Tuesday's Most Active Threads

Yesterday's most active thread was titled, "Congressman carjacked at gunpoint in Washington DC" and posted in the "Metropolitan DC Local Politics" forum. The Congressman in question, Democrat Henry Cuellar of Texas, was approached by at least three men, of whom two were obviously armed with guns, as he existed his car near the building in which he and several other Members of Congress live. Cuellar handed over his keys and his car was stolen with his phone, iPad, and the sushi he planned to eat for dinner still inside. The car, phone, iPad, and sushi were recovered a couple of hours later. Cuellar was not harmed during the altercation. The District has been undergoing a torrent of armed carjackings in recent months, which along with other crime has left residents frustrated and angry. Historically, concerns about security have been one of the best ways to encourage people to embrace undemocratic methods of governance. Many posters immediately jumped into this thread to advocate for exactly such measures. The fourth poster to respond called for deploying the National Guard and before the first page was complete, another poster demanded a new control board similar to the Financial Control Board created in 1995 to oversee the District's finances. I have a number of issues with these calls for federal control of the District. First, one of the most important functions of public safety — prosecution of adult crime — is already in federal hands in the form of the US Attorney's office. Last year, that office declined to prosecute 67% of the cases of those arrested. This track record does not present a good argument for the performance of unelected federal officials. Second, a control board similar to the previous one would require a act of Congress. I am really not interested in having the likes of James Comer — Chairman of the House committee that oversees DC affairs — increasing their involvement in our local affairs. For those who are unaware, Comer is currently leading the impeachment inquiry of President Joe Biden and investigating Biden's son Hunter. He is a MAGA Republican with a proclivity toward conspiracy theories. Moreover, House Republicans, who some posters apparently want to make responsible for governing DC, just removed their own Speaker — a historical first. These folks can't even govern themselves responsibly. This thread contains repeated claims about Council actions that have "handcuffed" the police. Council reforms have included things like prohibiting chokeholds, requiring body-worn cameras, prohibiting vehicular pursuits, and changes to the collective bargaining process. It is hard to believe that any of these changes are resulting in increased carjacking. The additional argument that the officers' feelings have been hurt and, therefore, they aren't doing their job suggests an issue with the officers rather than the Council. The Council may have its faults, but the Mayor, police force, and USAO are also at fault, if not more so, for crime in DC. Statistics clearly show that crime is increasing in DC, something about which none of us can be happy. But, the solution is not to reject our limited Democratic freedoms in favor of unelected authorities with no accountability to the District's residents. Rather, our own elected leaders need to stop passing blame and work together to do their jobs.

The next most active thread yesterday was originally posted in the "Tweens and Teens" forum but this morning I moved it to the "Beauty and Fashion" forum. Titled, "are the girls still only wearing the micro slip dresses to homecoming this year?", the original poster says that her daughter has asked her to begin looking for a homecoming dress. According to the original poster, in the past two years girls have only been wearing "micro slip dresses or body con dresses" which she says are the "most boring dresses you can buy". She wants to know if kids are branching out this year. This is a 14 page thread and I don't have time to read much of it. But, I suspect that this is the kick-off of what has become a DCUM annual tradition in which posters criticize — often in quite insulting terms — the fashion choices of high school girls. I'll give this poster credit for criticizing the dresses as "boring" rather than making assumptions about girls' sexual mores. Indeed, this poster seems like she might support even more fashion risks, if not risqué. The same cannot be said for other posters, however. Before the first page was complete there were already posts about "good girls" and "bad girls" and how dresses reflected in which category a girl was placed. But the craziest poster I noticed was a mom who repeatedly posted to speak on behalf of her son. Unless her son is also planning to wear a dress to homecoming — something that appears very unlikely based on this poster's posts — neither he nor she really have anything to add to this thread. I suggest that poster create a "My son likes girls who dress in potato sacks" thread. I skipped to the last page and see that, just as expected, we did reach the "describing high school girls as slutty" stage of the discussion. So predictable.

Third was a thread that I actually started myself titled, "Republican Hardliners Rolled and the future of McCarthy". Posted in the "Political Discussion" forum, I noted that then Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy had bypassed Republican hardliners to pass a continuing resolution keeping the government open with the support of Democrats. This happened after the hardliners had prevented passage of a CR that addressed many Republican priorities. The CR that passed with the support of all Democrats but one met almost all Democratic priorities and ignored Republican demands. As a result, Congressman Matt Gaetz had promised to introduce a motion to remove McCarthy from his position as Speaker. Gaetz was good for his word and yesterday the House voted on the motion. In my post, I said that it was unlikely that McCarthy would survive such a vote without support of at least a few Democrats. As it happened, every Democrat present for the vote voted to remove McCarthy. Gaetz and seven other Republicans also voted to remove, resulting in McCarthy's ouster. As things stand now, the House does not have a Speaker. Patrick McHenry, a Republican from North Carolina, will serve as speaker pro tempore until a new speaker can be elected. McCarthy is the first speaker in history to be removed in this manner so we really are in uncharted territory. McHenry immediately sent the House home for a week's vacation, so it will be a while before we know what will happen next. A number of names are being bandied about as possible speaker candidates. These include members of the Republican leadership such as Steve Scalise and figures among the Republican hard right such as Jim Jordan. Even former President Donald Trump is being touted because the speaker is not required to be a House member. Regardless of who the Republicans select, that individual will face the same realities with which McCarthy dealt. Any legislation will require the support of the Democratic-controlled Senate and President Joe Biden to become law. The House can pass all the extreme legislation that it wishes, only to see it die in the Senate. The only way to pass legislation in the House which will be acceptable to the Senate is to rely on support from Democrats as McCarthy did both with the continuing resolution and the increase in the debt ceiling. But, relying on Democrats will put the next speaker at risk from the same hardliners who ousted McCarthy. Complicating things more are a small group of Republican House Members who represent Biden-majority districts. These Republicans have no interest in repeatedly being asked to vote in favor of extreme legislation that only increases their chances of defeat next year. Especially when such legislation has no chance of becoming law. This raises the possibility, remote but still existant, that a Republican moderate or even a Democrat will be elected by a combination of Republicans and Democrats.

The final thread at which I'll look today was posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. Titled, "Hired by Google as L4 but rejected by top colleges", the original poster describes a recent high school graduate named Stanley Zhong who, while still in high school, started a successful e-signing business that received considerable recognition. Despite that as well as other praiseworthy achievements and very good grades and test scores, he was refused admissions by the computer science programs at a number of top universities. However, he was offered employment as a Level 4 engineer at Google, a position that normally requires a few years of experience and a college degree. The original poster does not explain the point of this post and, I don't think, bothered to post again in the thread. Nevertheless, there are enough ingredients in the original post to flame the flames of multiple long-running debates in the college forum. One of those arguments is about the randomness of admissions at top colleges. As the first poster to respond says, "It’s all one big crapshoot". But, the assumption that Zhong is Asian causes many posters to reflexively claiming that this is an example of anti-Asian bias in college admissions. For example, a poster writes, "If you are an Asian male or a white male, you are SOL at the top colleges". This highlights the paradox that computer science programs at top universities are full of Asian students, so obviously not all Asians are SOL. While some posters fixated on assumptions that less qualified Black kids were probably accepted by colleges that turned down Zhong, other posters looked deeper into the details and found other potential reasons that Zhong might have stumbled on college admissions. Some posters even theorized that Zhong's business success might have explained his application challenges. According to these posters, Zhong doesn't really need to go to college, something that admissions officers may have realized and, therefore, doubted his commitment.