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

[SuperiorIronman]

The video is good I don't know what the fuss is about. Having an incredibly wholesome past is probably the best thing to come out of politics in a while.

"A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one"

[KOSLOX]

The video is good I don't know what the fuss is about. Having an incredibly wholesome past is probably the best thing to come out of politics in a while.

"A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one"

AOC is a smokeshow so somehow that means she can't be taken seriously.

But to be fair they did offer the 2008 GOP VP candidate as supporting evidence.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Well, these are the same people who tried to make us hate Beto for riding on a skateboard.

And railed against Michelle Obama for the unpardonable sin of displaying her bare arms in public once.

The video is good I don't know what the fuss is about. Having an incredibly wholesome past is probably the best thing to come out of politics in a while.

"A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one"

The "fuss" is that a brown skinned WOMAN, a woman with an attitude on top of that has dared to invade the safe space of arrogant, misogynistic Republican men in Congress, and conservatives just can't cope. Sadly, this is only the start, right leaning trolls are going to do their level best to make life hell for Ms. Cortez with nonsensical **** like that harmless video. Every single scrap of information about her past, good, bad and inbetween is going to be mined by basement dwelling knuckledraggers for anything even remotely resembling dirt to tarnish and/or embarrass AOC. She's the right's official bogeywoman, and they're going empty the arsenal to trash her reputation for as long as she's in Washington.

[KOSLOX]

And railed against Michelle Obama for the unpardonable sin of displaying her bare arms in public once.



The "fuss" is that a brown skinned WOMAN, a woman with an attitude on top of that has dared to invade the safe space of arrogant, misogynistic Republican men in Congress, and conservatives just can't cope. Sadly, this is only the start, right leaning trolls are going to do their level best to make life hell for Ms. Cortez with nonsensical **** like that harmless video. Every single scrap of information about her past, good, bad and inbetween is going to be mined by basement dwelling knuckledraggers for anything even remotely resembling dirt to tarnish and/or embarrass AOC. She's the right's official bogeywoman, and they're going empty the arsenal to trash her reputation for as long as she's in Washington.

Boy is that going to backfire. It may play to their base but they're going to make her into an icon.

[Iron Maiden]

And railed against Michelle Obama for the unpardonable sin of displaying her bare arms in public once.

Yet it seems to be part of the dress code for all females on Fox and Friends.

[ed2962]

The video is good I don't know what the fuss is about. Having an incredibly wholesome past is probably the best thing to come out of politics in a while.

"A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one"

Cortez has helped reinvigorate the Democratic party and a fair number of people are open to her ideas, so the GOP figures they have to take her down before more voters come to her side. Their tactic right now seems to be to try to paint her as someone who's naive and doesn't really know what she's talking about. Think about how many FOX clips are the hosts giggling about how supposedly "dumb" she is. They're attempting to use this vid as part of that narrative..."See how silly this girl is? Don't listen to what she has to say on healthcare!"

[KOSLOX]

Cortez has helped reinvigorate the Democratic party and a fair number of people are open to her ideas, so the GOP figures they have to take her down before more voters come to her side. Their tactic right now seems to be to try to paint her as someone who's naive and doesn't really know what she's talking about. Think about how many FOX clips are the hosts giggling about how supposedly "dumb" she is. They're attempting to use this vid as part of that narrative..."See how silly this girl is? Don't listen to what she has to say on healthcare!"

[KOSLOX]

Right wing: Don't take AOC seriously because she danced to a Phoenix song back in 2010.

Also Right-wing: Eh... Youths gon' youth.

[Tendrin]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/power...=.3acd44c9e601

Something something Pelosi sucks something something

The new Democratic majority in the House will hold the first hearings on Medicare-for-All legislation, a longtime goal of the party’s left, after Speaker Nancy Pelosi lent her support for the process.
“It’s a huge step forward to have the speaker’s support,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), who will be the House sponsor of the legislation, usually denoted as HR 676. “We have to push on the inside while continuing to build support for this on the outside.”

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Cortez has helped reinvigorate the Democratic party and a fair number of people are open to her ideas, so the GOP figures they have to take her down before more voters come to her side. Their tactic right now seems to be to try to paint her as someone who's naive and doesn't really know what she's talking about. Think about how many FOX clips are the hosts giggling about how supposedly "dumb" she is. They're attempting to use this vid as part of that narrative..."See how silly this girl is? Don't listen to what she has to say on healthcare!"

Or worse, slime her as an irresponsible strumpet and party girl who has no business in politics. Like I've said, the GOP is scared of this woman and what she represents: a fresh, new voice that can reenergize the Dems while presenting ideas the Republicans don't want brought into the light.

[Tendrin]

Or worse, slime her as an irresponsible strumpet and party girl who has no business in politics. Like I've said, the GOP is scared of this woman and what she represents: a fresh, new voice that can reenergize the Dems while presenting ideas the Republicans don't want brought into the light.

The Clintonizing of her will be long and fierce.

[worstblogever]

The Clintonizing of her will be long and fierce.

Yeah, they at least waited for Hillary to be in her 40s before they started a generation-long slander campaign against her. Ocasio-Cortez isn't even 30 yet, and it's begun.

[Tami]

US halts cooperation with UN on potential human rights violations

The Trump administration has stopped cooperating with UN investigators over potential human rights violations occurring inside America, in a move that delivers a major blow to vulnerable US communities and sends a dangerous signal to authoritarian regimes around the world.

Quietly and unnoticed, the state department has ceased to respond to official complaints from UN special rapporteurs, the network of independent experts who act as global watchdogs on fundamental issues such as poverty, migration, freedom of expression and justice. There has been no response to any such formal query since 7 May 2018, with at least 13 requests going unanswered.

Nor has the Trump administration extended any invitation to a UN monitor to visit the US to investigate human rights inside the country since the start of Donald Trump’s term two years ago in January 2017. Two UN experts have made official fact-finding visits under his watch – the special rapporteurs on extreme poverty and privacy – but both were invited initially by Barack Obama, who hosted 16 such visits during his presidency.

[Tami]

Yeah, they at least waited for Hillary to be in her 40s before they started a generation-long slander campaign against her. Ocasio-Cortez isn't even 30 yet, and it's begun.

I think it's more Pelosiizing than Clintonizizing. I think AOC can handle herself if she uses Nancy Pelosi' gamebook for dealing with it.

[worstblogever]

In 2015, in 2016, and in 2017, “Crazy Stupid Republican of the Day” published profiles of John Fleming, the former U.S. House Representative for Louisiana’s 1st District who we noted has not faced a Democratic Challenger in the general election since winning office by a mere 342 votes in 2008, in a district that prior to Fleming taking office, Democrats had held since Reconstruction. Fleming famously criticized President Obama’s tax plan in 2011, saying that it was unfair because he, a man worth over $6 million dollars, would annually “only have $400,000 left over” to work with under it. Fleming has also used “evidence” to support his pro-life arguments from article he found on The Onion, unaware that they were parody, to justify shutting down Planned Parenthood. He made the hyperbolic argument that “Obamacare was the single most dangerous piece of legislation ever passed by Congress”, that you can kind of scrutinize by knowing your history well enough to realize the Fugitive Slave Act was a thing. John Fleming was a huge proponent of the 2013 Government Shutdown, literally saying “This isn’t over…” as part of the “NAY” votes to reopen the government. He also has defended footage of oil companies using the advanced technology of trash bags and duct tape to seal leaky pipes transporting oil, so he’s not exactly a friend of the environment, either. Rep. Fleming is also a frequent guest of the leader of the anti-gay hate group the Family Research Council’s leader, Tony Perkins, appearing on his “Washington Watch” show, to stir fears that President Obama is secretly a Muslim, or that he supposedly doesn’t care about violence towards Christians in other countries around the globe. in the 2016 elections. Fleming failed in an effort to get elected to the U.S. Senate in 2016, finishing fifth in the primary race with only 10.6% of the vote.

On this date in 2018, “Crazy Stupid Republican of the Day” published our profile of Taylor Rose, a candidate for District 3 of the Montana House of Representatives in the 2016 elections. His primary qualification for running for office as a legislator was that he was a writer for WorldNetDaily, the one-stop shop for all paranoid right-wing conspiracy theories online that features regular columns by Ann Coulter and Andy Schlafly (the deranged son of CSGOPOTD Phyllis Schlafly). Suffice to say, it’s not just being a wingnut that makes Taylor Rose a terrifying proposition in our government. He also has drawn the interest of the Southern Poverty Law Center for his various trips to Europe to meet with right wing extremists, his ties to the American Sovereign Citizen Movement. He denies that he is a White Nationalist, claiming his values are just “supportive of Western Civilization”, and claiming that if he had espoused the views he had while at Liberty University, he would have been expelled (because Falwell’s Liberty is known for being a bastion of tolerance). M ake no mistake, the group he founded, “Youth for Western Civilization” is precisely a White Nationalist group with its more racist language replaced with buzzwords to sound only slightly less sinister.The SPLC also did a quick check of Rose’s Facebook page, and noted that Rose ”expressed revulsion at the prospect of a white couple giving birth to two black babies via artificial insemination". He also bitterly complained when it was announced that Harriet Tubman, the black woman who helped lead the Underground Railroad during the Civil War, would replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill. He compared the action to the removal of Confederate monuments around the nation in the wake of the mass shooting at a black church in Charleston, S.C., by a white-supremacist Confederacy admirer. It should come as little surprise then, that Rose has ranted against immigrants, as well as Muslims as well, has written articles in the newspaper of the Neo-Confederate organization, the Council for Conservative Citizens, and praises Nigel Farage and UKIP, the far-right, white nationalist party he runs in the United Kingdom. Luckily, the people of Montana’s District 3 did not elect Taylor Rose, and his disturbing background with ties to various White Nationalist groups and militias assured he lost to Democrat Zac Perry… by all of 271 votes. That’s far closer for comfort than we’d ever hope a straight-up bigot like him could ever get to office. We’ll keep an eye out for Rose in Montana politics for a while, at least, because it seems like the rest of the GOP have no problem with holding the door open for him. In any event, we’ll set aside his profile for now, to take a look at a different wacky Republican today instead. (Current crazy/stupid scoreboard, is now 718-30, since this was established in July 2014.)


Jon Ritzheimer

Welcome to the 718th original “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profile, where we’ll be talking about Jon Ritzheimer, who honest to goodness, took his paranoid militia act back home and ran for Congress to represent Arizona’s 8th Congressional District in 2018, hoping that maybe he could get lucky and win the special election to replace CSGOPOTD alumni Trent Franks, who resigned after it came to light that he was trying to LARP scenes from The Handmaids Tale with congressional aides and interns.

If you’ve never heard of John Ritzheimer, you may want to sit down. Because he was, honest to goodness, one of the militia lunatics who occupied the Malheur Wildlife Refuge with Ammon Bundy back in January and February of 2016. Prior to that, Ritzheimer was making extra cash as a professional hatemonger in Arizona, printing and selling T-shirts bearing a profanity-laced denunciation of Islam. In May of 2016, he organized a “protest” that drew about 250 mostly armed anti-Muslim demonstrators to a Phoenix mosque, where Ritzheimer, carrying a 9mm Glock 26, and with others wielding automatic weapons, called it a patriotic sign of resistance against what he deemed the tyranny of Islam in the United States. He also has hosted “Draw Muhammed” contests and posted videos online where he shoots up copies of the Koran with a gun, just to remind everyone he’s a certain combination of unstable and bigoted. Also, Ritzheimer is so insane that even the militia group known as the OathKeepers have disowned him after he called for the arrest of Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow.

Now, for those who remember the occupation of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge, you may remember that the militia bros who holed up there came woefully unprepared for a cold winter, didn’t bring, y’know, FOOD, and almost immediately started begging fellow “patriots” online to send them money and supplies. The internet responded by sending… something less helpful. And thus, your memory of the Malheur Occupation might include or even consist solely of Jon Ritzheimer opening a care package mailed to him and his lunatic pals that was filled with dildos, and going berserk with rage.

Clearly, Congressional material, right there.

So why didn’t Jon Ritzheimer end up shocking the political world? Well, he was forced to drop out of the race because he was scheduled to go to prison on January 12th, 2018. What with getting arrested for occupying federal property. However, Ritzheimer assured the lunatic fringe that:

”This won’t be the last the people of Arizona see of me.”

Feel free to support his political endeavors while he’s in, our out of prison by mailing him more dildos.