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  • Originally posted by Gun Grape View Post

    Why couldn't he?

    I would tell my son that Yes it is true White people have instituted rules and laws that serve themselves.
    What laws and what white people, name them and claim them. I think you will find a shit ton of (D) after their names.

    They/We were the majority/ruling class and wanted to keep it that way. Not a Republican or Democrat thing
    Actually it is a Democrat thing.

    The people in power wanted to remain in power regardless of political party. And we do hold some responsibility. We may not have wrote those laws but we put the people in power that did. We didn't protest or vote those people out. We also took advantage of those laws
    If you are an urban Democrat I believe you.

    Your/his generation are the ones about to be in charge .
    My generation was told to look at character, my sons generation is being told to look at color.

    My generation did nothing to right those wrongs. Yours can. Recognize your differences. Work together change attitudes and laws and make this country what its suppose to stand for.
    I call every man brother. I offer assitance without fear or favor. I just refuse to sign on to the idea that tribal membership trumps citizenship.


    But my son is biracial. He has seen both sides of prejudice. From the "Ching Chong Chang" to "We didn't recognize your scholastic achievement because Asians naturally are good at school" "The white guy had to work harder to get his grade so he deserves the recognition"
    The real poison is the idea that American citizens should have tribal membership. In the army we were all green, we all swore the same oaths, all were expected to offer of our selves fully. Why is that now a bad thing?

    Comment


    • Originally posted by zraver View Post

      Just a reminder McConnell cited the Biden rule when blocking Garland. Although it's called the Biden Rule it's actual long established precedent. Opposing party senates block presidential SCOTUS nominees in election years while same party senates confirm them. It is very American and a bi-partisan tradition.
      Which was actually just part of a speech given on the Senate Floor which BTW

      https://www.politifact.com/article/2...t-nominations/

      Biden's floor speech was on June 25, 1992, more than three months later in the election cycle than it is now.

      There was no Supreme Court vacancy to fill.

      There was no nominee to consider.

      The Senate never took a vote to adopt a rule to delay consideration of a nominee until after the election.

      Nonetheless, Biden took to the floor in a speech addressing the Senate president to urge delay if a vacancy did appear. But he didn't argue for a delay until the next president began his term, as McConnell is doing. He said the nomination process should be put off until after the election, which was on Nov. 3, 1992.

      Comment


      • Originally posted by zraver View Post

        Because my original comment had zero to due with impartiality.
        Perhaps. But I would argue that retaining at least degree of impartiality is a virtue in any healthy debate. If only because tends to help you check/assess your position for accuracy before stating it. But that aside the omission was I believe both relevant and factual. Just adding an acknowledging in brackets would have covered it. Something like (albeit this is something both sides have tried in the past) or whatever would have covered it. But then that's just me. I tend to make most of my statements on issues of politics conditional unless they relate to matter of constitutional law etc.

        Oh and for what its worth this I totally agree with your this comment from your post 1232. "The real poison is the idea that American citizens should have tribal membership."
        Last edited by Monash; 27 Oct 21,, 02:44.
        If you are emotionally invested in 'believing' something is true you have lost the ability to tell if it is true.

        Comment


        • Originally posted by Monash View Post

          Perhaps. But I would argue that retaining at least degree of impartiality is a virtue in any healthy debate. If only because tends to help you check/assess your position for accuracy before stating it. But that aside the omission was I believe both relevant and factual. Just adding an acknowledging in brackets would have covered it. Something like (albeit this is something both sides have tried in the past) or whatever would have covered it. But then that's just me. I tend to make most of my statements on issues of politics conditional unless they relate to matter of constitutional law etc.

          Oh and for what its worth this I totally agree with your this comment from your post 1232. "The real poison is the idea that American citizens should have tribal membership."
          SCOTUS is never impartial except in the abstract. Everyone appointed is done so via a process of political favors. Some times it tilts one way, then over time it swings the other way. The Marshall Court (super liberal) lead to the Rehnquist Court (super statist), leading to the Roberts Court (super personal liberty) that may be leading to the Trump Court (centrist on Liberty). Schumer and the Dems sought to pack the court by increasing its numbers and an open call for progressive judges to bypass the ebb and flow of court as it has functioned for 150 years. They want this specifically to create a short term majority to rubber stamp long term political power. A packed court and new senators would quickly see the US Congress passing an enabling act. Athens did it, Rome did it, France did it, Germany did it, Russia did it, Japan did it, China just did it.... we are not special in that regard, just lucky that our tradition springs from the one nation that managed to say no when the King went to far. Statist don't care who suffers as long as they get power, and our common law tradition is an obstacle to be torn down. All the calls for this or that righting of wrongs are fake. Take AOC, remember how she complained about how she was supposed to live on her savings until she got her first paycheck as a Congresswoman given how expensive DC apartments were (she had like $30K in savings).... Rent was only so high because despite claiming to represent the poor, se does not want to live amongst them. Moscow Bernie defending his millions by claiming anyone could write a book, as if the pulpit he was given by Vermont voters wasn't why his book sold. Biden's often and vociferous rebukes of Trump's E.O/E.A's calling them tyrannical, only to blow Trump out of the water in their use once he had the pen and the sword. Pelosi, Schumer, Schiff... name em, they claim to represent X but live Y. Everything they do is about centralizing power to themselves. That is the only reason race matters to them, why transgenderism, environmentalism, name the ism. No matter how good it is in the abstract, its only useful as if it advances the centralizing of power. This is not a defense of the GOP, but at least the GOP has real factions and real disagreements. Right now the fate of the country as a representative republic hangs on the moods and health of just 3 people. People talk about the 9 justices having too much powers, well right now two old white guys and a white lady hold our collective fate in their hands. If they buckle, there will never be another free day in America in my life time.

          Comment


          • Originally posted by DOR View Post
            What is wrong with these people?
            • Demonstrators surrounded a school board member’s car, preventing him from driving away.
            • After one Illinois school board meeting, police arrested an Illinois man for disorderly conduct and aggravated battery.
            • The National School Boards Association asked the Biden administration for help with threats
            In response, Attorney General Merrick Garland instructs FBI and all US Attorneys to pay attention to threats against school officials. "While spirited debate about policy matters is protected under our Constitution, that protection does not extend to threats of violence or efforts to intimidate individuals based on their views."

            Top GOPers say “the Biden Administration is cracking down on parents with legitimate gripes over school policies.”

            Sen Rick Scott (R-FL, sorry): "Joe Biden’s attorney general wants the FBI to go after parents for speaking out at school board meetings to protect kids from radical curriculum like critical race theory."

            Question: When did “legitimate gripes” and “speaking out” include threats against school officials?
            Answer: When whack-job and right wing-nuts like Sen Scott and Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio) claims the Administration is using the Patriot Act to bring to bear the “full power of the federal law enforcement in this country on involved parents"
            Ted Cruz Defends Parents Doing Nazi Salutes at School Board Meetings

            During a fiery Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) at one point defended parents throwing up Nazi salutes at school board meetings.

            Cruz, along with other Republicans, lambasted Attorney General Merrick Garland for directing the Justice Department this month to investigate the rise in violent threats against educators. That rise has coincided with right-wing media fueling fury over mask mandates and so-called critical race theory.

            Referencing a letter written by the National School Boards Association, Cruz asserted that many of the examples of threats the NSBA cited were “non-violent,” adding that one instance involved school board meeting attendees doing fascist gestures.

            “My God! A parent did a Nazi salute at a school board because they thought the policies were oppressive,” Cruz dramatically exclaimed. “General Garland, is doing a Nazi salute at an elected official, is that protected by the First Amendment?”

            “Yes, it is,” Garland calmly replied, prompting Cruz to then claim the memo to the FBI says “go investigate parents as domestic terrorists.”

            The AG noted that his memo doesn’t say that “at all,” causing Cruz to respond that the NSBA’s letter does. “I don’t care what the letter says,” the attorney general shot back.


            The school board association’s letter to the president calling for him to act against “threats and acts of violence” does include a reference to domestic terrorism—language the NSBA has since apologized for and walked back following intense conservative backlash.

            At the same time, as Garland himself repeatedly told the senator on Wednesday, his Oct. 4 memo to the Justice Department “says nothing about domestic terrorism” and that he was also reacting to “public reports of violence and threats of violence.”

            Cruz would later take to Twitter to defend his defense of Nazi salutes at school board meetings.

            “Lefty journos are either (1) dishonest or (2) not very bright (or both),” the senator wrote in response to one journalist's tweet. “The parent was doing the Nazi salute because he was calling the authoritarian school board Nazis—evil, bad & abusive. And yes, calling someone a Nazi is very much protected by the First Amendment.”
            ___________

            Never let the facts get in the way of a chronic victim mentality.
            “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

            Comment


            • Republicans Are Losing Their Minds Because the DOJ Wants to Help Protect Threatened School Officials

              Attorney General Merrick Garland appeared before Senate Judiciary Committee. He ran into a buzzsaw of outraged Republican senators who took the attorney general to task for … allowing federal law enforcement to consult with local law enforcement about how to handle a rash of violent threats against school board officials.

              In question was an Oct. 4 memo in which Garland directed the FBI and U.S. attorneys’ offices “to discuss strategies for addressing” the “increase in harassment, intimidation and threats of violence against school board members, teachers and workers in our nation’s public schools.” The memo also called for the creation of a task force “to determine how federal enforcement tools can be used to prosecute these crimes, and ways to assist state, Tribal, territorial and local law enforcement where threats of violence may not constitute federal crimes.”

              The memo followed a plea from the National School Boards Association for the Biden administration do something about the increase in “physical threats” school officials are receiving in response to mask mandates and, as the NSBA put it in the memo, “propaganda purporting the false inclusion of critical race theory within classroom instruction and curricula.” The NSBA last week apologized for some of the language it used in its letter, but Garland on Wednesday stood by his Oct. 4 memo, arguing the threats still warrant federal intervention.

              “The letter that was subsequently sent does not change the association’s concern about violence with threats of violence,” Garland said. “It alters some of the language in the letter language in the letter that we did not rely on and is not contained in my own memorandum. The only thing that Justice Department is concerned about violence and threats of violence.”

              Republicans were very mad, and essentially spent the morning defending the rights of parents to violently threaten school officials. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) expressed concern that the “threat of federal prosecution” would have a “chilling” effect on parents who want to be involved in their children’s education.

              “I don’t believe it’s reasonable to read this memorandum as chilling anyone’s rights,” Garland replied. “It’s about threats of violence, and it expressly recognizes the Constitutional right to make arguments about children’s education.”


              Politico reported Wednesday on the measures some school boards have been taking measures to ease tension at meetings, including shortening the time parents are allowed to speak or requiring they submit comments over email, but threats have persisted. Jennifer Jenkins, a board member in Brevard County, Florida, told Politico that she’s received several threats over the past few months, including people saying they are “coming” for her. Someone even told the Florida’s Department of Children and Families that she was abusing her daughter.

              It’s happening all across the country. Pennsbury, Pennsylvania school board president Christine Toy-Dragoni told CBS Philly earlier this week that every member of the board has received threats, and that she has received “racist remarks, threats of violence, threats of putting my information on the internet, threats against my family” to both her school email and her personal phone. “My daughter was afraid,” Toy-Dragoni said. “We had a neighborhood picnic to go to and she said, ‘Mom, do you think it’s safe for us to go?’”

              Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) joined Cornyn in placing his concern with the parents who are making these threats. He, too, said the memo could “chill” the First Amendment rights of parents, noting that his staff went through a bunch of news sources and found no “explicit” death threats.

              Lee added that 17 attorneys general across the country have said that the threats are nothing state and local officials can’t handle, a reference to a letter sent to Garland and Biden last week in which the aforementioned attorneys general refuted the idea that there was a national spike in threats against school board officials, noting that the NSBA failed to document a “single legitimate instance of violence.” (Never mind the constant barrage of threats forcing board members to live in constant fear.)

              Lee did not mention that all 17 of the attorneys general who signed the letter are Republicans.

              The most incensed among the Republican senators grill Garland, however, was Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), who last year argued that the military should be called in to snuff out Black Lives Matter protests. Cotton on Wednesday excoriated Garland for daring to enlist federal law enforcement to assist localities in dealing with threats against school board members, calling the attorney general “shameful” and said he should “resign in disgrace.”

              Garland responded by reiterating that the only purpose of the memo is to “prevent violence against school officials.”

              Cotton said, “I’m done,” off of the microphone and stormed out of the room.

              ____________

              It's like talking to a brick wall. Nobody is gonna restrict their "right" to threaten or commit violence.
              “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

              Comment


              • Angry Parents: domestic terrorist Democrat rioters and arsonist: peaceful protestors

                Seems legit.....


                Comment


                • Originally posted by zraver View Post
                  Angry Parents: domestic terrorist Democrat rioters and arsonist: peaceful protestors

                  Seems legit.....
                  Your usual horrific comprehension of the English language is reassuring from a consistency standpoint. Maybe the point size was too small?
                  "...harassment, intimidation and threats of violence”

                  I don't see the word "angry" in there anywhere....can you point it out for the rest of us?
                  “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

                  Comment


                  • The Loudon County School board behind many of the accusations of harassment, intimidation and threats if violence has socially distanced "COVID seating. Not for board members or media, just parents. This is just one example of ways progressive school boards are trying to chill parental involvement, limit free speech and intimidate parents. But parents are the problem.... And why isn't the AG issuing a memo about the harassment, intimidation and threats if violence Sinema and GoP members of Congress are subjected to. Surely if yelling at a school administrator warrants the FBI following a female senator into the bathroom does.

                    I used angry on purpose. Even assuming the accusations are true, where is the federal issue vs say mass arson and looting? I know, in Tinfoil's world arson is mostly peaceful, and yelling at a board member is terrorism, just don't expect me to get on that train.

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by zraver View Post
                      The Loudon County School board behind many of the accusations of harassment, intimidation and threats if violence has socially distanced "COVID seating. Not for board members or media, just parents. This is just one example of ways progressive school boards are trying to chill parental involvement, limit free speech and intimidate parents. But parents are the problem.... And why isn't the AG issuing a memo about the harassment, intimidation and threats if violence Sinema and GoP members of Congress are subjected to. Surely if yelling at a school administrator warrants the FBI following a female senator into the bathroom does.

                      I used angry on purpose. Even assuming the accusations are true, where is the federal issue vs say mass arson and looting? I know, in Tinfoil's world arson is mostly peaceful, and yelling at a board member is terrorism, just don't expect me to get on that train.
                      Originally posted by zraver
                      Whataboutism Whataboutism Whataboutism

                      False Dichotomy False Dichotomy False Dichotomy

                      Straw Man Straw Man Strawn Man
                      You're a walking talking bag of logical fallacies. Not to mention stunning hypocrisy.

                      But I wouldnt expect anything less from a member of Cult45.
                      “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

                      Comment


                      • To call Loudon County Progressive is laughable. It is in the heart of Virginia Horse Country. Yes, it has a Democrat in the State Senate but the Republican she beat has been at odds with the VA GOP for years and ran a poor campaign.

                        Oh, and the school board meeting the parents were protesting...it was over student transgender rights and was intended to bring the county in alignment with Virginia State Law on the matter.


                        And Z, so are you saying it is okay for parents to harass local school boards? I mean you can't possibly be saying that.
                        Last edited by Albany Rifles; 28 Oct 21,, 13:22.
                        “Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.”
                        Mark Twain

                        Comment


                        • Originally posted by zraver View Post
                          Angry Parents: domestic terrorist Democrat rioters and arsonist: peaceful protestors

                          Seems legit.....

                          And, I repeat:
                          What is wrong with these people?
                          • Demonstrators surrounded a school board member’s car, preventing him from driving away.
                          • After one Illinois school board meeting, police arrested an Illinois man for disorderly conduct and aggravated battery.
                          • The National School Boards Association asked the Biden administration for help with threats
                          In response, Attorney General Merrick Garland instructs FBI and all US Attorneys to pay attention to threats against school officials. "While spirited debate about policy matters is protected under our Constitution, that protection does not extend to threats of violence or efforts to intimidate individuals based on their views."

                          Top GOPers say “the Biden Administration is cracking down on parents with legitimate gripes over school policies.”

                          Sen Rick Scott (R-FL, sorry): "Joe Biden’s attorney general wants the FBI to go after parents for speaking out at school board meetings to protect kids from radical curriculum like critical race theory."

                          Question: When did “legitimate gripes” and “speaking out” include threats against school officials?
                          Answer: When whack-job and right wing-nuts like Sen Scott and Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio) claims the Administration is using the Patriot Act to bring to bear the “full power of the federal law enforcement in this country on involved parents"

                          Trust me?
                          I'm an economist!

                          Comment


                          • From memory Loudon school was the board that has a gender fluid policy on bathrooms, had the father of a girl raped in the school toilets by a gender fluid student arrested at a meeting to discuss the policy, and denied the rape had ever taken place despite transferring the gender fluid student to another school where he/she committed another rape against another female student?

                            That Louden school board?

                            You probably haven't heard of it because it's conservative sites that are talking about it.
                            Last edited by Parihaka; 28 Oct 21,, 18:19.
                            In the realm of spirit, seek clarity; in the material world, seek utility.

                            Leibniz

                            Comment


                            • Smith Found Guilty in School Board Scuffle
                              The man who found himself splashed across TV screens and newspaper pages, being dragged from the Loudoun County School Board meeting with a bloody lip and in handcuffs, on Tuesday was found guilty of disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.

                              Scott Smith was dragged to the ground by county deputies as tempers flared at the June 22 School Board meeting, egged on by protests against new state-mandated protections for transgender students.

                              According to testimony in the Aug. 17 District Court trial, Smith was arrested during an argument with a woman for whose daughter Smith’s wife had been a Girl Scout leader. Deputies dragged him to the ground, then outside, where he continued struggling and arguing with them, threatening to kick their teeth out. He was taken to the Adult Detention Center and charged with the two misdemeanors.

                              Smith’s attorney, Elizabeth Lancaster of Leesburg firm Whitbeck Bennett, argued his actions up that point—arguing loudly, clenching his fist, leaning toward and swearing at the woman—did not constitute disorderly conduct. Therefore, she argued, he was unlawfully detained, which is not illegal to resist, and all charges should be dropped.


                              “I was in a state of shock when they took my husband down to the floor,” said Smith’s wife, Jessica.

                              “There’s nothing in the law nor in common sense that says an officer should wait for someone to punch someone else before calming things down,” argued Commonwealth’s Attorney Buta Biberaj.

                              Smith was sentenced to 10 days in jail, all suspended, contingent on a year of good behavior. Biberaj also pushed for a fine and a requirement for anger management training; Lancaster argued for a moderate fine and no jail time, pointing to Smith’s largely clean record, his long residency as a small business owner in Leesburg, and his anger about an alleged assault of an immediate family member inside a bathroom by a person identifying as gender fluid.

                              Smith indicated he will likely appeal the decision.

                              “I look at that and I go, why would anybody want to be on a School Board?” said Judge Thomas J. Kelley, Jr., a retired judge who ruled on the case.
                              __________
                              “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

                              Comment


                              • Originally posted by TopHatter View Post
                                Smith Found Guilty in School Board Scuffle
                                The man who found himself splashed across TV screens and newspaper pages, being dragged from the Loudoun County School Board meeting with a bloody lip and in handcuffs, on Tuesday was found guilty of disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.

                                Scott Smith was dragged to the ground by county deputies as tempers flared at the June 22 School Board meeting, egged on by protests against new state-mandated protections for transgender students.

                                According to testimony in the Aug. 17 District Court trial, Smith was arrested during an argument with a woman for whose daughter Smith’s wife had been a Girl Scout leader. Deputies dragged him to the ground, then outside, where he continued struggling and arguing with them, threatening to kick their teeth out. He was taken to the Adult Detention Center and charged with the two misdemeanors.

                                Smith’s attorney, Elizabeth Lancaster of Leesburg firm Whitbeck Bennett, argued his actions up that point—arguing loudly, clenching his fist, leaning toward and swearing at the woman—did not constitute disorderly conduct. Therefore, she argued, he was unlawfully detained, which is not illegal to resist, and all charges should be dropped.


                                “I was in a state of shock when they took my husband down to the floor,” said Smith’s wife, Jessica.

                                “There’s nothing in the law nor in common sense that says an officer should wait for someone to punch someone else before calming things down,” argued Commonwealth’s Attorney Buta Biberaj.

                                Smith was sentenced to 10 days in jail, all suspended, contingent on a year of good behavior. Biberaj also pushed for a fine and a requirement for anger management training; Lancaster argued for a moderate fine and no jail time, pointing to Smith’s largely clean record, his long residency as a small business owner in Leesburg, and his anger about an alleged assault of an immediate family member inside a bathroom by a person identifying as gender fluid.

                                Smith indicated he will likely appeal the decision.

                                “I look at that and I go, why would anybody want to be on a School Board?” said Judge Thomas J. Kelley, Jr., a retired judge who ruled on the case.
                                __________
                                Well that's ok then
                                In the realm of spirit, seek clarity; in the material world, seek utility.

                                Leibniz

                                Comment

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