reckoning and they abandoned those ideas when they saw how harmful they were...the right has done no such thing. Racism isn't denounced by leaders on the right, discrimination is still actively pursued and they revel in finding new ways to disenfranchise people of color and anyone who isn't straight and christian.

There really is no way to play the "They're both the same" game here.

[green_garnish]

Eugenics was championed on the left as a way to improve the human race, and make various social programs easier.

https://newrepublic.com/article/1281...liberal-reform

The prohibition movement reached its peak in the progressive era, seen as a solution to social problems like poverty and child neglect.

https://www.alcoholproblemsandsoluti...-progressives/

I suspected something like this might get pointed to. We were discussing liberal vs conservative, Democrat vs Republican. These articles refer to "progressives."

At the turn of the 20th century, the progressives were conservative-minded folks, and largely identified as Democrat. Liberals identified as Republicans. It wasn't until around the start of the Great Depression that the roles turned upside down. Both ideas of temperance and eugenics were clearly championed by conservatives, and not by the left.

[Tami]

Losing Rosario: A mother sent her daughter across the border. Before they could reunite, one died

ALFURRIAS, Texas —

Black feathers fell from circling vultures and snagged in the matted yellow grass. The ranch manager eyed the terrain and followed the stench. He found the woman’s body, like so many others in the south Texas brush: splayed in the weeds, arms dark with decay, raised above her head as if in surrender.

The rancher knew what to do. He had come upon 15 such migrants over the years. He called Brooks County sheriff’s dispatchers. They issued a Code 500, a dead body call, summoning a deputy, two Border Patrol agents, a justice of the peace and a funeral director.

They met the rancher shortly before noon at the gate of Los Palos Ranch, about 75 miles north of the border. Together they waded through knee-high, thorny weeds, mindful that the June heat rouses rattlesnakes from their burrows. The men gazed down to where she lay — face gone, skull picked clean by scavengers, hair and lower jaw dragged a few feet from a body not yet skeletal.

[Tami]

On the ivermectin front. Tami posted a link to a story about a woman here in Ohio that sued to have her husband put on ivermectin. A judge agreed. The hospital is suing to appeal this but the man has been given regular doses of ivermectin.

This is happening in my area so it is on the news like crazy here. A good thing is the man's breathing rates while still bad are showing slight improvement. The down side is last night and this morning there have been floods of people going on about how "See ivermectin does work." And this morning a local well known doctor has said maybe the drug deserves a second look after all.

So now the ivermectin nuts are going to get a shot in the arm on this dumbass conspiracy because a man who was given it in a hospital has shown very slight imporment.

There aren't enough news reports on people who were seriously injured or even died from using Ivermectin. Not that it would change the minds of these people.

I did a quick search and was shocked that some researchers are actually running trials on Ivermectin for COVID. Not sure what to think, except that I am highly skeptical. At least one study was withdrawn from publication for plagiarism.

Another article that I still find hard to believe.

And another that seems to indicate that Ivermectin might actually work?!?

I would not yet jump on the Ivermectin bandwagon. I am still skeptical and view these with a wary eye. I was just surprised that there is consideration of this, and I wonder if this consideration is legit or biased.

[Tami]

A school ordered a student to quarantine. His dad and 2 men confronted the principal with zip ties, official says.

When an Arizona school employee called a parent on Thursday to share that his son had come in close contact with someone who tested positive for the coronavirus, the dad was told his son must stay at home for at least a week.

Instead, later that morning, the man walked into Mesquite Elementary School with his son and two other men carrying zip ties before confronting the principal over the school’s quarantine policy, Vail Unified School District Superintendent John Carruth told The Washington Post.

In a meeting with the principal, Carruth said, the men threatened to call local authorities and conduct a “citizen’s arrest” if the student was not allowed to rejoin school activities immediately. That is when the principal, who explained that the school was following guidance issued by the local health department, ordered the trio to leave, Carruth said.

“Today was a tough day,” he told The Post. “One of the most powerful tools as adults is the behavior that we model to young people — and the behavior that was modeled today makes me really sad.”

[thwhtGuardian]

A school ordered a student to quarantine. His dad and 2 men confronted the principal with zip ties, official says.

That's incredibly disturbing.

[wjowski]

That's incredibly disturbing.

They do this because they know they can get away with it.

I'm honestly wondering if maybe it's time for more people to start packing heat for situations like this.

[Tami]

FBI examining $100M tax refund push by Gov. Ducey staffers after Arizona Republic investigation

The FBI's Public Corruption unit is investigating efforts by Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey's past and current staffers – including one who is now a federal judge – to push for a closed-door deal to issue tax refunds worth as much as $100 million to aid one of Ducey's campaign supporters.

Grant Nulle, former deputy director at the Department of Revenue, said an FBI agent contacted him in mid-July, shortly after an Arizona Republic investigation uncovered how the Ducey administration had pushed the department to agree to refund sales taxes on fuel for mining companies, even though that tax had been in place for decades.

The companies that stood to benefit were represented by Texas tax firm Ryan LLC, founded by Ducey supporter G. Brint Ryan. The top three deputies in Ducey's administration left their government jobs and went to work for Ryan to push for the tax refund.

[Tami]

They do this because they know they can get away with it.

I'm honestly wondering if maybe it's time for more people to start packing heat for situations like this.

Well the police were called in, but I'm not sure if they were arrested or not.

[Tami]

Commerce Dept. security unit to be shut down after overstepping legal limits in launching probes, officials say

The Commerce Department will eliminate a security unit that it found improperly launched criminal investigations and collected information on hundreds of its employees and average citizens, department officials said Friday.

A nearly five-month internal review by top Commerce lawyers concluded that the Investigations and Threat Management Service, the subject of a Washington Post examination in May, did not have “adequate legal authority” to pursue criminal probes, as it had been doing for 15 years.

Operating with little oversight, the obscure unit opened cases ranging from counterespionage to background searches on U.S. residents who wrote innocuous letters to the department’s top official, the review found.

Nearly every case languished for years without resolution, leaving individuals listed internally as still under scrutiny, the review found.

The findings were detailed in a report released Friday morning that recommended shuttering the 13-person unit, discontinuing its criminal and counterintelligence functions and folding its administrative and security duties into other offices within the department.

Commerce said in a statement that it had accepted the recommendations and would close ITMS within 90 days and implement other recommendations within 180 days.

“We are committed to maintaining our security, but also equally committed to protecting the privacy and civil liberties of our employees and the public,” said Commerce Secretary Gina M. Raimondo.

The report followed a string of investigations and media reports on ITMS’s activities.

A Congressional investigation led by Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) of the Commerce Committee concluded in July that ITMS had evolved into a “rogue, unaccountable police force” that “opened frivolous investigations on a variety of employees without evidence suggesting wrongdoing.”

[PwrdOn]

I suspected something like this might get pointed to. We were discussing liberal vs conservative, Democrat vs Republican. These articles refer to "progressives."

At the turn of the 20th century, the progressives were conservative-minded folks, and largely identified as Democrat. Liberals identified as Republicans. It wasn't until around the start of the Great Depression that the roles turned upside down. Both ideas of temperance and eugenics were clearly championed by conservatives, and not by the left.

Eh, it's not that cut and dry. Early 20th century progressivism was a forward thinking and reform minded movement that cut across party lines, and achieved a number of milestones that we take for granted today, from anti-corruption reforms to workers' rights to women's suffrage. Many of the staunchest advocates for prohibition were also early advocates of feminism, which in those days had a very maternalistic, moralizing bent we would find rather odd today. However, the leaders of the progressive movement were still largely wealthy white people, and therefore to the extent that they took notice of the problems of the poor and downtrodden, they tended to advocate white man's burden type solutions that involved "improving" people to be more like themselves so as to better integrate them, and removing from public view anyone who couldn't be "fixed" in this way. The idea that anyone wouldn't want this, or that it was in fact their own culture and lifestyle that were the problem, just never crossed their minds.

Just like with any historical movement, we should credit its achievements, but also be aware of its shortcomings and the instances where their well-intentioned ideas veered off in crazy directions. Of course, I'm sure none of this was on Mets' mind, and he just wanted to get in a dig by equating them with modern progressives because they happen to use the same term. Of course these days, if you hear anyone talking about improving the genetic quality of the population or advocating for harsher anti-drug policies, it's guaranteed to be a conservative.

[Tami]

Voting Data From A Colorado County Was Leaked Online. Now, The Clerk Is In Hiding

t's been nearly a month since sensitive data about voting equipment in Colorado's Mesa County was posted online by conspiracy theorists eager to cast doubt on the outcome of the 2020 election.

At the center of the criminal investigation into how that information was released is county clerk Tina Peters, whose whereabouts remain unknown. She hasn't returned to work in Mesa County since the data breach was announced.

The FBI is also investigating the case.

[Tami]

US Capitol riot defendant jailed after watching MyPillow CEO's conspiracy symposium while prohibited from going online

(CNN)The QAnon supporter who chased Officer Eugene Goodman near the Senate chamber during the US Capitol insurrection was sent back to jail Thursday, in part because he violated the rules of his release by going online to access conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.

The unusual turn of events means Doug Jensen of Iowa is headed back to jail a mere seven weeks after he was released. He was arrested shortly after the January 6 insurrection and was kept in jail until July, when a federal judge released him to his home under strict conditions.

District Judge Timothy Kelly said at a court hearing Thursday that he had released Jensen in July because Jensen claimed he had "turned a corner" and disavowed the conspiracy theories.

"But it's now clear that he has not experienced the transformation that his lawyer previously described, and that he continues to seek out the conspiracy theories that led to his dangerous conduct on January 6," continued Kelly, who was appointed by Trump in 2017 to the DC District Court. "I don't see any reason to believe that he has had the wake-up call that he needs."

The case raises questions about the continued dangerousness of Capitol rioters and right-wing extremists. The Department of Homeland Security has repeatedly warned that these Americans are still being radicalized by conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. Lindell and Trump himself are still peddling these lies, which are flourishing in conservative circles online.

"I think it's probably a logical inference," Kelly said," that there are no conditions that will assure Mr. Jensen will not pose a danger to the safety of the community."

You're just figuring that out now? Seriously, these judges need a reality check. Just because a guy is white, and his lawyer says he won't do it again, doesn't mean that he won't do it again. We all know that if he was not white, he wouldn't have the luxury of that defense.

[Mister Mets]

Yes, eugenics was a program embraced by some progressives in the early quarter of the 20th century but the thing is it died out when it was shown just how ugly that path was. There was a reckoning and they abandoned those ideas when they saw how harmful they were...the right has done no such thing. Racism isn't denounced by leaders on the right, discrimination is still actively pursued and they revel in finding new ways to disenfranchise people of color and anyone who isn't straight and christian.

There really is no way to play the "They're both the same" game here.

Racism is denounced on the right.

I am unaware of any prominent Republicans who are opposed to interracial marriage, or who think that Larry Elder's race disqualifies him from being Governor of California. (There was the argument about some idiots in Texas being upset about a black man principal sharing a photo of his white wife, but these people are not prominent Republicans, and they claim to be upset by tattoos.)

I suspected something like this might get pointed to. We were discussing liberal vs conservative, Democrat vs Republican. These articles refer to "progressives."

At the turn of the 20th century, the progressives were conservative-minded folks, and largely identified as Democrat. Liberals identified as Republicans. It wasn't until around the start of the Great Depression that the roles turned upside down. Both ideas of temperance and eugenics were clearly championed by conservatives, and not by the left.

The article isn't really about liberals vs conservatives.

At earlier periods, there tended to be liberals and conservatives in both political parties. We've recently had more ideological sorting, although forced sterilization became legal in the United States around the time of prominent left-wing Democrats like William Jennings Bryan and Woodrow Wilson starting changing the perception of the party.

There aren't enough news reports on people who were seriously injured or even died from using Ivermectin. Not that it would change the minds of these people.

I did a quick search and was shocked that some researchers are actually running trials on Ivermectin for COVID. Not sure what to think, except that I am highly skeptical. At least one study was withdrawn from publication for plagiarism.

Another article that I still find hard to believe.

And another that seems to indicate that Ivermectin might actually work?!?

I would not yet jump on the Ivermectin bandwagon. I am still skeptical and view these with a wary eye. I was just surprised that there is consideration of this, and I wonder if this consideration is legit or biased.

There's a lot of confusion about the story, which is a bit more complicated than the memes.

Ivermectim is used against parasites in the third world, and approved for that purpose in the United States.

The rumors that it was successful (not a lot of evidence on that) against Covid led to a shortage, which led to people taking the horse version. But the headlines lead others to think that the only legitimate form of the medicine is the one for horses, which also leads to a skewed understanding of it all.