Etiquette



DP Etiquette

First rule: Don't be a jackass.

Other rules: Do not attack or insult people you disagree with. Engage with facts, logic and beliefs. Out of respect for others, please provide some sources for the facts and truths you rely on if you are asked for that. If emotion is getting out of hand, get it back in hand. To limit dehumanizing people, don't call people or whole groups of people disrespectful names, e.g., stupid, dumb or liar. Insulting people is counterproductive to rational discussion. Insult makes people angry and defensive. All points of view are welcome, right, center, left and elsewhere. Just disagree, but don't be belligerent or reject inconvenient facts, truths or defensible reasoning.

Tuesday, December 28, 2021

Random stuff from the internet

There is just so much going on. 


Satan returns for Christmas to the capitol building
In the Illinois capitol building, The Satanic Temple out up its annual Christmas display with its God Baphomet shown as a baby in a basket. Baphomet is the goat headed thing with a human body and hoofs. Grumpy Catholics were there protesting its presence


Catholics protesting the baby Baphomet
Ban blasphemy, gol' darn it!



Insulting the president during a Christmas good will phone call
In Oregon, a man who joined a public phone call with Biden closed by insulting the president. The man, southern Oregon parent, 35-year-old Jared Schmeck, ended his initially polite conversation with, “Merry Christmas and let’s go, Brandon.” The schmuck Schmeck lied when denied he was a Trump supporter and complained that he was being attacked online, commenting "now I am being attacked for utilizing my freedom of speech." After the call, he wore a MAGA hat to an interview with the toxic traitor Steve Bannon. CNN comments: "Aww, poor "victim" Schmeck. Apparently, he thinks he should be able to tell Biden to basically go f**k himself while on a family friendly holiday call, but no one should be able to take issue with his actions."

One has just gotta love that freedom of speech thingie. And liars with their lies.


Democrats really did steal the election!
In a novel rationale to explain why Trump lost the 2020 election, the always delightfully crackpot Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), adduced a novel explanation grounded in evil, underhanded deeds. Here's what the Dems did to win, and (microaggression alert) this isn't for the faint of heart: They went out and legally convinced some voters to vote for Biden. The horror . . . the horror . . . . how could they sink so low? 

The Independent comments on this catastrophe
Kentucky senator Rand Paul was mocked on social media after he accused Democrats of “stealing elections” legally by convincing potential voters to support them.

Sharing an article from The American Conservative on how “Mark Zuckerberg’s millions and the Centre for Technology and Civic Life turned Wisconsin blue in 2020,” Mr Paul wrote: “How to steal an election.”

He then cited a paragraph from the report that suggested that Democrats planned to seed “an area heavy with potential Democratic votes with as many absentee ballots as possible, targeting and convincing potential voters to complete them in a legally valid way, and then harvesting and counting the results”.
My God (Baphomet), what is this country coming to?

I don't know what I am talking about, but it is
my right to talk, blah, blah, blah! 
Yup, the Republican leadership still blithers about the election



Making elections have integrity again
Reuters reports that the new laws in Georgia are being used to purge Black Democrats from county election boards. Reuters writes:
Now a faction of three white Republicans controlled the board – thanks to a bill passed by the Republican-led Georgia legislature earlier this year. The Spalding board’s new chairman has endorsed former president Donald Trump’s false stolen-election claims on social media.

The panel in Spalding, a rural patch south of Atlanta, is one of six county boards that Republicans have quietly reorganized in recent months through similar county-specific state legislation. The changes expanded the party’s power over choosing members of local election boards ahead of the crucial midterm Congressional elections in November 2022. 
"What we want to make sure is that we have election integrity,” said Butch Miller, the No. 2 Republican in the Georgia Senate, a leading advocate for Senate Bill 202 and a sponsor of the bill to reconstitute the Lincoln County election board.

In five of the Georgia counties that restructured election boards - Troup, Morgan, Pickens, Stephens and Lincoln - the legislature shifted the power to appoint some or all election board members to local county commissions, all of which are currently controlled by Republicans.
By golly, we're gonna get so much election integrity in 2022 and 2024 that it will slop over the top of the bottle and spill over into the swamp in Washington. That will cause all the swamp creatures to prodigiously reproduce. No wait. That's not right. The swamp creatures will go away. That's it -- they'll go away.


Republicans didn't even need the 1/6 insurrection
Republicans in congress were ready to commit the coup without street violence
The (medium credibilityBaily Beast writes:
A former Trump White House official says he and right-wing provocateur Steve Bannon were actually behind the last-ditch coordinated effort by rogue Republicans in Congress to halt certification of the 2020 election results and keep President Donald Trump in power earlier this year, in a plan dubbed the “Green Bay Sweep.”

In his recently published memoir, Peter Navarro, then-President Donald Trump’s trade adviser, details how he stayed in close contact with Bannon as they put the Green Bay Sweep in motion with help from members of Congress loyal to the cause.

But in an interview last week with The Daily Beast, Navarro shed additional light on his role in the operation and their coordination with politicians like Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) and Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX).

“We spent a lot of time lining up over 100 congressmen, including some senators. It started out perfectly. At 1 p.m., Gosar and Cruz did exactly what was expected of them,” Navarro told The Daily Beast. “It was a perfect plan. And it all predicated on peace and calm on Capitol Hill. We didn’t even need any protestors, because we had over 100 congressmen committed to it.”  
Staffers for Cruz and Gosar did not respond to requests for comment. (Well, duh! What a shocker!)
I'll just assume the medium credibility Daily Beast (DB) isn't just making this stuff up. Some of it is fact checkable. Of course regarding the interview, Navarro can now just deny that he said what the DB says he said. He would do that if he was told to say he didn't say those things because it just looks soooo darn bad for Republicans. Well, probably to at least some Republicans based on their "don't play into their hands" talking point. 

Caveat: This brings up a common problem in modern day politics. Here, we've got the medium credibility news source DB talking about a rabid, no credibility Republican Trump supporter. So, even if Navarro changes his mind and denies all of it, the DB still gets the benefit of the doubt. Why would Navarro makes up lies like that to the DB -- to trap the DB or make it look bad? 

But of course, minds will differ on this. This is why I prefer and usually use high credibility sources over lower or no credibility sources. 

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