All purpose news and politics thread part v: The quickening

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Meanwhile, from the impeachment hearings:

A GOP Ambassador Destroyed Republican Talking Points On The Ukraine Scandal

Gordon Sondland, the ambassador to the EU, told Congress that “everyone was in the loop” on the Ukraine pressure campaign. Your move, GOP.

**********

Impeachment Testimony Reveals How Little Trump Cared About Corruption In Ukraine

Trump wanted a TV announcement to bludgeon Biden, not an actual probe, EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland testified. Big surprise, right?

**********

Sondland’s Testimony Was A Bombshell. Republicans Pretended It Was A Dud.

Figuring out there was a quid pro quo was “2+2,” the ambassador said. Problem is, Republicans are acting like they can't understand math.

**********

With ‘No Quid Pro Quo’ Defense Shredded, Trump Left With ‘I Can Do Whatever I Want’

His fallback argument is that presidents have full authority to shape foreign policy, even to help their own campaigns. To quote a line from a meme favorite commercial, "That's not how this works! That's not how any of this works!"

**********

Trump Bizarrely Tries To Spin Sondland’s Damning Testimony As Positive

Speaking to reporters outside the White House, the president read from handwritten notes claiming his innocence. WOW! Who knew denial was a river that ran through Washington?

[PaulBullion]

Gabbard doesn't, but if her only contribution was that she tanked Harris' campaign, I'm cool with it

Women disagree.

"Best debate I've heard Kamala Harris had"-@JoyAnnReid


"I agree."-@clairecmc


"A lot of women were watching her tonight and saying , "you know what? She gets me."-@JoyAnnReid


"She's relatable."-@clairecmc

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, as well as 2018, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day posted profiles of the U.S. House Representative from Virginia’s 10th Congressional District, Barbara Comstock, the former U.S. House Representative for Virginia's 10th District, who was a former opposition research specialist from the 2000 Bush campaign and Blackwater lobbyist who as a Virginia state legislator who boldly supported legislation to help out her fellow women like mandatory trans-vaginal ultrasounds for women seeking an abortion and Personhood bills that would outlaw many kinds of birth control. Heck, back in 2012, while campaigning for Mitt Romney, she called equal pay for women a part of the “left wing agenda” and argued against the Lilly Ledbetter act. During her first campaign to win a seat in Congress, she expressed opinions like $250,000 of income a year “not being rich”, that we could solve our immigration crisis by tracking undocumented immigrants like FedEx packages, and that she wanted to push for additional Benghazi investigations, because the eight we’d had already at the time weren’t enough. She was in office from two terms from 2015-2019, and was swept away by the 2018 Blue Wave after spending her last term in office fleeing both her constituents, and the media, diving into elevators at the capitol whenever possible to do either. As she is now out of office, we will set aside 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 799-40, since this was established in July 2014.)


John Merrill

Welcome to what is the 799th original profile here at “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profile, where we’ll be taking a look at the sitting Alabama Secretary of State, and 2020 U.S. Senate candidate in Alabama, John Merrill, who formerly served a four year term in the Alabama House of Representatives from 2010 through 2014. Merrill is only not talked about as a extremist lunatic because he’s running in the same primary as a certain former Alabama Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore. Yes, the racist, homophobic, repeatedly alleged pedophile and sexual predator Roy Moore.

John Merrill, however, makes quite a case for himself as well, given that during his four year career as a legislator, he supported bills to do things like create stricter voter ID laws to disenfranchise voters (that would be overturned as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court but five years after he voted for it), to pass one of the most brutal anti-immigrant laws in the country, to try and nullify the Affordable Care Act, practice the unconstitutional and failed conservative policy of drug testing welfare recipients, and to try to outlaw abortion when a fetal heartbeat is detected (i.e. at six weeks, when many women don’t even realize they’re pregnant yet).

And his voting record isn’t even the beginning of this story. Although, his support of voter disenfrachisement didn’t stop with but one bill. A study done by researchers at Auburn University has found that Merrill is bad at his job as Secretary of State, either by incompetence or deliberate sabotage, take your pick. The study focused on the quality of Alabama's county voting and election websites, and found statewide problems with information provided to voters. Their evaluation of the relationship between voting systems and "demographic, socioeconomic, partisan, and participatory composition" of counties showed "limited voting and election information and are not in full compliance with accessibility, usability, and mobile readiness standards." Further, the extent to which voting and elections information are provided is "related to county composition." (Short version: It seemed like counties with African Americans were given less access to good information, and voting access.)

So, in light of this study, Merrill was interviewed in a documentary about voter suppression just prior to the 2016 election about his failings as Secretary of State, and he actually made the argument that increasing voter registration would “Cheapen the work” of civil-rights advocates like Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks. Enacting automatic voter registration to undo voter suppression and boos election would, in Merrill’s warped little mind, allow people who are too “lazy” to vote now to have the “privilege” of voting.

Yeah, that’s a real motherf***er of a stupid argument to make, but he made it.

Alas, it isn’t only voter suppression and racism that we’re going to make note of before we close out our original look at John Merrill… it’s the homophobia. He’s been complaining about homosexuals being depicted positively and too often on television, and longs for the days when “Gunsmoke, Bonanza, The Virginian, Andy Griffith, I Love Lucy.” (Bonanza is the most recent of those shows, and it has been off the air since 1973, when Merrill was nine years old).

The most damning quote:

”We're too interested in homosexual activities. We're too interested in seeing how this family's finding a way to mess on this family or to see how people are trying to date on TV, or having wife-swapping on TV.”

This isn’t a one-off comment, either, as Merrill doubled-down on his frustration with people accepting that gay people exist on television, but not limiting himself to fictional content, instead attacking a United States gold medalist, soccer star Megan Rapinoe, because HOW DARE SHE BE AN OUT AND PROUD LESBIAN AND PEOPLE BE OKAY WITH THAT.

We’re pretty sure this isn’t the last time we’ll be mentioning John Merrill, as even if he loses a U.S. Senate race that has both Roy Moore and Jeff Sessions in it, he still will be Alabama Secretary of State until 2022, and we’re expecting him to remind everyone why we need a new Voting Rights Act at least until that time.

[Gray Lensman]

And then later, she tried taking a statement about combating the cartels by Buttigieg out of context, and questioning his judgment, and he threw her support of Assad in her face. Cut Tulsi deep enough that she winced.

If nothing else, Mayor Pete just did the field a solid by maybe landing the knockout blow on Gabbard's campaign.

The tweets from the talking heads on the left were saying things like "Gabbard is the only Republican witn the guts to go to Dems home turf for a debate", "Tulsi is the most progressive Republican they remember seeing in ages", and "A decent audition to replace Mike Pence on the Republican ticket." Add in her slip of calling it the 'Democrat Party' and her true colors have begun to show - those of someone who is less of a Democrat than Joe Manchin.

[Tami]

Lev Parnas Helped Rep. Devin Nunes’ Investigations

Lev Parnas, an indicted associate of Rudy Giuliani, helped arrange meetings and calls in Europe for Rep. Devin Nunes in 2018, Parnas’ lawyer Ed MacMahon told The Daily Beast.

Nunes aide Derek Harvey participated in the meetings, the lawyer said, which were arranged to help Nunes’ investigative work. MacMahon didn’t specify what those investigations entailed.

Nunes is the top Republican on the House committee handling the impeachment hearings—hearings where Parnas’ name has repeatedly come up.

Congressional records show Nunes traveled to Europe from Nov. 30 to Dec. 3, 2018. Three of his aides—Harvey, Scott Glabe, and George Pappas—traveled with him, per the records. U.S. government funds paid for the group’s four-day trip, which cost just over $63,000.

The travel came as Nunes, in his role on the House Intelligence Committee, was working to investigate the origins of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian election-meddling.

Parnas’ assistance to Nunes’ team has not been previously reported. A spokesperson for Nunes did not respond to requests for comment.

I wonder if this might lead to Nunes being forced to recuse himself from the Committee?

[Tami]

Read: Fiona Hill’s scathing opening statement

In her opening statement to impeachment investigators, former National Security Council official Fiona Hill excoriates Republicans for indulging in unsubstantiated conspiracy theories about Ukrainian interference in the 2016 presidential election — the same ones President Donald Trump tried to leverage the Ukrainian government into investigating.

“Based on questions and statements I have heard, some of you on this committee appear to believe that Russia and its security services did not conduct a campaign against our country and that perhaps, somehow, for some reason, Ukraine did,” Hill says in her Thursday statement. “This is a fictional narrative that has been perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves.”

She adds, “I refuse to be part of an effort to legitimize an alternative narrative that the Ukrainian government is a US adversary, and that Ukraine—not Russia—attacked us in 2016.”

The US intelligence community’s consensus conclusion is that Russia interfered in the 2016 on Trump’s behalf. That conclusion was further bolstered by the work of Special Counsel Robert Mueller. But Trump, in an apparent effort to undercut the notion that he received help from a foreign adversary, has repeatedly tried to draw Russia’s role into question, and recently has embraced a conspiracy theory that the hacks of Democratic targets during the campaign were not the work of Russia, but were an “inside job.”

[WestPhillyPunisher]

The tweets from the talking heads on the left were saying things like "Gabbard is the only Republican witn the guts to go to Dems home turf for a debate", "Tulsi is the most progressive Republican they remember seeing in ages", and "A decent audition to replace Mike Pence on the Republican ticket." Add in her slip of calling it the 'Democrat Party' and her true colors have begun to show - those of someone who is less of a Democrat than Joe Manchin.

Whether or not Gabbard is a straight up Russian asset can be debated, what isn't in question is that she's the biggest DINO (Democrat In Name Only) since Manchin, perhaps bigger. Why she hasn't been bounced from the debates like an underage kid from a nightclub is a mystery to me.

Read: Fiona Hill’s scathing opening statement

To quote the late college football play-by-play legend Keith Jackson.... whoa, Nellie! Ms. Hill pulled no punches and wasted no time cutting through the bullshit. The Trump buttmunches on the impeachment panel better strap in, because it sounds like they're in for a bumpy ride if they try to gang up on her!

[Tami]

Whether or not Gabbard is a straight up Russian asset can be debated, what isn't in question is that she's the biggest DINO (Democrat In Name Only) since Manchin, perhaps bigger. Why she hasn't been bounced from the debates like an underage guy outside a nightclub is a mystery to me.



To quote the late college football play-by-play legend Keith Jackson.... whoa, Nellie! Ms. Hill pulled no punches and wasted no time cutting through the bullshit. The Trump buttmunches on the impeachment panel better strap in, because it sounds like they're in for a bumpy ride if they try to gang up on her!

As for Gabbard, I'm more curious as to how she is polling as well as she has been in order to make the debate stage. Who is supporting her? What is her demographic?

What We Know About Tulsi Gabbard’s Base

So what do we know about Gabbard’s base? For one thing, it’s overwhelmingly male —according to The Economist’s polling with YouGov, her support among men is in the mid-single digits, while her support among women is practically nonexistent.

This trend is evident in other recent polls as well. Last week’s Quinnipiac poll of Iowa found Gabbard at 5 percent among men and 1 percent among women, and Quinnipiac’s new survey of New Hampshire found her at 9 percent among men and 4 percent among women. A late October national poll from Suffolk University found her at 6 percent among men and 2 percent among women.

Her predominantly male support shows up in other ways, too. An analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics found that only 24 percent of Gabbard’s itemized contributions had come from female donors,1 the smallest percentage of any candidate in the race. And while she doesn’t lead on the prediction markets, which tend to skew heavily young and male, as of publication, bettors do give her a slightly better chance of winning the Democratic nomination than Sen. Kamala Harris on PredictIt, though still not better than internet favorite Andrew Yang.

Gabbard’s supporters are also likely to fall outside of traditional Democratic circles. Her supporters, for instance, are more likely to have backed President Trump in 2016, hold conservative views or identify as Republican compared to voters backing the other candidates. An early November poll from The Economist/YouGov found that 24 percent of Democratic primary voters who voted for Trump in 2016 backed Gabbard. By comparison, 12 percent of these voters backed Sen. Elizabeth Warren, 11 percent backed Biden and 10 percent backed Mayor Pete Buttigieg. Primary voters who identified as conservative also overwhelmingly backed Gabbard in that poll (16 percent) — only Biden and Harris enjoyed more support from this group (27 percent and 17 percent, respectively).

Apparently her supporters are Males who vote Democratic but identify as Republican. Or something like that. Maybe Democrats who voted fro Trump?

[WestPhillyPunisher]

As for Gabbard, I'm more curious as to how she is polling as well as she has been in order to make the debate stage. Who is supporting her? What is her demographic?

What We Know About Tulsi Gabbard’s Base





Apparently her supporters are Males who vote Democratic but identify as Republican. Or something like that. Maybe Democrats who voted fro Trump?

Talk about damn peculiar. I don't understand the dynamic between Gabbard and her demographic even a little bit. Could those supporters have voted for Trump because they couldn't stomach Hillary Clinton? That wouldn't surprise me in the slightest. And would those same voters cast their lot again for Trump once it becomes clear Gabbard has zero chance of securing the nomination? Right now, I'd have to say that's highly likely. The longer Gabbard stays in the race, the more convoluted things are bound to become.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

Women disagree.

With all due repsect, Those two particular women have no credibility with me or anyone who is close in ideology with me. And I'm probably kinder than most with that take. They are the same people that were so sure Harris was going to be a star and be the breakaway of the primary (not to mention they are habitually wrong and one of them lost their seat because they didn't have their finger on the pulse of their constitutients, so they have terrible instincts).

Anyways, I followed politics a long time. Harris has no shot. She needed to keep her momentum from the first debate and instead she nose dived. There's no mathemtaical path this late game. Buttegieg took her lane and her pathway and he's doing too well in Iowa for anybody besides him and the big 3 to make waves. We've had debates since the summer. Name recognition isn't going to go up. I can't see her performance tonight pulling votes away from Pete, Biden is pretty static so I don't see that, it's not going to change the minds of people who left her because of her record as an AG. Her best case scenario right now is that she can somehow California surges for her.

In Iowa she is at 3.3%. The top 3 have consitently polled digits there and Buttegieg pulled ahead at 23% and the rest our at 17%. That gap isn't closing. So expect for her to be a non factor in Iowa. So riding a loss into NH, she's polling at 1.7%, which puts her in a tie for 9th. So she's going to get very little coverage because she can't win Iowa and then somehow turn that into a nearly 20 point swing to win NH? Okay lol. Nevada is the same as Iowa only again she's probably going to lose a lot of support and donations after two crucial losses where she's likely not going to break into the top 4 in either.

So then you go to a Biden stronghold like South Carolina. Biden polls at 35% there. It's his strongest state by far. It should be a layup for him. Again can't see a candidate riding those losses pulling off a near 30 point swing. And let's say Biden falters, at that point the second options going to be one of the people that won the previous states.

She's going to go all the way up to Super Tuesday without a win and probably riding so many losses that she's not going to polling well going into it. You could say "oh CA is her state and it's huge and could change the game", but right now she's double digits behind Biden, Warren and Sanders even there. And lets make a massive leap and say she pulls off an incredible upset there that helps her alot. Here are the other states in Super Tuesday: MA which is going to Warren, Vermont which is going to Sanders, Texas where I can't see her pulling it off especially if Biden and Buttegieg are doing even decent, a bunch of Southern states that are going to be tight for Biden, Minnesota is the one state I can actually see her maybe being able to play for and having some success but that's entirely dependent on where Klobuchar is at this point, and I can't see Harris being in a much different position from her.

The thing is, at this point we already know who the heavy hitters are. Pete is the only surprise in Iowa and that's because he had the summer and fall Harris wishes she had and he used that to push all his chips in on Iowa (and it's literally the only state he is polling well in) and his entire game plan is to win Iowa and use it as a springboard and hope it gives him a big enough wave for the rest of the run and if he just loses it or it doesn't translate anywhere else, he's done too. We already have a top 3 fighting it out and the person positioned to be the darkhorse spoiler already staked his claim and it's boxing everyone else out. By the time we get to see whether it will work, alot of these candidates will already be in the dust.

Here's my litmus test, Bloomberg just announced out of nowhere and he's polling at 3% nationally. Most of the field is behind him. To her credit Kamala is one of the five who are ahead of him. But she's ahead of him by 1.3 points at 4.3%. So after a whole summer and fall and heading into really the last two months of opening, she's only a percentage point (well under the margin of error) of a guy who just announced and did no campaigning and is coasting off people having heard his name.

TLDR: Harris needed to have the summer Buttegieg had to have a shot at this thing. Gabbard in the second debate basically killed her campaign and she had to spend all summer mitigating a loss while someone claimed the position she was fighting for. Harris got some good hits in on Gabbard this debate, but it was largely a moral victory because Gabbard was never somebody who could have won and Harris maybe embarrassed her but there was nothing substantial she took from her. Unfortunately for Harris, Gabbard took away her chance of winning this nomination.

[Tami]

President Supervillain: behind the alarmingly accurate Trump-Marvel mashup

The presidency of Donald Trump has inspired countless standup comedy routines, nudes, poetry – and now, comic book dialogue. The President Supervillain Twitter account takes quotes from the speeches, letters and tweets of the US president and photoshops them into the mouth of Red Skull, the Marvel archenemy of Captain America. Trump and Red Skull are an alarmingly good match, whether the Red Skull is screeching Trump’s fury at Turkey (“I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey (I’ve done it before!)”) or tying down Bucky Barnes alongside the Trump quote: “I would bring back waterboarding, and I’d bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding.”

The @PresVillain mashups are often so convincing that some people thought Trump was actually quoting Red Skull; in August 2017, so many people believed that Trump’s threat of “fire and fury” to North Korea had first been said by the supervillain that fact-checking website Snopes published an article debunking the misconception.

[Malvolio]

I don't think Trump even wanted an investigation. He just wanted to plant the idea in voters' heads that Biden was dirty. I mean, if he really wanted an investigation, wouldn't he have put the Justice Department on the case?

[Tami]

I don't think Trump even wanted an investigation. He just wanted to plant the idea in voters' heads that Biden was dirty. I mean, if he really wanted an investigation, wouldn't he have put the Justice Department on the case?

That's the bottom line. It's all about optics, and Trump is very good at optics.

[BeastieRunner]

Fiona Hill just stares and never breaks eye contact with people that ask her questions.

It really rattles Nunes.

[Gray Lensman]

Whether or not Gabbard is a straight up Russian asset can be debated, what isn't in question is that she's the biggest DINO (Democrat In Name Only) since Manchin, perhaps bigger. Why she hasn't been bounced from the debates like an underage kid from a nightclub is a mystery to me.



To quote the late college football play-by-play legend Keith Jackson.... whoa, Nellie! Ms. Hill pulled no punches and wasted no time cutting through the bullshit. The Trump buttmunches on the impeachment panel better strap in, because it sounds like they're in for a bumpy ride if they try to gang up on her!

Manchin has an excuse - he's a Democrat from the reddest of states. He's about as far to the left as one can be and still win an election in West Virginia. Gabbard has no such mitigating factor, she has come out harder against the Democratic establishment than Bernie Sanders, and at least he is an outsider there.