All-purpose news and politics thread: Two Steps Beyond!

[InformationGeek]

Because Fox News can never let something go, they decided to talk about Ahmed Mohamed again and tried to sink the teen's credibility.... in the dumbest way possible.

A Fox News host has come under fire this week for suggesting that Ahmed Mohamed, the 14-year-old Texas high schooler who was arrested last month for bringing a clock he built to school, was "not as innocent as he seems" because he was once allegedly caught "blowing soap bubbles" in school.

Ahmed was handcuffed and escorted out of MacArthur High School in Irving, Texas, in September after school administrators mistook the clock he'd made for a "bomb." Following his arrest, Ahmed was deluged with words of encouragement from politicians, scientists and leaders in the tech industry, including Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg.

President Barack Obama even invited the teen to visit the White House.

"We should inspire more kids like you to like science," Obama tweeted.

Hillary Clinton also threw her support behind Ahmed.

"Assumptions and fear don't keep us safe -- they hold us back. Ahmed, stay curious and keep building," she wrote on Twitter.

During a "Fox & Friends" segment on Wednesday, host Anna Kooiman questioned the validity of this outpouring of support and claimed Ahmed had a "history of trouble."

"The techy teenager may not be as innocent as he seems," Kooiman said.

Quoting a report published in The Dallas Morning News, Kooiman explained how Ahmed’s seventh-grade history teacher, Ralph Kubiak, had described the teen as a "weird little kid" who had allegedly been suspended from school after being caught blowing soap bubbles in a bathroom. The teacher called Ahmed "one of those kids that could either be CEO of a company or head of a gang," Kooiman noted.

She added that Ahmed had been caught making mischief in school, such as creating “a homemade remote [which] he used to prank a teenager by shutting off a projector in class.”

“It’s unknown if President Obama is aware of his past disciplinary problems in school,” Kooiman said.

As the Daily Beast notes, Kooiman "failed to mention that Kubiak described himself as an outsider and relished the opportunity to talk to [Ahmed], one of his 'disciples,' about religion, history and everything in between."

"I love him dearly but sometimes it got to be a little much," Kubiak told the Morning News, describing Ahmed as a chatterbox. "He just went on and on."

In the Fox segment, Kooiman also failed to discuss other aspects of the Morning News' report, such as the teen’s fondness for inventing things and how he endured bullying in school.

Defending Ahmed’s bubbles-related suspension, Anthony Bond, a family friend, told the Morning News: "Kids are kids. He was a little boy in a new environment, and they were acting out."

[macattack]

Obama speaks out about the shooting in Oregon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_Y8JbjEsQg

He's clearly very upset.

If he could unilaterally repeal the 2nd Amendment I am sure he would have years ago.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Because Fox News can never let something go, they decided to talk about Ahmed Mohamed again and tried to sink the teen's credibility.... in the dumbest way possible.

Judas H. Priest. Are these morons for real? OMIGOD! He was blowing soap bubbles! Somebody! Call the cops! We've got a menace on our hands! Hey, you clowns, newsflash: kids of all races act weird and commit pranks when they're young! Faux News nonsense at it's very best.

[Carabas]

Because Fox News can never let something go, they decided to talk about Ahmed Mohamed again and tried to sink the teen's credibility.... in the dumbest way possible.

Bubbles?
Oh my god, what is this world coming to? Kids blowing bubbles? What's next? Jojo tricks?

[JCAll]

Bubbles?
Oh my god, what is this world coming to? Kids blowing bubbles? What's next? Jojo tricks?

Come on guys, in Pokemon a Bubble has as attack power of 20. That's more than a bee sting!
He might lower someone's Speed with that shit!

[Malvolio]

Davis' camp has drastically overstated how this meeting went.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-w...lerk-kim-davis

It's like the time I saw Foo Fighters in concert and Dave asked me to give him the best of me and then promised he'd stick around.

Everyone heard him say it.

Yeah, it is starting to sound like they just got her into the receiving line. Pope Francis probably had no idea who she was and just shook her hand and told her to "stay strong," like everyone else. No different than when I met Dave Mustaine when Megadeth did an in-store at Tower Records.

[johnmahananda]

The definition of terrorist isn't just someone who sows terror, but someone who does so with political aims. That's not the case with many mass shooters, although it can be applied to the man who shot Gabrielle Giffords, and to the Charleston shooter.

No, the definition of "terrorist" is "You are someone whose political motives do not correspond with mine, so I vilify you."

[worstblogever]

It was 364 days ago that we originally profiled former U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania, the "frothy one" himself, Rick Santorum, who was inexplicably the runner-up to the GOP nomination for the office of President of the United States in 2012, and has again thrown his hat into the ring as a presidential candidate in 2016, although, without the curiosity he inspired in a slightly less crowded field this time around. It's almost as if people can't bring themselves to vote for a man whose name could be synonymous with... you know. And besides that, we're talking about a guy who demonizes the LGBT community, compares homosexuality to beastiality and relating his fight against marriage equality to the war on terror after 9/11. He also declared children conceived during rape to be "a blessing in disguise", and a variety of other race-baiting lines about minorities on welfare that I'd just as soon let you click on the link back to that original profile than have to type again. His presence in the 2012 elections drove the GOP so hard right that candidates were falling all over themselves to compete with him to match his opposition to BIRTH CONTROL, in a day and age where 98-99% of Americans have no problem with it.

Now... how has he spent the past year?

• On October 17th, 2014, Santorum is interviewed on Newsmax and rails against the response to the Ebola Virus outbreak in Liberia, using it as a justification of why conservatives don't trust the government or "so-called experts".
  He then claimed the Obama administration wasn't actually fighting ISIS.
• On October 30th, 2014, Rick Santorum gives a call to arms to his fellow Christians to fight "persecution" in America before the country turns into Nazi Germany. Which makes you wonder if he knew which group was persecuted against by the Nazis.
• On November 17th, 2014, Santorum is on Steve Deace's radio program, and laments that President Obama was fomenting "racial division" in the same interview where he lauded legendary segregationalists Jesse Helms and Jerry Falwell.
• On December 1st, 2014, Rick Santorum is quoted saying that "the separation of church of state was a communist idea". Which is amazing that Thomas Jefferson could have wrote about it in the Baptist letters decades before communism was even conceived.
• On January 23rd, 2015, Rick Santorum goes on Newsmax after Pope Francis made comments about people not procreating "like rabbits", and Santorum claims the pontiff is being "used by the liberal media to divide Catholics".
• On March 16th, 2015, Santorum speaks to the Liberty Counsel, and tells them "yes we can put the Bible back in schools". (The Supreme Court would disagree, via the separation of church & state).
• On April 24th, 2015, Santorum is interviewed by the anti-gay group, the Family Research Council, where he says that if Christians are not legally permitted to discriminate against gays, that it would be "a violation of the Establishment Cause" of the First Amendment.
• On April 28th, 2015, Rick Santorum puts out a press release where he states that if same sex marriage is allowed by the law, that Christians would not just be "persecuted" but "prosecuted".
• On May 29th, 2015, Santorum speaks in Iowa, and complains about anti-government rhetoric. Which is amazing, considering his own public speaking career being chock full of examples of it.
• On June 10th, 2015, Rick Santorum is interviewed by Glenn Beck, and says if he won the presidency, he would not enforce the gay marriage ruling by the Supreme Court because it would "violate the First Amendment". Which you would think the SCOTUS would have considered already.
• On June 15th, 2015, Santorum went on Gordon Klingenschmitt's program, where he came out in defense of Indiana's "religious freedom" law that allowed legal discimination of the LGBT community.
• On July 10th, 2015, Rick Santorum says that the Supreme Court's gay marriage ruling is evidence of the "spreading of the cancer" that began with Roe vs. Wade.
• On July 15th, 2015, Santorum reacts to the heavily-edited Planned Parenthood videos, saying we should "take down Planned Parenthood" to "scrub racism from America".
• On July 21st, 2015, Santorum expresses outrage that a book where "Suzy has two mommies" can be allowed in schools, but then goes a bit too far when he claims Massachusetts schools have started banning books that feature heterosexual parents.
• Later the same day, Rick Santorum has the level-headed response to the heavily-edited Planned Parenthood videos to claim the organization was committing genocide, called it a "cancer" (ironic considering they do cancer screenings) and that the government should cut all ties with it and criminalize abortion (in spite of it being a legal right per Roe vs. Wade).
• The next day, on July 22nd, 2015, Santorum, desperate to get a boost in the polls to get into the Top 10 in the GOP race so he could be on the main stage for the first Republican Party debate, goes on the Rachel Maddow Show. During the interview, Maddow had to give the former senator a civics lesson, as he seemed to fail to understand that any gay marriage ban passed by Congress would need to be a constitutional amendment, or it would be declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, based on their Obergefell vs. Hodges ruling.
  This would not be the only time this summer Santorum failed to understand this.
• On August 17th, 2015, Santorum speaks at an anti-Planned Parenthood rally in Iowa, where he compares the women's health organization to the Holocaust, and uses words like "poisonous, wretched, and cancerous" to describe it.
• In a Newsmax interview on August 21st, 2015, Rick Santorum pledges that he would sign an unconstitutional repeal of the 14th Amendment, specifically saying he did not believe it would need to be drafted as a new amendment of the Constitution to do so (again, he needs some civics lessons).
• On September 1st, 2015, Santorum is interviewed by Iowa conservative talk show host Jan Mickelson, where he made the claim that the Obama administration was deliberately bringing "Radical Muslims" and LGBT refugees into the country to undermine American values.
• On September 23rd, 2015, a few days after fellow presidential candidate Ben Carson stated his opinion that a Muslim should never be President of the United States, Rick Santorum defended his bigoted remarks.
• On September 25th, 2015, Santorum is at the Voter Values Summit and says that "America is never going to be blessed by God" as long as abortion and gay marriage were legal. For context, Santorum, who is Catholic, said this right about the same time that the Pope in the process of visiting the United States and blessing the 9/11 Ground Zero site. So... we'll go ahead and defer to papal authority on this one.

Santorum is trying to rise up and toil and bubble back into the true contenders for the GOP's large field of candidates in 2016 currently, but polls at about 0.5%. With 14 other challengers still in the race at the time of this posting in his party alone, it seems like there's too much uphill fighting for America to ever see another Santorum surge.

[Kieran_Frost]

Perhaps if Davis had simply done her job and not injected her religion-based prejudice into the situation, or, better yet, stepped aside if the notion of issuing licenses to gays went against her beliefs, no one would ever had heard of that county clerk from Kentucky.

QUOTED FOR TRUTH! What a horrible, hate-filled woman. Though I do agree with another poster above, she should have just been fired, not arrested. You don't do your job, you get fired. The second she refused = out the door. Simples.

Pope's meeting with Kim Davis not an endorsement - Vatican
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-34425450

Well this is good, which ever way you look at it. Either it's true (suck it, Kim) OR it's a lie, and Kim sees how quickly she's thrown under the bus, shaking her faith. Win, win.

[Carabas]

Incidentally, my view on Davis is that she should have been fired, but not arrested.

She can't be fired. Its an elected position.
At best you can try to impeach her, but that's expensive and not at all guaranteed to succeed.

[KOSLOX]

QUOTED FOR TRUTH! What a horrible, hate-filled woman. Though I do agree with another poster above, she should have just been fired, not arrested. You don't do your job, you get fired. The second she refused = out the door. Simples.

Pope's meeting with Kim Davis not an endorsement - Vatican
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-34425450

Well this is good, which ever way you look at it. Either it's true (suck it, Kim) OR it's a lie, and Kim sees how quickly she's thrown under the bus, shaking her faith. Win, win.

I'd guess it's true. The entire way Kim's reps framed the story made it seem like the pope tracked her down and requested an audience which seemed like bullshit from the jump, especially since they just got caught lying a few days before hand. Her team is desperately trying to keep her relevant and likely used some connection to engineer her being part of the group, but that's likely all she was. It's like getting to go back stage at a concert, unless you're someone really important (or someone the bassist wants to hook up with) you're just standing around with 20-30 other people waiting to get to "hang out" for 30-90 seconds and maybe snap a photo with Timmy C making devil/rock gestures.

[JCAll]

I don't think it makes anyone happy. Liberals are pissed that the pope met with Davis. Conservatives see a pope who addresses their concerns much more quietly than the concerns of progressives (income inequality, death penalty, global warming, etc.)

Incidentally, my view on Davis is that she should have been fired, but not arrested. The fact that we know the name of a county clerk from Kentucky is the result of some major screw-ups from gay marriage supporters.

She wasn't arrested for not handing out the marriage licenses, she was sued for not handing out the marriage licenses. She lost the case and a judge ordered her to start handing out licenses. She refused to comply with a court order, and that's what got her arrested. I too wish it were as simple as firing her so we didn't have to go through this idiocy, but she can't actually be fired. As an elected official she would have to be impeached, and that's a whole new level of idiocy, assuming the state considers her important enough to bother impeaching in the first place. Damned if you don't, damned if you can't.

[worstblogever]

The Vatican is clarifying a lot of Davis' claims as false.

Yes, the pope met her. He also had no idea who the hell she was, and did not, as Davis' lawyers claim, tell her to "stay strong". The Vatican is pointing out, however, that the Pope met an old friend from Argentina, who is in the states, and is gay, and his partner before his meeting with Davis.

So it's not as much of "an old stodgy pope hatin' the gays" thing as we'd see.

[numberthirty]

QUOTED FOR TRUTH! What a horrible, hate-filled woman. Though I do agree with another poster above, she should have just been fired, not arrested. You don't do your job, you get fired. The second she refused = out the door. Simples.

Pope's meeting with Kim Davis not an endorsement - Vatican
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-34425450

Well this is good, which ever way you look at it. Either it's true (suck it, Kim) OR it's a lie, and Kim sees how quickly she's thrown under the bus, shaking her faith. Win, win.

One quick "finer point" of this -

Since Davis' job is an elected office, I believe you cannot simply fire her. To remove her from office, I think you would have to successfully impeach her.

[numberthirty]

She can't be fired. Its an elected position.
At best you can try to impeach her, but that's expensive and not at all guaranteed to succeed.

Doh!

What C. said!