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

[Tami]

Back then it was common practice for visitors to small towns to surrender their firearms to the local Sheriff. The idea that cowboys walked around openly carrying is a Hollywood myth.

Reminds me of this movie scene

[Tami]

This is unreal, yet not all that surprising:

OK; changed my mind. I will no longer express dismay that @realDonaldTrump
disregards classified intel. From now on, I beg the intel community to not show him classified satellite images. Also please take his phone away so he can’t take and post photos for our adversaries to see.

Twitter Link

A retweet of a Trump Tweet posting an image that should be labeled classified.

[Tami]

Trump: Fired aide made comments about children

His comments came shortly after Politico published a report saying Westerhout was fired because she told reporters during an Aug. 17 dinner that Trump did not like appearing in photos with his daughter Tiffany because he thought she was overweight.

Trump denied making the comments, saying it was "absolutely false."

"She’s going to be calling me when we get to Camp David ... It’s absolutely false. She’s a wonderful person and she studies hard," he said of his youngest daughter.

The news outlet also said that Westerhout bragged that she had a better relationship with the president than he did with his daughters.

Trump defended his relationship with his youngest daughter, Tiffany, when asked about the report.

“Tiffany is great. I love Tiffany," he told reporters.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

This is unreal, yet not all that surprising:

Twitter Link

A retweet of a Trump Tweet posting an image that should be labeled classified.

If Obama had done that, Republicans would’ve demanded that the Secret Service arrest him. But, with Trump....crickets.

[Spike-X]

I don't watch Fox, but this is interesting

He seems to have forgotten which network he's on.

[Malvolio]

[QUOTE=Tami;4541117]Reminds me of this movie scene



I was thinking of this one, myself...

[Mister Mets]

Trump: Fired aide made comments about children

An interesting aside is that the fired assistant did not appear to have a non-disclosure agreement.

https://politicalwire.com/2019/08/30...ure-agreement/

[Tami]

Let’s Compare Donald Trump’s Week to the Impeachment Articles Brought Against Nixon, Clinton, and Johnson

This is all a long and drawn-out way of reminding us all that the presidential impeachment process is not necessarily triggered by acts of high treason or pervasive criminal activity. A president does not have to do something unutterably criminal to invoke impeachment. But as Charles L. Black wrote in his Watergate-era classic Impeachment: A Handbook, hypothetical examples of impeachable conduct may include the noncriminal, such as income tax fraud (“in that it uses office for corrupt gain; and in any case, it undermines government”) and obstruction of justice (“when it occurs in connection with governmental matters, and when its perpetrator is the person principally charged that the laws be faithfully executed”). Or as Bowman has explained, “It doesn’t have to be actually criminal, but it has to be something that really strikes at his legitimacy or really strikes at undermining the constitutional order.”

And yet, House Democrats are still waiting to figure out what to do—for some reasons that may be plausible, political strategies, and for other reasons that have more to do with learned helplessness and Patty Hearst syndrome.* The rest of us are pretty sure that if this ride goes any faster, we are going to implode before the 2020 election. So now is a good time to remind ourselves that we aren’t helpless, and that Donald Trump’s Cabinet is not going to invoke the 25th Amendment, and that there are “no adults in the room,” and that the one trick that isn’t fanciful and still works is the impeachment power, whether or not the Senate opts to convict.

Because the fact of the matter is that Donald Trump has committed multiple impeachable acts this week alone. There are the emoluments clause violations in attempting to grift the G-7 into paying his resort fees, the promises to pardon lawbreakers who help him build his wall, the threats to sitting members of Congress, and the persistent refusal to honor lawful subpoenas. These are abuses of power, obstruction of justice, and defiance of subpoenas. And, again, it’s only Thursday.

[InformationGeek]

Hey WBE! One of your regulars, John Shimkus, is not seeking reelection.

JUST IN: Illinois GOP Congressman @RepShimkus announces on show with @MarkReardonKMOX that he will not seek reelection in 2020.

[Robotman]

Everyday it’s some new insane and tragic event. The President of the United States TWEETED a classified picture from a spy satellite. Just when I think I’m numb to his stupidity.

[worstblogever]

Hey WBE! One of your regulars, John Shimkus, is not seeking reelection.

He's a master of climate change denial, and it's outstanding that he's gone.

His district is R+15, though, so I don't know if it's gonna flip. Let's just hope that we get someone who's at least not as much of a miscreant nominated by the GOP to take his place...

[worstblogever]

On this date, in both 2014, as well as in 2015, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" profiled Steve Wiles, an anti-gay candidate for North Carolina State Senate in 2014 who just so happened to have once worked as a drag queen named Mona Sinclair at a gay bar. Once the media got wind of that little detail, the amount of hypocrisy assured that he would be a laughingstock on the left, and a pariah on the right. Wiles optimistically stayed in the race through the primary, perhaps hoping his distant past wouldn’t come back to haunt him, but he finished third, over sixteen points off the winner, Joyce Krawiec. He has since only intermittently appeared on social media, making no mention of politics whatsoever.


In both 2016, 2017, as well as 2018, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” presented our original profile of the now U.S. House Representative for Florida’s 26th Congressional District, Carlos Curbelo, who was barely elected in 2014 with 51% of the vote in the 2014 elections over Democratic incumbent Joe Garcia. And while in his very short time in the limelight, Curbelo has been dogged by ethics complaints. In July of 2015, he suggested that Donald Trump was not sincere in his pursuit of the GOP nomination for president, but was actually “a phantom candidate recruited by the left to create this entire political circus”. Other than Curbelo’s wacky conspiracy theory about Trump, we have to report out the time that Curbelo, a grown man, decided to hop onto one of those Hoverboards around Christmas of 2015, and wrecked himself before he checked himself, earning a broken arm in the process.

Florida's 26th District is effectively a swing district, with only +1 Republican lean in the Cook Partisan Voting Index, and Carlos Curbelo is going to have a hard time hanging on for a third term in office with a predicted Blue Wave headed his way in 2018. He’s apparently aware of this, and has started trying to improve his chances by arguing with Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan, arguing that he was the first Republican in Congress to discuss impeaching Donald Trump. Mind you, he still might believe he’s a secret Democrat sent to sabotage the GOP, especially because Curbelo runs a political PAC that supports immigration reform and impotently criticized the Trump administration’s family separation policy (which is a pretty low bar to clear). Again, the devil’s in the details, as Curbelo’s PAC has repeatedly gave money to Republican candidates who, shock of shocks, take his money and then oppose immigration anyway, because it’s all a bunch of grift with the GOP these days.

That “moderate” posture didn’t due Carlos Curbelo much good in 2018 when he faced off with Ecuadorian immigrant Debbie Murcasel-Powell, who sent him packing with only 49% of the vote. We would now like to wish Curbelo our finest “Good Riddance” salute.

[shooshoomanjoe]

No one caught the lie that trump made up a phone call, claiming that China wanted to renegotiate, just to stimulate the market? This lie was told back on Sunday or Monday.

The mystery behind a confusing phone call Donald Trump claims he had with "China" has been revealed: the president simply made it up to try to boost the market.

My question is, if the economy is so great, why does he need to boost it?

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Everyday it’s some new insane and tragic event. The President of the United States TWEETED a classified picture from a spy satellite. Just when I think I’m numb to his stupidity.

I read about it this morning and was outraged because he tweeted a classified photo like it was a dick pic. Had Barack Obama took leave of his senses and did something like that, Republicans would’ve demanded the Secret Service storm the White House and immediately have him put under arrest. But, with Trump? Silence from the GOP.

No one caught the lie that trump made up a phone call, claiming that China wanted to renegotiate, just to stimulate the market? This lie was told back on Sunday or Monday.



My question is, if the economy is so great, why does he need to boost it?

Either because the economy is worse off than people think, or he used that scheme to enrich himself somehow.

[4saken1]

Either because the economy is worse off than people think, or he used that scheme to enrich himself somehow.

I've been wondering if he's somehow been able to short sell the market right before he tweets sometimes, knowing it will likely cause the markets to crash. I wonder if anybody has looked into this.