All Purpose News and Politics Thread Part IV: The Center Cannot Hold

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2014, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled Roy Ashburn, a former California State Senator with a long history of voting against LGBTQ rights legislation, as well as supporting Proposition 8 and voting against a Harvey Milk Holiday. Ashburn's career came undone when he got busted for DUI back in 2010... on his way out of a gay bar with an anonymous guy he picked up there that night. Ashburn has since vanished from the political scene.



In 2015, 2016, 2017, as well as 2018, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" profiled North Dakota state legislator Randy Boehning, whose story hit the news wire, and caused us to sit in disbelief, and re-read the story several times to make sure it wasn’t a parody from The Onion. Randy Boehning, member of the North Dakota House of Representatives. Randy Boehning. RANDY BOEHNING. If there ever was a name destined to be involved in gay pornography, it was Randy Boehning. But Randy Boehning, an anti-gay Republican state legislator, was outed as gay because he was using the Grindr App to find gay dudes to hook up with, and someone decided to expose him because he's leading a hypocritical double life by sharing his own submitted nude photos to whoever would listen.

Boehning *snicker* was first elected back in 2002, and had a career with plenty of anti-choice, pro-gun and of course, hypocritically, anti-LGBTQ legislation. We’re thrilled to report that finally, in 2018, Randy Boehning’s career as a determined hypocrite came to an end. We would now like to wish him our heartiest “goood riddance” send offs, and wish him luck finding Mr. Right on Grindr.

[Jack Dracula]

Attachment 86509

How has this not gotten bigger coverage? They are literally the same image!!!

I'm sure it will make the rounds on all the late night talk shows.

I'm imagining the absolute pants-shitting uproar that would've ensued on the Right had Obama tweeted an Obama/Biden flag with a Muslim symbol.
Those old white men would've exploded like a pack of angry chimpanzees.

[Tami]

Grand Bahamas is nearly gone, nearly completely under water.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

I'm sure it will make the rounds on all the late night talk shows.

I'm imagining the absolute pants-shitting uproar that would've ensued on the Right had Obama tweeted an Obama/Biden flag with a Muslim symbol.
Those old white men would've exploded like a pack of angry chimpanzees.

Exactly! Faux News will go out of their way to either ignore this story, or worse, try to justify the use of that logo. As for all the other news networks like CNN and MSNBC, I suspect they won't touch this with a ten foot pole for fear of a vengeful White House cutting off access to press briefings with Trump.

Grand Bahamas is nearly gone, nearly completely under water.

This is shaping up to be an unimaginable tragedy. While most hurricanes quickly blow through that region while headed for Florida and the Gulf Coast, I've heard that Dorian had been nearly stationary over the Bahamas, moving at only a scant few miles an hour. I don't even want to think about the loss of life which could be monumental.

[Mister Mets]

Three celebrity writers, including Gregg Hurwitz (Batman: The Dark Knight, Vengeance of Moon Knight) worked together to coach Democrats on messaging. They thought it was essential to focus on the House since that was the best shot at pick-ups and coached 30 candidates running in red districts. 21 of them won.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019...n-civilization

It's an interesting piece about people who did work you may be familiar with in the entertainment industry succeeding in the political realm in a way that most of you would approve of.

[Tami]

Cherokee Nation names first ever delegate to Congress

Washington (CNN)The Cherokee Nation has named an official representative to Congress for the first time.

Kimberly Teehee, executive director of government relations for the Cherokee Nation, was approved by the Council of the Cherokee Nation as a delegate to the US House of Representatives on Thursday, fulfilling a promise made to the tribe in a nearly 200-year-old treaty with the federal government.

A former senior policy adviser for Native American Affairs during President Barack Obama's administration, she was nominated by Chuck Hoskin Jr., chief principal of the Cherokee Nation. She is also a former senior adviser to the US House Native American Caucus Co-Chair Rep. Dale Kildee and has held various positions within the Cherokee Nation.

CNN has reached out to Teehee for comment. In a statement at the time of her nomination before the council last month, Teehee said she was "truly humbled" to be considered for the position.

[Mister Mets]

Gasp. You mean to say that the free market economy won't necessarily recognize what a public good and necessary service for its appropriate value to human life and dignity when it can get away with exploiting them and paying them less than then value of their labor?

NO WAY.

What should happen is unionization and improved labor laws alongside with wholesale reform of medicaid long term care. Right now, the rules for medicaid are systemically racist and a giant wealth-sucking machine from the middle class, specifically the estate-recovery clause.

For example, my parents are not wealthy by any stretch of the imagination, but by and large people were able to at least transfer the home. If your parents wound up on long-term care, the government can and will seize the home and sell it to recover the cost of providing long term care based on what was put into the cost of the care over the years once both your parents are gone or are no longer living in the home. This was mandated as part of reform in the 1990s and it was a dreadful idea then and an even worse one now with the ballooning costs of care. Now, white people tend to have more resources to avoid this than poor, imoverished people of color, who tend to have lower life expectancy I imagine this contributes to gentrification, as well.

It's a very understudied issue and speaking from personal experience, a dreadful one. Much of this issue could be resolved as part of structured and expanded universal health care, of which long-term care coverage *must* be a significant part of it.

In a true free market, the home care aides would get even less money, since there wouldn't be the current level of subsidies.

There are some minor free marker fixes. Much of the money goes to bureaucracy, with agencies sometimes getting half the money. In the Vox piece, they mention "in New Mexico, the median pay for home health aides is $9.50 an hour, but most agencies charge clients up to $20 an hour" so maybe we'll get better. Perhaps there'll be some kind of Uber model where agencies won't get half the money, or a better understanding of geriatric psychiatry to improve some aspects of working conditions, or more legal protections to avoid situations where the aides deal with dangerous clients or aren't compensated for complications that aren't caused by their clients (IE- the scenario where a client's senile wife barricaded the kitchen.)

I'm not really sure this is a case of improper value. Politically, this probably won't be touched since Democrats like spending and are sympathetic to a workforce that consists largely of women of color and Republicans want to address the concerns of old white people. So we might end up going with your ideas of unions and greater Medicaid spending.

But this is something that doesn't require specialized knowledge and also isn't a productive use of resources. Infrastructure, construction and education spending would have more long-term benefits.

For starters, just start to at least acknowledge some basic realities.

As Tendrin just mentioned, the design that created the current state of affairs is from the nineties.

- Has anyone looked at "Three Strikes" and mass incarceration, and just said "No biggie. Let's just stick with the ninties-era plan that created all of this."?

Never mind that life expectancy has increased while things like Alzheimer's Disease/Diabetes/Parkinson's Disease have not been wiped out. Even if you could magically take them out of the equation, you would still have a lot to deal with when it comes to the care of folk who could realistically make it into their mid-eighties.

That's before you even get to the current state of private long-term care insurance.

There were some legal decisions in the 90s to protect the autonomy of the elderly and put them in the least restrictive environment rather than nursing homes, although this may have failed to take into account increased life expectancies, which mean that people who can't take care of themselves are living longer at greater cost.

[Mister Mets]

Cherokee Nation names first ever delegate to Congress

This leads to an interesting question since the treaty the Cherokee made with the Federal government predated voting rights for Native Americans. The main argument right now is that they’re already represented in congress, just like every other person from the United States. The delegates tend to be for areas like Puerto Rico, or Guam, who don't have representation in Congress.

I don't think there's anyone who is a delegate to Congress as part of a geographic constituency that is otherwise represented. This might set a weird precedent if various groups insist on delegates.

[Tami]

Will the Trump administration actually succeed in negotiating a treaty with the Taliban and withdrawing troops from Afghanistan? Stay tuned.

[BeastieRunner]

This leads to an interesting question since the treaty the Cherokee made with the Federal government predated voting rights for Native Americans. The main argument right now is that they’re already represented in congress, just like every other person from the United States. The delegates tend to be for areas like Puerto Rico, or Guam, who don't have representation in Congress.

I don't think there's anyone who is a delegate to Congress as part of a geographic constituency that is otherwise represented. This might set a weird precedent if various groups insist on delegates.

Every tribe should have representation in Congress. Period.

[Mister Mets]

Every tribe should have representation in Congress. Period.

Should this be in addition to the representation they already have in Congress as citizens of the United States?

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Show of hands if you’re shocked or surprised at this revelation:

Conversion therapy crusader has something to say: He's gay

[BeastieRunner]

Should this be in addition to the representation they already have in Congress as citizens of the United States?

No, Tribes should get their own, separate.

And I realize I'm in the minority in this viewpoint, even among other Tribes.

I would love to see a US Congress similar to New Zealand in terms of inclusion of indigenous US people.

[Malvolio]

Show of hands if you’re shocked or surprised at this revelation:

Conversion therapy crusader has something to say: He's gay

Not shocked or surprised. Maybe this will inspire someone like, say, Lindsay Graham to come to terms with his reality.

[numberthirty]

Was there something to the bite-sized drama production around this that I just missed?

- https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/03/u...-virginia.html

Manchin Won’t Run for West Virginia Governor; Will Stay in Senate