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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
I wouldn't call Dawkins racist, but I would call him very Islamophobic. For example, he supports Palestine in the Palestine-Israel conflict, but he wants to see Islam wiped off the face of the Earth.
Thing is, Islam's a religion, not a race (it's entirely possible to be white and Muslim, for example). So, while the outright hatred of Islam is bigotry, it isn't racism per say.
The difference is, saying all Muslims are terrorists is Islamophobic. Saying all Arabs are terrorists is Racist.
Leviticus 19:34Just like certain atheists provide evangelicals with fuel to keep saying atheists are all heathens. And keep in mind, I have a few atheist friends who HATE the mentality of Dawkins and his ilk. They're about as tolerant of atheists throwing their weight around and being pricks as they are of religious fundamentalists doing the same thing.
Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?Texas state Senator Joan Huffman (R-17) is blockading ethics reform over spousal disclosure.
It's a question currently before the Texas Legislature that surfaced last session and helped derail Gov. Greg Abbott's reform agenda on ethics, which he called "the most important commodity we have as elected officials."
When Abbott made ethics reform a top priority a year ago, spousal disclosure wasn't front and center in a package of provisions that he designated as "emergency" items.
But it is on his radar screen now after an eleventh-hour maneuver by Huffman in which she inserted a clause into an unrelated ethics measure that answered the question about disclosure and her husband's businesses in a word: Nothing.
How the matter plays out could be a harbinger of progress in Texas, which is not known for the strength of its ethics laws - hence Abbott's focus.
The Center for Public Integrity ranked Texas 39th last year in a nationwide government integrity survey, giving the state an F in legislative accountability, an F in executive accountability, an F in lobbying disclosure and a D-minus for its ethics enforcement agencies. The lone bright spot: An A in state budget processes.
Abbott was forced to veto part of his own ethics agenda after Huffman's ploy would have enabled lawmakers to forgo disclosure of spousal holdings as long as they had no "actual control" over them. The governor said he wanted no part of "weakening our ethics laws," which now require lawmakers and officials to disclose property and financial interests that are considered "community property" in Texas, meaning they were acquired after two people are married.
Abbott said shortly after the session ended that he would ask the Legislature in 2017 to revisit his proposed reforms. But some watchdog groups questioned whether he was truly committed to the cause or merely interested in following through with an issue he used during his 2014 campaign.
Craig Mc Donald, director of the liberal-leaning nonprofit group Texans for Public Justice, credited Abbott for declaring ethics reform an "emergency" item so the Legislature could take quick action. But Mc Donald said Abbott failed to speak out during the session when lawmakers dragged their feet.
What is 'actual control'?
Huffman, in a recent interview, said that despite the governor's vetoes, she believes the issue related to spousal disclosure remains unresolved and promised a thorough review this year of that topic and other state ethics laws in her role as chairwoman of the State Affairs Committee.
The businesses owned by her husband, Keith Lawyer, may be "community property" in their marriage, but she said she believes the law requires disclosure of only those that she has "actual control" over.
"I could not go up to his office and say, 'I want to sell Luke's Ice House,' " she said, referring to a popular bar her husband owns and operates. "I couldn't even walk in the door and say, 'I want y'all to mop the floor.' This should not be about me. It's really about making the law clearer for the many people in the state who have to file these statements."
But her critics said the governor's vetoes ended the debate. Huffman, they maintain, should be held accountable for the failure of ethics reform last year. They said it is, in fact, all about her misinterpreting state law so she didn't have to disclose her husband's vast business holdings.
One of those critics, Carol Wheeler, a state Democratic Party official from Katy, filed a complaint against Huffman before the state Ethics Commission, asserting that she appeared to violate state law for several years by failing to disclose "significant business interests of herself and her husband, Keith Lawyer."
How the commission rules should be instructive.
"Being married or having a spouse is almost the definition of sharing interests," said John Wonderlich, policy director of the Sunlight Foundation, a nonprofit organization in Washington, D.C., that advocates transparency in government. "But that's also not to say the same standards should apply to the spouse of a legislator. This is a place where the line has to be drawn pretty carefully."
The requirement that public officials disclose the financial activities of their spouses and dependent children dates to the 1970s, when the so-called Sharpstown stock fraud scandal, centered on a Houston banker and developer named Frank Sharp and a bevy of politicians, triggered major ethics reforms in Texas.
A 1973 ethics law states that public officials must disclose the financial activities of spouses and dependent children if they had "actual control" over those activities, but "actual control" was not defined.
Then-Attorney General John Hill weighed in a year later in response to a request from a state official who wanted to know whether a public official had to disclose the financial activities of a spouse if the official "had no actual control over it." In his opinion, Hill wrote that disclosure was required if the public official enjoyed "any degree of control, legal or factual."
Since then, that has been interpreted to include joint property among spouses.
Texas is among eight states with community property laws. When a couple marries, their property is considered community property or separate property. Community property is all the items a couple collects during marriage. Separate property is the items owned solely by one spouse, such as land acquired before marriage or through inheritance.
In 2014, the Ethics Commission adopted a rule putting forth a two-pronged standard that its supporters said went even further in clarifying state law.
First, the rule says public officials must disclose their financial activities in which they hold an "ownership interest, including but not limited to community property." Second, if there is no ownership interest, they must disclose the financial activity of their spouse and dependent children if those public officials "exercised or held the right to exercise any degree of legal or factual control over the activity."
The 2014 rule is consistent with how the Ethics Commission has interpreted state law for several years, said Ian Steusloff, the agency's general counsel. The rule also mirrors Hill's 1974 opinion.
Power couple
Huffman and Lawyer were married in 1997. Of the dozens of businesses that Lawyer has financial interests in, according to state business records, only five were created before their marriage, Wheeler's ethics complaint states. Huffman, a former state district court judge in Harris County, was first elected to the Senate in 2008.
Lawyer owns several companies that operate 17 bars in Texas, including Luke's Ice House, with locations in Houston, Beaumont and Nederland, regulated by the state Alcoholic Beverage Commission.
In her annual ethics statement required by state law, Huffman listed seven items involving her husband's finances in 2008. After Abbott's veto and Wheeler's ethics complaint, her 2014 statement has ballooned, listing her husband's extensive business holdings for the first time. She said recently that the filing had nothing to do with the governor's vetoes or the ethics complaint; she merely was complying with the Ethics Commission rule change.
The maneuver
Huffman's maneuver on spousal ethics came prior to this filing. She made her move during the closing weeks of the 2015 legislative session, when an unrelated ethics bill sponsored by a fellow Houston Republican, state Rep. Sarah Davis, landed in her committee. Its purpose was simple and noncontroversial, making it easier for public officials to electronically file their personal financial statements.
Huffman, the Senate's ethics gatekeeper, added the provision that she described as clarifying what public officials must disclose on their ethics statements about the finances of their spouses. The 2014 rule by the Ethics Commission, she explained, was too broad and went beyond the "actual control" standard in the 1973 law, which she wanted to go back to.
This new version of Davis' bill then passed the Senate. The House agreed with the Senate's changes, and sent the bill to the governor.
A second ethics bill introduced by Davis ended up in Huffman's committee. She again attached her language on spousal disclosure just to make sure it was adopted, in case something happened to the first. Also attached was one of Abbott's ethics provisions, requiring legislators, statewide elected officials and gubernatorial appointees to disclose contracts or any other arrangement in which they were paid by a public agency. This bill, too, passed both chambers and was sent to Abbott's desk.
The Ethics Commission wasn't pleased. The 2014 rule was not a change in law, but a clarification that was consistent with the 1973 state law and how the agency had enforced that statute, said Ian Steusloff, general counsel of the Ethics Commission.
Abbott wasted little time and vetoed both of Davis' bills, citing the provisions inserted by Huffman.
"At the beginning of this legislative session, I called for meaningful ethics reform," Abbott said in a statement. "This legislation does not accomplish that goal. Provisions in this bill would reduce Texans' trust in their elected officials, and I will not be a part of weakening our ethics laws."
Davis, in an interview, said she accepted Huffman's amendments to her two ethics bills because she was trying to get some of Abbott's reform agenda signed into law. But after the outcry, she asked Abbott to veto her own bills.
Still, Davis said the issue of balancing the public's right to know while preserving some privacy for spouses is a difficult one and will remain the subject of debate in Austin. "You almost have to hire counsel to advise us whether it's a community property or separate property. That law is very complicated," said Davis, an attorney who specializes in defending clients against personal injury lawsuits.
The future
The simple purpose behind disclosure is to enable citizens to track whether the votes and actions of elected officials benefit themselves instead of the public.
"The most important commodity we have as elected officials is the bond we share with our constituents," Abbott said in his State of the State speech a year ago. "Transparency - and rising above even the appearance of impropriety - will strengthen that bond. Rejection of ethics reform will weaken that bond and rightfully raise suspicions about who we truly serve - ourselves, or the people of Texas."
Tony Mc Donald, general counsel of the conservative-leaning nonprofit group Empower Texans, said the disclosure of assets, including those of spouses, enables citizens to probe whether public officials amass wealth through their offices.
Jim Clancy, a member of the Ethics Commission, acknowledged there is a "learning process" to inform public officials about the 1973 statute and the 2014 rule. But in his mind, Abbott's veto has resolved the issue.
"The modern power couple has one person who is in government, owns nothing, and has a squeaky clean record and the other person has vast business interests," he said. "And the question is, should the vast business interests of the spouse be disclosed to determine whether there is a genuine conflict of interest?"
Only a Sith deals in absolutes. The consensus seems to be that he is an intelligent asshole. Why do you feel the need to strike through "intelligent" as well?
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.Ehh "intelligent" is a very bastardized term right now. Suffice it to say that applying the "intelligent" label on one area of life and then thinking that being "unintelligent" in another area in life is silly and a very silly argument. Bigotry, prejudice and other things do not preclude a capable mind in other aspects.
But the term itself is so bastardized and polarizing and people just can kidnap it for any political reason they like.
In the case of dawkins though, "hypocrite" does seem to fit a descriptor of him without this makign him any less capable in his analysis of religion or whatever the fuck he is famous at again.
edited 5th Jan '16 7:28:50 AM by Aszur
It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothesDawkins feels a constant need to 'poach off the reservation' in his public statements and offer his (half-baked, generally awful) thoughts about things that aren't his field of evolutionary biology. An inability to recognize his own limitations doesn't speak to a particularly intelligent or self-aware mind.
Schild und Schwert der Partei

apparently the building Y'all Qeada(or Vanilla ISIS or Yee Hawdists) are occupying is around 3 hours from the nearest city, and they took over it while no one was there
Bumbleby is best ship. busy spending time on r/RWBY and r/anime. Unapologetic Socialist