All-purpose news and politics thread: Two Steps Beyond!(Part II)

[numberthirty]

So 30 throws up a highly biased editorial about Harris. Here is a more nuanced piece from Thinkprogress. Shows that she was not in favor of incarcerating people just to provide force labor.

California Attorney General Says Her Office’s Defense Of Prison Labor ‘Evokes Chain Gangs’


She wasn't great on the issue, but she understood the problem, especially about drug offenders.

“The war on drugs was a failure,” she said at a policy conference hosted by the Center for American Progress. “These so-called ‘tough on crime’ approaches have resulted in a nearly 800 percent rise in incarceration nationally. It’s just not smart to have those approaches. Instead of keeping them because of a blind adherence to tradition, we should ask, ‘What is the return on investment?’”

But Harris has not been as strong on drug policy reform as some of her constituents would like. She declined to join in other states’ efforts to remove marijuana from the DEA’s list of most-dangerous substances, and issued a somewhat mixed statement when federal agents raided compliant medical marijuana dispensaries in California.

With California voters possibly deciding the future of recreational marijuana in 2016, Harris is focusing her attention elsewhere — particularly on programs to reduce recidivism, as California has one of the highest rates in the nation with 70 percent of released prisoners returning in three years or less. “It’s a broken system. It has wasted taxpayer money. I feel strongly that we need reform,” she said, citing programs California is pursuing to support ex-offenders in finding work, housing and education.

I would like to to say that I was impressed by Harris during the Kavinaugh hearings. I would gladly support here if she were the nominee in 2020.

I would like to hear more about exactly how the Ella Baker Center For Human Rights is "Highly Biased". Some sort of material that points to that being the case that I can read over?

As for "Understood The Problem...", come on. If you understood it, that sort of a defense never would have come out of your office in the first place. Look at the piece you linked to...

But the state’s massive prison system remains unconstitutionally overcrowded, and the current administration has blown off many deadlines set by courts to remedy the situation. Protests also continue over the state’s use of long term solitary confinement, the pepper spraying of inmates with mental illnesses, and unsanitary conditions that have led to the death of some prisoners.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Puerto Rico is asking for statehood. Congress should listen.



New bipartisan bill calls for Puerto Rico statehood

That's all well and good, but in the end, Congress won't give that bill the time of day. Why? After the disastrous response to Maria by the Trump administration and the subsequent silence on the matter by GOP leaders, do you think Puerto Ricans will even entertain the thought of voting Republican in a presidential election? Hell to the no!

[Tami]

That's all well and good, but in the end, Congress won't give that bill the time of day. Why? After the disastrous response to Maria by the Trump administration and the subsequent silence on the matter by GOP leaders, do you think Puerto Ricans will even entertain the thought of voting Republican in a presidential election? Hell to the no!

The bill is bi-partisan, and if the Democrats take control of Congress, the odds will greatly improve. I can't speak for them, but last year has shown that this transitory status isn't working. They either need to be become a state or independent to survive. I don't think that thye can go it alone right now.

[Kirby101]

Worth noting...

https://ellabakercenter.org/blog/201...-labor-problem

Harry Waksberg, the writer of the blog, only put in the "shocked" comment, without the rest of her response.

But another non-Bernie Dem you can't vote for. We are not "shocked".

[Iron Maiden]

Man, Moore laying things out on All In was heartening.

I saw most of it and found it disheartening myself. Almost 5 years later and the water is still too dangerous to drink for many residents in Flint? One parent told the TV audience that she drives her kids down to East Detroit once a week so they can take a shower.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

I saw most of it and found it disheartening myself. Almost 5 years later and the water is still too dangerous to drink for many residents in Flint? One parent told the TV audience that she drives her kids down to East Detroit once a week so they can take a shower.

Something like that you'd imagine happening in a third world country or a banana republic, not in supposedly THE most prosperous nation on the planet.

[MyriVerse]

It's sort of ended now, but you can't really unsee something, so the effects aren't. Here's some local shenanigans re: Kaepernick/Nike. Kenner is the little POS hamlet that visitors briefly travel through leaving the New Orleans airport.

https://www.nola.com/business/index...._for_kenn.html

https://www.nola.com/politics/index....ter_clubs.html

https://www.nola.com/politics/index....lu_demand.html

But he finally caves and rescinds it...
https://www.nola.com/politics/index....zahn_nike.html

[Tami]

"Casualties don’t make a person look bad, so I have no reason to dispute these numbers," House Speaker Paul Ryan told reporters when asked about Trump's tweet blaming Dems for PR death toll. "It’s an isolated island that lost its infrastructure and power for a long time."

Twitter Link

Ryan has lost it.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2014, 2015, 2016, as well as 2017, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" published profiles of the U.S. House Representative from North Dakota’s At-Large District, Kevin Cramer, currently in his third term in office. Among Rep. Cramer’s finer quotes are insisting climate change is trending in the opposite direction and that CO2 emissions have nothing to do with any warming phenomenon (he was the adviser of the Trump campaign’s energy policies, go figure), as well as the time he talked about how Native American tribal elders and said he’d like to “wring the necks and slam their heads against the wall” for being upset about his vote against the version of the Violence Against Women Act that would have provided protections to Native American women. Rounding out this classy individual’s resume, he denies LGBT discrimination in the workplace even EXISTS, and insisted he was keeping his paycheck during the 2013 Government Shutdown because “he earned it” while also trying to throw people off of food stamps based on quotes he read of Christian scripture on the floor of the House (because Jesus was TOTALLY against feeding the poor.) Our last update also indicated that Cramer had been widely criticized during his first run for office for filming campaign advertisements in a veterans’ cemetery as well as the North Dakota Patriot Guard in one of their motorcycle rallies, and had jeopardized the funding for both, by making them involved in a political campaign without their permission. Cramer did not apologize to either group, justified it by saying “there was nothing illegal about it” and in interviews, refused to even say if he would continue to film ads in veterans’ cemeteries without permission.

After Rep. Cramer’s re-election, he remains a thorough ***hole. In March of 2017, after several Democratic Congresswomen dressed for an address by Donald Trump to Congress by wearing white pantsuits, which was a nod to the Suffragette movement that got women the right to vote about a century ago. But that nuance is missed by Kevin Cramer, who responded to it by saying that these women had a “disease”, insulting how they looked, and were obsessed with Hillary Clinton’s election loss:

“But by the way, did you notice how poorly several of them were dressed as well?” he asked. “It is a syndrome. There is no question, there is a disease associated with the notion that a bunch of women would wear bad-looking white pantsuits in solidarity with Hillary Clinton to celebrate her loss. You cannot get that weird.”

Now, things can get even more embarrassing than that. In April of 2017, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer gave a bizarre statement at the podium, where he tried comparing Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad to Adolf Hitler by assessing “even Hitler never gassed his own people”. (News flash: He totally ordered that done in concentration camps.) Now, nobody in their right mind would, or could defend those remarks. But Kevin Cramer, you see, it not in his right mind, as he exhibited in an interview with a North Dakota conservative talk radio host, saying that Spicer’s Holocaust denial “had some validity”.

"The media is so gullible, they fall for these things because they think it's really hot stuff and the public just can't wait to stick it to Sean Spicer -- who 99% of the people wouldn't have the foggiest idea who he is and it distracts them from other things. I can't even believe that anybody in the media, much less all of the major networks, led with this story. A spokesperson, who by the way made a poor illustration, but it's not completely, it's not without some validity."

A few weeks later in May of 2017, House Republicans were floating the AHCA as a method of repealing the Affordable Care Act, that would throw 24 million people off their health insurance, cause tens of thousands of more deaths a year, and all for the “benefit” of getting the richest Americans tax breaks. And Kevin Cramer faced down a hostile town hall as this vote approached, and was directly asked about that tax break for the wealthy, and lied in the faces of the people he represents, denying that it existed. The man asking Rep. Cramer the question responded by angrily stuffing a handful of money down his collar, a direct way of accusing that Cramer can be bought so easily.

And, big surprise, Cramer voted for the ACHA, along with a lot of other terrible legislation:

• May 4th, 2017: Cramer votes for the House GOP's healthcare plan, that would kick roughly 24 million people off their health insurance plans, allow up to 28,000 more people to die a year, give $50,000 in tax breaks to millionaires, and would eliminate coverage for pre-existing conditions which would include such medical conditions as pregnancy (current or past), postpartum depression, or prior sexual assault. Oh, and a provision in the bill would make sure that Cramer would be allowed to keep his healthcare plan as it exists under the ACA, which would be repealed for the rest of the country. He and his Republican compatriots threw themselves a beer bash to celebrate taking away healthcare from millions and then gloated about it with Donald Trump at a White House press conference.
• June 8th, 2017: Kevin Cramer votes for HR 10, the GOP’s attempt to repeal Dodd-Frank financial reform, because what the country really needs is to allow the big banks to make the same mistakes that imploded the economy only a decade earlier.
• October 3rd, 2017: Cramer votes for HR 36, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, that would try to create an unconstitutional ban abortion at 20 weeks (even though medical science tells us fetuses do not have the capability to feel pain until 29 weeks).
• December 19th, 2017: Kevin Cramer votes for HR 1, the GOP’s $1.7 trillion tax cut to benefit the wealthiest Americans and corporations permanently that coincidentally also removes the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate and kicks 13 million people off their health insurance.
• February 18th, 2018: Cramer and his fellow Republicans decide that poor big businesses are suffering too much at the hands of the Americans with Disabilities Act too much, and vote for HR 620, which would strip most of the civil rights protections guaranteed by it.

Now, there are far more Democratic Senate seats up than Republican ones in the 2018 mid-terms. And while the GOP currently have a majority, they’re nervously looking at races in Arizona, Nevada, and Texas, where Jeff Flake, Dean Heller, and Ted Cruz all look like they could be in trouble, what with them being unpopular in approval polls. So they’re hoping that maybe they can flip a few blue seats red, in states that lean conservative. One of them, of course, being North Dakota, where in 2012, Heidi Heitkamp pulled what was considered a big upset. That seat is a target for the GOP in 2018, but of all the people to be determined to make the jump to the Senate, it’s Kevin Cramer, who dove headlong at the chance after the GOP failed to entice less extreme candidates to run. He’s considered to be such a lackluster candidate that even the Koch Brothers won’t spend a dime to help him. As such, he’s desperate for cash. So desperate, that he’s willing to have President Dementia von F***face come out to North Dakota to incoherently ramble on his behalf as a fundraising idea (Note: Trump is still a terrible campaigner, often forgetting to mention who he’s there for, and to just ramble about himself). Meanwhile, with what money he has raised for his campaign, Kramer has funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars back towards himself, leaving him under investigation by the FEC.

Whether or not Cramer listens to his pals and opts to just run for re-election to his House seat, or tries his hand at making it to the upper chamber is still up in the air. All we know is, Heidi Heitkamp has to like her chances against this misanthropic, temperamental twit more than most members of the GOP, and it would be nice to see hubris getting the best of Cramer.

[Tami]

Angry Trump supporters turn on GOP Senate candidate after he admits 3K Puerto Ricans died from hurricane

Florida Gov. Rick Scott, who is the Republican Party’s nominee for Senate in the Sunshine State, took to Twitter on Thursday to dispute President Donald Trump’s claim that 3,000 Puerto Ricans didn’t actually die due to Hurricane Maria in 2017.

Specifically, Scott wrote that he “disagrees” with Trump’s claim that Democrats fabricated the entire death toll to make him look bad, and he said that “an independent study said thousands were lost” on Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria last year, despite earlier estimates that just 64 people had died.

“I’ve been to Puerto Rico seven times and saw devastation firsthand,” Scott concluded. “The loss of any life is tragic; the extent of lives lost as a result of Maria is heart wrenching. I’ll continue to help Puerto Rico.”

Scott’s decision to accurately cite hurricane death toll statistics did not sit well with many Trump supporters, however, and they accused him of being “just another liberal” because he contradicted the president.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Twitter Link

Ryan has lost it.

This presupposes Ryan ever had it to begin with. It's clear he sacrificed his spine and his soul on the altar of Trump the day he was sworn in as president. Oh, and if casualties don't make a person look bad as Eddie Munster said, then George W. Bush must be one hell of a great guy, given the lives lost on his watch after 9/11 and Katrina, not to mention the servicemen and servicewomen killed after he launched wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Angry Trump supporters turn on GOP Senate candidate after he admits 3K Puerto Ricans died from hurricane

Scott may have just pissed away his shot at the Senate for daring to contradict Caramel Caligula. No wonder Republicans in Congress are scared to death of saying anything even remotely bad against Trump when his legion of lemmings are ready to fall on detractors like the proverbial ton of bricks.

[PaulBullion]

Keep that in mind when someone points out the glaring issues in Harris' time as Attorney General.

Others may have pointed this out but:

You let certain actions define Democratic women (like Harris' actions as AG), but not Bernie Sanders (like his vote for the crime bill, his campaigning on said vote, and the Sierra Blanca cruelty. You let Sanders show you who he was, but don't believe him.

Why?

Because he (allegedly) has a penis? A Y-chromosome? The potential to spoil elections for Democrats?

[Kirby101]

Others may have pointed this out but:

You let certain actions define Democratic women (like Harris' actions as AG), but not Bernie Sanders (like his vote for the crime bill, his campaigning on said vote, and the Sierra Blanca cruelty. You let Sanders show you who he was, but don't believe him.

Why?

Because he (allegedly) has a penis? A Y-chromosome? The potential to spoil elections for Democrats?

Ding, Ding, Ding! We have a winner!!!

[PaulBullion]

tic ... tic ... tic...

Dianne Feinstein Refers a Kavanaugh Matter to Federal Investigators

Boom!

Two officials familiar with the matter say the incident involved possible sexual misconduct between Judge Kavanaugh and a woman when they were both in high school.

[worstblogever]

tic ... tic ... tic...

Dianne Feinstein Refers a Kavanaugh Matter to Federal Investigators

Boom!

Isn't that the same Sen. Feinstein that pretend-Democrats on this forum try to convince the actual Democrats that she deserves the heave-ho?

Ain't that somethin' that she's baller in the clutch?