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

[Tendrin]

Former President Donald Trump played a role in plans for seizing voting machines in the 2020 election.
Trump asked Rudy Giuliani to call DHS about confiscating voting machines, The New York Times reported.
Trump weighed the prospect of using the military or the Justice Department to obtain the machines.

Totally not an attempted coup, you guys!

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...?ocid=msedgntp

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2015, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" ran a profile of Sandy Adams, a former one-term Congresswoman from Florida’s 24th District who denied the science of evolution while fighting for Creationism to be taught in public schools, advocated for the strictest possible abortion restrictions, and wanted American public schools to all have monuments of the Ten Commandments in them. She also wanted to repeal both the 16th and 17th Amendments of the Constitution, because apparently the good voters of the United States can no longer be trusted to pick their own Senators. Her career really imploded, though, because of her ridiculous theory that Sharia Law was already thriving in American Muslim communities throughout the United States and should be stopped, believing the heart of the threat was sitting in Dearborn, Michigan, of all places. Voters gave her the boot for being a few tacos short of a combination plate five years ago and she has yet to resurface in politics.

On this date in 2016, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” posted a profile of Jack Kingston, a former eleven-term Congressman from Georgia who infamously appeared on Real Time with Bill Maher in 2011, where he denied not just the existence of climate change, but evolution as well, asking for proof that “human beings emerged from the sea”, which leaves out quite a few hundred million years of evolution from amphibians developing on up. In 2013, Rep. Kingston was arguing against the entire social safety net, saying that children who received help in affording school lunches should have to “sweep the floor in the cafeteria” so they’re taught there’s “no such thing as a free lunch”. He also began openly talking of attempting to impeach President Obama during his failed campaign to replace Sen. Saxby Chambliss in the U.S. Senate, and was proposing drug testing all welfare recipients (that old chestnut of failed conservative policy). While serving as a Trump surrogate in September of 2016, Kingston actually said that black voters prefer “a backdrop in front of a burning car”. and had a disastrous interview the next day with NBC News’ Joy Reid, where he was cornered about the fact that he wouldn’t answer questions, to which he tried claiming the interview was unfair because the questions he was asking weren’t being answered (JESUS.) He is out of elected office and only serves as K Street lobbyist and a s***ty pundit these days.

On this date in 2017, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" profiled Scott Schneider, a former two-term Indiana State Senator who authored the homophobic “Religious Freedom Act” that ended up getting the whole Hoosier state shamed for its passage, and was quickly amended to assure it wouldn’t be thrown out by the courts for being discriminatory because it was specifically written to allow businesses to discriminate against LGBTQ citizens. At the time it was introduced, Schneider had already claimed it would shore up gaps in “religious liberty framework” in Indiana, and began trying to exploit the narrative that Christians in the United States. Said Schneider, "You don't have to look too far to find a growing hostility toward people of faith. This bill acts as a shield, not a sword.” When the backlash against SB 101 predictably came, Schneider continued to argue that it wasn’t authored to discriminate against gays, in spite of the fact that it was written with the intent to allow exactly that. Schneider’s legislative record also include several votes to attempt to ban same sex marriage, several votes to strip funding from Planned Parenthood and implement harsh anti-abortion regulations aimed to close down clinics, and attempts to drug test welfare recipients. But SB 101 was so disastrous that Schneider retired in disgrace, well aware he would never win office again.

On this date in 2018, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" profiled Graham Hunt, a former member of the Washington House of Representatives who first took office after the 2014 elections, winning on the strength of his reputation as a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan who was injured in combat. Immediately upon getting to the state legislature, Hunt became one of those moronic members of the GOP banging the drums of transphobia, and pretending that there needed to be bathroom bans to stop transgender citizens from attacking innocent women and children in public bathrooms. Despite of there being ZERO reported incidents of this kind of predatory behavior, Hunt and bigoted twits like him submitted legislation like this around the country through 2015 and 2016. But Graham Hunt INSISTED he talked to constituents who wanted a bathroom ban, because they were victimized. We can’t say that’s the only sort of paranoid fear that drove Graham Hunt’s daily routine, as he also sponsored a bill to prevent any sort of database of gun owners from being kept in the state, which exactly ZERO people were proposing should happen. But hey, why not score points with the pro-gun, ammosexual types by pretending, “They’re coming for our guns, and only I can stop them!” The bathroom ban and gun paranoia are actually not why CSGOPOTD is discussing Graham Hunt. No, we’re talking about Hunt because as it turns out, he wasn’t exactly the war hero he purported himself to be. The Seattle Times was running a story on the young rising star in the Washington GOP, and began to notice some… shall we say inconsistencies in his war stories. While some noted there were campaign letters where Hunt claimed he was shot in Iraq and stabbed in Afghanistan, that seemed unlikely because Graham Hunt had never even SEEN COMBAT let alone get injured in it. Further checks began to note that photos on Hunt’s Facebook page of him supposedly being “wounded in a mortar attack” were heavily doctored. The truth was, Graham Hunt was never a Marine, he was a member of the Air National Guard who simply performed security checks from… Saudi Arabia. All the stories of bloody war heroism were, simply put, lies. Hunt took the brave stance you’d expect a brave sentinel of liberty like him would, and tried blaming all the social media posts and campaign letters he lied in on an unnamed legislative aide, but the jig was up, and he resigned in complete disgrace.

On this date in 2019, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" profiled Todd Thomsen, a former member of the Oklahoma House of Representatives from District 25 who first won office by a whopping TWO VOTES in 2006, and served six full terms and being undone by term limits in 2018. He did so on the name recognition of being the punter and kicker on the University of Oklahoma Sooners’ 1985 championship team, but his theocratic leanings as a member of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes seemed to be more of a factor in what voters got from the guy they elected. Perhaps the most famous of these efforts back in 2009, when Thomsen sponsored HR 1014 and HR 1015, two anti-evolution bills that were timed specifically as temper tantrums to protest scientist Richard Dawkins speaking at the University of Oklahoma. This actually made Dawkins’ speech far more entertaining, because he took a few moments to dunk on the former kicker, and mock him for his backwards views on science to laughter from the audience. (Guess helping win that national title didn’t win him any friends in the science department with the nerds, right?) Thomsen’s overall voting record showed his support of some of the dumbest pieces of legislation in the Sooner State during his tenure, including ones to allow religious expression (specifically, the Christian kind) in schools, a trap bill to place restrictions so impossible to meet upon all abortion clinics in Oklahoma to force them all to shut down, an obviously unconstitutional bill to declare English as the state’s official language, an anti-Sharia Law measure that is in no way constitutional, or necessary, Oklahoma’s version of the “Birther Bill”, to require presidential candidates provide a copy of their birth certificates, aa bill aimed at nullifying that Affordable Care Act that had no chance of holding up in court, a bill to reject compliance with the United Nations’ Agenda 21 Environmental Treaty, and his co-sponsorhip of HB 2632, a measure to allow church members to use the “Stand Your Ground” defense to kill anyone they feel is threatening them while they are at church services. As stated, Todd Thomsen came up against term limits in 2018, and we can only hope he shuffles off into retirement, and never makes a bid for any higher office. Maybe he’ll go back to his hobby of ironically showing up at high school science and engineering fairs, where he serves as the dumbest person present.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2020, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled Johnnie Caldwell, a former judge and former member of the Georgia House of Representatives from District 131, which he has represented from 2013-2018. Through his six years in office, Caldwell signed off on some of the dumbest laws the Republican-controlled Georgia state legislature sent to the desk of former Gov. Nathan Deal, from legalizing concealed carry on college campuses, to the state’s disastrous anti-immigrant law HB 125, to voting for unconstitutional bills to drug test welfare recipients, or to require a monument of the Ten Commandments at the state capitol. But that’s not why we’re profiling Johnnie Caldwell. See, when he was Judge Caldwell, he was kicked off the bench for sexual misconduct, and then waited a year and squeaked into the state legislature two years later, before being allowed to run for re-election in 2014 and 2016 unopposed. Now, the MeToo Movement was a revelation for s***ty men facing consequences for their actions, and it was even more important to point out Johnnie Caldwell was a creepy pervert who hadn’t, especially when you factor in that he started a push in the state legislature to abolish the same judicial watchdog group that pushed to have him turn in his gavel. The public just needed to be made aware of how outrageous the whole situation was, and to the rescue came Samantha Bee, who ran a segment on her show, Full Frontal, where she gave a nice little biography of Caldwell, and begged the Georgia GOP and someone, anyone, to run against him in 2018. Mercifully, Samantha Bee got her wish in 2018, when Ken Pullin bounced Johnnie Caldwell from office in the GOP Primary.

On this date in 2021, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” profiled Jay Lawrence, a former member of the Arizona House of Representatives who was first elected to represent District 23 in 2014, and who had a voting record aligning himself with some of the more deranged extremists in the party. The closest response he mustered to stopping the spread of Covid-19 was to vote for a bill that would make it harder for people to sue businesses who choose to do nothing to keep their clientele safe from the disease. It was in his last term in office, though, where Lawrence immolated his career with repeated racist quotes regarding conservative policy. The first is a bit of a head scratcher, because it involves the 2nd Amendment. While most Republicans have no desire to limit gun ownership to anyone, anywhere, Jay Lawrence is an exception in that he said the quiet part out loud. You see, as he spoke at a gun forum in 2019, Lawrence explained how, in his mind, that “black and brown communities” needed to have their firearms taken away because they were “better armed than the police who are supposed to be controlling them”. Just. Wow. That’s… pretty racist, even by Arizona Republican standards. But that wasn’t Lawrence’s only moment of being blatantly intolerant. In January of 2020, he railed against the idea of having refugees resettle in Arizona, claiming that “they take from us”. Why, we certainly will call you a bigot, Mr. Lawrence, as well as an ignorant bag of s***.In September of 2020, Lawrence got the attention of many in the state legislature when on Twitter, he praised “Qanon Patriots who support President Trump”. When he received criticism for that post, he then actually started slagging Qanon supporters, claiming upon finding out what the movement actually was, that they were “nuts”. Which begs the question of why he praised someone for their patriotism without knowing anything about them. Anyway, that exchange happened only a few weeks after Lawrence finished third in the GOP Primary, ensuring he would not be getting a fourth term in office for his seat in the Arizona state legislature. As he is now out of office, we will set aside her profile at this time to cover another wacky Republican today instead. (Current crazy/stupid scoreboard, is now 1070-50, since this was established in July 2014.


Paul Mosley

Welcome to what is the 1070th original profile here at “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day”, where we’ll be discussing Paul Mosley, who served one term in the Arizona House of Representatives in District 5 after winning office in 2016. And yes, of course he had a conservative voting record, including his sponsorship of a bill that would force doctors performing an abortion to attempt to revive the fetus first (even though medically, at the time period abortion are performed, all fetuses are non-viable).

But that’s not how we came to be aware of him.

It was only about four months into his first term that Mosley made headlines during an interview with reporter Hank Stephenson that “education used to be a privilege”, and that he wanted to repeal the law for compulsory education in Arizona.

"The number one thing I would like to repeal is the law on compulsory education … I believe education is still a privilege, and the kids who don’t want to be there are a larger distraction to the kids who do want to be there. We’re telling kids they have to go to school, and we put fences around the schools to protect them now, and we give them a meal or two and sometimes send a backpack of food home with them. So now schools are not only tasked with educating our children, but also feeding our children. What happened to the personal responsibility of a parent to feed and educate their kids?”

There’s libertarian-conservative lunacy, but when you’re that committed to it that you can scream, “Personal responsibility!” as your create a future where it’s just stupid people in some lawless wasteland, well…

And about that almost Mad Max universe fantasy world without laws… Paul Mosley seems to think traffic laws either shouldn’t exist, or while he was a legislator, that they just didn’t apply to him. In March 2018, he was pulled over doing 97 MPH in a 55 MPH zone, and literally started boasting to the cop who pulled him over that he often drives as fast as 120-140 MPH, and oh, by the way, he didn’t think he was subject to traffic laws because he was a state legislator. That was perhaps too convenient of an interpretation of the statute as its written, and even Gov. Doug Ducey was like, “Wait, WHAT NOW?” when he heard the story, and vowed to make sure that his state legislators didn’t turn into the villain from Lethal Weapon 2 from South Africa waving around his “diplomatic immunity” in Danny Glover’s face. No, it ended up that Mosley did get trotted into court on his criminal speeding charge.

Between Paul Mosley’s desire to get rid of public education altogether and his feeling that he should be immune to any and all legal punishments, he had a hard time winning re-election when a challenger in the GOP primary for his district appeared, and got bounced from office with only 37% of the vote.

We hope he gets a remedial education, or at least, sentenced to driving school.

[Tendrin]

Correct, and it's not technically allowed to be prescribed for covid anyway as it's an anti-parasitic. It's said to be inexpensive (the governments of India and Mexico were including it in "home covid kits" they gave out to the their populations) but it would still have to be paid for if it got approved by the FDA here.

Many insurers are covering ivermectin anyway. The study in Japan is a test-tube study and not one within the human body. Nearly every clinical study on actual people has not shown the reported antiviral properties and, in fact, a test tube study of this sort is actually how invermectin became a fad in the first place.

So, no, it probably won't help, but the Japanese study will assuredly give new life to the pointless 'BUT IVERMECTIN' crowd who will then go on to die anyway because they believe political conservatives that taking horse dewormer will protect them from Covid iit's not effective against in the human body, unfortunately.

https://www.modernhealthcare.com/ins...s-covered-cost

Here's a good thread on the unfolding disaster of the Reuters report on that Japanese study.

https://twitter.com/ariehkovler/stat...76628995866633

So Reuters is gonna get people killed by not correctly reporting on the Ivermectin story and what it actually was.

[achilles]

People should stop with the "horse dewormer" label for that drug. It may not be of use for COVID, but it is one of the five or ten most important drugs for humans in the world, saving hundreds of thousands of human lives every year, and nearly eliminating river blindness, (a tropical disease). It is an anti parasite drug, not an anti viral agent, but it is a great drug for humans in the proper circumstances. So people should give it a little respect, and stop with that label. as it's telling the truth by using a lie. It's enough to point out that it is not an anti viral agent and won't work for COVID without disparaging a drug that has saved more lives than can be counted over the years.

[Tendrin]

People should stop with the "horse dewormer" label for that drug. It may not be of use for COVID, but it is one of the five or ten most important drugs for humans in the world, saving hundreds of thousands of human lives every year, and nearly eliminating river blindness, (a tropical disease). It is an anti parasite drug, not an anti viral agent, but it is a great drug for humans in the proper circumstances. So people should give it a little respect, and stop with that label. as it's telling the truth by using a lie. It's enough to point out that it is not an anti viral agent and won't work for COVID without disparaging a drug that has saved more lives than can be counted over the years.

It's true that it can be used for those things and it does work for people actually dealing with a parasitic infection. However, at the moment, people are literally buying the horse dewormer version of it off the shelf.

[worstblogever]

Totally not an attempted coup, you guys!

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...?ocid=msedgntp

Gee, it's almost like someone owes me an apology I'll never get for saying I was spreading a conspiracy theory when I said that not long ago.

[JackDaw]

This is very simple. Is it the government doing it? No? Then it's not censorship. Saying 'hey, you guys are carrying hateful material, couldjafuckinnot', isn't censorship. People choosing not to stock hateful material? Also isn't censorship.

And there are *plenty* of other booksellers out there who plainly stocked it, given it's *best selling nature*. The entire point of the activism is to bring attention, instead, to the fact that it's transphobic, hateful, inaccurate, misleading, and harmful.

Weird how people are all about the anti-gay baker not having to bake gay wedding cakes, but you ask a bookseller not to sell transphobic books, and it's all of a sudden 'censorship'.

Lol, it’s only very simple if you want to define “censorship” in a different way to most dictionaries...the three I’ve looked at make it plain that censorship is not restricted to government action only.

[Tendrin]

Lol, it’s only very simple if you want to define “censorship” in a different way to most dictionaries...the three I’ve looked at make it plain that censorship is not restricted to government action only.

I'm conflating my definition with how the first amendment works, which seems likely. That said, I stand by my objection: Abigal Shrier was hardly 'censored' or 'canceled'. Her book is still easily obtainable, she's been on countless youtubes, podcasts, had major media interviews, appeared before the god damn senate and more, all the while spreading anti-gay, anti-trans rhetoric. There are no, as we've repeatedly seen, consequences for transphobia.

—Claims she is being targeted to be “canceled.” Shrier has appeared at a high-profile Senate hearing, on top-rated podcasts, and she has a platform in The Wall Street Journal, where she continues misrepresenting transgender people, including a column that falsely claimed President Biden’s executive order supporting trans students was “the end of girls’ sports.” States that include trans girls have a higher rate of girls playing sports than states with bans.

It's always a grift.

[achilles]

It's true that it can be used for those things and it does work for people actually dealing with a parasitic infection. However, at the moment, people are literally buying the horse dewormer version of it off the shelf.

Snake oil is as old as the hills. It is what it is, and shouldn't be used for something else. Use it if you have a parasitic infection and the doctor prescribes it, or at your own risk.

[Kirby101]

If corporations can be sued for First Amendment violations, and they can, then we must accept that censorship can be defined beyond government agencies alone.

[Tendrin]

If corporations can be sued for First Amendment violations, and they can, then we must accept that censorship can be defined beyond government agencies alone.

Choosing not to sell someone's transphobic hate book that violates your own policies against selling books that portray an LGBTQ identity as mental illness, however, is not a first amendment breach.

IANAL, but the occasions I've heard of corps being sued like that have to do with things like this: https://www.scotusblog.com/2019/06/o...20corporations.

That said, my response there was wrong, but stems mostly from having dealt with too many 'mah free speach!' dorks on twitter who thinks the first amendment protects them from criticism and consequence.

[Mister Mets]

Good god, dude. It doesn't 'ignore' Shier's argument, which is effectively 'transgenderism is a social contagion'. It correctly calls it not scientific and transphobic. Because it is.

https://www.glaad.org/gap/abigail-shrier

She's a transphobe. She wrote a transphobic book. Activists pressured Amazon not to carry a transphobic book. Suggesting that amazon agreeing would be 'censorious' because it's 'like a monopoly' is absurd, when acquiring her book remains plainly easy for anyone. It's a best seller, after all.



Please stop soft-peddling a dangerously transphobic book which is already doing immense damage to transgender youth by encouraging parents to deny them their identities.



There *is* no substance to her argument to engage with. It's just transphobia. She is not someone whose opinion on trans rights has any merit whatsoever.



So, again, stop soft peddling a transphobic book full of transphobic lies, written by a transphobe, reusing a warmed over anti-gay argument that gayness is infectious and that exposure to queer people will encourage our vulnerable children to become queer themselves.

I'm unaware of the book claiming that all transgenderism, or all ftm trans people, is a social contagion. The Psychology Today article certainly does not address any comments about social contagion, or the elements that have gotten the most favorable coverage (a disproportionately high percentage of teenagers who identify as trans boys are autistic or have some personality disorders, there are high instances of friend groups transitioning which would be statistically unlikely, taking testosterone produces temporary feelings of euphoria and reduces anxiety which can contribute to an individual's excitement about the treatment.)

A different Psychology Today review does address those points. It is critical, but the author thinks Shrier has some valid points.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/b...abigail-shrier

All that having been said, I’m not willing to dismiss her thesis entirely. The truth is, we don’t really seem to have good data on whether there really is or is not an increased proportion of girls identifying as trans. Anecdotally, even in my own social circle, I’m hearing a bit more about this, but anecdotes aren’t evidence, and we need more solid data.

There is evidence that, in addition to borderline personality disorder, gender dysphoria is also more common among autism spectrum adolescent girls. In this sense, the affirmative approach, wherein a youth’s professed gender identity is accepted as a move toward medical transition without any further diagnostic evaluation, has obvious risks. This appears to be the reasoning behind a recent UK court decision skeptical of this approach for medical transition.

We need better data on which youth would most benefit from a swift move toward medical transition and which might benefit more from different interventions.

We may arguing past one another on the question of what it would take for her work has merit.

It seems to me that if one in ten people identified as trans are misdiagnosed, Shrier is making a valuable contribution by pointing that out, given the permanent consequences of testosterone injections, and double mastectomies. Someone else may have a different standard, although we should be clear about what those are.

[Mister Mets]

Gee, it's almost like someone owes me an apology I'll never get for saying I was spreading a conspiracy theory when I said that not long ago.

What post are you referring to, sir?

People should stop with the "horse dewormer" label for that drug. It may not be of use for COVID, but it is one of the five or ten most important drugs for humans in the world, saving hundreds of thousands of human lives every year, and nearly eliminating river blindness, (a tropical disease). It is an anti parasite drug, not an anti viral agent, but it is a great drug for humans in the proper circumstances. So people should give it a little respect, and stop with that label. as it's telling the truth by using a lie. It's enough to point out that it is not an anti viral agent and won't work for COVID without disparaging a drug that has saved more lives than can be counted over the years.

Yeah, the "But Ivermectin crowd" was going for an off-label use of a medication approved for humans.

Some lunatics ended up taking horse dewormer, but that's not what anyone serious advocated. This would be kinda like blaming people who take Covid seriously for the stupidest things anyone concerned about Covid has done.

This is very simple. Is it the government doing it? No? Then it's not censorship. Saying 'hey, you guys are carrying hateful material, couldjafuckinnot', isn't censorship. People choosing not to stock hateful material? Also isn't censorship.

And there are *plenty* of other booksellers out there who plainly stocked it, given it's *best selling nature*. The entire point of the activism is to bring attention, instead, to the fact that it's transphobic, hateful, inaccurate, misleading, and harmful.

Weird how people are all about the anti-gay baker not having to bake gay wedding cakes, but you ask a bookseller not to sell transphobic books, and it's all of a sudden 'censorship'.

The definitions of censorship thrown around are pretty lose, when the decision about a curriculum is called censorship. By that same token, any district that swaps out a book for another in a curriculum is engaging in censorship.

But powerful institutions can have significant effects. This is part of the reason for concern about monopoly power. What the monopoly says goes. So efforts within powerful companies to keep something from being distributed can certainly fall in the category of censorship.

The baker was a small businessman. We would have a different argument if Walmart made the decision not to cater gay weddings.

There is also a distinction between whether something is a good idea, and whether it should be legal. I don't think it should be illegal for Amazon to decline to sell a book, or for people within the organization to pressure it to remove a book. I'm not sure they've thought through the consequences if that approach became more widespread.

[Tendrin]

I'm unaware of the book claiming that all transgenderism, or all ftm trans people, is a social contagion.

Dude. The book is literally subtitled 'the transgender craze seducing our daughters'. I don't know how much more clear Shrier needs to make her argument.

I did not get the impression that you paid very much attention to the link you linked.

We may arguing past one another on the question of what it would take for her work has merit.

No. You're arguing in support of the merit of a book that is incredibly transphobic.

It seems to me that if one in ten people identified as trans are misdiagnosed, Shrier is making a valuable contribution by pointing that out, given the permanent consequences of testosterone injections, and double mastectomies. Someone else may have a different standard, although we should be clear about what those are.

Dude. The book is literally subtitled 'the transgender craze seducing our daughters'. I don't know how much more clear Shrier needs to make her argument. In the book, she literally suggests kids being exposed to transgenderism makes them trans over the internet. That's like arguing that gay people become gay because they're exposed to other gay people. Her first chapter is literally called 'the contagion'.

If you're okay with this, it says more about what narratives you're willing to accept and what level of transphobia you're comfortable with than anything else.

As for 'one in ten', the reality of detransition is that it's hard to separate the social pressures people are operating under. At least some people who detransition do so because of that.