All purpose news and politics thread part v: The quickening

[SquirrelMan]

In the primary.

By the end of that election cycle Bernie was the most popular politician in the country.

No, most popular ACTIVE politician.

You know who was more popular? Joe Biden. (And Obama of course).

[Starter Set]

To start with, you've got to be straight with yourself about what a "Liberal..." in America even is. Which is "On The Left Edge Of What Is Actually 'The Right'..."

It's been that way for decades now.

An American who is even remotely "Progressive..." would just be someone that everyone else the world around would look at and say "Hey, Do You Think He Has Any Idea That He I Actually Just A Little Left Of 'Center'?..."

You have no left in the US. I wouldn't even call Democrats centrist.

[numberthirty]

You have no left in the US. I wouldn't even call Democrats centrist.

Your preaching to the choir...

[SquirrelMan]

Who have selected losing nominees more than once.

I think you are on to something here:

I looked at every single primary contest in US history, and apparently the voters of at least one political party chose a losing nominee each and every year, WITHOUT EXCEPTION.

This is huge. Huge! What can we do?

[SquirrelMan]

For starters...

Not just taking Wisconsin and Michigan for granted.

That's already a far better plan.

She campaigned like a human energizer rabbit until she literally collapsed with pneumonia.

Do you really think recent heart attack survivor Sanders would not have to make some concessions on where not to campaign based on polling?

[TheDarman]

In 2016, people sarcastically said they had to hold their noses when they voted for Hillary Clinton. If things keep up, what with all the shenanigans coming from his camp, I’m gonna have to wear a fucking hazmat suit to vote for Sanders if he winds up being the standard bearer for the Democrats come November.

Honestly, same. But I can tell you I will do it, unlike many Sanders supporters I know personally that either didn’t vote or voted for third party candidates. Some even cast a vote for Trump to stop Clinton. That’s too privileged a position to take—to say that this group of people who actually agree with me more than 70% of the time are to be taught a lesson so they will swing more to my way of thinking. Jimmy Dore was one of those folks who expressed this asinine view on TYT, which is frankly a big reason I stopped trying to get informed by their perspective. It isn’t only extortion; it is inflicting pain unto minorities to prove a point. That said, Sanders can’t just depend on people like me that don’t like him to go ahead and vote for him because we hate Trump. We saw that was a bad strategy for Clinton and, at the very least, Clinton didn’t actively show off the skeletons in Sanders’ closet so that his supporters would feel more comfortable backing her. Sanders has shown no restraint in tearing apart his less “pure” competition for the nomination. His campaign should start reaching out now instead of trying to pile on and bury the candidates voters liked.

[numberthirty]

She campaigned like a human energizer rabbit until she literally collapsed with pneumonia.

Do you really think recent heart attack survivor Sanders would not have to make some concessions on where not to campaign based on polling?

Here's a little "Basics 101" -

Actually doing anything like the bare minimum in states you lost during the primary is the "Apple" to the "Orange" that would be making some judgement calls based on polling.

"Apple"/"Orange"

[SquirrelMan]

I think the most popular politician in the country could have beaten the least popular.

He was only so popular because Hillary had such an easy time beating him that he never was properly vetted. And the smears brought against Hillary by Russian bots and the Republican machine made people get unwarranted buyer's regret.

If Sanders had been in the general, with all his baggage and his unsunny personality, he would not have been the most popular active politician. He would have been eaten alive by Trump and the Putin machine.

[SquirrelMan]

Your preaching to the choir...

Their preaching to the choir WHAT.

[jetengine]

At this point can we just make a seperate Bernie thread? I'm getting pages of blankness.

[SquirrelMan]

At this point can we just make a seperate Bernie thread? I'm getting pages of blankness.

It's like "oh no, I have 8 pages to catch up on?
Then, 5 seconds later...

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2015, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled Sue Myrick, the former U.S. House Representative from North Carolina’s 9th District who served from 1995-2013. Myrick was delightfully self-righteously insane, believing that God once spoke to her husband through their coffee maker and predicted her rise to political office, and back in the 1980s, she tried to ban all concerts in Charlotte, because rock music is “Satanic” and “evil”. In 2003, still spooked by the 9/11 terror attacks, she spoke to the Heritage Foundation and warned of a threat of Islamic Jihad lurking in America’s convenience stores. That was far from her last Islamophobic moment, as she wrote the foreword to the of the book “Muslim Mafia” that warned of followers of Islam looking to infiltrate the United State “Islamize” the whole country, endorsed Brigette Gabriel, the leaders of the anti-Muslim Hate Group, ACT! for America, and whipped up paranoid fears about terrorists even more when she said that Hezbollah had infiltrated Mexican drug cartels and were planning ways to sneak into the United States across the U.S./Mexico border. The fact that Myrick also frequently voted against the interests of women, not just on anti-choice legislation, but voting against equal pay laws, and that she voted against common sense legislation like the repeal of “Don”t Ask, Don’t Tell” or the Zadroga Bill are ironically, the least crazy things she did while in office. She’s off working as a lobbyist for overseas shoe companies in North Carolina, the last time we checked.

It was in both 2016, and in 2017, that “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” posted profiles about Warren Groen, a four-term member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives who grew exceedingly more extreme over the past few years in his rhetoric on anti-choice issues. The first petty remark came in May of 2014, when an outraged Groen watched as the New Hampshire state legislature voted to create a 25 foot buffer zone outside of abortion clinics to keep protestors back. During the debate on the bill, Groen sarcastically produced an amendment that also provided a 25 foot buffer zone around slaughterhouses and butcher shops, saying, ‘‘Any organization that butchers animals deserves the same rights as organizations that butcher babies.’’ Groen co-sponsored an attempted repeal of that legislation, only eight months later around the start of the new legislative session in January of 2015. Around this time, he also stated his belief that Planned Parenthood takes part in eugenics, and is "cutting children into small pieces". He's tried to defund Planned Parenthood on that logic from 2011-2016, growing more and more unhinged with each failed attempt. A month later in February 2015, Groen upped his game by comparing abortion to slavery. He still had yet to sink to his lowest levels. That probably happened in March of 2015, when a group of 4th graders were in the state capitol, trying to learn about good governance and push for the red-tailed hawk to be named the state raptor in a bill they submitted. Instead, Groen and his fellow Republicans actually voted down the measure, ridiculing the kids for their efforts. And, Groen stood out among his peers as being particularly insensitive to the nine and ten year olds, when he chose to segue out of the discussion about the red-tailed hawk to rail against Planned Parenthood and abortion, telling the wee lads and lasses, “With its talons and then uses its razor-sharp beak to rip its victims to shreds, to basically tear it apart limb by limb, and I guess the shame about making this a state bird is it would serve as a much better mascot for Planned Parenthood.’’ Groen was ridiculed nationally by late night comedians, and even the Republican Speaker of the New Hampshire House called for him to apologize. He didn't. Instead, he has continued to submit legislation to defund Planned Parenthood (in spite of all investigations into the organization finding no wrongdoing, whatsoever), and sponsoring bills to prohibit abortions based on genetic anomalies. Even outside of abortion, Groen’s voting record was extremely conservative, including efforts to try and repeal same sex marriage in New Hampshire, voting against a bill that would prevent employers from discriminating against a victim of domestic violence, and voting against the state's attempts to repeal the death penalty. This guy would not compromise his hard right credentials with 100% ratings from the NRA, and every pro-choice group out there. He is, hands down, the most unflinchingly conservative tosspot you will ever find in the Granite State, and here at CSGOPOTD, that says a lot.

On this date in both 2018, as well as 2019, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled Alabama State Senator Arthur Orr, who thrice has not faced a challenger for his seat representing Alabama’s District 3 since he originally won office back in 2006. Orr came to our attention back in March of 2016, when he submitted legislation to strip welfare benefits from anyone on government assistance if they own a car, because poor people can’t afford those in his mind… but they should also have jobs. We’re assuming he expected them to walk to work, or take a bus, but in any event, his bill failed to go forward because it seemed to contradict what is expected from the working poor. While that bill may have ended up as kindling, Orr has earned a reputation for trying to sever as many cords of the social safety net as possible over the past few years, and on other issues, he’s voted just as conservative. Whether he’s pushing potential bans on abortion at 20 weeks or TRAP laws to close all the abortion clinics in the state, his attempts at passing nullification legislation to try and block federal firearms laws the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, or voting to drug test welfare recipients (always overturned in courts as a violation of the 4th Amendment), or when he co-sponsored SB 63, an attempt to “reform” prisons by making work rehabilitation a main focus (and also providing businesses with an avenue to get labor as close to as the cost of slaves as possible from a prison population that is disproportionately African American). Even when Orr conveniently calls in sick on votes, it’s conspicuous, like he did on the day the Alabama State Senate is to vote to express regret over the practice of slavery. Arthur Orr ran for re-election unopposed to his seat in the Alabama State Senate in 2018, meaning he is guaranteed another four years in at least that body to do damage to Alabama. We have no updates on him other than that on him at this time, so we’re going to set aside his profile at this time and profile a different wacky Republican today instead. (Current crazy/stupid scoreboard, is now 836-40, since this was established in July 2014.)


Eric Schleien

Welcome to what is the 836th original profile here at “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day”, where we’ll be discussing Eric Schleien, a two-term member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives from Hillsborough 1 who was getting elected on the merits of being one of the least popular Republicans who would get eleven seats in that district, and Schleien’s best showing ever was ninth in 2016, but that was enough to see him seated in the state legislature.

Now, there are two sides of the story about the incident that ended Schleien’s career. He claims he met a 16 year old girl in a coffee shop, saw that she had a Trump sticker on her laptop, she flirted with him, so he greeted her with a kiss on her hand, and began chatting her up to offer her a future in politics. The victim, as it was, alleges that she taken for a car ride where Schleien was grabbing her inner thigh, tapping her privates with his right pinky finger and telling her he wanted to "rape her mouth" and "*** on her face until she was covered in it," and sucking on her fingers. (We believe accusers. And we do because we can interpret Schleien as figuring, “If she has a sticker that supports a guy who brags about grabbing women by their p****, she’s like, IMPOSSIBLE to sexually assault! JACKPOT!”) The authorities got called, and Schleien was ignored calls to resign from office, finishing out his second term in office.

Schleien plead guilty to simple assault, avoiding a harsher sentence and was sentenced to 30 days in jail, and five months of home confinement. (We’re unable to confirm if he ended up on a sex offender’s list, but in our opinion, if he didn’t he should be given the age of his victim.) We’re hoping he never has a career in politics again, nor that he works in a KFC due to his unsettling history of finger-licking.

[Gray Lensman]

He was only so popular because Hillary had such an easy time beating him that he never was properly vetted. And the smears brought against Hillary by Russian bots and the Republican machine made people get unwarranted buyer's regret.

If Sanders had been in the general, with all his baggage and his unsunny personality, he would not have been the most popular active politician. He would have been eaten alive by Trump and the Putin machine.

Hilary had been taking hits from the right wing attack machine for 20+ years with the mainstream media often buying in. No one will have a situation quite like hers for s while yet. Maybe AOC and Omar in about 19 more years if they are still in office, or Schiff in about the same timeframe.

That said, it doesn't matter who the Dems nominate, the smear campaign won't be held back by little things like the truth. They only care if it's viral. We either need to hope that whoever is picked can withstand it, or give up hope because the lies are unbeatable. I'll take the first and hope that the second is just unfounded fears.

[PaulBullion]

This is on point:

[Zauriel]

Rod Blagojevich, the Illinois governor who sold Obama's senate seat gets his sentence commuted by the President.