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

[PaulBullion]

The main reason is that they haven't been moving this week.

Narrator's voice:
That's not the main reason.

[Kirby101]

Narrator's voice:
That's not the main reason.

Is mets trying to say it was ever actually a real issue and not the bullshit Trump used to ramp up the hate for the election?

[Emperor-of-Dragons]

I don't think the Republican party can be fixed. What worries me is that Republican moderates are going to hijack the Democrats. Cause technically we have a moderate party vs a far right wing party now. The can of worms that the tea party and Donald Trump opened can't be sealed again. The Republican party of old is dead and buried.

[worstblogever]

California and Arizona are STILL counting ballots...

As a result, in CA-10, Harder has taken a lead over Denham. This may be another Democratic pick-up when all is said and done.
In all other close districts there, like CA-25, CA-39, CA-45, or CA-48, Democrats have either expanded their own narrow leads, or closed deficits against GOP candidates as ballots are still being counted (Both Young Kim and Mimi Walters have leads in their races, but they have dwindled to less than 3,000 with over 3.8 million ballots left to count statewide).

As votes are still counted in Arizona, 4 seats were picked up in the state House of Representatives, 1 State Senate seat, and Kyrsten Sinema's lead has expanded to more than 20,000 votes.

[Gray Lensman]

I don't think the Republican party can be fixed. What worries me is that Republican moderates are going to hijack the Democrats. Cause technically we have a moderate party vs a far right wing party now. The can of worms that the tea party and Donald Trump opened can't be sealed again. The Republican party of old is dead and buried.

When I think about it the difference between the now limited to the Northeast RINO and the Blue Dog Democrat isn't that much.

[Malvolio]

I don't think the Republican party can be fixed. What worries me is that Republican moderates are going to hijack the Democrats. Cause technically we have a moderate party vs a far right wing party now. The can of worms that the tea party and Donald Trump opened can't be sealed again. The Republican party of old is dead and buried.

In some places, Republican moderates have already hijacked the Democratic Party. Just look at Joe Manchin in West Virginia or Joe Donnelly in Indiana.

[Tazirai]

Are you sure you aren't thinking of Daily Caller? Daily Beast is the online presence of Newsweek, a rather respectable news magazine.

And as far as news web sites are concerned, they come highly recommended:



Taz is just being salty because his hero tried to talk about race again and ended up with his foot in his mouth, as usual.

No I'm not actually. My "hero" spoke truthfully if inartfully. But Daily beast and other so called "respected" liberal writers aka "journalists", just really despise actual Progressives, and he's the face if a changing party. So whatever dude.

Also Im fairly certain your can do no wrong "heroes", the Clintons have their hands in the Daily Beast, st least be honest about the bias to discredit Sanders before 2020 picks a centrist.

[Tazirai]

In some places, Republican moderates have already hijacked the Democratic Party. Just look at Joe Manchin in West Virginia or Joe Donnelly in Indiana.

Speaking if that moron Donnelly. This ad and his stances are why he lost. Support your base, don't shit on them! You think people will bow their heads because you both share a D next to your names?
You run liked a Republican, they'll choose a real one. Manchin is the abusive spouse of WV, the voters there want better, but are scared of change.

[PaulBullion]

No I'm not actually. My "hero" spoke truthfully if inartfully. But Daily beast and other so called "respected" liberal writers aka "journalists", just really despise actual Progressives, and he's the face if a changing party. So whatever dude.

Also Im fairly certain your can do no wrong "heroes", the Clintons have their hands in the Daily Beast, st least be honest about the bias to discredit Sanders before 2020 picks a centrist.

What's truthful about Donald "Central Park Five Should Fry" Trump not REALLY being a racist, just using it for being an opportunist? That is some grade A bullshit.

“Today, if he is a racist and a sexist, tomorrow he may be a great civil rights champion — if he thinks it gets him five more votes. He has no core values.”
- Bernard "Bernie" Sanders on Donald Trump.

[worstblogever]

What's truthful about Donald "Central Park Five Should Fry" Trump not REALLY being a racist, just using it for being an opportunist? That is some grade A bullshit.

“Today, if he is a racist and a sexist, tomorrow he may be a great civil rights champion — if he thinks it gets him five more votes. He has no core values.”
- Bernard "Bernie" Sanders on Donald Trump.

You know when it would have helped if Bernie called out Trump's racism? Any point from August of 2016-November of 2016. Weird that he was so quieter about it, then.

[worstblogever]

On this date, in 2014, in 2015, and in 2016, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" published profiles of former Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson, the former brain surgeon turned Seventh Day Adventist candidate for the GOP nomination for president who talks about turning around his life after a turbulent youth where he once tried to stab his best friend in the stomach, but through divine intervention, managed to only hit that friend’s belt and break his knife. As crazy as an origin story as that is, we also presented a dossier on the minute he announced he would be making a run for the Oval Office. Coming into this time last year, Carson had already denied the existence of evolution, compared homosexuality to beastiality and pedophilia, said “The Afforable Care Act is the worst thing that’s happened since slavery” or alternatively “worse than 9/11”, claimed progressives were trying to turn the United States into Nazi Germany, praised Cliven Bundy, called the VA Wait Times Scandal “A Gift from God”, claimed the legalization of marijuana was a plot to distract the populace from “what really happened in Benghazi”, that President Obama can wipe out ISIS “but just doesn’t want to”, and informed us that abortion is actually a form of human sacrifice. And that was just in our first profile.

In our second profile, we covered some of the weirder moments from Sleepy Ben, including his “common sense solutions” to the immigration problem in the United States like punishing an undocumented immigrant is caught trying to commit voter fraud, see to it that they have their citizenship revoked. (You know, the citizenship they don’t have to begin with.) Carson had other terrible thoughts on immigration, like that President Obama had committed “high treason” for choosing to deport dangerous criminals among the undocumented immigrant population first, and claimed that his eulogy for the victims of the mass shooting in Charleston, South Carolina at the A.M.E. Emanuel church was designed to tear our country apart with “race wars” and “class wars”. At the annual NRA convention, told the audience that the southern border of the United States had been infiltrated by “radical extremist Islamic terrorists”, and that everyone should not call for better gun control, because mass shooters are easy to take out if you “all gang rush them at once”, or alternatively, as he once did in a Popeye’s chicken, just tell a potential robber to steal from a nearby cashier and to leave you be. Carson also talked about carrying out drone strikes against illegal immigrants, called for a third separate bathroom for transgendered citizens because “they make people uncomfortable”, and later claimed Planned Parenthood’s true purpose is to “eliminate black people”. Dr. Carson said that gay rights and pro-choice advocates practice “hate speech” and are not following the teachings of Jesus, but are ”under the influence of Saul Alinsky”, and asserted that “being gay is a choice” leading to him avoiding the topic for a whole seven weeks. Carson criticizing people who protest against police brutality, saying that doing so “helps Al Qaeda and ISIS”, quoted the philosopher Thomas Hobbes that “Tyranny would never occur in American citizens have guns” (which is amazing because Hobbes died a full century before America was a nation with its own Constitution and 2nd Amendment), and that he also theorized that the Pyramids were not built as tombs for the Egyptian pharoahs, but instead were granaries for storing food. Carson was also caught lying about his involvement with the supplement company Mannatech, as well as his outrageous claim that he was offered a scholarship to Army’s West Point Academy. Oh, and he also claimed that a Muslim should never be elected President of the United States, so there’s that.

And, since we last left Ben Carson during the waning moments of his ill-conceived and poorly run presidential campaign, he has still stayed in the headlines by becoming a surrogate for Donald Trump throughout 2016. In that role, Ben Carson falsely claimed that like Donald Trump, he also saw news footage of Muslims in New Jersey celebrating the deaths of Americans on 9/11 that does not actually exist, kept pronouncing the Palestinian group Hamas as “hummus”, and began to discuss proposals to “crack down on liberal bias” on college campuses, lamented a supposed “ban on Christianity” in schools (which doesn’t exist, but that’s how he thinks the separation of church and state should be framed) and began suggesting that the Department of Education should be able to secretly monitor classrooms and libraries to prevent any such patterns of thought from being encouraged. He also again commented on same sex marriage, giving his opinion that LGBT citizens shouldn’t be given “extra rights” because they are “abnormal”, and claimed that he’s “read enough conspiracy books” to know that public school lessons teaching tolerance towards the LGBT community and anti-discrimination laws were put in place in the United States by secret communists to damage the republic. Carson also said that Democrats “intentionally destroy black families to cultivate their votes”, and when interviewed by Steve Bannon on Breitbart News, stated his inflammatory belief that “Muslims who accept American values must be schizophrenic” because he doesn’t feel the two ideologies could coexist. Carson was allowed to speak on the second night of the 2016 Republican National Convention, where he, no lie, he lost the crowd by playing six degrees of separation by first linking Hillary Clinton to Saul Alinsky, and then to Lucifer himself, as he goes off of teleprompter in an insane, rambling, incoherent speech. A few weeks later, Dr. Carson decided to weigh in on Donald Trump’s attacks against a Gold Star family, the Khans, by saying that the family should “call a truce” by first apologizing to Donald Trump, so he could then apologize to them. He would later paying into the Alt-Right movement’s conspiracy theories about Hillary Clinton’s health, Carson calls for an “elderly” Clinton to release her medical records, and while stumping for Donald Trump, Dr. Carson compares the difference between the two candidates to be akin to “like picking a paper cut or having both legs chopped off”. Truly, a ringing endorsement. By September, in the middle of an interview, live on CNN, Ben Carson suddenly remembers he forgot to pick up his luggage and abruptly walks away mid-question. A few days later on the same network, he tried excusing Donald Trump’s frequently changing positions on immigration because “he’s still learning” how to develop and stick to policies. In the final month before the election, in a truly astounding interview with CNN’s Brianna Keilar, Carson gives a bizarre reason why the tape of Donald Trump boasting about sexual assault shouldn’t matter to women who are deeply troubled by it… the problem isn’t Trump, it’s THEM because they haven’t heard enough men talk in such graphic, demeaning terms and he finally lost his legendary sleepy, lethargic cool during an interview on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, yelling, “NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO…” and demanding the microphone of the woman interviewing him be turned off for asking him questions about Donald Trump bragging about committing sexual assault, and how that can jive with his fondness for Christian values.

Ben Carson , though plainly insane, was inexplicably chosen as a member of Donald Trump’s “Cabinet of Horrors”, not as Surgeon General, which in theory he would be qualified for, but instead as the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, where he sabotages the department’s mission statement from within, gives bizarre speeches to department employees where he refers to African slaves as “immigrants”, and refuses to answer any questions about anything when called before Congress, because he doesn’t have the first clue of what he’s doing. We'll set aside the doctor’s profile to go ahead and take a look at a different wacky Republican today instead. (Current crazy/stupid scoreboard, is now 617-25, since this was established in July 2014.)

[worstblogever]

Dennis Richardson
It was one year ago today that “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled Dennis Richardson, the current Secretary of State of Oregon, who formerly spent twelve years as a state legislator from 2003-2014 before a failed gubernatorial bid in 2014. Richardson spent about $3.5 million on his 2016 campaign, which got him all of 47% of the vote, which thanks to independent candidates and Green Party candidates pulling protest votes away from Democratic candidate Brad Avaikan, was enough to get Richardson a four-year term to oversee things like elections in Oregon.

We’re not going to dance around the fact that Dennis Richardson is a widely documented homophobe, not just because he doesn’t think it’s discriminatory to stop gay people from getting married, but back in 2007, he not only sent out a fundraising letter to warn of evils happening like the Virginia Tech Massacre or same-sex couples getting domestic benefits…which shows he has a lousy barometer for evil. Mass murder should not be mentioned in the same breath as gay people having rights, you know? But it only gets worse from there. Richardson has insisted “pedophilia is widespread among the homosexual community”, and even argued against gay adoption because, “to allow homosexual couples to adopt would require complete disregard of the statistics on the high mortality rate from HIV/AIDS, and high rate of alcohol and drug abuse, as well as the general instability and violent nature of homosexual relationships.” At another point in 2007, Richardson compared homosexuality to “smoking or drinking” because they are a choice. And even though one of the most grotesque murders of a lesbian couple based solely on their sexuality took place in his district, in 2004, Richardson stated his belief that “hate crimes are a myth”.

As of September 2017, Richardson has not backed off of his intolerant views of the LGBT community, declaring that gay people are “immoral”.

As horrible as his views on gay people may be, Richardson has some deranged views on other issues, like say, guns. But days after the Newtown Massacre, Richardson thought more guns were the solution to Adam Lanza’s rampage, and that school teachers should be packing heat to start a crossfire with their students in the way:

"If I had been a teacher or the principal at the Sandy Hook Elementary School and if the school district did not preclude me from having access to a firearm, either by concealed carry or locked in my desk, most of the murdered children would still be alive, and the gunman would still be dead, and not by suicide."

Now, we are hoping that the people of Oregon are going to keep their eyes on Richardson, given his reaction to Democratic governors is to run against them, lose, and then try to have them removed from office so he can take their place… but it’s telling that his first act as Secretary of State was to appoint Leslie Cummings, an election official forced to resign over ethical violations that wasted taxpayer dollars as his deputy.

We were wondering what a 67 year old partisan homophobe will do over the next four years in a very blue state like Oregon, but perhaps we won’t have to see it endure Dennis Richardson for his full term… a few months ago he revealed he was being treated for a brain tumor. We will refrain from trying to explain his behavior over the past fifteen years to this medical condition, and leave that to physicians to determine.

[PaulBullion]

You know when it would have helped if Bernie called out Trump's racism? Any point from August of 2016-November of 2016. Weird that he was so quieter about it, then.

I don't see him calling out any racism.

I seem him saying Trump isn't really racist, he is just using racism to get something.

And it's beginning to look more and more as if Bernie cannot fathom that racism - real racism born out of pure hatred and a belief that one race is better than another - actually exist. The racists in the White Working Class™ are not really racist, they're just economically anxious. If we remove income inequality, racism will just magically disappear.

As long as Bernard holds on to that misconception, he'll never be a leader to most progressives, or most working class people. He can talk about racism all he wants. Heck, he can chain himself to another black woman. His horrible takes prove he still does not get what he has been protesting in words and actions.

[TheDarman]

What's truthful about Donald "Central Park Five Should Fry" Trump not REALLY being a racist, just using it for being an opportunist? That is some grade A bullshit.

“Today, if he is a racist and a sexist, tomorrow he may be a great civil rights champion — if he thinks it gets him five more votes. He has no core values.”
- Bernard "Bernie" Sanders on Donald Trump.

The only time I actually recall thinking Sanders’ had made a point more insightful or poignant for minorities than any other candidate (Hillary and Obama continually talked about policy prescriptions for minorities that were particularly poignant meanwhile) was when he thought anyone killed by a police officer while unarmed would trigger a federal investigation. Even that was relatively colorblind. I think Sanders, himself, is largely opportunistic about when he discusses racial issues, if he does at all.

[Madam-Shogun-Assassin]

When I think about it the difference between the now limited to the Northeast RINO and the Blue Dog Democrat isn't that much.

Republican moderates and blue dog democrats are more or less the same. I feel that Democrats have long been hijacked by status quo moderates ever since President Carter imo.


As for Bernie, I don't think he's the only liberal with a blindspot for racial injustice. Most of the Democratic party do imo.