All Purpose News and Politics Thread Part IV: The Center Cannot Hold

[SquirrelMan]

Thank you, Brian.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

Are you, personally, saying, personally, though, personally, that both those opinions are equally valid?

I mean, you personally?

I’m saying it doesn’t matter to the people who believe it and you’re a fool if you think there is any viability in convincing them otherwise. You’re just spinning your wheels and wasting cycles on a fruitless task

[WestPhillyPunisher]

AOC goes on the attack again, and I applaud her for going after the big boys in Big Pharma:

Ocasio-Cortez confronts CEO for nearly $2K price tag on HIV drug that costs $8 in Australia

[WestPhillyPunisher]

What. The. ****?

Trump Administration Asks Congress to Reimburse Taliban

President Donald Trump asked Congress to pay the Afghanistan Taliban for the costs associated with attending peace conferences, according to a new report.

The Department of Defense asked Congress to reimburse members of the Taliban earlier this year for expenses incurred while attending a number of negotiations, according to House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense Chair, Pete Visclosky.

The money would be used to cover transportation, lodging, food and miscellaneous supplies, Kevin Spicer, spokesman for Indiana Democrat Visclosky, told CQ Roll Call.

But, said Spicer, this request to pay the Taliban with U.S. money “would implicate provisions of law concerning material support to terrorists, the Taliban’s ongoing offensive operations against U.S. service members, and their continuing lack of acknowledgement of the government of Afghanistan or the rights of women in Afghan society.”

To paraphrase a line from a legendary song by The Kinks, maybe I'm dumb, but I can't understand what the hell is going on here. Meanwhile, in this week's topic du jour....

**********

When Faux News bimbette Tomi Lahren is against Alabama's abortion ban, then you KNOW that **** stinks to high heaven:

https://www.newsweek.com/tomi-lahren...gerous-1428166

[Tendrin]

Oh, WBE. David Eastman is back at its gain.

https://rewire.news/legislative-trac...f-2019-hb-178/

He also apparently claimed in 2017 that poor women delay abortions to get a free trip to Seattle since Alaska won't perform them.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Oh, WBE. David Eastman is back at its gain.

https://rewire.news/legislative-trac...f-2019-hb-178/

He's declaring that poor women delay abortions to get a free trip to Seattle since Alaska won't perform them.

Seattle, eh? Maybe they like going up in the Space Needle, or hanging out at Pike Place Fish Market. Then again, maybe this Eastman turd is just being a smacked Republican ass.

[Dalak]

What. The. ****?

Trump Administration Asks Congress to Reimburse Taliban

At least the subcommittee approved a bill specifically barring such payments, but I join you in the WTFery of this request.

[worstblogever]

Oh, WBE. David Eastman is back at its gain.

https://rewire.news/legislative-trac...f-2019-hb-178/

He also apparently claimed in 2017 that poor women delay abortions to get a free trip to Seattle since Alaska won't perform them.

I believe I just profiled him on May the 4th...

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/201...-David-Eastman

[ed2962]

When Faux News bimbette Tomi Lahren is against Alabama's abortion ban, then you KNOW that **** stinks to high heaven:

https://www.newsweek.com/tomi-lahren...gerous-1428166

I haven't clicked on the link yet but I'm not surprised if Tomi has problems with the new law. Remember she got kicked off conservative "The Blaze" for not being anti-abortion enough.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

I haven't clicked on the link yet but I'm not surprised if Tomi has problems with the new law. Remember she got kicked off conservative "The Blaze" for not being anti-abortion enough.

It's beyond frustrating that clowns believe that by killing Roe v. Wade, they'll end abortion in this country. The truth is, all that will be ended would be safe and legal abortion, and THAT'S the problem.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

Personally I don't think the abortion issue will ever truly be resolved, at least not in my life time, possible technologies that could solve the issue would mostly be fantasy at this point.

You'd have to either have a contraception method that is 100% effective, has minimal to no side effects on either the person taking it or the act of sex they participate in (just in case someone wanted to say abstinence qualifies), free, and easily available in all parts of the country.

Or from the other side of the coin, have a cheap, if not free, method of removing the zygote or fetus from the mother and letting it develop in an artificial womb with no responsibilites placed on her.

Even if either of these two fantasties would happen you'd still get debates about taxes, orphanages, quality of life of the child etc.

The problem with the former is that even if there was a 100% full proof contraception, you’d need people to use it. You’d almost have to have a situation where you regulated that everyone was temporarily sterilized the minute they turned a certain age and then a doctor deactivated it when they want kids.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2015, 2016, 2017, as well as 2018, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day published profiles about Mike Ritze, who we highlighted for his sponsorship of Oklahoma’s HB 1330 law, which allowed the presentation of religious monuments on state grounds. Now, while being enough of a theocrat to push for a law similar to ones that the Supreme Court has already overturned is often enough to earn a profile here, Ritze gets special consideration for purchasing a Ten Commandments monument to put up at the state capitol that had multiple spelling errors. The monument stood for a few months until a mentally ill man crashed into it, at the cost of several thousand dollars to Ritze, personally, to build yet another one. But the monument issue gets even more hilarious… Ritze’s wording in writing HB 1330 was vague enough that it left a loophole for ANY religion to put up a monument on state grounds, so a Satanic Temple decided to troll Oklahoma’s GOP Fundamentalists by preparing a statue of Baphomet tempting children to stand on government property, as well. In the end, the Oklahoma Supreme Court made him take down his third attempt at a Ten Commandments ruling after a legal challenge, at a cost of another five thousand dollars to Ritze. Rather than quit while he was ahead, I started lying and claiming all historical landmarks with any religious significance might be taken down (that’s false), and began trying to find ways to impeach members of the Oklahoma Supreme Court for recognizing that there should be a whole separation of church and state.

Anyway, outside of this very specific comedy of errors that Ritze is responsible for, we also have one heck of a tacky voting record to single him out on, where he has been a proponent of Birther legislation, preventing the threat of the Agenda 21 Conspiracy theory, bans on Sharia Law, trying to nullify the Affordable Care Act, Trap Laws to attempt to shut down all the state’s abortion clinics, as well as stricter Voter ID laws to combat the statistically non-existent problem of in-person voter fraud at the cost of disenfranchising tens of thousands of voters. Mike Ritze’s newest obsession, as of March 2017, is the threat of “Blue Zones”. He warned citizens in an opinion editorial in the local papers that the group Blue Zones, LLC, was trying to restrict the lifestyle choices of Oklahomans, and to “stay vigilant”. Anyone who actually goes to the “Blue Zones” website, however, will only learn that the group tries to promote the benefits of spending quality time with family and friends, exercising, getting enough sleep, eating a more plant-based diet (fruits, veggies, nuts, seeds, legumes), or avoiding smoking. So whatever paranoid fears Ritze might have, the worst that might come of it is “Blue Zones, LLC” might convince a state legislature to invest money into healthier eating via school lunches or community orchards or marketplaces for selling organic vegetables, or maybe a ban on smoking in some public places. Clearly, global domination territory… STAY VIGILANT!

In May of 2017, Mike Ritze came up with an interesting budget plan to save money... harass 82,000 kids who speak Spanish and hand them over to ICE for interrogation! First off, YES, we have to educate non-citizens when they're children, if you ever paid attention to federal law, you muskrat-toupeed twit. But apparently Ritze still thinks there's "savings" into profiling people and just deporting them for not speaking English, rather than, y'know, provide them with an education. One where they might actually be taught English, in theory. But news flash, Mike… there are U.S. citizens who don’t speak English. Shocking, I know.

We also have taken note recently about how Oklahoma state legislators managed to vote on a particularly insane piece of legislation to expand the state’s “Stand Your Ground” laws so that people could more easily shoot and kill another person, this time if they suspect they’re somehow a threat to another member of their church. Would you believe that Mike Ritze was a co-sponsor of that insane bill? He was.

Mike Ritze, and his hairpiece were up for re-election in 2018. He was defeated in the GOP Primary, being bounced from office after only getting 42% of the vote. We can only hope that at 71 years old, Ritze takes the hint, and f***s right off and out of American politics.
 

[mogwen]

You might want to be careful about discussing the "final solution" and "eugenics". Those are some... hot point words to use together.

But, that's not too far from where you are my american friends.
And I'm afraid Trump will incredibly difficult to oust from office, what will prevent him from rigging the next election?
Sometimes when you realize the damage done, it's cause it's already too late.

[JCAll]

Oh, hey, Missouri's in the news. I wonder what we did this time.
Guess. Just @#$%ing guess.
That's right, we pulled an Alabama.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/17/u...rtion-law.html

[worstblogever]

Oh, hey, Missouri's in the news. I wonder what we did this time.
Guess. Just @#$%ing guess.
That's right, we pulled an Alabama.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/17/u...rtion-law.html

Even better, a GOP rep in the Missouri House began claiming that women totally know they're pregnant at 8 weeks, he knows from his time as a cop and seeing cases of "date rapes or consensual rapes".

A Democratic counterpart quickly went to the floor to point out WTF there's no such thing as "consensual rape".

The shadow of Todd Akin still looms over the loons in the anti-choice movement.