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[Telgin]

He accidentally bumped into her kid, I think it was.  Or at least some witnesses reported that.  Debatable if police consider retaliation with a brick for accidental bumping to be sufficient motive, I guess.

This does remind me though, as something has been nagging me since I read some comments on the news articles related on that.  On one of the sites, the discussion went off on a tangent about how the woman was black and nobody mentioned it in the news article, which in turn devolved into, "No president has done more harm to racial relations in this country's history than Obama!"

I've seen this several times before, and I've yet to see anyone explain that.  So, does anyone have any clue what that's about?  My guess is that Obama didn't lock up literally everyone remotely associated with Black Lives Matter, and so is being blamed for inciting racial hatred, but it's only a guess.

[Kagus]

He accidentally bumped into her kid, I think it was.  Or at least some witnesses reported that.  Debatable if police consider retaliation with a brick for accidental bumping to be sufficient motive, I guess.

This does remind me though, as something has been nagging me since I read some comments on the news articles related on that.  On one of the sites, the discussion went off on a tangent about how the woman was black and nobody mentioned it in the news article, which in turn devolved into, "No president has done more harm to racial relations in this country's history than Obama!"

I've seen this several times before, and I've yet to see anyone explain that.  So, does anyone have any clue what that's about?  My guess is that Obama didn't lock up literally everyone remotely associated with Black Lives Matter, and so is being blamed for inciting racial hatred, but it's only a guess.

He made a bother of things by openly being black, which caused a few people to remember how racist they were, souring relations that were otherwise forgotten because they didn't need to see dark people on a regular basis before.

At least, that's my take on it.

[Trekkin]

"No president has done more harm to racial relations in this country's history than Obama!"

I've seen this several times before, and I've yet to see anyone explain that.  So, does anyone have any clue what that's about?  My guess is that Obama didn't lock up literally everyone remotely associated with Black Lives Matter, and so is being blamed for inciting racial hatred, but it's only a guess.

I read it in the same vein as "I bet (homophobe) is secretly gay" and "Liberals are the really intolerant ones/Conservatives don't really care about families" and so forth: they're not meant to be taken literally as statements of fact. They are purely a rhetorical device to put the other side on the defensive and hope they trip up so the speaker can claim victory. There's no simple way to evaluate a particular President's impact on race relations, because it's an inherently complicated problem and all the obvious metrics don't always track with each other. It's a meaningless statement to make without a great deal of context. That makes it perfect if you just want the mean people on the other side to shut up, because they either take the time to explain how it's wrong (and thus say things for you to poke holes in) or dismiss it as nonsense (which lets you call them irrational and cast aspersions on their intelligence.) In that way, it is similar to the endless smarmy "Atheist's/Believer's WORST Nightmare!" videos on Youtube, in that it's a form of argumentation that only makes sense to people who see no difference between winning an argument and being right. It's also appealingly poetic for one's opponents to be as exactly wrong as can be imagined.

So read "No president has done more harm to racial relations in this country's history than Obama!" as "I want to attack liberals more than I want to defend conservatives." Then ignore it.

[redwallzyl]

https://www.npr.org/2018/07/12/628329172/trump-says-no-problem-in-nato-touting-allies-spending-pledges

...

[Gentlefish]

Strzok testifying publicly part 2. Part one finished about an hour ago. Recessed until 2PM. Some crazy shit happening in this circus.

[Folly]

This interrogation is pretty amazing. It's basically a bunch of men in nice suits, sitting in a very fancy room, referring to each other as gentlemen while in the same breath they shout over each other in arguments about which part of the rules allow them to insult each others wives during these proceedings.

[sluissa]

Just listened to about a half hour. It's republicans mostly asking questions the guy can't answer and them smirking like that's proof of guilt and democrats using their time to grandstand against Trump and then asking questions that don't matter.

[smjjames]

That it turned into a massive circus is no surprise given how partisan this whole thing is.

[Rolan7]

Just listened to about a half hour. It's republicans mostly asking questions the guy can't answer and them smirking like that's proof of guilt and democrats using their time to grandstand against Trump and then asking questions that don't matter.

That's about how far I am too, and I agree with your summary.  It is at least entertaining, in a cynical way.

[smjjames]

They're pretty much talking at each other way more than questioning Strzok, so, yeah, it's just all theatre than a real hearing.

[Rolan7]

I like how it ended with a good old "But her emails!"

[smjjames]

They haven't ended yet, but they are taking a break soon as there are some votes on the floor soon. Or maybe they're ending it for sure in 45 minutes.

[PTTG??]

Hey so let's actually address partisanship. What's a good alternative that can be undertaken unilaterally? If one side is partisan, what should the other side do in order to take the wisest, fairest course?

[nenjin]

Conservative Republicans saw Obama, and the enthusiasm around him as and his race, as souring race relations. When they say "Obama hurt race relations in this country" what they really mean is "Obama brought race front and center in everyone's consciousness again, and "white America" felt threatened." And now we're here at President Donald "The Baby Snatcher" Trump.

[smjjames]

Alternative to what? Being in the minority, theres not much the Democrats can actually do. Theres no single magical/silver bullet that can fix the partianship since the causes run deep and Congress isn't going to give the minority party more power anytime soon.

In general though, taking the high road would be the wisest, fairest course, but partianship has to be dealt with bilaterally, not unilaterally.

Conservative Republicans saw Obama, and the enthusiasm around him as and his race, as souring race relations. When they say "Obama hurt race relations in this country" what they really mean is "Obama brought race front and center in everyone's consciousness again, and "white America" felt threatened." And now we're here at President Donald "The Baby Snatcher" Trump.

Yeah, the (hyper)partianship isn't someting new that cropped up in the last year or something, it's been incubating for decades.

At this point, probably the most effective thing would be a President willing to work with both sides and is able to force both sides to work with each other, but I don't think such a political Great Person exists at this time. The best starting point to fixing hyperpartianship would be actually working with each other, and the Democrats have little incentive to do that with Trump, who is himself divisive.