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

[Malvolio]

4 Takeaways From The Third 2020 Democratic Debate

A temporary truce holds among the top-tier trio of presidential candidates in Houston.

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Trump Called Him ‘My African American,’ But Now He’s Ditching GOP To Run For Congress

Gregory Cheadle, now an independent, told “PBS NewsHour” that Republicans use Black men like him as “political pawns” in a “pro-white” agenda. Took long enough for that clueless stooge to figure that out.

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Trump Gives A Rambling Mess Of A Speech At The GOP’s Baltimore Retreat — And He’s A Hit

The takeover of the Republican Party is complete. Yup, just call it the Trumpublican Party.

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Trump’s Air Force Nominee Won’t Commit To A Ban On Stays At Trump Hotels

Barbara Barrett wouldn’t say whether it is inappropriate for the service to spend tax dollars at the president’s properties. Well, of course she didn't, otherwise, she'll lose Trump's support.

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Trump Just Got Mike Pence’s Name Wrong, And Twitter Users Were Quick To Pounce

The vice president’s new nickname is already catching on. 'Mike Pounce'. Heh! I kinda like that handle!

Maybe Trump was thinking of South Dakota Senator Mike Rounds and tried to say his name and Mike Pence at the same time. That means that Trump is capable of having two thoughts in his head at the same time, but this is what happens when he does.

[Ragged Maw]

Heard some (now former)Republican named Greg Cheadle quit the GOP just recently. Predictably, there’s internet gossip as to whether his reasons for doing so were “pure” or not.

[Tami]

Heard some (now former)Republican named Greg Cheadle quit the GOP just recently. Predictably, there’s internet gossip as to whether his reasons for doing so were “pure” or not.

I read on Twitter (take it for what it's worth) that he's thinking of running for political office.

[Ragged Maw]

I read on Twitter (take it for what it's worth) that he's thinking of running for political office.

Yeah, and as an Independent, IIRC.

[Michael Watkins]

republican loyalty is a lot like insect politics.

[ChadH]

I will point out that most people advocating impeachment aren't suggesting that it will pass the McConnel Senate. They are suggesting a moral argument. If you can't impeach Trump then congress is truly supine and fangless in the face of a lawless and corrupt executive. There are understandable reasons to slow roll it, but while they are, trump is packing the courts with lifetime appointments of some truly absurd ideologues and doing his level best to raze the future that future generations could have had.

The dude is eminently impeachable on a whole lot of grounds and if we had a Senate majority that cared about the rule of law more than they do packing the judiciary with conservative ideologues and authoritarian apologists it would be a done deal.

And don't give me 'oh, but then we'd get Pence'. We already have Pence. He's already writing the transphobic policies coming out of this administration that some people on this board liked to assure us was never going to happen because Trump was from New York.

You've brouht up some of the reasons why I feel the Presidency should be secondary concern for the Democrats in 2020. We should be focusing more on hobbling McConnell in the Senate and gaining more ground in Congress.

[SquirrelMan]

Heard some (now former)Republican named Greg Cheadle quit the GOP just recently. Predictably, there’s internet gossip as to whether his reasons for doing so were “pure” or not.

He is the one Trump called "my African American" during the campaign.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

You've brouht up some of the reasons why I feel the Presidency should be secondary concern for the Democrats in 2020. We should be focusing more on hobbling McConnell in the Senate and gaining more ground in Congress.

Agreed. I've been saying that a lot of late. Winning the presidency would be meaningless if Moscow Mitch is still around to be a human roadblock. Reclaiming the Senate should be equally as important, if not moreso.

[Mister Mets]

He was a very good politician. I think people forget that frequently.

Unfortunate, then, that his conciliatory approach to the Republicans helped embolden them to the point we are now at.

What could Obama have done that would have achieved different policy results?

[worstblogever]

*sets up the WBE signal*

A quick google could not tell me if you've profiled Briscoe Cain yet, but I presume given his history of antics you've already got him in the queue if you haven't. You might need to bump him up in place because...

Attachment 87006

Yes, that's a TX state rep threatening the life of a presidential candidate out loud on twitter.

He also made news recewntly for wanting to abolish the city government of Austin because abortion.

Wingnuts already responding in force that this threat is okay because guns.

I've had Briscoe Cain in my queue since he pulled a gun on Democrats about a year or so ago outside the Texas state legislature. His spotlight is due on... *checks* Christmas Eve of this year.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, as well as 2018, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" published profiles of the U.S. House Representative from North Dakota’s At-Large District, Kevin Cramer, currently in his third term in office. Among Rep. Cramer’s finer quotes are insisting climate change is trending in the opposite direction and that CO2 emissions have nothing to do with any warming phenomenon (he was the adviser of the Trump campaign’s energy policies, go figure), as well as the time he talked about how Native American tribal elders and said he’d like to “wring the necks and slam their heads against the wall” for being upset about his vote against the version of the Violence Against Women Act that would have provided protections to Native American women. Rounding out this classy individual’s resume, he denies LGBT discrimination in the workplace even EXISTS, and insisted he was keeping his paycheck during the 2013 Government Shutdown because “he earned it” while also trying to throw people off of food stamps based on quotes he read of Christian scripture on the floor of the House (because Jesus was TOTALLY against feeding the poor.) Our last update also indicated that Cramer had been widely criticized during his first run for office for filming campaign advertisements in a veterans’ cemetery as well as the North Dakota Patriot Guard in one of their motorcycle rallies, and had jeopardized the funding for both, by making them involved in a political campaign without their permission. Cramer did not apologize to either group, justified it by saying “there was nothing illegal about it” and in interviews, refused to even say if he would continue to film ads in veterans’ cemeteries without permission.

After Rep. Cramer’s re-election, he remains a thorough ***hole. In March of 2017, after several Democratic Congresswomen dressed for an address by Donald Trump to Congress by wearing white pantsuits, which was a nod to the Suffragette movement that got women the right to vote about a century ago. But that nuance is missed by Kevin Cramer, who responded to it by saying that these women had a “disease”, insulting how they looked, and were obsessed with Hillary Clinton’s election loss:

“But by the way, did you notice how poorly several of them were dressed as well?” he asked. “It is a syndrome. There is no question, there is a disease associated with the notion that a bunch of women would wear bad-looking white pantsuits in solidarity with Hillary Clinton to celebrate her loss. You cannot get that weird.”

Now, things can get even more embarrassing than that. In April of 2017, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer gave a bizarre statement at the podium, where he tried comparing Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad to Adolf Hitler by assessing “even Hitler never gassed his own people”. (News flash: He totally ordered that done in concentration camps.) Now, nobody in their right mind would, or could defend those remarks. But Kevin Cramer, you see, it not in his right mind, as he exhibited in an interview with a North Dakota conservative talk radio host, saying that Spicer’s Holocaust denial “had some validity”.

"The media is so gullible, they fall for these things because they think it's really hot stuff and the public just can't wait to stick it to Sean Spicer -- who 99% of the people wouldn't have the foggiest idea who he is and it distracts them from other things. I can't even believe that anybody in the media, much less all of the major networks, led with this story. A spokesperson, who by the way made a poor illustration, but it's not completely, it's not without some validity."

A few weeks later in May of 2017, House Republicans were floating the AHCA as a method of repealing the Affordable Care Act, that would throw 24 million people off their health insurance, cause tens of thousands of more deaths a year, and all for the “benefit” of getting the richest Americans tax breaks. And Kevin Cramer faced down a hostile town hall as this vote approached, and was directly asked about that tax break for the wealthy, and lied in the faces of the people he represents, denying that it existed. The man asking Rep. Cramer the question responded by angrily stuffing a handful of money down his collar, a direct way of accusing that Cramer can be bought so easily.

Kevin Cramer wasn’t content to remain in the House to represent North Dakota, where in 2012, Sen. Heidi Heitkamp pulled what was considered a big upset to land a Senate seat. Kramer opted to challenge er instead, and funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars back towards himself in the 2018 defense of Heitkamp’s seat, leaving him under investigation by the FEC. and managed to unseat her with 55% of the vote.

He has immediately taken to voting for every judicial nominee and Trump administration nominee for every post, no matter how unqualified they might be. Cramer also furthered our belief that he’s a piece of garbage when he responded to Donald Trump’s racist attacks upon Elijah Cummings and the city of Baltimore by claiming that it wasn’t that bad because sometimes he gets “snide” comments because he’s from North Dakota, therefore he believed “he could be a victim of racism”.

Sadly, we still know that it won’t be until 2024 that something can be done about this complete son of a b****.

[ChadH]

Agreed. I've been saying that a lot of late. Winning the presidency would be meaningless if Moscow Mitch is still around to be a human roadblock. Reclaiming the Senate should be equally as important, if not moreso.

Not to mention what will happen if Ruth Bader Ginsberg retires. McConnell and Grassley have shown they don't care about the good of the country or due process and I'm sure are prepared to block any nominations by a Democratic President for the entire four years.

If god forbid, we get another 4 years of Trump his next term would almost certainly end in impeachment or possibly incarceration. If another Republican is elected, they'll be hamstrung and the disaffected Republican electorate will blame that administration for not making all of their bigoted, racist dreams come true.

Right now the Presidency isn't as important as Democrats want to believe. Fighting over who's the better candidate is exactly what the GOP wants because it erodes peoples faith in the party and makes some less likely to vote for their Democratic representatives.

[Tami]

DOJ argues House lawmakers should not gain access to Mueller grand jury materials

(CNN)The Justice Department said Friday that a request to a federal court from House Democrats seeking access to secret grand jury material underlying special counsel Robert Mueller's report should be turned down because the lawmakers have "come nowhere close to demonstrating a particularized need" for the information.

House Democrats first filed suit in July, days after Mueller's testimony on Capitol Hill, asking the court to order the release of grand jury information connected to the Mueller report to the House Judiciary Committee. The Democrats argue they need the information to consider whether to move toward impeachment proceedings.

Specifically, the lawmakers are seeking the unredacted Mueller report, as well as transcripts of grand jury testimony related to President Donald Trump's knowledge of Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 election and links between members of his campaign and Russians. Lawmakers also want any grand jury testimony related to Trump's knowledge of any potential "criminal acts" by him or his associates.

In the filing, the the Justice Department called lawmakers' request an "extraordinary order" that is overly broad.

[Tami]

House GOP to Run in 2020 on Reducing the Debt They Helped Grow

House Republicans plan to run on tried-and-true issues in 2020: repealing Obamacare and reducing the national debt, even though the GOP fell short of both goals the last time the party had full control of Washington.

“The first thing we would do is make sure our debt is taken care of,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy told reporters during a meeting of party members in Baltimore to work on their election-year agenda.

This week, the annual budget deficit reached $1 trillion under President Donald Trump’s watch. When Republicans controlled the House, Senate and White House last year, they enacted tax cuts estimated to add $1.5 trillion in deficits over 10 years.

Republicans plan to reduce the debt by repealing Obamacare, McCarthy said, a day after Democratic presidential candidates vowed to greatly expand government’s role in health care during their third debate.

Democrats view health care and the defense of Obamacare as the key issue that sealed their takeover of the House in the 2018 election.

[Tendrin]

I've had Briscoe Cain in my queue since he pulled a gun on Democrats about a year or so ago outside the Texas state legislature. His spotlight is due on... *checks* Christmas Eve of this year.

That does seem pretty queue worthy and I recall reading about it way back then. Just... frigging yikes.