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

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Trump Mulls ‘Emergency’ After Mexico, GOP And Now Pelosi Won’t Pay For His Wall

But funding a border wall wasn’t even the president’s priority until just before the midterm elections. Hmmm! Would that have anything to do with Republicans having lost the House? Then there's this:

“There is no wall going up,” said Rick Tyler, a Republican consultant who worked for Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s campaign during the 2016 presidential primaries. “So the only thing to conclude is that Trump is building a fake wall with fake pesos to stop fake caravans to prevent a fake border crisis for which he will declare another fake victory.”

The president triggered a 35-day government shutdown just before Christmas over the refusal by the then wholly Republican-led Congress to appropriate billions of taxpayer dollars for his signature campaign promise.

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Senate GOP Rebukes Trump Over Syria, Afghanistan Withdrawals

Most Senate Democrats likely to or already declared as running for president in 2020 opposed the move. Cracks in the Republican wall of support for Trump?

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Customs And Border Protection Makes Largest Fentanyl Bust In Agency’s History

More than 250 pounds of the deadly drug worth $3.5 million was picked up by authorities in Arizona. Didn't Trump say that all those nasty drugs were coming into the country from Mexico, thus the need for his precious border wall?

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Trump Administration Secretly Shipped Plutonium From Red To Blue State

Nevada’s Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak blasts the move as “reckless disregard” for citizens by the administration. Well, reckless disregard is what this administration does best.

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Trump On Stacey Abrams’ State Of The Union Response: ‘I Respect Her’

The president previously called the Georgia Democratic gubernatorial nominee “unqualified” while campaigning for her opponent. Considering Trump is dumber than a box of rocks and doesn't bother trying to educate himself about politics, for him to call someone else unqualified is insulting.

[Iron Maiden]

Trump Mulls ‘Emergency’ After Mexico, GOP And Now Pelosi Won’t Pay For His Wall

But funding a border wall wasn’t even the president’s priority until just before the midterm elections. Hmmm! Would that have anything to do with Republicans having lost the House? Then there's this:



**********

Senate GOP Rebukes Trump Over Syria, Afghanistan Withdrawals

Most Senate Democrats likely to or already declared as running for president in 2020 opposed the move. Cracks in the Republican wall of support for Trump?

**********

Customs And Border Protection Makes Largest Fentanyl Bust In Agency’s History

More than 250 pounds of the deadly drug worth $3.5 million was picked up by authorities in Arizona. Didn't Trump say that all those nasty drugs were coming into the country from Mexico, thus the need for his precious border wall?

**********

Trump Administration Secretly Shipped Plutonium From Red To Blue State

Nevada’s Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak blasts the move as “reckless disregard” for citizens by the administration. Well, reckless disregard is what this administration does best.

**********

Trump On Stacey Abrams’ State Of The Union Response: ‘I Respect Her’

The president previously called the Georgia Democratic gubernatorial nominee “unqualified” while campaigning for her opponent. Considering Trump is dumber than a box of rocks and doesn't bother trying to educate himself about politics, for him to call someone else unqualified is insulting.

Yeah, but with the 2020 closing in, he's going to need votes from more than just white people. Remember how he said by the next election he'll get 90 % of the black vote?

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Yeah, but with the 2020 closing in, he's going to need votes from more than just white people. Remember how he said by the next election he'll get 90 % of the black vote?

Yeah, I remember. Yet another empty boast. Caramel Caligula has a LOOOOOOONG way to go since he only got around 8 percent of the black vote in 2016, and I'm amazed it was THAT high. If he manages to get 10 percent in 2020, I'll be shocked. Meanwhile, Trump has more to worry about from Hispanics whom he's relentlessly demonized since he first launched his campaign three years ago. I suspect they won't be at all kind to him in the voting booth.

[Tendrin]

Corey Booker is in.

Look at that diverse field of Democrats. It's pretty nice. While it's easy to declare 'Well, yeah Trump won obviouisly 2016 was fait accompli' like some people I know (and those same people are doing it about 2020 too), it took a hell of a lot of things to make it go Trump's way the first time. We've got a strong field. Let's hope they bring out the best in each other going forward.

[Michael Watkins]

Corey Booker's such a phony. but he'll be great fodder during the primaries. my bet is that he winds up Kamala Harris' running mate.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Corey Booker is in.

Look at that diverse field of Democrats. It's pretty nice. While it's easy to declare 'Well, yeah Trump won obviouisly 2016 was fait accompli' like some people I know (and those same people are doing it about 2020 too), it took a hell of a lot of things to make it go Trump's way the first time. We've got a strong field. Let's hope they bring out the best in each other going forward.

So, far, the Dems have three women having committed to running in 2020 (Gabbard, Harris, Warren), it'll be interesting to see just how far they can go in the campaign, and if they can overcome the prejudice portions of the populace seems to have against a woman serving as Commander-in-Chief. Meanwhile, on the other side of the aisle, will Republicans mount serious challengers to Trump, or will they let the Orange Menace run unopposed as he's had the GOP whipped like cream since Inauguration Day?

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

Corey Booker is in.

Look at that diverse field of Democrats. It's pretty nice. While it's easy to declare 'Well, yeah Trump won obviouisly 2016 was fait accompli' like some people I know (and those same people are doing it about 2020 too), it took a hell of a lot of things to make it go Trump's way the first time. We've got a strong field. Let's hope they bring out the best in each other going forward.

And he’s gone. I can comfortably say he has no shot at the nomination

[Kirby101]

So, far, the Dems have three women having committed to running in 2020 (Gabbard, Harris, Warren), it'll be interesting to see just how far they can go in the campaign, and if they can overcome the prejudice portions of the populace seems to have against a woman serving as Commander-in-Chief. Meanwhile, on the other side of the aisle, will Republicans mount serious challengers to Trump, or will they let the Orange Menace run unopposed as he's had the GOP whipped like cream since Inauguration Day?

Four, Gillibrand.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

Four, Gillibrand.

So basically just Harris and Warren

[Lammasu]

It's not that hard to understand once you peel back the layers of religious hypocrisy. Evangelicals and their lot hate abortion and have sworn to outlaw it with a jihadist fervor, so when Trump promised to kill Roe v. Wade if elected president (one of many promises the Orange Menace has so far failed to deliver on), the holy rollers wasted no time jumping in bed with him, even though he's broken most of the Ten Commandments all by himself. Hell, if Osama bin Laden were still alive and promised to make abortion illegal, bible thumpers would've unquestionably supported him. In American politics, there's no more unyielding or uncompromising a force than the single issue voter, for evangelicals, that issue is denying women the right to choose, and they obsess over that, practically to the exclusion of all else. And that's why they continue supporting Trump.

If Trump hasn't paid for an abortion I will amputate my right foot. I think my right foot is rather safe.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

So basically just Harris and Warren

Perhaps. But then, no one thought Trump would last long in the GOP primary three years ago, myself included. Bottom line: there's no telling what might happen during a campaign, hell, for all we know, Harris and Warren might be the first to go. Trying to predict how voters will think is a fool's errand.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

T

Perhaps. But then, no one thought Trump would last long in the GOP primary three years ago, myself included. Bottom line: there's no telling what might happen during a campaign, hell, for all we know, Harris and Warren might be the first to go. Trying to predict how voters will think is a fool's errand.

Honestly after the first few primaries it was pretty obvious that he was winning. People were just so gobsmacked by it being Trump to accept it. Gillibrand and Booker are not going to have the cache Trump had.

[Tendrin]

T

Honestly after the first few primaries it was pretty obvious that he was winning. People were just so gobsmacked by it being Trump to accept it. Gillibrand and Booker are not going to have the cache Trump had.

I mean, no one thought Kerry was gonna be the guy in 2004. Let's not count any one out yet. I won't even discount Gabbard. Someone can always catch fire unexpectedly.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2015, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" ran a profile of Sandy Adams, a former one-term Congresswoman from Florida’s 24th District who denied the science of evolution while fighting for Creationism to be taught in public schools, advocated for the strictest possible abortion restrictions, and wanted American public schools to all have monuments of the Ten Commandments in them. She also wanted to repeal both the 16th and 17th Amendments of the Constitution, because apparently the good voters of the United States can no longer be trusted to pick their own Senators. Her career really imploded, though, because of her ridiculous theory that Sharia Law was already thriving in American Muslim communities throughout the United States and should be stopped, believing the heart of the threat was sitting in Dearborn, Michigan, of all places. Voters gave her the boot for being a few tacos short of a combination plate five years ago and she has yet to resurface in politics.

On this date in 2016, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” posted a profile of Jack Kingston, a former eleven-term Congressman from Georgia who infamously appeared on Real Time with Bill Maher in 2011, where he denied not just the existence of climate change, but evolution as well, asking for proof that “human beings emerged from the sea”, which leaves out quite a few hundred million years of evolution from amphibians developing on up. In 2013, Rep. Kingston was arguing against the entire social safety net, saying that children who received help in affording school lunches should have to “sweep the floor in the cafeteria” so they’re taught there’s “no such thing as a free lunch”. He also began openly talking of attempting to impeach President Obama during his failed campaign to replace Sen. Saxby Chambliss in the U.S. Senate, and was proposing drug testing all welfare recipients (that old chestnut of failed conservative policy). While serving as a Trump surrogate in September of 2016, Kingston actually said that black voters prefer “a backdrop in front of a burning car” and had a disastrous interview the next day with NBC News’ Joy Reid, where he was cornered about the fact that he wouldn’t answer questions, to which he tried claiming the interview was unfair because the questions he was asking weren’t being answered (JESUS.) He is out of elected office and only serves as K Street lobbyist and a s***ty pundit these days.

On this date in 2017, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" profiled Scott Schneider, a former two-term Indiana State Senator who authored the homophobic “Religious Freedom Act” that ended up getting the whole Hoosier state shamed for its passage, and was quickly amended to assure it wouldn’t be thrown out by the courts for being discriminatory because it was specifically written to allow businesses to discriminate against LGBT citizens. At the time it was introduced, Schneider had already claimed it would shore up gaps in “religious liberty framework” in Indiana, and began trying to exploit the narrative that Christians in the United States. Said Schneider, "You don't have to look too far to find a growing hostility toward people of faith. This bill acts as a shield, not a sword.” When the backlash against SB 101 predictably came, Schneider continued to argue that it wasn’t authored to discriminate against gays, in spite of the fact that it was written with the intent to allow exactly that. Schneider’s legislative record also include several votes to attempt to ban same sex marriage, several votes to strip funding from Planned Parenthood and implement harsh anti-abortion regulations aimed to close down clinics, and attempts to drug test welfare recipients. But SB 101 was so disastrous that Schneider retired in disgrace, well aware he would never win office again.

On this date in 2018, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" profiled Graham Hunt, a former member of the Washington House of Representatives who first took office after the 2014 elections, winning on the strength of his reputation as a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan who was injured in combat. Immediately upon getting to the state legislature, Hunt became one of those moronic members of the GOP banging the drums of transphobia, and pretending that there needed to be bathroom bans to stop transgender citizens from attacking innocent women and children in public bathrooms. Despite of there being ZERO reported incidents of this kind of predatory behavior, Hunt and bigoted twits like him submitted legislation like this around the country through 2015 and 2016. But Graham Hunt INSISTED he talked to constituents who wanted a bathroom ban, because they were victimized. We can’t say that’s the only sort of paranoid fear that drove Graham Hunt’s daily routine, as he also sponsored a bill to prevent any sort of database of gun owners from being kept in the state, which exactly ZERO people were proposing should happen. But hey, why not score points with the pro-gun, ammosexual types by pretending, “They’re coming for our guns, and only I can stop them!” The bathroom ban and gun paranoia are actually not why CSGOPOTD is discussing Graham Hunt. No, we’re talking about Hunt because as it turns out, he wasn’t exactly the war hero he purported himself to be. The Seattle Times was running a story on the young rising star in the Washington GOP, and began to notice some… shall we say inconsistencies in his war stories. While some noted there were campaign letters where Hunt claimed he was shot in Iraq and stabbed in Afghanistan, that seemed unlikely because Graham Hunt had never even SEEN COMBAT let alone get injured in it. Further checks began to note that photos on Hunt’s Facebook page of him supposedly being “wounded in a mortar attack” were heavily doctored. The truth was, Graham Hunt was never a Marine, he was a member of the Air National Guard who simply performed security checks from… Saudi Arabia. All the stories of bloody war heroism were, simply put, lies. Hunt took the brave stance you’d expect a brave sentinel of liberty like him would, and tried blaming all the social media posts and campaign letters he lied in on an unnamed legislative aide, but the jig was up, and he resigned in complete disgrace. As such, we’ll go ahead and retire his profile at this time, and go ahead and take a look at a different kooky Republican today instead. (Current crazy/stupid scoreboard, is now 727-30, since this was established in July 2014.)

[TheDarman]

Alright, been a while, I feel like I just need to say a few things. I can't believe that there were some people in this thread trying to defend the behavior of the Covington High School Students. They shouldn't have been there in the first place and there was never a need for acting as arrogant and disrespectful as they were. It is especially infuriating that the administration would quote Martin Luther King to promote their racist and hateful border wall but turn around to invite a group of students who had acted dismissively of Native Americans, when MLK's true stance on the issue was:

Our nation was born in genocide when it embraced the doctrine that the original American, the Indian, was an inferior race. Even before there were large numbers of Negroes on our shore, the scar of racial hatred had already disfigured colonial society. From the sixteenth century forward, blood flowed in battles over racial supremacy. We are perhaps the only nation which tried as a matter of national policy to wipe out its indigenous population. Moreover, we elevated that tragic experience into a noble crusade. Indeed, even today we have not permitted ourselves to reject or feel remorse for this shameful episode. Our literature, our films, our drama, our folklore all exalt it. Our children are still taught to respect the violence which reduced a red-skinned people of an earlier culture into a few fragmented groups herded into impoverished reservations.

- Martin Luther King Jr.

So, that's the first thing to get caught up on.

Secondly, I've been a little disappointed by the candidates we've seen announce on the Democratic side so far. I think Cory Booker has a lot of the same issues that Hillary Clinton did (ties too close to the establishment--he's a big Wall Street guy and that will make him vulnerable to the same populist rhetoric that Trump rode to the White House in 2016). Gabbard is concerning--her stance on Assad makes me uneasy. I understand that we've learned that deposing a leader before we've determined what follows is bad foreign policy but the guy gassed his own people. That's a war crime. Sure, people can claim, like Trump did, that we aren't so innocent. But the most universal definition of war crime covers gassing in pretty much every way, given its prevalence in World War I. I can't support her. Gillebrand is especially like Hillary Clinton, except her problematic stances are even more recent. She ran as a neoliberal for years and that is going to be difficult to ride to win this primary season. She is also going to be seen as incredibly inauthentic in the general too. Plus, the fact that her stances follow the polls rather than the other way around does bother me.

That leaves Warren and Harris. Everyone knows how much I like Harris but she will have to overcome weaknesses in her criminal justice record. What I will say, though, is it will be difficult for Trump to claim that he is the "law and order" candidate again. Coupled with the investigations that are demonstrating plumes of smoke and Harris' record as a fairly progressive attorney and, later, attorney general, leads to the most conservative claims that can be leveled against her record in the general is against her defense of gay marriage, which has only gained in popularity since she defended it all the way back in 2013. She has a more progressive bent on social issues than most of her opponents that have demonstrated malleable positions (*cough* Gabbard *cough*). I've always said that I live and die by social policy as the economy is often far more complicated than just the effects that can be produced from government policy. There are things that can be done to assist the economy, especially on a downturn (like Obama did in 2009), but, often, there are only ways to make minimal impacts. The markets usually lead themselves when they work properly. That's usually the time that I'd like to see positive policy proposals like minimum wage hikes and the like take place. Harris leads on social issues and might even be a bit progressive for me on economic issues (though I think that she will likely have a more difficult time exercising her policy proposals in that sphere).

Warren, on the other hand, is a mirror image of Harris. Warren has long stood on the forefront of progressive economic proposals while largely just toeing the progressive line on social issues. While I can certainly understand how people might like her, I am bothered by her assertions of Native American heritage when she is not an indigenous individual, living in a tribe. I understand that it was to set aside jabs by Trump but I would've much preferred that she would've said that she made a bigger deal out of it than was intended and that she understands her experience doesn't mirror that of any minority except for a white woman's experience (which can be bad enough, as we've seen). I am bothered by her dismissal of the importance of progressive social policies as being that much more important than economic progressive policies in the same way I was bothered by Sanders just following Clinton's proposals verbatim because he hardly any new ideas of his own and just matched her proposals on those issues while extending further progressive policies on economic issues.

As of right now, I think I'll throw my weight behind Kamala Harris. Until such a time as issues in her record are even more egregious than any other politician or prosecutor, I'll stick to her.