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

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2014, 2015, 2016, as well as 2017, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day posted profiles of John Kavanagh, an Arizona State Senator a man who proudly roasted his good pal, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, by forgetting at a roast you harass the guest of honor, and instead, chose to make a series of racially insensitive jokes at the expense of Hispanics. Kavanagh is also a big beneficiary of the prison industrial complex, having once been labelled by John Oliver on Last Week Tonight as a man who Satan waits in hell for, sharpening his pitchfork, because he defended Arizona's prison hospitals showing pure sugar into a woman's c-section surgical wound as a story that "should be taken with a grain of salt, or in this case, a grain of sugar".

Kavanagh is also wildly anti-immigrant, supporting SB1070, and wanting birthright citizenship granted by the 14th Amendment to be ignored. He's widening his portfolio of bigotry over time, though, trying to create a bill to criminalize transgendered individuals from using the "wrong" bathroom. Inexplicably, he's an Arizona politician who resents the use of solar power, as well. Kavanaugh supported another one of those insane bills to allow any coin with gold or silver content to it to be used as legal tender in Arizona, and as a former police officer (because of course), Kavanagh was pulling for a bill in February 2015 which would have prevented the release of an officer's name from the media if they were involved in an incident where they had to use deadly force. That's right... in one of the worst eras in recent memory for police violence against the public, Kavanagh and his fellow Republicans decided to provide cover for the police to continue their behavior, or even allow it to get worse without the public being made aware. While a few years ago, Kavanagh also sponsored legislation that would allow a pharmacist to deny to prescribe birth control or other abortion drugs to patients no “moral grounds”, that law had some very sad consequences in June of 2018 when a Walgreens worker refused to fill a prescription for a woman seeking a drug to treat herself with following a miscarriage, and a CVS pharmacist refused to fill a hormone prescription for a transgendered customer.

Kavanagh has continued to make Arizona a more dangerous place to live, sponsoring legislation to attempt to eliminate background checks on gun sales at gun shows completely (so criminals or potential terrorists can buy them without worry), and also an insane anti-choice bill to try and force doctors to attempt to “revive viable fetuses” after an abortion. This man makes the term “extremist” seem inadequate to describe his lunacy.

He continues to be not just a man who Satan sharpens his pitchfork and waits for, but also a legislator, because he was just re-elected to another two year term in the 2018 elections, but only getting 37% of the vote in the effort.

[Tami]

#ECJ: UK is free to unilaterally revoke the notification of its intention to withdraw from the EU – Case C-621/18 Wightman #Brexit

Apparently the UK does have a way out of Brexit.

[Tami]

U.S. could disconnect Russia from SWIFT over aggression against Ukraine

U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations, Ambassador Kurt Volker says the United States and its Western allies are considering a number of options to prevent Russia from asserting any more "unilateral control" in the shared waters of the Azov Sea.

Volker told Voice of America one of the possible measure is cutting Russian banks from the international SWIFT banking network, which operates under Belgian law and facilitates international transactions by sending payment orders between institutions in different countries.

"People refer to it as a nuclear option," Volker said. "It would have costs for everybody involved. Big costs for Russia, but big costs for allies as well. Ultimately, we have to keep it on the table as a possibility because we just can't continue to see Russia launch further steps of aggression in its neighborhood like this."

[Tami]

Satellite imagery shows hundreds of Russian tanks near the border with Ukraine

Satellite imagery from Google Earth taken on November shows hundreds of Russian main battle tanks at a new military base on the outskirts of the Kamensk-Shakhtinsky.

The large-scale military base only 18 kilometers away from the border with toward rebel-held territory in eastern Ukraine. Images show hundreds of main battle tank like as T-64 and also T-62M, while a thousand military trucks, artillery systems and tankers are located slightly higher.

Russia has been ramping up its forces near the border with Ukraine since August and now poses the greatest military threat since 2014, the year Moscow annexed Crimea, the commander of Ukraine’s armed forces told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday.

Muzhenko said Russian troop levels were at “the highest” since 2014, when Moscow annexed Crimea and then deployed forces to eastern Ukraine.

“In front of us is an aggressor who has no legal, moral or any other limits,” he said. “It is very difficult to predict when it will occur to him to begin active combat actions against Ukraine.”

“This (the Kerch Strait incident) was an act of aggression from regular forces, the border service (of the Russian Federation) in relation to the Ukrainian armed forces,” Muzhenko said.

[Coin Biter]

#ECJ: UK is free to unilaterally revoke the notification of its intention to withdraw from the EU – Case C-621/18 Wightman #Brexit

Apparently the UK does have a way out of Brexit.

They won't take it.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

They won't take it.

Why not? Do they want to go ahead with Brexit?

[Coin Biter]

Why not? Do they want to go ahead with Brexit?

It's complicated

While you or I might see Brexit as disastrous, the Conservative government is formally committed to pursuing Brexit. Brexit compels the overwhelming alleigance of the Conservative party membership. They would see a "Brexit betrayal" as electoral suicide. Even the Labour opposition is formally committed to Brexit - bear in mind it voted for triggering Article 50; almost all of the House of Commons did.

Now Theresa May has a Withdrawal Agreement to take to the Commons. She can't get it through at the moment, she doesn't have the numbers to carry the vote. If she can't get it through though, the main alternatives that many Conservatives would see would not be (1) May's deal or (2) no Brexit, they would be (1) May's deal, or (2) Brexit with no deal at all.

There is a movement in the country for a "People's Vote". This would be another Referendum, in which the people get to choose whether to leave with May's deal, leave with no deal, or stay in the EU. That is the only circumstance in which I could see a British government revoking Article 50. If May can't get the deal through, then it is possible she might call another Referendum. Not certain, but possible. However, if she does call a Referendum, it is entirely credible that she would not even give the option of staying in the EU. It might be just a bald choice between her deal or the delights of so-called "Hard Brexit". She fear's the cry of "betrayal" from the Brexiteers that much.

This is the current sorry situation in which we find ourselves. There is a small ray of possibility in which Brexit might be ended, but I fear that all the cold political calculations of the Conservative and Opposition leadership stand against it.

And the latest news is that May won't even present the deal to Parliament yet - she can't move back, and she can't move forward.

[Kirby101]

Why not? Do they want to go ahead with Brexit?

Most of the UK, no. May and her government are tied to Brexit.

[Mister Mets]

Hopefully they will one day be as prevelant as the Nazis are in Germany now.

Wouldn't this require really bad things (ie- thousands of suspicious deaths of political enemies in the US, banning of criticism, massive new restrictions on classes of American citizens)?

[Tendrin]

Wouldn't this require really bad things (ie- thousands of suspicious deaths of political enemies in the US, banning of criticism, massive new restrictions on classes of American citizens)?

I mean, I'd hope not. That'd mean the Nazis won since this is what they do. This is why we need to be intolerant of them

[worstblogever]

Wouldn't this require really bad things (ie- thousands of suspicious deaths of political enemies in the US, banning of criticism, massive new restrictions on classes of American citizens)?

Well, when people protest a Muslim ban, and protest when migrant children are locked up in cages because they know enough about history to cut that s*** off before the fascists really gain too much momentum, you don't end up having to see the really bad things. You only see pretty bad things.

[Tami]

‘Appalling’ Video Shows the Police Yanking 1-Year-Old From His Mother’s Arms

A video that shows police officers trying to remove a woman’s 1-year-old son from her grasp as they arrested her in a Brooklyn food stamp office ignited a fury on social media and prompted calls on Sunday for an explanation from the police.

A Facebook user who uploaded the video said the police had been called on Friday after the woman, identified by the police as Jazmine Headley, 23, sat on the floor of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program office in Boerum Hill because there were no available chairs.

After a verbal dispute with a security guard, someone called the police, according to Nyashia Ferguson, who posted the video.

It begins with Ms. Headley lying on the floor, cradling her son and yelling, “They’re hurting my son! They’re hurting my son!”

[Tami]

'There should be outrage' over Whitaker, Kushner meeting

Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker met with Jared Kushner on Friday, December 7, and the Morning Joe panel discusses why the meeting should not have happened and why Whitaker should recuse himself from the investigation.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

'There should be outrage' over Whitaker, Kushner meeting

Between this and that meeting with MBS, He Went To Jared has been cooking up all sorts of underhanded ****. And, unlike Jeff Sessions who was loyal to the letter of the law, I'm guessing Whitaker won't recuse himself as he's loyal to Trump.

[worstblogever]

'There should be outrage' over Whitaker, Kushner meeting

Between this and that meeting with MBS, He Went To Jared has been cooking up all sorts of underhanded ****. And, unlike Jeff Sessions who was loyal to the letter of the law, I'm guessing Whitaker won't recuse himself as he's loyal to Trump.

I'm wondering if these idiots can help themselves. Like, some of them went into the La Brea tar pits like a bunch of dinosaurs, and the more of these morons try to pull the first batch out, the bigger the final tally of people who sink it in is gonna be.