Official "Politics Belongs In the Soapbox" thread

[Dr Sardonicus]

Following up on this post from January 8, I am pleased to pass on this AP report:

Ex-Arizona politician gets 6 years in adoption scheme

PHOENIX (AP) — A former Arizona politician who admitted running an illegal adoption scheme in three states involving women from the Marshall Islands was sentenced in Arkansas to six years in federal prison. It was the first of three punishments he'll face for arranging adoptions prohibited by an international compact.

Paul Petersen, a Republican who served as metro Phoenix's assessor for six years and also worked as an adoption attorney, illegally paid women from the Pacific island nation to come to the U.S. to give up their babies in at least 70 adoptions cases in Arizona, Utah and Arkansas, prosecutors said.
<snip>
He is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 22 in Phoenix for submitting false applications to Arizona's Medicaid system so the mothers could receive state-funded health coverage — even though he knew they didn't live in the state — and for providing documents to a county juvenile court that contained false information. Petersen has said he has since paid back $670,000 in health care costs to the state of more than $800,000 that prosecutors cited in his indictment.

His sentencing in Utah on human smuggling and other convictions is set for Jan. 20.
<snip>

[Dr Sardonicus]

The Latest: Kansas mayor resigns over mask mandate threats

KANSAS — A western Kansas mayor announced Tuesday that she is resigning, effective immediately, because of threats she has received after she publicly supported a mask mandate.

Dodge City Mayor Joyce Warshaw said she was concerned about her safety after being met with aggression, including threats via phone and email, after she was quoted on a USA Today article on Friday supporting the mandate, The Dodge City Globe reported.

There is a popular idiom, "get (the hell) out of Dodge." It refers to Dodge City, Kansas. Its reputation as a dangerous place in the Wild West was secured by its early lack of civil authority, and popular newspaper accounts, some of them true, of the frequent shootings and other violence, the perpetrators being able to act with impunity.

The phrase was subsequently popularized by the long-running TV series Gunsmoke. It was usually uttered by Marshal Matt Dillon (played by the now-late James Arness), telling the bad guys he wasn't going to tolerate their troublesome presence. It was also popular among our troops in Vietnam, who used it to mean getting away from a dangerous or unpleasant situation.

What a sad commentary on my country today, that it is now the Mayor of Dodge City, a woman, who has been chased out of office by threats of violence from a howling mob, because she was fulfilling her duties of office. No doubt the mob will now demand, to use another cliché, "a lawman we can cooperate with."

[Dr Sardonicus]

(Note: I had originally thought to post this in Things that make you go "Hmmmm…" thread over in the Lounge, but decided to put it here just to be on the safe side.)

Due to the recent thread started by an anti-vaxxer (and quickly moved to his blog area), I began to wonder what cesspools anti-vaxxers, conspiratards, and their ilk might be swimming in and drinking their Kool-Aid from. In my estimation, the all-round champ is a guy named Mike Adams, who has established a whole Internet ecosystem of delusions. He dubs himself the "Health Ranger," with the "Natural News" web site, which I will not post a link to, but is described at

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_News

If you ever saw the movie Dr. Strangelove, it's just like Sterling Hayden's portrayal of General Jack D. Ripper, puffing on a cigar, explaining to Group Captain Lionel Mandrake (Peter Sellers) that

I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.

If you want to see what retired generals have been saying about turning the Republic into a military dictatorship, Natural News is your one-stop shop.

Then I found The Common Sense Show, which is run by a huckster named Dave Hodges who posts a lot of conspiratard insanity, sometimes as text posts which go directly down the rabbit hole, but often as videos which generally begin with him shilling his "collagen replacement" supplement, and then go down the rabbit hole.

I give a link to one of the text posts, because it proves beyond cavil that this guy is counting on his followers being sheeple, complete suckers. The banner slogans are "The Common Sense Show is dedicated to peaceful, non-violent social and political change" and "Freeing Enslaved Minds on Demand." (Formerly, Freeing America One Enslaved Mind at a Time®) If you go to

https://thecommonsenseshow.com/consp...surrection-act

you will find a rant that begins (my bolding)

In the classic movie, Eight Days In May, starring Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas, there were eight days when a corrupt group of Generals were going to depose a sitting President and begin a nuclear war.

He posted this on December 6, and used the "eight days" in his fake movie title as a point of comparison with the eight days until the Presidential Electors voted.

The actual movie title is, of course, Seven Days in May. And not a single person whose comments are posted took any notice of the movie title being wrong.

[retina]

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

... The Common Sense Show ...

As is often the case with titles like that, the content is the complete opposite of what it claims.

Anyhow, it is just clickbait. I wouldn't waste time on nonsense like that. It's just boring and tedious drivel, without anything useful to be gained.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by retina

As is often the case with titles like that, the content is the complete opposite of what it claims.

Anyhow, it is just clickbait. I wouldn't waste time on nonsense like that. It's just boring and tedious drivel, without anything useful to be gained.

As far as the content itself goes, I agree completely.

There is IMO however, something useful to be gained: It indicates where some of the people who refuse to accept the results of the 2020 election are getting their (dis)information, and what they are actually thinking.

[kladner]

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

As far as the content itself goes, I agree completely.

There is IMO however, something useful to be gained: It indicates where some of the people who refuse to accept the results of the 2020 election are getting their (dis)information, and what they are actually thinking.

Agreed.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Wisconsin Assembly to vote on repealing statewide mask order

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The Republican-controlled Wisconsin Assembly was poised Thursday to repeal Democratic Gov. Tony Evers' mask mandate, a move that would jeopardize more than $49 million in federal food assistance, brush aside warnings from health experts and make Wisconsin one of only 10 states without a statewide order.

The Assembly is scheduled to vote on a resolution doing away with the mandate. The Senate approved the resolution Tuesday. State law gives the Legislature the power to overturn emergency orders without the governor's signature, making Thursday's vote final.

EDIT: That won't last long, did it...

Wisconsin Assembly cancels vote on repeal of mask mandate

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin's Republican-controlled Assembly on Thursday abruptly canceled a vote to repeal Democratic Gov. Tony Evers' mask mandate in the face of broad criticism from the state's health, school and business leaders and out of concern it would jeopardize more than $49 million in federal aid.
<snip>
The surprise change in direction for the Assembly came after news broke hours before the scheduled vote that repealing the governor's emergency health order and undoing the mask mandate would also jeopardize federal food assistance for low-income people. The COVID-19 aid bill passed by Congress last year gives states the federal money but only if they have emergency health orders in effect, a memo from the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau said.
<snip>

[S485122]

Originally Posted by xilman

... Jericho. (An area of Cambridge, not a town in Israel.)
...

There are a lot of places in the world called Jericho. But none is in Israel.

I suppose you mean the city in Palestine on the West Bank, currently under military occupation by the state of Israel ?

Jacob

MODERATOR NOTE: This latter-day "Battle of Jericho" is a childish, petty squabble. I've moved this and the five responding posts out of the "Silly, pictures" thread.

[Uncwilly]

Originally Posted by S485122

There are a lot of places in the world called Jericho. But none is in Israel.

The current name of an area does not always match the name of the area in the past or general conception. Many areas in Europe have changed between kingdoms and nations. Israel has been a descriptor for the area for quite a long time.

[retina]

Pedanticly speaking it isn't wrong to say Jericho is "not a town in Israel".

We can also say: "Narnia is not a town in Israel". How is that not true?

[Viliam Furik]

Originally Posted by S485122

There are a lot of places in the world called Jericho. But none is in Israel.

I suppose you mean the city in Palestine on the West Bank, currently under military occupation by the state of Israel ?

Jacob

If you consider the bible to be a trustworthy source, then historically speaking, it lies in the land of Israel.