New ASL interpreter for the White House is an extreme Trumper who was on Parler, now on Gab

That’s what I’m hoping for. Fire her on the spot for misconduct without giving her an opportunity to cry oppression. Of course, being a MAGA trolley, she will anyway.

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Paul Raci:

Or any of these folks:

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On one hand, yes, obviously.

On the other hand, firing someone for their political views when they haven’t done anything wrong is exactly the kind of thing Trump would do. If it’s shown that she is indeed fudging her job to discredit something from the Biden administration, show her the door.

The real answer is they shouldn’t have hired her in the first place. But now she has the job, so does the Biden administration follow some rules of ethics or not?

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Yeah I’ve seen that guy. His beard is magnificent.

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Not sure why this wouldn’t be an at will job. Is there any reason to believe she can’t be replaced at will? It’s a communications position, one where credibility matters. So I’m not seeing an ethics issue in getting someone else.

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Never trust a Trumper. Never. Outright lying while translating to push some alt-right agenda or crazy Qanon conspiracy bullshit not only isn’t beyond these people, it’s to be expected.

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I find it preposterous for the left to get upset about this. If we are punishing people for thought-crimes and free expression, we are advocating for as bad of a regime as the one we just replaced. The worst thing that can be said is a facebook group she was associated with was banned for violating ‘community standards’. What specifically did she do? A few weeks ago, when they banned trump, a lot of people were arguing that facebook has the absolute right to shut down anything they want to because it is in their TOS. So being banned from facebook just means they are endangering the capitalist’s revenue stream. The news report accuses her of spreading ‘misinformation’, but is it the ASL translator’s job to fact-check? The videos I see on the web archive they reference involve politicians like Rand Paul or videos of other figures supported by the white house. Do we not want deaf people to know what they are saying, but think it is OK for hearing people to know? Do we think that only left-wing translators have a right to a job? Do we think that only democrats have the right to hire an ASL translator to make their speeches accessible?

Plenty of people I disagree with (~70 million) supported Trump, and although I think they are mostly mistaken about some important things, they are typically reasonable, well-intentioned, and we share space with them and normally get along fine. If the ASL translator performs her job poorly or somehow intentionally misleads people, then that is grounds for dismissal, but I don’t think her political opinion should be germane to hiring her for or firing her from a non-political post. BS like this is one of the reasons why the white working class look at the democrats and think “there is nothing for me there”, because they can spot hypocrisy just as readily as the left can.

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That’s pretty dangerous reach within a community who may or may not feel they have a voice and are poorly represented. I mean this in all seriousness.
*Adding - Not claiming I know anything about accuracy in ASL, but a self proclaimed word-nerd and cunning linguist at heart, I imagine intentional mis-interpretation is just a matter of a flick of the wrist, so to speak.

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What, you had, " Too bad there aren’t thousands of qualified candidates who sign ASL that they could replace her with." on your card?! I must have just got the basic Biden Bingo Card. Actually looking at my card, it appears to have “Trump” crossed out and replaced with “Biden”. I feel cheated!

@ikeOnABike I like to think that he was just free-stylin’.

@leicester Signing along to your own lyrics looks like it would be a great way for a singer to do something interesting with their hands.

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Really, no. She’s not a post office clerk being fired for having opinions that have nothing to do with her job or her performance, she’s a translator who will be used in a highly visible (literally) key publicity position communicating the Biden Administration’s messaging to the public. It does not make sense for that person to be virulently pro-Trump and anti-Democrat.

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Struggling to find a response to this that doesn’t go full Godwin.

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I think your outrage is entirely misplaced given that Trump didn’t even bother to have an ASL translator.

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Considering the extreme callousness, incompetence, ignorance and cruelty that someone would have to either overlook or endorse to support Trump, I think it’s far more likely that you’re wrong about your “reasonable, well-intentioned” people than everyone else being wrong about the ASL interpreter being a bad idea.

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kicking fascists out of government is the real fascism

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That’s not what the term “thought-crime” means.

In Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four “Thoughtcrimes” are unspoken beliefs or doubts about the tenets of the Party that are nonetheless punishable as criminal offenses. If this woman was suspended from Facebook for violating its terms of service then that’s not “thoughtcrime.” Nor is choosing to deny her a position as a White House interpreter.

Freedom of expression does not mean freedom from consequences.

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On the positive side, it’s easily verified if she misrepresents, or adds inappropriate tone to, what’s being said and that’s cause for immediate dismissal. So really, if there had to be a Trumper in this administration, this is probably the position where she can do the least damage. Or at least, do damage for the least amount of time (which is probably more likely, as I don’t expect her to last).

Oh man, the bit where she gets interviewed - and has her own sign language interpreter - and they’re all talking about signs.

/choking sound
Well that’s begging a number of questions…

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I don’t know what everybody’s upset about, they never did a hate crime against me

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Sure, attacks on synagogues and black people went way up and Hispanic kids were thrown into concentration camps, but you share space and get along fine, and your experience is all that counts. :angry:

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Beyond the obvious WTF reaction, there could also be a more subtle intention. Of all the people to appoint to this position, in a “team-of-rivals” way, a Trump supporter, this seems like the perfect fit. Her job will be to re-present policy points aimed at healing, repairing, and moving on from the failures and excesses of the past four years. Such disconnect. So it should be pretty interesting to watch her reactions over time to the material she’s translating.

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