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

[numberthirty]

Yet it seems like these laws are automatically making women criminals, simply by being.

While I don't want to do these blockhead's work for them?

It doesn't really work to say "Simply By Being..."

A woman who has had a hysterectomy?

I don't think that there is any way that she can run afoul of this law "Simply by being..."

Never mind women who are infertile.

Get what you are saying, but it "Automatically making/Simply by being..." is a bit of a stretch.

[Tami]

While I don't want to do these blockhead's work for them?

It doesn't really work to say "Simply By Being..."

A woman who has had a hysterectomy?

I don't think that there is any way that she can run afoul of this law "Simply by being..."

Never mind women who are infertile.

Get what you are saying, but it "Automatically making/Simply by being..." women criminals is a bit of a stretch.

Any woman who is of child bearing age would automatically be suspect. Any woman who has daughters or granddaughters or other female family members of child bearing age would be suspect of helping them. Any woman who has a friend who is of child bearing age would be suspect.

It's either 'You are Pregnant' and so you are being watched for any sign that you are considering an abortion or even signs that you might miscarry. Or you are not pregnant and you a questioned as to why you are not pregnant, 'Did you have an abortion'?

Laws like this leads back to the 'Barefoot and pregnant' view of a woman's role in life. If she is not fulfilling that role, accusations are bound to be made. Especially when there is a bounty on their heads.

[numberthirty]

Heard this one on news radio while I was out earlier...

https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/a...-over-new-law/

Texas Planned Parenthoods Granted Restraining Order Against Anti-Abortion Group Over New Law

A Travis County Judge granted three Texas Planned Parenthood affiliates a temporary restraining order against Texas Right To Life Friday evening, blocking the anti-abortion rights group from suing them under the state’s new restrictive abortion law.

In her ruling, Judge Guerra Gamble said the order was given to maintain the status quo while the courts determine if the law is valid.

“It is clear to me that there is a great deal of harm that could come from not granting the TRO,” said Gamble.

A temporary injunction hearing is scheduled for the morning of Sept. 13.

[numberthirty]

Any woman who is of child bearing age would automatically be suspect. Any woman who has daughters or granddaughters or other female family members of child bearing age would be suspect of helping them. Any woman who has a friend who is of child bearing age would be suspect.

It's either 'You are Pregnant' and so you are being watched for any sign that you are considering an abortion or even signs that you might miscarry. Or you are not pregnant and you a questioned as to why you are not pregnant, 'Did you have an abortion'?

Laws like this leads back to the 'Barefoot and pregnant' view of a woman's role in life. If she is not fulfilling that role, accusations are bound to be made. Especially when there is a bounty on their heads.

Wouldn't everyone be suspect in that scenario?

[JackDaw]

You realize that you are recognizing that the law is on solid footing if you start looking to put charges on those men, right?

Only way that they could be culpable in any of is if it was actually criminal.

With DNA testing now, I guess it’s possible to establish father with reasonable certainty even in those cases where that is disputed.

It ought to be possible then to create laws that enforce requirement to make adequate contribution (and have specific financial duties) to bringing up the child?

I don’t see how even the most committed “pro-lifer” could disagree that both parents have an enormous moral responsibility to do do their utmost to ensure any child has a good upbringing.

It really shouldn’t be easy to bring a kid into the world, and then just leave mother and/or rest of society to pick up all the costs and other responsibilities.

[Tendrin]

So, in good news: the largest pro-life website in Texas lost its Godaddy hosting, after already having been jammed up by angry TikTok kids, uber and lyft have both said they will cover any and all lawsuit-related fees for drivers accused under this law and made large donations to Planned Parenthood. The blow back to this is just getting started.

[numberthirty]

With DNA testing now, I guess it’s possible to establish father with reasonable certainty even in those cases where that is disputed.

It ought to be possible then to create laws that enforce requirement to make adequate contribution (and have specific financial duties) to bringing up the child?

I don’t see how even the most committed “pro-lifer” could disagree that both parents have an enormous moral responsibility to do do their utmost to ensure any child has a good upbringing.

It really shouldn’t be easy to bring a kid into the world, and then just leave mother and/or rest of society to pick up all the costs and other responsibilities.

Man...

Even here in the States?

We ain't so backward that we do not have such technology at our disposal.

What I was saying was a lot more like...

If you have made the man involved a criminal?

You have cemented that you agree with the idea that the woman involved must be a criminal...

You essentially have to throw in with the blockheads to do the former. Never mind that you have agreed to the latter when you do.

It's not the play.

[JackDaw]

Man...

Even here in the States?

We ain't so backward that we do not have such technology at our disposal.

What I was saying was a lot more like...

If you have made the man involved a criminal?

You have cemented that you agree with the idea that the woman involved must be a criminal...

You essentially have to throw in with the blockheads to do the former. Never mind that you have agreed to the latter when you do.

It's not the play.

I find even UK politics incomprehensible, US politics super baffling.

But yes I agree with you that in ideal set up both woman and man should be treated consistently.

I think...it’s that “consistency test” that many (most?) people who vehemently oppose abortion fail.

If the argument is put forward that that life is sacred, so the woman has no right to choose... then effectively the state not the mother bears ultimate responsibility for that life. (And must if need be pick up all costs, all the duties of care.)

But no point expecting consistency in this vale of tears and sorrow.

[worstblogever]

On this date, in both 2014, as well as in 2015, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" profiled Philip Hinkle, a former member of the Indiana state legislature who was caught trying to solicit gay sex from an 18 year old on Craigslist, and then after assaulting the young man after the tried to leave without consenting to sex, attempted to offer him bribes to cover up the fact that he was a legislator. The saga would mark the end of Hinkle’s career.

In both 2016, 2017, and 2018, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiles of Darryl Glenn, the former U.S. Senate candidate from Colorado who was never even supposed to win the GOP Primary to advance, but the GOP’s favored son, Jon Keyser, got caught forging signatures to be on the ballot and got himself disqualified and charged with a crime. So it was that the rabid and radical Glenn was launched into the spotlight, where he embarrassed the GOP while facing off with Senator Bob Bennet. The GOP was going to make sure that Darryl Glenn had the best chance possible to knock off the incumbent, giving him a speech in prime time of the 2016 Republican National Convention (aka the Trumpster Fire Clusterf***ed Total S***Show). Glenn spoke for six minutes... which the major networks chose not to air. In fact, all of the cable news networks chose to skip it, as well, instead having pundits recap events from throughout the day (including Donald Trump appearing on FOX News for a live interview and upstage the other Republicans from Day One), and hype Melania Trump coming out later in the night (which was it's own disaster because of the plagiarism). But maybe the lack of media attention was for the best, considering the content of Glenn's uninspiring six minutes in the spotlight. In the little time he took, Glenn took time to lay blame for racial tension in the United States on President Obama, deliver his hackneyed one-liner about Hillary Clinton needing to trade in her pantsuits for a prison jumpsuit, and then take time to address the Black Lives Matter movement by saying, "Frankly somebody with a nice tan needs to say this, all lives matter. Blue lives matter, that’s right, ladies and gentlemen.” Anyhow… after Glenn’s speech, the fact-checkers moved in and pointed out that Glenn's remarks in it about neighborhoods being more crime ridden were patently false by any crime statistic available. And, the very next day, Senator Bennet wisely decided it was time to drop an ad-blitz on Glenn, before he could build any momentum... Bennet's ad featured the speech from Colorado's own GOP convention in April, where he talked openly about a wide variety of topics like accusing Planned Parenthood of “dismembering babies”, defunding sanctuary cities, and asserting that working across the aisle was something he’d outright refuse to do, saying he could not name any elected Democrats he could get along with, because he was “running against Democrats. I’m running against evil.” And then, things just got strange. About a week after Darryl Glenn's slot at the RNC, the Denver Post did a little digging into Glenn's background, and found out that he previously had been charged with assault against his father in 1983. Rather than own up to the fact that he had attacked his father, Darryl Glenn tried lying... badly. He claimed that the Darryl Glenn in the police report could have actually been another person with the same name as him, or perhaps his half-brother Cedric, who would be a convenient fall-guy to lay blame on, as he died in 1992 and his father wouldn't be setting the record straight, as he died in 2006. Eventually, Glenn was confronted with the truth and copped to it, saying that he had to maintain the lie or he would have been kicked out of the Air Force Academy because their honor code forbids them from accepting candidates with criminal pasts. But the gaffes still kept surfacing. An interview with a conservative radio station from back in June surfaced on August 10th, where Darryl Glenn claimed that prior to Omar Mateen killing fifty people at the Orlando Pulse Nightclub, President Obama specifically directed the FBI to stop investigating Mateen. It was a bald-faced lie, but precisely the sort of thing you'd expect from the GOP narrative that President Obama secretly is helping Islamic terrorists (even the ones that aren't actually Islamic terrorists and just bitter closeted homosexuals like Mateen). With the errors from Glenn piling up all within a three week span, national Republicans stopped aiding him financially, and left him for a lost cause. Now, don’t ask us how, but even though Darryl Glenn trailed Bob Bennet by double digits in the polls, on election day, he still managed to get 44% of the vote in spite of being an uncompromising, chronically lying twit who beat up his father. We thought we would be reporting on the last time you’ll ever hear about Daryll Glenn, but to our chagrin, he re-emerged to appear as a GOP Primary challenger for the U.S. House of Representatives for Colorado’s 5th District in 2018, trying to get to Congress by unseating multiple-time CSGOPOTD Doug Lamborn. In that Republican primary back in late June, Darryl Glenn lost, getting just 20% of the vote. The whole campaign may have just been an end-around for Glenn as a grifter, as it was discovered he used campaign funds to pay himself a salary as a campaign staffer to effectively get himself tens of thousands of dollars in additional revenue using an obscure campaign finance rule.

On this date in 2019, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled Joey Gibson, a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate from Washington in 2018, but you probably know him as the fascist group Patriot Prayer, that Gibson insists is just “alt-right” and not “white supremacist”, even though white supremacists like Idenity Evropa and the Proud Boys seem to be regular attendees of Patriot Prayer events, and his security is often provided by the 3% militia group. He has responded to complaints about white supremacists hanging out with him all the time by claiming IF such a person was in attendance that he "would say the same thing to them that I would say to any black nationalist or Mexican nationalists group, we have to drop the identity of politics and focus on what is on the inside." Because there are so many Mexican and black nationalists around. And white nationalism is just “identity politics”. Among Gibson’s pseudo-libertarian thoughts are the need to abolish the IRS, and to institute a national sales tax instead. He is more famous for being in the vicinity of riots breaking out in Portland, Oregon in 2018 and folks were wondering how long it would take before he might be charged with a crime for inciting them. Gibson only got 2% of the vote in the primary for that U.S. Senate seat, and as of a few weeks ago, was charged with inciting a riot in Portland on May Day 2019 and arrested by authorities in Oregon. It’s more amazing that it took so long for him to end up in jail.

[worstblogever]

On this date one year ago, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled the U.S. House Representative from Utah’s 3rd Congressional District, John Curtis, who first ran and won office for that seat back in the 2016 elections. John Curtis won the special election to replace former Congressman and all around sneering bastard Jason Chaffetz, which is kind of surprising, given how that during the buildup to that election in 2017, the public would learn that while the Mayor of Provo, John Curtis hired Police Chief John King even though he had resigned from two prior posts as two prior accusations of sexual harassment were made against him. John Curtis HIRED that guy. Then, as the police chief in Provo, there were then multiple complaints filed against King in 2014 and 2015, and he was kept around by Curtis in spite of all the women coming forward… until King’s resignation in March of 2017 when another woman came forward to accuse him of rape. It seems John Curtis missed the whole #MeToo memo, or he doesn’t think much of women being violated. Which would seem to be the case, considering it is alleged then Mayor Curtis told police department supervisors that he “did not want to hear any more complaints about Chief King” when multiple women were coming forward.

But John Curtis has other things on his mind to prioritize… like reducing the size of the Bears’ Ears Monument for pillaging by fossil fuel companies while ignoring the native tribes of the area, and allowing oil companies to fast-track drilling without any research into the environmental impact it might have upon the surrounding lands.

Utah’s 3rd Congressional District has a +25 Republican lean in the Cook Partisan Voting Index, and after advancing out of the GOP Primary at the Utah Republican Convention (with no data released on how that vote actually went), John Curtis advanced to the general election where he won by over 40 points, just like he did in the 2018 Blue Wave year. He went back to Washington, and… did some things like this:

• December 18th, 2019: Curtis 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: Curtis votes against the HEROES Act, failing to further support the healthcare industry and citizens affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
• January 13th, 2021: Rep. Curtis 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: John Curtis 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 (probably because she’s a kindred spirit).
• February 25th, 2021: Curtis votes against HR 5, the latest version of the Equality Act, that would provide workplace protections for LGBTQ Americans.
• March 3rd, 2021: Rep. Curtis 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: John Curtis votes against the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2021.
• March 10th, 2021: Curtis 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. Curtis votes 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: John Curtis votes against HR 3233, the creation of a commission to investigate the Capitol Attack.
• May 20th, 2021: Curtis is one of 63 Republicans who vote against the Covid-19 Hate Crimes Act.

We would like to note at this time that John Curtis is a rare Republican with a hat trick of sanity since Donald Trump lost the presidential election… he was NOT one of the Republicans who signed on the amicus brief to the Supreme Court ot challenge the election results, he did NOT vote to challenge the election results after the January 6th attack on the Capitol, and he was one of only 33 Republicans who voted for a bipartisan commission to investigate those attacks.

And it’s that little trilogy of actual decency and respect for American election security that makes us willing to bet he’s going to get a primary challenger to his right who is still “MAGA until death” Republican in 2022. We may not be fans of Curtis, but it looks like the stage is set for his conservative district to potentially downgrade to someone worse.

[Tendrin]

The right denounces racism, you guys!

Former senior Trump administration advisor Stephen Miller reportedly balked at the idea of resettling more Afghan refugees during a cabinet meeting in 2018, telling the room that the refugees would create "Iraqs," and "Stans," in the US, according to CNN.

Miller pushed an unapologetically xenophobic immigration policy during the Trump administration, helping ideate the Muslim ban and other policies which broke down and backlogged the asylum system.

"What do you guys want?" Miller said during the meeting, according to CNN, which cited an official present during the meeting. "A bunch of Iraqs and 'Stans across the country?"

During the meeting, then-Defense Secretary James Mattis reportedly advocated to then-President Donald Trump's cabinet that the US should process more Special Immigrant Visas for Afghan allies who had worked with and risked their lives for the US.

And remember, Trump *totally* would've done a better job evacuating refugees with three months less time *and* racist yutzes like this as senior advisors.

[worstblogever]

The right denounces racism, you guys!



And remember, Trump *totally* would've done a better job evacuating refugees with three months less time *and* racist yutzes like this as senior advisors.

The same person trying to convince us the right denounces racism is the same person trying to convince us Stephen Miller isn't a white nationalist.

The first step to helping your party actually combat racism and speak out against it is to admit you have a problem.

[Ragged Maw]

So, in good news: the largest pro-life website in Texas lost its Godaddy hosting, after already having been jammed up by angry TikTok kids, uber and lyft have both said they will cover any and all lawsuit-related fees for drivers accused under this law and made large donations to Planned Parenthood. The blow back to this is just getting started.

All this combined sounds like a solid, perfectly legit way to make the law unenforceable, even if big, all-consuming corporate entities getting their presence further cemented is the monkey's paw trade-off in all this. But now I'm wondering if that's why Texas also loosened gun laws. Can I expect TX right-wing government officials in the near future to make impassioned calls for deputized citizens to flash their firearms at or even gun down Lyft/Uber drivers with the rationale of "self-defense" in mind, however coded the language?

[Mister Mets]

It's like Mets never heard of The Southern Strategy which has been driving Republican policy since Nixon.

The denial is palpable.

If you're curious about what any poster has to say about a topic, you can use the search function in the forum.

You would be able to see for example that I've responded to posts about the southern strategy earlier in this thread. I talked about it in six posts on the original political thread (which is a useful start point for any search because it has so many posts to look through.)

My argument at the time was that coded and not-so-coded racism is exaggerated as a reason for Republican success in the South (it mainly comes down to the national media and technology making the parties less local and more national, technology allowing Northern Republicans to move to the South and boost the party there, and southern conservatives joining the conservative party.)

This post in particular had several links on the topic.

https://community.cbr.com/showthread...=1#post3176370

Yet it seems like these laws are automatically making women criminals, simply by being.

The Texas law is technically not about crime, but about civil penalties.

The law does not allow anyone to sue the women. This is part of a strategy of abortion opponents to focus on providers and not the women, possibly to avoid the talking point that they're automatically making women into criminals.

https://apnews.com/article/health-te...e61da10a994c43

[Mister Mets]

Republicans most definitely haven't disavowed racism...it's literally the whole point of their redistricting and voting rights laws. On top of that they applaud groups like the Proud Boys, allow KKK and neo-nazi groups to attend their rallies with out a peep in response and think comments like "there might be some kkk groups that are fine" is an entirely defensible comment.

If we're arguing about the denouncement of eugenics or prohibition generations ago, the expectation would be that we'll focus on what would be seen as racism around that time, rather than what is seen as racism after serious category creep.

I'm unaware of anyone prominent who would say some KKK groups are fine. Even Trump's Charleston comments didn't say that.

Depends on what you mean by denounced. Does the right say "racisim is bad"? Of course. Do they promote and enact policies that are racist? Obviously. Do they block attempts to enact policies that defies racism? Again, it's kind of obvious.

I would hope, for example, that it is not your position that caging families of foreign heritage was not racist, and I would hope that it is not your position that only one party wanted to do this (and still defends it).

On caging families, there were plenty of times when photos attributed to the Trump administration turned out to be from the Obama administration.

My main position was that we shouldn't incentivize anyone to put their children in danger on a journey to the US by making this a valid way to obtain American citizenship or residency, so anyone who didn't meet the standards for asylum should have been sent back. We should also provide aid to Mexico to help with processing.

I'm opposed to open borders, but I do understand the moral argument for it.

You mean the article you quoted? That was my point. We were talking liberal vs conservative, Democrat vs Republican, and you completely changed the subject to progressive vs not progressive of 100 years ago as if it's the same thing. Please don't do either of those things. It's dishonest, disruptive, blindsiding, and a weak attempt to completely change the focus of the conversation from something you evidently don't want to get into too much detail about.


At the period that early, 40-60 years after the birth of the GOP, the distinction between the parties was at least as divisive as it is now. End of slavery and reconstruction were still in most people's memory. If you supported those things, you were progressive and liberal, and probably identified as Republican. If you wanted a return to pre-Lincoln policies, you were conservative and probably identified as Democrat. There was no more "there are very nice people on both sides" then there are today.

The period you are thinking of is during the depression and WWII, when ideologies tended to cross party lines in often vociferous ways.

The benchmark I mentioned was the first nomination of William Jennings Bryan in 1896.

https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/disse...ns/AAI3293922/

At that point, there weren't serious efforts to go for pre-Lincoln policies, as that would necessitate the return of slavery, which was not a live issue in the later 19th century.

I do think we could see some attributes of modern liberals in those early political fights, with a push for worker protections, the development of a social safety net, greater limits on powerful rich people, support for unions, the creation of the income tax, and greater efforts to build an international community through membership in intergovernmental organizations.