USCE 2023: Please let them shove a camera up your butt

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > USCE 2023: Please let them shove a camera up your butt

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KillHour: Oct 28, 2007

Reflections85 posted:

You're talking about Stump vs. Sparkman, right? According to the Wikipedia page, her mother petitioned the lower court to sterilise her daughter and the judge approved, so it was done without the daughter's knowledge or consent, but definitely with the mother's.

(It's still absolutely horrendous. Like, if there's no law or general principle empowering the judge to grant a petition to sterilise a minor and if the judge failed utterly to follow due process, then I've no clue how it can be read as a normal judicial act. Or why there isn't criminal liability attached. Just disgusting.)

If anyone hasn't read the article, they should because it's a wild loving ride. The judge approved the order the same day her mother filed the petition, with no hearing or evidence or anyone appointed to defend the daughter. The daughter wasn't even informed after - she didn't find out until after she was married and trying to get pregnant, which is when she sued everyone involved. The supreme court held that the judge had absolute immunity and everyone else involved was protected by the court order.

Every sentence in the entire article is :psyduck:

# ? May 5, 2023 08:09

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# ? May 25, 2024 22:40

The Lone Badger: Sep 24, 2007

KillHour posted:

If anyone hasn't read the article, they should because it's a wild loving ride. The judge approved the order the same day her mother filed the petition, with no hearing or evidence or anyone appointed to defend the daughter. The daughter wasn't even informed after - she didn't find out until after she was married and trying to get pregnant, which is when she sued everyone involved. The supreme court held that the judge had absolute immunity and everyone else involved was protected by the court order.

Every sentence in the entire article is

Did the surgeon get hosed by a medical ethics/licensing board at least?

# ? May 5, 2023 08:20

KillHour: Oct 28, 2007

The Lone Badger posted:

Did the surgeon get hosed by a medical ethics/licensing board at least?

As far as I can tell, no. All I could really find on him was his obituary.

https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/fortwayne/name/john-hines-obituary?id=26326754

Given he had the excuse of "someone came in with a court order and said I had to do surgery," I don't think the licensing board would do poo poo.

Edit: the summary of the holding is something else.

The loving SCOTUS posted:

A judge will not be deprived of immunity because the action he took was in error, was done maliciously, or was in excess of his authority. He will be subject to liability only when he has acted in the clear absence of all jurisdiction.

# ? May 5, 2023 08:28

Captain_Maclaine: Sep 30, 2001; Every moment that I'm alive, I pray for death!

lobster shirt posted:

forced sterilization in the united states didn't end until decades after ww2. like i think the last one was in the 1980s.

If you count what ICE got up to during the Trump presidency, it still hasn't.

# ? May 5, 2023 09:37

Cool NIN Shirt: Nov 26, 2007; by vyelkin

Captain_Maclaine posted:

If you count what ICE got up to during the Trump presidency, it still hasn't.

Not just the Trump administration - the issues at Irwin County Detention Center dated back to 2015 :eng101:

# ? May 5, 2023 11:43

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

Economists: :shrug:

Everyone still has no real clue what is going on.

- Jobs market, real wages, and prime labor force participation rate are all up.

The only sector with major job loss was "Temporary staffing" services. Economists are even mixed on what that means. Either it means that job demand is slowing down so staffing services are hurting or it means that people are getting placed in long-term jobs and there's too few jobless for staffing agencies.

- This good economic news is either very bad for inflation or possibly not going to impact inflation at all.

It will definitely be one or the other, though.

quote:

In focus for the Street: hourly earnings. Bryce Doty, senior portfolio manager at Sit Investment Associates, says he does not view the year-over-year increase in hourly earnings as inflationary.

Manolatos of Wells Fargo sees it differently:

�I think the current level of wage growth is inflationary.�

quote:

The unemployment rate matched its cyclical low of 3.4% thanks to a slight drop in the labor force, and monthly pay gains were 0.5% -- well above expectations. Taken at face value, that suggests that the labor market is tight enough to spur more aggressive pay rises as firms compete for labor.

- Hopefully, Sam gets a gift card or a trophy.

quote:

Only one economist of the 63 in Bloomberg�s survey predicted the 0.5% increase in average hourly earnings: Sam Coffin at UBS.

https://twitter.com/TheStalwart/status/1654463603137814529

quote:

One of the biggest areas of job growth is in the health and education sector. This is a welcome development for many health-care providers. Hospitals have been short of nurses since the pandemic erupted, and now at long last people are filling in those vacancies.

Health and education saw a 77,000 increase in payrolls.

quote:

Diane Swonk, chief economist at KPMG, says:

�The labor market remains extremely tight.�

She adds:

�The Fed left the door open to additional rate hikes for a reason. This data is not as reassuring on a pause as we would like.�

- It is good that so many jobs and wage increases are coming to the lowest quarter of earners, but it might also be bad because they could be the first to go in a recession?

quote:

The Black unemployment rate dropped to a record low of 4.7% in April. This is more evidence that the strong labor market is benefiting workers who are typically the last to see gains in a recovery.

Of course, the big question is how quickly those gains might reverse if we start to see a recession later this year, as some economists expect.

quote:

Among the main categories of job that Bloomberg�s data team break out, there were declines in just two sectors: wholesale trade and temporary staffing services.

Eight categories reported declines for March. So we see a broader-based advance this time.

- Same thing is happening in Canada, so it is likely not a fluke in the U.S. But, who knows how long it will last?

quote:

Adding to the evidence of strength in North America, Canada also reported jobs numbers this morning, and that release also handily beat expectations. Employment rose by 41,400 -- more than double the 20,000 median forecast in Bloomberg�s survey. The caveat is that the gain was propelled by part-time jobs, with full-time rolls dropping.

- It is either an extremely good time to raise taxes and cut spending because we want to build up reserves and pay down debt during good economic times... or it is an extremely bad time because the good economic indicators might be fragile and cutting spending and raising taxes could push it off the cliff.

It is definitely one or the other, though.

quote:

The Biden administration and congressional Democrats are likely to hail this report as showcasing the powerful post-pandemic recovery, and asking why Republicans would want to put all this at risk by not passing a �clean� increase in the debt limit.

Republicans might argue that the solid job market is all the more reason that this is a good time to rein in the fiscal deficit by cutting government spending plans -- their condition for boosting the debt limit.

In conclusion, a summary of global economists' assessments of the state of the economy via emoji: :shrug:

Leon Trotsky 2012 fucked around with this message at 14:51 on May 5, 2023

# ? May 5, 2023 14:31

Randalor: Sep 4, 2011

quote:

Manolatos of Wells Fargo sees it differently:

“I think the current level of wage growth is inflationary.”

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck you.

# ? May 5, 2023 14:49

brugroffil: Nov 30, 2015

Boy, economists really seem to hate the idea of labor having any sort of power or growth at all.

# ? May 5, 2023 14:52

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

brugroffil posted:

Boy, economists really seem to hate the idea of labor having any sort of power or growth at all.

It is either very bad, neutral, or a very good thing.

They have confirmed that it is definitely one of those options.

# ? May 5, 2023 14:55

Lumpy: Apr 26, 2002; La! La! La! Laaaa!; College Slice

brugroffil posted:

Boy, economists really seem to hate the idea of labor having any sort of power or growth at all.

Economists employed by the capital class claim thing that doesn't benefit capital class is bad. Film at 11.

# ? May 5, 2023 15:39

Meatball: Mar 2, 2003; That's a Spicy Meatball; Pillbug

I was thinking yesterday that since people aren't dumping hundreds of dollars into student loans, they're spending it on goods and services, which is driving demand.

Once they restart payments and people start tossing money into the bottomless pit of "student loans" instead of spending it in the economy, I worry demand is going to tank and trigger that recession people are worried about.

I'm just some goon on the net, though, so I'm as far from an authority on economics as could be.

# ? May 5, 2023 15:39

the_steve: Nov 9, 2005; We're always hiring!

Lumpy posted:

Economists employed by the capital class claim thing that doesn't benefit capital class is bad. Film at 11.

Wonder how long until we start seeing unironic "The case for bringing back company scrip" articles.

# ? May 5, 2023 15:40

single-mode fiber: Dec 30, 2012

The biggest component of demand-pull inflation isn't people carrying student debt, though, it's people who already owned at least one property prior to 2020, and took a huge cash-out refinance at the time when mortgage rates were near the bottom. Most people who fit into this category also had enough investments to have benefited from the enormous stock market run from March 2020 up through December 2021. A smaller, but not insignificant part of this cohort is also people who took PPP loans without actually needing to use them for their intended purpose, which ended up being yet another additional cash transfusion. Even if they started requiring student loan payments to resume tomorrow, if it even had any effect on inflation at all via demand destruction, it wouldn't be more than a couple tenths of a percent, I'd guess.

What you really have to do is extinguish the "animal spirits" of like, a 55 year old franchise owner of 3 local car washes, who has a regular house and a lake house. This type of person suddenly acquired several hundred thousand dollars, on top of a lifestyle that already lacked nothing, and probably already had several material luxuries. This person needs to see their taxes double, or the stock market fall 30%, to really shake them out of their 2021 spending habits.

# ? May 5, 2023 16:50

Mellow Seas: Oct 9, 2012; Can't post for 10 years!

Lumpy posted:

Economists employed by the capital class claim thing that doesn't benefit capital class is bad. Film at 11.

Yeah and the unfortunate thing is that a lot of economics departments have been completely bought out by right wing interests, and so even academic economists spew out a lot of bullshit now. Here's a Jacobin interview with Professor Marshall Steinbaum of University of Utah talking about the phenomenon: https://jacobin.com/2021/02/postwar-economics-right-wing-marshall-steinbaum-interview

I do recommend reading Paul Krugman's (NYT, Princeton) writing if you have access to it. He has a very mainstream liberal POV, but steers well clear of ideological Chicago-school poo poo and he's willing to actually change his mind when he gets new data, and even if I don't agree with all of his policy propositions his stuff is very educational regarding Macro. I first learned about MMT reading Krugman. I've been reading his stuff for 15 years and I think it had a big impact on my preference for setting government spending based on actual need and not some inchoate goal of "restraint."

Interestingly, the one time the government did set spending based on need without dicking around and nickel and diming everybody, in 2020, it led to a three year period of nonstop job growth and the best labor market in generations, albeit with some side effects. And of course, conservative/corporate economists are using those side effects to argue that the government should never spend the amount of money necessary to solve a problem ever again.

Jon Stewart did an episode of "The Problem" where he talked about how bullshit it is to claim the only way to "save" our economy right now is by punishing workers. He interviewed Larry Summers, who explained, hey, sometimes you have a disease, so you have to take medicine, and there are going to be side effects. Somehow an alternate applicability of the metaphor didn't occur to him: that giving people money was medicine for the disease of "people don't have enough money," and that the inflation is a side effect, and we're much, much better off than we are if the 2020/21 spending bills hadn't passed.

# ? May 5, 2023 17:29

FlamingLiberal: Jan 18, 2009; Would you like to play a game?

Yes you can see it from the economic recovery numbers. It took over 10 years for the economy to recover post-Great Recession, whereas with Covid thanks to heavy government spending it took less than 2.

# ? May 5, 2023 17:46

Mooseontheloose: May 13, 2003

FlamingLiberal posted:

Yes you can see it from the economic recovery numbers. It took over 10 years for the economy to recover post-Great Recession, whereas with Covid thanks to heavy government spending it took less than 2.

Also a lot of post great recession stuff was "shovel ready projects" supposedly to avoid boondongles of multi year projects that might not see the light of day. Compared to BIF/IRA which were like we'll take theoretical projects and throw billions of dollars over multiple agencies to spread the risk.

# ? May 5, 2023 17:58

Mellow Seas: Oct 9, 2012; Can't post for 10 years!

Heat starting to turn up on Feinstein, editorial in the NYT today calls for her to resign. If the demands for her resignation are getting this "establishment" I'm not sure how much longer she'll be able to hold out.

The Paper of Record for Fancy People posted:

Without Senator Dianne Feinstein, there might never have been an assault weapons ban in 1994. Or the Gun-Free Schools Act of 1994. Or the revelatory report on the C.I.A.�s torture program in 2014. She has had a distinguished career in the U.S. Senate, but her infirmities and illness now force her � and Senate leaders like Charles Schumer � to make a painful choice.

At age 89, Ms. Feinstein is now the Senate�s oldest member, and health issues have kept her out of Washington and the Senate chamber for more than two months, at a time when vital legislation and judicial nominations are hanging on a knife�s edge. If she cannot fulfill her obligations to the Senate and to her constituents, she should resign and turn over her responsibilities to an appointed successor. If she is unable to reach that decision on her own, Mr. Schumer, the majority leader, and other Democratic senators should make it clear to her and the public how important it is that she do so.

Senators play many roles in shaping legislation and policy, but they have one primary and inescapable duty: They must show up in person to vote in the chamber. If they cannot do that for extended periods, they are depriving their constituents � and California has 39 million of them � of a voice and of fundamental representation. In six elections, voters have sent Ms. Feinstein to Washington on a Democratic platform, and in the current term of Congress, that agenda consists of confirming judges nominated by the Biden administration and preserving a majority for important legislation in a closely divided Senate. Her absence is a failure that deprives American voters of full representation on legislation and appointments that will affect them for decades to come.

Without Ms. Feinstein�s presence at proceedings of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Democrats have lacked a majority there and struggled at times to advance nominations to the floor. (Proxy voting is allowed in the committee, but a proxy cannot be the decisive vote if the committee is otherwise evenly divided, as it often is.) Currently, seven of President Biden�s judicial nominees are awaiting a vote in the committee, at a time when 9 percent of district and appellate court seats remain vacant. Ms. Feinstein offered to step away from the committee, but Republican senators blocked any effort at appointing a temporary replacement. Democrats are also likely to need all 51 members of their caucus if there is a vote to raise the debt ceiling, along with at least nine Republicans.

Ms. Feinstein�s difficulties with advancing age are serious and long predate her current illness. Last year, her hometown newspaper, The San Francisco Chronicle, reported that her memory has so deteriorated that she can no longer fulfill her job duties. She cannot keep up with conversations, her colleagues said; she doesn�t seem to fully recognize other senators and relies almost entirely on staff members, to a much greater extent than other senators do. She�s announced that she will not run for re-election in 2024, but until then, her staff is, in effect, assuming the authority entrusted to her by California�s voters.

It�s a deeply saddening situation, but even the most dedicated public servants cannot serve forever, and they may be the last to realize or act upon their incapacity. Fitness for elective office can be measured in different ways. Some people are unfit on the day they first set foot in Congress, because of their character or ethical failings; others do stellar work for decades but gradually lose their effectiveness. In each case, constituents are the losers, and American institutions should be strong enough to have mechanisms to protect voters from a lack of representation.

In the Senate, that task falls to Mr. Schumer and his leadership colleagues. Ms. Feinstein has put them in a difficult position by saying she wants to come back, and plans to do so, but without ever giving an indication of when that will be. Mr. Schumer said Wednesday that he hoped she would be back next week. But Ms. Feinstein�s office has not confirmed that, and there is no clear timeline for her return, the only way for voters to gauge her effectiveness. Under the circumstances, Mr. Schumer should turn up the public pressure on her to return or resign, setting aside the antique Senate gentility that can hobble common-sense decision making there.

Putting any kind of public pressure on Ms. Feinstein has been criticized by the former House speaker Nancy Pelosi and others as sexist. �I�ve never seen them go after a man who was sick in the Senate in that way,� Ms. Pelosi said last month. It�s true that the Senate, which has always been entirely or mostly male, has experienced long absences by some of its male members. In the 1940s, Senator Carter Glass of Virginia was absent for four years because of heart trouble. Senator Karl Mundt of South Dakota had a stroke in 1969 and never really came back in the following three years. In 2001, when he was 98, Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina was wheeled to the Senate floor to cast votes, despite widespread concern about his mental fitness. In all of those cases, as with Ms. Feinstein, the senators ignored concerns about their capacity and pleas from their colleagues as long as they could.

This Senate tradition should have been discarded long ago. Senate seats are not lifetime sinecures, and if members can�t effectively represent their constituents or work for the benefit of their country, they should not hesitate to turn the job over to someone who can. Ms. Feinstein owes California a responsible decision.

This is kind of crazy to think about :

quote:

they are depriving their constituents � and California has 39 million of them � of a voice and of fundamental representation.

Right now Wyoming residents have a 130-1 advantage on Californians in the Senate.

# ? May 5, 2023 18:03

This Is the Zodiac: Feb 4, 2003

quote:

Putting any kind of public pressure on Ms. Feinstein has been criticized by the former House speaker Nancy Pelosi and others as sexist. �I�ve never seen them go after a man who was sick in the Senate in that way,� Ms. Pelosi said last month.

This, of course, is bullshit. Republicans called on John McCain to resign when his brain cancer kept him from voting. The Boston Globe published an editorial just like this one calling on Ted Kennedy to resign for the same reason.

# ? May 5, 2023 18:12

Killer robot: Sep 6, 2010; I was having the most wonderful dream. I think you were in it!; Pillbug

FlamingLiberal posted:

Yes you can see it from the economic recovery numbers. It took over 10 years for the economy to recover post-Great Recession, whereas with Covid thanks to heavy government spending it took less than 2.

The difference between the cause of each recession have a lot to do with that, so while the spending was a good thing that's not the most convincing argument. Most of the covid spending wasn't really in the can when economists were predicting a quick bounceback compared to 2008.

# ? May 5, 2023 18:16

FizFashizzle: Mar 30, 2005

This Is the Zodiac posted:

This, of course, is bullshit. Republicans called on John McCain to resign when his brain cancer kept him from voting. The Boston Globe published an editorial just like this one calling on Ted Kennedy to resign for the same reason.

They specifically did not because it would have triggered a special election in Arizona. They wanted him to hold out long enough so that the governor, by state law, could appoint Jon Kyl.

# ? May 5, 2023 18:17

Hieronymous Alloy: Jan 30, 2009; Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!; Morbid Hound

Mellow Seas posted:

Heat starting to turn up on Feinstein, editorial in the NYT today calls for her to resign. If the demands for her resignation are getting this "establishment" I'm not sure how much longer she'll be able to hold out.

What are the impeachment rules for Senators again? Because that's how long she can hold out if she wants. There's no such thing as shame any more.

# ? May 5, 2023 18:24

haveblue: Aug 15, 2005; Toilet Rascal

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

What are the impeachment rules for Senators again? Because that's how long she can hold out if she wants. There's no such thing as shame any more.

2/3 supermajority to expel a senator, so that's out

# ? May 5, 2023 18:26

Failed Imagineer: Sep 22, 2018

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

There's no such thing as shame any more.

Hard to feel shame when your brain is a pile of rotting BSE hamburger meat

# ? May 5, 2023 18:27

Judgy Fucker: Mar 24, 2006

The impression I've gotten is Feinstein has approached near-vegetable levels of cognitive decline and it's basically her staff that's keeping things going? I imagine they won't encourage her to resign because they don't want to lose their jobs

# ? May 5, 2023 18:28

Oracle: Oct 9, 2004

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

What are the impeachment rules for Senators again? Because that's how long she can hold out if she wants. There's no such thing as shame any more.

quote:

Blount's impeachment trial�the first ever conducted�established the principle that Members of Congress and Senators were not �Civil Officers� under the Constitution, and accordingly, they could only be removed from office by a two-thirds vote for expulsion by their respective chambers.

# ? May 5, 2023 18:32

cat botherer: Jan 6, 2022; I am interested in most phases of data processing.

Judgy Fucker posted:

The impression I've gotten is Feinstein has approached near-vegetable levels of cognitive decline and it's basically her staff that's keeping things going? I imagine they won't encourage her to resign because they don't want to lose their jobs

I can't imagine its easy to get a new staffer job in between elections.

# ? May 5, 2023 18:33

Fister Roboto: Feb 21, 2008

This Is the Zodiac posted:

This, of course, is bullshit. Republicans called on John McCain to resign when his brain cancer kept him from voting. The Boston Globe published an editorial just like this one calling on Ted Kennedy to resign for the same reason.

Also not in the Senate, but people were screaming at Stephen Breyer to retire less than a year ago, and thankfully he actually listened to them.

Deploying feminist rhetoric to defend someone staying in office through obvious mental decline is truly reprehensible. Being a senator is a duty, not a right.

Fister Roboto fucked around with this message at 18:35 on May 5, 2023

# ? May 5, 2023 18:33

Tayter Swift: Nov 18, 2002; Pillbug

A common symptom of mid-level dementia is the inability to acknowledge that you have dementia.

I've been dealing with this with my grandfather for the last couple years. He'll constantly relate to us how his memory "has gotten bad," but if anyone suggests it's dementia/Alzheimer's he'll just mock us. It also means he won't get treatment, particularly for his anxiety which drives us all up the wall.

It's like Dunning-Kreuger for the elderly. Sucks. (And my dad is showing signs as well, which doesn't bode well for my own future.)

# ? May 5, 2023 18:52

cat botherer: Jan 6, 2022; I am interested in most phases of data processing.

Fister Roboto posted:

Also not in the Senate, but people were screaming at Stephen Breyer to retire less than a year ago, and thankfully he actually listened to them.

Deploying feminist rhetoric to defend someone staying in office through obvious mental decline is truly reprehensible. Being a senator is a duty, not a right.

If you're enough of a girl boss, it doesn't matter that you think the current president is Gerald Ford.

# ? May 5, 2023 19:01

Mellow Seas: Oct 9, 2012; Can't post for 10 years!

This Is the Zodiac posted:

This, of course, is bullshit. Republicans called on John McCain to resign when his brain cancer kept him from voting. The Boston Globe published an editorial just like this one calling on Ted Kennedy to resign for the same reason.

I think it really is just a misplaced sense of loyalty, as someone from the same city as Feinstein and a few years younger I figure she probably idolized her at the beginning of her career. It's hard to let go of stuff like that, especially when you're eighty-friggin-three yourself. Realizing that Feinstein is at the end of the line probably consciously or subconsciously makes Pelosi realize it's not too far off for her either, and that's something a lot of people get in denial about.

cat botherer posted:

I can't imagine its easy to get a new staffer job in between elections.

I dunno, I think if you were a high-level staffer for a US Senator, the kind of people that would be protecting her right now, it would be really, really easy to find a good job in politics or lobbying. They don't even get paid all that well, by the standards of big league politics; they'll probably all end up with raises when she resigns or dies. I think they still work for her because they admire her, which, I get it, but c'mon guys. It's over.

Killer robot posted:

The difference between the cause of each recession have a lot to do with that, so while the spending was a good thing that's not the most convincing argument. Most of the covid spending wasn't really in the can when economists were predicting a quick bounceback compared to 2008.

Yeah, you're right. It's funny, "the banking system is in shambles" is actually a made-up problem, a bunch of numbers on servers, and "a deadly disease is ravaging the population" is a real problem. More spending would've helped like you say, but given the constraints of our dumb, dumb economic system, yeah, recovering from the pandemic was probably an easier lift.

Mellow Seas fucked around with this message at 19:13 on May 5, 2023

# ? May 5, 2023 19:07

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

E: Double posted.

# ? May 5, 2023 19:23

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

Fister Roboto posted:

Also not in the Senate, but people were screaming at Stephen Breyer to retire less than a year ago, and thankfully he actually listened to them.

Deploying feminist rhetoric to defend someone staying in office through obvious mental decline is truly reprehensible. Being a senator is a duty, not a right.

Breyer wasn't sick, though.

People were asking him to resign for a partisan reason because they weren't sure if they would hold the Senate after the midterms.

Nancy is wrong about whether Feinstein should resign, but she is right that basically every other old male Senator was wheeled out onto the floor for years or missed 75% of the votes for a year like McCain did and there weren't large-scale calls from their own party to resign.

# ? May 5, 2023 19:23

James Garfield: May 5, 2012; Am I a manipulative abuser in real life, or do I just roleplay one on the Internet for fun? You decide!

I think it's correct that there's a gender element to the calls for Feinstein to resign, but that isn't relevant to whether or not Feinstein should resign.

# ? May 5, 2023 19:32

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

This is technically something that happened a while ago, but it is coming up again now with all the Harlan Crow stuff:

Apparently, not only did Clarence Thomas not disclose all the "handouts" he was given over the years, but he also lied about his sister being a welfare mom and the inspiration for his opposition to all unearned handouts and welfare programs.

quote:

THOMAS' SISTER IS NO WELFARE QUEEN

Everyone remembers Janet Cooke, the Washington Post reporter who won a Pulitzer Prize for a story about a 7-year-old heroin addict. It was a poignant, terrifying tear-jerker of a story. Unfortunately it was pure fiction.

Now it appears we have a new Cooke-like episode, this one cooked up by federal Judge Clarence Thomas, President Bush's nominee to replace Justice Thurgood Marshall on the Supreme Court. In an often-quoted speech that he delivered to a conference of black conservatives in 1980, Thomas said of his sister, who was then on welfare: ``She gets mad when the mailman is late with her welfare check. That's how dependent she is.

``What's worse is that now her kids feel entitled to the check too. They have no motivation for doing better or getting out of that situation.'

To hear Thomas tell it, his sister sounded like a classic ``welfare queen,' a painful example of how a well-intended government handout can tie families to a cycle of poverty and dependency. But Thomas' stunning story wasn't true. Not quite.

When reporters recently tracked down Thomas' sister, Emma Mae Martin, living in a beat-up frame house in Pin Point, Ga., they didn't find a story of welfare dependency.

Instead, they found a story of hard work by three generations of a family struggling like most other families do, just to make ends meet.

Martin was deserted by her husband in 1973, just as her father had disappeared 25 years earlier. She worked two minimum-wage jobs while her brother attended law school, but stopped working to take care of an elderly aunt who had suffered a stroke. That led to four or five years on welfare, trying to make it on $169 a month.

That's over. She now works as a cook at the same hospital where her mother is a nurse's assistant.

What about her children, who Thomas said were being indoctrinated into welfare dependency?

As it turns out, Mark, 22, works as a carpenter. Christine, 20, recently was laid off from a bakery. Leola, 15, is still a student.

And the eldest, Clarence, served aboard the battleship Wisconsin during Operation Desert Storm.

There may be true stories to be found of welfare cheats. Emma Mae Martin is not one of them. In fact, her story sounds more like the story of a mom who did what you're supposed to do: Finish school, work hard, take care of your family and raise your kids to do the same.

Martin feels no bitterness toward her brother. As for his conservatism, she laughed heartily to a Los Angeles Times reporter: ``That's just Clarence. He had his opinions. Whatever he said had to go, just like my grandfather.'

Which also may mean he wouldn't let the truth get in the way of the story he wanted to tell.

The realities of Thomas' sister's life are closer to the realities of most poor people.

It is a story of male abandonment, female sacrifice and a turning to welfare only temporarily and only as a last resort. It also is a story of an inadequate government safety net for those who struggle at the bottom of society - no day care, no health insurance, no subsidy for the ``working poor' whose wages are not enough to lift their families above the federal poverty line.

When Janet Cooke's charade was uncovered, she had to give up her prize and her job, and she fell away into the shadows of obscurity.

Thomas has been more fortunate. On the heels of his stunning speech, the Reagan administration, scouting black conservatives at the time, offered him the chairmanship of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which led to his federal judgeship and eventually his nomination to the Supreme Court.

There's a lesson in this, I suppose. A little scapegoating can take you a long way in politics, even when you use your own sister.

https://greensboro.com/thomas-sister-is-no-welfare-queen/article_b0ec5042-0ac7-583b-94df-4771404be433.html

# ? May 5, 2023 19:44

Zwabu: Aug 7, 2006

Corruption issues of whether Thomas�s Supreme Court votes are bought and paid for aside, if he doesn�t declare financial gifts on his taxes could that be a crime of just being a simple tax cheat?

# ? May 5, 2023 19:55

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

Zwabu posted:

Corruption issues of whether Thomas�s Supreme Court votes are bought and paid for aside, if he doesn�t declare financial gifts on his taxes could that be a crime of just being a simple tax cheat?

Depends on the specific situation, but I don't think anything that is public right now would have to be filed on a tax form.

The person giving the gift is generally responsible for paying gift taxes and you don't generally have to pay gift taxes until you hit a lifetime limit of $11.5 million.

Thomas wouldn't be paying taxes on plane rides, boat rides, vacations, or someone else paying for his unrelated family friend's private school tuition.

# ? May 5, 2023 20:04

This Is the Zodiac: Feb 4, 2003

James Garfield posted:

I think it's correct that there's a gender element to the calls for Feinstein to resign, but that isn't relevant to whether or not Feinstein should resign.

There are probably people who want her to resign for gender-based reasons, but there are also a lot of people who want her to resign for reasons entirely unrelated to gender, and it's not fair to lump the latter in with the former.

# ? May 5, 2023 20:36

Mellow Seas: Oct 9, 2012; Can't post for 10 years!

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

quote:
Martin was deserted by her husband in 1973, just as her father had disappeared 25 years earlier. She worked two minimum-wage jobs while her brother attended law school, but stopped working to take care of an elderly aunt who had suffered a stroke. That led to four or five years on welfare, trying to make it on $169 a month.

That's about $980 in 2023 dollars, to save anybody else who was going to the trouble of looking it up. Not easy. Based on people I know who have gotten SSI payments to care for loved ones or to replace their income it would probably be about the same amount now (but probably harder to live on, in reality).

And, I don't have to tell people here, but of course her story is what the overwhelming majority of public assistance stories are like: somebody has a problem, the government helps them out a bit, they get through it when they might not have otherwise, and go on to live normal (or exceptional!) lives. I'm an engineer with a healthy income right now but without having had Medicaid when I needed it, I might be living on the street.

# ? May 5, 2023 20:54

Josef bugman: Nov 17, 2011; Pictured: Poster prepares to celebrate Holy Communion (probablY)

This avatar made possible by a gift from the Religionthread Posters Relief Fund

Why the gently caress isn't her brother helping her? Other than pure FYGM.

# ? May 5, 2023 21:52

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# ? May 25, 2024 22:40

Mellow Seas: Oct 9, 2012; Can't post for 10 years!

Josef bugman posted:

Why the gently caress isn't her brother helping her? Other than pure FYGM.

There is a large body of evidence suggesting that Clarence Thomas is one of the most heartless and cruel people to ever walk the earth, so I'd guess it has something to do with that.

When she was on gov't assistance Thomas was still in school and was probably pretty poor himself, in the event he would've thought of helping at all. It does seem like his sister is doing okay now thankfully.

# ? May 5, 2023 22:03

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > USCE 2023: Please let them shove a camera up your butt

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