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

[Mister Mets]

Read the post you replied to again,

Fair enough. I read the comment about being about the conspiracy theorists wanting a seat at the table, rather than the targets, and thought this was about Infowars trying to get into a meeting with publishing executives.

https://newrepublic.com/article/1500...ervative-media

There's a larger argument about whether Facebook should ban Infowars, given their propensity for saying stupid, outrageous and flat-out wrong things, and I do suspect that a reason Facebook doesn't want to take that step is that they see the Infowars audience as gullible morons to be exploited.

[worstblogever]

In both 2016, and in 2017, that “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” presented profiles of the eleven-term U.S. House Representative for Ohio’s 1st Congressional District, Steve Chabot, who felt it necessary during Congressional testimony regarding Hillary Clinton’s e-mails from former Attorney Genereal Loretta Lynch to give her a history lesson about that time that Bill Clinton was receiving fellatio from Monica Lewinsky, and they went and tried impeaching the president. What does that have to do with Hillary Clinton’s e-mails, or Hillary Clinton, directly at all, you ask? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. But for whatever reason, Chabot thought it relevant to remind everyone that Bill Clinton got a hummer in the Oval Office one upon a time, just in case Loretta Lynch or the public had never heard before. That isn’t entirely an isolated incident regarding Hillary Clinton getting smeared by Rep. Chabot, though, as after several Benghazi hearings through the past three or four years that have turned up no evidence of any wrongdoing, no rumored “stand down” order, and no evidence that an order to send in the military would have saved the lives of any of the four people who died in the attack on the embassy, he still has told the public that a “smoking gun” proving Clinton’s involvement was criminal was found.

But don’t worry, he doesn’t save his baseless accusations for Hillary Clinton alone. When news first broke over the supposed “IRS Scandal” (which ended up not showing any targeting of conservative groups, specifically by the IRS), Steve Chabot seized on the opportunity to wonder “How high up does this go?” and insinuating that it was on an order that went all the way to the Obama White House.

This isn’t to say that Rep. Chabot is a boy scout, himself exactly. Shortly after he was re-elected back into office in the 2010 Tea Party Wave, he hosted his first town hall in his district (while his fellow Republicans were in the process of gerrymandering to make more favorable to him by the 2012 elections). And during that 2011 Town Hall, Chabot ordered police present to begin confiscating cameras so that no one could photograph or film what was happening for “security reasons” that were never explained… Chabot apparently wanted to control what might get out and onto Youtube, also taking care to only allow pre-screened questions to be asked by those present. This plan to restrict his constituent’s rights backfired because it was caught on camera by the media, whose cameras were NOT confiscated.

Anyway, over his decades in the House, Chabot has one of the more partisan records not just for legislation he’s supported, including being a co-sponsor of the Defense of Marriage Act, voting for the impeachment of President Bill Clinton for lying about having an affair with Monica Lewinsky,voting for a constitutional amendment to allow government buildings to erect monuments of the Ten Commandments, and an amendment to ban same-sex marriage. He has voted for a myriad of strict anti-choice legislation, has twice tried to defund Planned Parenthood, and is so conservative in terms of pro-life that he voted for the Terry Schiavo Incapacitated Persons bill. Chabot’s record on bank legislation is disastrous, as he voted for the Gramm-Leach-Billey Act, which repeals key parts of the Glass-Steagall Financial Regulation Act, and opens the door for big banks to create the 2007 Sub-Prime Mortgage Housing Crisis, and against Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform, to resolve that crisis. He voted for the Iraq War Resolution in 2002. Chabot voted for the 2013 Government Shutdown, and then voted to keep the government closed when the time came to reopen it.

Our biggest update on Steve Chabot would be that after he showed Americans he was a man who back in 1998 was more than happy defend the integrity of the investigators who were rabidly digging into every aspect of Bill and Hillary Clinton’s lives in the hopes of getting them impeached… that same guy suddenly would like to point out that the investigators working on the Mueller investigation show some signs of bias because 9 of them at some point in their careers donated money to Democratic candidates, and not a single member of Mueller’s team has ever donated money to Donald Trump’s political campaigns. Never mind that Mueller himself, and most of his investigators are registered as Republicans, or that it’s perfectly legal for them to donate money to whatever political campaign they choose… suddenly, twenty years after he wanted the Lewinsky investigation to be declared non-partisan… NOW Steve Chabot can’t believe FBI investigators would be above reproach when hunting for the truth about Donald Trump’s presidential campaign colluding with Russians to get him elected.

Well, outside of that, his voting record also shows he’s a partisan hack:

• February 16th, 2017: Chabot 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. Because… well, the logic really isn’t there as to why, it’s just awful.
• March 16th, 2017: Steve Chabot 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. We feel safer already.
• March 28th, 2017: Rep. Chabot votes for SJ Res 34, which allowed internet providers to sell the data information of their customers' internet usage to businesses. Well, so much for privacy.
• May 4th, 2017: Chabot votes for the House GOP's healthcare plan, that would kick rougly 24 million people off their health insurance plans, allow up to 28,000 more people to die a year, give $50,000 in tax breaks to millionaires, and would eliminate coverage for pre-existing conditions which would include such medical conditions as pregnancy (current or past), post-partum depression, or prior sexual assault. Oh, and a provision in the bill would make sure that Chabot 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: Steve Chabot 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: Chabot 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).
• February 18th, 2018: Chabot 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.

Ohio’s 1st Congressional District has a +5 Republican lean, and in a Blue Wave election year, it could be a potential for Democrats to flip in November. Steve Chabot won’t be facing an easy opponent, either, as his challenger in the fall is Aftab Pureval, is a true American success story. Pureval is the son of immigrants, and a successful lawyer who also happens to have set fundraising records to turn the tide against the 22 year incumbent.

[Tami]

Voter purge frenzy after federal protections lifted, new report says: Nine states with a history of racial discrimination are aggressively removing voters from the rolls, the Brennan Center for Justice says.

Nine states with a history of racial discrimination are more aggressively removing registered voters from their rolls than other states, according to a report released Friday.

After reviewing voter purges nationally from 2012 to 2016, the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice found that the mostly Southern jurisdictions that had once been required to get changes to voting policies pre-approved by the Justice Department had higher rates of purging than jurisdictions that were not previously subject to pre-clearance.

A key section of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which was designed to protect minority voters from state disenfranchisement, was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2013, allowing states to begin making changes affecting voting without first getting federal approval.

"Two million fewer voters would have been purged over those four years if jurisdictions previously subject to federal pre-clearance had purged at the same rate" as other jurisdictions, the Brennan Center estimated.

In Georgia, for example, 156 of the state's 159 counties reported an increase in removal rates after the Voting Rights Act was changed. In 2016, advocates sued Georgia for making voter registration harder. In 2017, the American Civil Liberties Union sued a Georgia county and the state Secretary of State for its purge practices, too.

"There's cause for concern when the purge rate goes up this much at the same time we're seeing controversial, sometimes illegal voter purge practice, in addition to changes to other voting laws that make it more difficult to participate," said Jonathan Brater, counsel for the Brennan Center's Democracy Program and one of the report's authors.

The Brennan Center's analysis found that election officials were purging voter rolls more aggressively nationwide, too, with some using imprecise or possibly illegal methods to do so.

[Tami]

Home Depot fires 60-year-old black man after Trump supporter screams racist abuse at him

A Home Depot in Albany allegedly fired a black man after a racist Trump supporter hurled abusive racial slurs at him.

The Times-Union reports that Maurice Rucker, 60-year-old black man, was let go from a job he’s held for 10 years—making $13 an hour—because he politely asked a customer to leash his dog in the store.

“I said to him, “Sir, when you have your dog in here we prefer that you keep it on a leash,'” according to the Times-Union.

He turned around and said, ‘F**k you. You’re an a*****e you’re a piece of s**t,'” Rucker said.

He says, ‘If Trump wasn’t president, you wouldn’t even have a job.’ He said, ‘You’re from the ghetto, what do you know?'”

“I’ve lived all over the country and I’ve had no one talk to me the way that this guy talked to me,” said Rucker.

After the relentless barrage of insults, Rucker shot back.

“‘You’re lucky I’m at work, because if I wasn’t, this wouldn’t be happening, or you wouldn’t be talking to me like this,'” Rucker told the Times Union.

Home Depot, which had not given Rucker a sizable raise during his decade of service, told the paper that they were sorry their employee was subject to racist abuse, but that he was nevertheless in the wrong.

“The problem here is that he had several opportunities to disengage and contact management to deal with the customer. We’re appalled by this customer’s behavior, but we also must require associates to follow proper protocol to defuse a situation for the sake of their safety and the safety of other associates and customers,” a spokesperson for Home Depot said.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Voter purge frenzy after federal protections lifted, new report says: Nine states with a history of racial discrimination are aggressively removing voters from the rolls, the Brennan Center for Justice says.

Part of the GOP's long game to maintain power by curtailing the ability of certain segments of the populace to vote, knowing those segments would probably vote Democrat. Insidious as hell.

Home Depot fires 60-year-old black man after Trump supporter screams racist abuse at him

An unpleasant situation to be sure. While Mr. Rucker could've walked away from that assclown and not engaged him, I honestly can't blame him for telling off said shitstain.

[Kirby101]

Voter purge frenzy after federal protections lifted, new report says: Nine states with a history of racial discrimination are aggressively removing voters from the rolls, the Brennan Center for Justice says.

Can't be true, Chief Justice Roberts assured us there is no longer any need for the Voting Rights Act just before he gutted it.

And there are those who refuse to admit there isn't a link to crap like this and why a woman who won by 3 million votes isn't President.

[JackDaw]

An unpleasant situation to be sure. While Mr. Rucker could've walked away from that assclown and not engaged him, I honestly can't blame him for telling off said shitstain.

And maybe he would have (walked away) on a different day in a different mood. But I think anybody who thinks they know what they would do themselves in that situation is kidding themselves, don’t care how much “customer training” anybody has had.

But it ought to be irrelevant, the guy should never have been sacked for that in a thousand years. His manager should have maybe given him some advice....hopefully along the lines of “call me over next time so I can ask the customer to leave”.

[BeastieRunner]

Home Depot fires 60-year-old black man after Trump supporter screams racist abuse at him

And maybe he would have (walked away) on a different day in a different mood. But I think anybody who thinks they know what they would do themselves in that situation is kidding themselves, don’t care how much “customer training” anybody has had.

But it ought to be irrelevant, the guy should never have been sacked for that in a thousand years. His manager should have maybe given him some advice....hopefully along the lines of “call me over next time so I can ask the customer to leave”.

I've had that happen to an employee.

I "disciplined" the person and gave them a different work assignment temporarily.

What a shitty thing for his boss to do.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

And maybe he would have (walked away) on a different day in a different mood. But I think anybody who thinks they know what they would do themselves in that situation is kidding themselves, don’t care how much “customer training” anybody has had.

But it ought to be irrelevant, the guy should never have been sacked for that in a thousand years. His manager should have maybe given him some advice....hopefully along the lines of “call me over next time so I can ask the customer to leave”.

Or maybe suspended him for a few days without pay. At $13 an hour, that would’ve hurt a lot, but to fire him was too extreme. Now, if it turns out Mr. Rucker had been disciplined for past offenses that weren’t mentioned in the article and was on a short leash, maybe I could see a reason for canning him, but if that wasn’t the case, then it was an act of cruelty.

[Mister Ferro]

Speaking of conspiracy theorists and psychopaths, Mike Cern@vich is currently active and trying to stir up shit on Twitter. Apparently James Gunn took some shots and Mikey boy is trying to attack him on some older tweets, which Gunn has long since explained and apologized for. Never ever ever ever ever ever listen to a work Cern@vich says. He's a complete psychopath.

Here's a full link discussing it.

Disney has fired him for those old tweets.

[BeastieRunner]

Or maybe suspended him for a few days without pay. At $13 an hour, that would’ve hurt a lot, but to fire him was too extreme. Now, if it turns out Mr. Rucker had been disciplined for past offenses that weren’t mentioned in the article and was on a short leash, maybe I could see a reason for canning him, but if that wasn’t the case, then it was an act of cruelty.

You don't last somewhere for 10 years if you have a history of problems.

[aja_christopher]

Or maybe suspended him for a few days without pay. At $13 an hour, that would’ve hurt a lot, but to fire him was too extreme. Now, if it turns out Mr. Rucker had been disciplined for past offenses that weren’t mentioned in the article and was on a short leash, maybe I could see a reason for canning him, but if that wasn’t the case, then it was an act of cruelty.

Back when I was in management, at worst we usually just wrote people up when that kind of thing happened (and not even that if we thought the response was justified) or transferred people to another department -- I never saw anyone get fired over it, but I also never saw anything that really warranted it. Human resources would usually just reduce hours if they wanted to get rid of someone -- saved them the trouble of dealing with unemployment issues.

I had two salesmen almost get into a fistfight on the floor over a customer on Black Friday -- I just took them aside, told them to chill or neither of them would be making any money, and the rest of the day went well.

Seems like a bad management decision, but the guy might be better off working elsewhere. Hopefully, somebody else will read the story and hook him up -- there's been a lot of good charity out there lately.

[InformationGeek]

Disney has fired him for those old tweets.

This is Sam Seder all over again. F**king hell man. This guy, who said the following, is someone Disney decided to listen to:

Have you guys ever tried "raping" a girl without using force? Try it. It's basically impossible. Date rape does not exist.

When is the last time women organized to support a men's rights issue? Stop being sticks. Who cares about breast cancer and rape? Not me.

Rape via an alpha male is different from other forms of rape. We can't really understand this, as our culture is too detached from instinct.

Do a Google image search for "lions mating." That's basically rape and it's also the natural form of sex.

Women enjoy rough sex because "ability to kill males and rape females" was primary evidence of evolutionary fitness.

Since prison rape is no big deal (after all, criminals deserved to be raped), why don't we have co-ed prisons?

Disney knew about these tweets from years ago before hiring Gunn and he apologized for him. The time to drop him was back then, not now and not for these reasons, especially giving the people at play here.

[JackDaw]

Or maybe suspended him for a few days without pay. At $13 an hour, that would’ve hurt a lot, but to fire him was too extreme. Now, if it turns out Mr. Rucker had been disciplined for past offenses that weren’t mentioned in the article and was on a short leash, maybe I could see a reason for canning him, but if that wasn’t the case, then it was an act of cruelty.

Obviously, I’m indoctrinated by what would happen in UK.

We (sadly) still have a fair amount of racism...as our multitude of laws concerning racist offences testify..but I guess we’ve reached a tipping point where a large majority of people realise it’s unacceptable.

My gut feeling is that no UK employer would do any more than talk to employee about techniques of dealing with difficult customers. (I’ve just done 10 minutes google research and can’t find any examples of guys getting sacked in similar circumstances.) Pretty sure any business that sacked an employee in such circumstanced would lose a lot of custom.

On other hand, there would would be a fair chance customer would be receiving a call from police, and might well be charged with racially aggravated harassment.

It would be interesting if anybody working for a big American multinational...say Amazon, MacDonalds or some such..knows if staff rule book on things like this vary from country to country.

[aja_christopher]

Obviously, I’m indoctrinated by what would happen in UK.

We (sadly) still have a fair amount of racism...as our multitude of laws concerning racist offences testify..but I guess we’ve reached a tipping point where a large majority of people realise it’s unacceptable.

The worst I encountered was some of my friends casually talking about Pakistanis in less than respectable terms -- not so much hardcore racism as ignorant stereotypes and generalizations, which I had to directly point out that I found offensive. Not sure it changed their views but at least it gave them something to think about.

I hung out with some of the local Pakistani guys as well -- they ran the local store where i lived -- and they were all pretty cool guys. The worst I could say about them is that they were heavy smokers, like nearly everybody else I met there that was around my age.

I never encountered any myself despite staying there for nearly a year, so maybe I was just lucky -- had a drunk old man get in my face at a pub for being a "Yank" but that's about it.