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

[Tami]

Mask dispute leaves Staples customer with broken leg after woman throws her to ground

A 54-year-old New Jersey woman suffered a broken leg after she was thrown to the ground in a Staples by another customer whom she had told to wear a mask, authorities said.

Police have released surveillance video from the incident that occurred at about 3:19 p.m. Wednesday at a Staples in Hackensack.

Margot Kagan, of Teaneck, told police she was using a fax machine at the store when a woman with a mask pulled down below her mouth approached a machine next to her. Kagan, who, according to police, had a liver transplant four months ago and was walking with a cane, told the woman to put her mask on.

"The suspect became angry and yelled at the victim, who picked up her walking cane and pointed it directly at the suspect, coming within inches of the suspect's chest," said Capt. Darrin DeWitt, a detective with the Hackensack Police Department.

The woman then yelled at Kagan, violently threw her to the ground and left the store, DeWitt said.

[Tami]

Coronavirus threat rises across U.S.: ‘We just have to assume the monster is everywhere’

The coronavirus is spreading at dangerous levels across much of the United States, and public health experts are demanding a dramatic reset in the national response, one that recognizes that the crisis is intensifying and that current piecemeal strategies aren’t working.

This is a new phase of the pandemic, one no longer built around local or regional clusters and hot spots. It comes at an unnerving moment in which the economy suffered its worst collapse since the Great Depression, schools are rapidly canceling plans for in-person instruction and Congress has failed to pass a new emergency relief package. President Trump continues to promote fringe science, the daily death toll keeps climbing and the human cost of the virus in America has just passed 150,000 lives.

“Unlike many countries in the world, the United States is not currently on course to get control of this epidemic. It’s time to reset,” declared a report released this week by Johns Hopkins University.

[shooshoomanjoe]

In same Tweet, trump says mail-in voting causes fraud and that absentee voting is right. Totally clueless.

"With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???"

[Ragged Maw]

Mask dispute leaves Staples customer with broken leg after woman throws her to ground

Makes me wonder, how could I effectively address those who hate wearing masks while minimizing risk of bodily harm on the chance that the addressee turns out to have the social equivalent of rabies?

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2914, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” published a profile on Stephen Broden, an old pal of Texas Gov. Rick Perry who accuses Planned Parenthood of committing "black genocide", that President Obama deliberately orchestrated the economic crash of 2007 (which would be amazing for him to have done from the Senate), and calling for armed revolution if he was not elected to office. He continues to speak publicly with radical views (including support for "religious freedom" to discriminate against the LGBT community).

On this date in 2015, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" profiled Scott Renfroe, a former Colorado State Senator and Personhood supporter who went on to declare during a debate in the state legislature about providing benefits for same-sex partners of state employees, started to volunteer his opinion that homosexual behavior was an “abomination” and began comparing homosexuality to straight up MURDER, after quoting the Book of Leviticus from the Bible. Which is amazing, because even Old Testament fans know murder is one of the Ten Commandments from the Book of Exodus, so Renfroe maybe needed some more Bible study on top of being given some sensitivity training to help him be just a functional human being. Still, Renfroe was re-elected during the 2010 Tea Party Wave, and went on to call for the National Guard to be tasked with sorting through protesters in the state capitol calling for the legalization of marijuana to find the ones with legalized medical marijuana cards, and confiscate them for their actions (note: the National Guard did not come). Renfroe also complained that cutting back on the number of hours of education in physics would somehow lead to the “feminization” of the boys. As you would expect, Renfroe’s voting record was awful, including a vote against a bill to provide emergency contraception for sexual assault survivors, votes against allowing Medicaid to pay for family planning, and a vote to avoid Colorado from adopting the United Nations Convention Against the Discrimination of Women. Renfroe made a bid for Congress in 2014, losing out to Ken Buck while running for the seat to represent Colorado’s 4th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives. He is only 50 years old at the time of this post, so we’re expecting he’ll resurface and run for office somewhere, at some point.

On this date in 2017, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” published a profile of Pete Nielsen, a former member of the Idaho House of Representatives from 2002-2016 who was enough of an extremist that the Idaho Republican Party still thought he was unfit to be trusted to do much of anything, and in the fourteen years he served in the state legislature, Nielsen was never appointed to oversee a legislative committee nor won a legislative leadership position. What brought Pete Nielsen to our attention was that in February 2016, he was engaged in debate over a bill that would require mandatory intra-vaginal ultrasound bill for women seeking abortions, without exceptions for rape or incest, and Nielsen decided to state his belief that you can’t get pregnant from rape, and later clarifying to the media, "I'm convinced because of the trauma it would not be like it was with consensual sex." Sounds like yet another Republican who went to the Todd Akin school of f***ed up science facts, eh? A few days later, likely after Republican Party leaders cornered Nielsen and shook the holy f*** out of him for repeating one of the same mistakes that doomed them only four years earlier in the 2012 elections, he changed his tune, saying that he had once read medical journals that made him believe what he was saying was true, but that upon reviewing the facts, he was wrong, and a woman can get pregnant if she is raped. However, he wasn’t about to allow for the exception in the bill for rape or incest victims, in spite of his new revelation. Nielsen’s voting record also included GOP voter suppression efforts with Voter ID bill, a vote to attempt at nullify the Affordable Care Act, a vote for HJM 4, a resolution to seek the impeachment of any member of the judiciary who rules in favor of same sex marriage, a vote to try to have the Bible taught in public schools, and a vote against raising the minimum wage during one of the worst eras for economic inequity in our country in a century. Now, we would like to say that Nielsen didn’t run for re-election in 2016 because of that gaffe, but he was 78, so maybe he just felt it was time to call it a career. Or maybe, he felt he would have also been marred by his January 2016 arrest on the charges of illegally poaching an elk. The important thing is he’s out of office.

On this date in 2016, 2018, as well as in 2019, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” published a profile about Michael Folk, a member of the West Virginia House of Delegates who on July 15th, 2016, decided to get on Twitter to share his thoughts about former Secretary of State, First Lady, and current Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, posting “@HillaryClinton You should be tried for treason, murder, and crimes against the US Constitution… then hung on the Mall in Washington, DC”. After receiving widespread criticism, Folk tried justifying his mindset, sending out a second message that read, “Sorry, I don’t mince words… read this story & watch this video & maybe you’ll understand. Hillary supporters coming out of the woodwork this morning…” The video he linked to was about Hillary Clinton’s e-mails. Which was not, and is apparently not worthy of prosecution per then FBI Director James Comey or anyone in that role since, but if you ask Michael Folk, amateur judge, jury, and executioner, someone should be prepping a noose for a public hanging. Anyway, United Airlines suspended Michael Folk while they investigated the matter, and he also was obviously given an audience with the Secret Service. As for what sort of legislator Michael Folk is… a quick glance at his voting record showed he’s a fan of stricter Voter ID laws to combat statistically non-existent in-person voter fraud at the cost of disenfranchising tens of thousands of voters, his vote for concealed carry of firearms without a permit, that he supported one of those conservative “religious freedom” laws that’s an end-around attempt to side-step the Supreme Court’s ruling on same-sex marriage, a ban on abortion at 20 weeks, and a not at all inflammatory piece of legislation to ban a “dismemberment abortion”, which we can only assume is based on the sort of information someone would get from a fraudulent organization like the Center for Medical Progress. Michael Folk did win re-election in 2016, and in spite of his troubling comments, he actually thought he was worthy of a promotion onto the West Virginia State Senate, planning a challenge to incumbent Democrat John Unger and facing no opposition to doing so in the GOP Primary. Meanwhile, he was also trying to raise his profile by circulating a petition to try and impeach West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice because… he doesn’t live inside the state capitol? Yeah… feeling like you have to do a little better than that, Mike. Some people actually commit treason with Russia and folks aren’t hustling to impeach them… also, those same people don’t get you calling on them to be tried and executed, so there’s that. Anyway, Michael Folk failed to get elected to the West Virginia State Senate, losing by just over 1500 votes. He declared himself as a gubernatorial candidate to challenge Gov. Jim Justice in 2020, continuing to refer to him as “Traitor Jim”. He ended up losing by about 50 points, getting only 12.4% while finishing third in the GOP primary out of seven possible candidates. As such, we’ll retire his profile at this time and take a look at another kooky Republican today instead. (Current crazy/stupid scoreboard, is now 897-45, since this was established in July 2014.)

[worstblogever]

Jim Banks

Welcome to what is the 897th original profile here at “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day”, where we’ll be discussing the U.S. House Representative from Indiana’s 3rd Congressional District, Jim Banks, who was first elected back in 2016, when we entered the darkest timeline. Prior to that, he entered the political arena in the Tea Party Wave back in 2010, served six years in the Indiana State Senate, and in his time in Hoosier State politics, he voted against the Medicaid Expansion, co-sponsored a bill to drug test welfare recipients, another bill to defund Planned Parenthood in Indiana, and helped pass an anti-choice bill extreme enough that it required women to bury or cremate fetal remains that was quickly overturned by the courts. He is also a tool of ALEC, having been their errand boy to bring forth right-to-work legislation.

Jim Banks’ activities since arriving in Washington, D.C., has not backed off of this hyper-conservative brand:

• February 16th, 2017: Banks votes for HJR 69, to make it legal for hunters on wildlife reserves to kill several species of hibernating bears or wolves while they’re sleeping.
• March 16th, 2017: Jim Banks votes for HR 1181, which would allow veterans deemed mentally incompetent to continue to own firearms, and not have them taken away without a judge's written order.
• May 4th, 2017: Banks votes for the GOP's healthcare plan, that would allow 24,000 more people to die a year, give $50,000 in tax breaks to millionaires, would eliminate coverage for pre-existing conditions, and would treat pregnancy, postpartum depression, and sexual assault as "pre-existing conditions". Oh, and a provision in the bill would make sure that Banks would be allowed to keep his healthcare plan as it exists under the ACA, which would be repealed for the rest of the country. He and his Republican compatriots threw themselves a beer bash to celebrate taking away healthcare from millions and then gloated about it with Donald Trump at a White House press conference, as well.
• June 8th, 2017: Jim Banks votes for HR 10, the GOP’s attempt to repeal Dodd-Frank financial reform, because what the country really needs is to allow the big banks to make the same mistakes that imploded the economy only a decade earlier.
• October 3rd, 2017: Banks votes for HR 36, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, that would try to create an unconstitutional ban abortion at 20 weeks (even though medical science tells us fetuses do not have the capability to feel pain until 29 weeks).
• December 19th, 2017: Jim Banks votes for HR 1, the GOP’s $1.7 trillion tax cut to benefit the wealthiest Americans and corporations permanently that coincidentally also removes the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate and kicks 13 million people off their health insurance.
• February 18th, 2018: Rep. Banks and his fellow Republicans decide that poor big businesses are suffering too much at the hands of the Americans with Disabilities Act too much, and vote for HR 620, which would strip most of the civil rights protections guaranteed by it.
• January 23rd, 2019: Rep. Banks voted against HR 648, because he was gleefully enjoying the longest government shutdown in history.
• February 28th, 2019: Banks votes against HR 1112, a bill which would have required universal background checks on all firearm purchases, and close the gun show loophole.
• March 14th, 2019: Rep. Banks votes against HJR 46, which sane members of Congress voted for to reject Donald Trump’s “national emergency” regarding the U.S. border and his attempts to reallocate funds for a border wall without Congressional approval.
• April 4th, 2019: Jim Banks is one of 158 Republicans who choose to vote 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 17th, 2019: Banks votes against The Equality Act, which would have prevented discrimination towards Americans based on their gender identity or sexual orientation.
• June 4th, 2019: Rep. Banks votes against the Dreamers Act, because he’s too xenophobic and partisan to care about immigration reform.
• July 16th, 2019: Jim Banks votes against a resolution to condemn Donald Trump for his racist statements that four people of color in Congress should “go back where they came from”.
• December 18th, 2019: Banks ignores his Congressional duty to hold a president who has been proven to commit high crimes and misdemeanors accountable and votes against the impeachment of Donald Trump.
• January 10th, 2020: Shortly after Congresswoman Ilhan Omar mentions in an interview that she still has PTSD from her time as a child refugee from Somalia… Jim Banks comes along to minimize her suffering, and try to pretend that she’s not being honest about her condition, and that her remarks were “offensive to our nation’s veterans”.
• May 15th, 2020: Banks votes against the HEROES Act, to further support the healthcare industry and citizens affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Indiana’s 3rd Congressional District has a +18 Republican lean in the Cook Partisan Voting Index, tied for the most conservative district in what is a decidedly red state. Jim Banks faces off against Democrat Chip Coldiron, a veteran and public school teacher, in November. We are concerned about the long term implications of Jim Banks being a mover and shaker in the Republican Party, as he just turned all of 41. Barring any scandal or a decision on his part to retire after a few terms… he could be a thorn in the side of this country for decades.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Coronavirus threat rises across U.S.: ‘We just have to assume the monster is everywhere’

Reset? As in another shutdown? That won’t sit well with a lot of people, especially those who willingly sacrificed and followed the rules in the hope the virus would be brought under control, only to have been figuratively kneecapped by selfish idiots, including moronic governors eager to please Trump who opened their states too soon, thus screwing things up for everyone.

[CaptainEurope]

Reset? As in another shutdown? That won’t sit well with a lot of people, especially those who willingly sacrificed and followed the rules in the hope the virus would be brought under control, only to have been figuratively kneecapped by selfish idiots, including moronic governors eager to please Trump who opened their states too soon, thus screwing things up for everyone.

A reset could also mean mandatory masks, a limit to the number of customers per store or venue, higher fines for people who insist on helping the spread of their pandemic.

[Tami]

Reset? As in another shutdown? That won’t sit well with a lot of people, especially those who willingly sacrificed and followed the rules in the hope the virus would be brought under control, only to have been figuratively kneecapped by selfish idiots, including moronic governors eager to please Trump who opened their states too soon, thus screwing things up for everyone.

Odds are good that if we don't reset now more people will die and we'll still have to reset again in 2021 after Biden takes office. If we do it now, we save lives. Trump won't do it though. He's brainwashed his followers to hate masks, put the economy first over health, and regard COVID-19 as 'Somebody else's problem'.

[Kusanagi]

Short of a vaccine being available by the end of the year (which Fauci is at least cautiously optimistic about https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...ington-hearing) I feel another shutdown will be necessary. Unfortunately the only way it could be implemented without it being a total disaster is a robust stimulus bill, possibly more robust than the first one. Otherwise the backlash (which is going to happen regardless) will be intense.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Odds are good that if we don't reset now more people will die and we'll still have to reset again in 2021 after Biden takes office. If we do it now, we save lives. Trump won't do it though. He's brainwashed his followers to hate masks, put the economy first over health, and regard COVID-19 as 'Somebody else's problem'.

The ironic thing is if Trump had done everything the right way: took the virus seriously from jump street, encouraged everyone to wear masks, put people over the economy and treated COVID like an enemy to be defeated, he’d be in a better position to be re-elected because not as many lives will have been lost and perhaps the economy wouldn’t be so much in the toilet. I can’t help but wonder if someone, anyone brought that to his attention? Then I paused and realized that no one would’ve had the balls to contradict him, and even if someone had, Trump would’ve ignored that advice. So yeah, the only way to effect much needed change is to get rid of Trump.

[Kusanagi]

The ironic thing is if Trump had done everything the right way: took the virus seriously from jump street, encouraged everyone to wear masks, put people over the economy and treated COVID like an enemy to be defeated, he’d be in a better position to be re-elected because not as many lives will have been lost and perhaps the economy wouldn’t be so much in the toilet. I can’t help but wonder if someone, anyone brought that to his attention? Then I paused and realized that no one would’ve had the balls to contradict him, and even if someone had, Trump would’ve ignored that advice. So yeah, the only way to effect much needed change is to get rid of Trump.

If we've learned anything over the course of this presidency is that if it can't be handled by a pen stroke, it's really too much effort for Trump. It might have still been handled if he delegated to people who actually knew what they were doing, but people who know what they're doing typically have opinions that aren't Trump's and he can't have that.

[PwrdOn]

You either have no idea what the word means, or more likely, you have the same amount of intellectual dishonesty as a Fox News evening show (which is none in case that wasn't obvious).

Whataboutism is bringing something else up in order to avoid condemning something that is wrong. As opposed to drawing parallels between two different actions which are both condemned. If you were the slightest bit interested in an actual discussion rather than grabbing the first flimsy chance to yell 'gotcha' you would have been able to see that. Instead you have merely illustrated the value you add to any discussion (which is also none in case that wasn't obvious).

You were drawing parallels between an explicit policy whose effects have been well-documented, and a series of outlandish accusations based on blurry satellite images. The point is that most people who are so keen to rebuke China about Uighurs don't really know anything about the situation there and don't really care to know. The mere existence of a restive minority population is enough to conclude that genocide MUST be the end result because that's how they would be dealt with in the enlightened West, and there's no way those filthy orientals have possibly managed to calm tensions without resorting to even more extreme methods.

Do you think the treatment of minorities in China is fair and equitable?

Or in India? Or Pakistan’s? Or Africa?

I can easily see that things are unfair in Western Europe and USA. But to me that seems far from unique.

Obviously there are ethnic tensions everywhere, and it's undeniable that China's heavy handed policies are absolutely not sensitive to the specific needs of minority populations and contributed to a lot of the resentment you see to this day. However that does not constitute a second Holocaust no matter how much people seem to want that to be the case.

Poster from Germany here!

Sadly, the crimes against Muslims in China are, by all appearances, very real. We have no Trump propaganda machine here, and we still get those reports.

This is nothing like the "babies tron from incubators" about Iraq in 1991.

Sorry to burst your bubble about your beloved China.

Well the source for most of the claims about Xinjiang is a far-right Christian fundamentalist from Germany, the exact kind of guy who would shed crocodile tears over the treatment of Muslims in China but would in the same breath complain about Muslim refugees in Germany all being rapists and murderers. Not saying that his work is some initiative backed by the German government, but it does go to show that the bar to be a self-proclaimed "China scholar" is quite low, because people in the West are inclined to believe every negative thing they hear about China, so you can throw out the most outlandish narrative and it will quickly become "common knowledge" regardless of how flimsy the evidence.

http://www.********/articles/the-ger...wn-11558431005

[Mister Mets]

You were drawing parallels between an explicit policy whose effects have been well-documented, and a series of outlandish accusations based on blurry satellite images. The point is that most people who are so keen to rebuke China about Uighurs don't really know anything about the situation there and don't really care to know. The mere existence of a restive minority population is enough to conclude that genocide MUST be the end result because that's how they would be dealt with in the enlightened West, and there's no way those filthy orientals have possibly managed to calm tensions without resorting to even more extreme methods.



Obviously there are ethnic tensions everywhere, and it's undeniable that China's heavy handed policies are absolutely not sensitive to the specific needs of minority populations and contributed to a lot of the resentment you see to this day. However that does not constitute a second Holocaust no matter how much people seem to want that to be the case.



Well the source for most of the claims about Xinjiang is a far-right Christian fundamentalist from Germany, the exact kind of guy who would shed crocodile tears over the treatment of Muslims in China but would in the same breath complain about Muslim refugees in Germany all being rapists and murderers. Not saying that his work is some initiative backed by the German government, but it does go to show that the bar to be a self-proclaimed "China scholar" is quite low, because people in the West are inclined to believe every negative thing they hear about China, so you can throw out the most outlandish narrative and it will quickly become "common knowledge" regardless of how flimsy the evidence.

http://www.********/articles/the-ger...wn-11558431005

Do you have any evidence that Adrian Zenz has referred to refugees in Germany all being rapists and murderers? It is also telling that the main criticism of his work is about his religious faith, rather than about whether his conclusions are wrong.

For whatever reason, your link isn't working. I think CBR doesn't like the words wall street journal in links, or ****** for that matter. I changed the url with tinyurl for a link to an Associated Press article.

I found some new stuff.

https://www.justicelabs.org/did-chin...slim-crackdown

https://tinyurl.com/y9g77fcu

Looking up the story led to a paper on the experiences of Chinese academics, which is relevant to concerns about the effects of China's official policies.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....act_id=3243059

Drawing on an original survey of over 500 China scholars, we find that repressive research experiences are a rare but real phenomenon, and collectively present a barrier to the conduct of research in China. Roughly 9% of China scholars report having been “taken for tea” by authorities within the past ten years; 26% of scholars who conduct archival research report being denied access; and 5% of researchers report some difficulty obtaining a visa. The paper provides descriptive information on the nature of these experiences and their determinants.

In 2017, news outlets reported that multiple academic publishers -- including the publishers of major scientific journals as well as Cambridge University Press, which publishes The China Quarterly -- had complied with requests from the Chinese government to remove or block access to hundreds of articles on the publishers’ Chinese websites. These stories caused an outcry within academic and publishing circles, as well as critical coverage in major international media outlets of these publishers’ apparent accession to Chinese attempts to “export censorship.”3 The story also fed into a broader emerging narrative of concern, about China’s influence on Western academic institutions, the potential for corrosion of academic freedom, and a deteriorating climate for scholarly research in China itself.

The original data generated from the CSRES lead us to characterize repressive research experiences among China scholars as a rare but real phenomenon. About one in every ten scholars who took the survey reported having been “invited
for tea” to talk about his/her research with the authorities, while roughly one in five scholars had experienced problems accessing an archive; one in fifty reports being formally banned/blacklisted.

We also found that the indirect effects of these phenomena extend far beyond the specific scholars who experience such incidents. The majority of China scholars believe that their research is sensitive without ever receiving direct indication of that fact or having a repressive experience. As we show above, the majority of social scientists working in China adapt their research conduct various ways to protect themselves and others, and a majority are also concerned – albeit with a great deal of nuance – about the extent of self-censorship within their field. When asked for advice for navigating sensitive research, scholars stressed the importance of protecting subjects, in both one’s philosophical approach and digitally, while also diversifying projects and source materials.

Our findings have implications for disciplinary conversations about how to approach research in authoritarian and repressive contexts, in China and beyond. Our own conclusion is that the risks of research conduct in China are uncertain, highly individualized, and often not easily discernible from public information. The decision about whether or not to pursue a particular potentially sensitive research project is a therefore highly personal one. Scholars encounter real consequences for conducting certain research in China, and these risks are higher for both Chinese researchers, and the Chinese colleagues and interlocutors who interact with foreign scholars.

[The Cool Thatguy]

The ironic thing is if Trump had done everything the right way: took the virus seriously from jump street, encouraged everyone to wear masks, put people over the economy and treated COVID like an enemy to be defeated, he’d be in a better position to be re-elected because not as many lives will have been lost and perhaps the economy wouldn’t be so much in the toilet. I can’t help but wonder if someone, anyone brought that to his attention? Then I paused and realized that no one would’ve had the balls to contradict him, and even if someone had, Trump would’ve ignored that advice. So yeah, the only way to effect much needed change is to get rid of Trump.

Trump has never understood the concept of 'The only way out is thorough'.