[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.

Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren quietly releases massive social media report on GOP colleagues who voted to overturn the election

Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren has quietly posted a nearly 2,000-page report documenting social media posts by her Republican colleagues who voted against certifying results of the presidential election on January 6. The information compiled isn't secret, but the report is another sign of the deep distrust that has settled into the US Capitol in the weeks since the insurrection.

The report chronicles the social media activity of members on public forums immediately before the November election and right after the January 6 riot. The report has been online for a week.

RawkGWJ wrote:

The irony is that people have so much fear, greed and jealousy about helping the impoverished folks in their community.

Government-based social support programs were broadly popular in the United States after the New Deal and World War 2. Democrats and Republicans alike supported them (the "liberal consensus"). The idea that those things shouldn't involve government and should be driven by private charity didn't really gain any traction until the late '50s and early '60s when Brown v Board of Education and legislative gains for the Civil Rights movement made that social safety net available to Black people and other POCs.

"Small government" is all about racial oppression, white supremacy, and the unwillingness to admit people of color into society as equals.

ClockworkHouse wrote:
RawkGWJ wrote:

The irony is that people have so much fear, greed and jealousy about helping the impoverished folks in their community.

Government-based social support programs were broadly popular in the United States after the New Deal and World War 2. Democrats and Republicans alike supported them (the "liberal consensus"). The idea that those things shouldn't involve government and should be driven by private charity didn't really gain any traction until the late '50s and early '60s when Brown v Board of Education and legislative gains for the Civil Rights movement made that social safety net available to Black people and other POCs.

"Small government" is all about racial oppression, white supremacy, and the unwillingness to admit people of color into society as equals.

Right?

And then you see some of the charitable direct action stuff that has been happening alongside the Portland protests, and it seems plausible that we might not need the government. Private donations might be enough to enact social programs like this.

Maybe if we got the ball rolling with private donations, we could somehow guilt our governments to join in. But then I remember about the mega-corporations and their lobbyists and how they would never allow that. hmm. dunno.

Facial recognition technology can expose political orientation from naturalistic facial images

Political orientation was correctly classified in 72% of liberal–conservative face pairs, remarkably better than chance (50%), human accuracy (55%), or one afforded by a 100-item personality questionnaire (66%)
...
Accuracy remained high (69%) even when controlling for age, gender, and ethnicity.

This is sick. Makes me not want to vote in 2022 if I’m being honest. Maybe that’s the point. Democrats don’t care about exercising their power to help people, maybe they’d like to be a minority party forever.

https://twitter.com/Roots_Action/sta...

A total of 8 democrats voted no on the $15 minimum wage amendment.

WizKid wrote:

A total of 8 democrats voted no on the $15 minimum wage amendment.

Makes me wonder, did they get constituent emails? I know here in MN a rep once said they will take up a cause if they get 4 emails on it. So can they back up their no vote? Or is this small sample size?

fangblackbone wrote:

I am pretty sure UBI is socialist not libertarian.

I was going to say. I didn't think libertarians would be OK with the government giving them money at gunpoint.

H.P. Lovesauce wrote:
fangblackbone wrote:

I am pretty sure UBI is socialist not libertarian.

I was going to say. I didn't think libertarians would be OK with the government giving them money at gunpoint.

There is a very small school of not complete asshole libertarians that rightly understand that if you pay everyone a livable base income they will each have more individual freedom to live how they want safely. Some think it should be permanent and others think it should be temporary until things like systemic racism and generational poverty are fixed and then phase it out.
They all meet once a year in a single booth of a Denny's, I think.

Prederick wrote:

The whole Dr. Seuss thing is a real testament to the power of messaging.

But that's the dominant version of events out there now, that Dr. Seuss was "cancelled."

(This is before we get to the fact that Geisel himself recognized and was embarrassed by some of the caricatures in his work as he got older.)

Today:

Truly perfect.

McCarthy knew it wasn't one of the books. That wasn't the point, and he knows the audience for his little childish antic doesn't care.

Vrikk wrote:

McCarthy knew it wasn't one of the books. That wasn't the point, and he knows the audience for his little childish antic doesn't care.

The dumbf*ck receptionist at my office who was already making "jokes" about how we were going to get shutdown because there was a copy of Green Eggs and Ham in the waiting room.

Ted Cruz did the same thing back in 2013 when filbustering Obamacare. What is it with these people?

Mixolyde wrote:

There is a very small school of not complete asshole libertarians that rightly understand that if you pay everyone a livable base income they will each have more individual freedom to live how they want safely. Some think it should be permanent and others think it should be temporary until things like systemic racism and generational poverty are fixed and then phase it out.
They all meet once a year in a single booth of a Denny's, I think.

When libertarians talk about UBI, they call it negative income tax. It was championed by Milton Friedman, who is basically the Beatrice Portinari in the pantheon of libertarian mythology.

(And there's a whole tiny subset of not-asshole libertarians called libertarian socialists who, in America, caucus with the Democratic Socialists. I....I doubt they could fill a booth at Denny's lol)

JC wrote:

What is it with these people?

A pathological need to see themselves as aggrieved victims of a world that is set against them rather than privileged assholes who are f*cking things up for the rest of us.

AKA Emo teenagers...

fangblackbone wrote:

AKA Emo teenagers...

Except, it turns out that the emo teenagers of the 90s and oughts are way more on board with social programs that benefit impoverished folks than the geriatric emo teenagers who run the country.

Actually that is it... geriatric emo teenagers. (from hell/mars/planet x/the great beyond)

Sounds like a band name ;P

fangblackbone wrote:

Actually that is it... geriatric emo teenagers. (from hell/mars/planet x/the great beyond)

Sounds like a band name ;P

Sounds like a Misfits song.

whoooaaaa ohhh ohhh ohhh
geriatric teenagers yeah

whoooaaaa ohhh ohhh ohhh
coming in from planet x

whoooaaaa ohhh ohhh ohhh
geriatric teenagers yeah

whoooaaaa ohhh ohhh ohhh
coming in from planet x

That song would fit perfectly in a Bob's Burgers episode.

I found the next thing conservatives can be enraged over.

Michelle Obama to be inducted into U.S. National Women's Hall of Fame

farley3k wrote:

I found the next thing conservatives can be enraged over.

Michelle Obama to be inducted into U.S. National Women's Hall of Fame

I would think conservatives would already be enraged about the mere existence of a Women's Hall of Fame.

Bible teacher Beth Moore, splitting with Lifeway, says, ‘I am no longer a Southern Baptist’

Religion News Service wrote:

For nearly three decades, Beth Moore has been the very model of a modern Southern Baptist.

She loves Jesus and the Bible and has dedicated her life to teaching others why they need both of them in their lives. Millions of evangelical Christian women have read her Bible studies and flocked to hear her speak at stadium-style events where Moore delves deeply into biblical passages.

Moore’s outsize influence and role in teaching the Bible have always made some evangelical power brokers uneasy, because of their belief only men should be allowed to preach.

But Moore was above reproach, supporting Southern Baptist teaching that limits the office of pastor to men alone and cheerleading for the missions and evangelistic work that the denomination holds dear.

“She has been a stalwart for the Word of God, never compromising,” former Lifeway Christian Resources President Thom Rainer said in 2015, during a celebration at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center in Nashville that honored 20 years of partnership between the Southern Baptist publishing house and Moore. “And when all is said and done, the impact of Beth Moore can only be measured in eternity’s grasp.”

Then along came Donald Trump.

Moore’s criticism of the 45th president’s abusive behavior toward women and her advocacy for sexual abuse victims turned her from a beloved icon to a pariah in the denomination she loved all her life.

“Wake up, Sleepers, to what women have dealt with all along in environments of gross entitlement & power,” Moore once wrote about Trump, riffing on a passage from the New Testament Book of Ephesians.

Because of her opposition to Trump and her outspokenness in confronting sexism and nationalism in the evangelical world, Moore has been labeled as “liberal” and “woke” and even as being a heretic for daring to give a message during a Sunday morning church service.

Finally, Moore had had enough. She told Religion News Service in an interview Friday (March 5) that she is “no longer a Southern Baptist.”

“I am still a Baptist, but I can no longer identify with Southern Baptists,” Moore said in the phone interview. “I love so many Southern Baptist people, so many Southern Baptist churches, but I don’t identify with some of the things in our heritage that haven’t remained in the past.”

...

Moore may be one of the most unlikely celebrity Bible teachers in recent memory. In the 1980s, she began sharing devotionals during the aerobics classes she taught at First Baptist Church in Houston. She then began teaching a popular women’s Bible study at the church, which eventually attracted thousands each week.

In the early 1990s, she wrote a Bible study manuscript and sent it to Lifeway, then known as the Baptist Sunday School Board, where it was rejected. However, after a Lifeway staffer saw Moore teach a class in person, the publisher changed its mind.

Moore’s first study, “A Woman’s Heart: God’s Dwelling Place,” was published in 1995 and was a hit, leading to dozens of additional studies, all backed up by hundreds of hours of research and reflecting Moore’s relentless desire to know more about the Bible.

From 2001 to 2016, Moore’s Living Proof Ministries ran six-figure surpluses, building its assets from about a million dollars in 2001 to just under $15 million by April 2016, according to reports filed with the Internal Revenue Service. Her work as a Bible teacher has permeated down to small church Bible study groups and sold-out stadiums with her Living Proof Live events.

For Moore, the Southern Baptist Convention was her family, her tribe, her heritage. Her Baptist church where she grew up in Arkadelphia, Arkansas, was a refuge from a troubled home where she experienced sexual abuse.

“My local church, growing up, saved my life,” she told RNS. “So many times, my home was my unsafe place. My church was my safe place.”

As an adult, she taught Sunday school and Bible study and then, with her Lifeway partnership, her life became deeply intertwined with the denomination. She believed in Jesus. And she also believed in the SBC.

In October 2016, Moore had what she called “the shock of my life,” when reading the transcripts of the “Access Hollywood” tapes, where Trump boasted of his sexual exploits with women.

“This wasn’t just immorality,” she said. “This smacked of sexual assault.”

She expected her fellow evangelicals, especially Southern Baptist leaders she trusted, to be outraged, especially given how they had reacted to Bill Clinton’s conduct in the 1990s. Instead, she said, they rallied around Trump.

“The disorientation of this was staggering,” she said. “Just staggering.”

Moore, who described herself as “pro-life from conception to grave,” said she had no illusions about why evangelicals supported Trump, who promised to deliver anti-abortion judges up and down the judicial system.

Still, she could not comprehend how he became a champion of the faith. “He became the banner, the poster child for the great white hope of evangelicalism, the salvation of the church in America,” she said. “Nothing could have prepared me for that.”

When Moore spoke out about Trump, the pushback was fierce. Book sales plummeted as did ticket sales to her events. Her criticism of Trump was seen as an act of betrayal. From fiscal 2017 to fiscal 2019, Living Proof lost more than $1.8 million.

After allegations of abuse and misconduct began to surface among Southern Baptists in 2016, Moore also became increasingly concerned about her denomination’s tolerance for leaders who treated women with disrespect.

In 2018, she wrote a “letter to my brothers” on her blog, outlining her concerns about the deference she was expected to show male leaders, going as far as wearing flats instead of heels when she was serving alongside a man who was shorter than she was.

She also began to speak out about her own experience of abuse, especially after a February 2019 report from the Houston Chronicle, her hometown newspaper, detailed more than 700 cases of sexual abuse among Southern Baptists over a 20-year period.

...

When Moore attended the SBC’s annual meeting in June 2019 and spoke on a panel about abuse, she felt she was no longer welcome.

Things have only gotten worse since then, said Moore. The SBC has been roiled by debates over critical race theory, causing a number of high-profile Black pastors to leave the denomination. Politics and Christian nationalism have crowded out the gospel, she said.

...

Beth Allison Barr, a history professor and dean at Baylor University, said Moore’s departure will be a shock for Southern Baptist women.

Barr, the author of “The Making of Biblical Womanhood,” a forthcoming book on gender roles among evangelicals, grew up a Southern Baptist. Her mother was a huge fan of Moore, as were many women in her church.

“If she walks away, she’s going to carry a lot of these women with her,” said Barr.

Anthea Butler, associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania and author of a forthcoming book on evangelicals and racism, said Moore could become a more conservative version of the late Rachel Held Evans, who rallied progressive Christians tired of evangelicalism but not of Christianity.

Critics of Moore will find it easier to dismiss her as “woke” or “liberal” than to deal with the substance of her critique, said Butler. But Moore’s concerns and the ongoing conflicts in the SBC about racism and sexism aren’t going away, Butler said.

The religion professor believes Moore will be better off leaving the SBC, despite the pain of breaking away.

“I applaud this move and support her because I know how soul-crushing the SBC is for women,” Butler said. “She will be far better off without them, doing the ministry God calls her to do.”

Good for her. Hope she stays safe.

OG_slinger wrote:

“If she walks away, she’s going to carry a lot of these women with her,” said Barr.

Hope so

I think she just got canceled from the right.

“He became the banner, the poster child for the great white hope of evangelicalism, the salvation of the church in America,” she said. “Nothing could have prepared me for that.”

Nothing except all of recorded history of white people.

Mixolyde wrote:
“He became the banner, the poster child for the great white hope of evangelicalism, the salvation of the church in America,” she said. “Nothing could have prepared me for that.”

Nothing except all of recorded history of white people.

I want to state unequivocally that I applaud and support Moore's path to redemption from the sinful wasteland that is the cult of Southern Baptists. I hope that, although the path is perilous and filled with temptation, her personal relationship with Jesus continues to lead her away from evil.

That said.

As Mixolyde points out, claiming that "nothing could have prepared" her for Trump is a lie and a copout. The entire evangelical community, especially the Southern Baptists, are built on worshiping one Trump after another, throughout their century-and-a-half-long existence. I hope that as her relationship with Jesus strengthens after decades of atrophy in service to evangelicals, she acknowledges and accepts the responsibility the Church had in blinding her from the truth, as well as her own culpability in accepting the easy, hollow lies the Church teaches.

The apostle Peter went through a similar crisis of faith, although his was much shorter and arguably more intense. If Simon Peter can be redeemed, so can Moore.