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

[numberthirty]

Yep. A report in 2002 showed that whites consisted of only 10% of those stopped when NY had it's policy in place, even though they were 45% of the population.

I've also seen the argument, however, that big cities are liberal. Ergo, this indicates that Democrats are racist, not Republicans.

While I tend to doubt that as a blanket statement?

It's kinda tough to look at how the South side of Chicago has stayed what it is for decades, and not see that some degree of racism is probably in play.

Edit:

There is also this sort of thing. Bare minimum? It is not a level playing field even if it is not outright racism.

https://chicago.suntimes.com/cannabi...linois-license

For Black entrepreneurs, the dream of opening a pot shop remains just out of reach

[numberthirty]

I find it puzzling that Police officers would typically be conservative given the GOPs rabid support of having a well-armed public. It seems to me the result directly makes their job more dangerous.

If it is a law abiding public that is armed to the teeth?

How is it any more dangerous?

[Kirby101]

If it is a law abiding public that is armed to the teeth?

How is it any more dangerous?

Because more guns mean more homicides.

For each 10% jump in home ownership of guns, the risk of someone in the household being killed rises by 13%. The risk of a nonfamily member getting murdered is increased only 2% with gun ownership, researchers found.

[Mister Mets]

Yep. A report in 2002 showed that whites consisted of only 10% of those stopped when NY had it's policy in place, even though they were 45% of the population.

I've also seen the argument, however, that big cities are liberal. Ergo, this indicates that Democrats are racist, not Republicans.

The main explanation for disparities is that policies like stop, question and frisk are more likely to be implemented in high population density locations with high crime rates, which tend to be populated by minorities. An argument is that the crime rate is high because of policies that increase the arrest rates of minority men, which limits their ability to make an honest living in the future.

I mean, when did lax regulations ever go wrong.

Someone can call for regulatory bureaucracies to be more efficient without insisting on laxer standards.

Because more guns mean more homicides.

If you read the article, a large part of the jump is suicide.

[Mister Mets]

Harmful lies are a limit I'm happy setting for every book, and with the topic being as Anti-Trans as it is there's no surprise why it's not being written about. But I guess now there has to be a book with the subtitle "No, The Trans aren't brainwashing your kids" despite the claims just updating from "The Gays" by most making them.



Did she apologize or clarify how her 'based on debunked science' claims were wrong on that interview? I believe I can fairly assume she didn't based on the speech you provided and Joe Rogan's track record, so that doesn't really apply to what I said. A question that brings up is: How many who listen to her interviews will read any of the book reviews that note the misinformation if they don't read the book? That number would likely be very low by my guess.



You thought you showed respect by answering a poor question in a way that pointed out how poor it was according to your replies, instead of clarifying if it meant something not as poor as you assumed or noticing how it was already clarified in a post with your name in it. That's not respect, that is at-best midly disrespectful and your continued responses have made it clear to me that it was wasn't mild. This has nothing to do with what side of the debate you are on or your political beliefs nor does it have anything to do with my own issues, but if you feel you have to excuse it that way in order to continue to avoid acknowledging how you acted that's up to you. As I said, I'm not holding my breath but neither am I going to let you claim it's just because you are a conservative so you can pass it off without a thought.

Debunked is a strong word, implying that she's been proven wrong when that's not what happened with the studies. The primary criticisms are that she interviewed parents and not adolescents, and that she referred to a study by Lisa Littman which was corrected to note that it was a hypothesis based on parent reports. I am unaware of anyone disproving Littman's observation that there is a notable increase in youth seeking medical care related to being trans.

Looking at transcripts of interviews, Shrier appears to respond to criticism. Has she evaded any tough questions in her many interviews?

A counterargument could be that her interviews tend to be with friendly sources, but there's a problem with the media in that the people you would trust to ask her tough questions don't want to interview her, because they'll face a lot of pushback from the left. As a result, she won't be pushed on the points that you'd like to see her respond to.

I have no problem with harmful lies as the limit for when we declare journalists beyond the pale, but this would apply to all journalism. It would also seem that most lies would be considered harmful in a journalism context.

I didn't ask for clarification because I didn't realize you were referring to a book by its subtitle. That's what the main argument was about. In order to ask for clarification, I'd have to recognize the misunderstanding.

[thwhtGuardian]

The main explanation for disparities is that policies like stop, question and frisk are more likely to be implemented in high population density locations with high crime rates, which tend to be populated by minorities. An argument is that the crime rate is high because of policies that increase the arrest rates of minority men, which limits their ability to make an honest living in the future.

Someone can call for regulatory bureaucracies to be more efficient without insisting on laxer standards.



If you read the article, a large part of the jump is suicide.

They can advocate for efficiency but it's seldom for efficiency's sake ... and they don't often try to pretend too hard that it isn't for profit regulations and safety be damned so there's no real reason to believe any of their arguments.

[Gray Lensman]

I mean, when did lax regulations ever go wrong.

Not to be THAT GUY, but it was more than just lax regulations that caused that one (as well as a few other disasters) but a psychological trend called Deviation to Norm (this one actually comes up a lot in my job as a quality inspector even though I don't handle anything that lives depend upon). Basically, there is a tendency to allow the standard deviations that always exist in any process to become the new normal, and start accepting deviations from that new range. Do this a few times, and you get the Challenger Disaster, or Deepwater Horizon. If the parts inspectors had held everything to initial specs and fought against drift of what was accepted, we might not have had either of those.

[Kirby101]

Not to be THAT GUY, but it was more than just lax regulations that caused that one (as well as a few other disasters) but a psychological trend called Deviation to Norm (this one actually comes up a lot in my job as a quality inspector even though I don't handle anything that lives depend upon). Basically, there is a tendency to allow the standard deviations that always exist in any process to become the new normal, and start accepting deviations from that new range. Do this a few times, and you get the Challenger Disaster, or Deepwater Horizon. If the parts inspectors had held everything to initial specs and fought against drift of what was accepted, we might not have had either of those.

While that is true, there was also valve technology that other countries adopted that we failed to REGULATE. This would have prevented the explosion. But we need to ease up on regulations according to the GOP.

[shooshoomanjoe]

I remember when a certain poster would scold me for being concerned about rising fascism in India.

Rising fascism in India. I think conservatism across the world is becoming more fascist and radical but I don't see many people talk about it so it may just be me.

[Gray Lensman]

While that is true, there was also valve technology that other countries adopted that we failed to REGULATE. This would have prevented the explosion. But we need to ease up on regulations according to the GOP.

I like the idea of simplifying regulations to eliminate redundancies and make them easier to understand (and hopefully comply with) but eliminating them often results in nothing good.

We could probably eliminate hundreds, if not thousands of those "special districts" the US has scattered all across the country though. It seems once created they never go away, even if the reason for them is long gone. Most people in the country would probably never notice.

[Jack Dracula]

If it is a law abiding public that is armed to the teeth?

How is it any more dangerous?

Except, it isn't only a law-abiding public that is armed to the teeth.

[Gray Lensman]

Except, it isn't only a law-abiding public that is armed to the teeth.

And before anyone chimes in about criminals and laws, remember that the oft trotted out NRA talking point isn't really and argument against gun laws, but against ALL laws.

After all, the same logic works against any law. Why outlaw murder, if killers are still going to take lives? Granted, that is an extreme example, but the logic is the same.

[numberthirty]

Except, it isn't only a law-abiding public that is armed to the teeth.

And before anyone chimes in about criminals and laws, remember that the oft trotted out NRA talking point isn't really and argument against gun laws, but against ALL laws.

After all, the same logic works against any law. Why outlaw murder, if killers are still going to take lives? Granted, that is an extreme example, but the logic is the same.

Doesn't work.

Law enforcement has almost no issue presented by your average law abiding owner.

It's like having a bunch of folks who will willingly obey posted speed limits.

They are not really making a cop's job more dangerous.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2015, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” ran a profile of Tom Mullins, a Tea Party candidate who ran for Congress in 2010 to represent New Mexico’s 3rd Congressional District. During his campaign, Mullins referred to Social Security as a “Ponzi scheme”, and talked about eliminating all Pell grants for college students and then allocating the money from them towards tax breaks for the rich. However, the real issue with Mullins perhaps that he went out of his way to say that Native Americans in his district were “two-faced”, and bemoaned the lack of “white faces” on the Kewa Pueblo. It became even harder for Mullins to dodge accusations of racism that followed when his suggestion to solving the immigration crisis was to set up a mine field on the U.S./Mexico border to discourage people from sneaking across. Mullins has not reappeared on the political scene in the past seven years, and for that we are grateful.



In both 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, as well as in 2021, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” published its profiles of Pat Garofalo, a man with a history of demonizing Democrats and liberals in general with highly partisan rhetoric, gleefully trolling the opposite side of the aisle to an extent that he has compared the Minnesota state legislature in which he has served since 2004 to pro-wrestling, and defining his own antics as those of a traditional “heel” wrestler. (Oh, if only Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson would show up and brain this jagoff with a steel chair…) On social media, Garofalo seems to relish that role, where he has taunted liberal bloggers for having names that sound too similar for slang terms for vaginas, related environmentalists' distaste for mining companies to his own for Planned Parenthood, wished for a meteorite to hit a gathering of people watching cat videos to kill them all, and his most famous moment, perhaps, when he gave his humble opinion of what would happen if the NBA went out of business, "Let's be honest, 70% of teams in NBA could fold tomorrow + nobody would notice a difference w/ possible exception of increase in streetcrime." He apologized for that last one after being widely criticized, insisting that he in no way meant for his statement to be racist, and himself is not racist (Sure...)

Now, just being an unflinching ***hole for his own entertainment isn't the only way that Pat Garofalo is an utter bastard... he also does so in terms of his policy suggestions and votes. Like say, the time back in April 2015 that he pitched the idea to lower the minimum wage for wait staff who get at least $4 an hour in tips, lying and claiming it was needed to save restaurants from going under after Minnesota voted to raise its overall minimum wage to $9.50 an hour. Heaven forbid the blue collar workers in the service industry get any kind of an increase in wages, right? I mean, especially after the countless times that Garofalo voted against minimum wage increases during the greatest period of income inequality our nation has seen in the past century. Maybe it's not the waiters he hates, though, and just the waitresses if you apply his vote against Equal Pay laws to grant women equal pay for equal work. He also keeps insisting the Dept. of Justice “investigate massive voter fraud”.

(For the record, the Bush administration had its Department of Justice do the same thing, and found virtually none over a decade. Garofalo is effectively getting excited that taxpayer dollars will be wasted on something as useful as a unicorn hunt.)

In September of 2017, less than a month after Neo-Nazis terrorized Charlottesville and murdered Heather Heyer, members of Antifa turned up to face down a pro-Trump political gathering in Portland, Oregon. As tensions escalated, Garofalo, of course, only had a problem with the anti-Fascists, and put out the following suggestion on Twitter:

“1) Arrest them
2) Hold them for 72 hrs before posting bail
3) Give them alone time with Bubba in Appalachia.#EffectiveRehabilition

Now, once some media outlets started reporting on Garofalo joking about hoping the anti-Trump protesters were raped in prison, he denied that’s what his statement meant. I suppose he had a completely innocent idea of what “Alone time with Bubba in Applachia” is, that isn’t referencing Deliverance or something? (Pat’s full of s***, moving on…)

In April of 2019, after Donald Trump canceled a foreign trip because he was sulking about the fact that Denmark wouldn’t sell him Greenland (that is a real thing that still happened), Pat Garofalo was ready to cash in on the potential publicity by offering Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen to Minneapolis on a goodwill trip. Frederiksen, knowing a pathetic little fish when he sees one, kept swimming by.

By July 2019, Garofalo was again craving attention like a child whose parents never loved him enough, and decided to weigh in on the U.S. Women’s National Soccer team during their World Cup run, and how the team was protesting over being paid less than the men even though they are far more dominant over the competition than their male counterparts. Garofalo’s take was, predictably, stupid and sexist, as he declared that the USWNT’s low wages “It’s not sexism. It’s MATH.”

People checked the math, and Garofalo’s claims about revenue, only to discover SURPRISE! The women were bringing in more revenue, too.

Minnesota's House of Representatives has no term limits, and District 58B is aligned to be conservative enough that Pat Garofalo still wins even in presidential years comfortably by double digits. And regrettably, 2020 was no different, as Garofalo pulled down 62% of the vote for his tenth term in office. After the Jan. 6th attack on the Capitol, Garofalo started pretending like he never liked Donald Trump and that the people who stormed the Capitol Building in a violent coup attempt are not associated with the Republican Party… as well as “both sides”ing the events of 1/6 by lying and claiming that over the summer of 2020 that Black Lives Matter protesters somehow were the same in their own protests… that did not involve storming government buildings. Which is slightly more productive than him trying to spread misinformation about how bad the Covid-19 response of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz supposedly is (which has actually been good, compared to a lot of states).

We are proud to end our update on Pat Garofalo by sharing the story from March of 2021 where he was floundering during debate over a bill that would prevent employers from asking employees about their past salaries and a fellow legislator made him look like the fool he is in front of the assembled legislature by offering a rebuttal on his opposition to the bill by telling him he should go back to law school if he couldn’t understand how it would change how the law worked in Minnesota.

Man, I could watch that all day. Nice to see a conservative troll like Garofalo get his ass handed to him, frankly.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Mitch McConnell Rebukes RNC Over Censures Of Liz Cheney And Adam Kinzinger

Singling out members of the GOP who have differing views is "not the job" of the Republican National Committee, the Senate's top Republican said Tuesday. Well now, this was different.

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After Crusade Against Hillary Clinton Emails, GOP Silent On Trump Ripping Up Documents

Where are the "lock him up" chants? Where indeed?

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Black Lawmakers Urge DOJ To Take 'Aggressive' Action Against Voter Restrictions

"The future of our democracy is at stake," Congressional Black Caucus members wrote in a letter to the Justice Department.

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'Chicken' Kevin McCarthy Mocked For Literally Fleeing From Jan. 6 Question

Lawmakers and others taunt the House minority leader for power-walking his way past a question about the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. A real profile in courage, that guy.