[News] Post a Political News Story

Ongoing discussion of the political news of the day. This thread is for 'smaller' stories that don't call for their own thread. If a story blows up, please start a new thread for it.

H.P. Lovesauce wrote:
Stele wrote:
NathanialG wrote:

Trump tried to have a mob kill Pence and he's barely said anything negative about Trump.

I still don't get it. It's plain as day that after Jan 6, Pence will never hold office again. Trump turned the GOP against him. Why does he keep falling in line?

Ever watch The Sopranos?

Exactly. The Republican Party is not a traditional political party, but rather an organized criminal conspiracy.

This is the least shocking revelation I can imagine.

Disney World to host a conference on LGBTA+ rights in the workplace conference in September.

The Walt Disney Company will host a major conference promoting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights in the workplace in Central Florida this September, gathering executives and professionals from the world’s largest companies in a defiant display of the limits of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ campaign against diversity training. Disney’s decision to host the conference this fall comes amid a yearlong dispute between the company and the Republican governor, who signed a law that ended decades of autonomy at the Disney resort. It was seen as punishment over the company’s opposition to Florida’s Parental Rights in Education legislation, known widely as the state’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which prohibits any discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity in classrooms before fourth grade.

Disney has had a longstanding relationship with Out & Equal, the organization behind the event, and is listed on its website as one of its most generous sponsors.

The Florida resort has committed to hosting the conference this year and next, which will coincide with the presidential election campaign in 2024. DeSantis is widely expected to challenge former President Donald Trump for the Republican nomination.

Michael Chamberlain, chief marketing officer for Out & Equal, confirmed to McClatchy that the conference would be held at The Walt Disney World Resort, Sept. 11-14. Last year’s summit was held in Las Vegas. Dozens of iconic American companies — including Apple, McDonald’s, Uber, Walmart, Hilton, Amazon, Boeing, Cracker Barrel and John Deere — are sponsoring the Out & Equal Workplace summit, which over 5,000 people are expected to attend. Several agencies, including the State Department and the CIA, are listed as government partners and will have booths at the conference.

Why hasn’t U.S. poverty improved in 50 years? Pulitzer-prize winning author Matthew Desmond has an answer

In his new book, “Poverty, by America,” Matthew Desmond says that poverty persists in the U.S. because many Americans and large companies profit from it.
Over the last 50 years, Americans have eradicated smallpox, reduced infant mortality rates and deaths from heart disease by around 70%, added a decade to the average American’s life and invented the internet.

When it comes to the national poverty rate, however, we’ve made almost no progress. In 1970, a little more than 12% of the U.S. population was considered poor. By 2019, around 11% was.

In his new book, “Poverty, by America,” sociologist Matthew Desmond proposes a reason for that stagnation: We benefit from it.

Should be we benefit from it at every level/class...

Iowa has sh*t the bed.

What I really hate is the blatant hypocrisy.

Reynolds (Iowa governor) on gender affirming care - "Reynolds said Tuesday. "My heart goes out to them. I’m a parent, I’m a grandmother, I know how difficult this is. This is an extremely uncomfortable position for me to be in. I don’t like it. But I have to do what I believe right now is in the best interest of the kids."

Reynolds on school choice - Reynolds said. “But every child is an individual who deserves an education tailored to their unique needs, and parents are in the best position to identify the right environment.”

So parents are not capable of making medical decisions for their children but are about school?

The flip flopping from parents are the only ones who can decide what is right for their kids to parents can't be trusted to make the right decisions of their kids just drives me insane!

farley3k wrote:

The flip flopping from parents are the only ones who can decide what is right for their kids to parents can't be trusted to make the right decisions of their kids just drives me insane!

Parents are the only ones who can decide what is right for their kids - unless it's possible for them to choose something that we don't like, in which case we need to take that choice away from them just in case.

See also: Abortion.

Edit to add: I also think it's funny that all the "bathroom transphobia" is focused on trans women - "We can't let men into the women's bathroom!" - even through trans women think, act, and dress like cis women and not cis men, and meanwhile everyone completely ignores the fact that these laws force trans men, who do think and act and dress more like cis men, to use women's facilities. If you're so worried about people using the "wrong" bathroom, these laws are only creating the problem, not solving it!

farley3k wrote:

What I really hate is the blatant hypocrisy.

Reynolds (Iowa governor) on gender affirming care - "Reynolds said Tuesday. "My heart goes out to them. I’m a parent, I’m a grandmother, I know how difficult this is. This is an extremely uncomfortable position for me to be in. I don’t like it. But I have to do what I believe right now is in the best interest of the kids."

Reynolds on school choice - Reynolds said. “But every child is an individual who deserves an education tailored to their unique needs, and parents are in the best position to identify the right environment.”

So parents are not capable of making medical decisions for their children but are about school?

The flip flopping from parents are the only ones who can decide what is right for their kids to parents can't be trusted to make the right decisions of their kids just drives me insane!

Get angry at the people, not the hypocrisy. Hypocrisy does not matter, never did, never will.

Yeah, the hypocrisy is part of the point. It's the power in being able to piss on your leg, and look you dead in the eye and tell you it's raining and there's nothing you can do about it.

Afroman sued by law enforcement officers who raided his home

Afroman is the rapper behind the one-hit-wonder "Because I Got High."

Seven members of the Adams County Sheriff’s Office who raided Joseph Foreman’s home last year are now suing him claiming, among other things, he invaded their privacy.

Four deputies, two sergeants and a detective are claiming Foreman (a.k.a. “Afroman”) took footage of their faces obtained during the raid and used it in music videos and social media posts without their consent, a misdemeanor violation under Ohio Revised Code.

They’re also suing on civil grounds, saying Foreman’s use of their faces (i.e. personas) in the videos and social media posts resulted in their “emotional distress, embarrassment, ridicule, loss of reputation and humiliation.”

The plaintiffs say they’re entitled to all of Foreman’s profits from his use of their personas. That includes, according to the complaint, proceeds from the songs, music videos and live event tickets as well as the promotion of Foreman’s “Afroman” brand, under which he sells beer, marijuana, t-shirts and other merchandise.

They’re also asking for an injunction to take down all videos and posts containing their personas.

Cincinnati attorney Robert Klingler filed the suit in Adams County Common Pleas Court on March 13 against Foreman, his recording firm and a Texas-based media distribution company. Not every law enforcement officer involved in the raid is named as a plaintiff.

Foreman on Wednesday posted to Instagram promising to countersue “for the undeniable damage this had on my clients, family, career and property.”

The sheriff’s office conducted the armed raid of Foreman’s Adams County home last August.

Sheriff’s deputies acted on a warrant claiming probable cause existed that drugs and drug paraphernalia would be found on Foreman’s property and that trafficking and kidnapping had taken place there.

“They come up here with AR-15, traumatize my kids, destroyed my property, kick in my door, rip up and destroy my camera system,” he said in August.

The suspicions turned out to be unfounded. The Adams County Prosecutor’s Office said the raid failed to turn up probative criminal evidence, according to attorney Anna Castellini. No charges were ever filed.

In a bizarre turn of events unrelated to the civil suit, the sheriff’s office appeared to come up hundreds of dollars short returning cash seized from Foreman’s property. An independent investigation by Ohio BCI resolved the matter last month, concluding deputies had miscounted the money during the raid itself.

They're filing suit because Afroman made a song about the raid, using security camera footage that paints them... poorly.

Prederick wrote:

Sheriff’s deputies acted on a warrant claiming probable cause existed that drugs and drug paraphernalia would be found on Foreman’s property and that trafficking and kidnapping had taken place there.

I would love all these "probable cause" warrants to get put on blast so we can see how flimsy they are. And no-knock warrants need to die in a fire.

Ah, Adams County. 98% white, poor as f*ck, with a record 81% of the county voting for the orange man in 2020.

I'd be very interested to hear exactly how the cops suffered “emotional distress, embarrassment, ridicule, loss of reputation and humiliation" that doesn't boil down to "the mean Black man made us look like the incompetent racists we are."

farley3k wrote:

The flip flopping from parents are the only ones who can decide what is right for their kids to parents can't be trusted to make the right decisions of their kids just drives me insane!

A non-zero number of young people will suffer because of this law. And not because they lack the support of their families. Not because no one will love and comfort them. Not because their families aren't there for them. But because the Iowa GOP has decided that they should suffer and live in misery until staying alive like that feels worse than the alternatives. And they know they are doing this and feel proud.
I'm going to self-censor the rest because the red mist is rising and I need to cuddle my puppy.

Edit: Fuuuuck. Suddenly the requirement of submitting a copy of the Birth Certificate to register my kid for School feels a lot more ominous. I wonder what the penalty is for purposely fouling that part of the document... "Sorry, my copier has the new "protecting our kids" firmware and blanks out all references to sexual material."

OG_slinger wrote:

Ah, Adams County. 98% white, poor as f*ck, with a record 81% of the county voting for the orange man in 2020.

I'd be very interested to hear exactly how the cops suffered “emotional distress, embarrassment, ridicule, loss of reputation and humiliation" that doesn't boil down to "the mean Black man made us look like the incompetent racists we are."

I can totally see them receiving real, tangible reputational damage from being humiliated by a black man. That's just not the sort of thing you live down as a white cop in or out of Adams County.

Prederick wrote:

Afroman sued by law enforcement officers who raided his home

*pulls out world's smallest carbon-fiber tactical violin*

I found him! I found him!

IMAGE(https://live.staticflickr.com/3070/2449407864_6bebd5e5ff_b.jpg)

As for the rest of it. I assume none of the cops have been fired, probably promoted. Just disgusting.

Civil rights lecture at Florida college canceled due to student's 'discomfort'

WESH wrote:

On March 9, at the Cocoa campus of Eastern Florida State College, the students in a U.S. Government class ended up having a free period. That’s because one of the students said that they were uncomfortable in the day’s lesson on civil rights.

A dual student at the college and Cocoa High School, 15-year-old Jacob Dailey was in the class. He walked in that day just as the professor was telling students that he’d have to cancel class.

“The topic was civil rights, no specific bit of it, just in general. As far as I’m aware,” Dailey said. “So the teacher basically had to cancel this class of about 20 students in total because of the student’s discomfort.”

He told WESH 2 that he was disappointed that he had to miss the class for a topic that was on the class schedule and required for his degree.

So Florida's Stop Woke Act has now made it possible for a single f*cking snowflake to get classes about civil rights canceled because they feel 'uncomfortable' learning basic American history.

Making it all the worse is the fact that Eastern Florida State College only exists because of civil rights. Back in days of "separate, but equal" education Florida founded two colleges were founded in Brevard County, FL: Brevard Junior College for White students and Carver Junior College for the county's Black residents. Those two institutions were combined in 1963. But, apparently even just learning that is too much for some students.

This is the second weird ass Florida news item this week. The other being a principal at one of the state's new private Christian fundy schools dressed up as "classical academies" that teach how great Western culture (and only Western culture) is was forced to resign because a single parent complained that their kid saw a picture of Michelangelo's statue of David and the dude's tiny marble dinger blew their precious kid's mind.

Simpsons' did it!

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/7ofR75u.jpg)

Episode air date: December 20, 1990.

Not that bold of a prediction, really. More surprising is how long it took.

I. Love. This.

Thanks, Obama! The hilarious reason why a judge just blocked Wyoming’s abortion ban.

The reason?

In many states, opponents of Obamacare effectively took the GOP’s talking points and turned them into state constitutional amendments protecting patients’ ability to obtain health care that the government might not want them to have. Wyoming’s amendment, for example, provides that “each competent adult shall have the right to make his or her own health care decisions.”
Judge Owens handed down a decision in August halting the [Wyoming abortion] law. Among other things, she rejected the state’s argument that the health care amendment was “only adopted to push back against the Affordable Care Act,” and should not be construed to protect abortion rights.

Regardless of the political circumstances that led to this amendment being written into the state constitution, Owens reasoned that the amendment “unambiguously provides competent Wyoming citizens with the right to make their own health care decisions,” and she was bound by that unambiguous text. “A court,” she wrote, “is not at liberty to assume that the Wyoming voters who adopted” the amendment “did not understand the force of language in the provision.”

Just as significantly, Owens construed the amendment to give people in Wyoming a “fundamental right” to make their own health care decisions, including the decision to seek an abortion. This designation matters because fundamental rights can only be abridged when the state seeks to advance a “compelling state interest” and when it uses the “least intrusive” means to do so.

Can't accurately teach American history in Florida because White parents are afraid their children are going to learn that their grandparents are racist pieces of sh*t along with a heaping side of "it's incredibly damaging for my White kid to just hear about how Black children were treated a few decades ago, but racism doesn't exist anymore (and if it did the real victims would be White Christians)."

Removal of ‘Ruby Bridges’ film from Pinellas school sparks outrage

Tampa Bay Times wrote:

The Disney movie “Ruby Bridges,” which tells the tale of a 6-year-old who integrated New Orleans schools in the 1960s, has been a staple of Pinellas County Black History Month lessons for years.

It never caused a stir until this year, as parents across Florida exert increased powers to question what children can see and read in schools.

A North Shore Elementary parent who would not allow her child to watch the film when it was shown in early March later complained that it wasn’t appropriate for second graders. In a formal challenge dated March 6, Emily Conklin wrote that the use of racial slurs and scenes of white people threatening Ruby as she entered a school might result in students learning that white people hate Black people.

OG_slinger wrote:
WESH wrote:

“The topic was civil rights, no specific bit of it, just in general. As far as I’m aware,” Dailey said. “So the teacher basically had to cancel this class of about 20 students in total because of the student’s discomfort.”

He told WESH 2 that he was disappointed that he had to miss the class for a topic that was on the class schedule and required for his degree.

So Florida's Stop Woke Act has now made it possible for a single f*cking snowflake to get classes about civil rights canceled because they feel 'uncomfortable' learning basic American history.

As is obvious, the opposition was never to "Cancel Culture" or "Safe Spaces," it was with who had created them.

My personal annoyance in these matters remains with the "Centrists" who never, ever speak a word about things like this, because it's far better for your career and more valuable to screech about the death of Free Speech because some college removed the name of a slaveholding founder from a building.

Chris Christie says Trump's "end will not be a calm and quiet conclusion" - CBS News

Trump will never step aside quietly, said Christie, who is mulling another run himself.

"You better have somebody on that stage who can do to him what I did to Marco, because that's the only thing that's gonna defeat Donald Trump," he said at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College. "And that means you have to be fearless, because he will come back, and right at you."