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

[GozertheGozarian]

You are the expert on not learning from mistakes, 30.

The real mistake is that there are people that still respond instead of using the ignore function.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Winters are warming faster than summers. These US cities could lose weeks of freezing days by 2050.
The dire consequences of having fewer days below freezing, explained.

And therein lies the problem. For climate change deniers of a certain age, like Trump for instance, they have no reason to give a damn because they’ll be dead and in the ground by 2050, so what do they care? It’s Generation X we have to reach, and teach and the dangers of screwing up the environment.

[Tazirai]

At Least 5 Dead After Gunman Opens Fire At SunTrust Bank In Florida
Law enforcement officials have identified the suspect as 21-year-old Zephen Xaver.

At least five people were killed after a gunman opened fire inside a SunTrust bank in Sebring, Florida, on Wednesday, according to law enforcement officials.

At a press conference in the late afternoon, officials identified the suspect as Zephen Xaver, 21. They provided no details on Xaver’s motive for the shooting.

Sebring police Chief Karl Hoglund said that the victims were “senselessly murdered” after the suspected gunman barricaded himself inside the bank.

A county official confirmed to HuffPost earlier on Wednesday that a suspect had been taken into custody after police responded to reports of a shooting at the bank. The suspect had called police around 12:30 p.m. to report that he fired shots inside the bank.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

At Least 5 Dead After Gunman Opens Fire At SunTrust Bank In Florida
Law enforcement officials have identified the suspect as 21-year-old Zephen Xaver.

Yet another homegrown WHITE lunatic who goes berserk and kills people. But please, conservatives, tell me again how Americans need to fear those dastardly immigrants south of the border.

[Malvolio]

The real mistake is that there are people that still respond instead of using the ignore function.

I don't even use the ignore function. I just skip past his posts. Saves me some time.

[Tendrin]

CSGOPOTD alum Richard K Jones calls for 'unity'.

“I’m just a lil' ol' sheriff in Ohio,” he told The Washington Post by phone Wednesday. “But I’m outspoken.”
In a letter delivered to Barack Obama and George W. Bush and posted online Tuesday, Jones called for the former presidents to tour the country and help repair civil discourse amid political and social turmoil, which he said was emblematic in the government shutdown and fierce rhetoric over immigration.
“Recent news reports and events occurring around the country are widely creating civil unrest among the American citizens. The extreme divide between our Democrats and Republican parties needs to be rectified,” Jones wrote.
He continued: “The country needs the two of you to show the American people that our political parties can get along even if opinions differ. We are a great nation with a history of great leaders. The people need to hear from you. America needs your help.”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/a-...cid=spartanntp

[Iron Maiden]

Yet another homegrown WHITE lunatic who goes berserk and kills people. But please, conservatives, tell me again how Americans need to fear those dastardly immigrants south of the border.

Who wants to bet that he has had a history of mental illness and was still able to legally purchase a gun?

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Who wants to bet that he has had a history of mental illness and was still able to legally purchase a gun?

That's a sucker bet if I ever heard one. Hell, I'd be shocked if that WASN'T the case!

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

President Donald Trump Postpones State Of The Union Until Shutdown Ends

The president backed down from his vow to go forward as planned after the House speaker said she would not take steps to authorize the speech during the shutdown. So, big, bad, "rush into a building to stop a shooter" Donald Trump folded like a cheap penknife----to a WOMAN no less! Pathetic!

**********

Hundreds Of Federal Workers And Supporters Protest Shutdown In Senate Building

“No more food banks, we need paychecks!” chanted furloughed workers going without pay amid the record-length government shutdown. Will Trump listen? Will Republicans listen? NOPE!

**********

Opinion: Republicans Cynically Demonized Government For Decades. The Shutdown Belongs To Them.

Donald Trump attributes his petulant shutdown to Democrats’ failure to fund his mythical wall. But its core is the GOP’s cynical war on government itself.

For four decades, Republicans have cast the federal government as a sclerotic beast manned by incompetent meddlers to serve invidious moochers. Hence Ronald Reagan’s cheerfully mindless dicta: “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.’”

Indeed, Republicans still parrot a catchphrase lifted from Reagan’s first inaugural address: “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”

But the class warfare concealed beneath is best captured by Mitt Romney’s disquisition to a gaggle of rich donors:

T]here are 47 percent ... who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it … And the government should give it to them … I’ll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.

But this brings us to the heart of things. The irrational Republican hatred of governance has given us the most dangerous and incompetent president in American history — a narcissistic ignoramus whose craving for our attention is exceeded only by his manifest unfitness for the job millions of Americans chose to give him. The crux of our distemper is this: If we deem government generally intrusive and unnecessary, a president need not be qualified to run it. All we require is that a candidate give voice to our contempt — for that, any old Herman Cain is preferable to a Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Out of grim necessity, Trump has undertaken this mission with a vengeance — we did not simply elect a fool, but a knave who trashes essential government institutions to protect himself from prosecution or impeachment. Hence his attack on the integrity of the FBI, our intelligence agencies, and his own Justice Department.

**********

Air Safety ‘Deteriorating By The Day’ Amid Shutdown, Union Leaders Warn

The president of the National Air Traffic Controller’s Association has warned that he holds deep concerns for the safety and security of airlines and travelers. Once again, will Trump listen? Will Republicans listen? NOPE!

**********

As The Government Shutdown Drags On, Food Assistance For Millions Could Run Out

SNAP, which helps 38 million people and is one of America’s biggest safety net programs, could stop providing benefits if the government shutdown continues. For a third time, will Trump listen? Will Republicans listen? NOPE!

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2015, 2016, 2017, as well as 2018, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day posted profiles of former Alabama Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore, who is most famous for battling in the United States' culture wars since 2001, in particular his fetish for placing monuments of the Ten Commandments in government buildings. That battle led to a series of unsuccessful lawsuits, and eventually was tossed off the bench in 2003 for staunchly refusing to honor a superior federal judge's decision that the monument should be removed, as it violated the First Amendment rights of non-Christians. In 2012, for whatever reason, the people of Alabama returned him to the bench, where he's resumed his mad push for making America a theocracy. Incidentally, Moore has gone on record before and stated his opinion that non-Christians like Hindus or Buddhists aren't "real" religions, and don't deserve 1st Amendment protections, and even has stated his belief that an unborn zygote should have more rights than they do. He founded a SuperPAC that funded a celebration of the anniversary of the day Alabama seceded from the union to join the Confederacy in 2010, claims Thomas Jefferson did not intend for the First Amendment to apply to non-Christians and that he was a fierce opponent of abortion, and has called for the impeachment of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Judge Moore is also stubbornly anti-gay, and is not only opposed to gay marriage, but believes that gay couples who have adopted should have their children taken away from them, arguing that "the laws of our state have always recognized the Biblical admonition" and comparing the acceptance to same sex marriage as being akin to "following Nazi orders". In fact, it was his refusal to acknowledge the Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges ruling that got Moore removed from the Alabama Supreme Court a second time in 2016. He also floated his belief that Congressman Keith Ellison was illegitimate because he was sworn in with a Quran, and not a Bible (go figure, Ellison's a Muslim), and advised parents to pull their children out of public school if it dares to teach evolution. And Roy Moore decided to run for office to replace Sen. Jeff Sessions as a U.S. Senator for Alabama in 2017… but we had no idea how staggeringly more insane the story of this little lunatic might get. With the help of white supremacist supporters like Steve Bannon, Breitbart News, and every intolerant ideological extremist in the GOP, Roy Moore threw down in the GOP Primary for U.S. Senate against establishment GOP candidate Luther Strange. Moore was eccentric as ever, pulling out a pistol in front of a crowd at a campaign rally, and riding a horse to the polls to vote. The unthinkable happened… Roy Moore won that primary. Some national Democrats began to wonder that in a matchup between Roy Moore, if his opponent, attorney Doug Jones, could win. Yes, it was Alabama, one of the reddest states in the union, but Jones was actually a pretty solid candidate, with his history of successfully prosecuting members of the Ku Klux Klan who carried out a church bombing that resulted in four girls’ deaths decades earlier. And, y’know, Moore had already shown himself bats*** extreme enough to have been not once, but twice removed from office for refusing to honor the rulings of the Supreme Court. It shouldn’t have even been a question if Jones should have had a chance, but… Alabama. Well, then the question got easier to ask, because as it turns out, Roy Moore’s reputation of a dedicated Christian man neglected to include that while he was an assistant prosecutor in Gadsden, Alabama four decades ago, he was a serial pedophile. When one woman comes forward, maybe there’s some chance people might not believe them. But when seven of them come forward, and members of Gadsden law enforcement and people who run both the Gadsden Mall and Gadsden YMCA come forward and say they banned Roy Moore from the premises for creeping on teenage girls? Kinda hard for even the biggest misogynist to disregard that accusation as having been true… but then again, many Alabama Republicans actually started to argue that they believed his accusers, but that they still would vote for a pedophile before they voted for a Democrat. Hell, Donald Trump even decided it would be a great time to endorse Moore, because sexual predators stick together in the face of accusers. Polls started coming out showing that Doug Jones was tied with Roy Moore after the accusations first hit the news, some even with Jones in the lead. An ideological, fanatical man who preyed on teenage girls like Moore knew he had to dig deep to pull out a victory in the end. And so, he had all the people closest to him talk up how great he was at a last minute rally… that included one friend of Moore’s from his tour of Vietnam talking about how they went to a sex club where you could get child prostitutes together back in the day, and Roy Moore’s wife insisting he wasn’t a bigot because “one of our attorneys is a JEW”. (Note: As it turned out later, their “Jew lawyer” is actually Christian.) The day of the election came, and for the first time in a quarter century, a Democrat was elected to the U.S. Senate in Alabama, with Roy Moore losing to Doug Jones by 22,000 votes. Roy Moore did not accept defeat gracefully, instead insisting that there was “massive voter fraud”, posting insane conspiracy theories about how that happened, and starting to attack Doug Jones’ gay son in social media posts. Nobody bought his voter fraud theories, though, because Alabama has a Republican Secretary of State whose entire reputation is about stomping out voter fraud with Voter ID laws and voter suppression tactics (the latter of which did pop up to HELP Roy Moore, actually, and there are ACLU lawsuits filed to prevent them in future elections). A judge certified Doug Jones’ victory, and that was that. Roy Moore currently has bigger problems, though. Like being sued by his accusers for defamation for all the ways he called them liars after they came forward, and he and his wife should probably pay their “not actually Jewish” lawyer a bunch of money to protect them from the fact that the charity they run is being investigated for fraud by the IRS. In any event, it seems unlikely that Alabama Republicans would make the mistake of putting an already established accused pedophile back into any race in the future, so this will likely be the last time we ever have to discuss Roy Moore. We’ll go ahead and retire his profile at this time, and go ahead and take a look at a different wacky Republican today instead. (Current crazy/stupid scoreboard, is now 724-30, since this was established in July 2014.)


Don Blankenship
Welcome to the 724th original “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profile, where today we’ll be discussing the former candidate for U.S. Senate from West Virginia, Don Blankenship, whose claim to fame is as a coal mining company executive who just so happened to get sentenced to a year in jail for conspiring to skirt federal laws that regulated his coal mine (specifically, the safety laws) that led to the deaths of 29 workers in a mine explosion, the deadliest accident in mining in four decades. Blankenship, a true exemplar of the GOP’s “party of responsibility” ethics blames everything on the Obama administration for putting him behind bars.

Anyway, Blankenship tried aping much of Donald Trump’s talking points, including the insane plan to build a border wall along the U.S./Mexico border, and calls to “Drain the Swamp”, but his flat, deadpan delivery of a rant against Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in his initial 30-second ad spot really cemented why the coal baron was not ready for politics:

”Swamp Captain Mitch McConnell has created millions of jobs for China-people. While doing so, Mitch has gotten rich. In fact, his China-family has given him tens of millions of dollars. Mitch’s swamp-people are now running false negative ads against me. They are also childishly calling me ‘despicable’ and ‘mentally ill’. The war to drain the swamp and create jobs for West Virginia people has begun. I will beat Joe Manchin, and ditch Cocaine Mitch for the sake of the kids (while holding two little girls dispassionately).”

So… does Mitch McConnell actually have a cocaine problem, or…? Even for race-baiting ads… China-people? We probably could write more details as to this CSGOPOTD’s kookiness, but really, do we need to? That ad alone and getting nearly 30 people killed more than cuts it, from where we’re sitting.

Don Blankenship only managed 20% of the vote in the GOP Primary for Senate in West Virginia in 2018. We’re not sure if he makes a second ill-advised run for office, or if he realizes he’s wealthy enough that he can just buy a candidate who’s got charisma, no underground mines filled with dead employees, and isn’t overtly racist to run instead, by proxy.

[shooshoomanjoe]

Who wants to bet that he has had a history of mental illness and was still able to legally purchase a gun?

He was briefly a corrections officer. I'm hoping that they do a mental health background check before hiring people.

https://www.floridatoday.com/story/n...er/2660721002/

Zephen Xaver was not much for posting on social media.

From Instagram to Twitter and Facebook, the 21-year-old man suspected of storming a Sebring bank and killing five people kept a low profile.

Five people died Wednesday when a man identified as Xaver — a former Florida Department of Corrections correctional officer trainee — opened fire at a SunTrust bank in Sebring in what Highlands County Commissioner Don Elwell called a "hostage situation" when speaking to CNN.

Little is known about Xaver, who state officials confirmed late Wednesday was hired in November 2018 to work at Avon Park Correctional Institution near the Avon Park Air Force Range. Patrick Manderfield, a spokesperson for the agency, reported that Xaver "had no discipline while employed with the department," but resigned on Jan. 9. No explanation was given for the resignation, he said.

Nothing was mentioned on Xaver's social media pages about the brief stint as a correctional officer.

Xaver kept a scant presence on social media with a Facebook page that listed nine friends while including a single photo of the man. The page shows he lived in Sebring and is single. Another Facebook Page, apparently set up when he lived in Plymouth, Indiana, shows an image of the Grim Reaper and a meme that reads, ‘God is busy right now…may I help you?’

That page shows 334 friends and that Xaver, who also appears to be a Japanese anime fan, lived in Bremen, Indiana. A Twitter account set up in 2017 also turns up, following a variety of people, including President Donald Trump, Rolling Stones lead singer Mick Jagger and New Jersey Sen. Corey Booker.

There's an interest in gun-related video games and Goth-style music along with artists such as Miley Cyrus. An Instagram page shows 38 followers.

Messages sent to social media friends were not immediately returned.

Law enforcement officials have not released any information about him other than his name, age and that he lives in Sebring.

A county SWAT team was sent to the bank after a 911 caller reported a gunman fired shots inside.

"After negotiations to try to get the barricaded subject to exit the bank were not successful, the HCSO SWAT team entered the bank and continued the negotiations," the Sheriff's Office said on its Facebook page. "The suspect eventually surrendered to the HCSO SWAT team."

The situation was confined to the bank and there was no danger to the surrounding area, police said.

Sebring is 88 miles west of Vero Beach and about 94 miles southeast of Tampa

[WestPhillyPunisher]

He was briefly a corrections officer. I'm hoping that they do a mental health background check before hiring people.

https://www.floridatoday.com/story/n...er/2660721002/

Sounds like this guy was one big, fat question mark. While I'm guessing background checks are done on people before being hired to positions like corrections officer, if the guy had next to no footprint on social media and kept one hell of a low profile, how could interviewers know what was going on in his head, and if he was suitable for that occupation? Clearly, it sounds like he had bad wiring upstairs, as it is, I'm surprised he let himself be taken alive as the bulk of mass shooters blow their own brains out rather than be captured after whatever rage fueled that their attacks had been exhausted. Perhaps he'll give a confession as to why he shot up that bank, but I wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't.

[Tami]

Couple prepping for 'fall of U.S. government' accused of swindling $5 million from tobacco company

Not sure which side is dumber....

A Florida couple is accused of swindling $5 million from a tobacco company to buy land, weapons, ammunition and precious metals in preparation "for the fall of the U.S. government," according to court documents.

Gretchen Camp, 36, and her husband, Richard, 35, each pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to fraud, grand theft and money laundering charges, according to Duval County court records.

Arrest reports for the couple filed by the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office in December say that Gretchen Camp, an accountant at Swisher International, created fake invoices from a company that did not provide services to the Jacksonville-based tobacco company.

Camp allegedly confessed to police and Swisher executives that she had fooled the company into paying a Georgia-based business called Lodge and Anchor nearly $4 million dollars over the course of about a year, starting in 2017. Lodge and Anchor is owned by friends of Richard Camp, and the money was transferred into one of the couple's joint bank accounts, according to the reports.

An arrest report filed for Gretchen later in December said that following her arrest, investigators found she had stolen an additional $1,194,033 from Swisher by redirecting funds paid to Swisher from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives into the joint bank account.

Gretchen Camp told police that some of the initial stolen $4 million was used to buy gold and silver "due to the fact that her husband is preparing for the fall of the U.S. government," said the arrest report for Richard Camp.

[Tami]

Trump’s Shutdown Has Led to a “Slow Strangling” of American Science

n early November, Jamie Rowen, an author and assistant professor of legal studies at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, was notified that she had been selected to receive a prestigious CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation. The awards, distributed annually to support junior faculty members in science and engineering, will provide her with a $500,000, 5-year grant to research and write a book about veterans in the criminal justice system.

For the last two years, Rowen has been studying Veteran Treatment Courts, which provide addiction and mental health treatment to military veterans as an alternative to incarceration—all issues that the Trump administration has prioritized. Rowen expected to receive final approval from NSF this month and funding in early February. But the ongoing partial government shutdown—the longest in America’s history—has prevented awards from being processed.

“When you write out these grants, you write out timelines,” Rowen told HuffPost. “My timeline is now blown up.”

She’s far from alone. The NSF hasn’t divvied out a single dollar in grant money since the shutdown began Dec. 22. During the same time period a year ago, the federal agency awarded more than 400 research grants valued at $127.3 million, according to a running tally by Benjamin Corb, public affairs director of The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

“The impact on science is a slow strangling of the American scientific enterprise,” Corb wrote in an email.

[Tami]

Wilbur Ross doesn’t understand why furloughed federal workers need food banks

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross says he does not understand why federal employees who are furloughed or have been working without pay during the partial government shutdown would need assistance from food banks.

Several credit unions serving workers at federal departments and agencies have been offering stopgap loans, as they have during previous shutdowns. But it’s not clear how those loans would even be sufficient as the shutdown enters its second month.

“I know they are, and I don’t really quite understand why,” Ross said Thursday when asked on CNBC about workers getting food from places like shelters. “Because, as I mentioned before, the obligations that they would undertake, say borrowing from a bank or a credit union are in effect federally guaranteed.”

But in addition to the federal employees who are set to miss another paycheck at the end of this week, there are many federal contractors who have no expectation of ever getting the missed payments back.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Wilbur Ross doesn’t understand why furloughed federal workers need food banks

Having read that, I can't help but wonder if clowns like Ross are either clueless about the dire situation furloughed workers are in, or indifferent to their suffering. I tend to think it's more the former than the latter.