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

[InformationGeek]

Madison Cawthorn is being insane again.

Madison Cawthorn says today that Biden’s plan to send people door to door to offer vaccines is really a plot to confiscate people’s bibles and guns. https://t.co/h6CPdJwv9t

[Tami]

Biden fires head of Social Security Administration, a Trump holdover who drew the ire of Democrats

President Biden on Friday fired Social Security Commissioner Andrew Saul, a holdover from the Trump administration who had alienated crucial Democratic constituencies with policies designed to clamp down benefits and an uncompromising anti-union stance.

Saul was fired after refusing a request to resign, White House officials said. His deputy, David Black, who was also appointed by former president Donald Trump, resigned Friday upon request.

Biden named Kilolo Kijakazi, the current deputy commissioner for retirement and disability policy, to serve as acting commissioner until a permanent nominee is selected.

But Saul said in an interview Friday afternoon that he would not leave his post, challenging the legality of the White House move to oust him. As the head of an independent agency whose leadership does not normally change with a new administration, Saul’s six-year term was supposed to last until January 2025. The White House said a recent Supreme Court ruling gives the president power to replace him.

Saul’s firing came after a tumultuous six-month tenure in the Biden administration during which advocates for the elderly and the disabled, and Democrats on Capitol Hill pressured the White House to dismiss him. He had clashed with labor unions that represent his 60,000 employees, who said he used union-busting tactics. Angry advocates say he dawdled while millions of disabled Americans waited for him to turn over files to the Internal Revenue Service to release their stimulus checks — and accused him of an overzealous campaign to make disabled people reestablish their eligibility for benefits.

The Social Security Administration, which began in 1935, was later folded into Health and Human Services but regained it status as an independent agency in the mid-1990s to insulate it from politics, with a commissioner’s six-year term designed to straddle White House administrations. Under the Social Security Act, an incoming president can fire the commissioner only for cause.

However, the Supreme Court issued two rulings recently that strengthened executive power when it comes to independent agencies led by a single appointee.

Last year, the court ruled that a law protecting the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau from presidential supervision violated the separation of powers, leading Biden to remove Trump’s appointee his first day in office. The court issued a similar decision in late June, ruling that the president has the authority to remove the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Biden replaced the Trump-appointed agency head on that same day.

[worstblogever]

Madison Cawthorn is being insane again.

Madison Cawthorn should go retreat to the Eagle's Nest to live out his white nationalist fantasies and leave the rest of us alone.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2016, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” posted a profile of Robert Hurt, who served three terms in office after riding the 2010 Tea Party Wave to Congress to represent Virginia’s 5th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives. Hurt fit the mold of a lot of Republicans, believing that life begins at conception (he voted consistently for anti-choice legislation, including both GOP efforts to defund Planned Parenthood), while still being "pro-life" enough to want to put criminals to death. He was counter-productive enough to our country functioning to see him vote against raising the debt ceiling, and to vote not just for the 2013 Government Shutdown, but when the time came to reopen the government, he voted to keep it closed. On immigration, he was far enough to the right to back Arizona's SB1070 law that allowed for racial profiling of "suspected illegal immigrants", and wanted marriage defined as being between one man and one woman. Perhaps his most disturbing policy stance, though, was on climate change, where Hurt expressed his belief that there was a "Climategate", and that climatologists are purposely selling the populace a false bill of goods on their studies. Of course, lying about the other side of a debate's true intent in the worst ways truly became Robert Hurt's calling card after President Obama spoke following the mass shooting in San Bernadino, California, calling for Americans to treat Muslims with respect, because two members of their faith should not be representative of our opinions of an entire religion (similar to remarks President Bush made in the wake of 9/11). Rep. Hurt, however, got on conservative talk radio to gripe about it, misrepresenting those remarks to claim that President Obama "is more concerned with the premise that America is 'racist' than fighting terrorism". He retired after three terms in office.

On this date in 2017, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled Vicki Dooling, a one-term Nevada Assemblywoman who found her way into office in the 2014 elections that were very kind to the GOP, winning an upset in a district that normally leans Democratic, near Las Vegas, making a campaign promise to “help repeal the ACA”, which showed a fundamental lack of understanding of basic civics in our country because state legislators can’t overturn a federal law. Where Vicki Dooling stood out in particular to us was her sudden interest in the issue of public bathroom usage by transgendered citizens, which led her in March of 2015 to sponsor AB 375, an attempt on limiting citizens to using the bathrooms of the “biological condition of being male or female as determined at birth based on physical differences or, if necessary, at the chromosomal level.” Dooling didn’t campaign on that, heck, she didn’t even WRITE that bill, she submitted it on behalf of an out-of-state lobbyist, one Karen England of California, who has her own long, long history of dedicated attempts at curtailing LGBTQ rights. Now, this might come as shocking, but the city of Las Vegas itself isn’t exactly the place to start picking a fight with LGBTQ citizens, and Dooling might have realized she bet on a losing horse, since she wouldn’t be interviewed by most media outlets about AB 375 after she dropped it on the floor of the Nevada Assembly like the putrid turd of a bill that it was. She did, however, try to rally her cause in a space friendlier to her, with reporters from the Christian Examiner, saying, "Parents are coming to me, very concerned about the safety of all students, safety from the bullying that goes on no matter how we try to stop it, safety from all issues. Every kid needs that safety. We want all kids to have the same rights." Look, the fact that Dooling not only submitted this bill, but then tried defending it because parents are concerned about “bullying”… who do you THINK is typically bullied, Vicki, if not the transgendered kids? For f***’s sake… The bill failed to advance in the Nevada Assembly on April 21st, 2015, even after Karen England herself showed up from out of state to argue in favor of it on Dooling’s behalf. Well, that and Dooling’s attempt to read into the record a letter from an “unnamed physician” who may or may not have been a doctor, and may or may not have had the same handwriting as Vicki Dooling. We’ll see if she changes her mind and makes another run for office at some point in the future, but for now, Nevada seems like they’ll be better off without her representing District 41.



It was on this date in 2015, 2018, 2019, as well as in 2020, that “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled former Massachusetts Governor, 2012 presidential candidate, and now, the junior U.S. Senator from Utah, Mitt Romney. Romney’s endless wave of “clueless rich guy” gaffes in the 2012 campaign just kept coming at a rapid fire pace only equaled perhaps by his staggering ability to act like fact-checkers weren’t paying attention, and take being mendacious while running for national office to a whole new level (at least, until he got upped by the 2016 GOP standard bearer). Whether it was his comments about “the 47 percent”, that “Corporations are people, my friend”, the revelation that he and his wife took a $77,000 tax-write off on a prancing show horse named “Rafalca”, talking about going on a road trip with his dog strapped to the roof of a car in a carrier, admitting he was “not concerned about the very poor”, that Michigan’s “trees being just the right height”, feuding with British politicians about their preparations for the London Olympics, or arguing with the CEO of Jeep-Chrysler about whether or not he was closing one of his company’s own Ohio factories… Mitt was especially full of it. Trying to lie about President Obama’s remarks following the attacks in Benghazi as “an act of terror” in a debate, of course, led to the legendary, “Please proceed…” moment, to let Mitt lose the last gasp of momentum he was trying to snag going into the election. And of course, there was the legendary election night where Mitt and his family stood dumbfounded as the election results came in and they lost, because they actually had staffers “unskewing” the polls, internally, and was forced to throw together a concession speech, because he hadn’t prepared one.

Mitt Romney supposedly had retired from politics but tipped his hand that he was coming back into the fray upon the announcement that Sen. Orrin Hatch was finally going to retire when his “location” on Twitter changed back to Utah (classic carpetbagging move) in January of 2018, one of the several places around the country where Romney has a home. Six weeks later, Romney made it official and announced he was in the race. Now, we’ll note that publicly, Mitt Romney has been a vocal critic of Donald Trump as a member of the GOP, going all the way back to March of 2016. He wasn't shy about saying he’s going to serve as a check on Trump’s power, and fill a much needed void in the leadership of the Republican Party standing up to Trump (he has put up less of a defense than a sedated toddler could against Michael Jordan in his prime).

[WestPhillyPunisher]

CPAC attendee sent me this pic of a card they were handed about a “7-pt. plan to restore Donald J. Trump in days, not years,” which involves installing Trump as speaker and ousting Biden & Harris.



Whomever wrote this must have been high on something illegal.

No kidding! If I had the concession on whatever drugs Qpublicans are taking, I'd be richer than Jeff Bezos.

The whole damn thing is dopey on steroids. I mean, for starters, no way in hell Trump could handle being subservient to Joe Biden for more than an hour, never mind however many days it would take for him to be "reinstated" as president under this fantasy.

[worstblogever]

Uh huh. Mitt already tried pretending during the primary for Senate that he was more of a hawk than Donald Trump on immigration. Unless Mitt believes in not just locking asylum-seeking kids in cages, but poking them with sharp sticks through the bars, that seems like another Mitt campaign lie. And for “standing up” to Trump, Romney’s already predicted a Trump win in 2020.

We’ve already covered, at length, Mitt Romney’s willingness to tell lies. He’s going to verbally say things like that, and when the time comes to vote for Supreme Court justices who might overturn Roe v. Wade, or votes to try and make tax breaks for the richest Americans permanent, he’s still going to vote for them, no questions asked. If you think the guy who made Romneycare in Massachusetts a thing will help save the Affordable Care Act nationally, don’t be so sure, after Mitt spent the 2012 campaign pretending it didn’t exist. And, every time Romney comes in and tries to lecture Donald Trump on his immorality, YET he comes off more like Ned Flanders trying to give the business to Homer Simpson. Rather than win over Republican voters and make them wake up to Trump’s cruelty, he somehow makes them only love the bastard even more. Can Mitt stand up to a bully that he publicly got humiliated by for applying for being a member of his cabinet only to be shunned? We saw the awkward dinner photos, Mitt, you don’t exactly look like you’re making Trump squirm there, quite the opposite. At best, we expected him to talk about how disappointed he is when Trump uses foul language like “s***hole countries” and that’s something Mitt can’t take as a Mormon, no sir.

And lo, so it was that our predictions have come true. Days before being sworn in as a U.S. Senator, Mitt Romney got headlines for writing a supposedly “blistering” op-ed where he talked about how Donald Trump’s “character falls short”. OOOOH, sick burn. But we here at CSGOPOTD pay attention to voting records, and lo and behold Romney has approved every Trump appointment, from every unqualified judge, to even picking toady William Barr to be the Attorney General. We’re very concerned, however, how Romney called Democrats’ attempts at getting Trump’s tax returns to show the criminal behavior described by his lawyer Michael Cohen as “moronic”, but then again, we already knew how touchy Mitt was about the precedent his father set for releasing your full tax returns to confirm no criminal behavior.

And he is still the oddest, creepiest rich guy. Like the bizarre spectacle of seeing him celebrate his birthday by blowing out the whitest-representative foods… Twinkies… one candle at a time. Or how about how he timed giving his wife Anne a mother’s day gift themed for Game of Thrones that compared her to Danaerys Targaryen… on the day the character committed genocide on the show.

Mitt Romney will not be up for re-election until 2024. He was the only Republican Senator to vote for the first impeachment of Donald Trump, and still one of a handful who voted to impeach him after the Capitol Attack. Which makes sense when you realize Sen. Romney would have walked straight into the bloodthirsty mob were in not for a last minute warning from Officer Wesley Goodman. This seems to indicate that he might be trying to position himself to become “the voice of reason” to lead the GOP out of its current disgusting incarnation as the party of Trump, based on the presumption that there’s anything worth redeeming left. He barely avoiding being censured back home for that, and there’s a question of if he’ll survive a primary challenger in 2024 as a result. His political survival seems to depend on whether or not his fellow Republicans finally wake up to the fact that Donald Trump was always a con man, and they should have never supported him in the first place.

Good luck with that, Mittens.

[CSTowle]

I'd imagine Mitt is slightly more hawkish on immigration, in that he might care about it a little bit. Not enough not to hire them to do work for him ("I'm running for office for Pete's sake"), but that he might be a run-of-the-mill Republican and have some actual conservative principles I'd say by default that makes him more hawkish. Trump doesn't care about immigration, legal or illegal, he only cares (as with everything else) whether it impacts him and his immediate family. Where cheap labor can be had for construction of his buildings, maintenance and housekeeping on hotels, or with kitchen staff I'm sure he's fine with illegal immigration because it's cheaper. But if he knows morons will cheer loudly for him if he says, "Build the wall" or lets that rat-faced friend of his enact his plan to put brown kids in cages he'll do that too. Again, not because he cares but because there's gain for him there. If he thought he'd gain more from opening the borders and eliminating requirements to come here he'd do that in a second.

On Mitt and the Presidency, he has zero shot. He has a few things going against him. One, he's not just a multi-time loser but a very high profile loser. You can run and lose multiple times as a candidate but to be the nominee and lose is probably too much to overcome. Two, he's seen as a traitor for going against the Party narrative. Occasionally that gets praise (usually from the people who don't matter in Republican politics, the left and the media) but it's a death sentence when you're looking to be the Party's champion. Three, Republican voters don't want a "voice of reason". They want red meat. Trump understood that, and ignored common courtesies, precedent, manners, and all of the other things that don't matter to everyday voters and gave them exactly what they were looking for. The next Republican President (probably as soon as '24, given Biden's decline and Harris' lack of charisma) will take a page out of that book. The bar has been lowered, and I don't see a reason it will be raised any time soon.

[Mister Mets]

Fixed that for you, homeslice. No need to thank me.

Do you think only racists would be bothered by that page?

Maybe Mets should learn more about the book. I am sure whatever right-wing site he got that from did not tell thermal story.

I didn't go on any right-wing site. That specific page is on the book's Amazon listing.

You bringing up two pages doesn't address anyone's concerns about another part of the book.

If someone's complaining about Mickey Rooney's yellowface performance in Breakfast at Tiffany's, pointing to the film's other scenes doesn't resolve that.

There can be an argument that a work's flaws are worth it because the rest of it is so good, although I haven't seen that one made for Antiracist Baby.

Look, I'm a Librarian. There are millions of books out there. Once a book is published, it's out there and there is no turning back. Banning books is a bad idea. A decision as to what a child should or should not read should be up to the parents. Parents can form their own children's book clubs to preview children's books and discuss if the book should be read by their children, but they can't tell other parents what their children should or should not read.

I'm not prejudging the book based on one page, and I won't say if I would give it to my child if I had any children, which I don't.

I will say that for every book published taking this position, you will find other books taking a different position, most of which were written before either of our Parents were born.

You will find a lot more children's books about diversity, racism, and similar topics now because they were never addressed in the past. Racism was a common trope in many children's books in the past. How do you think the parents of young black children felt about the only children's books available were the ones that portrayed Blacks as slaves, as inferior, or in some other way negatively?

So are you saying that we should stop there, refuse to teach children about the dangers of racism simply because it hurts white people's fragile feelings?

The specific point I was responding to was whether someone could be taken seriously if they object to the book. One poster had a summary, but it seemed inaccurate, since it left out the examples of what may bother people.

I have not called for the book to be banned, nor do I have anything against different material that shows African-American children in a more positive light than children's books of previous generations.

I have also not said that we should refuse to teach children about the dangers of racism. What I've said so far is that parents and childless journalists can reasonably think this effort was done poorly in one book.

* Edit- I haven't really given my own view on that excerpt, so it seems like a bad idea to encourage toddlers to confess racist ideas.

[worstblogever]

Do you think only racists would be bothered by that page?

I didn't go on any right-wing site. That specific page is on the book's Amazon listing.

You bringing up two pages doesn't address anyone's concerns about another part of the book.

If someone's complaining about Mickey Rooney's yellowface performance in Breakfast at Tiffany's, pointing to the film's other scenes doesn't resolve that.

There can be an argument that a work's flaws are worth it because the rest of it is so good, although I haven't seen that one made for Antiracist Baby.

The specific point I was responding to was whether someone could be taken seriously if they object to the book. One poster had a summary, but it seemed inaccurate, since it left out the examples of what may bother people.

I have not called for the book to be banned, nor do I have anything against different material that shows African-American children in a more positive light than children's books of previous generations.

I have also not said that we should refuse to teach children about the dangers of racism. What I've said so far is that parents and childless journalists can reasonably think this effort was done poorly in one book.

* Edit- I haven't really given my own view on that excerpt, so it seems like a bad idea to encourage toddlers to confess racist ideas.

"i'M nOt RaCiSt BuT i'Ve SeEn TwO pAgEs Of ThIs BoOk BuT hAvEn'T rEaD iT bUt It ClEaRlY iS a BrIdGe ToO FaR tO aSk ChIlDrEn To Be GoOd AnD nOt RaCiSt."

Simply put: Racism is not a natural behavior. It is taught. Usually sadly, at an early age.

Why anyone would push back against teaching children at a young age how to address racism if and when they see it while wondering why everyone would consider their objections racist... I'd hope they were being facetious. Because if they aren't, when those facts are presented, they're simply defending racism being allowed to be taught instead.

Keep in mind on this topic, we're talking about the arguments coming from the same conservatives who threw a tantrum that the Seuss estate wasn't going to keep publishing his books that had racist imagery to teach to the youth.

Do you see what's being argued here?

"It's wrong to teach a toddler to not be racist."
"Keep publishing the racist stuff that's put in the kids section, though."

If you can't grasp what's wrong there... again, you're being facetious, or willfully promoting a form of white supremacy, that hateful speech and imagery are to be accepted, but addressing and educating to prevent it in a healthy way.

I cannot believe some of the hills folks are willing to die on and act like it's not appalling.

[numberthirty]

No kidding! If I had the concession on whatever drugs Qpublicans are taking, I'd be richer than Jeff Bezos.

The whole damn thing is dopey on steroids. I mean, for starters, no way in hell Trump could handle being subservient to Joe Biden for more than an hour, never mind however many days it would take for him to be "reinstated" as president under this fantasy.

Man, forget about that part.

I want a detailed breakdown of how he gets to be Speaker Of The House in days.

[worstblogever]

I'll add that the concept of teaching young children how not to be racist was also once done by a man by the name of Fred Rogers, who did this to help show children how normal it was to be around people of another color, and that segregated policies at public pools were wrong:



We're talking about a man who dedicated his life to trying to make America's youth more morally sound and to grow up understanding their feelings. And yes, some people were greatly shocked by this segment on a children's program. SPOILER ALERT: THEY WERE RACISTS.

Was Fred wrong, there? I sure as hell don't think so. The same way the author of our "antiracist baby" book isn't.

[Mister Mets]

"i'M nOt RaCiSt BuT i'Ve SeEn TwO pAgEs Of ThIs BoOk BuT hAvEn'T rEaD iT bUt It ClEaRlY iS a BrIdGe ToO FaR tO aSk ChIlDrEn To Be GoOd AnD nOt RaCiSt."

Simply put: Racism is not a natural behavior. It is taught. Usually sadly, at an early age.

Why anyone would push back against teaching children at a young age how to address racism if and when they see it while wondering why everyone would consider their objections racist... I'd hope they were being facetious. Because if they aren't, when those facts are presented, they're simply defending racism being allowed to be taught instead.

Keep in mind on this topic, we're talking about the arguments coming from the same conservatives who threw a tantrum that the Seuss estate wasn't going to keep publishing his books that had racist imagery to teach to the youth.

Do you see what's being argued here?

"It's wrong to teach a toddler to not be racist."
"Keep publishing the racist stuff that's put in the kids section, though."

If you can't grasp what's wrong there... again, you're being facetious, or willfully promoting a form of white supremacy, that hateful speech and imagery are to be accepted, but addressing and educating to prevent it in a healthy way.

I cannot believe some of the hills folks are willing to die on and act like it's not appalling.

You're making personal attacks based on a misreading of my posts.

You have certainly misread the post where I wrote "I have also not said that we should refuse to teach children about the dangers of racism." if you think I'm suggesting we shouldn't teach children the dangers of racism.

One book does it poorly.

It is important for political discussions to recognize that we can be critical of something that is well-intentioned.

[Mister Mets]

CPAC attendee sent me this pic of a card they were handed about a “7-pt. plan to restore Donald J. Trump in days, not years,” which involves installing Trump as speaker and ousting Biden & Harris.



Whomever wrote this must have been high on something illegal.

The link is even more insane.

The main claim made in the card is that there is suppressed evidence that Biden won through election racketeering. That seems an awfully big thing to keep quiet.

When they talk about pulling the curtain back, the expectation is that the black caucus and other key groups will flip because of evidence that Martin Luther King Jr was murdered in a satanic sacrifice, as was Mary Jo Kopechne.



I'm hoping this person gets the psychiatric help he needs.

[Tami]

Do you think only racists would be bothered by that page?

I didn't go on any right-wing site. That specific page is on the book's Amazon listing.

You bringing up two pages doesn't address anyone's concerns about another part of the book.

If someone's complaining about Mickey Rooney's yellowface performance in Breakfast at Tiffany's, pointing to the film's other scenes doesn't resolve that.

There can be an argument that a work's flaws are worth it because the rest of it is so good, although I haven't seen that one made for Antiracist Baby.

The specific point I was responding to was whether someone could be taken seriously if they object to the book. One poster had a summary, but it seemed inaccurate, since it left out the examples of what may bother people.

I have not called for the book to be banned, nor do I have anything against different material that shows African-American children in a more positive light than children's books of previous generations.

I have also not said that we should refuse to teach children about the dangers of racism. What I've said so far is that parents and childless journalists can reasonably think this effort was done poorly in one book.

* Edit- I haven't really given my own view on that excerpt, so it seems like a bad idea to encourage toddlers to confess racist ideas.

Let me rephrase, a book is a tool, but not every book is the same tool. Choosing which book you want to read, or that you want your family members (children) to read all depends on what you are trying to learn, what you are trying to teach, what purpose you need that book for.

If you which to review that particular book, give your own opinion on it, that is perfectly fine. Hundreds of people do Book reviews for publications and online Videos, others just add their opinion to websites like GoodReads. I am all in favor of a reader getting to see the views of other readers regarding a book they are interested in.

But one person alone, you or anyone else, should not be the arbiter alone of what everyone else reads, what everyone else's children read.

Smart parents will consider the reviews and the previews before deciding if they should buy a book for their children. That's called research, a habit I'd recommend everyone develop.

If you are looking to buy a new saw for a DIY project, you don't just buy the first saw you see off the shelf of the local hardware store. You consider the different types of saws, what purpose you need a saw for (cutting trees, cutting plywood, cutting plasterboard, or whatever), you consider the prices of the different saws, and if you are smart you go online and check the reviews.

If you want to see a movie with your children, you don't often go into a random theater at a random time and see the first movie being shown. Usually you go online and find out what movies are playing, what the ratings are for each movies, what the reviews are for each movie, maybe watch the preview trailer, then decide which movie you think would be best to see before going.

Bottom line, Mets, you may have an opinion regarding what is good and what isn't, I may have a different opinion, but in either case it's not for either of us to control what others do in in a free society. Influence, maybe, outright control, no.

As for books used in classes, textbooks and other books like that, Educators have their own ways of evaluating books, including if they are relevant and age appropriate.

[worstblogever]

You're making personal attacks based on a misreading of my posts.

And you're starting to question my reading comprehension, which isn't exactly kosher around here.

If you consider it "personal" to have someone challenge you when you're questioning materials made with the intent of teaching children at an early age not to be racist and are parroting Tucker Carlson's talking points while simultaneously pretending that's not what you're doing...

You can feel that way. It's not personal. It's necessary, and the right thing to do, plainly. I'd do it to anyone who's "just asking questions" in this nature. I'm doing my part to assure this is a welcoming forum where tolerance is celebrated and intolerance is rejected.