nonniey

Making false official statements to the police I believe is illegal.

Tilt at windmills much?

Point being it not something new. A minor recurring issue the Military has been dealing with for years. FYI- Sergeants don't chapter people out. (Assume you think I'm that poster from far in the past).

Did you mean to say not news in line 2 (Going off the theme in line 1)? BTW - who said it was a White Nationalist that I kicked out? If one is an active member (in the Army at least) of a hate group (an Army identified group) policy is to chapter out. This policy has been in place at least since the 1990s. So why have that policy if it was something that hadn't happened? Fairly certain a handful have been kicked out every year since the policy has been in place. Like I said not news.

That really isn't news. Soldiers are chaptered out every year for being active members of hate groups. Been going on for years. I kicked a soldier out in the 1990s for being an active member of a hate group.

Yes I'd hope so as well but many have made it very clear how they view Trump supporters.

Issue is the narrative that all Trump supporters are racist. Smollet was just trying to reinforce this. Unfortunately many buy into that narrative including quite a few who post here. So you may get a few who push back on what you are proposing here.

I think the motive to aid his career in music/ acting was just a side benefit of the actual primary motive, which was as you said to drive the wedge deeper in our culture - it was a hate crime imo. He wanted to reinforce the narrative that is out there that all Trump supporters are racist, homophobic bigots that are willing to physically attack their opponents. There is too much hate out there and in here (Tailgate).

Well, yelling racist epithets - check, yelling homophobic epithets - check, putting rope around neck - check, yelling this is MAGA country - check, only thing he missed was having the bad guy twirling his mustache while tying him to the tracks.

You mention the "certain other elements" but the fact is the opposite side from those elements did in fact seize upon the assault to attack the opposite group which I think was the most likely motivation behind this. And yes now it will blow back in the opposite direction. Should a crime designed to drum up hate be a hate crime?

From what I've seen in this topic that is exactly what this forum did when the story first came out. I may be wrong but I think this thread is the first mention of the subject. Gotta admit that surprised me given the wider media's initial response.

I'm sure you would (and more if you could).

Murder is generally a state crime. So murdering someone by lynching will now also be a Federal crime. Edit: The bill is not just limited to hanging. Offense motive must involve actual or perceived Race, Color, Religion or national origin. Bill applies only to crime committed by 2 or more people.

Ok having Serius I get to listen to the Patriot and Progressive stations. Both had programs and call-ins complaining congress selling out in this deal. Patriot obviously claiming McConnell/the Senate betraying Trump and Progressive claiming Schumer and company gave into blackmail. 😵

Do they have Razzies in the journalist profession for stupid story titles? Look at this one from nymag: "AOC’s Green New Deal Resolution Is Utopian — and Pragmatic." Utopian and pragmatic??? Wow - wonder if NY magazine has ever heard the term mutually exclusive.

Virginia Democrats among others.

What are admitting privileges why may a law want to require them? https://www.semissourian.com/story/1157587.html ..... Regulatory bodies that license hospitals -- such as the national Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations and Medicare and the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services -- hold hospitals responsible for appropriately privileging every physician before he or she can practice in a hospital. Obtaining hospital privileges is a detailed and tedious process. But it is necessary to ensure patients are getting the best care possible,..... All of their credentials -- education, residencies, fellowships and practice experience-- are reviewed for appropriateness of training and competency," Bolin said. Dr. David Cope, vice president of medical affairs at Southeast Missouri Hospital, said this information is verified by medical staff services in most hospitals and reviewed by physicians in medical staff leadership positions. Recommendations regarding appointment to the staff and granting of specific privileges are made by the medical department's chairman and forwarded to the Credentials Committee for consideration, he said. Their recommendations are considered by the Medical Executive Committee and resulting recommendations are forwarded to the Board of Trustees, who takes the action approve -- or not. "If they meet all the guidelines, they are awarded privileges that they appear to be appropriately trained to carry out," said Cope, adding that doctors can obtain privileges to work at more than one hospital, although some doctors just want privileges at one hospital. Privileges can be denied if it's determined doctors have a lack of training and cannot demonstrate competency. Also, loss of medical license in another state, exclusion from Medicare or Medicaid, or having previously found guilty of fraud or abuse are reasons for denying hospital privileges. Privileges can be suspended if a physician does not perform enough of the specified procedure or treat enough of a patient type to stay proficient......

The majority of the country is not for unrestricted abortion either.

Ok I give you that but you have to admit even that policy by the 55% owner is still pretty stupid even if not as stupid as the coaches policy when seen this way.

This is my analogy of what has happened on the border security argument. 2 adversarial owners (the voters) have a 50% even split of shares of a football team. One owner appointed a coach hated by the other owner- the other the general manager who he wants to counter the coach. The coach wants every single player to be an offensive lineman and has staked his coaching job on doing this. The General Manager responds by saying hell no - from this point on absolutely no pay roll (cap dollars?) will be allocated to offensive linemen.

IMO many on this board have fallen into this spiral. What he writes up is a bit depressing especially for those of us that have to put up with both the Cult of Trump and the resistance mob. Andrew Sullivan (Like the Atlantic another bastion of right wing thinking - ok he does call himself a conservative). "......There’s a reason why, in the crucial battle for the legitimacy of a free press, Trump is still on the offensive. Our mainstream press has been poisoned by tribalism. My own trust in it is eroding. I’m far from the only one. The other night I was having a drink with a friend who said he believed that the Trump threat was essentially over, as the shutdown took its toll. He noted what might become an inflection point in the polling. He was heartened by the midterms. He might be right. But I think that misses the core point about this presidency. From my perspective, the Trump threat to liberal democracy is deepening, largely because its racial animus and rank tribalism are evoking a response that is increasingly imbued with racial animus and rank tribalism, in an ever-tightening spiral of mutual hostility......" http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/01/andrew-sullivan-the-abyss-of-hate-versus-hate.html

Food for thought from The Atlantic The Media Botched the Covington Catholic Story: And the damage to their credibility will be lasting. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/01/media-must-learn-covington-catholic-story/581035/ "....By Saturday, the story had become so hot, and the appetite for it so deep, that some news outlets felt compelled to do some actual reporting. This was when the weekend began to take a long, bad turn for respected news outlets and righteous celebrities. Journalists began to discover that the viral video was not, in fact, the Zapruder film of 2019, and that there were other videos—lots and lots of them—that showed the event from multiple perspectives and that explained more clearly what had happened. At first the journalists and their editors tried to patch the revelations onto the existing story, in hopes that the whole thing would somehow hold together. CNN, apparently by now aware that the event had taken place within a complicating larger picture, tried to use the new information to support its own biased interpretation, sorrowfully reporting that early in the afternoon the boys had clashed with “four African American young men preaching about the Bible and oppression...."

I think the preponderance of blame should be on the Media and on those who attacked the teenagers and Mr. Phillips (pretty viciously I'll add) on social media. Fortunately there are a few that have acknowledged their mistake, but most won't (including most who engaged in this behavior here).

Innocent of what? Just asking that shows you are part of the problem that Mr Linker is describing. "....In 1984, George Orwell famously described a totalitarian political order in which people were kept as docile subjects in part by a daily ritual called "Two Minutes Hate" in which the population directs all of its pent up fury at "Goldstein," a possibly fictional enemy of the state. Thanks to Twitter, we now know that the same dynamic can arise spontaneously, with fresh ire directed at a new manifestation of the partisan enemy nearly every day. It shows us that under certain circumstances — our circumstances — people can and will fasten onto an endless succession of real-life Goldsteins for the sheer, addictive joy of it — for the pure, delirious pleasure of denouncing manifestations of evil in our midst. Nothing, it seems, is quite as satisfying as singling out our fellow citizens for their moral failings and indulging in fantasies of their fully justified punishment....."

It just means that both parties are filibustering each others legislation. McConnell is allowing cloture votes which require 60 votes to allow legislation to go for an up or down vote - Seems neither the Dems or Repubs want to allow an up or down vote on their opponents legislation.