American Politics 3.0 - Back to Brunch

[calculoso]

Alabama really is something

Alabama girls' basketball team denied championship after being forced to play in boys' league, then winning it [Updated]
https://t.co/We41cXCswV

Tweet thread:

https://twitter.com/user/status/1632519931131559936

[Update] After this piece went to publication, Deadspin learned of a policy that may go some of the way towards explaining what happened here. A Facebook user named Jason Jordan posted the following message on Mashayekh’s page:

“I’ve coached both boys and girls in Hoover for years and can assure everybody that they don’t discriminate against girls.

This policy has been in place for years. Hats off to this team for winning the championship. It is unfortunate they couldn’t get the trophy but it sounds like Hoover is going to make it right by honoring the girls. The same thing happened to a boys team.”
(Snip)

[Lanny_McDonald]

It's easy to dump on the backward red states and some of their abhorrent views, but that Deadspin article is some real yellow journalism. Grossly biased and misrepresentative of the overarching issue. Also ignores the explanation of why the team was not awarded the trophy. A quote from someone involved in the system long-term.

"“I’ve coached both boys and girls in Hoover for years and can assure everybody that they don’t discriminate against girls.

This policy has been in place for years. Hats off to this team for winning the championship. It is unfortunate they couldn’t get the trophy but it sounds like Hoover is going to make it right by honoring the girls. The same thing happened to a boys team.

Since Hoover has limited gym space and high demand for practice facilities it makes it extremely difficult to accommodate everyone. Hoovers’ policy has always been that if you want to use a Hoover gym for OTM practice then you must participate in the rec league. Most coaches want to keep their OTM team together and play them in the rec league. Since this would be an unfair advantage because most of the OTM teams are comprised of the best players, they are required to play “up” by two grade levels. In this case, the girls are in 5th grade and there is no 7th grade girls rec league so they had to play against the 5th grade boys.

In the past and I’m sure here too, the league tells the coaches well in advance that you can sit out the tournament or you can play but you will not get a trophy. In the 15 plus years I have coached, I’ve never seen a team win it all playing up, so congratulations to these girls and the coaches for winning the championship. Trophy or no trophy, they are the champions.”"

Seems the City of Hoover (SW Birmingham) is trying to make this right and go against their own policy in awarding trophies to the girls team, but the author is trying to make more out this. A policy from a local Parks & Recreation Department is now representative of all things that are wrong with gender equality?

"The lesson, it would seem, is that even when women are more qualified, work harder, and achieve more than men, they still are not as worthy. It’s a lesson too many Americans have learned too well, given the number of men who decry equity and inclusion with the old trope, “hire the most qualified person!” while refusing to consider that anyone who is not a cishet white male could ever be the most qualified for the job."

And this beauty.

"Sexism is taught in reinforced in American society in a myriad of ways every day, big and small. It’s long past time we realized how young we start teaching children the message that boys are always, always superior and more deserving than girls, no matter the circumstances. The Hoover girls’ 5th-grade team is owed an apology from every single adult involved in this buffoonery."

Yellow journalism. And you wonder why conservatives have such visceral reactions toward the "woke mob" and their behaviors? Molehill manufactured into a mountain.

[PsYcNeT]

In more culture war bullspit, is it a surprise to anyone that the Venn diagram of people pushing the anti-trans narratives overlap with those pushing the anti-Jewish ones as well?

https://twitter.com/user/status/1632585451587670016

EDIT: Tweet won't load because ~twitter~ even though it's still live, here's a screencap:

[nik-]

who even are these ####ing people?

[PsYcNeT]

Originally Posted by nik-

who even are these ####ing people?

Influential voices in the American Right.

[Ozy_Flame]

Originally Posted by PsYcNeT

In more culture war bullspit, is it a surprise to anyone that the Venn diagram of people pushing the anti-trans narratives overlap with those pushing the anti-Jewish ones as well?

https://twitter.com/user/status/1632585451587670016

And yet cancel culture is a woke leftie thing.

[Harry Lime]

There is a separation between people who hate singular groups, usually for personal reasons, and people who hate everyone who does not look like them, usually for social grouping reasons.

It's not surprising, and it's a worldwide phenomena more prevalent in areas where the powerful few are driving hatred using the uneducated as tools.

[PsYcNeT]

Unsurprisingly this isn't getting press, but the same leaker who leaked the No Fly List leaked a bunch of email chains between RW personalities and politicians conspiring to ramp up anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric in an attempt to stoke moral panic. Shocker.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1633523165249822725

[SebC]

Originally Posted by GGG

If you want to improve birth rate subsidizing children is realistically the only option.

Nope, you can also redistribute wealth to the people who don't have kids so that they're confident enough that they can.

[afc wimbledon]

you could also tax the living crap out of corn syrup, pop, fast foods and all the other things that mean our elders (and the rest of us) are walking bags of diabetes and so are unhealthy into our dotage

[GGG]

Originally Posted by SebC

Nope, you can also redistribute wealth to the people who don't have kids so that they're confident enough that they can.

That’s likely more expensive as it targets everyone rather than just the breeders so your cost per new child would be higher.

Also I think giving everyone 1k per month for 6 years would have less affect than free childcare. Cash just gets consumed whereas services are either used or not used. So there is no choice between Vacation each year with the money or finally feel financially stable enough to have a child.

Now targeting things like more affordable post secondary education to eliminate debt and lower cost housing would eliminte some of the psychological barriers and perhaps that is what you mean by wealth distribution but again these broad based measures if they can’t be achieved through policy and instead are just direct cash transfer it’s going to be far more expensive then targeting subsidies at the most expensive points in a parents upbringing.

[PsYcNeT]

Pendulum swing.

https://newrepublic.com/post/171025/...riage-equality

The Tennessee House Just Passed a Bill Completely Gutting Marriage Equality

The bill could allow county clerks to deny marriage licenses to same-sex, interfaith, or interracial couples in Tennessee.

[Lanny_McDonald]

Not really. From the article, "Tennessee law already says that religious leaders do not have to officiate weddings they object to." Not a pendulum swing, barely a correction in its path. The same exceptions exist in the federal Respect for Marriage Act, protecting the 1st amendment right of religious freedom. This is a grandstanding move that attempts to show the legislature is doing something when it is really doing nothing.

[PepsiFree]

I would think even the fake academics among us could tell the difference between religious leaders being able to opt out of officiating a wedding and county clerks being able to refuse marriage licenses. One actually has consequences on a couple’s ability to be legally married, the other does not.

Seriously, why cut off the relevant part of the quote?:

Tennessee law already says that religious leaders do not have to officiate weddings they object to. Critics say the new bill goes beyond that and would empower county clerks to refuse to certify marriage licenses, meaning that LGBTQ, interfaith, or interracial couples could be unable to get married at all, rather than just needing to find a new officiant for their ceremony.

But maybe this is just another situation where if we fix everything else it’ll just fix itself.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by GGG

That’s likely more expensive as it targets everyone rather than just the breeders so your cost per new child would be higher.

The breeders are likely having kids anyway. A subsidy from those not comfortable enough to have kids to those who are is kind of perverted. Subsidies should be aimed down, not up.

[Hemi-Cuda]

So the GOP is attacking trans people to "protect kids", but don't you dare touch their child brides in West Virginia

https://apnews.com/article/child-mar...70a36cc914cfb0

Republicans are so ####ing evil

[MoneyGuy]

We always knew they were coming for same-sex and interracial marriages but it’s the first I’ve heard of them targeting interfaith marriages. What’s next? Common-law couples are prohibited to marry? Will women need a doctor’s letter certifying their virgins?

[GGG]

Originally Posted by SebC

The breeders are likely having kids anyway. A subsidy from those not comfortable enough to have kids to those who are is kind of perverted. Subsidies should be aimed down, not up.

That’s what subsidizing the people who follow through with the choice does. It incentivizes those who are borderline by reduces the cost of the choice to have children but you only have to pay for those who make the choice. You have less waste than a general program. Also it probably costs less to take someone from 1 kid to 2 kids then from 0 kids to 1 kid.

Though expanding immigration is the cheapest option to solve demographic problems. Just allow unlimited immigration for 20-30 year olds with post secondary education.

[PsYcNeT]

Originally Posted by Hemi-Cuda

So the GOP is attacking trans people to "protect kids", but don't you dare touch their child brides in West Virginia

https://apnews.com/article/child-mar...70a36cc914cfb0

Republicans are so ####ing evil

What the absolute ####

Although recent figures are unavailable, according to the Pew Research Center, West Virginia had the highest rate of child marriages among the states in 2014, when the state’s five-year average was 7.1 marriages for every 1,000 children ages 15 to 17.

[Fuzz]

Something something Gilead...not far now.