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

[Jack Dracula]

Bottom line: Qpublicans are whining like spoiled children that social media platforms denied them their First Amendment right to spread outright lies, disinformation and, in the case of Trump, fire up his lemmings to storm the Capitol Building. This doesn’t have jack **** to do with politics, but right wingers breaking rules with their abhorrent behavior on those aforementioned platforms. Short and sweet, screw ‘em!

Frankly, I want to live in a world where people are held accountable for what they say and do. Especially those of higher social status. Ideally, the degree of accountability should equal the amount of influence a person has.

[Kirby101]

Politely, you ain't even anywhere near the ballpark there...

Take a minute...

Since the restart, think about the most out there nonsense you have seen someone post here.

Again...

"Apple..."/"Orange..."

There is no need to police crime that is not taking place.

So...

What is in blue?

You kinda look like you are hunting for people who are saying that even though there was nothing like that in the quoted post.

I have no idea what we are debating then.

[Mister Mets]

Still waiting for a list of states where this election fraud has been occurring.
Since the election security legislation seems to be concentrated in Republican-controlled states should I assume those are the culprits?

When did I say there was fraud? I was responding to someone who was concerned about potential fraud in a situation in Paterson NJ by noting that the system worked to identify and dismiss improperly submitted ballots, and that we don't have to worry as much about efforts to alter vote totals because this type of stuff would be easy to prove.

[JackDaw]

Well whenever it's trotted out that most migrants are young men, usually the implication is that they aren't really at as much risk as women or children and thus can more justifiably be turned away or sent back. If that's not what you intended, I would like to hear what it was you meant.

No, it’s not what I intended. If I wanted to say that I would have said it.

I was commenting that factually the age and sex make up of migrants from Central America to USA seemed to be materially different from those seeking sanctuary in Europe from African countries. (Not sure that’s true by the way. It seemed that way on basis of a couple of articles Number 30 suggested I read…and I’ve not carefully fact checked my first impression.)

I can think of a number of reasons which might explain the difference…maybe cultural, maybe to do with the nature of the perceived extent of risk involved in journey itself. (I will admit that I believe that typically young single men are more likely to take extreme risks than young mothers.)

[CaptainEurope]

Conservatives actually have a point here, even if the actual ideas they are trying to broadcast are just completely wrong, it shouldn't be up to a private company to dictate what political views are and aren't acceptable in public discourse. Sure, in theory these companies can enforce whatever policy they want, and anyone who doesn't like that can go and start their own platform, but in practice these social media giants have such a dominant position in the market that their whims effectively dictate what billions of people around the world are able to see and say, and that is simply not acceptable going forward. Whatever policies they are using to deplatform right wingers WILL inevitably be used to stifle the left in due time, because at the end of the day tech CEOs invariably tend to be libertarians with a thin veneer of social progressivism, and that will be the first thing to go the minute somebody tries to meddle with their income stream.

They don't have a point.

Hate speech is not an opinion, whether it comes from the right or the left. And because of the basis of the ideologies, it comes more often from the right.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2014, CSGOPOTD looked at Trey Radel, also known as “The Cocaine Congressman”, because he was busted in his home district in Florida with said Bolivian Marching Powder. As if earning that nickname weren’t enough, we also noted that Trey Radel was a big proponent of drug testing welfare recipients, because those mooches drawing government paychecks were totally spending it on drugs (meanwhile, he had a six-figure Congressional salary and was spending it on drugs). He resigned in disgrace, and has avoided politics since that resignation.

In 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" featured a profile of the U.S. House Representative from Virginia’s 7th District, Dave Brat, the man who upset House Minority Whip Eric Cantor in the 2014 GOP Primary for his seat, sending the incumbent packing and setting a record for toppling the highest ranking incumbent Congressman out of office in the history of the United States. Which is kind of scary, considering Brat is a Christian Reconstructionalist who cites 16th Century theologian John Calvin as an influence on his opinions of capitalism, he campaigned with ALIPAC, an anti-immigrant hate group, denies climate change and says there are scientists who say we’re undergoing “global cooling”, he disputes the separation of church and state, and claims that ISIS has already set up bases in the United States in Texas. Brat has also argued against the DREAM Act or any immigration reform, believing it would lead to “the decline of Western civilization”, and suggested that the Republicans should engineer another Government Shutdown if Planned Parenthood is not defunded. Brat called into conservative radio talk show host Sandy Rios’ show in January 2016, to rant about how President Obama made light of the GOP’s efforts to sabotage plans to provide refuge for Syrian refugees who were primarily orphans and widows, rambling in impotent rage at the implication he was cowardly and ignoring the parts of the Bible about aiding those in need from other nations.In August of 2016, Brat went back on Rios’ show to say that even criticizing policies that solely benefit billionaires, even the mere talk of opposing those policies “undermines American values”. But Sandy Rios isn’t the only loon in conservative media who Dave Brat likes to hang out with. He also spends time with Alex Jones over at InfoWars, appearing on an episode back in June of 2016 and agreeing with Jones’ bald-faced lie that the Muslim mayor of London was instituting Sharia Law, and that President Obama and liberals had “allied with Islam”. Rep. Brat also praised the United Kingdon’s “Brexit” vote to leave the European Union, saying the now could “go back to restoring their culture” and restore “Judeo-Christian tradition”, which sounds a tad like white nationalism (because it was). In an interview with NBC News’ Katy Tur back in March of 2017, where during a discussion on Donald Trump’s claims that “President Obama did wire tapps on Trump Tower”, he began trying to first claim people should wait for evidence to be presented (he was corrected that James Comey said there was zero evidence), then tried claiming the White House had walked back those remarks, and then, when Tur started correcting him, he went completely insane and started volunteering conspiracy theories about the Clinton Foundation on the fly, because saying bad things about Hillary Clinton is the only reflexive response Republicans can fall back on when under pressure. A few months later, Brat went on CNN, and when asked about how Donald Trump started attacking his own Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, Congressman Brat had an interesting take on why that was happening… he said it was the media’s fault. THEY MADE TRUMP DO IT. Dave Brat was not looking forward to meeting angry constituents as the new session of Congress began in January of 2017, complaining about “women are in my grilL no matter where I go” to constituents who were friendlier to him.He eventually did host a one hour town hall the next month where he was mocked and jeered by those in attendance as he talked about repealing the Affordable Care Act, which would leave tens of millions of people without health insurance, partially because he only took questions submitted via note cards so his aides could pre-screen them and refused to let anyone in the audience ask them themselves. Still, he didn’t like the jeering and booing, so he hosted his next town hall with those same restrictions… at a church. And this time, they would pre-screen attendees by issuing tickets to attendees online. Dave Brat was booted from office in the 2018 Blue Wave by former CIA officer Abigail Spanberger even after Brat pulled out every dirty trick in politics you can think of, from posting fake campaign sides misrepresenting her stances on the issues, and trying to get dirt by having her CIA personnel file acquired by a conservative PAC and released to the public (in included her social security number and medical history). While this might not seem like a big deal to a lot folks… this is in a Virginia district that is home to many members of the American intelligence community, and they didn’t take confidential information being politicized by idiots lightly. We hope he never darkens the door of any legislature or university again.

On this date in 2020, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled Sharon Barry Newby, a piano and organ saleswoman who was one of several absolute kooks who entered the GOP Primary for Florida’s 13th Congressional District in 2020. We don’t even know where to begin with Newby, wasn’t as much of a candidate as she was a flagrantly bigoted troll focused on spreading deranged conspiracy theories. Among the insanity, she posted about:

• Referred to protests over the death of George Floyd as “an indictment on our education system”.
• When discussing protests of police violence, she stated her belief that whenever cops put on riot gear, they should “be treated as military that goes into a war zone”.
• Said during a debate that teachers and professors should “be required to take an oath of allegiance to this country”.
• Calling for Congresswoman Ilhan Omar to be hanged while seeking donations.
• Other than her unflinching support for the 2nd Amendment, the other big issue stance that Newby took was to eliminate the slush fund to
• On her Facebook page, Newby shared conspiracy theories about voter fraud, paid protesters, national anthem protests, Michelle Obama being a man, Congresswoman Rashid Tlaib being a Jihadist, Vice-President Joe Biden being senile, and called for the military draft to return)

As she seems highly unlikely to ever win office, we will set aside her profile at this time, however, to cover another wacky Republican today instead. (Current crazy/stupid scoreboard, is now 1022-50, since this was established in July 2014.


Rob Weber

Welcome to what is the 1022nd original profile here at “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day”, where we’ll be profiling Rob Weber, a trial lawyer and 2020 candidate for U.S. House of Representatives in Ohio’s 9th Congressional District, looking to knock off Democratic Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur. Prior to that, in 2018, Weber failed to get elected in an attempt to be elected to District 59 of the Ohio House of Representatives, so it was curious to see him jumping up to run for higher office.

There’s of course, a reason why he didn’t win in 2020, and that was that Rob Weber was making it clear he supported the deranged Qanon conspiracy theory, congratulating other users on Twitter who shared Qanon content on how they had been “17’d”, a reference to the letter Q being the 17th letter of the alphabet. We’ll add that Weber also supported Donald Trump’s stupid idea of a border wall on the U.S./Mexico border, believes the 2nd Amendment is absolute, and is a supporter of Personhood… not exactly a “find the middle ground” guy on policies.

Rob Weber ended up getting wrecked on Election Day by Marcy Kaptur, earning just 37% of the vote, which we’re gonna check our math and say is probably 37% more than he deserves.

[PwrdOn]

No, it’s not what I intended. If I wanted to say that I would have said it.

I was commenting that factually the age and sex make up of migrants from Central America to USA seemed to be materially different from those seeking sanctuary in Europe from African countries. (Not sure that’s true by the way. It seemed that way on basis of a couple of articles Number 30 suggested I read…and I’ve not carefully fact checked my first impression.)

I can think of a number of reasons which might explain the difference…maybe cultural, maybe to do with the nature of the perceived extent of risk involved in journey itself. (I will admit that I believe that typically young single men are more likely to take extreme risks than young mothers.)

I'm sure that there are plenty of reasons why the demographics might be different for Middle Eastern migrants than for Latin American ones, but why does it matter? Invariably whenever people bring up the fact that most migrants are young men, it's followed up by the argument they don't need our help and should have stayed home and fought instead of fleeing, or that letting them in will pose a risk to women, playing up a very old stereotype of dark skinned savages preying upon nubile white ingenues.

Of course, all the people who bitch and moan all day about how much of a drain immigrants are on the economy will conveniently ignore the fact that young men are exactly what most Western countries need to fill the gaps in their labor force, because they are willing to do the dirty and dangerous jobs for low pay, whereas women and especially children require much more government support to get by. Now you could make the argument that this is driving down wages for local workers, but that ignores the fact that the general aversion to manual labor in the West isn't just a matter of pay but also prestige and social status, and it's inconceivable that simply kicking out all of the migrants will lead to massive numbers of Gen Z'ers signing up to be janitors and construction workers.

[Mister Mets]

They don't have a point.

Hate speech is not an opinion, whether it comes from the right or the left. And because of the basis of the ideologies, it comes more often from the right.

Who gets to define what counts as hate speech? There are ways these policies can be enforced to benefit one side. You can very easily imagine the next Republican administration defining obnoxious comments about religion or white people as hate speech.

There will be situations where there are nuances where it's hard to make the right call, partly because many of the people reading through all these comments don't necessarily have the full context (IE- the people scrolling through all the comments often come from different countries where salaries are cheaper but there are different cultural codes, they might not understand when a comment is sarcastic, they might have their own biases and be primed for ungenerous interpretations of certain comments.)

[shooshoomanjoe]

We all know what hate speech is. This is just another BS game the conservatives and Bernie bros play to excuse their hate.

[babyblob]

]We all know what hate speech is.[/B] This is just another BS game the conservatives and Bernie bros play to excuse their hate.

Exactly! Anyone who drops slurs or advocates violence then claims "Oh I Didnt know what I said, I didnt know it was so hurtful.: Bullshit. The N word has been used as a hate slur in forever, calling a gay man a F** yea they know that they are being hateful.

Like here in Cincy when Thom B got caught on a hot mike calling Kanas City the F** Capital of the USA. "Oh I didnt know that was a word that was filled with hate and used to demean people." Save you ****. You are a liar.

Anyone who asks what is hate speech is either a 5 year old not exposed to the world, an idiot, or some one who knows they are using hate speech and trying to excuse the fact they are a racist/sexist/homophobe/transphob/etc...

[Kirby101]

In the case of Facebook and Twitter, both private companies, they get to decide what is appropriate for their platform. Just like CBR.

[Tami]

Most Republicans want Trump as the GOP's leader but are divided about whether he'd help them retake the White House

(CNN)Most Republicans want former President Donald Trump to remain their party's leader, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS. But differing views about Trump's role in the party -- and his strength as a future presidential nominee -- highlight divides within the GOP.

Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say, 63% to 37%, that Trump should be the leader of the Republican Party. But they are about evenly split over whether having the defeated former President back on the ticket in 2024 would be an advantage: 51% say that Republicans have a better chance of retaking the presidency if Trump is the nominee, with 49% saying the party would be better off with a different nominee. That's a very different landscape from 2019, when more than three-quarters of Republicans said their party had a better shot in 2020 with Trump as their nominee than they would with a different candidate.

Trump's support isn't equally distributed throughout the party: 69% of Republicans without a college degree think Trump should head the party, compared with 49% of those who hold a college degree. A 72% majority of conservatives say Trump should head the party, compared to 49% among the smaller bloc of moderates in the party. And 71% of self-identified Republicans want Trump to lead the party, compared with 51% of Republican-leaning independents who say the same.

Most Republicans also consider support for Trump -- and his false claim to have won the 2020 election -- to be an important part of their own partisan identity alongside support for conservative principles. About six in 10 say that supporting Trump, and that believing that he won in 2020, are at least a somewhat important part of what being a Republican means to them. More, though, point to more traditional partisan markers, with 69% saying it's at least somewhat important to oppose Democratic policies, 81% to support the Republicans in Congress, 85% to hold conservative values and positions and 86% to believe the federal government should have less power.

[Tami]

Democratic partisan identity

Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents are most likely to tie their identity as Democrats to support for progressive policies and more government aid, the most recent poll finds. Perhaps reflecting their status as the party currently in power, they're less likely than Republicans to place emphasis on opposing the other party: 58% say that, as Democrats, it's at least somewhat important to oppose GOP policies, 77% to support Biden, 81% to support Democrats in Congress, 84% to hold progressive positions and 93% to believe that the federal government should do more to help people.

On the Democratic side, the sharpest divisions come along generational and racial lines. Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents over age 45, for instance, are 28 percentage points likelier than their younger counterparts to call supporting Biden very important, and 22 points likelier to say supporting congressional Democrats is very important. Black Democrats are 14 points likelier than White Democrats to say supporting Biden is very important. And Democrats of color are 12 points likelier than White Democrats to say it's very important that the federal government should do more to help people.

Liberal Democrats are likelier than moderates to place high importance on holding progressive policies (by 32 points), opposing the GOP (14 points), favoring an expanded role for the federal government (14 points), and backing congressional Democrats (12 points), but show far less of a divide over the importance of standing behind Biden (3 points).

[Mister Mets]

In the case of Facebook and Twitter, both private companies, they get to decide what is appropriate for their platform. Just like CBR.

One complication is that we may have people arguing about different things here. What should private companies like Twitter and Facebook do? What are they allowed to do that they shouldn't do? What can the government mandate? What are the tradeoffs for our preferred policy?

I'll note that I'm trying to figure all this out for myself.

We all know what hate speech is. This is just another BS game the conservatives and Bernie bros play to excuse their hate.

There are valid questions about what counts as hate speech, and how to define it legally so that the regulation can't be abused.

These are international platforms, so there are going to be a lot of users who do not have the cultural understanding of politically engaged Americans in their twenties. You can easily have someone within a totalitarian regime using Facebook or Twitter, while having retrograde views on gender, religious pluralism or sexuality. There are odd tradeoffs. Americans can also be unwittingly crude when talking about problems in other cultures (IE- they can easily use the wrong language when talking about the Roma.)

There will likely be some false positives and misunderstandings as well. In some cases, a statement like "they don't want the (insert racial slur here) to vote" is a criticism of policies seen as voter suppression rather than hate speech against an ethnic group, but that's an easy thing for an underpaid moderator to miss.

A Twitter user (wife of comics artist Pete Woods) was banned for a while because her comment about threats against Mike Pence was seen as an endorsement, when it was meant to encourage him to invoke the 25th amendment.

https://twitter.com/thatpetewoods/st...64128907423744

[numberthirty]

In the case of Facebook and Twitter, both private companies, they get to decide what is appropriate for their platform. Just like CBR.

https://www.editorandpublisher.com/s...ion-230,180554

For Democracy’s Sake, Social Media Platforms Must Be Deemed Publishers Under Section 230

But, what if we treat social media platforms more like publishers? Would it curb speech in a way that is inconsistent with an open internet? I don’t think it would. We need to find a balance between responsibility and the free flow of information. The reality is, more and more Americans get their news and other critical information from social media. Without a framework for more effective moderation, Americans are getting an increasingly steady diet of disinformation and misinformation that is given credibility by its spread on social media. This is having a deleterious effect on American civic life and is leading to increased polarization.

Imagine if publishers were able to freely spread disinformation that masquerades as “news” without liability. I think most people would agree that would be a bad thing. This debate isn’t about censorship, it’s about ensuring that platforms have a stronger framework to moderate content. Free and open public debate is a principle that undergirds American Democracy, but we cannot have that if we do not have a shared reality.