All purpose news and politics thread part v: The quickening

[shooshoomanjoe]

Everything just posted is a lie based with no facts or links to what was posted as facts. That's called a smear.

Bernie has no shame in taking money from gun lobbyist. Time did a piece of his nutty medicine beliefs. He had a heart attack.

[worstblogever]

In 2015, in 2016, and in 2017, “Crazy Stupid Republican of the Day” published profiles of Gary Kiehne, a candidate for Congress hoping to represent Arizona’s 1st Congressional District in 2014 and 2016. Kiehne is a local rancher and Tea Party wild card who lost in 2014 to State Senator Andy Tobin by a mere 407 votes. It is remarkable that the race was that close, considering Kiehne supported the cause of Cliven Bundy to the extent that he wanted the Bureau of Land Management to lose their control over protected government lands, referred to Arizona law enforcement as "Nazi and SS Officers" during a 2011 wildfire evacuation, and during a primary debate when the conversation turned towards gun control, made the outlandish claim that 99% of all mass shootings are perpetrated by Democrats. Well, Gary Kiehne took another crack at politics in 2016, and again Kiehne managed to lose again, this time finishing second in the GOP Primary by a much wider margin of about five thousand votes. To whom, you might ask? Paul Babeu. Yes THAT Paul Babeu, the anti-immigrant sheriff who got outed as gay when he was threatening to deport his illegal immigrant boyfriend, and who once was the headmaster of a private school where the staff were systematically abusing children there. Kiehne has, at least for now, given up on his dreams of becoming a Congressman.

It was on this date in 2018 that “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled Dan Kirby, a former four-term member of the Oklahoma House of Representatives for a decade first elected back in 2008. During his eight years in office, he was frequently absent during votes, but when he was present, supported Republican Voter Suppression tactics via stricter Voter ID laws and opposed minimum wage increases during the greatest period of income inequality in perhaps our nation’s history. Kirby made headlines right at the end of 2016, prior to the new session of the Oklahoma State Legislature though, after news surfaced that the 58 year old Kirby not only sexually harassed a legislative aide three decades his junior, not only responded to her reporting him by firing her (which would be a violation of whistleblower protections), but that he settled her lawsuit against him by using $16,000 of legislative funds meant to be used on cleaning supplies to keep the Oklahoma House of Representatives all spotless and lemon-scented. While that scandal would easily be enough to force a lawmaker’s resignation, Kirby actually tried reversing his resignation a few days after making it, but he finally relented and went off into the sunset in shame.

On this date in 2019, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled Steven McLaughlin, a former member of the New York Assembly representing District 107 who rose to office as part of, what else, the 2010 Tea Party Wave. His voting record saw him trying to prevent some of the rather reasonable progressive ideas New York has had over the past few years, like his votes against minimum wage increases, pay equality for women, protecting “marriage equality”, or a vote against a ban on gay conversion therapy on minors. And, during his seven years in office, McLaughlin was certainly not a shrinking violet, as in 2013, while New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo was pushing for gun control legislation, McLaughlin decided to compare Cuomo to just… y’know, Hitler. And Vladmir Putin. McLaughlin, over the years, also began to embrace what the Republican Party has been coming under Donald Trump, such as when he was running to be the Rensselaer County Executive, and he referred to the Times Union Leader as “fake news” and a “worthless rag” because he didn’t like their reporting about him, like say wehen they covered his sexist harassment of one of his aides, in which the audio had him telling her, “You’re still fat. You are. Not attractive — and you’re a (expletive) awful human being.” cLaughlin resigned from the New York State Assembly after that aide successfully filed sexual harassment charges against him He is finishing a four-year term as Resselaer County Executive and seems unlikely to win any other political office when his term is up in 2021. As such, we will set aside his profile at this time and profile a different wacky Republican today instead. (Current crazy/stupid scoreboard, is now 826-40, since this was established in July 2014.)

[worstblogever]

Dennis Baxley

Welcome to what is the 866th original profile here at “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profile, where we’ll be profiling Florida State Senator Dennis Baxley, a man who is referred to as “The Steve King of Florida”, because holy s***, is he vomiting out some white nationalist talking points. Baxley was first elected to the Florida House of Representatives from 2001-2006, before returning in the 2010 Tea Party Wave (of course he came back in with the Tea Party), and after winning two more elections unopposed and serving for six non-consecutive terms in the lower chamber, he moved up to the Florida State Senate in 2016, narrowly winning the GOP Primary for District 12 by a few hundred votes.

So for a time, nobody was paying Baxley too much mind in Tallahassee, but maybe they should have. In 2007, he raised a stink when the state of Florida voted to change the state’s song so that it no longer used the term “Darkeys” in its lyrics. As years went by, Baxley continued to make public comments supporting the legacy of Confederates, and thumbed his nose at acknowledging any other non-white group in Florida’s state history. In 2014, he fought against adding a memorial to fallen Union soldiers to the same patch of land inside the Olustee Battlefield Historic State Park that held three monuments honoring Confederate soldiers, saying, "My biggest concern is that this is revisionist history and that these decisions are being made by park officials and not an elected body." A year later, in 2015, Baxley hailed a decision by Marion County commissioners to fly the Confederate flag at their government complex and would also oppose a bill in the House that would ban the display of Confederate flags on state and local government property.

By 2017, Dennis Baxley wasn’t even being subtle about how racist he was. Or

“I don’t want to celebrate defeat. I would rather celebrate overcoming the heartbreak of slavery. I wouldn’t want to build a memorial to child abuse; I wouldn’t want to build a memorial to sexual abuse. I have a discomfort about memorializing slavery. ... I would like to take it in a more positive direction than a memorial to slavery.”

And… we’re just going to point out that if this motherf***er didn’t want to “celebrate defeat” then maybe he shouldn’t be championing the Confederacy so much, since they were, y’know, defeated.

Only a few weeks later, people already keeping a close eye on Baxley noted that he went to a pro-Confederate event only two weeks after the events at Charlottesville, Virginia, which was a fundraiser being held by “Save Southern Heritage Florida”, a group that said “leftists and Antifa” were responsible for the violence in Charlottesville (online conversations show the white nationalists were planning violence for weeks ahead of time, incidentally). Baxley claimed he was attending to “condemn racism, bigotry, and violence” at the closed door event.

We’ll pause from discussing Baxley’s racism to point out that in 2005, he sponsored Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law that resulted in the death of Trayvon Martin at the hands of George Zimmerman. He scoffs at the idea that he might have any blood on his hands, because of course he does. But that isn’t his only foray into idiotic extremism when it comes to guns. In 2018, when asked about gun control in the wake of the shooting at Parkland, he said that we shouldn’t ban guns to stop gun violence, because “Spoons are used to eat stuff to kill yourself with obesity, but we're not picking up spoons to get rid of obesity."

We’re not even touching the surface of how low this guy will stoop. In the wake of Hurricane Irma in October of 2017, Dennis Baxley tried claiming that 14 deaths in one Florida nursing home where staff failed to avoid deaths from exposure after the air conditioning system failed that there was no negligence, saying, "Look at the population. You're dealing with the 90-somethings. Some of these deaths would naturally occur, storm or no storm."

In 2019, it hasn’t just been frustrating to see Baxley trying to allow for “alternative science” to be taught in schools, and giving “opposing views” to things like climate change or evolution… Go figure that most of his sources during debate on such a measure in the Florida State Senate was supplied by a hate group that says LGBTQ people are guilty of “deviant behavior” and has a decidedly Islamophobic agenda for public schools.

No, we’re more freaked out about how Baxley started making calls recently for stricter anti-choice legislation, but it was the reasons he gave that turned some heads, as he began adopting white nationalist talking points again, and lamented that Western Europeans were “disappearing” because supposedly enough abortions were happening that the Western Europeans were “being replaced by folks that come behind them and immigrant, don’t wish to assimilate into that society, and they do believe in having children. So you see that there are long range impacts to your society when the answer is to exterminate.”

Just… holy f***. All we know for sure is that when 2022 rolls around, Florida Democrats and yes, Florida Republicans had better have candidates lined up to boot this bigoted old bag of garbage from office.
 

[PwrdOn]

How exactly will Sanders pay for all of the programs he has proposed?

If it is via raising taxes, including on those in the middle class, how will he convince mainstream voters to vote for someone who wants to raise taxes enough to pay for these programs, and how will he pass said legislation through Congress?

----
"The fight between Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders over Social Security, explained"

"Here’s the bottom line: Biden and Sanders each highlight the part of Biden’s 40-year record that’s favorable to their own arguments. Sanders emphasizes Biden’s statements decades ago that show a willingness to slow spending in an effort to reduce the federal deficit. Biden emphasizes his current position in favor of protecting or expanding benefits.

Biden then referenced PolitiFact, and called the video "doctored" and "a fake." We didn’t declare the video fake or doctored, though it was taken out of context and misrepresented Biden’s positions.

The video ignored the complete passage which showed that Biden wanted Social Security and Medicare protected.

The Sanders campaign omits what Biden said next (our emphasis is in bold):

"Now, I don’t know a whole lot of people in the top one-tenth of 1 percent or the top 1 percent who are relying on Social Security when they retire. I don’t know a lot of them. Maybe you guys do. So we need a pro-growth, progressive tax code that treats workers as job creators, as well, not just investors; that gets rid of unprotective loopholes like stepped-up basis; and it raises enough revenue to make sure that the Social Security and Medicare can stay, it still needs adjustments, but can stay; and pay for the things we all acknowledge will grow the country."

https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-m...nders-over-so/

Of course taxes will have to go up, but because these programs will be replacing services that people currently get from the private sector, the total cost that most people pay will go down because there won't be a percentage being siphoned off to fatten the pockets of shareholders. If people really do have such a pathological aversion to taxes that they'd rather pay twice as much to an insurance company for worse coverage, then I really don't know what to say.

[numberthirty]

Of course taxes will have to go up, but because these programs will be replacing services that people currently get from the private sector, the total cost that most people pay will go down because there won't be a percentage being siphoned off to fatten the pockets of shareholders. If people really do have such a pathological aversion to taxes that they'd rather pay twice as much to an insurance company for worse coverage, then I really don't know what to say.

Never mind that anyone who is talking about "Taxes Going Up..."/"Funding..." needs to factor in that the days of turning down coverage will probably be a thing of the past. Yeah, it going to take a little money to actually humanely cover the medical care of your fellow Americans.

That said...

If you wanna go to bat for that status quo while you're talking about why it won't work, I'm not really a guy that's going to try to stop you.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Of course taxes will have to go up, but because these programs will be replacing services that people currently get from the private sector, the total cost that most people pay will go down because there won't be a percentage being siphoned off to fatten the pockets of shareholders. If people really do have such a pathological aversion to taxes that they'd rather pay twice as much to an insurance company for worse coverage, then I really don't know what to say.

To those segments of the populace, that aversion is ingrained and unshakable. It doesn't matter one iota if increased taxes benefits them in the long run, all they see is the government taking more money out of their pockets, and they hate it, plain and simple. Of course, that aversion has been stoked for years by the GOP who've used it as a weapon ramp up fear and anger of "tax and spend Democrats" wanting to take John and Jane Q. Public's hard earned money and how only Republicans would save them, yadda, yadda, yadda.

[Tami]

Trump Removes Pollution Controls on Streams and Wetlands

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Thursday will finalize a rule to strip away environmental protections for streams, wetlands and other water bodies, handing a victory to farmers, fossil fuel producers and real estate developers who said Obama-era rules had shackled them with onerous and unnecessary burdens.

From Day 1 of his administration, President Trump vowed to repeal President Barack Obama’s “Waters of the United States” regulation, which had frustrated rural landowners. His new rule, which will be implemented in the coming weeks, is the latest step in the Trump administration’s push to repeal or weaken nearly 100 environmental rules and laws, loosening or eliminating rules on climate change, clean air, chemical pollution, coal mining, oil drilling and endangered species protections.

“I terminated one of the most ridiculous regulations of all: the last administration’s disastrous Waters of the United States rule,” he told the American Farm Bureau Federation’s annual convention in Texas on Sunday, to rousing applause.

“That was a rule that basically took your property away from you,” added Mr. Trump, whose real estate holdings include more than a dozen golf courses. (Golf course developers were among the key opponents of the Obama rule and key backers of the new one.)

His administration had completed the first step of its demise in September with the rule’s repeal.

His replacement on Thursday will complete the process, not only rolling back 2015 rules that guaranteed protections under the 1972 Clean Water Act to certain wetlands and streams that run intermittently or run temporarily underground, but also relieves landowners of the need to seek permits that the Environmental Protection Agency had considered on a case-by-case basis before the Obama rule.

It also gives President Trump a major policy achievement to bring to his political base while his impeachment trial continues.

[aja_christopher]

Never mind that anyone who is talking about "Taxes Going Up..."/"Funding..." needs to factor in that the days of turning down coverage will probably be a thing of the past. Yeah, it going to take a little money to actually humanely cover the medical care of your fellow Americans.

That said...

If you wanna go to bat for that status quo while you're talking about why it won't work, I'm not really a guy that's going to try to stop you.

Asking honest objective questions about how Sanders will pay for his programs is not "going to bat for the status quo".

No one said that it won't work -- what was asked is how it will work when most Americans don't want to pay higher taxes and Republicans, independents, and Democrats alike most likely will not vote to raise taxes on the middle class, whether in Congress or the general public.

[Tami]

Evangelicals Love Donald Trump for Many Reasons, but One of Them Is Especially Terrifying

The enemies of Israel have unleashed a massive air attack on the Promised Land. Hundreds of fighter jets streak across the sky. But before Israel can be destroyed, fire rains from the heavens and the enemy jets explode in mid-air with no explanation. Hailstones the size of golf balls follow the fire. The ground shakes. Birds pick clean the bodies of the fallen attackers. The enemy is vanquished without a single Israeli casualty, and the country is saved.

These are some of the opening scenes of the bestselling 1995 book Left Behind: A Novel of the Earth’s Last Days, by Jerry B. Jenkins and the late evangelical minister Tim LaHaye. But don’t mistake this scenario for a mere action sequence: It’s based on the war of Gog and Magog, a biblical conflict prophesied in the Book of Ezekiel. In the Bible, Gog is the leader of Magog, a “place in the far north” that many evangelicals believe is Russia. According to Ezekiel’s prophecy, Gog will join with Persia—now Iran—and other Arab nations to attack a peaceful Israel “like a cloud that covers the land.” LaHaye, like many evangelicals, believed this battle would bring on the Rapture, the End Times event when God spirits away the good Christians to heaven before unleashing plagues, sickness, and other horrors on the unbelievers remaining on Earth. Meanwhile, the Antichrist reigns supreme.

The story of Gog and Magog is central to the bloody eschatology long embraced by millions of American evangelicals. In recent years, End Times has gained special political currency as believers have seen any number of Middle East conflagrations as fulfilling Ezekiel’s prophecy, notably the US invasion of Iraq and the war in Syria. Gog and Magog took on fresh relevance earlier this month, when the Trump administration assassinated Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s elite Quds Force.

On many levels, President Donald Trump’s self-created crisis in Iran seems to have no relationship to any sort of coherent foreign policy or geopolitical plan for the future. The assassination has yielded few if any tangible rewards for the US. But there is an eager constituency for Trump’s improvised policy toward the Middle East and Iran in particular: the evangelical Christians who see it as a means of ushering in the return of Christ. Lured by the promise of conservative Supreme Court justices, anti-abortion measures, and a commitment to Christian supremacy under the guise of religious freedom, white evangelicals voted for Trump in higher numbers than any other group—more than 80 percent.

[aja_christopher]

To those segments of the populace, that aversion is ingrained and unshakable. It doesn't matter one iota if increased taxes benefits them in the long run, all they see is the government taking more money out of their pockets, and they hate it, plain and simple. Of course, that aversion has been stoked for years by the GOP who've used it as a weapon ramp up fear and anger of "tax and spend Democrats" wanting to take John and Jane Q. Public's hard earned money and how only Republicans would save them, yadda, yadda, yadda.

Bringing us back to the real problem at hand in that respect -- namely the dishonest and fiscally irresponsible Republican party.

[Billy Batson]

Feel the Bern:
https://twitter.com/NicholsUprising/...23796214800384

[PwrdOn]

Asking honest objective questions about how Sanders will pay for his programs is not "going to bat for the status quo".

No one said that it won't work -- what was asked is how it will work when most Americans don't want to pay higher taxes and Republicans, independents, and Democrats alike most likely will not vote to raise taxes on the middle class, whether in Congress or the general public.

That's why it's important to have someone who stands by his principles and is passionate about selling the benefits of these policies to the public. Of course nobody wants to pay taxes, but if you can convince people that having universal health care and universal higher education are things that are worth having and worth paying for, and just as importantly, that you are the type of leader who can implement these systems properly instead of turning them into poorly managed money pits, then that's the type of president I want to see in office. Contrast that with the type of rank opportunists that the centrist wing of the party keeps shoving in our faces, who will abandon whatever platform they were advocating at the slightest hint of pressure from monied interests. I like Elizabeth Warren more than most, but I completely lost faith in her when I saw how fast she retreated on Medicare for all, and if the polling is to be believed, so did millions of other voters.

[aja_christopher]

That's why it's important to have someone who stands by his principles and is passionate about selling the benefits of these policies to the public. Of course nobody wants to pay taxes, but if you can convince people that having universal health care and universal higher education are things that are worth having and worth paying for, and just as importantly, that you are the type of leader who can implement these systems properly instead of turning them into poorly managed money pits, then that's the type of president I want to see in office.

I agree with the need for a passionate representative for these principles, but the real question is whether that's feasible in a national election when said ideology has trouble moving beyond even the primaries in the "left" wing of our democracy. In a nation where many believe the Democrats have moved to far to the "left", even if that's your personal preference, promoting an idealistically far left-wing agenda is obviously not the most practical way to move forward.

If said policies were overwhelmingly supported by the left wing (i.e. Democratic) party then I could see where they might gain traction with the general public, but as it stands it will be an outstanding challenge to convince the majority of independents and right-wingers to support raising taxes for these services, much less Democrats themselves.

Conversely, we've made progress under moderates and centrists in that regard -- with the ACA for instance, which has benefited millions of Americans. The problem isn't the moderates (like Obama and Biden) -- the problem is that Republicans both oppose these "progressive" reforms (health care, business regulation, environmental protections, LGBT and women's rights, etc) and also tend to roll them back as soon as they get into office because the "left" talks a good game but doesn't actually show up when it's time to protect those reforms at the ballot box.

It's possible that the most recent midterms point to a shift in that regard, but even in that respect it was moderates -- not progressives -- who won the majority of those elections. With that in mind, objectively speaking, it makes more sense to stick with what is working at this point than to try to promote the sort of radical change that might actually drive said moderates away in a general election.

That's not to say I don't think Sanders' objectives aren't worth fighting for -- in truth, I feel that many of them are exactly what this nation needs.

The problem lies in whether there is enough public will out there to push them to the forefront of the American political agenda.

-----
"Remember that the positions that one or several Democratic candidates for president had advocated for during the primary season so far include:

* Eliminating all private health insurance in favor of a single, government-run system
* The "Green New Deal," a massive (and massively expensive) overhaul of the way in which we consume and think about energy in this country
* Mandatory buybacks of AR-15s and AK-47s
* Decriminalization of illegal immigration

These are not views that a majority of the country holds. (Worth noting: Not all Democrats in the race hold any or all of these positions.) In some cases -- Medicare for All's elimination of private insurance, for example -- what these Democratic candidates are for are not even supported by a strong majority of Democrats."

https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/24/polit...oll/index.html

[jetengine]

Yeah the issue isnt that Bernie wont stick by his guns (whatever they may be) but that he wont be able to get abything through. It'll just be an Obama repeat of Mitch and Co saying "No No No No"

[Malvolio]

Of course taxes will have to go up, but because these programs will be replacing services that people currently get from the private sector, the total cost that most people pay will go down because there won't be a percentage being siphoned off to fatten the pockets of shareholders. If people really do have such a pathological aversion to taxes that they'd rather pay twice as much to an insurance company for worse coverage, then I really don't know what to say.

Too many people have been convinced by cherry-picked anecdotal evidence of the DMV or the Post Office that government can't do anything right and we should leave everything to the private sector. That's probably also why so many people don't vote.