All purpose news and politics thread part v: The quickening

[Tami]

Is Nancy Pelosi Caught in a Trap or Setting One?

Bret: Maybe it’s because I’m Jewish, but I have a fatalistic outlook on life and a bad feeling about 2020. Trump just seems like one of those Marvel Comics villains who are all-but indestructible when you try to take them down by ordinary kinetic means. The Stormy Daniels scandal? It felt like a feather flung at a tank. The Mueller investigation? A rock. Impeachment? A small-caliber bullet. And looking at the field of candidates on the stage in L.A. last week, I just wasn’t seeing Captain America.

Gail: Yeah but there are lots of Marvel heroes. Maybe a Democratic Ant-Man?

Bret: Sounds like you’re warming to Mayor Pete! The question is, what’s the secret weapon that will bring Trump down?

The economy is doing too well to be a winning issue for Democrats. The endlessly revolving wheel of Trump scandals is becoming a dizzying blur for most Americans. We’re not involved in a major, draining war. The Labour Party just got its butt kicked by the quasi-Trumpian Boris Johnson. And the Democrats are having public spitball fights about wine caves. If Trump just keeps his mouth shut for the next 10 months, he’s all but guaranteed a win.

[Malvolio]

Tulsi Gabbard and the Return of the Anti-Anti-Trump Left

To anyone who argues that "...voting for the lesser of two evils is still evil," would you also argue that shoplifting from a convenience store is just as bad as burning down a convenience store simply to spite the owner of the store?

[Malvolio]

"If Trump just keeps his mouth shut for the next 10 months, he’s all but guaranteed a win."

That's a Brobdingnagian "if." Trump can't keep his mouth shut for ten minutes, much less ten months.

[Kusanagi]

"If Trump just keeps his mouth shut for the next 10 months, he’s all but guaranteed a win."

That's a Brobdingnagian "if." Trump can't keep his mouth shut for ten minutes, much less ten months.

Honestly if Trump was a generic republican I don't think he could lose on this economy. The only reason this is a contest is because Trump is Trump. Even if he wins, does anyone doubt for a second it will be close?

[Wildling]

That photo of Briscoe Cain looks like a stereotypical angry nerd/gamer in the middle of a YouTube rant.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Is Nancy Pelosi Caught in a Trap or Setting One?

Perhaps I missed something in reading that piece, but Stephens didn’t take into account how Trump survived this long because the GOP has been running interference and protecting him to a fanatical degree since 2016.

[Kirby101]

Perhaps I missed something in reading that piece, but Stephens didn’t take into account how Trump survived this long because the GOP has been running interference and protecting him to a fanatical degree since 2016.

No you didn't miss anything Stephen is pretty much wrong about everything but his opposition to Trump.

[Tendrin]

No you didn't miss anything Stephen is pretty much wrong about everything but his opposition to Trump.

And he's a bed bug.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2014, 2015, 2016, as well as 2017, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day posted profiles of Bob Marshall, a particularly homophobic and misogynistic member of the Virginia State Assembly who made a bid for Congress in 2016 to serve Virginia’s 1st District, only to lose in the GOP Primary to Barbara Comstock. How homophobic, though? He literally described himself as “Virginia’s chief homophobe”. As conservative as Barbara Comstock is, Bob Marshall is far, far worse. Among the uglier Marshall moments in regards to the LGBT community brought to the fore were the fact that he co-wrote Virginia’s ban on same-sex marriage, how he worried that the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” would lead to gays bringing more STDs into the military population, and when he saw an LGBT flag flying on state property and tried claiming it was a class six felony. Heck, after some Supreme Court rulings where Justice Anthony Kennedy ruled in favor of gay rights, Marshall publicly commented that he thought it was because Kennedy was secretly gay, too. As far as women’s issues go, he once tried to pass a Personhood bill that would have outlawed many forms of birth control in Virginia, and the time during a debate in 2011 about funding Planned Parenthood that he claimed there was a spike in birth defects and it was because God was angry about abortion. Just to name a couple. Rounding out this summary of that profile, we’ll mention the time Bob Marshall was asked about the Affordable Care Act, and he said it was “forcible economic rape” and in 2016 when he compared his passion to nullify federal gun laws to those who fought to keep the Fugitive Slave Act in place. We are happy to say that as you may have heard, Bob Marshall was booted from office by Danica Roem, who beat him with 54% of the vote in Virgina’s 2017 elections. The story gets even sweeter. You see, Bob Marshall being a huuuuuge homophobe and transphobe who supported transgender bathroom bans and not common sense legislation that might actually help his constituents was what inspired Roem, a transgendered woman and heavy metal singer, to become a candidate for political office, and take him on in 2017. Marshall could not help himself, refusing to debate Roem in person, taking all sorts of potshots at her lifestyle and gender identity, and even had the Virginia GOP send out campaign fliers that deliberately misgendered her.

On this date in 2018, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled Dennis Hof, the winner of the race for the seat to represent District 36 Nevada’s State Assembly. It was a remarkable upset for several reasons. The first was… Dennis Hof was a pimp. That’s not a euphemism for anything… he was a literal 72-year old pimp, and is part owner of the Bunny Ranch in Nevada as well as several other brothels. This was hardly a secret to the public, what with Hof featuring his businesses on an HBO reality show called “Cat House” in the years prior, where he coached whores in their craft. Adding to the circus-like spectacle of a man employing sex workers winning a GOP Primary was the fact that he had convicted felon and madam Heidi Fleiss attend his victory party. And while some Nevada Republicans distanced themselves from Hof… guess what? HE GOT THE EVANGELICAL WING’S SUPPORT (Merry Christmas, from full-of-s*** conservative Christians everyone!). This in spite of Dennis Hof being, again, a pimp. And not just any pimp, a pimp whose former workers accused him of making unwanted sexual contact with them, and who frequently tried to get a mother and daughter both in his employ to engage in incestuous sex acts. While Hof may have won the election on November 6th, he didn’t live to serve in office, as he died on October 16th, 2018, at a party where people like CSGOPOTD alumni Joe Arpaio and porn star and alleged sexual predator Ron Jeremy were reveling with prostitutes (your party of family values at its finest). We’ll set aside his profile at this time, and profile a different kooky Republican today instead. (Current crazy/stupid scoreboard, is now 815-40, since this was established in July 2014.)

[worstblogever]

Eric “Rick” Crawford

Welcome to what is the 815th original profile here at “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profile, where we’ll be discussing the sitting U.S. House Representative from Arkansas 1st Congressional District, Eric “Rick” Crawford, who was first elected to that office in… you guessed it, the 2010 Tea Party Wave. Crawford was formerly a news anchor and agriculture reporter before running for office, and still seems like he’s laying fertilizer when he makes public statements. Perhaps the most ridiculous one we’ve seen from Crawford came in August of 2017, when he spoke out in defense of Confederate monuments, and felt that removing them “would lead to closing the Holocaust museum”.

”These people want to sanitize history and make it politically correct so that everybody can breathe easy and not feel any level of offense. This global history sanitation movement that basically says all of these statues have to come down because they might offend some people. At what point are we gonna shut down the Holocaust Museum? Is that on the agenda at any point, because it makes people uncomfortable? I mean, it never stops.”

And if there’s one thing that’s fine it’s conflating a museum commemorating victims of Nazi violence with Confederate monuments that serve as tributes to slavery and white supremacy.

Rick Crawford also got our attention back in 2015 when he responded to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges by saying that “The opinion of five lawyers, not elected by the American people, should not and cannot define what millions of Americans affirm as the true and divine institution of marriage.”

Ah yes… the justices are just “lawyers not elected” when they do things you don’t like. How cute, Rick.

Anyway, Crawford also denies the science behind climage change, saying there are “questions about the validity” into the research (that 98% of climate scientists agree is solid), and in January of 2017, came out in support of Donald Trump’s proposed “Muslim ban”. Crawford continued wanking to Trump’s craziness, by claiming the Mueller Report wasn’t finding anything but had cost taxpayers $10 million (which ignores the profit it actually made in seizing Paul Manafort’s ill-gotten assets).

In November of 2019, Rick Crawford furthered his fanatical support of Trump, calling the impeachment inquiry a “impeachment hoax”, and resigning his place on the House Intelligence Committee to cede his place on it instead to… Congressman Jim Jordan.

[worstblogever]

So… yeah… we have Rick Crawford to thank for that. If you’re not getting the idea about how hard right this guy leans, here’s the highlights of his voting record over the past decade:

• On January 5th, 2011, Rep. Crawford votes the first attempt by Republicans to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
• On February 18th, 2011, Rick Crawford votes to defund Planned Parenthood.
• March 17th, 2011: Rep. Crawford votes to cut funding to National Public Radio.
• September 15th, 2012: Rep. Crawford votes for the "No More Solyndras Act".
• September 21st, 2012: Crawford votes for the "Stop the War on Coal Act".
• February 28th, 2013: Crawford votes against the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act.
• June 19th, 2013: Rick Crawford votes against restoring $20.5 billion towards the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program.
• September 30th, 2013: Rep. Crawford votes for the 2013 Government Shutdown.
• Feb 26th, 2014: Rick Crawford goes "all in" on the faux-scandal surrounding the IRS researching SuperPACs by voting for the "Stop the Targeting of Political Beliefs by the IRS Act".
• July 10th, 2014: Crawford votes for House Amendment 1040, to prevent the implementation of the dreaded United Nations Agenda 21 Treaty, that in spite of just being recommended climate change guidelines, have many conspiracy theorists within the extreme right convinced it’s a plot for global domination.
• January 22nd, 2015: Rick Crawford votes for HR 7, an anti-abortion bill that makes even some Republicans pause before voting for it because of its language that tries to define the conditions for what “rape” is, in it.
• February 3rd, 2015: Rep. Crawford votes for the 60th Republican attempt at repealing the Affordable Care Act. This in spite of the fact that the law is not just working, but better than experts predicted.
• March 3rd, 2015: Crawford votes against funding the Department of Homeland Security as part of a Republican protest of President Obama’s executive orders on immigration.
• September 11th, 2015: Crawford votes against the United States' nuclear treaty with Iran.
• September 18th, 2015: Rep. Crawford votes for a bill with most House Republicans to defund Planned Parenthood, based on highly edited “sting” videos submitted by a Pro-Life advocacy group that have been repeatedly debunked by investigators.
• November 19th, 2015: Crawford votes for the American Security Against Foreign Enemies Act, reacting to the terror attacks in Paris by jihadists from France and Belgium by trying to create greater restrictions to keep out Syrian refugees, of whom exactly zero were involved in those attacks.
• February 2nd, 2016: Rick Crawford votes for HR 3762, the 61st attempt by Congressional Republicans to repeal the Affordable Care Act (which is still working better than was predicted).
• February 16th, 2017: Crawford votes for HJR 69, to make it legal for hunters on wildlife reserves to kill several species of hibernating bears or wolves while they’re sleeping. Because… well, the logic really isn’t there as to why, it’s just awful.
• March 16th, 2017: Rick Crawford votes for HR 1181, which would allow veterans deemed mentally incompetent to continue to own firearms, and not have them taken away without a judge's written order. We feel safer already.
• May 4th, 2017: Crawford votes for the GOP's healthcare plan, that would allow 24,000 more people to die a year, give $50,000 in tax breaks to millionaires, would eliminate coverage for pre-existing conditions, and would treat pregnancy, post-partum depression, and sexual assault as "pre-existing conditions". Oh, and a provision in the bill would make sure that Crawford would be allowed to keep his healthcare plan as it exists under the ACA, which would be repealed for the rest of the country. He and his Republican compatriots threw themselves a beer bash to celebrate taking away healthcare from millions and then gloated about it with Donald Trump at a White House press conference, as well.
• June 8th, 2017: Rick Crawford votes for HR 10, the GOP’s attempt to repeal Dodd-Frank financial reform, because what the country really needs is to allow the big banks to make the same mistakes that imploded the economy only a decade earlier.
• October 3rd, 2017: Crawford votes for HR 36, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, that would try to create an unconstitutional ban abortion at 20 weeks (even though medical science tells us fetuses do not have the capability to feel pain until 29 weeks).
• December 19th, 2017: Rick Crawford votes for HR 1, the GOP’s $1.7 trillion tax cut to benefit the wealthiest Americans and corporations permanently that coincidentally also removes the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate and kicks 13 million people off their health insurance.
• February 18th, 2018: Rep. Crawford and his fellow Republicans decide that poor big businesses are suffering too much at the hands of the Americans with Disabilities Act too much, and vote for HR 620, which would strip most of the civil rights protections guaranteed by it.
• January 23rd, 2019: Rep. Crawford voted against HR 648, because he was gleeully enjoying the longest government shutdown in history.
• February 28th, 2019: Crawford votes against HR 1112, a bill which would have required universal background checks on all firearm purchases, and close the gun show loophole.
• March 7th, 2019: Crawford votes against HR 183, a resolution to condemn anti-Semitism as a hateful extension of intolerance.
• March 14th, 2019: Rep. Crawford votes against HJR 46, which sane members of Congress voted for to reject Donald Trump’s “national emergency” regarding the U.S. border and his attempts to reallocate funds for a border wall without Congressional approval.
• April 4th, 2019: Rick Crawford is one of 158 Republicans who choose to vote against the re-authorization of the Violence Against Women Act, likely because they feel the 2nd Amendment remaining absolute is more important than preventing people with a history of domestic abuse from owning a firearm (which statistics show, makes them more likely to use those firearms against women in their lives).
• May 17th, 2019: Crawford votes against The Equality Act, which would have prevented discrimination towards Americans based on their gender identity or sexual orientation.
• June 4th, 2019: Rep. Crawford votes against the Dreamers Act, because he’s too xenophobic and partisan to care about immigration reform.
• July 16th, 2019: Rick Crawford votes against a resolution to condemn Donald Trump for his racist statements that four people of color in Congress should “go back where they came from”.
• December 3rd, 2019: Rick Crawford is one of 71 Republicans who vote against House Resolution 546, which stated disapproval of any attempt to readmit the Russian federation back into the G7 and make it the G8.

Rick Crawford has already announced he will be running for a sixth term in office in 2020, and it seems like he’s going to do his best to keep a lower profile and let proxies like Jim Jordan get all the negative headlines for him during the impeachment inquiry. Arkansas’ 1st Congressional District has a +17 Republican lean these days, so it’s not like he’s going anywhere unless he gets a primary challenger to upset him. We still think he’s a great testament against incumbency being something to hold as a positive.

[aja_christopher]

I make no argument comparing levels of dishonesty. Both sides lie enough that decisions on who to vote for should typically be based on something other than trustworthiness. I know that Republicans routinely lie, as do Democrats. As did Obama.

Show factual proof that Obama lied as much as Trump does, or even Bush who lied about WMDs and tax cuts, leading to Iraq War and the Great Recession.

Posting a link to ten or so "lies" by Obama doesn't negate the thousands of lies told by Trump just this year, or the hundreds of lies told by Republicans with regards to things like tax cuts, the deficit and social security -- again, you're being blatantly dishonest if you're trying to make the argument that "both sides routinely lie", especially with regards to Obama or important national issues like the deficit and social security.

Just like the party you support.

And you do deflect -- just like now you're deflecting by bringing up "Obama" instead of addressing Republican lies regarding tax cuts, the deficit, climate change, voter suppression, family separation, foreign interference in our elections (etc). You won't address those issues directly because you know you can't -- so instead you deflect to the false argument that Democrats are the same.

The unavoidable truth is that if Republicans weren't so comfortable with lies, then Trump wouldn't be your party's current elected representative.

With that in mind, show factual proof that Democrats "routinely lie" as much as Republicans with regards to important national issues like tax cuts, climate change, voter suppression, family separation, and foreign interference in our elections.

Or you can simply admit that like many Republicans, you don't have a problem with the dishonesty of said party, so long as it serves your purposes.

-----
"False equivalence is a logical fallacy in which two completely opposing arguments appear to be logically equivalent when in fact they are not. This fallacy is categorized as a fallacy of inconsistency.

A common way for this fallacy to be perpetuated is one shared trait between two subjects is assumed to show equivalence, especially in order of magnitude, when equivalence is not necessarily the logical result.

False equivalence is a common result when an anecdotal similarity is pointed out as equal, but the claim of equivalence doesn't bear because the similarity is based on oversimplification or ignorance of additional factors. The pattern of the fallacy is often as such: "If A is the set of c and d, and B is the set of d and e, then since they both contain d, A and B are equal". d is not required to exist in both sets; only a passing similarity is required to cause this fallacy to be used.

False equivalence arguments are often used in journalism and in politics, where the minor flaws of one candidate may be compared to major flaws of another."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_equivalence

[JCAll]

Honestly if Trump was a generic republican I don't think he could lose on this economy. The only reason this is a contest is because Trump is Trump. Even if he wins, does anyone doubt for a second it will be close?

I think Trump is a generic Republican. This is just where the party is right now.

[numberthirty]

Honestly, I think Trump is a generic Republican. This is just where the party is right now.

Agree/Disagree...

On paper, I agree with the general outline of what you are saying.

That said, Kusanagi has a point in that Wisconsin was closer last time out because Trump didn't do as well as Romney had.

[Tami]

Trump campaign plagued by groups raising tens of millions in his name

As President Donald Trump raises money for his reelection campaign, he’s competing for cash with a growing mass of pro-Trump PACs, dark money groups and off-brand Facebook advertisers neither affiliated with nor endorsed by Trump’s campaign. And they have pulled in over $46 million so far.

The groups mimic Trump’s brand in the way they look and feel. They borrow the president’s Twitter avatar on Facebook pages, use clips of Trump’s voice in robocalls asking for “an emergency contribution to the campaign” and, in some cases, have been affiliated with former Trump aides, such as onetime deputy campaign manager David Bossie. But most are spending little money to help the president win in 2020, POLITICO found.