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

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Jo Johnson, brother of UK PM, quits as Tory MP and minister saying he is "torn between family and national interest"

What is happening to Boris now should have happened to Trump 2 years ago.

In a perfect world, yes. Problem is, the GOP was desperate to return to power after eight years of dealing with a black man in the Oval Office they flat out hated because he was black, so Republicans were more than willing to put up with Trump as long as they were back in control. These days, it's all about protecting the Orange Menace while going out of their way to ignore all the silly, stupid, greed driven and vulgar **** he does.

[InformationGeek]

Steve King still awful. Just your daily reminder.

At today’s town hall in Eagle Grove, @SteveKingIA told a story about how he drank from a toilet at a migrant facility on the border when he last visited: “actually pretty good”

[Michael Watkins]

That's.....unbelievable. If there wasn't visual proof I'm not sure my brain could register something so blatantly juvenile from our President. Any president.

Just...wow. I thought there wasn't anything left he could do that would shock me but here we are.

but it's working. he has lowered the bar enough that he can say whatever he wants. challenging him on his lies means nothing. we're living in a South Park skit.

Steve King still awful. Just your daily reminder.

does his wife know? (sounds made up)

[Theleviathan]

but it's working. he has lowered the bar enough that he can say whatever he wants. challenging him on his lies means nothing. we're living in a South Park skit.



does his wife know? (sounds made up)

You're right, but even South Park cant make this **** up.

[worstblogever]

By declaring the border an "emergency" in a Congressional vote, Republicans allowed Trump to divert money from the military budget into his vanity border project...

Trump, of course, has no respect for the troops, so it should come as little surprise that he diverted the money away from service members' families on military bases. $3.6 billion that would have gone towards schools for their children, maintenance facilities to not let the on-site barracks fall into disrepair, and target ranges to allow troops to keep up their firearms accuracy.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/borde...b011080459bee8

After Trump attacked a Gold Star family in 2016, and has spent years slandering the war record of John McCain (to say nothing of Trump's "bone spur" draft dodge), there are those who postulated the GOP's long-standing support with military and veterans could wane. This move isn't going to help that, either. It could even harm the re-election chances of 6 Republican Senators who voted for it in swing states.

Like... Good luck justifying this move on the wall when "Mexico was going to pay for it" Martha McSally, when you're also running against Air Force veteran and NASA astronaut Mark Kelly and just pulled $30 million from Arizona service members and their families. Good luck with this one Thom Tillis, you swiped more than anyone at $80 million. Good luck Moscow Mitch, when Amy McGrath points out you just lost Kentucky military members $62 million. Good luck, Lindsey Graham, trying to ride your JAG career as enough, but let Trump swipe $11 million. Good luck, John Cornyn, for letting him steal away $48 million, and Corey Gardner, after he took $8 million from your state.

[Malvolio]

Steve King still awful. Just your daily reminder.

http://https://news.yahoo.com/aoc-fi...103148991.html

We need fewer representatives like Steve King and more representatives like Alexandra Ocasio Cortez.

[worstblogever]

http://https://news.yahoo.com/aoc-fi...103148991.html

We need fewer representatives like Steve King and more representatives like Alexandra Ocasio Cortez.

And yet, the White Nationalist scares Republican voters more than a Latina former-bartender who wants them to all have healthcare.

It's almost like the party has become a white nationalist party.

[worstblogever]

On this date, in both 2014, as well as in 2015, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" profiled former Minnesota Congresswoman and 2012 Republican presidential candidate Michelle Bachmann, who was one of CSGOPOTD’s top three craziest Republicans year in and out. She is a founder of the Tea Party Caucus, argues that the United States was founded as a Christian theocracy, and should return to such a status. Her husband is the proprietor of several psychiatric clinics which attempt gay conversion therapy (the “pray-the-gay away” kind). Of course, Marcus Bachmann has denied they promote such a thing, in spite of employees of his clinics having been filmed doing exactly such a thing on hidden camera before. Bachmann actually gave the Tea Party’s first rebuttal to a State of the Union speech in 2011, where she failed to even center her eyes on the camera, and not the teleprompter off to the side. A mere sampling of Bachmann’s most insane moments includes the time she expressed anger over Terry Schiavo’s breathing tube being removed, and that she was taken off life support, describing her vegetative state as “good health”, The time she claimed that she griped about the Pledge of Allegiance not being mandatory in school, but “you must learn that homosexuality is normal and you should try it.", the speeches where she claimed vaccines cause autism, or that “there isn’t one study that shows that carbon dioxide is a harmful gas”. She actually tried linking flu outbreaks to Democratic presidents, claimed the Founding Fathers “worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States”, pitched Glenn Beck as an idea man to help solve the national debt, started telling Tea Party crowds that “having a revolution now and then is a good thing” and attributed an earthquake and a hurricane as proof that God was unhappy with America’s politicians for spending too much on too many things. She is, however, most famous for being the originator of one of the greatest political lies of the century so far, that the Affordable Care Act would create “death panels” where a judge decided objectively if someone was a medical lost cause or worth investing in (it is probably only second to lies from 2002 about Iraq having an active program to create weapons of mass destruction). Bachmann retired with a cloud of ethics violations surrounding her due to shady campaign financing and has been relegated to appearing more on the fringe of GOP politics these days behind the scenes.

On this date in 2016. “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled Matthew Erickson, a failed candidate in the 2016 elections to be the U.S. House Representative for Minnesota's 2nd Congressional District who was the owner/founder of a "snow management service" (aka "guy who owns a snowblower and snow shovel"). He was perhaps a bit too creative and eccentric for most, what with being a shameless supporter of Donald Trump and all his policies with several bizarre quirks of his own. While Erickson's hero, Trump, tends to limit his social media self-appreciation to 140 characters or less on Twitter, Matthew Erickson, however, is not constrained by character limits. He often would write extensive posts on Facebook where he fantasized about himself as characters from Clint Eastwood movies, or share quaint memes where Donald Trump had his way with Heidi Cruz, or Marco Rubio was branded as a homosexual. You know, lighthearted fun stuff. There was also the time he decided to paraphrase the famous quote from Martin Niemoller about the Nazis' tactics... except in his new version, it seemed Erickson was comparing himself to the Nazis, and Democrats to Jews. Even Erickson's announcement that he was running for office seemed to indicate his only idea of leadership was to emulate people he looked up to. Erickson eventually did get on Twitter, where the public was surprised to see him flirting with underage girls who were "cute", and lament that they weren't old enough to vote for him. And as far as his policy positions? Erickson’s website covered them all in a mere 21 words. And a lot of them are borrowed from Donald Trump, at that. In the GOP Primary, Matthew Erickson finished fourth in a field of four candidates, getting 6.8% of the total vote. He has, for the moment, vanished from view.

On this date in 2017, as well as 2018, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled Paul Nehlen, an executive at a water filtration company who got outraged that Paul Ryan supported the Trans-Pacific Partnership and decided to challenge the sitting Speaker of the House for his Congressional seat representing Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional District in the 2016 elections. From the start, it was pretty clear that Nehlen was not your typical candidate from the point where he released his first campaign ad, “Truth Resurrection” on Youtube, where he’s riding around on a motorcycle, showing off tattoos in a sleeveless T-shirt through rural Wisconsin. But in his second ad, he began exhibiting some of the xenophobia you’d expect from someone with flirtations to the Alt-Right, as he complained about “Mexican heroin” that Paul Ryan had failed to stop coming into the country during his time in Congress, illustrating this with the not-so-subtle visual of a storage bin with “DRUGS” spelled out on the side of it in Duct tape floating in a river. Now, you may be wondering why someone in Wisconsin is fretting about things coming across the U.S/Mexico border, since his state lies on the U.S./Canada border. Stay tuned, because this might be a sign he’s an Alt-Right racist. Like how he met up with a Breitbart editor, and went down to our Southern border to further demonize Mexicans. The next thing you know, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Michelle Malkin, and Sarah Palin were all coming running to promote the outsider to unseat the Speaker of the House. The point where Nehlen really became interesting was on August 1st, 2016, where Donald Trump complimented him on Twitter, a shout-out that many interpreted as a shot directed at Paul Ryan for not doing enough to support the Trump campaign. Later that same afternoon, Nehlen’s praise from Trump made even more sense, when in a radio interview, he talked about deporting all of the Muslims in the United States, during a rant against Paul Ryan for not backing Donald Trump enough in his feud with the Gold Star Parents in the Khan family, and adding that “Islam is the only religion that endorses lying.” Donald Trump’s mini-feud with Paul Ryan was settled by RNC insiders, and he came out to give a lukewarm endorsement of Paul Ryan in Green Bay. Nehlen tried entering the event as a spectator to personally stir up s***, but was turned away at the gate. Paul Nehlen ended up still getting crushed by Paul Ryan, getting only 16% of the vote in spite of Donald Trump repeatedly complimenting his campaign on Twitter late in the campaign. He was actually scheduled as speaker at the Deplora-Ball on Inauguration Day in Washington, D.C., where he felt he was among his “brothers-in-arms” among all the White Nationalists an Mens’ Rights Activists present. Nehlen began to issues threats that he would attempt to unseat Paul Ryan again in 2018 as early as June of 2017, he wouldn’t get a chance at a rematch with. Ryan, as Ryan announced he was leaving Washington, D.C. at the end of his term. Nehlen’s trending towards White Nationalism became more and more apparent since the 2016 election, as by December 2016 he was calling for the end of Birthright Citizenship, his stated belief in the insane Pizzagate conspiracy theory in a Reddit AMA he hosted, and that he Re-tweeted and praised photos of tiki-torch wielding Neo-Nazis and Klansmen in Charlottesville, Virginia in August of 2017. By December of 2017, Nehlen was appearing on the white nationalist podcast “Fash the Nation”, praising its hosts (who spend most of their time talking about creating a white ethnostate), and proudly telling the story of the time he told a Jewish magazine editor to “self-deport” and “eat a bullet.” After New Year’s 2018, Nehlen was making no mistake about being scum, because he went on David Duke’s podcast. Yes, THAT David Duke. By the end of January 2018, Nehlen managed to get himself suspended from Twitter for spreading Neo-Nazi propaganda and posting a racist meme about Meghan Markle as the royal wedding approached. In February 2018, Nehlen started to lag in the polls, like you would expect would happen if you start going full Neo-Nazi on your campaign. But with zero self-awareness, Nehlen blamed his struggles on his campaign manager, pointing out that he was Jewish, saying “They are never to be trusted” and thus returning to that whole “Neo-Nazi” vibe. Alas, Paul Nehlen lost the 2018 Primary to represent Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional District to Bryan Steil, whose winning strategy was, “Don’t sound like an insane Neo-Nazi”. We truly hope Nehlen f***s off into the sunset, never to be seen again, but we’ll go ahead and set aside 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 780-40, since this was established in July 2014.)

[worstblogever]

Antonio Sabato Jr.

Welcome to the 780th original “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profile, where today we’ll be discussing former General Hospital soap opera star Antonio Sabato Jr., who was a 2018 Republican candidate for U.S. House of Representatives in California’s 26th Congressional District. Sabato’s flirtations with politics began back at the disasterpiece known as the 2016 Republican National Convention, where Donald Trump wanted celebrities to come out and praise him as the future of our country… and the best he got was a D-Lister like Sabato, along with wave after wave of fringe white nationalists.

Now, one would think the advantage to having an entertainer give a speech is that their charisma would boost your party’s talking points. Unfortunately, Antonio Sabato Jr.’s strength as a performer has always been well-defined abdominal muscles, and it showed in his speech. Well, not his abs, anyway, but his lack of charisma. Sabato drew more headlines when he spoke to Fox News after stepping off the stage, and outing himself as a Birther conspiracy theorist, stating his belief that President Obama was “absolutely a Muslim”.

So it was that Sabato decided in 2017 to use his newfound political platform to run for Congress, at the opportune time that his wife was filing for divorce from him, and accusing him of rampant drug abuse in the filings. (And if there’s one thing the media love to do with politicians, it’s file a FOIA request down the line to have such court documents unsealed for all the dirt on a politician.)

Maybe Sabato would have seemed less eccentric if he didn’t give an interview with the Daily Mail where he boasted about being able to “have sex all day” after having testosterone pellets injected into his buttocks. No, he volunteered that. Really. You would think with allegations of drug abuse from your estranged wife, you wouldn’t want to discuss any kind of hormone injections, but the guy wasn’t known for his brains, either.

Antonio Sabato Jr.’s star has fallen enough (if it ever was really in the sky at all) that he only pulled down 38% of the vote against Democrat Julia Brownley. We can hope he chooses to stay out of politics and return to his busy life of sitting at home waiting for the phone to ring for acting work for calls that never come. He insists that Hollywood is blacklisting him for supporting Donald Trump, and still believes that to this day, going as far as to compare his treatment by Hollywood to how Jews were treated during the Holocaust (invoking Godwin’s Law where it shouldn’t be applied… classic). Nobody was casting him as a lead in any major projects for long before Trump ever menaced America by coming down that escalator in 2015, so… whatever you want to tell yourself, Antonio. Just go away.

[InformationGeek]

Man... the silence Mike Pence got is deafening.

[Tami]

Mike Pence accused of humiliating hosts in Ireland: 'He shat on the carpet'

Missteps during Mike Pence’s visit to Ireland that included controversial praise of the British prime minister, Boris Johnson, have led to accusations of betrayal and “humiliation”.

One Irish Times columnist concluded that the vice-president, a “much-anticipated visitor”, turned out to have “shat on the … carpet”.

Pence’s problems started with his decision to stay for two nights at Donald Trump’s golf resort in Doonbeg, County Clare, more than 140 miles from Dublin, necessitating costly and logistically complex travel. The move quickly drew fire from ethics experts and political rivals.

The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, called Trump’s properties a “cesspool of corruption” and accused the president of “prioritizing his profits over the interests of the American people”.

“Pence is just the latest Republican elected official to enable President Trump’s violations of the constitution,” she said.

A spokesman for the vice-president said the decision was partly based on the president’s suggestion Pence stay there, and partly on secret service concerns about costs and logistics. Questioned about the decision on Wednesday, Trump claimed he had “no involvement, other than it’s a great place”.

But that was only the start of the controversy.

You'd think Pence didn't realize where he was.

[Jack Dracula]

Mike Pence accused of humiliating hosts in Ireland: 'He shat on the carpet'



You'd think Pence didn't realize where he was.

Mike Pence is an empty suit. He squints and tilts his head like he's thinking about stuff but there's just nothing going on in there.

[Tami]

Walgreens joins Walmart and Kroger in asking customers to no longer openly carry guns

Walgreens announced Thursday it was asking customers to "no longer openly carry firearms" in its stores. Authorized law enforcement officials would be exempt from the request, the second-largest pharmacy chain, with 9,560 stores, said in a statement.

The announcement comes two days after Walmart asked its customers not to openly carry firearms in stores — even in states where it is permitted. Walmart also said that it would discontinue the sale of ammunition used in high-capacity magazines and military-style weapons. Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said the retailer will stop selling short-barrel rifle ammunition, such as the .223 and 5.56 caliber, which can be used in high-capacity magazines and military-style weapons.

Ohio-based supermarket chain Kroger, which has nearly 2,800 stores nationwide, also said this week it is asking shoppers not to openly carry guns in any of its stores.

The retail chains' measures follow mass shootings around the country in the past two months that have claimed dozens of lives.

[Tami]

Bernie Sanders tells squealing baby to pipe down at campaign stop

Bernie Sanders slipped into a bit of a Larry David moment on the campaign trail Tuesday, grumbling at a squealing baby to pipe down.

“If we could keep that down a little bit,” the Vermont senator said in a moment captured on video that was posted to social media. “OK — thanks.”

The sometimes curmudgeonly liberal firebrand shut down the shrieking tot while speaking in Epsom, N.H., according to Splinter News.

[Vegan Daddy]

He just got my vote