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

[Jack Dracula]

And here's Ron Johnson going conspiracy mode.

It's important to keep in mind that "unmasking" is a perfectly legal action and requests for it are politically reasonable and above-board.

The Right-Wing media is purposely conflating it with "outing" a political or national security operative, which is illegal and ethically irresponsible. An example of that is the 2003 politically-motivated outing of Valerie Plame as a CIA operative by Scooter Libby and Richard Armitage at the behest of then Republican VP Dick Cheney.

[Tendrin]

I think it’s hard to credibly argue that trans women don’t have a substantial advantage in a wide range of sports. Running, tennis, wrestling, etc, etc.

I assume we can all see why that’s an incredibly important issue to elite cis women athletes??

And yet they keep losing.

[Powerboy]

Oorrrr the injuries she suffered are common injuries in MMA and we all know losing fighters never make excuses.

While you're at it, look up the trans woman cyclist who was treated like Fox after beating out a cis woman, even though she lost ten races before that to the cis woman.

Or all the trans athletes who FAIL to dominate, as most of them do. This is a case where if they win, it is because they are trans, and if they lose, no one gives a crap because you never hear about it, and people's assumptions of what they think they know takes over.

In fact, that very headline is a good example. The injuries suffered were... common.

https://www.bbc.com/sport/46453958

I intentionally looked up an article that disagreed with my premise and found this. It talks about a cyclist criticized when she won an event . She rightfully points out that she lost to those same opponents in ten out of the previous eleven events before winning this one.

She was also competing in the 40-something age category and I believe had transgendered quite a long time before and provably had no more natural muscle mass or bone density than the average woman. Any extra muscle mass was provably a result of exercise.

With the Fallon Fox situation, she had transgendered only two years before the MMA fighting and still had pretty much all of the muscle mass and bone density from before. Add that she wasn't that skilled but muscled her way to wins over much more skilled opponents.

Granted it is more complex and debatable than I originally thought.

Apparently, and I don't know if this is true, African-American women tend to have thicker bones than other races and this was once used as an excuse to exclude them from sports. One of the excuses used to exclude black people from baseball was something about having a longer heel bone that gave some sort of an advantage. In fact, Fallon Fox used that as an example of bigotry in the past. Of course, just as her opponent might be making excuses for losing, Fallon Fox might be drawing a false equivalency and playing down an unfair advantage.

But, yes, it gets far too complex to make one size fits all judgements and, on the greater social scale of how a lot of bigots will use the situation, it is far more important to support and defend people who are TG as a group.

[PwrdOn]

As an example, I read an article years ago, that was about interrogating the Lord of the Rings movie for its whiteness, in which the author reached the conclusion that Peter Jackson held unconscious racist views because the Uruk Hai orcs had dark skin, strong bodies and apparently dreadlocks that resembled black men. To my knowledge there simply isn’t a shred of evidence to support the claim that the Uruk Hai were to resemble black people either in Jackson’s film or Tolkien’s novel. Unless someone wants to correct me otherwise, Peter Jackson is not a racist, and this is left wing extremist nonsense.

It definitely goes a bit deeper than that surface level criticism though. Lord of the Rings very much reflects Tolkien's romanticized view of the peaceful lifestyle of the country gentleman, which of course is under perpetual threat by these dark foreign forces that are just evil for the sake of being evil, and have no ability to create but only to destroy. This of course lines up just about exactly with how white supremacists have always seen the world, with themselves cast as these noble kings and warriors, and all those filthy savages in the rest of the world as brainless monsters, along with that critical component of the handful of traitors that opened the flood gates for the enemy to pour through and ruin all that was good about society. Tolkien may not have intended this, but frankly given his background as a well off academic living through the age of imperialism where he would have been flooded with racist propaganda, it's hard to imagine that this didn't have some degree of influence on his writing. This was never really considered problematic in Tolkien's day, because his idea of simplistic traditionalism was never really seen as anything more as a cute escapist fantasy in a world where the politics of the day all revolved around empire building and economic expansion, and thus nobody who read his books would have ever saw anything problematic about them. However, these days when the dominant narrative on the right centers around the exclusion of outsiders and living as a small self-contained community adhering to traditional values, a book series that presents such a world order as peaceful and benevolent would obviously hold a lot of other implications as well.

[A Small Talent For War]

https://www.bbc.com/sport/46453958

I intentionally looked up an article that disagreed with my premise and found this. It talks about a cyclist criticized when she won an event . She rightfully points out that she lost to those same opponents in ten out of the previous eleven events before winning this one.

She was also competing in the 40-something age category and I believe had transgendered quite a long time before and provably had no more natural muscle mass or bone density than the average woman. Any extra muscle mass was provably a result of exercise.

With the Fallon Fox situation, she had transgendered only two years before the MMA fighting and still had pretty much all of the muscle mass and bone density from before. Add that she wasn't that skilled but muscled her way to wins over much more skilled opponents.

Granted it is more complex and debatable than I originally thought.

Apparently, and I don't know if this is true, African-American women tend to have thicker bones than other races and this was once used as an excuse to exclude them from sports. One of the excuses used to exclude black people from baseball was something about having a longer heel bone that gave some sort of an advantage. In fact, Fallon Fox used that as an example of bigotry in the past. Of course, just as her opponent might be making excuses for losing, Fallon Fox might be drawing a false equivalency and playing down an unfair advantage.

But, yes, it gets far too complex to make one size fits all judgements and, on the greater social scale of how a lot of bigots will use the situation, it is far more important to support and defend people who are TG as a group.

How many athletes are actually involved in this debate? I can't imagine the number of trans athletes in sports is greater than the percentage of trans people in the population generally and that is a very small number. So, it might take a while before there is enough data to actually show any "unfair" advantage and sports may evolve to further minimize any advantages as well.

I'd have to believe that the widespread use of illegal or banned performance enhancement medicines actually have a far greater effect on sports outcomes than any biological advantage. It's probably a far greater problem that deserves much more attention. Certainly, many athletes retire or don't pursue further competition often because they are not willing to use drugs to compete, and those who do then suffer far more after their careers are over.

As far as trans rights, I'm very willing to accept many accommodations for most minority groups and, honestly, this is a very small group. I don't think anyone should feel uncomfortable or be made uncomfortable if they hold a binary view of gender and certainly most straight people will rarely interact or have relationships of any kind with a transgender person. Certainly, it seems that it would be in the interest of someone in the majority that holds a conventional straight point of view to believe that alternative perspectives would threaten their privileges in society. Conversely, it would seem to be in the interest of people who hold alternative points of view to believe that they should threaten the mainstream, traditional perspective as it leads to greater isolation and targeted attacks. However, the greatest advantage any individual has is social cohesion and the protection that conveys so societies that have the widest range of acceptance for its members despite often strong differences in individual or group perspectives tend to be the most prosperous and protective of individual rights. So even though it is very unlikely that I will have anything to do with any trans person or group, it still would be in my greater individual interest to support those rights and their perspectives.

Currently, it seems like the strongest and more intractable conflict in this debate is between feminists and transgender women.

[Powerboy]

It definitely goes a bit deeper than that surface level criticism though. Lord of the Rings very much reflects Tolkien's romanticized view of the peaceful lifestyle of the country gentleman, which of course is under perpetual threat by these dark foreign forces that are just evil for the sake of being evil, and have no ability to create but only to destroy. This of course lines up just about exactly with how white supremacists have always seen the world, with themselves cast as these noble kings and warriors, and all those filthy savages in the rest of the world as brainless monsters, along with that critical component of the handful of traitors that opened the flood gates for the enemy to pour through and ruin all that was good about society. Tolkien may not have intended this, but frankly given his background as a well off academic living through the age of imperialism where he would have been flooded with racist propaganda, it's hard to imagine that this didn't have some degree of influence on his writing. This was never really considered problematic in Tolkien's day, because his idea of simplistic traditionalism was never really seen as anything more as a cute escapist fantasy in a world where the politics of the day all revolved around empire building and economic expansion, and thus nobody who read his books would have ever saw anything problematic about them. However, these days when the dominant narrative on the right centers around the exclusion of outsiders and living as a small self-contained community adhering to traditional values, a book series that presents such a world order as peaceful and benevolent would obviously hold a lot of other implications as well.

I would argue that, in his time and place, Tolkien's mentality was not racist. It was the standard mentality. When he referred to the Black Riders (changed to Dark Riders in the movie though I'm not sure that helps), he didn't literally mean black or brown human beings. Having every person be white was a default like having every person be white on "Leave it to Beaver". Although I wasn't looking for this when I read the books, I've heard it argued that Tolkien never described the skin color of the orcs. But this is not really about Tolkien and his time and place. This is about Jackson.

Was the orcs being black racist or was it the prehistoric man in us, the hunter-gatherer who fears the night when we can't see well and things may be hiding in the dark to threaten us? Who knows.

I feel compelled to point out that Jackson did "King Kong" which I believe is inherently racist. All these black people worship Kong and sacrifice women to him and he could care less but then we have the blond white woman and it's love time. And it goes even deeper than that and to more disgusting levels.

I'm not value judging Jackson's conscious motives but I'm saying King Kong is a story that just needs to stay in 1933 where it belongs and be respected for it's special effects breakthroughs and nothing else. It should not have been remade in 1976 or ever.

[Powerboy]

How many athletes are actually involved in this debate? I can't imagine the number of trans athletes in sports is greater than the percentage of trans people in the population generally and that is a very small number. So, it might take a while before there is enough data to actually show any "unfair" advantage and sports may evolve to further minimize any advantages as well.

I'd have to believe that the widespread use of illegal or banned performance enhancement medicines actually have a far greater effect on sports outcomes than any biological advantage. It's probably a far greater problem that deserves much more attention. Certainly, many athletes retire or don't pursue further competition often because they are not willing to use drugs to compete, and those who do then suffer far more after their careers are over.

As far as trans rights, I'm very willing to accept many accommodations for most minority groups and, honestly, this is a very small group. I don't think anyone should feel uncomfortable or be made uncomfortable if they hold a binary view of gender and certainly most straight people will rarely interact or have relationships of any kind with a transgender person. Certainly, it seems that it would be in the interest of someone in the majority that holds a conventional straight point of view to believe that alternative perspectives would threaten their privileges in society. Conversely, it would seem to be in the interest of people who hold alternative points of view to believe that they should threaten the mainstream, traditional perspective as it leads to greater isolation and targeted attacks. However, the greatest advantage any individual has is social cohesion and the protection that conveys so societies that have the widest range of acceptance for its members despite often strong differences in individual or group perspectives tend to be the most prosperous and protective of individual rights. So even though it is very unlikely that I will have anything to do with any trans person or group, it still would be in my greater individual interest to support those rights and their perspectives.

Currently, it seems like the strongest and more intractable conflict in this debate is between feminists and transgender women.

I hate to even say, "I knew a TG person" but I did and while she was in the process of transgendering from male to female. I shouldn't have to say it. A discussion of evidence should be a discussion of evidence, period.

What you said is true and, also, the evidence of physical advantage or not is still too much of an unknown with evidence both ways. Also, man to woman TG (or the reverse) is not same same same same same. Not everyone undergoes exactly the same process in terms of estrogen and so on. The amount of time since the process and how long taking estrogen and other factors also matter. So one person can be right that it is an advantage for one person and another person can be equally correct that it's not an advantage at all for someone else.

Socially, yes, it's insignificant to greater social change and acceptance of TG people.

Even in sports, especially ones with lax testing, steroids are a far bigger issue. There was the baseball player some years ago whose homerun record was marred by the discovery that he was taking steroids or had taken them and still carried the muscle mass from them.

[Tami]

Smart move, Justin Amash

After much reflection, I’ve concluded that circumstances don’t lend themselves to my success as a candidate for president this year, and therefore I will not be a candidate.

Twitter Link

[The no face guy]

It definitely goes a bit deeper than that surface level criticism though. Lord of the Rings very much reflects Tolkien's romanticized view of the peaceful lifestyle of the country gentleman, which of course is under perpetual threat by these dark foreign forces that are just evil for the sake of being evil, and have no ability to create but only to destroy. This of course lines up just about exactly with how white supremacists have always seen the world, with themselves cast as these noble kings and warriors, and all those filthy savages in the rest of the world as brainless monsters, along with that critical component of the handful of traitors that opened the flood gates for the enemy to pour through and ruin all that was good about society. Tolkien may not have intended this, but frankly given his background as a well off academic living through the age of imperialism where he would have been flooded with racist propaganda, it's hard to imagine that this didn't have some degree of influence on his writing. This was never really considered problematic in Tolkien's day, because his idea of simplistic traditionalism was never really seen as anything more as a cute escapist fantasy in a world where the politics of the day all revolved around empire building and economic expansion, and thus nobody who read his books would have ever saw anything problematic about them. However, these days when the dominant narrative on the right centers around the exclusion of outsiders and living as a small self-contained community adhering to traditional values, a book series that presents such a world order as peaceful and benevolent would obviously hold a lot of other implications as well.

Granted, I think arguing that Tolkien's Lord of the Rings is eurocentric is fair game considering the time period it was written. The Shire was to reflect the English countryside, the Rohan, I believe people of Nordic or Germanic decent, and though I cannot verify it off the top of my head, the Gondorians were similar to Italians & Spaniards. Tolkien's map appears to be based on Western Europe, and as he was a scholar of languages and history, it is conceivable that the Easterlings were viewed as Ottoman Turks or the Mongul Empire of Ghengis Kahn...however this is pure speculation. What we do empirically is that...

Tolkien is on record as being opposed to Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany, when many people in the west were sympathetic to its cause. In terms of dark foreign forces threatening civilization, this has to do with his recollection of fighting in the trenches of world war 1 and the threat posed by a Nationalist Germanic empire at the time. As a Christian, which was extremely common for a person to be during his time, the white/black divide has to with Western Civilization's tradition of heaven and hell, and light and brimstone fire stretching back into both Christianity and European Paganism, there is to my knowledge, not a shred of evidence that Tolkien was applying this to race, particularly in the case of orcs.

I think it would be unfair to put Tolkien or Peter Jackson at blame, because white supremacists in Europe view themselves as nobleman trying to defend their homeland from non white foreign invaders. (Disgusting ideology, BTW) My problem with critical theory is that it often uses circumstantial evidence and speculation to make claims on the truth. I could start deconstructing texts and movies for their whiteness and unveil all sorts of hidden unconscious racism, but unless those claims are backed by empirical evidence it does not make it so. As a result, I worry that a great literary story like Lord of the Rings would become discarded from those who would like to see it censored for their own political agenda.

[Tami]

Internet stunned by ‘Mad King’ Trump’s ‘Mitch, I love you’ plea to McConnell to go after Russia collusion hoaxers

In a bizarre retweet of a Federalist editor’s claim that Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has been ignoring “the Russian collusion hoax,” Donald Trump professed his love for the Senate majority leader and said it was true and could cost him the Senate in November.

According to Sean Davis, “Mitch McConnell has spent years pretending as though the Russian collusion hoax never happened. If he thinks he’s going to keep the Senate majority and confirm more judges without addressing the hoax and holding the hoaxers accountable, he’s lost his mind,” to which Trump added, “Mitch, I love you, but this is 100% true. Time is running out. Get tough and move quickly, or it will be too late. The Dems are vicious, but got caught. They MUST pay a big price for what they have done to our Country. Don’t let them get away with this!” while also tagging Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC).

[Tami]

Crisis exposes how America has hollowed out its government

The government’s halting response to the coronavirus pandemic represents the culmination of chronic structural weaknesses, years of underinvestment and political rhetoric that has undermined the public trust — conditions compounded by President Trump’s open hostility to a federal bureaucracy that has been called upon to manage the crisis.

Federal government leaders, beginning with the president, appeared caught unaware by the swiftness with which the coronavirus was spreading through the country — though this was not the first time that an administration seemed ill-prepared for an unexpected shock. But even after the machinery of government clanked into motion, missteps, endemic obstacles and lack of clear communication have plagued the efforts to meet the needs of the nation.

[Kieran_Frost]

It definitely goes a bit deeper than that surface level criticism though. Lord of the Rings very much reflects Tolkien's romanticized view of the peaceful lifestyle of the country gentleman, which of course is under perpetual threat by these dark foreign forces that are just evil for the sake of being evil, and have no ability to create but only to destroy. This of course lines up just about exactly with how white supremacists have always seen the world, with themselves cast as these noble kings and warriors, and all those filthy savages in the rest of the world as brainless monsters, along with that critical component of the handful of traitors that opened the flood gates for the enemy to pour through and ruin all that was good about society. Tolkien may not have intended this, but frankly given his background as a well off academic living through the age of imperialism where he would have been flooded with racist propaganda, it's hard to imagine that this didn't have some degree of influence on his writing. This was never really considered problematic in Tolkien's day, because his idea of simplistic traditionalism was never really seen as anything more as a cute escapist fantasy in a world where the politics of the day all revolved around empire building and economic expansion, and thus nobody who read his books would have ever saw anything problematic about them. However, these days when the dominant narrative on the right centers around the exclusion of outsiders and living as a small self-contained community adhering to traditional values, a book series that presents such a world order as peaceful and benevolent would obviously hold a lot of other implications as well.

I think this is a little harsh, remember it's not the "noble kings or classic 'beautiful' warriors" who are the true heroes, but the underdogs of society who ultimately become the saviors. The Hobbits are not the financially rich, or the socially powerful, but the farmers, the working class, those rejected as unimportant and ignored by most of the world as offering nothing to how history is made.

[PaulBullion]

Smart move, Justin Amash



Twitter Link

Great news for Biden in a week of good news for him.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, as well as 2019, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day published profiles about Daryl Metcalfe, a member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives since 1998 who has, in his ten terms in office, supplied the state legislature with more controversy that perhaps any other member. Back in 2008, he refused to vote for a simple resolution to wish a convention of Muslims that would be visiting the state well, because "Muslims do not recognize Jesus as God," earning him a rebuke from many lawmakers (including Jewish ones who realize the same logic can apply to them).

Metcalfe also opposed recognizing Domestic Violence Awareness month because "it had a homosexual agenda", has called military veterans who believe in climate change "traitors", and claims using the 14th Amendment to guarantee birthright citizenship causes people to make "anchor babies" for an "illegal alien invasion", claimed that refugee children from South America in the United States should be immediately deported because they "carry diseases", referred to President Obama's immigration policies as "treasonous", and supports immigration measures as strict as Arizona's SB 1070. (Even though Pennsylvania is pretty damned far away from Mexico, you know?)

It should come as little surprise, then, that he has been photographed with, and is a big proponent of the anti-immigrant, anti-government militia group known as the OathKeepers. Metcalfe has been a guest on Alex Jones' InfoWars program where they discussed Israeli agents having infiltrated the Department of Homeland Security and how President Obama was supposedly enacting policies of Cold War communist nations, as well. Big surprise, he's also a Birther, having sponsored legislation to investigate presidential candidates' birth certificates, as well as bills to ban same sex marriage, create stricter Voter ID laws to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of voters in his state In 2016, and then still insisted that there were “thousands” of cases of voter fraud being perpetrated by people who were not American citizens in the 2016 elections, without any evidence. Metcalfe not only drew widespread criticism for not just sponsoring a bill that would be easily ruled constitutional if passed to make English the official language of the state, but he called Robert Vandevoort, a known White Nationalist leader, to serve as a witness to testify in the bill’s supposed benefits and Metcalfe felt that was okay because he was “just a White Nationalist” and not a White Supremacist.

Metcalfe has become even more combative in recent years with Pennsylvania Democrats, who have staged walk-outs due to his insane ramblings calling for the impeachment of the state attorney general for not aggressively enforcing Pennsylvania's Defense of Marriage Act, blocked an LGBTQ anti-discrimination bill from advancing out of committee back on June 15th, 2016 because he spread the lie that transgender people are attacking women in restrooms, and once ordered an openly gay legislator silenced during a debate about that bill because he "violates God's law".

And wow, has Daryl Metcalfe reacted poorly to the news that the gerrymander that Republicans had going for them in Pennsylvania was overturned by judges. Over the past six months, his partisan d***ishness has gone into overdrive, starting back in December of 2017, when he was in a meeting discussing land use, and when Democratic Rep. Matt Bradford gently brushed up against Metcalfe’s forearm, he kicked his homophobia into overdrive:

“Representative Bradford. Look, I’m a heterosexual. I have a wife, I love my wife. I don’t like men, as you might. But stop touching me all the time.”

Two months later, while most of the country was compelled by the survivors of the mass shooting in Parkland, Florida calling for gun control. Daryl Metcalfe was in no way moved, instead going on social media to make several posts implying that the kids were actors by referring to them as, in quotes, “students”.

“I enlisted in the U.S. Army at 17 years old. This morning I was working out and listening to the news about ‘students’ being bused in to the Florida Capitol. The hypocrisy of the left struck me! They expect lawmakers to listen to the policy advice of 18 year old and younger ‘students’ who are advocating for gun control, but they do not believe 18 year olds who are old enough to serve on the battlefields of Afghanistan are old enough to purchase a rifle.”

But really, Metcalfe’s main instability comes from his raging homophobia. Because again, a few days after a heated exchange with Democratic legislator Leslie Acosta, who claimed he was threatened by Metcalfe, Metcalfe went on Facebook and published a 18he attacked a Democratic legislator on social media, calling Acosta a liar, but deciding to add that Democratic legislator Bryan Sims was a “lying homosexual”.

”Another lying Philadelphia Liberal Democrat Legislator attacking me this week with the help of the media! Another Democrat playing the victim while he is actually the perpetrator! After a committee meeting last week Philadelphia Representative Rabb approached me and launched into a profanity laced disrespectful tirade. A week later he wrote a letter making false accusations that I threatened him and based it on me possibly being armed because of my support for the 2nd Amendment! There is a pattern to the attacks that have been made against me by liberal loser Democrat legislators on my committee. Former Rep Leslie Acosta who lied about me is now convict Acosta, lying homosexual Rep Brian Sims has been under an ethics investigation, then there is constant touchy-feely Rep Matt Bradford who has touched me over 40 times in what many observers have said is an attempt to provoke me! When they oppose us on my committee, they lose every vote and we win every vote! I block all substantive Democrat legislation sent to my committee and advance good Republican legislation! Liberals continue their lying attacks
in an attempt to stop my work in defense of taxpayers and our liberty!”

Even in a Blue Wave year, Metcalfe’s district is partisan enough to see him re-elected with 58% of the vote. That victory was also not without Metcalfe exhibiting homophobia, as he sent out mailers grousing about his opponent, Daniel Smith Jr., of being in league with “liberal gay activist groups,”and posting an image of Smith with his husband, but referring to him as “the man he calls his ‘husband’”, in quotation marks, arguing that it is because he doesn’t believe marriage exists between any couple that isn’t a man and a woman (Tough s*** Daryl, the Supreme Court says different).

Since being re-elected, Metcalfe has flexed his lizard brain in the Pennsylvania state legislature some more, going beyond climate change denial in March 2019 and not just hosting a climate change skeptic to give testimony, but during the hearing, claiming that reducing carbon dioxide emissions would “kill his vegetables”.

"I enjoy my vegetables, and plants need CO2, so I want to make sure we have plenty of CO2 out there so we have green grass and green vegetables growing.”

Now, you might wonder to yourself what sorts of behavior you might expect from Metcalfe during the COVID-19 outbreak, and it might not surprise you to learn he threw a tantrum that truck rest stops were closed by Governor Tom Wolf’s orders. There’s a viral outbreak and his first thought was, “WHERE WILL THE TRUCKERS POOP, YOU GUYS!?!”

We cannot reiterate enough, Daryl Metcalfe has been in office now for OVER TWO DECADES, and has been bugs*** insane the entire time. In 2020, he faces both a GOP Primary opponent in Scott Timko (and true to his s***heel form, Metcalfe is already name-calling and referring to Timko as a “clown”), and in the general election, with match up with Democrat Dan Smith, who did better against Metcalfe in 2018 than any Democrat has since he took office. We would accept either challenger to Metcalfe as an improvement upon the Commonwealth’s legislature. Just as long as he’s gone.

[worstblogever]

Also, upon reviewing the past several pages:

Thank you to those who recommended Ben Carpenter as a potential CSGOPOTD. Appreciate the help.

Further, thank you to those who recognize that transgender rights are human rights, and it is not at all "overreach by the left" to defend the human rights of transgender citizens. To those on the "other side" of that argument, please try to be better humans.