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

[Tami]

John Kelly joins board of company operating largest shelter for unaccompanied migrant children

Why is this not surprising?

[WestPhillyPunisher]

The Trump Administration Is Expanding Its Network Of Privatized Immigrant Prisons

Three new contracts mark the reversal of the Obama administration’s short-lived attempt to deprivatize federal prisons. Sounds ominous to me.

**********

Exclusive: Army Investigating Soldier’s Alleged Leadership In Neo-Nazi Terror Group

The Army private is allegedly a recent leader of the Atomwaffen Division, a violent white supremacist group. Make that shitstain an EX-private and lock his happy ass up!

**********

North Korea Fires An Unidentified Short-Range Missile

The weapons test comes as diplomatic talks with the U.S. have stalled. I guess Dolt45 and Rocketman lost that lovin' feeling.

**********

Group Assaults Florida Man, Forcibly Tattoos Misspelled Racial Slur On His Neck: Police

The victim’s new tattoo read, “F**k you, Niger.” Talk about total and complete scum!

**********

Kamala Harris Fires Back At Donald Trump For Calling Her ‘Nasty’

“His primary interest has been to obstruct justice,” the 2020 presidential candidate said. “My primary interest is to pursue justice.” I guess Rep. Harris has Trump's attention if he's calling her names like the knuckledragging bully he is.

[aja_christopher]

"Trump, Putin discussed Mueller report and agreed no collusion, White House Says"

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/whi...house-n1001706

[WestPhillyPunisher]

"Trump, Putin discussed Mueller report and agreed no collusion, White House Says"

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/whi...house-n1001706

So, Dolt45 reported to his handler and discussed a report most members of Congress probably hadn't seen yet. That must've had people in the intelligence community collectively pulling their hair out in clumps.

[worstblogever]

John Kelly joins board of company operating largest shelter for unaccompanied migrant children

Why is this not surprising?

It's not enough to just be racist, but to profit from it? That's the sort of thing that would make King Leopold II of Belgium smile.

"Trump, Putin discussed Mueller report and agreed no collusion, White House Says"

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/whi...house-n1001706

Gaslighting mother***ers.

[worstblogever]

It was on this date in 2015 that “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled Tom Ready, a former Pueblo County, Colorado Republican Party Chairman who was running for county commissioner in 2014. His record already was spotty, as he had been accused of domestic violence by his wife back in 1991, but he showed himself to be still a bit unpalatable as an elected official when during a debate against his opponent, he was confronted about having made several posts about the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary being a hoax. Rather than just blow off his opponent’s claim, Ready took the bait and began discussing his belief of the conspiracy to enact gun control, going as far as accusing one of the fathers of one of the victims of faking tears. The crowd was good enough to boo Ready for his disgusting remarks, and since he’s now probably too toxic to attempt to win an election again (we hope).

It was on this date in 2016 that “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled Jud McMillin, a former member of the Indiana House of Representatives who would coast to victory in all three elections he ran after taking office in the Tea Party Wave in 2010. However, in the midst of his third term in office, abruptly resigned after a graphic sex video of McMillin was sent from his cell phone video to many, if not all of his contacts. In what was perhaps the weirdest excuse ever for such a thing to have happened, McMillin blamed this incident on Canadian thieves having stolen his phone, and then uploading the videos during a trip to Quebec City (except McMillan was in them). McMillin’s resignation would make it clear that whoever starred in his video with him was not his wife, as in it, he made reference to how t he was married and that he “decided the time is right for me to pass the torch and spend more time with my family.” Jud likely has a lot of explaining to do, as this was not the first time he was ever caught sending out sex videos of himself… in 2005 he was forced to resign as a prosecutor after during a case where he was prosecuting a domestic violence case, he began sending videos of himself masturbating and playing around to dildos to the defendant’s accuser and wife. Now, here comes some delightful irony… Jud McMillin, as a state legislator, had previously blocked a bill to prevent people from being charged with revenge porn, so he wouldn’t be able to seek legal repercussion against whoever stole his phone and victimized him. Well, adding a dash of hypocrisy would probably be the fact that Jud McMillin was also a sponsor of Indiana’s “SB 101, the “Religious Freedom Restoration Act” and he previously voted to try and create an amendment to the Indiana state constitution to define marriage as between one man and one woman. Which means, yes, the guy who runs around on his wife and films it on his phone is just pretending when he says he’s writing laws to “protect the sanctity of marriage” from gay people based on their own religious beliefs. Shocking, I know. Now, as it turns out, not all of Jud McMillin’s ethical lapses were of a sexual nature, as he was also under investigation for funneling thousands of dollars of state grants funds for a casino project to his law firm back in 2013. McMillin, however, was not as keen as when others get government money, as he also led a failed effort to try to drug test all welfare recipients in the state of Indiana as a legislator on multiple occasions. There's no coming back from the amount of shadiness he exhibited to win office again, at least we’d hope.)

It was on this date in 2017, and 2018, that “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled Robert Fisher, a now former member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives who was outed in an investigation by The Daily Beast as having a variety of internet sock puppet accounts, perhaps the most inflammatory being "pk_Atheist", the creator of "The Red Pill", a Men's Rights' Activist forum on Reddit that advocates a pro-rape agenda. And we're not saying this is some scenario where Fisher created it, and trolls came along and took things to a dark place... he himself continued to frequently post about women being able to lie about rape to get men thrown in prison (and a paranoid fear this would happen to him), taping sexual encounters as evidence that it was not rape (with or without a woman's consent), women's "sub-par intelligence", tips on "negging" (a pick-up-artist tactic where a man gives backhanded compliments calculated to undermine confidence and make a woman more vulnerable to advances), how to “spin plates” (balance sleeping with several women at once), argued against statutory rape and age of consent laws because they supposedly gave the sexes unequal treatment, posted tips on how to engage in post-rape text messages with victims to get them to say they enjoyed themselves to use as evidence in court in case one was ever accused, and argued in defense of the rapists in the Steubenville, Ohio case. While first campaigning for state legislature in 2014, Fisher actually admitted to "lurking" on Men's Rights forums, and started a thread as himself to discuss a supposed plague of false rape accusations. At first, Robert Fisher tried logging in and deleting all his Reddit threads and his sock-puppet accounts, after the story broke, but Bonnie Bacarrisse, the journalist who exposed his alter-ego, thought ahead and archived and screen-capped Fisher’s work for posterity prior to publishing. Backed into a corner, Fisher released a statement where he pledged to “continue to stand strong for men's rights” We are thrilled to report that Fisher finally did resign in disgrace, rather than face disciplinary action for his online activities and the threat of perjury charges for lying about his ties to “The Red Pill”. As such, we’ll retire his CSGOPOTD profile at this time and go ahead and take a look at a different wacky Republican today instead. (Current crazy/stupid scoreboard, is now 749-40, since this was established in July 2014.)

[worstblogever]

David Eastman
Welcome to the 749th original “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profile, where today we’ll be taking a look at David Eastman, a current member of the Alaska House of Representatives first elected to office in 2016 after a failed attempt to win a seat on the Alaska State Senate back in 2012. His district is better known as the little Alaskan hamlet known as Wasilla, aka the wellspring that gave our nation Sarah Palin. And yeah, there might be something in the water in that burg.

David Eastman came to our attention here at CSGOPOTD because of the extent of his anti-choice fervor. It isn’t just that this upstart GOP legislator literally compares abortion to slavery, and in his one term and change in office, Eastman has already become known as the lunatic willing to be the one lone “no” vote on several pieces of bi-partisan legislative ideas, including honoring African Americans of the Vietnam War, and he once submitted an amendment to a bill aimed at raising awareness for sexual assault and child abuse that required that abortion would be referred to as a form of “child abuse”.

That’s still not all, Eastman is really “out there” on abortion. In an interview back in May of 2017, only a few months into his first term in office, he gave his opinion that there are women trying to deliberately get pregnant because they can use an abortion as a means to get a “free vacation” to come down to Anchorage:

“You have individuals who are in villages and are glad to be pregnant, so that they can have an abortion because there’s a free trip to Anchorage involved. We’ve created an incentive structure where people are now incented to carry their pregnancy longer than they would otherwise and then take part in that when they wouldn’t otherwise be doing it. I can think of a case that was brought to our attention earlier this session where you had a family who was very glad to hear that their abortion had gone beyond a certain point, because they were going to be heading to Seattle.”

So that little statement was enough to earn Eastman a censure from athe state legislature, and he dug in and refused to apologize for it. Amid the controversy, a legislative aide at the capitol who just resembled Eastman died his natural red hair blonde just to avoid catching hell from people who mistook him for Eastman. Alaska Republicans have also come to realize that Eastman is a corruption scandal waiting to happen, as by the end of his first term in office, he had committed an ethics violation by leaking information from a confidential state report to a reporter as a means of trying to damage a Democratic colleague.

We’re going to continue to monitor David Eastman going forward, because he seems like just the sort of nutter who would make more national headlines if he wasn’t way up north.

[Mister Mets]

Except I do not think Trump is a bug, I think he is a feature, I think he is the end result of the GOP's Southern Strategy and the dog whistles they have been using since the 60s. Trump won because he played on the fact that a lot of the GOP's base, are xenophobic.

Steve King was part of the GOP for a long time and only now when he brought too much heat on the GOP, they decide to punish him and I think you think bigotry in the GOP is limited to a few bad actors like King, I think you are mistaken:

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/...114-story.html

King's recent comments were worse than what came before, so that's the main reason he attracted internal opposition. It is also relevant that he is not the median Republican member of the House when it comes to this stuff; he is one of the more extreme members.

The Chicago Tribune piece is mainly about policy disagreements rather than active bigotry.

I do think the emphasis on the southern strategy, the idea that the use of race as a wedge issue, is the primary reason for Republican success in the South is highly flawed.

I posted some links on this a few years back. https://community.cbr.com/showthread...=1#post3176370

It is worth noting how long it took the transition to occur, and that when Democrats lost state legislatures in places like Arkansas (2012) and Alabama (2010) the majority of the people with really retrograde views on race in the old South (IE- they think intermarriage should be illegal and backed segregated schools) had been long dead.

Except I care about solutions to problems, to me the whole ''the alternative could be worse'' argument is not compelling. There can be details that can be worked out over time when crafting a solution, but to me, unless you can make the argument that justifies gerrymandering is better than ''the alternative could be worse'', I stand by my gerrymandering is bad for democracy and should be done away with. Just because its been around since 1812, does not make it a good thing.

Again, I'm not saying gerrymandering is a good thing. I want to get rid of it. My main concern is that we're bypassing the necessary step of determining what the new ideal standards of redistricting should be.

You can trust Rich Lowery and the National Review if you want, I don't have to. I have good reasons to think this article is filled with spin, I think the article is promoting an agenda, its not just reporting the facts.

You can prove anything in that Seattle Times article is wrong? If not, then we are at an impasse.

I can't prove the Seattle Times guy is completely right either. He doesn't establish that the district he was watching is representative of the state, which makes some mathematical assumptions of his a little wobbly. It is also anecdotal evidence.

He is careful to say that what happened was not fraudlent or illegal.

For the record, what I saw was neither illegal nor fraudulent. In June 2018, by a 5-to-4 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Georgia’s right to purge voters in this way. So by the letter of the law no wrongdoing of any form was taking place. The poll workers were simply upholding the laws they had sworn to protect.

This is a bit different from Stacey Abrams saying that she really won the election.

I think you are forgetting that a lot of people complained while the election was going on, To me it's completely logical to complain about injustice in the system while these injustices are being perpetrated. MLK was protesting how the system was being enacted back in the 60s, he has every right to complain about the system back, even if Jim Crow was the law of the land at the time. Ditto for the Georgia election.

I have no problem with complaints. My issue is with inaccurate claims, or with trying to change the rules while an election is underway.

But what's your argument then, that the election wasn't stolen? I can't prove with absolute certainty was stolen, but you can honestly say there is no argument wasn't stolen?

https://www.esquire.com/news-politic...mp-chuck-todd/

The National Review article interviewed the election officials who were working for Kemp to say it's fair, but of course, they would say that they have vested interest in saying that, them saying that, doesn't make it true and the National Review not digging any deeper than that, proves their bias.

Also, we all know different States have differnent election rules, maybe the rules in Georgia make it easier to game the system then the rules in Kansas or maybe Kemp is smarter then Kobach.

The onus would be on the person making a strong claim about corruption and illegality to prove it. Pierce's argument has some claims but limited evidence.

What makes your article better then any article I can post that makes the opposite case? Because I have posted 2 already (3 with this posting) and so far all you have done is dismiss with far less work then I have done attacking that National Review article. If you can't address what is said in those articles, then I wonder how you can say the Georgia Election problem was overblown. Also why would Kemp want to fix the system, when he was the one using its loopholes to his advantage?

What specifically is said in those articles that you would like me to address?

How can the prison reform movement beat the private prison movement in terms of money? To me, the private prison industry winning this due to having more money is a sign of corruption. How much money do these private prisons save the taxpayers and how are they good if their business model involves keeping people in prison as long as they can?

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/ar...ent-experiment

Give these people different jobs, rather having people earn living off keeping nonviolent drug offenders in prison forever. You are describing a Keynesian make-work project, we can create jobs and make society better, rather than worse, through infrastructure projects.

Again, how is small government, how much it cost to maintain this giant prison population, that sounds supremely wasteful.

You're responding to arguments I haven't made.

It seems unlikely to me that donations are the main factor in support for private prisons. There are other factors involved.

In 2016, the private prison industry gave $1.6 million in donations. If it were just about the money, it would be easy to offset.

https://www.opensecrets.org/industri....php?ind=G7000

The small government explanation is that Republicans are philosophically inclined to believe the private sector could handle problems better than the state, and that private prisons can be run cheaper and more efficiently than state and federal prisons.

Private prisons do represent a fraction of prisons in the US, so ending this aspect can be helpful, but it won't solve the main problems.

From the point of view of an employee at a prison, they might not think a change to spending on infrastructure will mean they'll get a job with the same quality.

I think the conservative movement has more actively become more xenophobic today, the supposed small government party wants to waste a ton of money on a stupid border wall and Trump's Muslim ban (that's what he called it during the election, so I am sticking with it).

You have children in cages on the border, it's hard not to see that the GOP is a far-right xenophobic party, after that. You have guys like Stephen Miller in positions of power.

Just because Biden is for abortion, does not make him a left winger, he seems fairly right on economics, foreign policy, law, and order, etc. To me if you want for a center-right guy, vote for Biden, Trump is the far right xenophobic choice.

Personally, I think Bernie would change for the better more then Biden would and frankly Trump speaks for himself at this point.

Within the context of American politics, Biden is left of center (IE- rank every statewide office holder from left to right; where does Biden fall?)

I've addressed the children in cages argument before. The fight over the wall isn't about cost. It's largely about the symbolism and questions of effectiveness.

[aja_christopher]

Shame this kind of thing still happens -- even in Texas.

Good to see Democrats standing up for one another instead of tearing each other down, regardless.

-----
"O'Rourke defends Buttigieg after hecklers shout anti-gay messages at Dallas campaign event"

"Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas) defended his fellow Democratic presidential contender Pete Buttigieg on Friday after the South Bend, Ind., mayor was confronted by hecklers at a Texas campaign event who appeared to shout anti-gay messages.

O’Rourke, a former Texas Senate candidate, wrote on Twitter that his home state doesn’t “stand for this kind of homophobia and hatred.”

“Mayor Pete, we are grateful you came to Texas and hope to see you and Chasten back again soon,” O’Rourke wrote to Buttigieg, who is gay, and his husband, Chasten.

O’Rourke’s message came after Buttigieg was interrupted several times while speaking at the Dallas County Democratic Party's Johnson Jordan Dinner by some who appeared to shout anti-gay messages, according to The Texas Tribune. Hecklers yelled for Buttigieg to “repent” and shouted that “marriage is between a man and a woman,” according to a video posted to Twitter by CNN reporter DJ Judd.

Buttigieg, a veteran, reportedly carried on through the interruption, noting how he packed his bags to serve in Afghanistan “to defend that man’s freedom of speech.”

He at one point deadpanned that it was a “lively room” and later added that he was "just thinking of that scripture that says bless and do not curse," the Tribune reported."

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaig...campaign-event

[worstblogever]

Trump has spent most of the morning re-tweeting some vile people, but perhaps the worst is Lauren Southern, a Canadian white nationalist who hangs out with Milo Y., has defended Neo-Nazi Richard Spencer, and promotes the "white genocide" conspiracy theory.

But y'know, he's not a white nationalist and the GOP aren't rapidly becoming a white nationalist party under his stewardship.

[Mister Mets]

Mayor Catherine Pugh earned a Bachelor of Science and Master of Business Administration from Morgan State University. Did she also learn about business ethics in the university as well when she signed on a book deal to print 100,000 copies, of which 60,000 were actually printed?

Dishonesty pays a big price.

She was also former majority leader of the Maryland State Senate.

She won a primary in the mayoral election over former mayor Sheila Dixon, who resigned earlier as part of a plea deal with prosecutors after being found guilty of embezzlement and felony theft.

Trump has spent most of the morning re-tweeting some vile people, but perhaps the worst is Lauren Southern, a Canadian white nationalist who hangs out with Milo Y., has defended Neo-Nazi Richard Spencer, and promotes the "white genocide" conspiracy theory.

But y'know, he's not a white nationalist and the GOP aren't rapidly becoming a white nationalist party under his stewardship.

How familiar do you think Trump is with all of this?

[Malvolio]

She was also former majority leader of the Maryland State Senate.

She won a primary in the mayoral election over former mayor Sheila Dixon, who resigned earlier as part of a plea deal with prosecutors after being found guilty of embezzlement and felony theft.


How familiar do you think Trump is with all of this?

When one retweets something without comment, what are we to assume other than agreement with the sentiment of the original tweet?

[Gray Lensman]

King's recent comments were worse than what came before, so that's the main reason he attracted internal opposition. It is also relevant that he is not the median Republican member of the House when it comes to this stuff; he is one of the more extreme members.

The Chicago Tribune piece is mainly about policy disagreements rather than active bigotry.

I do think the emphasis on the southern strategy, the idea that the use of race as a wedge issue, is the primary reason for Republican success in the South is highly flawed.

I posted some links on this a few years back. https://community.cbr.com/showthread...=1#post3176370

It is worth noting how long it took the transition to occur, and that when Democrats lost state legislatures in places like Arkansas (2012) and Alabama (2010) the majority of the people with really retrograde views on race in the old South (IE- they think intermarriage should be illegal and backed segregated schools) had been long dead.

Again, I'm not saying gerrymandering is a good thing. I want to get rid of it. My main concern is that we're bypassing the necessary step of determining what the new ideal standards of redistricting should be.

I can't prove the Seattle Times guy is completely right either. He doesn't establish that the district he was watching is representative of the state, which makes some mathematical assumptions of his a little wobbly. It is also anecdotal evidence.

He is careful to say that what happened was not fraudlent or illegal.



This is a bit different from Stacey Abrams saying that she really won the election.

I have no problem with complaints. My issue is with inaccurate claims, or with trying to change the rules while an election is underway.

The onus would be on the person making a strong claim about corruption and illegality to prove it. Pierce's argument has some claims but limited evidence.

What specifically is said in those articles that you would like me to address?

You're responding to arguments I haven't made.

It seems unlikely to me that donations are the main factor in support for private prisons. There are other factors involved.

In 2016, the private prison industry gave $1.6 million in donations. If it were just about the money, it would be easy to offset.

https://www.opensecrets.org/industri....php?ind=G7000

The small government explanation is that Republicans are philosophically inclined to believe the private sector could handle problems better than the state, and that private prisons can be run cheaper and more efficiently than state and federal prisons.

Private prisons do represent a fraction of prisons in the US, so ending this aspect can be helpful, but it won't solve the main problems.

From the point of view of an employee at a prison, they might not think a change to spending on infrastructure will mean they'll get a job with the same quality.

Within the context of American politics, Biden is left of center (IE- rank every statewide office holder from left to right; where does Biden fall?)

I've addressed the children in cages argument before. The fight over the wall isn't about cost. It's largely about the symbolism and questions of effectiveness.

Private prisons are the worst intersection of government and business - they are bad enough that the Libertarian party is officially against them, or at least the Nevada party is.

[Dalak]

How familiar do you think Trump is with all of this?

I think he's familiar enough with white nationalist circles to be exposed to these people. How else do you think he finds them to retweet?

When one retweets something without comment, what are we to assume other than agreement with the sentiment of the original tweet?

I can only assume agreement with what's being said, or support for who's saying it. You don't retweet something you disagree with sans some sort of comment after all.

[aja_christopher]

"Don’t Be Shocked If Trump’s Economy Goes the Way of Bush’s"

The formula is basically the same: tax cuts, higher spending and deregulation.

"After Bush took office, tax cuts were phased in over three years, 2001-03, cutting marginal rates at all levels. At the same time, government spending as a share of GDP, which began at 17.7 percent in 2001, increased throughout his administration, peaking at 24.4 percent in 2009, his administration’s last budget.

Economic growth was sluggish for two years, then picked up in the third year of the tax cut, with GDP reaching 2.9 percent. At the same time, the budget went rapidly from surplus to deficit. By election year 2004, the deficit had climbed to $412 billion, a swing of more than half a trillion dollars since the last surplus in 2001.

By 2004, growth was a robust 3.8 percent. The economy crested at just the right time for the incumbent president, who was vulnerable because of his controversial decision to invade Iraq the year before.

During this period, there was a general antipathy toward government regulations in most sectors of the economy, whether finance, energy or environmental controls. “The White House, in the view of critics, fostered a free-market hothouse in which these [borrowing] excesses were able to flower,” the New York Times wrote in September 2008. “It avoided regulation of banks and mortgage brokers, leaving much of that work to the Federal Reserve, which, under Alan Greenspan, showed little appetite for regulation.”

Then the economy dissolved, leading to the worst recession since the Great Depression. By 2009, GDP had fallen by 2.5 percent, and average unemployment jumped from 5.8 percent to 9.3 percent in one year. The Bush administration ended with a $1.4 trillion deficit, 9.8 percent of GDP....

...The Bush-Trump similarity holds for trade deficits as well. Bush saw the trade deficit grow from $375 billion in 2001 to $619 billion in 2004 (and peaking at $771 billion in 2006). From the start, Trump pledged to implement a trade strategy that favors U.S. exporters over importers, thus improving the trade deficit.

So far, that policy is not working out too well. Since 2016, the trade deficit for goods and services has steadily risen from $521 billion to $625 billion in 2018, with an $891.1 billion gap for goods only, an all-time record. The trade deficit for 2019 is expected to be even higher. It seems that Trump’s anti-free trade policy has performed no better than Bush’s free-trade policy when it comes to the trade deficit....

Just because similarities exist between the economic policies and results in the early period of the Bush and Trump presidencies does not mean that history will repeat itself. Trump inherited a stronger economy and bigger national debt than Bush did, and those factors may affect his longer-term performance. But if the Trump economic record turns out to be similar to Bush’s, it should not come as a surprise."

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/ar...eorge-w-bush-s