All purpose news and politics thread part v: The quickening

[WestPhillyPunisher]

CPAC Chair: Mitt Romney’s ‘Physical Safety’ Would Be At Risk At Conference

Disturbing, but not surprising. Given how the Republican Party had morphed into the Trump Party, and that the knuckledraggers who blindly support Trump are willing to do anything he commands, even commit violence in his name, this level of concern is highly warranted. While it's generally unlikely something ugly would happen to Romney at CPAC, it only takes one unbalanced loon, thinking he needs to exact payback for Trump to turn things nightmarish. If Romney is smart, he stays FAR away from the event.

[kidfresh512]

Disturbing, but not surprising. Given how the Republican Party had morphed into the Trump Party, and that the knuckledraggers who blindly support Trump are willing to do anything he commands, even commit violence in his name, this level of concern is highly warranted. While it's generally unlikely something ugly would happen to Romney at CPAC, it only takes one unbalanced loon, thinking he needs to exact payback for Trump to turn things nightmarish. If Romney is smart, he stays FAR away from the event.

That should also tell him something about where his party is too. Why even be Republican anymore if you are such an outcast and are so far removed from what they stand for apparently that your physical safety could be compromised by your crazy base?

An Unsettling New Theory: There Is No Swing Voter





I majored in Political Science for 1 year before switching majors in college. This makes me wish I had stayed a Poly Sci major.

I think the same thing. Not based on anything scientific like she is. But, I just don't believe there are that many people that legit could go either way on voting for trump or "not". Its too polarized, hes too divisive and narcassitic, and vengeful. You either like what you get from him policy and personality wise. Or you don't vote at all. I don't see that many people saying I could go either way any Dem or Trump.

[The Darknight Detective]

Biden jokingly calls voter a 'lying dog-faced pony soldier' at New Hampshire event



At this point, I'm starting to wonder if Biden is just staying in the race to distract Trump from the other candidates.

It's supposed to be from a John Wayne flick, but I can't find which one on the Internet. It does sound like something the Duke would have said to someone like Victor McLaglen in one of John Ford's calvary films, though.

[Tami]

That should also tell him something about where his party is too. Why even be Republican anymore if you are such an outcast and are so far removed from what they stand for apparently that your physical safety could be compromised by your crazy base?



I think the same thing. Not based on anything scientific like she is. But, I just don't believe there are that many people that legit could go either way on voting for trump or "not". Its too polarized, hes too divisive and narcassitic, and vengeful. You either like what you get from him policy and personality wise. Or you don't vote at all. I don't see that many people saying I could go either way any Dem or Trump.

There are going to be some who voted for Trump and regretted it later, but few of those would vote for a Democrat. For the most part, I think her theory is reasonable.

[Tami]

The Money Behind Trump’s Money

One Day in early 2017, Mike Offit went to the Yale Club in Manhattan for a lunch hosted by a group called Business Executives for National Security. Offit, who has a craggy face and shoulder-*length hair, had spent much of his career in banking, but that had ended nearly two decades earlier. Since then, he had puttered around the outskirts of finance, dabbled in journalism and even published a novel about a pair of murders at a fictional German-*owned Wall Street bank that bore a striking resemblance to the one that he worked for until 1998: *Deutsche Bank.

These days, Offit had time on his hands, which is how he found himself at the Yale Club that afternoon. Slanting winter sunlight illuminated the white-*columned walls of the club’s dining room. Offit was chatting with an American military officer about weaponry when his iPhone buzzed. He saw an email from the White House Executive Office of the President. How strange, Offit thought.

The message contained a PDF file: a scanned printout of an email he had sent Donald Trump several months earlier, in the waning days of the presidential campaign. Offit had known Trump for decades. At *Deutsche Bank, he had lined up huge loans to finance Trump’s construction and renovation of landmark Manhattan skyscrapers, at a time when the default-*prone real estate developer and casino magnate was no longer able to get loans from most mainstream financial institutions. The two men stayed in touch afterward. Offit’s 2014 book, “Nothing Personal,” even featured a blurb from Trump: “Michael Offit offers a colorful insight into how the big money is made — and/or taken — on Wall Street.”

In October 2016, Offit tried to return the favor. Democrats were pillorying Trump’s shaky — not to mention murky — personal finances, including his companies’ chronic bankruptcies. Offit thought he might dispense a little advice to his erstwhile client. On a Friday evening, he emailed Trump a lengthy message, explaining that the defense Trump was offering at the time — that he was simply using the bankruptcy law in an advantageous way — wasn’t resonating with voters. “I believe there is a much better answer, that may help defuse this issue, and am just arrogant enough to suggest it,” Offit wrote.

He advised Trump to claim that his companies had been forced to declare bankruptcy, the victims of greedy hedge funds so obsessed with wringing every last dollar out of him that they refused to let him renegotiate his crushing debts. Was this true? Not really. But it sounded good, and the line of attack meshed with Trump’s populist rhetoric on the campaign trail.

Offit got no response. He wasn’t even sure that Trump had read the email. But here, months later, was Trump’s unmistakable black Sharpie scrawl across the top of the message he had sent: “Mike — Such a cool letter. Best wishes, Donald.”

[Malvolio]

Some (not all) Bernie supporters have to learn the same thing that Ron Paul supporters learned, that enthusiasm doesn't win elections. It wins straw polls because only the most enthusiastic voters participate in straw polls. But once there's an election that actually counts, one person's "Rah, rah" vote counts exactly the same as another's "lesser of two evils" vote. No more, no less.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

There are going to be some who voted for Trump and regretted it later, but few of those would vote for a Democrat. For the most part, I think her theory is reasonable.

More than likely, those Republicans with voter's remorse over Trump would stay home on election day than vote for a Democrat, either that or cast their ballot for an Independent. The partisan rancor runs too deep to go any other way.

[InformationGeek]

Another press conference with Trump, another round of unhinged madness.

TRUMP: "The European Union was really formed so they could treat us badly."

He then claims NATO "was going down like a rocket ship" before he took office.

Trump on coronavirus: "A lot of people think that goes away in April with the heat. As the heat comes in. Typically that will go away in April. We're in great shape, though.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

NH should be between him and Warren from Mass.

Sadly most recent poll has Warren begging Sanders, Buttigieg, and Klobuchar.

[Jack Dracula]

Lindsey Graham 100% has some kind of alien brain parasite.

Most people give their new love a valentine in February. Graham gave Trump his last shred of dignity.

[Jack Dracula]

More than likely, those Republicans with voter's remorse over Trump would stay home on election day than vote for a Democrat, either that or cast their ballot for an Independent. The partisan rancor runs too deep to go any other way.

I think the closest thing we'll see to a swing voter this year is someone like Mets. Someone who' dislikes Trump enough to vote for Biden or Blumburg but not enough to vote for Sanders.

[worstblogever]

On this date in2015, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" ran a profile of Jacob Dorsey, who was a 19 year old candidate for a seat in the Wisconsin House of Representatives in 2014, who was obliterated in the election for his seat not because of his age, and surely not because the Wisconsin GOP didn’t support him (he was given $1,000 by the party for his campaign from them directly, and even got a photo-op with Gov. Scott Walker)… but it was more of his Twitter account that destroyed his chances. He probably should have went back and deleted all the posts where he casually used gay and/or racial slurs, declared his hatred of President Obama and other “urban bastards”, wished for another Civil War, and declared “f*** Abe Lincoln”, which indicated he hadn’t checked who founded the party he was a member of. Anyway, all signs point towards Dorsey having slinked back into college at BYU-Idaho, and has yet to make another attempt at joining the world of politics.

In both 2016, and in 2017, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” published profiles of South Carolina State Senator Lee Bright, a two-term South Carolina State Senator from District 12 in in the Palmetto State who got into office by running unopposed for his seat after serving many years as a school board member trying to get Creationism taught in South Carolina schools. He galvanized his support base of Tea Partiers over the next several years with increasingly inflammatory rhetoric, winning re-election in 2012, and finishing second in the GOP primary race to try and unseat sitting U.S. Senator Lindsay Graham in the 2014 elections. Bright’s voting record, that featured support for defunding Planned Parenthood as well as Personhood legislation, stricter Voter ID laws to combat the mythical threat of “in person voter fraud” at the cost of disenfranchising tens of thousands of voters, a love of guns that saw him co-sponsor a bill to legalize carrying firearms in bars (because alcohol does wonders for impulse control of people packing heat), the time he submitted a completely unconstitutional bill to that would see South Carolina begin printing its own currency, and a bill he created to try to give a five year jail sentence to anyone who worked on implementing the Affordable Care Act in South Carolina… it was Lee Bright's rhetoric that truly got our attention.

In January 2010, Lee Bright was quoted by a local journalist in South Carolina as saying, “If at first you don’t secede, try again,” in a discussion about states’ rights. In August 2013 Bright gave a speech where he warned against “IRS Brownshirts enforcing Obamacare”, as well as claiming that “FEMA is training a militia” while warning against “terrorist nations” sending people to execute a “Southern border invasion”, specifically mentioning the Muslim Brotherhood of perpetrating such an action. In December 2013, Bright argued that able-bodied food stamp recipients “shouldn’t eat”, claiming that many of them “have the nicest nails, and the nicest pocketbook and the nicest car”, and that the United States should completely eliminate its social safety net because it’s “the role of the church”. He finished that discussion by comparing the IRS to Nazi Germany and stated his belief that South Carolina troops will turn against President Obama, advising his allies that "If the Tenth Amendment won’t protect the Second, we might have to use the Second to protect the Tenth.” Shortly after the Newtown Massacre, Bright made the classy decision to campaign for U.S. Senate by auctioning off an AR-15 assault rifle, the weapon that Adam Lanza used to murder 26 people in the Newtown Massacre. In April 2014 Bright was interviewed by Josh Duggar saying that Republicans need to have the courage of Bashir al-Assad and Vladimir Putin in dealing with gays, and not allow an “indoctrination” of the “homosexual agenda”.

In June 2015, days after the tragic shooting at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina that was perpetrated by Dylann Roof, a white nationalist motivated by Confederate iconography… the one positive that came out of the tragedy was that a majority in the South Carolina state legislature were willing to discuss removing the Confederate flag from state property, such as the state capitol. Almost immediately upon hearing that news, however, Lee Bright lost his damned mind, and comparing removing the flag to a “Stalinist purge” and gave a rambling defense of the Stars & Bars on the floor of the South Carolina legislature where he added “the Confederate flag is a proud symbol of freedom”, before soon raving wildly about “the devil taking control of his land”, abortion clinics in black neighborhoods “committing genocide”, how “gay marriage is a national sin” and how President Obama and the White House displayed the “abomination colors” when it was legalized. Lee Bright impotently worked towards getting Ted Cruz elected president in the 2016 presidential campaign, and as it turned out, he probably should have spent his time watching his own back. We are relieved to report. In a runoff election against Scott Talley, Lee Bright was defeated by a total of 299 votes, and will now presumably spend some time alternating between sulking about his own political fortunes and furiously wanking to the fact that there are White Nationalists in the highest echelons of our government currently.)

[PaulBullion]

Facebook, Twitter Refuse To Remove Edited Trump Video of Pelosi Ripping Up State Of The Union Speech

by Yahoo News

https://ca.yahoo.com/news/pelosi-cla...163011039.html

The more time passes the more I wish she hadn't have done that. She was so clever up until now but she has played right into Trump's hands.*sigh*

The time they spend on making "nasty woman" videos about her is time they do not spend talking about the Iowa hiccups. She got what she wanted.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2018, as well as 2019, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled North Carolina Lieutenant Governor Dan Forest, who was first elected to office back in 2012 by a little less than seven thousand votes. Forest is a political legacy, as the son of former Congresswoman and rubber room candidate Sue Myrick (the gal who palled around with Islamic hate groups in the wake of 9/11, tried to get rock music banned in her hometown, and claimed God spoke to her through her toaster to tell her to run for office), who spent four years serving under former Gov. Pat McCrory during his administration, during some of the more dismal policy failures the Tar Heel State has seen in several years (that are a lot of the reason why McCrory was only a one-term governor). Perhaps the biggest political disaster of the McCrory regime was North Carolina’s HB 2, a transphobic bathroom ban that allowed for the discrimination of LGBT citizens whose passage ended up costing the people of North Carolina over $3.7 billion in lost revenue due to several groups boycotting the state as a result and even some corporations choosing to move their operations elsewhere. And as the economic fallout from passing such a socially conservative law began to take its toll, a few more moderate members of the GOP around North Carolina started to admit that maybe… maybe they went too far. Dan Forest is most certainly not one of those reasonable souls.

You see, Dan Forest is a true Fundamentalist believer to his core. And he sat down with Tony Perkins, yes THAT Tony Perkins from the Family Research Council (which is still an anti-gay hate group) to tout the importance of HB 2, insisting that “if it protects one child or one woman "from being molested or assaulted, then it was worth it." Note the wording… IF.

Because, and I know this might be shocking, there were no transgender attacks upon women or children in restrooms. There never were. But that didn’t stop Forest from lying his *** off about what the bill was meant to do:

"Well, our bill does not discriminate against anybody. In fact, the Charlotte ordinance was amazingly discriminatory against especially women and girls who no longer had the freedom to walk into a restroom and know that they would be safe and secure in that restroom without a man walking in or a pedophile or a predator walking into that bathroom."

Now that we’ve established that Dan Forest has some issues with the LGBTQ community, in particular the “T”, what with hanging out with anti-gay hate groups and defending an anti-gay discrimination law…. Let’s talk about why this is going to matter going forward… one of the worst kept secrets right now in North Carolina politics is that when Forest is term-limited in 2020, he’s going to take a shot at preventing Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper from getting a second term in office. Forest almost immediately began attacking his sitting Governor for wanting to repeal the widely unpopular HB 2, and claiming that Roy Cooper, intends to we quote, “a 'Look But Don't Touch' policy in our bathrooms.” That doesn’t sound like someone who is backing off of his bad move, does it?

But the levels of fanaticism already look to be well ingrained farther than even that. For years now, Forest has begun organizing a “Christian retreat” for political donors and allies known as “Black Mountain Weekend” where political players from North Carolina who cut their teeth working for monsters like Jesse Helms get together, hopefully without wearing hoods while they discuss a “Christian worldview”. And while Forest seems more than thrilled to discriminate against the LGBTQ community, he doesn’t discriminate nearly as much with the kind of company he keeps with fellow people at his retreat. Like Robin Webster, a Faith preacher who believes that you can help turn a gay person straight by beating it out of them. Every legal method of exploiting 501 (c3) law is being pushed, and apparently the bounds of the law aren’t enough for Forest’s backers, who already this year have gone far enough to donate an entire TV studio’s worth of equipment to Forest… illegally. He's more than willing to collect all the donor money from the heads of charter schools at the cost of selling out North Carolina’s education system to them later on.

Not shockingly, Dan Forest has made some speeches of late that sound a wee bit like something a God-fearing white nationalist would say, including his June 28th, 2019 barn burner where he began ranting about how “no nation has survived the diversity and multiculturism that the United States faces today.”

Here’s a hint for spotting bigots, everyone… when they speak about diversity as if it’s a contagious disease upon the populace, that’s a huge tell. Another one? When you’re spreading lies about immigrants attacking “thousands of kids” in your state, and when you get called out for that disgusting lie, claiming that you “heard it from one lady” as if that’s a valid excuse to say something so irresponsible and hateful.

So, CSGOPOTD has had Dan Forest on our radar since early 2018, because he seems devoted enough to his bigoted cause that we want everyone to know his name by the time the ballots go out for Governor of North Carolina in 2020. This is a guy who you should smile about casting a vote against.

[Tami]

If Bloomberg can do this much, then more power to him

Michael Bloomberg’s 2020 campaign ads are driving TV-addicted Trump crazy: report

President Donald Trump has been happy to sit back and watch the Democratic primary field tear each other apart, but his re-election campaign is growing concerned about billionaire Michael Bloomberg’s growing support.

The president has been lobbing attacks at the former New York City mayor on Twitter and in Fox News interviews, but his allies insist he’s not afraid of Bloomberg — he just watches a whole lot of television, reported Politico.

“He’s very reactive to what he sees and the fact that Bloomberg’s ads are all over better explains the attacks on him than Trump being fearful of him,” said a Republican operative.