What's in the News 3.0

[Oniya]

As much as I dislike the 'Sheldon' character, 'It's funny because it's true.'  The funny aspect kicks in when you know that the Crash Course history series was pretty much constantly pointing out the Mongols as the exception to various historical truisms.

Tim Conway used to have a schtick on the Carol Burnett Show where someone (usually Harvey Korman) would bonk him on the head, and Tim would get a slack expression for a second or two before collapsing.  Tucker always reminds me of that two seconds of 'he's going down...'

[Keelan]

So the US Department of Homeland Security Secretary has been impeached (reasoning I'm to understand is due to his mis-handling of the southern border): https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/13/politics/alejandro-mayorkas-impeachment-vote/index.html

[TheGlyphstone]

The article is a little vague on exactly what they're claiming he did wrong that qualifies for impeachment. Any idea what that is, assuming my cynical side is wrong and it's more than 'being a Biden appointee in an election year?' 

[Oniya]

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/what-you-should-know-about-the-impeachment-of-homeland-security-secretary-mayorkas

U.S. House Republicans say the secretary is violating immigration laws by not detaining enough migrants and by implementing a humanitarian parole program that they say bypasses Congress to allow people into the country who wouldn’t otherwise qualify to enter. And they allege that he’s lied to Congress when he has said things like the border is secure. All of this together, they argue, has created a prolonged crisis that is having repercussions across the country, is squarely the secretary’s fault and warrants impeachment.

(I think you're right, Glyph.)

[Keelan]

The article is a little vague on exactly what they're claiming he did wrong that qualifies for impeachment. Any idea what that is, assuming my cynical side is wrong and it's more than 'being a Biden appointee in an election year?'

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/what-you-should-know-about-the-impeachment-of-homeland-security-secretary-mayorkas

(I think you're right, Glyph.)

The actual articles of impeachment are below

https://homeland.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Articles-of-Impeachment.pdf

[Oniya]

Before my eyes started crossing from the sheer amount of repetition (I think I saw five separate but identical sentences about 'catch and release'), I saw that the fentanyl crisis was part of the 'reasoning' behind this.  I remembered seeing a news article about the relation between fentanyl and immigration - which seems to be minimal at best.  (While my link goes to a blog, the blog article collates a series of .gov links in a handy bullet-point format.)

[GloomCookie]

Out of curiosity, where is most of the Fentanyl coming in from? Like, I know China was supposedly producing the bulk of it and shipping it around the world, but is it really them or is it somewhere else? And if so, how are they getting it into the country?

As far as the impeachment goes, I doubt it's going to have major long-term impacts on the guy's career. Like, yes, it sucks he's being impeached and all, but last I checked DoHS didn't really progress you far in politics, unlike someone like Secretary of State. I could be off-base, I dunno, it's 3:30 in the morning and I should really be snoozin.

[Kelindel]

Out of curiosity, where is most of the Fentanyl coming in from? Like, I know China was supposedly producing the bulk of it and shipping it around the world, but is it really them or is it somewhere else? And if so, how are they getting it into the country?

As far as the impeachment goes, I doubt it's going to have major long-term impacts on the guy's career. Like, yes, it sucks he's being impeached and all, but last I checked DoHS didn't really progress you far in politics, unlike someone like Secretary of State. I could be off-base, I dunno, it's 3:30 in the morning and I should really be snoozin.

It is China that is producing most of the Fentanyl and then shipping it around the world. Supposedly a lot of it is being sent to Mexico and then being smuggled into the United States. Still I don't see that as an immigration issue (really the more they crack down and cut down on legal ways to immigrate into the US the more people will turn to illegal ways which means that there is more illegal immigration, more people being used as mules because they are turning to criminals for help to get across and thus more need for border agents and it spirals). It just needs to be handled intelligently. The drugs coming into the US is a complex, multifaceted issue that is frankly being used as an excuse by the Republicans to push an issue that they have been pushing on since well before the Opioid epidemic that they helped create with the rampant deregulation they they pushed.

[Oniya]

Handy maps of the trade-routes at the click-through.  The DEA is listing China, Mexico and India as primary sources, in about that order.  India ships through Mexico, so it's a little harder to judge, and China is head and shoulders above the pack.

[Beorning]

Important news:

Alexei Navalny, one of Putin's greatest opponents in recent years, apparently died in prison.

Damn.

[Al Terego]

Not to worry, he died from natural causes^†.

--
^† State assassination of political opponents is considered natural in Putin's Russia.

[Chulanowa]

I'm having a look at the Wikipedia page about his death, and...

"Navalny's mother was told that he had died from "sudden death syndrome""

A terminal fatality, if you will. Died of severe death. 

The dude was absolutely a garbage pail of a person, but no one needs to die in a jail cell for "fraud." 

[Oniya]

I'm having a look at the Wikipedia page about his death, and...

"Navalny's mother was told that he had died from "sudden death syndrome""

A terminal fatality, if you will. Died of severe death.

I was reading an old-time detective story, and the mysterious deaths were listed as being caused by 'syncope' (now used to refer to a simple loss of consciousness), and one of the characters told the protagonist that 'this is what they say when they have no idea what really caused it.  Died of fright, I say.'

Spoiler alert

It was murder.

[Beorning]

I'm having a look at the Wikipedia page about his death, and...

"Navalny's mother was told that he had died from "sudden death syndrome""

A terminal fatality, if you will. Died of severe death.

The dude was absolutely a garbage pail of a person, but no one needs to die in a jail cell for "fraud."

Please explain why you consider Navalny to have been a "garbage pail of a person".

[midnightblack]

Please explain why you consider Navalny to have been a "garbage pail of a person".

Not that I find the choice of words appropriate (nor that it would matter, apparently), but Navalny was a rather tenebrous politician at best. Hardline nationalist in his earlier career leaning towards racism, so pretty much the standard attitude of Russia's political establishment. He was also an initial supporter of the attack against Georgia and walked an ambiguous line when it came to Crimea. He spoke against the large scale invasion of Ukraine, but then again he was already imprisoned and didn't have much left to lose. Granted, he changed a lot for the better over the years and (unlike others I could name) had shown a remarkable ability to educate and reeducate himself. Far from a perfect individual, but also not quite the worst of the lot. Whether or not he could have represented any sort of political alternative was always a moot point in my opinion. The whole idea of running a Big Brother-like gig is that there is no alternative to it.

[Chulanowa]

Please explain why you consider Navalny to have been a "garbage pail of a person".

Amnesty International has stripped the Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny of his "prisoner of conscience" status after it says it was "bombarded" with complaints highlighting xenophobic comments that he has made in the past and not renounced.
A spokesman for the human rights organisation in Moscow told the BBC that he believed the wave of requests to "de-list" Navalny was part of an "orchestrated campaign" to discredit Vladimir Putin's most vocal critic and "impede" Amnesty's calls for his release from custody.
But on review, Amnesty International concluded that comments made by Navalny some 15 years ago, including a video which appears to compare immigrants to cockroaches, amounted to "hate speech" which was incompatible with the label "prisoner of conscience".

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-56181084

Specifically Muslim immigrants from central Asia and the Caucasus:

Here's our lad at the annual far-right nationalist marches he organized in Moscow:

The messaging isn't particularly subtle...




'Course his ultra-nationalist and racist stuff is what got him kicked out of Yabloko in 2007, which led to him linking arms with the NazBol (National Bolshevik) Zakhar Prilepin to create the National Russian Liberation Movement (NAROD). Which is in all essence just itself a Social Democratic version of National Bolshevism... a National-Socialist party, you might say.

At any rate. Like I said, no good he died (especially due to being imprisoned in the arctic for "fraud" like come on, is that the best they could come up with?) but still, a pretty typical example of a awful fuckin far-right political figure.

[Beorning]

It is true that Navalny earlier views were unacceptable. That said, he seemed to be evolving - or, at least, he claimed to be.

You also have to remember that he was doing some genuinely good work in exposing the corruption of Putin's regime. And he was trying to energize the Russian society into shaking off their passive acceptance of everything their government as doing.

Overall, he was seen as someone who might change Russia for the better - even by liberal journalists over here. So, he was definitely a more complex case that just "garbage far-right person".

Finally, please remember that - whatever his faults - this was the guy who willingly returned to Russia from abroad, knowing very well that he was putting himself at huge risk. He died, because he had the courage to fight for his convictions. Keep that in mind before you start throw the "garbage" word around.

[Chulanowa]

Overall, he was seen as someone who might change Russia for the better - even by liberal journalists over here. So, he was definitely a more complex case that just "garbage far-right person".

if one considers ethnic cleansing and religious purges to be 'changing Russia for the better," I suppose. And no, ne never "recanted" or "evolved," that's why Amnesty revoked their "Prisoner of Conscience" status from him (though they also revoked it from Nelson Mandela due to his conditional support for the use of violence against apartheid - so if you want to tell me Amnesty is too tight-assed, I don't think I could argue against that) 

He died, because he had the courage to fight for his convictions. Keep that in mind before you start throw the "garbage" word around.

[Keelan]

So a former journalist by the name of Timothy Burke was just indicted by a grand jury for "one count of conspiracy, six counts of accessing a protected computer without authorization, and seven counts of intercepting or disclosing wire, oral or electronic communications" alongside a co-conspirator for previous release of embarrassing unreleased footage involving Tucker Carlson.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/22/media/timothy-burke-indicted-fox-news-tucker-carlson-footage/index.html

[TheGlyphstone]

His alleged H@xx0r skillz were insufficiently 1337.

Though I'm also not sure what he hoped to get out of it. Carlson is one of those ultra-polarized people where if you like him nothing will sway your opinion otherwise and if you hate him, your opinion can't get any worse than it already is.

[Oniya]

if you hate him, your opinion can't get any worse than it already is.

I'm sure that there is something that he could do to make my opinion worse.


I'm just not sure what that is at the moment.

[AcademicCuriosity9110]

Their name was Nex Benedict. They were a nonbinary Indigenous 16-year-old and they were murdered over two weeks ago between February 7th-8th.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/nex-benedict-oklahoma-ossawa-non-binary-b2500209.html

[Keelan]

Akira Toriyama, creator of the various Dragon Ball Series among many others, has passed away at the age of 68...

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/akira-toriyama-dragon-ball-dead-rcna142397

[Laughing Hyena]

Akira Toriyama, creator of the various Dragon Ball Series among many others, has passed away at the age of 68...

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/akira-toriyama-dragon-ball-dead-rcna142397

Yeah I saw this last night and just felt utterly crushed. That one stung as DBZ on Toonami was my afternoon during childhood. Dragon Quest was my gateway RPG and the artwork was iconic.

The Stan Lee of Japan is gone and it's gonna be a while to accept it. You will be missed Toriyama.

[Al Terego]

Dragon Quest was my gateway RPG

Then you absolutely must watch The Hero Yoshihiko.