The Republican Utopia

[Danny Bateman]

13 minutes ago, RedDenver said:

When will the media start to acknowledge that the Republican Party is anti-democracy?

 

We've only had about a decade to really digest how extreme their antics are, let's give it some time...  

 

It is extremely important, though. From what I've read about what's good and bad for democracies (particularly the How Democracies Die people), one of their key tenets is that not decisively pushing back against corrupt abuses of power to gain or keep power for one person or party is something that definitely erodes a democracy.

[BigRedBuster]

Yeah.....this seems like the type of person we don’t want working in our schools. 

 

The child language specialist, Bahia Amawi, is a U.S. citizen who received a master’s degree in speech pathology in 1999 and, since then, has specialized in evaluations for young children with language difficulties (see video below). Amawi was born in Austria and has lived in the U.S. for the last 30 years, fluently speaks three languages (English, German, and Arabic), and has four U.S.-born American children of her own.

Amawi began working in 2009 on a contract basis with the Pflugerville Independent School District, which includes Austin, to provide assessments and support for school children from the county’s growing Arabic-speaking immigrant community. The children with whom she has worked span the ages of 3 to 11. Ever since her work for the school district began in 2009, her contract was renewed each year with no controversy or problem.

[B.B. Hemingway]

17 minutes ago, BigRedBuster said:

Yeah.....this seems like the type of person we don’t want working in our schools. 

 

 

Because she won't sign? It's kind of hard to blame her, given her religious beliefs, and where Israel and palestinians stand.... Or am I missing the sarcasm here?

[RedDenver]

2 hours ago, B.B. Hemingway said:

 

 

Because she won't sign? It's kind of hard to blame her, given her religious beliefs, and where Israel and palestinians stand.... Or am I missing the sarcasm here?

The sarcasm is strong in that post.

[B.B. Hemingway]

6 minutes ago, RedDenver said:

The sarcasm is strong in that post.

 

You never know nowadays

[Moiraine]

Our attitude toward Israel is stupid and dangerous for Palestinians. I believe we should protect Israel because so many in the region want to annihilate them, but the amount of people going bats#!t crazy any time someone says a single negative word about them is going to make them (probably already has made them) think they can get away with murder.

[TGHusker]

4 hours ago, BigRedBuster said:

Yeah.....this seems like the type of person we don’t want working in our schools. 

 

The child language specialist, Bahia Amawi, is a U.S. citizen who received a master’s degree in speech pathology in 1999 and, since then, has specialized in evaluations for young children with language difficulties (see video below). Amawi was born in Austria and has lived in the U.S. for the last 30 years, fluently speaks three languages (English, German, and Arabic), and has four U.S.-born American children of her own.

Amawi began working in 2009 on a contract basis with the Pflugerville Independent School District, which includes Austin, to provide assessments and support for school children from the county’s growing Arabic-speaking immigrant community. The children with whom she has worked span the ages of 3 to 11. Ever since her work for the school district began in 2009, her contract was renewed each year with no controversy or problem.

I am very familiar with anti-boycott laws/regs as I deal with international letters of credit and related shipment documents.  I've had to have LC drafts revised by MidEast companies that included boycott language.  I support the law but I do not support this application of the law.  The state of TX is treating her as a contractor like they would treat a manufacturing company etc.  This is a terrible application of the law, while she is, it appears, technically a 'contractor' she is more of a quasi-employee and should be consider so - an individual contractor teaching or evaluating children has no impact or ability to impact the state of Israel or interfere with its commerce.  

This is stupid and very sad that a politician in her state didn't step forward to assist her - but then again it is Texas.

[Danny Bateman]

5 hours ago, Moiraine said:

Our attitude toward Israel is stupid and dangerous for Palestinians. I believe we should protect Israel because so many in the region want to annihilate them, but the amount of people going bats#!t crazy any time someone says a single negative word about them is going to make them (probably already has made them) think they can get away with murder.

 

There is very, very little room for error if you're in the public sphere when it comes to not supporting Israel. 

 

Recently one of the talking heads on CNN recently got canned after giving a speech in which he used language which was construed as anti-Israel. From what I can tell it was just a poor choice of words. I do know from following him on Twitter he's pretty pro-Palestine or at the very least strongly in favor of a two-state solution. But there was holy hell raised about it and he wound up being dismissed as a talking head. They were even trying to get him canned from teaching at Temple. There's just not really any margin for error on the issue because people feel so strongly about it.

 

There's a couple issues that are that way in politics. Off the top of my head birth control, gun control and respecting the troops/police.

[Moiraine]

7 minutes ago, Clifford Franklin said:

 

There is very, very little room for error if you're in the public sphere when it comes to not supporting Israel. 

 

Recently one of the talking heads on CNN recently got canned after giving a speech in which he used language which was construed as anti-Israel. From what I can tell it was just a poor choice of words. I do know from following him on Twitter he's pretty pro-Palestine or at the very least strongly in favor of a two-state solution. But there was holy hell raised about it and he wound up being dismissed as a talking head. They were even trying to get him canned from teaching at Temple. There's just not really any margin for error on the issue because people feel so strongly about it.

 

There's a couple issues that are that way in politics. Off the top of my head birth control, gun control and respecting the troops/police.

The bolded is what I'm saying is stupid. People are insane about Israel.

[BigRedBuster]

LOL....not a Pelosi fan but....she knows what she’s doing. 

 

 

[BigRedBuster]

Yeah....republicans care about our veterans....right????

 

 

[Moiraine]

2 hours ago, BigRedBuster said:

Yeah....republicans care about our veterans....right????

 

 

 

 

 

If we’re going to have a huge military budget, I want it to go to soldiers and vets and not:

 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/charlestiefer/2016/01/01/the-10-most-blatantly-wasteful-defense-items-in-the-recent-1-8-trillion-spending-bill/#3d6b8eb768cd

 

[commando]

whats that old saying about a sinking ship?

 

 

[Danny Bateman]

4 hours ago, commando said:

whats that old saying about a sinking ship?

 

 

 

I'd like to point out all of 'em so far have been women.

 

It seems like there's a growing gender gap in our politics that is going to become more and more important. Hopefully women can save us from ourselves. Not sure what my fellow males see in the GOP right now besides wanting to believe obviously false promises and tacit approval it's OK to be an unrepentant dick to everyone who doesn't support you, but the party for me is completely radioactive and beyond the pale until they grow a spine and develop a sense of empathy for people who don't look or think like them. 

[Danny Bateman]

Good stuff as always from the Atlantic about how the GOP got to where it is today. Worth a read.

 

 

Quote

The corruption I mean has less to do with individual perfidy than institutional depravity. It isn’t an occasional failure to uphold norms, but a consistent repudiation of them. It isn’t about dirty money so much as the pursuit and abuse of power—power as an end in itself, justifying almost any means. Political corruption usually trails financial scandals in its wake—the foam is scummy with self-dealing—but it’s far more dangerous than graft. There are legal remedies for Duncan Hunter, a representative from California, who will stand trial next year for using campaign funds to pay for family luxuries.* But there’s no obvious remedy for what the state legislatures of Wisconsin and Michigan, following the example of North Carolina in 2016, are now doing.

 

Republican majorities are rushing to pass laws that strip away the legitimate powers of newly elected Democratic governors while defeated or outgoing Republican incumbents are still around to sign the bills. Even if the courts overturn some of these power grabs, as they have in North Carolina, Republicans will remain securely entrenched in the legislative majority through their own hyper-gerrymandering—in Wisconsin last month, 54 percent of the total votes cast for major-party candidates gave Democrats just 36 of 99 assembly seats—so they will go on passing laws to thwart election results. Nothing can stop these abuses short of an electoral landslide. In Wisconsin, a purple state, that means close to 60 percent of the total vote.

 

The fact that no plausible election outcome can check the abuse of power is what makes political corruption so dangerous. It strikes at the heart of democracy. It destroys the compact between the people and the government. In rendering voters voiceless, it pushes everyone closer to the use of undemocratic means.