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

[Kevinroc]

Barr's going to be confirmed. Why would anyone think otherwise?

[Tami]

Barr's going to be confirmed. Why would anyone think otherwise?

Confirmed, most likely. How long he'll last is anyone's guess.

[master of read]

if i was with those food players, i'd have walked out and gone to whataburger.

[Dalak]

if i was with those food players, i'd have walked out and gone to whataburger.

While I agree that Whataburger is a cut above McDonalds & Burger King, I don't think they have them in DC.

[master of read]

While I agree that Whataburger is a cut above McDonalds & Burger King, I don't think they have them in DC.

i still would've gone to whataburger, even if i had to walk back home to houston to get one.

[PwrdOn]

Also worth noting that being unpaid amateurs, the Clemson players probably had no choice as to whether they wanted to visit the White House and if any had attempted a protest like the ones that pro teams have done, they probably would've been stripped of their scholarships and sent packing.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

Why exactly did people vote for Brexit to begin with? Were people that upset about immigration that they chose a path with big potential for disaster.

There's always been a faction in Britain that had a mentality of their great empire being diminished and globalization is the enemy of nationalism so there you go. It also was an incredibly complicated issue that I don't think you could effectively educate to the masses through campaign enough. So people voted not realizing how messy it would be or how much leverage the EU would use against Britain in the negotiations. The Brexiters were selling this idea that it would be so against the EU's interest to shun Britain that they would negotiate even more favorable deals. However, the EU felt that to maintain the unions credibility they needed to show that there were consequences and things you would lose for opting out.

They are fucked. None of them trust each other and their government is so divided I doubt they'd ever get true consensus on a deal.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

No, because the EU was a commie liberal plot designed to bring on One World Government and the Antichrist, or something like that.

I mean, the Union is a bureaucratic mess, but most governments are, and considering that the "No Deal" option is now the most likely, and therefore the most catastrophic, of the UK's scenarios for leaving the Union, it pretty much destroyed Theresa May's legacy. Meanwhile, people like Nigel Farrage are going to sneak away unscathed.

Farage will be worse because he'll claim victory in one breath and blame the **** show on Remainers

[Mecegirl]

You know what's been killing me...that I have yet to see anyone reference this when it comes to the Trump hamburger misspelling thing...

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Also worth noting that being unpaid amateurs, the Clemson players probably had no choice as to whether they wanted to visit the White House and if any had attempted a protest like the ones that pro teams have done, they probably would've been stripped of their scholarships and sent packing.

Not to mention a butthurt Trump bitching on Twitter about being stood up as was the case with the Philadelphia Eagles and Golden State Warriors. Colleges don't need that sort of headache.

====================

Some Renters Are Already Facing Eviction, Thanks To The Shutdown

Tens of thousands of low-income renters nationwide could lose housing assistance, including many seniors and people with disabilities. And again, Trump doesn't give a ****.

**********

Fox News Legal Analyst Wants To Disband And Replace The FBI To Protect Trump

“It is time that the FBI be halted,” Gregg Jarett said. My response to that? BWA-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

**********

Roku Reverses Course On Alex Jones, Ditching Infowars Channel Amid Backlash

“Deletion from the channel store and platform has begun and will be completed shortly,” Roku said on Tuesday night. In other words....never mind!

**********

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Schools Former GOP Governor On Marginal Tax Analogy

Former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker falsely claimed a 70 percent marginal tax rate would take $7 of every $10 earned. A Republican? Lying about taxes? Sat it ain't so!

**********

Karen Pence Is Working At A School That Bans LGBTQ Employees And Kids

The school discriminates against LGBTQ people in its job application and says LGBTQ kids aren’t welcome. Turns out "Mother" is every bit as much a homophobe as her husband.

[jetengine]

Brexit....Brexit.

Ok let me spin my American colleagues here a yarn....

So, Britain's had this thing where they refuse to acknowledge their lack of self importance on the world stage for a while now. We essentially lost it in the 50s with the Suez crisis and dismantling the Empire but had a facsimile of it regarding being important Nato Members and later on THE banking nation in europe. Unfortunately we wouldn't stop listening to our own propaganda, several politicans used the EU as scapegoats for their poor leadership or policies, the Euro hating Murdoch controls 80% of our print media, the EU made some clangers especially in regards to the 2008 crisis (AUSTERITY DOESNT WORK) and our populace is incredibly uneducated on politics.

So fast forward to 2015, Nigel Farage (equal parts knock off Bannon and Trump) is drumming up support for UKIP, a single issue party that does nothing but lie, bleat nationalist and xenophobic propaganda and have party members whom are all fucking lunatics (not hyperbole, seriously look these guys up their all crazy). They've been polling well with the working class because their mostly uneducated and disillusioned (I say this as a member of the working class myself) and some of the upper class whom want to avoid EU regulations. Their disillusioned because the Conservative party (led by David Cameron) was doing a terrible job and said man was worried that Ukip might scoop up some of the Euroskeptic members of his own party and maybe unseat him. So he stupidly offered a refferendum making an internal party problem into a global issue because he just assumed people would instinctively know the EU was good despite years of propaganda being fed to them that it wasnt.

The leave campaign then broke several vote based laws, lied horrendously to the public and won. The remain Campaign bargained on people being sensible. It was mostly between Ukip and the Conservatives though because Corbyn was running labour and hates the EU himself. Cue several countys suddenly wondering why all their subsidies dried up after they voted heavily in favour of Brexit because they were being subsidised by the EU.

Ukip then immediately exploded because they literally had no purpose anymore and you can't contain that much crazy in a room. Finally instead of waiting till we'd hashed out plans of HOW we were going to do this....we immediately pressed the button activating the countdown 'cause true believers were worried we'd back out when it became readily apparent was an absolute **** show this whole thing is.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2015, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" ran a profile of Joe Read, a former member of the Montana House of Representatives who got into office by a mere 72 votes during the 2010 Tea Party Wave, and served one zany term in office with his goatee giving him the look of Mephistopheles himself. Read became infamous for submitting unconstitutional legislation repeatedly during that term, including separate bills to nullify the Affordable Care Act, environmental regulations, and went as far to produce one that not attempt to nullify federal firearms laws, but declare it a crime for federal agents to attempt to enforce them in Montana. Read's "over the line" moment came two months into his career, though, when he drew the attention of the Colbert Report by drafting legislation that would declare global warming not just a natural phenomenon that's totally not man made, but also declare that the phenomenon was "beneficial to the welfare and business climate of Montana". Joe Read's ideas were kooky enough that he decided to leave the GOP in the 2014 election cycle, attempting to find his way back into office as a member of the Constitution Party. He failed, and has now been out of office since early 2013.

On this date in 2016, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” posted a profile of David Dewhurst, the former Lieutenant Governor of Texas who back in 2010 falsely claimed that Phoenix, Arizona has become second only to Mexico City in the rate of kidnapping and in 2014 while interviewed by Sean Hannity, and discussed illegal immigrants in hyperbolic, and demonizing terms, claiming one quarter of them had criminal records. Not long thereafter, Dewhurst was campaigning in public by claiming Muslim prayer rugs had been found along the U.S./Mexico border by law enforcement (which was a huge lie) to further stir up anti-immigrant fears. He also was a part of the Texas GOP's attempts to ban abortion in 2013 after the filibuster by State Senator Wendy Davis, calling them, “An unruly mob, using Occupy Wall Street tactics, disrupted the Senate from protecting unborn babies.” He later would lie and accuse Davis of "doing a fund-raiser in Chicago with the international socialists organization". David Dewhurst's politcal career is all but over now, as in his past two runoff election losses, he spent millions of dollars of his own personal fortune desperate to hold on and win against Tea Party challengers. And that's not even including the fact that while he ran against Dan Patrick, one of his top aides, Buddy Barfield got caught embezzling a couple of million dollars, himself (he's looking at a 7 year prison sentence).

On this date in 2017, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" profiled Mike Webb, a challenger in the GOP Primary for the U.S. House seat against Rep. Charles Hernick, because of his online presence, and apparent savvy in social media, the proof being that at one point, Webb had the fastest growing Facebook page of any Republican running in 2016. Fast forward five months from that report to April of 2016, and things didn’t look as promising, after Webb failed to file his FEC report on time… which he suspiciously blamed on a “targeted cyber-attack” whose origins or execution was never exactly explained. Webb began raving about online critics with user names like “GOP Establishment”, wished people on his Facebook page a “Happy 4/20” (because so many Republicans are fans of marijuana legalization) and could never produce evidence to prove any of the online harassment, criminal or otherwise. On May 7th, at the Virginia GOP convention, they named Charles Hernick their candidate for the general election on May 7th. Webb wasn’t giving up, though, and vowed he would still run for office as an Independent. Nine days later, Mike Webb made the news cycle by using all of his online savvy to have posted an image of his own computer where he showed a Google search of Curzon Staffing Agency in his district to call them out for, in his mind, “pranking him” with a job offer on his Facebook page. As DJ Khaled might say, Mike Webb “played himself”, and may have been playing with himself, too. Because the other tabs open on the screenshot on Mike Webb’s internet browser included two links separate pornographic videos. The screenshot was up for almost half a day before Webb took it down, and then tried explaining his inquiries into adult entertainment as an “empirical inquiry”, and promising that his political career was “far from over”. (Hint: It was pretty much over.)



It was on this date one year ago that “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” first profiled Texas State Senator Konni Burton, a Fundamentalist who was propped up and into office in the 2014 elections by over a million dollars of campaign donations and the support of that unlikable blight on the Lone Star State, U.S. Senator Ted Cruz. It seems that after Democratic Texas State Senator Wendy Davis made a name for herself as an opponent of abortion, Texas Republicans put a bullseye on any member of the state legislature who supported her, and that included Libby Willis, who Burton defeated with 53% of the vote after advancing out of a crowded GOP Primary for her seat.

And yes, every step of the way, Konni Burton’s voting record has shown her willing to go to extremes on abortion (more on that later). But just as one cannot live on bread alone, Burton is unable to spend all of her time on an insane quest to find a way around Roe v. Wade. Instead, her off-hours as a legislator have been spend demonizing the LGBT community, with perhaps her most alarming effort having been a bill she proposed in November of 2016 that would force teachers in school to “out” gay and transgendered students to their parents.

We’ll repeat that… Burton wanted to “out” children who perhaps had parents who would react violently to the news. This is hardly the only socially conservative insanity she’s concocted or supported in her three years in office:

• January 28th, 2015: Burton sponsors SB 11, a bill to legalize the concealed carry of firearms on college campuses in Texas.
• May 12th, 2015: Konni Burton votes for SB 2065, a “religious freedom” law to allow religious officials to deny marriage services, in spite of the Obergefell v. Hodges ruling.
• January 24th, 2017: Konni Burton co-sponsors SB 6, a transgender bathroom ban meant to force people to use the bathrooms of their genetic birth.
• March 30th, 2017: Burton votes for SB 258, a bill that would increase the cost of abortion by requiring that all fetal tissue afterwards be buried or cremated (and also prevents medical science from using that tissue in research).
• July 18th, 2017: Burton co-sponsors SB 10, an anti-abortion “TRAP law” to attempt to shut down the majority of, if not all the abortion clinics in Texas.

Rest assured, that with her obsession with making LGBT citizens treated so poorly, Burton’s seat was strongly targeted by Democrats in 2018, and with the Blue Wave and Beto-Mania running wild in November, Democrat Beverly Powell managed to send this Fundamentalist twit packing. You may now pump your fist in the air, knowing that there is one less bigot in office in Texas.

[PwrdOn]

Brexit....Brexit.

Ok let me spin my American colleagues here a yarn....

So, Britain's had this thing where they refuse to acknowledge their lack of self importance on the world stage for a while now. We essentially lost it in the 50s with the Suez crisis and dismantling the Empire but had a facsimile of it regarding being important Nato Members and later on THE banking nation in europe. Unfortunately we wouldn't stop listening to our own propaganda, several politicans used the EU as scapegoats for their poor leadership or policies, the Euro hating Murdoch controls 80% of our print media, the EU made some clangers especially in regards to the 2008 crisis (AUSTERITY DOESNT WORK) and our populace is incredibly uneducated on politics.

So fast forward to 2015, Nigel Farage (equal parts knock off Bannon and Trump) is drumming up support for UKIP, a single issue party that does nothing but lie, bleat nationalist and xenophobic propaganda and have party members whom are all fucking lunatics (not hyperbole, seriously look these guys up their all crazy). They've been polling well with the working class because their mostly uneducated and disillusioned (I say this as a member of the working class myself) and some of the upper class whom want to avoid EU regulations. Their disillusioned because the Conservative party (led by David Cameron) was doing a terrible job and said man was worried that Ukip might scoop up some of the Euroskeptic members of his own party and maybe unseat him. So he stupidly offered a refferendum making an internal party problem into a global issue because he just assumed people would instinctively know the EU was good despite years of propaganda being fed to them that it wasnt.

The leave campaign then broke several vote based laws, lied horrendously to the public and won. The remain Campaign bargained on people being sensible. It was mostly between Ukip and the Conservatives though because Corbyn was running labour and hates the EU himself. Cue several countys suddenly wondering why all their subsidies dried up after they voted heavily in favour of Brexit because they were being subsidised by the EU.

Ukip then immediately exploded because they literally had no purpose anymore and you can't contain that much crazy in a room. Finally instead of waiting till we'd hashed out plans of HOW we were going to do this....we immediately pressed the button activating the countdown 'cause true believers were worried we'd back out when it became readily apparent was an absolute **** show this whole thing is.

I actually feel kind of sorry for Theresa May here. She's little more than a doddering old granny who is only in the position she's in because no one else wanted to be the fall guy for the inevitable train wreck and figured they'd let the heat fall on a more convenient scapegoat.

[aja_christopher]

I actually feel kind of sorry for Theresa May here. She's little more than a doddering old granny who is only in the position she's in because no one else wanted to be the fall guy for the inevitable train wreck and figured they'd let the heat fall on a more convenient scapegoat.

It's time to stop feeling "sorry" for these politicians and also to start placing the blame exactly where it belongs -- on the voting public.

Granted -- both the Americans and the English have been victims of a long campaign of misinformation (via Russia and largely directed by Putin) and xenophobia (via homegrown politicians and political representatives) but at the end of the day, it's the people (i.e. the voters) who are responsible for things like Brexit and Trump rising to prominence in our respective countries.

I understand what you're saying in that, despite her cool demeanor May is just as human as anyone else, but it's also important to remember that most of this is happening because we are letting it happen by not being more active in our political process.

Not saying we should be tearing and burning things down like the French, but we certainly can become more informed -- and do our best to keep others informed -- and vote accordingly, because information warfare is not going away anytime soon, especially in the age of the internet.

[aja_christopher]

Bannon miscalculated the importance of anti-immigration sentiment -- but Trump sees the "wall" as cover for the Russia investigation so we'll see how long he draws this out. Since re-election might be the only thing that keeps him out of jail, he's most likely going "scorched earth" at this point.

Also curious to see whether the Republicans start positioning Pence for a takeover, assuming Mueller doesn't knock their entire house of cards to the ground in the next few months.

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"White non-college Americans move away from Trump during shutdown"

"During the longest government shutdown in US history, President Donald Trump has been losing support among those who may be his strongest supporters -- white Americans who don't have college degrees.

Among this group, only 45% said they approved of the job Trump is doing as President, according to a recent CNN poll conducted by SSRS. That is the lowest level of support among this subgroup by 1 percentage point in CNN's surveys and a dip from a poll conducted in early December, before the partial shutdown, when 54% of whites without college degrees approved of his job as President and 39% disapproved.

The dip is notable since among whites who hold college degrees, Trump's ratings are largely unchanged in the last month and remain sharply negative -- 64% disapprove and 32% approve. This trend is backed up by a new Quinnipiac poll released Tuesday. Approval for the President remained somewhat stable between its mid-December poll and now among whites without college degrees (down from 56% to 53%), but disapproval increased from 37% to 43%.

That is going from a net 19% positive approval to a net 10% for Trump, a 9-point loss.

The January CNN poll found a majority of Americans placed most of the blame for the government shutdown on Trump (55%) over the Democrats in Congress (32%). Trump has tried to push back from his December claim that he would be proud to shut the government down..."

https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/15/polit...ing/index.html