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

[BeastieRunner]

Yeah it was a major catastrophe. They think it might have been very high levels of gas pressure getting into people’s houses and igniting. The crazy thing is they still don’t know what the error was

We had that happen in our neck of the woods not too long ago.

Very scary.

I'm glad your family is okay.

[MindofShadow]

"A source familiar with negotiations says the Manafort plea calls for a 10-year cap on his prison sentence, with the VA verdict and DC plea being served concurrently."

umm... 10 years? That is it?

Get five years for accidently voting as a felon. Get 10 plus for f'ing non violent drugs.

but naw, 10 years max for a laundry list of felonies?

Better be one hell of a snitch or imma just throw my hands in the air and give up

[BeastieRunner]

umm... 10 years? That is it?

Get five years for accidently voting as a felon. Get 10 plus for f'ing non violent drugs.

but naw, 10 years max for a laundry list of felonies?

Better be one hell of a snitch or imma just throw my hands in the air and give up

You can read the plea deal ... it doesn't have that as an agreement in it.

Also:
"The possibility that Paul Manafort wound up at the heart of the Trump campaign not despite his deep Kremlin connections, rather because of them … may hold the key to the entire mystery about the president’s secret relationship with Russia."

[worstblogever]

In 2014, 2015, and 2016, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" published profiles of David Vitter, the former U.S. Senator from Louisiana, a man implicated in the D.C. Madam Scandal several years back who according to some of the prostitutes he frequented, enjoys being diapered like a baby. Now, as if that weren’t enough to open and close his profile, you have to also consider he’s enough of a partisan hack to have been only one of two senators who voted against Hillary Clinton to become Secretary of State in 2009 (the other was Jim DeMint), he opposed the Franken Amendment (which was written to punish military contractors who try to cover up sexual assaults overseas to Americans), and has been trying to destroy Planned Parenthood long before the manufactured “scandal” over doctored videos that we saw here in 2015. In spite of his main “job creating” in Washington having been to find a niche for certain sex workers, Sen. Vitter won re-election in 2010 during the Tea Party Wave by running some of the most jaw-dropping racist anti-immigrant ads of that campaign in a very crowded field. Somehow, don’t ask us how, he survived a prostitution scandal for almost eight years, and actually had the gall to hope everyone just forgot about it and ran for Governor of Louisiana in 2015, attempting to replace Bobby Jindal in that role. He lost that election narrowly to John Bel Edwards, and after completely exhausting his campaign war chest in the quixotic effort, he opted to finally retire to go home and presumably wear adult-size pampers around the house.

[worstblogever]

It was one year ago today that “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled the U.S. House Representative from Georgia's 6th Congressional District, Karen Handel, who narrowly won the special election for her seat over John Ossoff last year. She had previously finished third in the GOP Primary in the 2014 elections behind David Perdue while trying to win office to the U.S. Senate from there, in 2010, lost a squeaker against Nathan Deal to be elected Governor of Georgia. In the 2017 special election race to replace former Congressman Tom Price, who was named Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Handel identified supporting anti-abortion efforts, repealing the Affordable Care Act, constructing Donald Trump's border wall, simplifying the tax code, and increasing national defense spending as policy priorities if she would reach office.

Handel's most recent work included taking an executive job at the Susan B. Komen Foundation (the one that gets less than stellar ratings for actually putting its incoming money towards efforts) where she deliberately tried to cut donations being made to Planned Parenthood's breast cancer screenings by the organization, because she drinks the GOP Kool-Aid and doesn't like that a minute portion of their budget goes towards paying for abortions. She actually resigned after Susan G. Komen reversed her decision, but admits what she did in a book she wrote, "Planned Bullyhood", where she paints herself as quite the martyr in the story. Handel's name also came up a lot at the Justice Department's Voting Rights division from 2007 to 2010 while she served as Georgia's Secretary of State, because of her efforts to purge voter rolls repeatedly to try and insure that Democrats couldn't flip Georgia blue in any presidential election.

In lower level races, Handel worked to literally block Democratic candidates from getting their names on the ballot. Hell, at one point in the build-up to her race against John Ossoff, she responded to the news that a judge would allow 8,000 voters who registered late to vote in the election by criticizing him and sending out a fundraising e-mail about how unfair all those actions promoting participation in our democracy were.

And Karen Handel is hardly sympathetic on LGBTQ issues, as evidenced in 2010 when she openly discussed banning gay adoption because she felt not only would two gay parents be not a good situation, but even "a situation where the parents are not married, as in one man and one woman, is not the best household for a child." She wouldn't even support straight parents with a kid out of wedlock. But did she evolve on the issue by 2017? HELL NAW as can be seen in this video where a constituent who admits to being conservative herself talks about how she has a gay daughter who might want to adopt one day, and asks if Handel supports the concept of someone being able to adopt a child regardless of their sexual orientation. Handel tells her with a smile and shrug, “my faith calls me to a different place on that issue,” because her faith apparently teachers her the virtues of bigotry and ignorance. Handel then scurries away like there might be some gay she could catch off this woman via her daughter. Both of these incidents enraged Georgia's Log Cabin Republicans, who supposedly had Karen Handel as a member of their group in 2002, and have only watched her consistently argue against them having, y'know, rights.

In the final debate between Democratic candidate John Ossoff, Karen Handel shocked everyone present during what should have been a softball question on the minimum wage, when she not only opposed an increase to it, but phrased her argument as being that she "did not support a livable wage". Karen Handel, ladies and gents... she doesn't even care whether a working family can survive or not, the hand of the free market should get to decide that. Hell, even 55% of REPUBLICANS support raising the minimum wage to $10.10 at the moment.

After finishing second in the initial election against John Ossoff, with all of the other Republicans out of the way, Handel won with 51% of the vote on election day, in the most expensive House race in American history, where the national GOP spent millions to keep her afloat against all the individual donations Ossoff received. This was with the help of last minute ads that bizarrely tried tying John Ossoff to the shooting of Congressman Steve Scalise. Her performance, while a win... was not a good bellweather for Republicans, who yes, held a seat, but a seat that has averaged twenty point wins for Republicans since the 1970s, and has a +8 Republican lean in the Cook Partisan Voting Index.

Thus, Karen Handel went to Washington, D.C., where she has, of course, built one of the most conservative voting records in Congress:

• October 3rd, 2017: Handel votes for HR 36, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, that would try to create an unconstitutional ban abortion at 20 weeks (even though medical science tells us fetuses do not have the capability to feel pain until 29 weeks).
• December 19th, 2017: Karen Handel votes for HR 1, the GOP’s $1.7 trillion tax cut to benefit the wealthiest Americans and corporations permanently that coincidentally also removes the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate and kicks 13 million people off their health insurance.
• February 18th, 2018: Handel and his fellow Republicans decide that poor big businesses are suffering too much at the hands of the Americans with Disabilities Act too much, and vote for HR 620, which would strip most of the civil rights protections guaranteed by it.
• June 22nd, 2018: Karen Handel is wielding the gavel, and is in control of the House, and starts frantically banging it as Democratic Congressman Ted Lieu is somehow violating decorum by playing audio of immigrant children being detained in cages by ICE on the floor of the House. Lieu ignores her, keeps playing it, and asks why she doesn’t want the American people to know what’s happening in our country, playing it for another five minutes.

In November, Karen Handel will do her damnedest to keep her talons on her seat in the House, and will be challenged by Demcorat Lucy McBath, who won the nomination in a runoff election in July. McBath is a gun control advocate whose son was murdered in an incident believed to have been a hate crime (the shooter was white, and shot her son, Jordan Davis for “playing his music too loud”), which spurred her political activism. In a perfect world, McBath will win as an underdog, and go to Washington, D.C. to do right by the people of this country. We’ll settle for a country where that is just possible, and a harpy like Karen Handel can be sent packing.

[InformationGeek]

Add it to the list of people Trump hates.

Trump ordered illegal removal of braille because "no blind people are going to live in Trump Tower"

[Malvolio]

From Patton Oswalt on Twitter:

Is that the opening for the upcoming Law and Order: Hate Crimes?

[Malvolio]

Add it to the list of people Trump hates.

I'm figuring this has something to do with Trump's ongoing feud with Steve Wynn.

[aja_christopher]

Whether you believe these accusations or not, there is no reason there shouldn't be more transparency with regards to Kavanaugh's history and records before a vote is taken on a lifetime appointment -- you can't make an informed decision without the relevant information.

-------
"Brett Kavanaugh Accused of Attempting to Rape a Woman While in High School"

"An unidentified woman claimed in a letter to Democratic lawmakers that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh attempted to force himself on her when they were in high school, according to a New Yorker article by Ronan Farrow and Jane Mayer.

Kavanaugh, facing a confirmation vote from the Senate Judiciary Committee next week, denies the allegation.

According to the New Yorker article, the incident took place in the early 1980s, when Kavanaugh was a student at Georgetown Preparatory School and the woman attended a nearby high school.

The woman alleged in the letter that Kavanaugh held her down at a party and attempted to force himself on her. She claimed that Kavanaugh and his friend, who had been drinking, turned up music to muffle the sound of protests, and Kavanaugh covered her mouth with his hand. She was able to free herself.

In a statement to the magazine, Kavanaugh said, “I categorically and unequivocally deny this allegation. I did not do this back in high school or at any time.”

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) publicly disclosed on Thursday that she had “received information from an individual concerning the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. That individual strongly requested confidentiality, declined to come forward or press the matter further, and I have honored that decision. I have, however, referred the matter to federal investigative authorities.”

According to the New Yorker, Feinstein received the letter during the summer, but did not disclose it to other Democrats on the committee, even though they requested that she share it with them.

The Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), released a letter on Friday from 65 women who knew Kavanaugh in high school and said he “has behaved honorably and treated women with respect.”

https://variety.com/2018/politics/ne...on-1202942238/

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/...egation-824699

[WestPhillyPunisher]

umm... 10 years? That is it?

Get five years for accidently voting as a felon. Get 10 plus for f'ing non violent drugs.

but naw, 10 years max for a laundry list of felonies?

Better be one hell of a snitch or imma just throw my hands in the air and give up

I know, right. Ex-Philadelphia Eagles linebacker Mychal Kendricks (now playing for Seattle) could end up in the big house for 25 years after being charged with insider trading a few weeks ago. Rather stiff for white collar crime compared to what Manafort got.

Add it to the list of people Trump hates.

My guess is Trump hates disabled people because he doesn't want reminders around him that, if not for the blessing of fate, he could've wound up like them.

Is that the opening for the upcoming Law and Order: Hate Crimes?

Heh! Pretty much.

[PaulBullion]

So the sources saying she was just locked in a room might have been targeted disinformation to make this go away. Good thing we have Ronan Farrow.

[Jack Dracula]

Well on the obstruction charge, it said "at the direction of the candidate" which would be whomever Manafort was working for at the time.

Can't get more direct than that.

Now that makes me wonder if there's an email from or recording of a phone conversation with Trump. Anything short of that opens the door for plausible deniability.

[BeastieRunner]

Now that makes me wonder if there's an email from or recording of a phone conversation with Trump. Anything short of that opens the door for plausible deniability.

The law says you can't name people unless they are charged.

This is the 3rd time Trump has been ID'd as, "at the candidate's direction" or some permutation of that phrase.

Pretty soon there will be a speaking indictment that will name the candidate and tie it all together.

EDIT: Nevermind, I misread what you wrote!

[Jack Dracula]

Pretty soon there will be a speaking indictment that will name the candidate and tie it all together.

It'll be interesting to see what the reaction from the White House is to that.
Someone should hide the "nuclear foot-ball ahead of time.

[worstblogever]

So the sources saying she was just locked in a room might have been targeted disinformation to make this go away. Good thing we have Ronan Farrow.

Wait, Republicans would excuse rape as having not actually been that big of a deal as part of a plan to orchestrate overturning Roe v. Wade?

WOW. That is so not like them.