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

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Bruce Ohr Was Told Russia Had ‘Trump Over A Barrel’: Report

FBI and the intelligence community are still working to untangle possible connections between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russian intelligence. Can't say I'm surprised, given the stories out there about how Trump had to go groveling to Russian oligarchs for money he needed after American banks turned their backs on him.

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Trump Confirms His ‘Insulting’ Comments About NAFTA Talks With Canada

The president insisted that any new trade deal with America’s neighbor would be “totally on our terms.” So, what allies HASN'T the Tyrant Toddler pissed off?

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Donald Trump Jr. Blames Democrats For Mollie Tibbetts’ Death

He ignores pleas from relatives not to exploit death of 20-year-old college student for politics. Like his dad, Donnie Dumbass Jr. needs to STFU.

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Neo-Nazi Robocalls Target Andrew Gillum In Florida Governor Race

The ugly call features a speaker who pretends to be the black candidate, using an exaggerated dialect, as drums and jungle sounds play in the background. Sad to say that sort of ugliness was expected.

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Bette Midler Taunts Donald Trump For Claiming Democrats Will Turn Violent After Midterms

The Broadway star has also bashed Trump over his response to Sen. John McCain’s death. The Divine One certainly pulled no punches.

[numberthirty]

While the Hultgren/Underwood race isn't really one you see too much about, I thought this piece on it was worth a quick read through...

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/l...22-story.html#

Lauren Underwood embraces progressive label in faceoff against U.S. Rep. Randy Hultgren

[Tami]

From what I understand [and I need to do some research to confirm this], the Democratic Party is taking the attitude that, basically, a candidates can refer to themselves anyway they want, so long as it helps them win their election. They will support equally, for example, a Progressive in California, or a 'Social Democrat' in NY, or a centrist moderate in Wyoming. As long as they are Democrats, and they stand a chance of winning, and they are not 'weird' [like from WBE's Blog] that is all that matters.

[4saken1]

Bernie stood a chance. He wins red states, and has Hugh popularity in many of them, by going at the issues. Gillum and Ocasio-Cortez need to stay laser focused on the issues. They already have the plans, they gotta stay aggressive.

I think he had a fair chance myself. People who think that he absolutely would have won based on early polling are ignoring any facts that contradict their line of thinking, however.

[SuperiorIronman]

https://media.giphy.com/media/Ow59c0pwTPruU/giphy.gif

I can't believe I didn't catch myself for that lol

[worstblogever]

I don't get it. What is the point of those two clips?

#30 being a non-Democrat trying to distract the actual Democrats by rehashing 2016 eight weeks before the 2018 mid-terms, and tell them what's best for the party he isn't a part of by ponying Bernie Sanders about again like a show pony.

I'd guess if someone actually DID want to support Bernie right now, genuinely, they'd probably remember that he's one of the Democratic Caucus up for re-election in 2018, and say something about him winning THAT and mention his opponent. Isn't that weird how that seems to be neglected to be spoken of? Hmmmm...

[InformationGeek]

Shady, that's for sure.

The Trump administration is withholding more than 100,000 pages of Brett Kavanaugh's records from the Bush White House on the basis of presidential privilege ahead of the Supreme Court nominee's confirmation hearing.

The Senate Judiciary Committee was notified of the action Friday. George W. Bush's attorney Bill Burck told the panel it had essentially completed its work compiling documents, according to a letter obtained by The Associated Press. Bush directed them to err "on the side of transparency and disclosure, and we believe we have done so."

But the current administration is also able to review the records, and the Trump White House "has directed that we not provide these documents," the letter says.

In all, 267,000 pages of Kavanaugh documents from his Bush years are being made public.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer called it "a Friday night document massacre."

Schumer said the decision to withhold the documents "has all the makings of a cover-up. ... What are they trying so desperately to hide?"

[Tami]

Rest in peace, Lindsey Graham

We lost two mavericks within a week.

On Saturday, we lost the legendary John McCain.

On Tuesday, we lost his loyal sidekick, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham.

Graham remains alive and well, but after serving for two decades as Robin to McCain’s Batman, Graham buried whatever remained of his own reputation for iconoclasm even before his partner’s funeral.

On Tuesday, Graham took a seat on the couch of “Fox & Friends,” President Trump’s favorite show, and sealed his transition from apostate to Trump apparatchik.

“Word of caution to the public,” he said. “A lot of people try to convict President Trump. Don’t be so fast. I have seen no evidence of collusion after two years.” Having echoed Trump’s no-collusion line (as if that were the lone issue), Graham, a former military lawyer, picked up Trump’s attack on the justice system: “Plenty of corruption at the Department of Justice and the FBI. Should be stunning. Not one Democrat seems to care.”

[Jack Dracula]

Rest in peace, Lindsey Graham

Not surprising. He's always been a party loyalist at heart. Republican politicians are shameless opportunists by nature anyway.

[Malvolio]

#30 being a non-Democrat trying to distract the actual Democrats by rehashing 2016 eight weeks before the 2018 mid-terms, and tell them what's best for the party he isn't a part of by ponying Bernie Sanders about again like a show pony.

I'd guess if someone actually DID want to support Bernie right now, genuinely, they'd probably remember that he's one of the Democratic Caucus up for re-election in 2018, and say something about him winning THAT and mention his opponent. Isn't that weird how that seems to be neglected to be spoken of? Hmmmm...

All those videos show is that a lot of people like Bernie Sanders. But there are also a lot of people who don't like him. Any campaign rally video can make the candidate look great. And almost any collection of interviews with his detractors will do the opposite.

[worstblogever]

It was three years ago on this date that "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" published our original profile of David Dreier, the former member of the U.S. House of Representatives for California's 26th District who who once was a rising star in the GOP, until of course his secret started to leak out that he was a closeted homosexual. Still, through the years, Rep. Dreier managed to vote with his party against all manner of LGBT issues, including not only against gay marriage, but even gay adoption rights. Dreier also had th highest paid Congressional intern once upon a time, which ended up being a bit of an ethical issue because that intern just so happened to be his boyfriend. After eight years of rumors, Dreier finally chose to not to run for re-election in 2013.



It was on this date in both 2015, 2016, and 2017, that “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" shared our profiles of the U.S. House Representative from Virginia’s 6th Congressional District, Bob Goodlatte, who has been allowed to run for office in a very conservative district with almost no primary challengers, at all, since 1992. Goodlatte was one of the co-sponsors of Florida Rep. Bill Posey's "Birther Bill" in 2009, and in 2015, he accused the Department of Justice of funneling money to liberal organizations such as ACORN and LaRaza. The former would have been an amazing scandal, mostly because ACORN had long since defunded and had not existed since 2010. Goodlatte's voting record through the years includes voting for the Defense of Marriage Act, against the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", voted to allow displays of the Ten Commandments on government property and for a Constitutional Amendment to allow individual states to vote for their own state religions, voted for the impeachment of Bill Clinton,voted to try and keep Terry Schiavo alive against her wishes, and voted for the invasion of Iraq. And that's the stuff from before the Obama administration. Since, the guy will vote against anything sensible, even disaster relief for victims of Hurricane Sandy, or against the Zadroga Bill, to pay for the healthcare costs of 9/11 First Responders. But what Rep. Goodlatte felt was a wise use of taxpayer money was to spend years investigating Hillary Clinton for doing all the bad stuff at Benghazi, and in July of 2016, after FBI Director James Comey declared there was no wrongdoing found, Goodlatte demanded an investigation into Comey’s investigation. Which, at that point, he might as well take taxpayer dollars into a 55 gallon drum and set them on fire.

In the 2016 elections, Rep. Goodlatte got a last minute threat from Democrat Kai Degner, but still coasted to victory against the neophyte with 66% of the vote to win a thirteenth term in office. He celebrated by starting the new session attempting to orchestrate a secret vote to eliminate funding for the Office of Government Ethics. When the effort collapsed due to political outcry, he immediately changed the subject and voiced his opinion that FBI Director James Comey should investigate Hillary Clinton’s e-mails. Because of course he did. But really, can we be surprised he loathes ethics when he literally will get busted for going twice the speed limit through a school zone, then send his wife to argue on his behalf that it’s actually a faulty speedometer, so how’s he supposed to know he’s doing 70 in a 35? Same thing, right?

We’re not going to do any deep dive into Bob Goodlatte’s terrible voting record in this session of Congress, or how it is in lock step with his party… instead, we’d rather celebrate two things. First, we bid Goodlatte a hearty “good riddance” because he announced he’s retiring and not running for re-election in 2018 after 13 terms in office. Second, we would like to salute Bob Goodlatte’s son, Bobby Goodlatte, who just donated the maximum amount to Democrat Jennifer Cline seeking to flip his father’s seat blue in November, and not the Republican, Ben Cline.

Finally, hats off to Bobby Goodlatte for announcing his donation on Twitter, and then a day later, blasting his own father for choosing party over country and using the House Judiciary Committee to attack FBI Agent Peter Strzok in hearings for his work on the Mueller investigation.

The younger Goodlatte wrote of the elder:

”I’m deeply embarrassed that Peter Strzok’s career was ruined by my father’s political grandstanding. That committee hearing was a low point for Congress. Thank you for your service sir. You are a patriot.”

And that will likely be Bob Goodlatte’s legacy. Being so insipidly partisan and craven that his own son turned his back on him. It’s… fitting.

[BeastieRunner]

Anybody read Patten's plea yet?

It is incredibly thorough and detailed.

I can't wait to find out who Person B, C, and E are. (A was a Russian spy and D was Manafort).

[Tami]

Anybody read Patten's plea yet?

It is incredibly thorough and detailed.

I can't wait to find out who Person B, C, and E are. (A was a Russian spy and D was Manafort).

Someday soon, I'll have to catch up with the court cases and trials.

[Tazirai]

I think he had a fair chance myself. People who think that he absolutely would have won based on early polling are ignoring any facts that contradict their line of thinking, however.

Agreed. Even when the polling is on your side, You can still lose.
Gillum was 4th, dead last in the race and pulled out a SERIOUS upset.

Hillary was over 90% to win, and still lost.

Trump was to have lost during the primary and beat everybody.

Political fortunes are at the whims of a fickle electorate. People who rely on old-time style Politics need to catch up to the modern day.

It's like when Chris Mathews mentions Tip Oneal. How many young voters, or first voters know who the hell Tip Oneal is or cares?
The oldest person they know is Bernie Sanders at 11ty Billion+ Lol.

Catch up the times, Politics is not this "Gentlemanly" game of chess.

[Tami]

From Mollie Tibbetts' father: Don't distort her death to advance racist views

Ten days ago, we learned that Mollie would not be coming home. Shattered, my family set out to celebrate Mollie’s extraordinary life and chose to share our sorrow in private. At the outset, politicians and pundits used Mollie’s death to promote various political agendas. We appealed to them and they graciously stopped. For that, we are grateful.

Sadly, others have ignored our request. They have instead chosen to callously distort and corrupt Mollie’s tragic death to advance a cause she vehemently opposed. I encourage the debate on immigration; there is great merit in its reasonable outcome. But do not appropriate Mollie’s soul in advancing views she believed were profoundly racist. The act grievously extends the crime that stole Mollie from our family and is, to quote Donald Trump Jr., “heartless" and "despicable.”

Make no mistake, Mollie was my daughter and my best friend. At her eulogy, I said Mollie was nobody’s victim. Nor is she a pawn in others’ debate. She may not be able to speak for herself, but I can and will. Please leave us out of your debate. Allow us to grieve in privacy and with dignity. At long last, show some decency. On behalf of my family and Mollie’s memory, I’m imploring you to stop.