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

[Powerboy]

IOW, there are a lot of people who find basic civility to be SO BLASTED HARD and are traumatized to the point of voting for, well, Trump.

This... does not make them look good.

Oh I know it sounds ridiculous but people vote one way or the other for all kinds of stupid reasons.

I can literally imagine Trump going, "I'm going to make America great again and by great, I mean backwards to the 1950s when white people had all the power and, by white people, I mean white men and by white men I mean straight white men and by straight white men I mean Fundamentalist Christians and by Christians I mean Protestants. Yeah, we're gonna take America back to the way it should be. Oh, except for Twitter, Prostitution and Internet Porn which are, of course, the three branches of government".

[WestPhillyPunisher]

If you really want to give it to Trump, everyone should watch regardless if you are a high school student, a parent, or none of the above. The higher the ratings, the higher Trump's Blood Pressure will elevate.

A sound strategy. And I did watch. Most inspiring.

IOW, there are a lot of people who find basic civility to be SO BLASTED HARD and are traumatized to the point of voting for, well, Trump.

This... does not make them look good.

The problem is those knuckledraggers don't care. It's easier for them to be deplorable than to be decent.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, as well as 2019, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day published profiles about Mike Ritze, who we highlighted for his sponsorship of Oklahoma’s HB 1330 law, which allowed the presentation of religious monuments on state grounds. Now, while being enough of a theocrat to push for a law similar to ones that the Supreme Court has already overturned is often enough to earn a profile here, Ritze gets special consideration for purchasing a Ten Commandments monument to put up at the state capitol that had multiple spelling errors. The monument stood for a few months until a mentally ill man crashed into it, at the cost of several thousand dollars to Ritze, personally, to build yet another one. But the monument issue gets even more hilarious… Ritze’s wording in writing HB 1330 was vague enough that it left a loophole for ANY religion to put up a monument on state grounds, so a Satanic Temple decided to troll Oklahoma’s GOP Fundamentalists by preparing a statue of Baphomet tempting children to stand on government property, as well. In the end, the Oklahoma Supreme Court made him take down his third attempt at a Ten Commandments ruling after a legal challenge, at a cost of another five thousand dollars to Ritze. Rather than quit while he was ahead, I started lying and claiming all historical landmarks with any religious significance might be taken down (that’s false), and began trying to find ways to impeach members of the Oklahoma Supreme Court for recognizing that there should be a whole separation of church and state. Anyway, outside of this very specific comedy of errors that Ritze is responsible for, we also have one heck of a tacky voting record to single him out on, where he has been a proponent of Birther legislation, preventing the threat of the Agenda 21 Conspiracy theory, bans on Sharia Law, trying to nullify the Affordable Care Act, Trap Laws to attempt to shut down all the state’s abortion clinics, as well as stricter Voter ID laws to combat the statistically non-existent problem of in-person voter fraud at the cost of disenfranchising tens of thousands of voters. Mike Ritze’s newest obsession, as of March 2017, is the threat of “Blue Zones”. He warned citizens in an opinion editorial in the local papers that the group Blue Zones, LLC, was trying to restrict the lifestyle choices of Oklahomans, and to “stay vigilant”. Anyone who actually goes to the “Blue Zones” website, however, will only learn that the group tries to promote the benefits of spending quality time with family and friends, exercising, getting enough sleep, eating a more plant-based diet (fruits, veggies, nuts, seeds, legumes), or avoiding smoking. So whatever paranoid fears Ritze might have, the worst that might come of it is “Blue Zones, LLC” might convince a state legislature to invest money into healthier eating via school lunches or community orchards or marketplaces for selling organic vegetables, or maybe a ban on smoking in some public places. Clearly, global domination territory… STAY VIGILANT! In May of 2017 Mike Ritze came up with an interesting budget plan to save money... harass 82,000 kids who speak Spanish and hand them over to ICE for interrogation! First off, YES, we have to educate non-citizens when they're children, if you ever paid attention to federal law, you muskrat-toupeed twit. But apparently Ritze still thinks there's "savings" into profiling people and just deporting them for not speaking English, rather than, y'know, provide them with an education. One where they might actually be taught English, in theory. Since we last caught up with Ritze, he has left his mark on two of the bigger pieces of legislation in Oklahoma. You may have heard nationally about how Oklahoma teachers went on strike due to low salaries, and even worse funding towards the state’s education budget. Well, while most of the Republicans caved and voted to increase funding to that education budget, Mike Ritze doesn’t care if teachers are underpaid, and if kids are being taught with textbooks that are decades old and crumbling apart. He also co-sponsored a particularly insane piece of legislation to expand the state’s “Stand Your Ground” laws so that people could more easily shoot and kill another person, this time if they suspect they’re somehow a threat to another member of their church. Mike Ritze, and his hairpiece were up for re-election in 2018. He was defeated in the GOP Primary, being bounced from office after only getting 42% of the vote. As his career is likely over, we will retire his profile at this time and take a look at another wacky Republican today instead. (Current crazy/stupid scoreboard, is now 869-45, since this was established in July 2014.)


Melissa Ackison

Welcome to what is the 869th original profile here at “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day”, where we’ll be discussing Melissa Ackison, 2020 candidate for District 26 of the Ohio State Senate and a 2018 candidate for U.S. Senate who finished third in the GOP Primary that year. Ackison was originally campaigning on trying to be the “true conservative” primary matchups by posing with the largest guns she could get her hands on, and threatening to sue any Republican who called her out on being a less than ideal candidate for office. She’s “out there” enough that in February of 2020, the Trump campaign actually contacted her to demand she stop promoting her own campaign for office by posting photos of a White House visit she took to meet Donald Trump as if he endorsed her.

She responded publicly, on Twitter, by telling the Trump campaign, “Piss off, punk.”

Now, let’s pause for a moment. How crazy does someone have to be to get asked to take down something that looks like a Trump endorsement? There’s white nationalists and Qanon conspiracy theorists running for office across the country doing the same thing, and there’s zero pushback from the Trump campaign. Is she that bad?

Well, as the Covid-19 outbreak began, and several governors around the country issued “stay at home” orders to keep the populace from getting infected, well, there were obviously some loons on the far right who threw temper tantrums about the fact that they couldn’t get a haircut or dine in at their local Fuddrucker’s. Melissa Ackison surveyed the situation and thought it was the opportunity to exploit that she was waiting for, at first just calling for Gov. Mike DeWine’s impeachment, Within a month, Ackison became a bit of a viral sensation (and not in a good way), when she was photographed with a small group of lockdown protestors who turned up at DeWine’s office to bang on the doors impotently, and ended up doing little more than looking like they were auditioning for another Walking Dead spinoff.

The media attention didn’t do Ackison any favors, and she received only 35% of the vote in the GOP Primary in the face to get into the Ohio State Senate against Bill Reineke. She concluded her Election Night concession speech by making a gay joke at Reineke’s expense, insulting the Chairman of the Ohio GOP, and telling her “Republican haters”, and we quote, “kiss my ass”.

Pretty sure that this was the electorate returning her own advice to her and telling her to “piss off, punk”.

[Tami]

Trump, Biden and the Myth of ‘But 2016’

WASHINGTON — At first glance, there seems little in common between red-hat-wearing admirers of President Trump and Democratic activists still nursing PTSD from Hillary Clinton’s loss. Yet these political opposites share an overriding conviction, one they are apt to invoke any time the president’s re-election prospects are questioned:

But 2016!

Mr. Trump’s surprise win in the Electoral College is their Exhibit A, cited repeatedly online or in real life, to counter any polls or election results or momentary events that cast doubt on the president’s electability in 2020.

Just as William Faulkner wrote about how Southerners once daydreamed about the moments before Pickett’s Charge, before Gettysburg turned the tide of the Civil War, some activists seem frozen in the post-midnight hours of Nov. 9, 2016, when Mr. Trump won and time — political time — stopped like a broken clock.

Ever since then, the assessment has been the same: Mr. Trump is a powerful, if unconventional, political force; the polls don’t fully capture his strength; and the Democrats are too complacent to win this November.

What Mr. Trump’s stunning win and Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s extraordinary comeback in the 2020 primaries both demonstrate, they say, is the crucial importance of momentum-changing events, the mood of the electorate and the ingrained perceptions of the candidates. Tactics like well-produced campaign ads, high-profile endorsements and clever one-liners at debates often matter far less, as Mrs. Clinton found.

In other words, Mr. Trump’s 2016 victory is not predictive in 2020 — not for an incumbent running for re-election amid a public health catastrophe that has killed over 80,000 Americans and caused another 36 million to lose their jobs.

[Mister Mets]

Caster Semenya does appear to have XY chromsomes.

She is not 'biologically male', however. She may be intersex. If we're going to ban her on account of her genetics, when she's afab and intersex, then we have a lot of other people to ban on the basis of 'genetic advantage'.

The categories in which she competed were already designed to remove half the population with particular genetic advantages (IE- men) so there are plenty who are banned in her sport (the women's 800 meters.)

There have to be clear metrics about who qualifies and who does not. It's perfectly fine to say that the standard that someone who is assigned female at birth should be able to compete in women's sports, or that someone who is intersex should be able to compete in any category. But that has to be articulated and argued against different potential standards (IE- women's sports restricted to people with XX chromosomes).

You really have to zoom out and think about the bigger picture of how this fits within the greater civil rights landscape. Bigots like to focus on sports as one of the few advantages where marginalized groups might have a slight advantage, because unlike in broader society there is at least a clear set of rules that everyone has to abide by which means that the arbitrary standards used to exclude and undermine people don't work as well. Obviously a trans woman who has more testosterone and muscle mass will do better in a fight, and perhaps certain measures should be taken to ensure a more level playing field. But to hold up this issue which affects a handful of people at most as the reason why trans women are not really women and to implicitly argue for their continued degradation and marginalization from "normal" society is definitely throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

One problem with the arguments about trans athletes is that it's often treated as a proxy for other discussions. There is the concern on the left that considering certain measures to be taken in order to ensure a more level playing field will lead to implicitly arguing for increased degradation and marginalization. This can lead to people on the left doubling down on weaker arguments.

[Tami]

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HHS secretary says Trump’s ‘Warp Speed’ vaccine ‘may not be safe and effective but we’ll have it’

[Kirby101]

I have noticed the same people who claimed that COVID was not as bad as H1N1 and we were overreacting a few months ago, are the same ones that are telling me it is safe to open the economy.

[Mister Mets]

IOW, there are a lot of people who find basic civility to be SO BLASTED HARD and are traumatized to the point of voting for, well, Trump.

This... does not make them look good.

This would be true if the arguments were limited to basic civility, but it's not that simple.

Political correctness exists on a spectrum, where there are a matter of degrees. Some of this should be avoided, but it is possible to go too far. When topics become taboo, it limits the ability to address important issues. Understandings and discussions can quick shiftly, which can be disorienting for people who don't follow left-wing politics very closely, and they're going to get pissed off at the hint of a possibility for professional blowback.

I've quoted a piece about this a few years back in New York magazine about how many on the left started seeing political correctness as more important than freedom of speech.

It is true that liberals and leftists both want to make society more economically and socially egalitarian. But liberals still hold to the classic Enlightenment political tradition that cherishes individuals rights, freedom of expression, and the protection of a kind of free political marketplace. (So, for that matter, do most conservatives.)

The Marxist left has always dismissed liberalism’s commitment to protecting the rights of its political opponents — you know, the old line often misattributed to Voltaire, “I disapprove of what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it” — as hopelessly naïve. If you maintain equal political rights for the oppressive capitalists and their proletarian victims, this will simply keep in place society’s unequal power relations. Why respect the rights of the class whose power you’re trying to smash? And so, according to Marxist thinking, your political rights depend entirely on what class you belong to.

The modern far left has borrowed the Marxist critique of liberalism and substituted race and gender identities for economic ones. “The liberal view,” wrote MacKinnon 30 years ago, “is that abstract categories — like speech or equality — define systems. Every time you strengthen free speech in one place, you strengthen it everywhere. Strengthening the free speech of the Klan strengthens the free speech of Blacks.” She deemed this nonsensical: “It equates substantive powerlessness with substantive power and calls treating these the same, ‘equality.’ ”

Political correctness appeals to liberals because it claims to represent a more authentic and strident opposition to their shared enemy of race and gender bias. And of course liberals are correct not only to oppose racism and sexism but to grasp (in a way conservatives generally do not) that these biases cast a nefarious and continuing shadow over nearly every facet of American life. Since race and gender biases are embedded in our social and familial habits, our economic patterns, and even our subconscious minds, they need to be fought with some level of consciousness. The mere absence of overt discrimination will not do.

Liberals believe (or ought to believe) that social progress can continue while we maintain our traditional ideal of a free political marketplace where we can reason together as individuals. Political correctness challenges that bedrock liberal ideal. While politically less threatening than conservatism (the far right still commands far more power in American life), the p.c. left is actually more philosophically threatening. It is an undemocratic creed.

Bettina Aptheker, a professor of feminist studies at the University of California–Santa Cruz, recently wrote an essay commemorating the Berkeley Free Speech movement, in which she participated as a student in 1964. She now expressed a newfound skepticism in the merits of free speech. “Freedom of speech is a constitutional guarantee, but who gets to exercise it without the chilling restraints of censure depends very much on one’s location in the political and social cartography,” she wrote. “We [Free Speech movement] veterans … were too young and inexperienced in 1964 to know this, but we do now, and we speak with a new awareness, a new consciousness, and a new urgency that the wisdom of a true freedom is inexorably tied to who exercises power and for what ends.”

The most probable cause of death of the first political-correctness movement was the 1992 presidential election. That event mobilized left-of-center politics around national issues like health care and the economy, and away from the introspective suppression of dissent within the academy. Bill Clinton’s campaign frontally attacked left-wing racial politics, famously using inflammatory comments by Sister Souljah to distance him from Jesse Jackson. Barbara Jordan, the first black woman from a southern state elected to the House of Representatives, attacked political correctness in her keynote speech. (“We honor cultural identity. We always have; we always will. But separatism is not allowed. Separatism is not the American way. We must not allow ideas like political correctness to divide us and cause us to reverse hard-won achievements in human rights and civil rights.”)

Yet it is possible to imagine that, as the next Clinton presidential campaign gets under way, p.c. culture may not dissolve so easily. The internet has shrunk the distance between p.c. culture and mainstream liberal politics, and the two are now hopelessly entangled. During the 2008 primary contest between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, the modern politics of grievance had already begun to play out, as each side’s supporters patrolled the other for any comment that might indicate gender or racial bias. It dissipated in the general election, but that was partly because Obama’s supporters worried about whether America really was ready to accept its first president who was not a white male. Clinton enters the 2016 race in a much stronger position than any other candidate, and her supporters may find it irresistible to amplify p.c. culture’s habit of interrogating the hidden gender biases in every word and gesture against their side.

[Tami]

GOP Officials Say They're Expecting 50,000 In Charlotte For Republican Convention

And in an op-ed published Friday for Fox Business, convention President and CEO Marcia Lee Kelly said Republicans are preparing to gather "thousands" to mark the formal renomination of President Trump and Vice President Pence to lead the party's 2020 ticket. She said organizers are working on details including the carpet and lighting at the convention.

Kelly said convention planners have "recognized that large-scale events would need to look different in light of COVID-19."

Kelly did not specify how the convention would be different because of the virus, though she told Fox that organizers would follow guidelines from federal, state and local authorities, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She noted that the RNC has hired Dr. Jeffrey W. Runge — a physician, former medical director for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and former chairman of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration — to oversee health and safety planning for the convention.

50,000 people, all gathered together = at least 5.000 new COVID-19 cases.

[Malvolio]

GOP Officials Say They're Expecting 50,000 In Charlotte For Republican Convention



50,000 people, all gathered together = at least 5.000 new COVID-19 cases.

And remember, it's more than just a single sporting event in a 50,000 seat stadium. It's a convention with people walking around to different workshops, meetings, etc. and then consider all of the open hotels and restaurants where the virus could be spread to people who aren't even there for the convention. Talk about Ground Zero for the second wave.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

GOP Officials Say They're Expecting 50,000 In Charlotte For Republican Convention



50,000 people, all gathered together = at least 5.000 new COVID-19 cases.

At the very least. And god only knows how many people those idiots will infect, including family, friends and complete strangers after returning to their home districts following the convention. This is stupidity on steroids and could well be the standard bearer for a fresh outbreak. I don’t want to hear anyone call the GOP “The Party of Life” after this, it’s a death cult, plain and simple.

[JackDaw]

According to BBC website Neil Gaiman a couple of weeks ago flew 11000 miles from New Zealand to Isle of Skye (in middle of lockdown like rest if Uk).

Seems a strange thing to do for such an enlightened guy?

[aja_christopher]

This would be true if the arguments were limited to basic civility, but it's not that simple.

Political correctness exists on a spectrum, where there are a matter of degrees. Some of this should be avoided, but it is possible to go too far. When topics become taboo, it limits the ability to address important issues. Understandings and discussions can quick shiftly, which can be disorienting for people who don't follow left-wing politics very closely, and they're going to get pissed off at the hint of a possibility for professional blowback.

I've quoted a piece about this a few years back in New York magazine about how many on the left started seeing political correctness as more important than freedom of speech.

And here I thought you were going to start addressing the "right" routinely engaging in voter suppression and armed right-wing white supremacists marching through our streets instead.

Good thing no one is holding their breath expecting you to change your ways.

Granted, the wolf whistle of "political correctness" provides ample "plausible deniability" for said suppression and supremacists, so said perspective is completely understandable in that respect.

And to be clear I understand that you are explaining why some on the right feel this way but realistically speaking it is primarily a strawman argument used to justify racist, sexist and homophobic behavior.

Even this site had to deal with them directly not so long ago.

That said this might be one of the few popular forums where you aren't considered an "SJW" just for speaking out in support of "minorities" for exacly that reason.

[Tami]

Georgia candidates embrace group with extremist ties

A Georgia state representative running for Congress is facing criticism from across the political spectrum for a photo showing him alongside a longtime white supremacist activist from Dahlonega.

The photo shows Rep. Matt Gurtler, R-Tiger, with Chester Doles, a Georgia man with longstanding ties to numerous white supremacist organizations, including the National Alliance and Hammerskins, a racist skinhead gang. It was taken earlier this year at a meeting of American Patriots USA, a group founded by Doles last year in an attempt to appeal to more mainstream conservatives in the region. Other candidates for office in Georgia also appeared in the photograph with Doles, though none as high profile as Gurtler.

The photo has been on the internet for weeks, circulated by a left-wing, anti-racist group based in Atlanta, among others. Now, Gurtler has been called out by a rival Republican also running for the 9th Congressional District seat being vacated by U.S. Rep. and GOP Senate candidate Doug Collins.

[Tami]

Wandering a Grand Hotel Emptied by Coronavirus, and Checking 1,400 Taps

BARCELONA, Spain — Every five days, Daniel Ordoñez opens 1,400 pipe taps in a waterfront hotel here in Barcelona that locals call “The Sail” because of its shape.

Each tap has to run for about five minutes, so the task takes him a full day. “It’s probably the most boring part of my job, but it’s needed,” he said, to avoid a form of pneumonia that can be spread by bacteria in the water: Legionnaires’ disease.

Mr. Ordoñez, who is in charge of maintenance at the hotel, has been its sole continuous occupant for the past two months, wandering its ghostly halls because of another illness that has ravaged the country and the globe: Covid-19.

When the hotel closed in mid-March as part of a nationwide lockdown to contain the spread of the coronavirus, Mr. Ordoñez, an industrial engineer, agreed to self-isolate inside in order to avoid any deterioration of the premises that could delay its reopening, whenever that might be.

He now lives alone on the 24th floor, which gives him an unrivaled view of the city, its beaches and the Mediterranean. “At the start, I thought I would be here for about two weeks,” said Mr. Ordoñez, who is single. “But now it’s been eight, with no clear end in sight.”

Arguably Barcelona’s most emblematic luxury lodging, the W Hotel stands 325 feet tall and 27 stories high, dominating the city’s waterfront. Some might find walking its deserted corridors, peering into its vacated salons, or dining alone on a plate of fried chicken and vegetables cooked in a cavernous restaurant kitchen unsettling, but Mr. Ordoñez does not.