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

[Tami]

Justice Department Launches Antitrust Probe Into Four Auto Makers

Government seeks to determine if Ford, Honda, BMW, VW violated competition law by agreeing with each other to follow emissions standards beyond those proposed by Trump administration

Can the Trump administration get any more absurd? While British Parliament is acting like a Monty Python skit, the Trump Administration is one-upping SNL.

[GindyPosts]

To those who believe in Karma:

Robert Mugabe died in Singapore, at the ripe old age of 95. Other than being forced from office, he never paid for his many crimes and lived his final days in luxury and comfort.

But hey, at least he is gone.

Only people mourning are those who genuinely believe that military strongmen who betray the populist trust who brought them into power is a good thing since they keep blaming the white man who divided up the African continent in the 1700s and 1800s. You know, "Pan-Africanism"?

And I know what I typed may sound a little off-color, but there are people in the movement who genuinely believed Mugabe was a key leader in the Pan-Africanist movement due to his constant bashing of South Africa, and admit his atrocities were just "a few mistakes".

[Jack Dracula]

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”

I'm tempted t compare Steve King to a dog but it wouldn't be fair. Dogs are nice and have value.

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

Cue the youtube videos of idiots burning their Walmart and Krogers cards.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Justice Department Launches Antitrust Probe Into Four Auto Makers


Can the Trump administration get any more absurd? While British Parliament is acting like a Monty Python skit, the Trump Administration is one-upping SNL.

Well, BoJo definitely ain't John Cleese, and Trump couldn't touch John Belushi.

[Tami]

Trump officials broke law by using entrance fees to keep parks open, watchdog says

The Interior Department broke federal spending law when it dipped into national park fees to keep its most popular sites operating during this winter’s partial federal shutdown, the Government Accountability Office concluded Thursday.

In a 17-page opinion, the GAO found that Trump administration officials violated the law by using fees parks collected under the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act, which are designed to support visitor services, to fund operations and basic maintenance. This approach violated both the lands law as well as the Antideficiency Act, which imposes restrictions on how agencies can redirect money without congressional approval.

At the time, National Park Service Deputy Director P. Daniel Smith said the agency needed to divert the funds because keeping parks open but understaffed was no longer tenable.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" published profiles of the U.S. House Representative from Utah’s 3rd District, Jason Chaffetz, who in our first profile, we noted about how in 2012 he fanatically campaigned on behalf of Mitt Romney (including contradicting Mitt and saying he would run again and WIN in 2016). Jason Chaffetz also is a prolific back-stabbing weasel of the highest order, even to veterans of his own party who give him a hand up the power structure. Chaffetz also has carried out a personal vendetta with the TSA, convinced that he's searched because they're union employees and badmouthing them at every opportunity. As a member of the House Oversight Committee, Chaffetz had already participated in various witch hunts led by Darrell Issa, including interviews about Benghazi, insisting it is a scandal of unimaginable magnitude in spite of the fact that he has never produced, or seen any evidence to indicate there's anything to it. He’s also a pretty prolific warmonger, because he not only criticized the Obama administration for trying to negotiate a nuclear treaty with Iran, but he called for pre-emptive strikes on all “nuclear sites” they might have. Betrayal at the hands of the Utah Congressman is frequent enough that the term “getting Chaffetzed” was becoming frequent on Capitol Hill during his tenure. Chaffetz continued Darrell Issa’s pattern of having the House Oversight Committee waste millions of dollars on phantom “scandals”, including when he continuously interrupt Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards to try and rattle her during her five hour testimony before the panel. Chaffetz also took time to insult Richards and claim she was overpaid, for her $200,000 salary and embarrassed himself during his closing comments as he demanded a response from Richards to a chart he held up that showed inaccurate (i.e. false) statistics about abortion. Richards humiliated him by responding, “My lawyer’s informing me the source is Americans United for Life, which is an anti-abortion group,” said Richards. “So you might want to check your source.”

By July of 2016, after the investigation by FBI Director James Comey into Hillary Clinton's e-mails found no evidence of wrongdoing, and no indictments, Jason Chaffetz was one of several Republicans who demanded an investigation of James Comey's investigation. This is after Chaffetz had previously been hailing Director Comey as “a man of integrity and honesty”, but after his investigation did not produce sufficient evidence to press charges, suddenly he was suspect. Oh, and your tax dollars would pay for both investigations. Well, once Donald Trump won the electoral college in the 2016 elections thanks to GOP voter suppression tactics and Russian interference, a lot of smart folks around the United States realized that having the House Oversight Committee keep an eye on a corrupt businessman with authoritarian leanings so that he didn’t become an equally corrupt president. Whether it was the alarming news breaking about General Michael Flynn meeting with Russians, or any of Donald Trump’s own business dealings with Russia, Chaffetz suddenly wanted to sit on his thumbs. While some thought this was simply a matter of Chaffetz being a partisan dildo, others like reporter Louise Mensch indicated that there could be a strong possibility that an outside group had compromising material on the Utah Congressman. Within a few days of Mensch reporting that on Twitter, all of a sudden Jason Chaffetz abruptly announced he wouldn’t seek re-election in 2018, and then amended his announcement to say he wouldn’t finish out his term, resigning from office completely. This weasel has moved on to work as a Fox News contributor, even though his punch-worthy face is much more worthy of radio. It seems we won’t have the misfortune to have to discuss him for some time, but we’ll note that Chaffetz’s name keeps getting thrown around as a potential future Governor of Utah…

On this date in 2018, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled Michael Snyder, a 2018 candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives for Idaho’s 1st Congressional District, and stunt-mustache from To Catch a Predator. The day before announcing his candidacy, that Snyder had ranted against “men not dressing like men and women dressing like women” in an op-ed. As the 2016 election approached Snyder called Hillary Clinton a modern-day Jezebel and began flailing about claiming that the “elite” might launch an attack on Donald Trump and his family and blame it on a “lone wolf”, or create a “false flag” event so they could cancel or suspend the election. Perhaps that, and spreading his own conspiracy theory about the Las Vegas shooter being a secret anti-Trump activist with ties to Antifa, is why Snyder won the endorsement of the even-more-bats*** crazy Alex Jones.If that’s still not insane enough for you, Snyder would also claim to be the “most Pro-Trump candidate” while assuring confidence in everyday Americans by plugging his book about the Rapture, and making paranoid statements on social media where he’d mention the End Times, Like you do. Snyder’s platform, outside of conspiracy theories and warnings out of the Book of Revelations featured abolishing the income tax and the IRS, building President Trump’s stupid border wall along the U.S. border with Mexico, allowing communities to “say no to refugees” and his vow “to completely destroy Planned Parenthood as an organization.” As one would hope, Michael Snyder proved too wacky and apocalyptic for voters at the polls, and he finished a distant fifth with only 10% of the vote in the primary, slightly worse than CSGOPOTD alumni Christy Perry. He may now go back to his full time job, trying to scare people that the book “Left Behind” is non-fiction, and at this time, we will set aside his profile at this time and go ahead and take a look at a different kooky Republican today instead. (Current crazy/stupid scoreboard, is now 781-40, since this was established in July 2014.)

[worstblogever]

Tim Burchett

Welcome to the 781st original “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profile, where today we’ll be discussing the U.S. House Representative from Tennessee’s 2nd Congressional District, Tim Burchett, who is now serving in his freshman term in office after winning in the 2018 elections with 66% of the vote, allowing him to replace the disgraced John Duncan, Jr. in a highly conservative district that the GOP have held since, oh… 1857. Mind you, Burchett underperformed what Duncan used to do at the polls, because Buchett, the former mayor of Knox County, is a rabid Bigfoot enthusiast, whose greatest achievement in terms of policy was to make it legal for his constituents at home to eat roadkill when he was still a member of the Tennessee state legislature in the 1990s. (Knox County apparently prefers their mayors eccentric, as Burchett’s replacement was Glenn Jacobs, aka WWE’s Kane.)

So… yes, they elected a Bigfoot hunter to Congress. No word on if he and Denver Riggleman are planning on forming a Sasquatch caucus, but at least we haven’t read about Burchett writing any missing link erotica like Riggleman.

Burchett has a long, sordid history of campaign finance violations dating back to his time in the Tennessee State Senate, including an investigation in 2018 that had the FBI considering whether or not they should pursue tax evasion charges. He also has been quite prolific on Twitter, being dumb enough to besmirch the University of Tennessee football team (not a smart political move for someone from Tennessee), and to make non-sequitir attacks on “Serbian dirtbags”.

The latter slight, he of course refuses to apologize for, and the former he blew off as “something I deleted after five minutes”. His voting record, though, truly has some things in it he may want to say he’s sorry to the American people for:

• January 22nd, 2019: Burchett votes against HR 676, which would prevent Donald Trump from doing the unthinkable and walking away from our allies in NATO to appease the Russians.
• January 23rd, 2019: Rep. Burchett voted against HR 648, because he was gleeully enjoying the longest government shutdown in history.
• February 28th, 2019: Tim Burchett votes against HR 1112, a bill which would have required universal background checks on all firearm purchases, and close the gun show loophole.
• March 14th, 2019: Rep. Burchett votes against HJR 46, which sane members of Congress voted for to reject Donald Trump’s “national emergency” regarding the U.S. border and his attempts to reallocate funds for a border wall without Congressional approval.
• April 4th, 2019: Tim Burchett is one of 158 Republicans who choose to vote against the re-authorization of the Violence Against Women Act, likely because they feel the 2nd Amendment remaining absolute is more important than preventing people with a history of domestic abuse from owning a firearm (which statistics show, makes them more likely to use those firearms against women in their lives).
• May 17th, 2019: Burchett fails to even show up to vote for The Equality Act, which would have prevented discrimination towards Americans based on their gender identity or sexual orientation.
• June 4th, 2019: Rep. Burchett votes against the Dreamers Act, because he’s too xenophobic and partisan to care about immigration reform.
• July 16th, 2019: Tim Burchett is one of 187 Republicans who vote against a resolution to condemn Donald Trump for his racist statements that four people of color in Congress should “go back where they came from”.

We’re unsure of how long we’ll be profiling Tim Burchett, as on one hand, he’s been floating around Tennessee’s political scene for a quarter century, but on the other hand, he’s just careless enough to get taken down by some sort of ethical lapse… but we can only wait to see how long it will take before he tries pandering to sasquatch enthusiasts on the floor of the House. If his time in Washington, D.C., ends without that happening, we’ll be shocked.

[Robotman]

Is Trump trying to force Ukraine into meddling in the 2020 election?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini....co/NdFJL0rEli

[Tami]

Is Trump trying to force Ukraine into meddling in the 2020 election?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini....co/NdFJL0rEli

Extortion, holding the money that Congress gave them to defend against Putin, holding it until they do what Trump wants.

[Iron Maiden]

Good grief. I may need an intervention. Trump challenger Joe Walsh, who as I recall is no prize himself, actually sounded sane at times on Bill Maher tonight. Well, more sane than Trump anyway. These are strange times we are living in.

[Tendrin]

Good grief. I may need an intervention. Trump challenger Joe Walsh, who as I recall is no prize himself, actually sounded sane at times on Bill Maher tonight. Well, more sane than Trump anyway. These are strange times we are living in.

Nope, no rehabilitation here...

[Gray Lensman]

The Overton window has moved so far into lala land that we might need to rename it to the Over Yonder window.

[worstblogever]

Is Trump trying to force Ukraine into meddling in the 2020 election?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini....co/NdFJL0rEli

Extortion, holding the money that Congress gave them to defend against Putin, holding it until they do what Trump wants.

Which, in any other administration, would be a damning revelation. Trump is extorting protection like a mob boss from one of our allies, while weakening them against an adversary that he keeps enabling at every turn.

But watch the GOP just whistle and look at the ceiling as Trump continues to rack up high crimes and misdemeanors.

[worstblogever]

In 2014, 2015, as well as 2016, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" published profiles of Marlin Stutzman, the former U.S. House Representative from Indiana's 3rd District and the guy you probably remember as one of the poster children for the GOP during the 2013 Government Shutdown by declaring, “We’re not going to be disrespected! We’ve got to get something out of this! AND I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT THAT IS!” That laughable temper tantrum aside, Stutzman is also a big opponent of same sex marriage, as well as eliminating welfare (even though he himself collects farm subsidies). Stutzman was defeated by Todd Young in the GOP Primary for his seat in the 2016 elections, and is currently working on attempts to orchestrate his wife’s future as an Indiana state legislator.

It was on this date in 2017 that “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled Shiva Ayyadurai, who wanted to challenge the highly cagey Democratic U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren in the 2018 elections. His entire strategy to appeal to GOP Primary voters was to try to position himself as the best candidate to exploit the fact that ages ago, based off of what her family members told her, Elizabeth Warren answered a college survey that she was “Native American” for her race. Shiva figured because he is of Indian descent he could refer to himself as “the real Indian” in this race who can defeat “a fake Indian”, and boasted that he sent Sen. Warren a DNA testing kit so she can determine her ancestry. But that’s not the only fun fact about Shiva Ayyadurai. He had a celebrity wife, in the form of Fran Drescher, of “The Nanny” fame. Oh, and he claims he invented e-mail. Which was evented when Shiva was 14 years old by American inventor Richard Tomlinson. And he filed a lawsuit against Gawker for publishing a story that he didn’t invent e-mail that was paid for by billionaire Peter Thiel. The fact that Gawker settled with Thiel because of the Hulk Hogan part of that lawsuit has made Ayyadurai claim he’s been vindicated as e-mail’s true creator, even though the technology was around prior to when he named an already existing electronic mailing system “e-mail”. That’s not inventing it. Anyway, Shiva Ayyadurai continues to be a fascinating study as a politician, as he recently miscalculated and found himself as the keynote speaker at a “Free Speech” rally thrown by the Alt-Right in Boston (the one where 40,000 Bostonians showed up to chase off about 50 Neo-Nazis. Shiva insisted, though, he had no idea who the organizers of the “free speech” rally that was a hate rally actually were. Which is FASCINATING, because one of the people strongly supporting Ayyadurai’s campaign is Mike Cernovich, who you might have heard of as the Alt-Right lunatic who created the “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory. They keep tabs on one another on Twitter all the time. Perhaps wisely, the Massachusetts GOP thought that embracing all that insanity would not help their long term chances, and Ayyadurai was forced to run as an independent this fall and has since cut ties with the Republican Party, at least for now.

On this date in 2018, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled Seth Grossman, a 2018 candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives for New Jersey’s 2nd Congressional District, whose most famous political achievement prior to that was getting crushed at the polls in the 2013 GOP Gubernatorial Primary, earning but 8% of the vote against CSGOPOTD alumni Chris Christie. In 2018, Grossman won a four candidate primary by embracing Donald Trump’s presidency (including supporting his stupid border wall, and denying the existence of climate change). Shortly after Seth Grossman won the primary for this race, he faced criticism when his comments from a Republican debate emerged when he said, “diversity is crap and Un-American”. After being called out for it, Grossman then tried to “spin” his way out of it… HA! Just kidding. Grossman only would endorse diversity in “ethnic restaurants”, which made it worse. Grossman then claimed that Democrats only oppose Donald Trump on immigration because they want more Latin Americans in the country who would be allowed to vote and help them win elections. At that point, the press did some digging, and within a few weeks, found out a few years prior that Seth Grossman had shared an article on his Facebook page that warned that “blacks are a threat to all that cross their paths”. At that point, the National Republican Party cut all ties and financial support out from under Seth Grossman, which he had the nerve to complain about, and tried to explain that he shared the article in question without reading the whole thing, hitting the “Share” button because he’d seen too much violence from Black Lives Matter protesters towards police (that also isn’t actually happening). Grossman still managed 45% of the vote at the polls, which is far closer of a race it should have ever been. 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 782-40, since this was established in July 2014.)


Cindy Hyde-Smith

Welcome to the 782nd original “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profile, where today we’ll be discussing U.S. Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith of Missouri, who served in the Mississippi State Senate from 2000-2012, and after winning two terms as Mississippi’s Commissioner of Agriculture of Commerce in 2011 and 2015, respectively, she was originally appointed by Gov. Phil Bryant to replace the retiring Thad Cochran, but she still had to win the 2018 special election to remain in that seat through the end of Cochran’s term in 2021.

That special election put a pretty large magnifying glass on Cindy Hyde-Smith, and what people found wasn’t exactly inspiring. People already had concerns about her attitudes on race when she came out in support of Donald Trump’s stupid idea for a border wall between the United States and Mexico, but a series of gaffes in November of 2018 made her look pretty friggin’ racist, to say the least. The first was at a campaign stop where she met a local rancher and said “if he invited me to a public hanging, I’d be in the front row”.

Given Mississippi’s nasty history of lynchings, this was perhaps not the best expression to use. And yet, she waited over a week for outrage to grow before she gave a meek apology. But then, a video came out of her on November 2nd, 2018, where she talked about “liberal folks in those other schools who that maybe we don’t want to vote… Maybe we want to make it just a little more difficult…And I think that’s a great idea.” For those keeping score at home, she just described actively creating a campaign of voter suppression against liberals and how cool that would be for her.

By the time photos of her surfaced where she was posing wearing a Confederate hat and holding a musket in 2014… we really didn’t need to learn that she attended a segregated “whites only” academy as a schoolgirl and sent her daughter to one as well. Hell, there were photos of her on the cheerleading team posing with the “school mascot” that was just a kid in a Confederate general’s uniform.

But because it’s Mississippi, none of that was a dealbreaker, and Hyde-Smith went on to win the special election over Mike Espy. She thus has been able to remain in Washington, where she’s served as little more than a rubber stamp for Donald Trump, and approve every wildly unqualified or corrupt person he has nominated for a spot on a federal bench, and other such terrible folks as torture maven Gina Haspel, accused rapist Brett Kavanaugh, and blatant toady William Barr.

We’re guessing she’s still vulnerable enough that she will get a primary challenge from a Republican in 2020, but we’re positive regardless of how things play out, she’s going to embarrass the GOP on some level before that election comes to pass.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Which, in any other administration, would be a damning revelation. Trump is extorting protection like a mob boss from one of our allies, while weakening them against an adversary that he keeps enabling at every turn.

But watch the GOP just whistle and look at the ceiling as Trump continues to rack up high crimes and misdemeanors.

Which Republicans are doing out of either fear or apathy. Moscow Mitch damn sure doesn't give a fuck, continuing to use Trump to stack the courts with right wing ideologues.

====================

Republicans Squirm As Trump’s Wall Takes Money For Projects On Their Turf

GOP officials are blaming Democrats after the Trump administration defunded military projects in their states. The horribly twisted logic of Republicans, blaming Dems because Trump couldn't get Mexico to pay for his vanity wall which HE PROMISED WOULD HAPPEN!

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Meanwhile, the latest developments in L’affaire Dorian:

NOAA Disavows Birmingham’s National Weather Service Tweet Contradicting Trump

Former NOAA Official Calls Support For Trump’s Alabama Flub Agency’s ‘Darkest Day’

Trump Wants An Apology For ‘Nonsense’ Reporting On His Alabama Hurricane Fixation

Donald Trump Tried To Troll CNN Over Hurricane Dorian And It Didn’t Go So Well

And all this needless drama happened, and still IS happening, because Trump refused to admit he made a mistake about something he doesn't know jack shit about....predicting the weather. This would be comedic if it wasn't tragic.

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CDC Issues Another Warning Against Vaping After Series Of Deaths

Officials said they had identified 450 possible cases of people developing serious breathing illnesses after vaping, including a newly reported death.

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More Dire News For Trump In The Heartland: Past-Due Wisconsin Farmer Loans Hit Record

Downturn in farm belt fortunes isn’t good for Trump. Still, chances are farmers will vote for Trump again, despite his having screwed them over six ways to Sunday.

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Pence’s Stay At Trump’s Irish Golf Resort Is Now Under House Investigation

Whether the president violated the Constitution by pitching his Miami resort for the next G-7 summit is also under review. Well, shit! Of course Caramel Caligula violated the damn law! He's been doing that since day fucking one!