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

[Kevinroc]

What the hell is going on with our government?

[Malvolio]

Every time I see the story that it's Pence because of "LODESTAR", all my brain does is picture:



Which then makes me think of Trump as Dark Helmet, saying, "Only one man would dare give me the raspberry... LODESTAR!"



Then he starts getting paranoid about his whole Cabinet and he's all...



I'm realizing the Trump administration is best portrayed by the Spaceballs.

Trump is President Skroob. Sessions is Dark Helmet.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Here's the rub... if Republicans try to vote to expel Corey Booker from the Senate for this document release...

The vote requires 2/3 of the Senate show up for the vote, or it's invalid.

In other words, if the GOP do try to expel Sen. Booker for releasing an innocuous document... all the Democrats need to do is not show up, and the GOP would fall well short of having 67 Senators present to successfully expel him for it.

Joe Manchin would should up. Hell, he'd probably be first in line for that vote.

[Malvolio]

Someone did the thing!

https://www.madmagazine.com/blog/201...nonymous-op-ed

MAD Magazine's getting in on it, too.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" published profiles of the U.S. House Representative from Utah’s 3rd District, Jason Chaffetz, who in our first profile, we noted about how in 2012 he fanatically campaigned on behalf of Mitt Romney (including contradicting Mitt and saying he would run again and WIN in 2016). Jason Chaffetz also is a prolific back-stabbing weasel of the highest order, even to veterans of his own party who give him a hand up the power structure. Chaffetz also has carried out a personal vendetta with the TSA, convinced that he's searched because they're union employees and badmouthing them at every opportunity. As a member of the House Oversight Committee, Chaffetz had already participated in various witch hunts led by Darrell Issa, including interviews about Benghazi, insisting it is a scandal of unimaginable magnitude in spite of the fact that he has never produced, or seen any evidence to indicate there's anything to it. He’s also a pretty prolific warmonger, because he not only criticized the Obama administration for trying to negotiate a nuclear treaty with Iran, but he called for pre-emptive strikes on all “nuclear sites” they might have. Betrayal at the hands of the Utah Congressman is frequent enough that the term “getting Chaffetzed” was becoming frequent on Capitol Hill during his tenure. Chaffetz continued Darrell Issa’s pattern of having the House Oversight Committee waste millions of dollars on phantom “scandals”, including when he continuously interrupt Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards to try and rattle her during her five hour testimony before the panel. Chaffetz also took time to insult Richards and claim she was overpaid, for her $200,000 salary and embarrassed himself during his closing comments as he demanded a response from Richards to a chart he held up that showed inaccurate (i.e. false) statistics about abortion. Richards humiliated him by responding, “My lawyer’s informing me the source is Americans United for Life, which is an anti-abortion group,” said Richards. “So you might want to check your source.”

By July of 2016, after the investigation by FBI Director James Comey into Hillary Clinton's e-mails found no evidence of wrongdoing, and no indictments, Jason Chaffetz was one of several Republicans who demanded an investigation of James Comey's investigation. This is after Chaffetz had previously been hailing Director Comey as “a man of integrity and honesty”, but after his investigation did not produce sufficient evidence to press charges, suddenly he was suspect. Oh, and your tax dollars would pay for both investigations. Well, once Donald Trump won the electoral college in the 2016 elections thanks to GOP voter suppression tactics and Russian interference, a lot of smart folks around the United States realized that having the House Oversight Committee keep an eye on a corrupt businessman with authoritarian leanings so that he didn’t become an equally corrupt president. Whether it was the alarming news breaking about General Michael Flynn meeting with Russians, or any of Donald Trump’s own business dealings with Russia, Chaffetz suddenly wanted to sit on his thumbs. While some thought this was simply a matter of Chaffetz being a partisan dildo, others like reporter Louise Mensch indicated that there could be a strong possibility that an outside group had compromising material on the Utah Congressman. Within a few days of Mensch reporting that on Twitter, all of a sudden Jason Chaffetz abruptly announced he wouldn’t seek re-election in 2018, and then amended his announcement to say he wouldn’t finish out his term, resigning from office completely. This weasel has moved on to work as a Fox News contributor, even though his punch-worthy face is much more worthy of radio. It seems we won’t have the misfortune to have to discuss him for some time, but we’ll note that Chaffetz’s name keeps getting thrown around as a potential future Governor of Utah. Until then, we'll retire his CSGOPOTD profile at this time and go ahead and take a look at a different kooky Republican today instead. (Current crazy/stupid scoreboard, is now 689-30, since this was established in July 2014.)



Michael Snyder

Welcome to the 689th original “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profile, where we’ll be discussing Michael Snyder, a 2018 candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives for Idaho’s 1st Congressional District, and stunt-mustache from To Catch a Predator. Michael Snyder was looking of course to hold the seat being vacated by CSGOPOTD alumni Raul Labrador, who is running to be the next Governor of Idaho. The Gem State is absolutely deep red, and realistically, if Snyder got the victory in the primary, he might be able to head to Washington, D.C., because there aren’t enough insane Fundamentalists in it yet.

It’s not just that the day before announcing his candidacy, that Snyder had ranted against “men not dressing like men and women dressing like women” in an op-ed. As the 2016 election approached Snyder called Hillary Clinton a modern-day Jezebel and began flailing about claiming that the “elite” might launch an attack on Donald Trump and his family and blame it on a “lone wolf”, or create a “false flag” event so they could cancel or suspend the election.

Perhaps that, and spreading his own deranged conspiracy theory about the Las Vegas shooter being a secret anti-Trump activist with ties to Antifa, is why Snyder won the endorsement of the even-more-bats*** crazy Alex Jones. If that’s still not insane enough for you, Snyder would also claim to be the “most Pro-Trump candidate” while assuring confidence in everyday Americans by plugging his book about the Rapture, and making paranoid statements on social media where he’d mention the End Times, Like you do.

Snyder’s platform, outside of conspiracy theories and warnings out of the Book of Revelations featured abolishing the income tax and the IRS, building President Trump’s stupid border wall along the U.S. border with Mexico, allowing communities to “say no to refugees” and his vow “to completely destroy Planned Parenthood as an organization.”

As one would hope, Michael Snyder proved too wacky and apocalyptic for voters at the polls, and he finished a distant fifth with only 10% of the vote in the primary, slightly worse than CSGOPOTD alumni Christy Perry. He may now go back to his full time job, trying to scare people that the book “Left Behind” is non-fiction.

[InformationGeek]

Oh crap. Keep an eye on this.

The Trump administration is proposing to lift court-imposed limits on how long it can hold children in immigration detention.

Under proposed regulations set to be published in the Federal Register on Friday, the administration seeks to replace the Flores settlement, a decades-old agreement that dictates how long the government can hold migrant children, and under what conditions.

The administration wants to detain migrant families together for as long as their immigration cases are pending. The proposed regulations will satisfy the "basic purpose" of Flores, the administration argues, by making sure that children are treated with "dignity, respect, and special concern for their particular vulnerability as minors."

"Today, legal loopholes significantly hinder the Department's ability to appropriately detain and promptly remove family units that have no legal basis to remain in the country," said Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen in a statement.

[InformationGeek]

Also, Llllllllllllllllliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiaaaaaaaaaaa aaaarrrrrrrrrrrr.

On the left, sworn testimony in which Brett Kavanaugh tells Ted Kennedy he was "not involved in handling" Bill Pryor's nomination.

On the right, Brett Kavanaugh is invited to an "emergency umbrella meeting" at a private law firm "to discuss nominee Bill Pryor's hearing."

We got perjury going on here.

Also...

BREAKING: Kavanaugh testified he never received any docs that even “appeared to … have been drafted or prepared by Democratic staff.” Well, he got 8 pages of material taken VERBATIM from my files, obviously written by Dem staff, LABELED “not [for] distribution”. https://t.co/eFlIBZ0Z1W

[Mecegirl]

Senator Hirono is releasing emails too.... wow
https://twitter.com/maziehirono/stat...augh-documents

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Also, Llllllllllllllllliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiaaaaaaaaaaa aaaarrrrrrrrrrrr.



We got perjury going on here.

Also...

Senator Hirono is releasing emails too.... wow
https://twitter.com/maziehirono/stat...augh-documents

Astonishing. Absolutely astonishing. Bob ‘n’ Weave Brett is shaping up to be a first class weasel who has no business judging a state beauty pageant, never mind being a member of SCOTUS. However, at the risk of sounding like ZombieHavoc, it wouldn’t shock me if Republicans ignore all that damning evidence and approve Kavanaugh’s nomination as they fear angering Trump if they don’t rubber stamp his pick more than they do arousing the ire of the people over saying “yes” to a ridiculously partisan choice, not to mention a flat out liar.

[worstblogever]

Senator Hirono is releasing emails too.... wow
https://twitter.com/maziehirono/stat...augh-documents

And there aren't enough votes to expel her, either. Even if Manchin broke with the Democrats, it would take another 15 more to do so.

What we're seeing: Republicans broke all norms for Trump to pick his own corrupt judge and overturn Roe v. Wade, so they finally got backed into a corner, and called them on their bulls***, and are breaking all protocol in turn in response. Covering up documents relevant to the approval process? FINE. We're just gonna f***ing release them, and you don't have the votes to kick out any heroes who tell the public who Kavanaugh really is.

This is extraordinary. Democrats grew a spine.

[Tami]

And there aren't enough votes to expel her, either. Even if Manchin broke with the Democrats, it would take another 15 more to do so.

What we're seeing: Republicans broke all norms for Trump to pick his own corrupt judge and overturn Roe v. Wade, so they finally got backed into a corner, and called them on their bulls***, and are breaking all protocol in turn in response. Covering up documents relevant to the approval process? FINE. We're just gonna f***ing release them, and you don't have the votes to kick out any heroes who tell the public who Kavanaugh really is.

This is extraordinary. Democrats grew a spine.

They always had it. Only navigating the insane actions of the Republicans was like walking through a mine field. They are looking for ways for the Republicans to blow themselves up before they blow up anyone or anything else.

[worstblogever]

Aaaaand.... Kavanaugh just referred to birth control as "abortion inducing drugs" in his confirmation hearing.

This is looking more and more like a botched nomination by the second.

[BeastieRunner]

Aaaaand.... Kavanaugh just referred to birth control as "abortion inducing drugs" in his confirmation hearing.

This is looking more and more like a botched nomination by the second.

A deep, dark part of me wants to see what happens getting Brett the Bastard on the SCOTUS.

The fallout would be epic, not just at the polling booth, but I bet we might even see another impeachment.

[worstblogever]

A deep, dark part of me wants to see what happens getting Brett the Bastard on the SCOTUS.

The fallout would be epic, not just at the polling booth, but I bet we might even see the SCOTUS act on him.

If he gets approved, it would also take a 2/3 majority of the Senate to remove him. I don't think that Democrats could manage to win enough Senate seats in 2020 when the Senate GOP has to play defense at the polls to get 67 votes willing. And the Republican Party is too much of a cult obsessed with overturning Roe v. Wade to see any Senators bold enough to vote for Kavanaugh to be impeached.

It takes 2 Republicans to dissent now. It would take 12-15 more than that if they want to dissent later.

[JCAll]

He could walk in with a sack full of babies and start beating it with a hammer and still get confirmed.
His confirmation was all but assured as soon as he was nominated, 2016 was all about the courts.
I'd be happy to be wrong, but I don't think so.