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

[heretic]

I'm surprised by how quickly Ocasio Cortez replaced Soros as the far right's bogeyman.

Has she? I got the impression that Soros remains the scary manipulator in the background while AOC is his newest pawn in the plot to wreck everything.

[Gray Lensman]

Time for an explanation of federal land that actually makes sense.

I'll watch that when I get home so as to not eat up bandwidth on my phone.

But my point isn't so much that there is federal land, but that there is so much of it concentrated in certain states - which also happen to be the ones where the most crazy opposition to it exists. I am pretty sure those two things are related. Nevada is 84.9% federal land, with Utah in 2nd place at around 65%. Alaska has the most by area - which isn't a surprise given the size of the state.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Senate Republican warns of civil war if Democrats continue supporting the Federal government

Mike Lee’s stupidity....IT BURRRRRRRRRRRRRNS!!

[worstblogever]

WBE in DailyKos

Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day: Mike Pence- 2018 Update

Well hell, that took 3 days to get traction. Weird, but okay.

[Tami]

Mike Lee’s stupidity....IT BURRRRRRRRRRRRRNS!!

You might appreciate this. My husband was talking to a friend over the phone about Trump and called him 'President Pumpkinhead'

He's not the first to use it, but I thought it was appropriate. Scary on the outside, hollow on the inside.

[Tami]

Comey: FBI probe of Russia initially looked at 4 Americans

WASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into potential ties between the Trump campaign and Russia initially focused on four Americans and whether they were connected to Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, former FBI Director James Comey told lawmakers during hours of closed-door questioning.

Comey did not identify the Americans but said President Donald Trump, then the Republican candidate, was not among them.

He also told the House Judiciary Committee that, contrary to Trump’s claims, he was “not friends in any social sense” with special counsel Robert Mueller, who is now leading the Russia investigation. Trump has repeatedly portrayed the men as exceptionally close as part of a long-running effort to undermine the investigation and paint the lead figures in the probe as united against him.

“I admire the heck out of the man, but I don’t know his phone number, I’ve never been to his house, I don’t know his children’s names,” said Comey, who added that he had “never hugged or kissed the man” despite the president’s insistence otherwise.

“A relief to my wife,” he deadpanned.

[Gray Lensman]

One of these days, somebody really needs to explain to me why private land ownership remains this kind of sacred cow that nobody dare challenge lest they undermine the very foundation of Western civilization. From a purely free market perspective, property belongs in the hands of the people that will use it best and generate the most value, and thus dispossessing and redistributing land is perfectly fair game, especially if most of those land titles came about through suspect methods, which applies to literally all of America.

Part of it is the fact that property ownership is one of the biggest keys to economic stability. Getting a mortgage and buying my own place made a huge impact on my own bottom line. Larger than any raise I have ever received outside of the kind one gets when switching jobs.

The biggest benefits to my wallet in my lifetime have been leaving retail/food service for manufacturing, leaving the high taxes of New York for the lower ones in Nevada, and the change from renting to owning. It's that much.

[numberthirty]

Part of it is the fact that property ownership is one of the biggest keys to economic stability. Getting a mortgage and buying my own place made a huge impact on my own bottom line. Larger than any raise I have ever received outside of the kind one gets when switching jobs.

The biggest benefits to my wallet in my lifetime have been leaving retail/food service for manufacturing, leaving the high taxes of New York for the lower ones in Nevada, and the change from renting to owning. It's that much.

Yep.

Plenty of folks have gone from being regular working class folks to "Upper" middle class or better off thanks to being able to own rental property.

[PwrdOn]

Part of it is the fact that property ownership is one of the biggest keys to economic stability. Getting a mortgage and buying my own place made a huge impact on my own bottom line. Larger than any raise I have ever received outside of the kind one gets when switching jobs.

The biggest benefits to my wallet in my lifetime have been leaving retail/food service for manufacturing, leaving the high taxes of New York for the lower ones in Nevada, and the change from renting to owning. It's that much.

Sure, but that instability was only there to begin with because of the exploitative and self-serving actions of landlords toward tenants, which is by no means some kind of natural order even though we've been sort of conditioned to believe that is so. And while owning your own home is a goal many strive for, few are content to stop there and many will seek to acquire rental properties of their own if they are able to, inevitably becoming part of the problem that they sought to escape in the first place. Land is a strictly limited resource and if we allow a tiny minority of assholes to fence off all the good locations we are seriously hampering our prospects for future economic stability.

[numberthirty]

Sure, but that instability was only there to begin with because of the exploitative and self-serving actions of landlords toward tenants, which is by no means some kind of natural order even though we've been sort of conditioned to believe that is so. And while owning your own home is a goal many strive for, few are content to stop there and many will seek to acquire rental properties of their own if they are able to, inevitably becoming part of the problem that they sought to escape in the first place. Land is a strictly limited resource and if we allow a tiny minority of assholes to fence off all the good locations we are seriously hampering our prospects for future economic stability.

This assumes quite a bit that we have no way of knowing.

Not everyone cares about eventually being an "Owner". While technically being a renter does more good for the owner, it's not always a strictly a scenario where the renter is "Exploited".

Plenty of folks have rented in cities where it is unlikely that they would ever be able to own.

[numberthirty]

Since other things going on understandably chewed up a lot of the scenery...

https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/...-right-figures

Crowdfunding site Patreon is purging far-right figures

[PwrdOn]

This assumes quite a bit that we have no way of knowing.

Not everyone cares about eventually being an "Owner". While technically being a renter does more good for the owner, it's not always a strictly a scenario where the renter is "Exploited".

Plenty of folks have rented in cities where it is unlikely that they would ever be able to own.

The thing is, if rent-seeking were not exploitative as a rule, then there would be no difference between renting and owning. Since landlords are rarely able to add value to their properties simply by virtue of owning them, in a free market it would be practically impossible to turn a profit simply by buying up real estate and renting it out. The fact that this is clearly not the case in reality implies that, to some degree or another, landlords are taking advantage of their ownership of a scarce resource to squeeze tenants against what anyone would consider fair market principles.

[numberthirty]

The thing is, if rent-seeking were not exploitative as a rule, then there would be no difference between renting and owning. Since landlords are rarely able to add value to their properties simply by virtue of owning them, in a free market it would be practically impossible to turn a profit simply by buying up real estate and renting it out. The fact that this is clearly not the case in reality implies that, to some degree or another, landlords are taking advantage of their ownership of a scarce resource to squeeze tenants against what anyone would consider fair market principles.

Sure there would.

The only way there wouldn't is if renting and owning were each a proposition that almost everyone were in a position to do.

[worstblogever]

It was on this day in both 2014, as well as 2015, that we published our original "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" profile of South Dakota State Senator Phil Jensen, a man who drew national headlines back in March of 2013 for producing legislation that would allow businesses to disciminate against whoever they want, Civil Rights Act be damned. Jensen actually tried claiming that if a bakery owned by the KKK tried discriminating against an African American, that the matter would take care of itself, because customers would be too offended to patronize such a place. This logic, of course then fails to understand everything about the Jim Crow era South. Anyway, South Dakota Republicans threw Jensen under the bus for his remarks, but have never said anything about other extreme legislation he's produced or supported, including drug testing welfare recipients, an unnecessary ban on Sharia Law in the United States, and an attempt to criminalize abortions as "attacks on a fetus". More recently, he has become obsessed with transgendered citizens, sponsoring as many transphobic bills as he can to limit their access to public bathrooms as well as high school locker rooms, while also co-sponsoring a "religious freedom" bill to try to make it legal to discriminate against the LGBT community. Believe it or not, Phil Jensen is enough of a crazy ***hole that we accidentally profiled him twice within a year, on May 15th.



It was in both 2016, as well as in 2017, that “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled Jerry Sonnenberg, a member of the Colorado State Senate, representing District 1, in what is most of rural eastern Colorado. Sonnenberg was a member of the Colorado House of Representatives for eight years from 2007-2015, and when he was term-limited in 2014, he successfully got himself elected to the upper chamber. Sonnenberg drew some attention back in 2011, when he had a meltdown and began screaming profanities at a medical marijuana advocate at the state capitol, and literally shredded up the written amendment that legislators had been working on because he was outraged that someone had dared to film him while he was negotiating with lobbyists (which was their right). Sonnenberg then claimed the cameraman had spit on a lobbyist during their exchange with the cameraman (which was false, because DUH, they filmed their exchange). Through the years, Jerry Sonnenberg has developed a reputation as being staunchly anti-gay rights, and perhaps the best measuring stick to determine that would be that he has voted against bans on gay conversion therapy on minors when Colorado Democrats have attempted to do away with the ridiculous practice back in April of 2015. Sonnenberg is an anti-abortion radical as well, co-sponsoring a bill to attempt to redefine what a "person" is in the legal definition of assault and murder so that it included "fetus" as a person. Y'know, to just outlaw all abortions as "murder", because that's constitutional. Mind you, he's so "pro-life" that he voted against Colorado's attempts to repeal the death penalty in 2009. Sonnenberg even voted against a bill to set regulations in youth corrections facilities, because he’s apparently comfortable with abusive conditions being placed on minors in custody. He also co-sponsored legislation while in the Colorado House of Representatives to attempt to nullify the Affordable Care Act back in 2012, but hands down, perhaps the most disgusting moment from Jerry Sonnenberg came in January of 2016, not long after President Obama announced several executive orders on gun control, after seeing Republicans in the Senate block all gun control legislation since the Newtown Massacre. Reflecting on several mass shootings, the president thought of the victims, and became emotional, with a tear running down his face. Sonnenberg thought it was a great time to be a partisan troll, so he got on social media to share a picture of a gun being lubricated with "Obama tears".

Not long after our last check-in with Jerry Sonnenberg, he added himself to the long, long list of Republicans who deny climate change, arguing that people who want to reduce carbon emissions would “kill all the trees and plants”:

”So, you know, when we talk about carbon dioxide and those type of things, actually, those are important to agriculture and to the balance of nature. Trees and plants use carbon dioxide to create oxygen. It’s part of their process. And it’s nature’s way to make things work. So I guess my argument to those enviros that want less carbon is, ‘Here, you want to kill all the trees and plants.’”

While the Colorado State legislature has come under the control of Democrats, the 2018 Blue Wave was far from enough to sweep Jerry Sonnenberg out of office in District 1, as he was re-elected with 79% of the vote in that conservative bastion in the northeastern corner of the state. The only good news we have to report, then, is that this jackass will face term limits coming up in 2022, unless he can manage to try and squeak into some higher office.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

You might appreciate this. My husband was talking to a friend over the phone about Trump and called him 'President Pumpkinhead'

He's not the first to use it, but I thought it was appropriate. Scary on the outside, hollow on the inside.

Cool! I like it! Thanks for sharing!

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Republicans Around The Country Are Working To Declare Democrats Unconstitutional

The lame-duck power grabs in Wisconsin, Michigan and North Carolina are part of a larger effort by Republicans to delegitimize any opponent. This bullshit scheme from the GOP is beyond revolting and needs to be stopped!

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Feds Investigating Millions Of Fake Messages Opposing Net Neutrality: Report

FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai conceded that 500,000 fake comments urging the death of the popular system came from Russian emails. How is it Idjit Pai still has his job?

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Trump Scorched Over Tweet Bashing Obama For Burning Through ‘Chief Of Staffs’

That’s why Obama couldn’t get his agenda passed, Trump scolded. And what's YOUR excuse, Donnie Dumbass?

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Rep. Joaquín Castro: If Trump Weren’t President, ‘He’d Be In Court Right Now’

The Texas Democrat also said Congress has to be willing to consider impeachment. And that option SHOULD be on the table.

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Democratic Women Are About To Lead Michigan. Republican Men Are Freaking Out.

“It’s literally women saying, ‘Here is what we want,’ and men walking over and saying, ‘Shhhhh,’” an advocate said. Republican men need to shut the fuck up, grow up and deal with it.