Political Randomness

[Kraken]

I just noted this in another thread but it caught my attention. What exactly makes Obama very left? I don't get it, but it may be my gen-Y-ism.

Kenyan Muslim socialist gay sympathizer.

[RunningMn9]

I think the logic is if you can afford to buy drugs, you can afford to buy food, and I shouldn't be obligated to support your drug habit with my tax money.

I don't know about where you live but around these parts, drugs are *way* cheaper than food. Either way, the means test for welfare is income-based, no?

If I make $12,000 a year for a family of three, the reason I can't afford food isn't because I'm spending money on drugs. If it was, that would suggest to me that if I wasn't buying drugs, I would need even less assistance (not more).

The logic (such as it is) is about imposing morality and standards of conduct if you are going to show up with your hand out. And while I can agree with that in theory, in practical terms, turning away the poor because they are also addicts seems like a stupid idea.

[GreenGoo]

I don't understand. Drug addicts don't need to eat? What is the rationale for not feeding poor people if they do drugs? Because drugs cost money and if you've got money you don't need food stamps, or something else?

I think the logic is if you can afford to buy drugs, you can afford to buy food, and I shouldn't be obligated to support your drug habit with my tax money.

As with Rmn9, I don't disagree with the concept, but if I bum a puff off a buddy's roach to help me get through the day because my day sucks way more than most peoples', the government is no longer willing to help keep me from starving.

What tests do they propose that can determine the difference between a casual user and an addict? What test do they propose that can determine how much money a person is spending on drugs?

As with any sort of morality test, it's not straight forward. Maybe it's "good enough" for some people.

[LordMortis]

I just noted this in another thread but it caught my attention. What exactly makes Obama very left? I don't get it, but it may be my gen-Y-ism.

What has he accomplished and what has he tried to accomplish? You make the list and tell me if it's "very left".

[Isgrimnur]

Have fun.

[Kraken]

Have fun.

He's been a successful president by any objective measure (with the arguable exception of civil liberties), but there's not a lot on that list that I'd classify as leftist.

[Rip]

The U.N. climate panel's former chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, was charged Tuesday with stalking and sexually harassing a woman who worked at the New Delhi environmental think tank he's headed for more than three decades.

Police filed the case in a Delhi court after investigating a complaint by one of Pachauri's colleagues at The Energy Research Institute, Press Trust of India said.

Pachauri has denied the allegations, but resigned last year from both the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and from TERI after the researcher's allegations were published in Indian newspapers. The allegations caused a public uproar in a country where women face a stigma against discussing issues such as sexual harassment in the workplace.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/ ... 1-07-27-24

Given a job at the Clinton Foundation in 3...2....1

[GreenGoo]

Troll harder.

Gonna hafta put in a little more effort at this point, Rip.

[Isgrimnur]

Wasserman-Schulz

Payday lenders fearing modest federal regulations will cut into their vast profit margins have a new, high-profile ally in Washington: The chairwoman of the Democratic Party.
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) is co-sponsoring legislation to delay and permanently muffle pending Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) rules to rein in small-dollar lenders that are currently able to levy triple-digit annual interest rates on the nation’s poorest, the Huffington Post reports.

The bill would force a two-year delay of the CFPB’s rules, which are still being drafted. Last spring, the agency set out a framework for its rulemaking process that indicates it is taking a more modest approach than industry critics would prefer. But the bill Wasserman Schultz signed onto would both delay those rules further, and permanently block them in any state that enacts the sort of ineffectual, industry-crafted regulatory sham that Florida adopted in 2001.

That bill featured “compromise language heavily influenced by industry players,” the Florida Alliance for Consumer Protection notes. Rather than a model for robust oversight that still allows low-income people to access emergency credit when they need it, the group describes the Florida approach as a series of “well-disguised loopholes” that preserve the industry’s abusive patterns.

[Grifman]

Wasserman-Schulz

Payday lenders fearing modest federal regulations will cut into their vast profit margins have a new, high-profile ally in Washington: The chairwoman of the Democratic Party.
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) is co-sponsoring legislation to delay and permanently muffle pending Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) rules to rein in small-dollar lenders that are currently able to levy triple-digit annual interest rates on the nation’s poorest, the Huffington Post reports.

The bill would force a two-year delay of the CFPB’s rules, which are still being drafted. Last spring, the agency set out a framework for its rulemaking process that indicates it is taking a more modest approach than industry critics would prefer. But the bill Wasserman Schultz signed onto would both delay those rules further, and permanently block them in any state that enacts the sort of ineffectual, industry-crafted regulatory sham that Florida adopted in 2001.

That bill featured “compromise language heavily influenced by industry players,” the Florida Alliance for Consumer Protection notes. Rather than a model for robust oversight that still allows low-income people to access emergency credit when they need it, the group describes the Florida approach as a series of “well-disguised loopholes” that preserve the industry’s abusive patterns.

Wow, this like pulling a Christie, IMO. So much for helping the working poor, let's just let the payday lenders keep their hooks in them. She should be ashamed.

[GreenGoo]

I always prefer more details than just a couple of sentences outlining the reason I should hate a politician, but in this case, payday lenders are basically predators preying on the weakest and least able, so I pretty much hate Wasserman-whatshername now.

There is nothing redeeming about payday lenders. Not a thing. Pawn shops are a better option, if it comes to that.

[AWS260]

Texas!

The newly elected chair of the Republican Party in the county that includes the Texas Capitol spent most of election night tweeting about former Gov. Rick Perry’s sexual orientation and former President Bill Clinton’s penis, and insisting that members of the Bush family should be in jail.
***
Though Morrow has tweeted often about sexually explicit acts involving Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton and his last several Facebook profile pictures were of scantily clad women, he said he denies any charge that he is sexist.

“It’s derogatory toward Hillary Clinton because I hate Hillary Clinton," he told the Tribune. "But I’m not sexist. Why would you ask that? I’m not sexist.”

“I like beautiful women, I celebrate feminine beauty,” Morrow added. “I’m like Donald Trump — I love women.”

[GreenGoo]

Lol. I'm not a shyster, I'm like Trump! I'm not a shallow, glib demagogue, I'm like Trump! I've never raped my wife, I'm like Trump!

[Isgrimnur]

I love how people like that are completely unaware that misogyny and sexism are two different things.

I find misanthropy to be a much easier path.

[Isgrimnur]

Russian nanny murders her charge:

The Moscow nanny who is suspected of decapitating a child and was arrested while brandishing the child’s head on the metro said she did it in revenge for Russian air strikes in Syria.

The case has dominated Russia’s online news, but state media and federal authorities have been trying to play it down. Video that appeared to show the incident was first posted online by Russian news site Life News—in it the woman, wearing a black niqab, yells, “I am a terrorist!” The woman, identified as Uzbekistan native Gulchehra Bobokulova, was working in Moscow as a nanny. On Wednesday, she appeared in court for the first time, smiling.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Thursday cautioned that despite the woman’s claims that she was “instructed by Allah”, the media should not link her crime to terrorism.

Meanwhile, the head of Russia’s investigative committee, Vladimir Markin, told online news site Gazeta that the press should not “sensationalize” the case. He also confirmed reports that the suspect had long been diagnosed with schizophrenia.
...
When asked why she killed the child, Bobokulova replies cryptically, “I brought revenge to the ones who spilled blood.” When asked who she meant, she says, “Putin spilled it.”

“Why are you bombing Muslims and nobody says anything?,” she asks her Russian inquisitor, who is off camera. “They also want to live, yes? That is why I took my revenge.”

Bobokulova, now dubbed by the Russian media as “the killer nanny”, also explains that she wanted to move to Syria but couldn’t afford to. When asked if she wanted to join Islamist group Islamic State, she answers, “I don’t know. I wanted to live there.”

She says that she has three children of her own, but tells the man questioning her, “You can kill them, I do not need them. They do not read the Koran.”

A man in Uzbekistan who has identified himself as Bobokulova’s father gave an interview to Russian news site Gazeta on Thursday in which he said his daughter had never mentioned religion, never went to the mosque when in Uzbekistan, and never before wore a niqab. He also said Bobokulova’s eldest son, who is 19, was detained by authorities after the killing and the family were not told why.

He added that Bobokulova’s behavior had grown very erratic and that she had made claims that she had a daughter in Moscow before she moved there in January, leaving her three sons and family in Uzbekistan. She had divorced her husband in 2002, after she was admitted to a psychiatric ward where she stayed for two weeks.

[Jaymann]

That's bad.

[GreenGoo]

Yeah, the article I read definitely put a "there is something wrong with her" vibe to the whole thing. She was groomed/cajoled into it by others apparently, and her smiling seemed disconnected and "off", and I'm not sure, but screaming "I'm a terrorist" is a pretty good sign that you're not one, or at least not one in control of your faculties.

The whole thing sucks though.

[Isgrimnur]

The real surprise to me is the restraint of the authorities rather than making hay with it.

[Max Peck]

The real surprise to me is the restraint of the authorities rather than making hay with it.

It's not entirely inconsistent with past behaviour; the Russian government is reluctant to acknowledge any negative consequences to their Syrian adventure. For example, in the early aftermath of the downing of KGL9268, they were actively hostile to Western analysis that indicated it was brought down by a bomb.

[Defiant]

RIP Nancy Reagan

http://www.tmz.com/2016/03/06/nancy-reagan-dead/

[Rip]

Just a reminder for those that think Yasser Arafat is some great guy.

http://www.breitbart.com/national-secur ... bomb-plot/

He is a piece of crap scumbag. Always was and always will be.

[tjg_marantz]

Has that source been verified Twitter?

[Rip]

Has that source been verified Twitter?

Vetted by the NSA who pretty much controls twitter.

[Grifman]

I don't understand. Drug addicts don't need to eat? What is the rationale for not feeding poor people if they do drugs? Because drugs cost money and if you've got money you don't need food stamps, or something else?

I think the logic is if you can afford to buy drugs, you can afford to buy food, and I shouldn't be obligated to support your drug habit with my tax money.

As with Rmn9, I don't disagree with the concept, but if I bum a puff off a buddy's roach to help me get through the day because my day sucks way more than most peoples', the government is no longer willing to help keep me from starving.

What tests do they propose that can determine the difference between a casual user and an addict? What test do they propose that can determine how much money a person is spending on drugs?

As with any sort of morality test, it's not straight forward. Maybe it's "good enough" for some people.

I'm not disagreeing with you and RM9, someone just asked what the logic was, and I was answering. The question I have, why just those requirements on this type of aid? Why don't we have drug testing for student loans, VA/FHA mortgages, small business loans, various tax credits? If you are going to be consistent, you shouldn't just be picking on the poor. But then again, that seems to be the point.

[LordMortis]

I'm not disagreeing with you and RM9, someone just asked what the logic was, and I was answering. The question I have, why just those requirements on this type of aid? Why don't we have drug testing for student loans, VA/FHA mortgages, small business loans, various tax credits? If you are going to be consistent, you shouldn't just be picking on the poor. But then again, that seems to be the point.

Makes sense to me. Of course it makes sense to me because I think it helps expose how ridiculous our drug laws are, not because I think we should be making sure college kids who can't pay 15,000 a year to go to college or someone who who can make payments but can't afford put 15% down on a house without assistance need to prove they never smoke the reefer.

[Jeff V]

What about alcohol? Cigarettes? Donuts?

[Rip]

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government ... -fracking/

The Facebook page of FrackNation was suspended for 24 hours at the weekend after a series of complaints by activists who objected to the fact that it was telling the truth about fracking.

Now the case has finally come to trial, however, it is proving absolutely disastrous to the fracktivists’ cause: none of the claims by the two families – the Ely and the Hubert family – appear to be standing up.

Despite claiming to have suffered neurological, gastrointestinal, and dermatological damage from drinking the water, the families have had to admit they can produce no evidence of this. Indeed, they never even visited a doctor, not even when their children had supposedly been poisoned.

The Ely family were so oddly unperturbed by the deadly toxic water beneath them that they built a $1 million mansion on top of it.

Scott Ely has not proved to be the most credible of witnesses:

Scott had told three different people–a doctor, a hydrologist, and in a handwritten statement to his own lawyer–that the water problems started in August 2008. However, his lawyer has also told the court that they all accept drilling did not start on nearby gas wells until late September/October 2008. So on the witness stand, Scott suddenly remembered–eight years after the case started–that in June/July 2008 he remembered a massive gas leak at a gas well that he was claiming must have affected his water.

Nor has Monica Ely:

She testified that she tried “not to involve our kids with this.” Then the Cabot lawyers pointed out and produced photos (see above) that showed far from sheltering her children Ms Ely had in fact “brought them to press conferences, rallies with people like [actor] Mark Ruffalo, taken them to the Tribeca Film festival,” and had allowed them to be featured in the highly contentious documentary Gasland. Monica Ely: no time to take her children to the doctor even though she thought they were poisoned but plenty of time to take them to rallies with actors and activists.

And the expert witnesses haven’t been of much help either.

Under skillful cross-examination, Professor Ingraffea was forced to admit that he’s an anti-fracking and anti-fossil fuel “advocate.” He denied being an activist, but his face fell when lawyers for Cabot asked to show the jury photographs of him speaking in front of anti-fracking signs and participating in an Artists Against Fracking press conference alongside Ruffalo, Lennon, and Ono.

Even the lawyer for the families, Leslie Lewis, blurted out in open court that she “wasn’t thrilled” that the photos existed.

[Isgrimnur]

Won't someone think of the children?

Mary Lou Bruner is poised to be the next member of the Texas State Board of Education, having fallen just short of the 50 percent needed to secure the seat this past Tuesday.

Bruner will compete with chiropractor Keven Ellis, who got 31 percent of the vote, in a May runoff. Bruner, the GOP candidate, is expected to win over over Democratic opponent in the general election, as the Houston Chronicle reported.
...

• On climate change: “Climate change has nothing to do with weather or climate,” she wrote last June: “It is all about system change from capitalism (free enterprise) to Socialism-Communism. The Climate Change HOAX was Karl Marx’s idea.”
• She also wrote about her views on the Civil War, 2014: “Slavery is not the Reason for the Civil War. by [sic] Mary Lou Bruner…Historians waited until all of the people who were alive during the Civil War and the Restoration were dead of old age. THEN HISTORIANS WROTE THE HISTORY BOOKS TO TELL THE STORY THE WAY THEY WANTED IT TOLD.”
• Last November, she weighed in on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, by saying “Many people believe the Democrat Party had JFK killed because the socialists and Communists in the party did not want a conservative president.”
• On more topical issues, she also has some -- let’s again say interesting -- theories. As recently as October, she wrote in a post that President Barack Obama once worked as a gay prostitute: “Obama has a soft spot for homosexuals because of the years he spent as a male prostitute in his twenties,” she wrote. “That is how he paid for his drugs.”

She attributes the president’s support of gay rights to this imagined past occupation.

If she secures the State Board of Education seat, Bruner would have input on what goes into school textbooks. The board itself made national headlines in 2010 when it voted to change the state’s social studies standards while declaring they were written with a liberal slant.
...
Texans have known of the bombastic nature of Bruner’s views for some time now. In 2010, she addressed the very board to which she now seeks membership to discuss the state’s school textbooks.

Her main area of concern related to her perception that Middle Easterners were purchasing said textbooks: “I think the Middle Easterners are buying the textbooks!” she said with palpable alarm. “They’re buying everything else here.”

[El Guapo]

On the other hand, her opponent spells his name "Keven".

[Defiant]

Missouri Senators Filibuster "Religious Freedom" Resolution

[Isgrimnur]

Mizzou prof fired:

Melissa Click, a professor who gained national notoriety during the protests at the University of Missouri, has been fired.

Popehat

Ok, fuck it, I'll write about this idiot again.

From her recent statement:

In their decision to terminate my employment, the Curators bowed to conservative voices that seek to tarnish my stellar 12-year record at MU. Instead of disciplining me for conduct that does not “meet expectations for a University faculty member,” the Curators are punishing me for standing with students who have drawn attention to the issue of overt racism at the University of Missouri. While I have apologized on numerous occasions to numerous parties for my actions on October 10, 2015 and November 9, 2015, I will not apologize for my support of Black students who experience racism at the University of Missouri.

Yes, she got fired from a University for being too liberal.

The fact is, her actions on that one day are a great summary of her 12 year career, which is not "stellar." It is fucking useless.
...
Her "scholarship" includes Making monsters: Lady Gaga, fan identification, and social media, The romanticization of abstinence: Fan response to sexual restraint in the Twilight series and “Let’s Hug It Out, Bitch”: Audience response to hegemonic masculinity in Entourage.

She's not quite finished with The trouble with Thomas: A closer look at the popular children’s Series. I presume that Thomas the Train is an agent of the Patriarchy, and railroads are a metaphor for rape culture, or something like that.*

[Jaymann]

That story really clicks with me.

[GreenGoo]

I don't really enjoy Marc's writing.

Here's a quote from the comments section that sort of line up with my thoughts, although the comments are far more critical and harshly phrased than I feel or would write.

March 9, 2016 at 2:04 pm

Almost two weeks for an update and this is what we get? A seemingly endless rant about a fired assistant and how she shouldn't have had a job there because…you don't like her degree and you think her alma mater is too left wing. And a bunch of largely irrelevant hyperbole. Oh, and mumble mumble academia likes victims.

This is not what I've been coming to Popehat for years to read.

Marc's response about sending him a refund made me laugh however.

As much as this particular prof should be kicked around some, I found Marc's comments too generally critical without a lot of evidence to back it up. Rants get views though (even Fed rants way more than he used to) so I guess it is what it is.

I don't mind that I don't agree with Marc (meaning, I read what he writes anyway) but at times it seems pure personal opinion with little evidence to back it up. I can get that in the comments section for any news article posted to the internet.

[LordMortis]

Made me laugh harder than it should have



It would have been much better had they not drawn a racial conclusion but it's still funny.

[Rip]

Barack Obama has sharply criticised David Cameron for the UK’s role in allowing Libya to become a “shit show” after the fall of the dictator Muammar Gaddafi, in an unprecedented attack on a British leader by a serving US President.

Mr Obama said that following a successful military intervention to aid rebels during the 2011 Arab Spring revolt, Libya was left to spiral out of control – due largely to the inaction of America’s European allies.

In a candid US magazine interview, Mr Obama said: “When I go back and I ask myself what went wrong… there’s room for criticism, because I had more faith in the Europeans, given Libya’s proximity, being invested in the follow-up.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/po ... 23976.html

[Rip]

On March 6, 2016, the Iraqi daily Al-Zaman published an article titled "Iraq Needs Hitler" by Karim Al-Taee that quoted some of Hitler's statements about the Jews from Mein Kampf stating that they were correct also about the Jews today in Iraq.
The article added that the Jews living in northern Iraq today have a secret plan to take over Mosul, in order to prepare for a Jewish-Western takeover of all Iraq's resources. They are doing this by means of distracting the Iraqis, overloading the political arena with bogus issues, and by means of taking advantage of the Iraqi MPs that they control.

http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/9063.htm

[Jaymann]

Made me laugh harder than it should have



It would have been much better had they not drawn a racial conclusion but it's still funny.

Also Canadians speak English. Some of them. Sort of.

[GreenGoo]

Also Canadians speak English. Some of them. Sort of.

Amusingly, this is how we feel about Americans.

[Rip]

It would appear Breibart is ripping into pieces over this Michelle Fields incident.

Breitbart has been riven by internal strife in recent days after Trump’s campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, allegedly grabbed Fields and yanked her away from Trump as she was attempting to ask him a question after a press conference in Florida. The Trump campaign denied the incident, despite considerable evidence to the contrary.

Breitbart published a story casting doubt on Fields’ account, appearing to side with the Trump campaign over their own reporter. Joel Pollak, a senior editor-at-large at the organization, ordered staffers to stop defending Fields. One source with knowledge of the situation said some staffers who publicly defended Fields had been threatened with firing.

“Both Lewandowski and Trump maligned Michelle in the most repulsive fashion,” Shapiro wrote in his resignation statement. “Meanwhile, Breitbart News not only stood by and did nothing outside of tepidly asking for an apology, they then attempted to abandon Michelle by silencing staff from tweeting or talking about the issue. Finally, in the ultimate indignity, they undermined Michelle completely by running a poorly-evidenced conspiracy theory as their lead story in which Michelle and Terris had somehow misidentified Lewandowski.”

The exodus, which began with the company’s spokesman Kurt Bardella, is unlikely to end with Fields and Shapiro. Three sources say multiple staffers are searching for a way out of the company — with several actively circulating résumés, according to two sources — and more resignations could follow in the coming days and weeks. The company is known for having editorial employees sign unusually strict contracts, at least some of which include non-compete clauses that could make it difficult to leave Breitbart for another news outlet.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/rosiegray/miche ... .nnqG3Z8DJ

I'll get us started with the first one.

Thanks Trump!

[hepcat]

Man, that sucks for you though. That's one of your go to link sites!

edit: on second thought, it's good for you. The site will soon become simply a mouthpiece for Trump, giving you a larger link selection for your boy!