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

[WestPhillyPunisher]

As much as I'd love to have you guys visit, if you are from one of these states then maybe next year.

And, if you are from one of these states, I wish you luck and good health.

I'm from next door in Philly, so can I come? I haven't been to favorite haunts like the Cherry Hill Mall in the longest time.

Meanwhile, I just heard on the local all-news radio station KYW that Governor Murphy was on Morning Joe where he said he was going to sign an executive order making masks mandatory, indoors and out.

[Tami]

I'm from next door in Philly, so can I come? I haven't been to favorite haunts like the Cherry Hill Mall in the longest time.

Meanwhile, I just heard on the local all-news radio station KYW that Governor Murphy was on Morning Joe where he said he was going to sign an executive order making masks mandatory, indoors and out.

Depends on how bad things get in PA, and yeah I've heard talk that the Governor was considering it. I think it's a good thing, that and slowing down or halting reopenings. Rutgers and Princeton are going mostly virtual in the fall, most classes will be taught online with the exception of lab classes and things like that.

Elementary and high schools are probably going to open in the fall, but with strong protective measures in place.

The talk is that NJ cases are starting to spike again, in part, because of travel to and from other states. At least two instances of large outbreaks have been traced to travel outside the state.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Kanye West Says He’s Done With Trump—Opens Up About White House Bid, Damaging Biden And Everything In Between

Oh...boy....

Sweet. Baby. Jesus! You have GOT to be kidding me! Does that batshit crazy ************ think for one nanosecond that ANYONE will take him even remotely seriously as a presidential candidate after that piece? I've already speculated this is all a publicity stunt to sell records, but if West really believes his own bullshit, then he makes Donald Trump look sane and rational!

[Tami]

Sweet. Baby. Jesus! You have GOT to be kidding me! Does that batshit crazy ************ think for one nanosecond that ANYONE will take him even remotely seriously as a presidential candidate after that piece? I've already speculated this is all a publicity stunt to sell records, but if West really believes his own bullshit, then he makes Donald Trump look sane and rational!

Here is some more info from the journalist who interviewed him

[The Cool Thatguy]

Kanye West Says He’s Done With Trump—Opens Up About White House Bid, Damaging Biden And Everything In Between

Oh...boy....

"That he envisions a White House organizational model based on the secret country of Wakanda in Black Panther."

Anyone wonder how long the line of people looking to 'Killmonger' him would be?

[Mister Mets]

Sweet. Baby. Jesus! You have GOT to be kidding me! Does that batshit crazy ************ think for one nanosecond that ANYONE will take him even remotely seriously as a presidential candidate after that piece? I've already speculated this is all a publicity stunt to sell records, but if West really believes his own bullshit, then he makes Donald Trump look sane and rational!

The man is mentally ill.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kanye-w...olar-disorder/

At least, he's given himself a 30 day out.

https://twitter.com/RandallLane/stat...45573755731968

I believe we've been over the fact that I'm not obligated to quote entire posts and waste forum space by only highlighting the relevant parts.

I think we can also save time that would be wasted complaining about it going forward.

But if you think the GOP have people "let go" of conspiracy theories, you're yet again deluding yourself. There's still a goddamned John Birch Society protecting the country from water fluoridation, claims of "voter fraud", and kooks out there convinced of FEMA camps or that the Holocaust was faked in the GOP, Mets. They're dedicated to being conspiratorial ***holes.

There are cases where someone is going to post a few unrelated things, such as multiple new items or responses to different questions, and in that case, it typically isn't necessary to quote the entire post. For example, the portion of the post responding to you about QAnon is separate from the section about Kanye West.

In this case, I maintain that the explanation was relevant. QAnon is a theory based on the idea that Trump will do something before his term in office is over.

If you respond to a post of mine in a way that may leave a false impression, I will mention it.

I should also note that I didn't phrase it as a certainty that QAnon will go away. I said why it might happen. If you're pushing back aggressively against the idea that something might happen, it stands to reason that you think there's no possibility that it will, which seems extreme.

[Personamanx]

It's deeply concerning that some Americans feel comfortable travelling anywhere within their country, let alone state lines. If you're not leaving the house for: Food, Work, or medical needs then you should just stay home. Truthfully I wouldn't care if it wasn't for the fact that we share a border with you, and Americans continue to enter Canada on Student/Work Visas without self-isolating. The Atlantic provinces were going on almost a month without any active cases of Covid-19 until last week when an American student managed to go through Toronto, and Halifax before being stopped trying to get into PEI. Six new cases as a result isn't the end of the world, but they're all on him.

[Tami]

It's deeply concerning that some Americans feel comfortable travelling anywhere within their country, let alone state lines. If you're not leaving the house for: Food, Work, or medical needs then you should just stay home. Truthfully I wouldn't care if it wasn't for the fact that we share a border with you, and Americans continue to enter Canada on Student/Work Visas without self-isolating. The Atlantic provinces were going on almost a month without any active cases of Covid-19 until last week when an American student managed to go through Toronto, and Halifax before being stopped trying to get into PEI. Six new cases as a result isn't the end of the world, but they're all on him.

I hear Canada is tightening up their border with the US, limiting who can go from the US to Canada. It should, and I hope it does. The US is a mess right now, I don't want our mess to create an even larger mess elsewhere.

[Tami]

Sweden Has Become the World’s Cautionary Tale

LONDON — Ever since the coronavirus emerged in Europe, Sweden has captured international attention by conducting an unorthodox, open-air experiment. It has allowed the world to examine what happens in a pandemic when a government allows life to carry on largely unhindered.

This is what has happened: Not only have thousands more people died than in neighboring countries that imposed lockdowns, but Sweden’s economy has fared little better.

“They literally gained nothing,” said Jacob F. Kirkegaard, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. “It’s a self-inflicted wound, and they have no economic gains.”

[Tami]

Trump Pushed CIA to Give Intelligence to Kremlin, While Taking No Action Against Russia Arming Taliban

President Trump’s actions in the face of the Russia-Taliban arms program likely signaled a weak US resolve in the eyes of Putin and Russian military intelligence.

Three dimensions of Trump’s response are described in detail in this article, relying on several former Trump administration officials who spoke to Just Security on the record.

First, President Trump decided not to confront Putin about supplying arms to the terrorist group. Second, during the very times in which U.S. military officials publicly raised concerns about the program’s threat to US forces, Trump undercut them. He embraced Putin, overtly and repeatedly, including at the historic summit in Helsinki. Third, behind the scenes, Trump directed the CIA to share intelligence information on counterterrorism with the Kremlin despite no discernible reward, former intelligence officials who served in the Trump administration told Just Security.

[Personamanx]

I hear Canada is tightening up their border with the US, limiting who can go from the US to Canada. It should, and I hope it does. The US is a mess right now, I don't want our mess to create an even larger mess elsewhere.

As far as I know, the current restrictions are only in place until July 21st. If there's an official extension or further restrictions coming I would be ecstatic. I would like to say that they were coming with certainty. But if America wants the border more accessible badly enough, they will most likely get it.

[worstblogever]

I should also note that I didn't phrase it as a certainty that QAnon will go away. I said why it might happen. If you're pushing back aggressively against the idea that something might happen, it stands to reason that you think there's no possibility that it will, which seems extreme.

The sun might burn out tomorrow. I wouldn't waste anyone's time on the forum arguing that something that highly unlikely might, nor be silly enough to pretend it was.

Or get angry and start pretending that the people who call out silly things that might happen are somehow wrong for not letting me have my ridiculous fantasies about what might happen. There are bigger things to worry about, like how the Republican Party is now full of white nationalists, and their presidential ticket is running on a campaign of white grievances and white nationalism, for example.

But some folks like to overlook that because they still think it's a thing that maybe they might worry about at some point. I've stopped expecting them to.

[Tami]

As far as I know, the current restrictions are only in place until July 21st. If there's an official extension or further restrictions coming I would be ecstatic. I would like to say that they were coming with certainty. But if America wants the border more accessible badly enough, they will most likely get it.

I was to Canada once. When and if things ever get back to some semblance of normal, I'd love to go back someday for a visit/vacation. But until it's safe to do so, I'm content remaining right where I am.

[Mister Mets]

Harpers has published an open letter

Our cultural institutions are facing a moment of trial. Powerful protests for racial and social justice are leading to overdue demands for police reform, along with wider calls for greater equality and inclusion across our society, not least in higher education, journalism, philanthropy, and the arts. But this needed reckoning has also intensified a new set of moral attitudes and political commitments that tend to weaken our norms of open debate and toleration of differences in favor of ideological conformity. As we applaud the first development, we also raise our voices against the second. The forces of illiberalism are gaining strength throughout the world and have a powerful ally in Donald Trump, who represents a real threat to democracy. But resistance must not be allowed to harden into its own brand of dogma or coercion—which right-wing demagogues are already exploiting. The democratic inclusion we want can be achieved only if we speak out against the intolerant climate that has set in on all sides.

The free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted. While we have come to expect this on the radical right, censoriousness is also spreading more widely in our culture: an intolerance of opposing views, a vogue for public shaming and ostracism, and the tendency to dissolve complex policy issues in a blinding moral certainty. We uphold the value of robust and even caustic counter-speech from all quarters. But it is now all too common to hear calls for swift and severe retribution in response to perceived transgressions of speech and thought. More troubling still, institutional leaders, in a spirit of panicked damage control, are delivering hasty and disproportionate punishments instead of considered reforms. Editors are fired for running controversial pieces; books are withdrawn for alleged inauthenticity; journalists are barred from writing on certain topics; professors are investigated for quoting works of literature in class; a researcher is fired for circulating a peer-reviewed academic study; and the heads of organizations are ousted for what are sometimes just clumsy mistakes. Whatever the arguments around each particular incident, the result has been to steadily narrow the boundaries of what can be said without the threat of reprisal. We are already paying the price in greater risk aversion among writers, artists, and journalists who fear for their livelihoods if they depart from the consensus, or even lack sufficient zeal in agreement.

This stifling atmosphere will ultimately harm the most vital causes of our time. The restriction of debate, whether by a repressive government or an intolerant society, invariably hurts those who lack power and makes everyone less capable of democratic participation. The way to defeat bad ideas is by exposure, argument, and persuasion, not by trying to silence or wish them away. We refuse any false choice between justice and freedom, which cannot exist without each other. As writers we need a culture that leaves us room for experimentation, risk taking, and even mistakes. We need to preserve the possibility of good-faith disagreement without dire professional consequences. If we won’t defend the very thing on which our work depends, we shouldn’t expect the public or the state to defend it for us.

There are 150+ signatories, including Margaret Atwood, Noam Chomsky, Salman Rushie, Jeet Heer, Francis Fukuyama, Malcolm Gladwell, George Packer, Steven Pinker, Gloria Steinem, Zephyr Teachout, Sean Wilentz, Matthew Yglesias, and Emily Yoffe.

There has been pushback to the letter. Given what I've said before, it shouldn't surprise to learn that I agree with the letter.

Emily VanDerwerff of Vox has informed her employers about how Matthew Yglesias signing the letter makes her feel unsafe.



She says she doesn't want him fired, but that would seem to be a preferred outcome if one coworker does something wrong and makes another feel unsafe. She doesn't specify what aspects of the letter are anti-trans dog whistles. In a discussion about dog whistles, it's also not about what's literally said.

Freddie DeBoer thinks the left should just admit social justice politics is antithetical to free speech.

I am perpetually annoyed that we continue to have culture war battles out of habit long after they have ceased to mean anything. For example, the liberal insistence that the media or the academy do not have liberal biases. Of course, the mainstream media is hostile to the interests of the Trump administration. Of course, our university system is unfriendly to conservative students and scholars. How could anyone have read the New York Times for the past five years and fail to conclude that essentially everyone that works for the paper is opposed to the Trump administration? How could anyone look at the universal adoption of cultural studies as the basic intellectual foundation of the academy and think that conservative scholars are going to be welcomed in academic institutions?

Maybe these are good things, I don’t know. But for God’s sake, let go of the pretense. If you’re a journalist or academic just own it. Just own it!

And so this open letter in Harper’s about free speech and debate. Please, think for a minute and consider: what does it say when a completely generic endorsement of free speech and open debate is in and of itself immediately diagnosed as anti-progressive, as anti-left? There is literally no specific instance discussed in that open letter, no real-world incident about which there might be specific and tangible controversy. So how can someone object to an endorsement of free speech and open debate without being opposed to those things in and of themselves? You can’t. And people are objecting to it because social justice politics are plainly opposed to free speech. That is the most obvious political fact imaginable today. Of course Yelling Woke Twitter hates free speech! Of course social justice liberals would prevent expression they disagree with if they could! How could any honest person observe our political discourse for any length of time and come to any other conclusion?

You want to argue that free speech is bad, fine. You want to adopt a dominance politics that (you imagine) will result in you being the censor, fine. But just do that. Own that. Can we stop with this charade? Can we stop pretending? Can we just proceed by acknowledging what literally everyone quietly knows, which is that the dominant majority of progressive people simply don’t believe in the value of free speech anymore? Please. Let’s grow up and speak plainly, please. Let’s just grow up.

[shooshoomanjoe]

I hear Canada is tightening up their border with the US, limiting who can go from the US to Canada. It should, and I hope it does. The US is a mess right now, I don't want our mess to create an even larger mess elsewhere.

Americans are banned from Europe, Mexican citizens are blocking Americans from entering Mexico and even 3 US states have a mandatory 2 week quarantine if you travel to them. trump's inept handling of the pandemic has made Americans into modern day lepers.