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

[Tendrin]

The entire thing with absentee ballots shows the true intentions behind ID laws - absentee ballots have the most proven cases of voter fraud yet none of the laws being passed seem to target them in the slightest.

This is true.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Well, Trump just declared himself a "nationalist" while campaigning for Ted Cruz in Texas, and he's white and says all sorts of racist s*** so...

Yeah, he's officially a white nationalist, now.

So, does this mean we can finally stop pretending that the current Republican leadership is anything but a new spin on an old fascist plot? Trump has officially declared himself a Nazi in all but the single word.

Trump has been a white nationalist ever since Charlottesville after he declared Nazi shitstain protestors to be "very nice people".

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Trump: U.S. Will ‘Build Up’ Nuclear Arsenal Until Other Nations ‘Come To Their Senses’

The threat comes on the heels of Trump’s decision to pull the U.S. from a Cold War-era nuclear deal with Russia. In my opinion, Trump was looking for an excuse, ANY excuse to start building up that arsenal. Suddenly, the world is in danger all over again. Meanwhile....

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Trump’s Planned Nuclear Pact Withdrawal ‘Not The Work Of A Great Mind,’ Says Gorbachev

“All agreements aimed at nuclear disarmament ... must be preserved, for the sake of preserving life on earth,” the former Russian president said.

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Donald Trump On Ted Cruz: ‘He’s Not Lyin’ Ted Anymore. He’s Beautiful Ted’

The president also said he doesn’t regret claiming the senator’s father was linked to the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Of course not, Trump never regrets anything. Meanwhile....

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Twitter Users Taunt ‘Spineless’ Ted Cruz For Bowing To Donald Trump After 2016 Insults

The Texas senator was mocked for bowing to the president, who used to call him “Lyin’ Ted.” Not to mention insulting Cruz's wife and saying his dad was in on JFK's assassination. And yet, Ted is shamelessly slurping the Orange Menace. Sad.

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Trump Administration Launches New Attack On ACA’s Pre-existing Protections

Yet another reminder that the GOP hasn’t given up on trying to kill Obamacare.

[adkal]

...Mango Mussolini?...

Be careful. You don't want to get sued

[worstblogever]

On this date, in 2014, in 2015, and in 2016, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" published profiles of former Kansas Congressman Tim Huelskamp, a man who claims President Obama is using the military as guinea pigs to promote a gay agenda, has accused the Supreme Court of demeaning Jesus by overturning bans on gay marriage, and while questioning the Secretary of the Dept. of Veterans’ Affairs, took the time to ask why Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid doesn’t like veterans, refusing to apologize for the query after the fact. Huelskamp isn’t just anti-gay, though, he’s also got a terrible record on women’s issues, and all too often in his attacks on their right to choose, he compares abortion to slavery. And just to give you an idea of how utterly toxic this guy is, even is own party can’t stand him. Huelskamp was stripped of his committee posts in 2012 along with Justin Amash and David Schweikert because, as one anonymous GOP aide put it, “They were the most egregious assholes in the House Republican Conference.” Our update from 2015 featured the disgraceful rhetoric of Huelskamp actually finding a way to somehow get worse, as he called the failed effort by the House Freedom Caucus to not fund the Department of Homeland Security as an example of Speaker John Boehner “surrendering the Constitution to the left”, called the Iran nuclear deal “not a deal, but a gift to radical Islam”, gave a speech on the floor of the House where he claimed Planned Parenthood is racist “and targets minority communities for destruction and elimination”, and ten minutes before Pope Francis spoke before Congress, Huelskamp decided to mark the occasion to get on Twitter and attack Vice President Joe Biden, a fellow Catholic of “voting for years to kill babies”. We are thrilled to report that in the 2016 elections, Huelskamp was defeated in the GOP Primary, and no longer is serving as a testament to how little oxygen a brain can survive with in our nation’s capitol.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2017, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled the U.S. House Representative from Virginia’s 5th Congressional District, Tom Garrett, who in the above photo, is pictured with a group of individuals that include Jason Kessler, the piece of human garbage that organized the Neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Virginia that led to the death of Heather Heyer. And Garrett is such a f***ing scumbag himself that after Heyer’s death, he still had the unmitigated gall to go on that place where every rich white ***hole with a terrible opinion is welcome, Fox Business Channel:

“I have a child due in a month—we’ve worked since 1776 to erase horrible flaws like slavery and second-class citizenship and to think that my child might be born into a world where we’re regressing is genuinely frightening.”

First off, Garrett, you dips***, this country did not “work since 1776 to erase slavery”. The country trucked along for four score and seven years before something was done about it, and we had to have a whole civil war about the issue before it was settled. And don’t you go on television to wipe away invisible crocodile tears when you f***ing hang out with the people who run the hate rally, normalize and embolden them six months prior, and then pretend you give a s*** about what sorts of hell they might unleash. It’s not like people can’t just check and see how sympathetic Garrett is to the cause of the Neo-Nazis who were there to talk about their precious Confederate monuments, like when he co-sponsored as a state legislator to preserve said monuments.

We feel a bit better getting the “this guy pals around with Neo-Nazis” angle out of the way up front. Now, Rep. Garrett rode the Alt-Right hatred stoked by Donald Trump’s presidential campaign into office in 2016, coming out of a five year tenure from the Virginia State Senate where he co-sponsored legislation to criminalize oral and anal sex between teenagers (oddly specific to worry about those kinds, and not the kinds that could result in teen pregnancies), attempts to drug test welfare recipients, voting against efforts to offer LGBT citizens protections against discrimination, votes against equal rights for women, as well as votes for mandatory ultrasounds prior to an abortion that would make Ken Cuccinelli proud, co-sponsoring a Personhood bill, oh, and attempts at voter suppression through unnecessary stricter Voter ID requirements.

All of that was his resume to replace Virginia Congressman and CSGOPOTD Robert Hurt as the Republican representative for Virginia’s 5th Congressional District after being picked at the GOP’s party convention for this seat (which usually results in more conservative candidates in Virginia), and then defeating Jane Dittmar with 58% of the vote in a traditionally conservative seat. We’re hoping his associates with racist terrorists make him a one-term candidate, but really, this mother***er shouldn’t have been given a chance in the first place. At the debate with Dittmar a few weeks prior to the 2016 election, Garrett mentioned that our election was “rigged”, echoing a certain oranged-hued cretin on the presidential ticket, argued vehemently in favor of the 2nd Amendment being unimpeded, claiming that Democrats trying to pass a law to prevent terrorists on the “no fly list” from being able to buy firearms was “racist”, and when presented with a question about presenting gun violence, scoffed, saying ,“the question is fallacious on its face, because homicides and suicides aren’t caused by gun use, they’re caused by people, that’s like saying that home construction is caused by hammer use.”

Garrett’s campaign rhetoric, of course, also was stuffed full of as much anti-immigrant bigotry as possible, fanning the flames of xenophobia about immigrants from Central America, as well as Muslim immigrants from Somalia, and going as far as to claim that “Sharia Law” was a threat rising around the globe. This guy is a gaffe machine, as evidenced as an MSNBC interview where Garrett admitted most of the House GOP hadn’t read the healthcare repeal bill they were about to vote on in Congress, and were just asking their staff to do it for them.

Speaking of, his voting record is already quite the barrel of hot garbage:

• May 4th, 2017: Garrett 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), post-partum depression, or prior sexual assault. Oh, and a provision in the bill would make sure that Garrett 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, as well.
• June 8th, 2017: Tom Garrett 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.
• September 8th, 2017: Rep. Garrett conveniently misses the vote for disaster relief for Hurricane Harvey victims.
• October 3rd, 2017: Garrett 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: Greg Gianforte 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: Rep. Garrett 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.

Tom Garrett has not done a good job of quelling outrage in the two town halls he’s hosted this year. In the first, in May when asked about Trump’s potential collusion with the Russians, Garrett set the bar for the President of the United States about as low as it can get by downplaying complaints about his policies by saying they’re “small potatoes compared to Nazi Germany”, well, you deserve to be ridiculed. And going into 2018, Garrett’s pals from hate groups were going to be brought up REPEATEDLY so that voters heading to the polls know that if they don’t want a guy who’s palling around with Nazis… at least that’s what we thought until Garrett abruptly announced that he wouldn’t be running for a second term in office in March of 2018, instead choosing to seek out treatment for alcoholism. That might just be the cover story, though, as about two months later, it was revealed that Garrett and his wife had managed to spend their first year and half working in the capitol treating their Congressional staff like their personal servants, forcing them to do their grocery shopping, laundry pick-up, and cleaning up dog poop, among other menial tasks on the taxpayer’s dime. We wish him the finest of luck with treating his alcoholism, and even more luck in f***ing right off and never re-entering politics.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Be careful. You don't want to get sued

Do tell. That's certainly interesting. No matter, I have lots of insulting nicknames I can use for Trump. Perhaps I'll list them all one day.

[Tami]

Democrat says she felt 'sheer disbelief' after being left off ballot in 1 Arkansas county

An Arkansas county temporarily closed most of its early voting sites after the Democratic nominee for secretary of state was left off the ballot, a glitch the candidate said left her in "sheer disbelief."

An official with the Garland County Election Commission said three of the county's four early voting sites were closed at times Monday because ballots did not include Susan Inman, the Democrat running for secretary of state. The sites have since re-opened.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Democrat says she felt 'sheer disbelief' after being left off ballot in 1 Arkansas county

All the more reason for Democrats to remain vigilant about their voting rights since the GOP is hellbent on cheating their way through the midterms through suppression (especially of minorities) in any way possible, both legal and under the table. Tell your loved ones, tell your friends, tell your co-workers, tell ANYONE you care about NOT to assume you're good to go on election day, because that might not be the case.

[adkal]

Do tell. That's certainly interesting. No matter, I have lots of insulting nicknames I can use for Trump. Perhaps I'll list them all one day.

Just that his granddaughter has threatened to sue anyone who 'offends' Mussolini by making offensive posts, etc.

(I merely posted it tongue-in-cheek)

[Iron Maiden]

I notice that Trump has resorted to bribes now as part of his campaign rallies. A couple of times now on his weekend blitz of rallies Trump has said that next week the middle class will be getting 10 percent tax cuts. Of course this is absolutely false. First of all, Congress isn't even in session and won't be back until mid-November. White House aides were completed blindsided by his statement and have no knowledge of this.

This is typical salesman talk. Tell a lie/exaggeration to make a sale which is what Trump has done his entire adult life. But people lap it up.

I'm certainly no financial genius but if there is another tax cut, where will all the funding come from for the huge defense budget....unless this means that this is stage one for getting rid of "entitlements" like Social Security and Medicaid. Maybe Trump just let the cat out of the bag too early.

In an interview last week on Bloomberg News, Mitch McConnell blamed entitlements for the GOP created deficit

[worstblogever]

Overnight, the Hong Kong, and Japanese stock markets took a bath. The German market is also having a rough time of it today. The three markets all lost about 2-3% of their total value, and it looks to do the same here in the states...

Trading just opened about an hour ago in NYC, and the stock exchange is already down roughly 400 points for the day, with a lot more time left to fall or recover.

[PaulBullion]

Alex Jones randomly showed up at the hate rally set up for Ted Cruz. The unhinged freak was seen screaming at the top of his lungs...

...at a pile of ****.

Video here: https://twitter.com/TheRickyDavila/s...66660403806208

[PaulBullion]

Overnight, the Hong Kong, and Japanese stock markets took a bath. The German market is also having a rough time of it today. The three markets all lost about 2-3% of their total value, and it looks to do the same here in the states...

Trading just opened about an hour ago in NYC, and the stock exchange is already down roughly 400 points for the day, with a lot more time left to fall or recover.

The 5 day chart is not a good look for a president who's only claim to fame is that he hasn't managed to tank the economy he inherited from Obama yet, this close to the elections:

[WestPhillyPunisher]

I notice that Trump has resorted to bribes now as part of his campaign rallies. A couple of times now on his weekend blitz of rallies Trump has said that next week the middle class will be getting 10 percent tax cuts. Of course this is absolutely false. First of all, Congress isn't even in session and won't be back until mid-November. White House aides were completed blindsided by his statement and have no knowledge of this.

This is typical salesman talk. Tell a lie/exaggeration to make a sale which is what Trump has done his entire adult life. But people lap it up.

I'm certainly no financial genius but if there is another tax cut, where will all the funding come from for the huge defense budget....unless this means that this is stage one for getting rid of "entitlements" like Social Security and Medicaid. Maybe Trump just let the cat out of the bag too early.

In an interview last week on Bloomberg News, Mitch McConnell blamed entitlements for the GOP created deficit

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California said in a statement, “Under the GOP’s twisted agenda, we can afford tax cuts for billionaires, but not the benefits our seniors have earned.”

Like the GOP gives even half a **** about seniors, because they don't. I'd have a bit more respect for Republicans if they just came right out and said as much. Unrepentant scumbags like Turtle Boy will get fat pensions for life after they leave politics and enjoy Cadillac healthcare while grandma and granddad sit in frozen houses because heat is beyond their means and eat dog food (when they eat at all) while unable to afford their medicines or visit their doctors. This is beyond reprehensible.

[Mister Mets]

You have a very positive personality Mets. Now me, I'm too jaded. I naturally assume that if a rule can be abused it will be. So sure in fact that I jump straight to the conclusion that if a rule can be abused it was put in place specifically to be abused. I just really, REALLY, wish the world would stop proving me right.

This Isn't about a positive personality, or being jaded. It's a concern that tools that are abused for positive ends can be abused by the other side.

This is something the left doesn't realize in efforts to help protected classes and achieve their policy goals. Power granted to the benevolent stays with the next side.