All purpose news and politics thread part v: The quickening

[Tendrin]

It looked like she was going to lose, but she made a comeback and is now guaranteed to win. Her lead is bigger than the number of votes left.

Yeah, so it would appear. I'm glad to hear that.

[Tendrin]

Hunting a better link.

[Tami]

Trumpkins Accused Him of Being the Whistleblower. They Were Wrong.

Former Obama White House staffer R. David Edelman woke up Thursday to a bizarre new reality: Many people on the pro-Trump internet were convinced that he was the anonymous whistleblower at the heart of the impeachment proceedings.

And then the death threats started.

“There were people threatening real physical harm, alluding to the fact that I will not live very long,” Edelman said. “That was obviously upsetting for my family.”

Edelman, who is not the whistleblower, first became aware of his starring role in the new hoax in an email from a friend, who found a picture of Edelman on Twitter and thought it was funny. But Edelman soon realized his strange new problem was much bigger than that, after searching “Obama whistleblower photo” on Twitter.

Tweets with photos of Edelman’s face surrounded by circles and arrows in a picture taken from his time at the White House were racking up tens of thousands of retweets. The picture, taken as Obama White House staff reacted to Obama’s first speech after Hillary Clinton conceded the 2016 election, shows dismayed White House reacting to the election results. But as the picture circulated on social media this week, it was erroneously described as showing Obama staffers reacting to Trump’s first White House visit—and Edelman’s unhappy face was used as “proof” that the whistleblower was always biased against Trump.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2014, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" ran a profile of Michael Duvall, a former member of the California State Assembly who was a big supporter of Republican "family values" that compelled him to vote for Proposition 8 a few years back to "protect the sanctity of marriage". What he probably should have done to protect marriages, though, was to not get multiple mistresses to run around behind his wife's back with. This all came to light, and led to Duvall's resignation, after he was boasting about a new gal pal in the Assembly itself while a hot microphone picked up him boasting about the details to a colleague, including what panties his new paramour wore, and how she was into spanking. Adding to the seediness of the whole affair? This mystery woman turned out to be a lobbyist that he was literally in bed with. Anyway, Duvall resigned in disgrace back in 2010.

On this date in 2015, we published our original "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" profile of Kathleen Tonn, a candidate for U.S. Senate in Alaska in the 2014 elections who appeared in a Youtube video where she blamed a perceived lack of growth of daisies in the natural flora in Alaska on the presidency of Barack Obama and his support of same sex marriage. For whatever reason, that insane correlation that flies in the face of the scientific method did not garner Ms. Tonn’s video a ton of views, go figure. She then also decided to prove her credentials as a candidate by posting a video where she went to a local sauna fully clothed, and “sang in tongues” to, as she later explained, “save” a woman therein, because thankfully Satan cannot decipher when Christians speak in tongues. Now, just because she didn’t get elected doesn’t mean that Kathleen Tonn has decided to fade away into obscurity just yet. She turned up at an Anchorage Assembly, where she pulled out a multitude of props to make a spectacle of herself, including a Bible, a trumpet, and a tampon. During her alotted time to speak, she angrily read a passage from the Second Epistle of Peter about the Judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah, and was outraged that the city was considering an ordinance for LGBT protections so people could not be fired for their sexual orientation. Instead, she asked them to consider an ordinance to protect against the real afflicted minority, people who speak in tongues which as far as signature issues go, is not one likely to see her ever elected to office.

It was on this date in 2016 that “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” published a profile about Richard Cash, a man who decided to challenge Senator Lindsay Graham in the 2014 GOP Primary for his seat in the Senate representing South Carolina, based on his qualifications of owning a fleet of ice cream trucks. Cash, as it stood, is a climate change denier, who felt there wasn't enough evidence to do anything about the phenomenon, and seemed more convinced that climate change scientists were running a "scam". We're going to go out on a limb and assume he only doesn't want to do anything about increasing temperatures because it would help him increase his ice cream sales. But what was far more concerning was that Richard Cash was quite the social conservative, to terrifying extremes. He was opposed to same sex marriage because "God designed men and women for a unique type of companionship", and he was a supporter of Personhood, which because he believes life begins at conception, he thus would prevent such "murders" by not just outlawing abortion, but most forms of birth control. How far to the lunatic fringe did his views on abortion get? While speaking before a Tea Party group on Martin Luther King Day, he referenced MLK's "I Have a Dream" speech, and then segued to his own "I Have a Dream" speech about preventing all abortions, and granting unborn babies Constitutional rights. Richard Cash finished third in that primary with only 8% of the vote, and seems to have gone back to slinging ice cream. Anyway, we'll set aside 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 618-20, since this was established in July 2014.)



It was on this date in 2017, and 2018, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” first profiled Mary Dye, a member of the Washington House of Representatives who was first appointed to her position back in 2015, quickly dropped into place after her predecessor, Susan Fagan, resigned amid ethical violations.

Dye popped up on our radar back in January of 2016, when a few websites noted the story of how a group of high school students from Eastern Washington traveled to the state legislature in Olympia to meet with politicians there to lobby a bill they supported. The bill in question they chose was to expand insurance to include birth control. And the girls who made the trip got to meet Mary Dye, who responded about as poorly as you could. Because Dye, for whatever reason, started interrogating the teenaged girls if they were still virgins or not, and began accusing one of having lost her virginity before their teacher stepped in and told the students they didn’t have to answer the Puritanically insane Dye. She would eventually give a half-assed apology where she claimed she was trying to be “motherly”, which would seem to only be the case if she was trying to be the mother from Stephen King’s “Carrie”.

Then again, Dye also has been fearmongering against the Muslim community in her district, claiming that Muslims were “staking out” the Snake River Dams with high-powered rifles, and insinuating they might be associated with an Islamic Center in Pullman. Because that’s not just an evil thing to accuse someone of without evidence, and couldn’t result in attacks against the Muslim community.

Her voting record shows that she’s just an obstructionist against Washington Democrats’ most modest ideas, including automatic voter registration (because at this point, it’s obvious that the GOP want to restrict the vote so their party has a chance to win elections), her opposition to the Pregnant Workers’ Fairness Act (which would have required businesses to take special considerations for pregnant employees like considering things like that they might need more bathroom breaks), her vote against a ban on printing untraceable 3D firearms, and her vote against sexual harassment training for certain isolated workers.

Mary Dye received 68% of the vote against Jenny Goulet in 2018, and hopefully she can get through this term in office without pulling a T.I. and asking anyone if their hymen is still intact, because seriously, WTF, man.
 

[InformationGeek]

My god, will you just shut up and go away already Walker?!

This is a Christmas Tree that is used by people celebrating Christmas

This is not a holiday tree.

[Kirby101]

Okay Boomer

[Rosa Luxemburg]

So there's a right-wing coup underway in Bolivia.

If Evo Morales is actually ousted, the country is fucked.

[Robotman]

My god, will you just shut up and go away already Walker?!

Wow, they’ve gotten so many miles out of this “war on Christmas.” But never underestimate the stupidity of the average American.

My counter argument to this is that saying Happy Holidays is being done for capitalist reasons. If you’re a business, saying an all encompassing phrase is intended to make everyone feel welcome and continue shopping at your store. It’s just business. You know, the way they wanted our country to be run.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

My god, will you just shut up and go away already Walker?!

I guess Scottie has to do something to remain relevant, even if it makes him look like the smacked ass he is.

[PwrdOn]

Wow, they’ve gotten so many miles out of this “war on Christmas.” But never underestimate the stupidity of the average American.

My counter argument to this is that saying Happy Holidays is being done for capitalist reasons. If you’re a business, saying an all encompassing phrase is intended to make everyone feel welcome and continue shopping at your store. It’s just business. You know, the way they wanted our country to be run.

The version of Christmas that conservatives are so hellbent on defending is a purely capitalist creation and has pretty much nothing to do with Jesus, and in any event I'm not sure what's so un-Christian about saying "happy holy day." In any event the War on Christmas does seem like a relic of an earlier time when Republicans had so little to complain about that they would make a fuss over something like this, thankfully these days there are many more things for them to be aggrieved about.

[Malvolio]

They can take their phony baloney "War on Christmas," and stick it right up their asses. That is, if there's any room, what with their heads taking up so much space in there.

[Tami]

'Baby Trump' balloon stabbed and deflated at Alabama protest

A towering Baby Trump protest balloon was knifed and deflated by someone unhappy with its appearance during Donald Trump’s Saturday trip to Alabama, organisers said.

The incident occurred during the president’s visit to watch a University of Alabama football game. The balloon, which is more than 6.1 metres (20 feet) tall, was set up in a nearby park.

Jim Girvan, the organiser of a group that “adopts” out Baby Trump balloons for protests, said a man charged the balloon with a knife and cut a 2.4-metre (8-foot) gash in the back. Girvan said the unidentified man was taken into custody. Tuscaloosa police did not immediately respond to a request for more details.

[worstblogever]

On this date, in 2014, in 2015, and in 2016, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" published profiles of former Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson, the former brain surgeon turned Seventh Day Adventist candidate for the GOP nomination for president who talks about turning around his life after a turbulent youth where he once tried to stab his best friend in the stomach, but through divine intervention, managed to only hit that friend’s belt and break his knife. As crazy as an origin story as that is, we also presented a dossier on the minute he announced he would be making a run for the Oval Office. Coming into this time last year, Carson had already denied the existence of evolution, compared homosexuality to beastiality and pedophilia, said “The Afforable Care Act is the worst thing that’s happened since slavery” or alternatively “worse than 9/11”, claimed progressives were trying to turn the United States into Nazi Germany, praised Cliven Bundy, called the VA Wait Times Scandal “A Gift from God”, claimed the legalization of marijuana was a plot to distract the populace from “what really happened in Benghazi”, that President Obama can wipe out ISIS “but just doesn’t want to”, and informed us that abortion is actually a form of human sacrifice. And that was just in our first profile.

In our second profile, we covered some of the weirder moments from Sleepy Ben, including his “common sense solutions” to the immigration problem in the United States like punishing an undocumented immigrant is caught trying to commit voter fraud, see to it that they have their citizenship revoked. (You know, the citizenship they don’t have to begin with.) Carson had other terrible thoughts on immigration, like that President Obama had committed “high treason” for choosing to deport dangerous criminals among the undocumented immigrant population first, and claimed that his eulogy for the victims of the mass shooting in Charleston, South Carolina at the A.M.E. Emanuel church was designed to tear our country apart with “race wars” and “class wars”. At the annual NRA convention, told the audience that the southern border of the United States had been infiltrated by “radical extremist Islamic terrorists”, and that everyone should not call for better gun control, because mass shooters are easy to take out if you “all gang rush them at once”, or alternatively, as he once did in a Popeye’s chicken, just tell a potential robber to steal from a nearby cashier and to leave you be. Carson also talked about carrying out drone strikes against illegal immigrants, called for a third separate bathroom for transgendered citizens because “they make people uncomfortable”, and later claimed Planned Parenthood’s true purpose is to “eliminate black people”. Dr. Carson said that gay rights and pro-choice advocates practice “hate speech” and are not following the teachings of Jesus, but are ”under the influence of Saul Alinsky”, and asserted that “being gay is a choice” leading to him avoiding the topic for a whole seven weeks. Carson criticizing people who protest against police brutality, saying that doing so “helps Al Qaeda and ISIS”, quoted the philosopher Thomas Hobbes that “Tyranny would never occur in American citizens have guns” (which is amazing because Hobbes died a full century before America was a nation with its own Constitution and 2nd Amendment), and that he also theorized that the Pyramids were not built as tombs for the Egyptian pharoahs, but instead were granaries for storing food. Carson was also caught lying about his involvement with the supplement company Mannatech, as well as his outrageous claim that he was offered a scholarship to Army’s West Point Academy. Oh, and he also claimed that a Muslim should never be elected President of the United States, so there’s that.

And, since we last left Ben Carson during the waning moments of his ill-conceived and poorly run presidential campaign, he has still stayed in the headlines by becoming a surrogate for Donald Trump throughout 2016. In that role, Ben Carson falsely claimed that like Donald Trump, he also saw news footage of Muslims in New Jersey celebrating the deaths of Americans on 9/11 that does not actually exist, kept pronouncing the Palestinian group Hamas as “hummus”, and began to discuss proposals to “crack down on liberal bias” on college campuses, lamented a supposed “ban on Christianity” in schools (which doesn’t exist, but that’s how he thinks the separation of church and state should be framed) and began suggesting that the Department of Education should be able to secretly monitor classrooms and libraries to prevent any such patterns of thought from being encouraged. He also again commented on same sex marriage, giving his opinion that LGBT citizens shouldn’t be given “extra rights” because they are “abnormal”, and claimed that he’s “read enough conspiracy books” to know that public school lessons teaching tolerance towards the LGBT community and anti-discrimination laws were put in place in the United States by secret communists to damage the republic. Carson also said that Democrats “intentionally destroy black families to cultivate their votes”, and when interviewed by Steve Bannon on Breitbart News, stated his inflammatory belief that “Muslims who accept American values must be schizophrenic” because he doesn’t feel the two ideologies could coexist. Carson was allowed to speak on the second night of the 2016 Republican National Convention, where he, no lie, he lost the crowd by playing six degrees of separation by first linking Hillary Clinton to Saul Alinsky, and then to Lucifer himself, as he goes off of teleprompter in an insane, rambling, incoherent speech. A few weeks later, Dr. Carson decided to weigh in on Donald Trump’s attacks against a Gold Star family, the Khans, by saying that the family should “call a truce” by first apologizing to Donald Trump, so he could then apologize to them. He would later paying into the Alt-Right movement’s conspiracy theories about Hillary Clinton’s health, Carson calls for an “elderly” Clinton to release her medical records, and while stumping for Donald Trump, Dr. Carson compares the difference between the two candidates to be akin to “like picking a paper cut or having both legs chopped off”. Truly, a ringing endorsement. By September, in the middle of an interview, live on CNN, Ben Carson suddenly remembers he forgot to pick up his luggage and abruptly walks away mid-question. A few days later on the same network, he tried excusing Donald Trump’s frequently changing positions on immigration because “he’s still learning” how to develop and stick to policies. In the final month before the election, in a truly astounding interview with CNN’s Brianna Keilar, Carson gives a bizarre reason why the tape of Donald Trump boasting about sexual assault shouldn’t matter to women who are deeply troubled by it… the problem isn’t Trump, it’s THEM because they haven’t heard enough men talk in such graphic, demeaning terms and he finally lost his legendary sleepy, lethargic cool during an interview on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, yelling, “NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO…” and demanding the microphone of the woman interviewing him be turned off for asking him questions about Donald Trump bragging about committing sexual assault, and how that can jive with his fondness for Christian values.

Ben Carson , though plainly insane, was inexplicably chosen as a member of Donald Trump’s “Cabinet of Horrors”, not as Surgeon General, which in theory he would be qualified for, but instead as the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, where he sabotages the department’s mission statement from within, gives bizarre speeches to department employees where he refers to African slaves as “immigrants”, and refuses to answer any questions about anything when called before Congress, because he doesn’t have the first clue of what he’s doing. He’s currently facing calls to resign from several angles, because he’s not only committed various ethical violations, he’s not only hired some of the most unqualified people to run HUD, but he’s also been casually making transphobic comments because he’s just revolting.

[worstblogever]

It was on this date in 2017, as well as 2018, that “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled Dennis Richardson, the former Secretary of State of Oregon, who formerly spent twelve years as a state legislator from 2003-2014 before a failed gubernatorial bid in 2014. Richardson spent about $3.5 million on his 2016 campaign, which got him all of 47% of the vote, which thanks to independent candidates and Green Party candidates pulling protest votes away from Democratic candidate Brad Avaikan, was enough to get Richardson a four-year term to oversee things like elections in Oregon. We’re not going to dance around the fact that Dennis Richardson is a widely documented homophobe, not just because he doesn’t think it’s discriminatory to stop gay people from getting married, but because back in 2007, Richardson sent out a fundraising letter to warn of “evils” happening like the Virginia Tech Massacre or same-sex couples getting domestic benefits… which shows he has a lousy barometer for evil. Mass murder should not be mentioned in the same breath as gay people having rights, you know? But it only gets worse from there. Richardson has insisted “pedophilia is widespread among the homosexual community”, and even argued against gay adoption because, “to allow homosexual couples to adopt would require complete disregard of the statistics on the high mortality rate from HIV/AIDS, and high rate of alcohol and drug abuse, as well as the general instability and violent nature of homosexual relationships.” At another point in 2007, Richardson compared homosexuality to “smoking or drinking” because they are a choice. And even though one of the most grotesque murders of a lesbian couple based solely on their sexuality took place in his district, in 2004, Richardson stated his belief that “hate crimes are a myth”. As of September 2017, Richardson has not backed off of his intolerant views of the LGBTQ community, declaring that gay people are “immoral”. As horrible as his views on gay people may be, Richardson has some deranged views on other issues, like say, guns. But days after the Newtown Massacre, Richardson thought more guns were the solution to Adam Lanza’s rampage, and that school teachers should be packing heat to start a crossfire with their students in the way, saying, "If I had been a teacher or the principal at the Sandy Hook Elementary School and if the school district did not preclude me from having access to a firearm, either by concealed carry or locked in my desk, most of the murdered children would still be alive, and the gunman would still be dead, and not by suicide." Dennis Richardson didn’t make it through his full term and died of a brain tumor in February of 2019. As such, we will 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 798-40, since this was established in July 2014.)

[WestPhillyPunisher]

'Baby Trump' balloon stabbed and deflated at Alabama protest

But remember, boys and girls, we godless, left wing liberals are the snowflakes. SMDH.

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

Special Investigation: Go Back To Your Country, They Said

Almost a year ago, Elvis Smith woke up to a doctor telling him a bullet had obliterated his right tibia, spraying fragments of the bone up and down the inside of his leg. Smith, 60, cried. All he’d done that morning was go to work laying concrete, like he’d done most of his life, when a white man with a gun showed up shouting, “Go back to Africa.”

It didn’t even make sense. Smith is an American citizen, after all — not that it should matter.

Later, the doctors put a metal rod where his bone used to be, fastening it to screws drilled into the sides of his knee. He’s a proud concrete mason — a union man who helped rebuild the World Trade Center after it was bombed in the ’90s — but it’s a job that requires being on your knees, and that hurts too much now. Smith is always hurting, and when it gets especially bad, his 14-year-old son knows to fetch a warm blanket from the dryer to wrap around his dad’s leg.

All the leg’s any good for these days is walking really slow — like he did last month, up the Baltimore County courthouse steps, on his way to see the man who did this to him — and he swears that myth about metal implants being able to predict the weather is true. When his leg throbs with pain, Smith says, he knows before most anyone else that a storm’s close, and that the sky’s about to open up with rain.

Smith is among so many who have been told to go back where they came from. He was shot during a period of emboldened white nationalism that continues to this day.

Throughout American history, expressions of hate have been punctuated with variations of the same sentiment: Go back to your country. Go back to Africa. Go back to China. Go back to Mexico. It’s a foundational white nationalist insult, meant to threaten a victim into believing that they don’t belong and that this is a country for white people. What makes the insult unique now is that it’s employed not only on the street corner, but on the presidential podium, giving it a new license.

Anyone who thinks what happened to Mr. Smith can't happen to ANY person of color (like me) or anyone of a different race are kidding themselves.

**********

Trump Says Ukraine Call Was ‘Perfect,’ And GOP Can’t Decide How To Defend Him

Republicans have a disjointed defense of Trump as impeachment hearings are set to go public. Trumpublicans have no choice but to defend their dear leader who can end their cushy careers with a tweet, they just don't know how. It's all so laughable.

**********

Richest 1% Close To Topping Wealth Of Entire Middle Class Due To Trump Tax Cuts, Interest

As the wealthy continue to amass more assets, they have more power to skew the system to further benefit them, economists warn. Is it any wonder the one percenters have zero love for billionaire hating Elizabeth Warren, or that fat cat Michael Bloomberg got in the race to stop her if he can.

**********

The Trump Administration Wants To Charge Migrants For Seeking Asylum

Only three countries in the world currently require asylum-seekers to pay up. Well, ****. Why not? Once again, the cruelty IS the reason for everything this administration does when it comes to dealing with migrants.

**********

Buttigieg Chewed Out For Eating Cinnamon Roll Like Chicken Wing: ‘I’m Calling The FBI’

A viral photo shows the South Bend, Indiana, mayor chowing down on the confection after he cut it with a knife and fork. I don't see what the big deal is. I eat cinnamon rolls like that myself. The damn things are sticky and gooey and messy as hell. Tasty too.