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

[numberthirty]

So this doesn't get lost in the shuffle...

- https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/13/u...s-dropped.html

Flint Water Prosecutors Drop Criminal Charges, With Plans to Keep Investigating

[Tami]

So this doesn't get lost in the shuffle...

- https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/13/u...s-dropped.html

I understand that some WTBleep new evidence turned up so they want to start from scratch. They think they can do better than their predecessors who might have been biased.

[Malvolio]

Reading that Sarah Huckabee Sanders will be out by the end of the month.

Rumors are that even though the Office of Special Counsel recommended Kellyanne Conway be outright fired for repeatedly violating the Hatch Act, that she'll be given the Press Secretary job.

Same old same old. A Trump official announces that they're leaving, we get excited for about five minutes and then we find out that they're being replaced by someone even worse.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

FEC Chair: It’s Illegal To Accept Election Help From Foreign Governments

Federal Election Commission Chair Ellen Weintraub offered the reminder one day after President Trump said he’d listen to dirt on his 2020 opponents. Yeah, a reminder Caramel Caligula doesn't care about. However, don't be surprised if he tweets today or tomorrow that he was joking. Yeah, right. Meanwhile....

**********

Fox News Legal Analyst Pulls No Punches: Trump Is ‘Prepared To Commit A Felony’

Andrew Napolitano says the president would be committing a crime if he accepted an offer of dirt on a rival from a foreign power. Well, committing crimes is what Trump does best after all.

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Pompeo: Iran Is To Blame For Attacks On Oil Tankers In Gulf Of Oman

The Secretary of State said the attacks are part of a “campaign” of “escalating tension” by Iran. Considering how members of the Trump administration lie like a rug daily, it's damn hard to believe that claim.

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From Air Force One High Over The Atlantic, Kellyanne Conway Tweeted Attacks On Biden

The statements may constitute Hatch Act violations on top of those for which the Office of Special Counsel on Thursday recommended she be fired. Sewer Rat Barbie just can't help herself. Or maybe she's emboldened because she knows Trump will protect her.

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Twitter Users Celebrate Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ Exit With Lots Of Snark

One joker said the outgoing White House press secretary’s resignation is proof that “thoughts and prayers DO work.” Farewell, Baghdad Betty, we hardly knew ye. And that's a good thing!

[SquirrelMan]

Candidates who qualified for first debates:
— Bennet – Biden – Booker – Buttigieg — Castro – de Blasio — Delaney — Gabbard — Gillibrand — Harris — Hickenlooper — Inslee — Klobuchar – O'Rourke – Ryan – Sanders — Swalwell — Warren — Williamson — Yang

[Malvolio]

Joe-Biden-is-a-relic-from-the-past-and-this-one-exchange-with-a-13-year-old-girl-proves-that?detail=emaildkre

If a presidential candidate had said that to me when my sister was 13 (I would have been 15, BTW), she would have been in his face before I could open my mouth. She would have said, "Excuse me, I don't need him to protect me. I can take care of myself."

[Dalak]

While it'll only be important to a few posters I know here, this means that the rest of you will have a chance to get Whataburgers. And that's a good thing!

https://twitter.com/1200WOAI/status/1139575008613883904

[Tendrin]

https://mobile.twitter.com/THTRNight...36488000098304

....freakin' yikes.

[BeastieRunner]

Beastie's Cartoons of the Week:

[worstblogever]

In both 2015, 2016, as well as 2017, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" published profiles of the U.S. Senator from Arizona, John McCain, who is now serving in his sixth term in office. We ran an exhaustive timeline on, doing our best to give the man his due where he could, before we raked him over the coals, going all the way back to his earliest days serving in the House, when he found himself a member of the Keating Five. We covered his prolific flip-flopping on issues, whether changing his mind over the Confederate flag flying on state grounds within 72 hours, or reversing position on same sex marriage on Hardball with Chris Matthews within 11 MINUTES of coming out in favor of it. While those reversals were jaw-dropping in their suddenness, Sen. McCain’s reversal on immigration policy from a would-be reformer in 2006, to his “Fix the Danged Fence” ad in 2010 make more sense, when you consider he changes positions out of convenience depending on which party looks like they’ll do better in that election year. McCain was pilloried during the 2008 presidential campaign for voting for the Iraq War, which back in 2002, he described the upcoming conflict would be “easy” (so easy it went on for about a decade and we’re still fighting ISIS there fifteen years later). His hawkish nature knows no bounds, as he spoke in New Hampshire in 2008 about keeping our troops in Iraq for up to a “hundred” years, and it would be fine because there were “no casualties there” (when they were approaching four thousand) and he gleefully discussed conflict with Iran by way of singing a parody of the Beach Boys tune “Barbara Ann”. McCain immediately called for the United States to send our armed forces to both Syria, and then Ukraine at the first sign of diplomatic strife within a few months of each other in 2014. Shockingly, McCain voted against banning “enhanced interrogation” techniques in 2008, as well, in spite of having endured torture himself. He has proven clueless on any number of issues, being stumped by reporters when asked if condoms or other contraceptives could help prevent HIV (which might explain why he joined the rest of the GOP in trying to defund Planned Parenthood in 2015), and declaring the “fundamentals of our economy are strong” in the midst of the 2008 Wall Street meltdown. In recent years, he has whined about the Obama administration “politicizing the death of Osama bin Laden” while, simultaneously claiming that the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi, Libya was “a worse scandal than Watergate”. He’s become so bitter that he even voted against the nomination of former Republican senator and fellow Vietnam veteran Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense, calling him an “unimpressive candidate”, and called President Obama a “lame duck” with a full year left in his term when it came time to find a new Supreme Court Justice to replace Antonin Scalia. Oh, yeah, he also picked Sarah Palin as his running mate in 2008, foisting her upon the American consciousness. That’s something he’ll definitely never live down. To his credit, McCain spent many of his last days as the closest thing Republicans had to someone who would stand up to Donald Trump, at one minute reversing his stance on torture (again) to explain why Drumpf’s suggestions on the subject are “disappointing”, but then turning around and telling folks that Trump could be a “capable leader” if he would be elected president. Which is amazing, considering Trump attacked McCain’s reputation as a war hero because “he was captured”. McCain openly chastised Trump for his attacks upon Khzir and Ghazala Khan, a Gold Star family, adding that Humayan Khan was “an example of American greatness” and that we are a greater country because of them and after the Access Hollywood footage of Donald Trump bragging about committing sexual assault emerges, Sen. McCain unendorsed Trump for president. McCain joined Lindsey Graham to criticize Donald Trump’s Muslim Travel Ban, calling it “a self-inflicted wound” in our war on terror and responded to Donald Trump calling the American media “the enemy of the people”, saying that such talk is “how dictators get started”. Sen. McCain lost his battle with brain cancer, and passed away in September of 2018, yet still is being besmirched by Donald Trump to this day.

On this date in 2018, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled Bill Fawell, the Republican challenger who was vying to unseat incumbent Democratic Congresswoman Cheri Bustos, to represent Illinois’ 17th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives. CNN’s K-File did some research about Bill Fawell, and learned interesting details like that he’s a 9-11 Truther, and that on his blog a few years back, he called on people to boycott watching the Super Bowl because Beyonce would be the halftime show performer, and that she had ties to the Illuminati. That should have been enough to make him un-electable, but we’ll add he also theorized that former First Lady Michelle Obama was a man, Hillary Clinton campaign operative Tony Podesta wore red shoes, and is therefore a Satanist, and that the Deep State would destroy all of New York City in a false flag operation as justification to go to war. Fawell also has stated his belief that Donald Trump can “restore the Judeo-Christian ethos of Western Civilization to America.” (which is an amazing thought about one of the most immoral people alive), and after CNN reported on all this and asked him for comment, Fawell stood by his theories and added that Taylor Swift also espoused support for the Illuminati in her videos. In spite of him being a deranged conspiracy theorist, he won 38% of the vote because Republicans really will vote for anything with an “R” next to it. As such, we’re going to go ahead and retire his profile at this time and go ahead and take a look at a different wacky Republican today instead. (Current crazy/stupid scoreboard, is now 758-40, since this was established in July 2014.)

[worstblogever]

Martha McSally

Welcome to the 758th original “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profile, where today we’ll be taking a look at Martha McSally, the junior U.S. Senator from Arizona, a position to which she was appointed by shady-as-hell Arizona Govenror Doug Ducey, after the predictable resignation of Senator Jon Kyl in early 2019, who himself was appointed to finish out the six-year term that John McCain was elected to in 2016. The fact that she is now a Senator defies most respect for Democracy, considering Arizona voters rejected the thought of her as their Senator in the 2018 elections, choosing Democrat Kyrsten Sinema over her after she spent almost two years sucking up to Donald Trump and adopting his racist demagogue stances. It was one thing to go fearmongering about MS-13 and calling for a border along the U.S./Mexico border, but Martha McSally actually was caught up in xenophobic euphoria that she called for a border wall to be built between Arizona and California, too.

As McSally began to trail behind Sinema in polls, she started pushing a disgusting barrage of campaign ads where McSally falsely claimed that Sinema’s anti-war protests against the Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq in 2003 featured her “denigrating the troops” (Sinema’s criticism was for the war pigs ordering the invasion, not the brave Americans asked to carry it out). That still failed to put Mcsally in the lead, and as final polls began to show that McSally would end up on the losing end of the race and allow Arizona to have a Democratic senator for the first time in decades, she responded with a Hail Mary, accusing Sinema of “advocating for treason” in their debate in October of 2018. Because accusing your opponent of a capitol offense is totally reasonable.

Martha McSally was never a candidate the people of Arizona rallied behind, as even with a gerrymandered map helping her try and win Arizona’s 2nd Congressional District in the House of Representatives, she still lost in 2012, and even in the 2014 elections with Republican tail winds behind her, she only won over Democrat Ron Barber by 161 votes. She inspires the people of Arizona so much that she got caught during the campaign using sock-puppet accounts to post compliments to herself. She has a U.S. Senate seat for now… but will have to defend it in a special election 2020 just in order to finish the term that was originally won by John McCain in 2016 to last until 2022 (more on who she will face in November 2020 later).

McSally’s voting record during her two terms in the House shows she’s on pace with the conservative extremism that embodies the Republican caucus over the past decade:

• January 22nd, 2015: Martha McSally votes for HR 7, an anti-abortion bill that makes even some Republicans pause before voting for it because of its language that tries to define the conditions for what “rape” is, in it.
• September 18th, 2015: Rep. McSally co-sponsors and votes for a bill with most House Republicans to defund Planned Parenthood, based on highly edited “sting” videos submitted by a Pro-Life advocacy group that have been repeatedly debunked by investigators.
• November 19th, 2015: McSally votes for the American Security Against Foreign Enemies Act, reacting to the terror attacks in Paris by jihadists from France and Belgium by trying to create greater restrictions to keep out Syrian refugees, of whom exactly zero were involved in those attacks.
• February 2nd, 2016: Martha McSally votes for HR 3762, the 61st attempt by Congressional Republicans to repeal the Affordable Care Act (which is still working better than was predicted).
• March 16th, 2017: Martha McSally votes for HR 1181, which would allow veterans deemed mentally incompetent to continue to own firearms, and not have them taken away without a judge's written order.
• March 28th, 2017: Rep. McSally votes for SJ Res 34, which allowed internet providers to sell the data information of their customers' internet usage to businesses.
• May 4th, 2017: McSally votes for the GOP's healthcare plan, that would allow 24,000 more people to die a year, give $50,000 in tax breaks to millionaires, would eliminate coverage for pre-existing conditions, and would treat pregnancy, post-partum depression, and sexual assault as "pre-existing conditions". Oh, and a provision in the bill would make sure that McSally would be allowed to keep his healthcare plan as it exists under the ACA, which would be repealed for the rest of the country.
• June 8th, 2017: Martha McSally votes for HR 10, the GOP’s attempt to repeal Dodd-Frank financial reform, because what the country really needs is to allow the big banks to make the same mistakes that imploded the economy only a decade earlier.
• October 3rd, 2017: McSally 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: Martha McSally 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: Rep. McSally and her 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.

[worstblogever]

Since arriving in the Senate, McSally has continued to rubber-stamp every Trump appointee who comes in front of her, no matter how unqualified, for every judge’s seat, ambassador post, or other Cabinet position. She was already unloved at the polls, but now as an incumbent, maybe momentum would swing in her favor?

Heh heh. NO. Martha McSally is already shaking in her boots at the prospect of facing former NASA astronaut Mark Kelly. If McSally couldn’t beat a Democratic candidate like Kyrsten Sinema, against Mark Kelly… even her attack strategy of using her military service as a fighter pilot to attack her opponent as “treasnonous” isn’t just moot, it’s dwarfed by the guy who has that on his resume, and then went on to go into space. They’re polling dead even now, a year and a half before the election, and McSally has firmly placed herself as an acolyte of Donald Trump. Which leaves McSally scrambling to try and crawl back to the center in Arizona, and tethered to all the stupid decisions Trump makes that affect her state, like say, threatening Mexico with tariffs that would cripple Arizona’s economy. We’re wholly expecting her to get desperate sometime before the 2020 elections and start fearmongering that if Mark Kelly is elected, he’ll “take all your guns away” with his support of gun control, even though his stance on the issue is pretty measured, and obviously motivated by personal experience, what with being the supportive husband of Gabby Giffords, a former Congresswoman and survivor of gun violence. But we’re almost betting McSally will do something that dumb, because that’s the sort of blunder she’s has become synonymous for.

It's entirely possible that running Martha McSally as the lead candidate for U.S. Senate in two consecutive elections could result in the Republican Party seeing both of Arizona’s seats in the Senate flip blue, a feat that seemed impossible only two years ago. Historic precedent for this among candidates since 2002 is not good, with any candidate from either party attempting it losing, and all getting less of a percentage of the vote than they did in their prior attempt. McSally only garnered 47% against Sinema, and we’re wondering how low she might go against Mark Kelly. In any event, seeing someone who proves to fawn all over Donald Trump sitting in John McCain’s senate seat is disgusting enough to witness that we’re looking forward to cheering for Senator Kelly (not the guy from X-Men comics, though).

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Candidates who qualified for first debates:
— Bennet – Biden – Booker – Buttigieg — Castro – de Blasio — Delaney — Gabbard — Gillibrand — Harris — Hickenlooper — Inslee — Klobuchar – O'Rourke – Ryan – Sanders — Swalwell — Warren — Williamson — Yang

Sweet baby Jesus! Are you kidding? That’s not a debate, it’s a freaking church choir! Please tell me they won’t ALL be on one stage at the same time! How in the hell can a clusterfuck like that possibly be moderated if that’s the case? Herding cats would be easier.

[Panfoot]

Sweet baby Jesus! Are you kidding? That’s not a debate, it’s a freaking church choir! Please tell me they won’t ALL be on one stage at the same time! How in the hell can a clusterfuck like that possibly be moderated if that’s the case? Herding cats would be easier.

It's broken down into 2 nights, first group is
1. Sen. Cory Booker 2. Sen. Elizabeth Warren 3. Rep. Beto O’Rourke 4. Sen. Amy Klobuchar 5. Rep. John Delaney 6. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard 7. Sec. Julian Castro 8. Rep. Tim Ryan 9. Mayor Bill de Blasio 10. Gov. Jay Inslee
Group 2 is
1. Sen. Sanders 2. Sen. Harris 3. Former VP Biden 4. Mayor Buttigieg 5. Sen. Bennet 6. Ms. Marianne Williamson 7. Rep. Swalwell 8. Sen. Gillibrand 9. Mr. Andrew Yang 10. Gov. Hickenlooper

[BeastieRunner]

It's seeded like an NCAA tourney!

I love it. Haha ...