All purpose news and politics thread part v: The quickening

[wjowski]

Obama brought down his own deficit but the deficit was still greater when he left than when he was sworn in.

The deficit rose because of necessary spending that had to be done after suffering one of the biggest economic disasters since the Great Depression.

Meanwhile currently we are, as per 538, in uncharted territory with out-of-control debt that's only getting worse even as the economy is (supposedly) largely doing okay.

[JCAll]

The deficit rose because of necessary spending that had to be done after suffering one of the biggest economic disasters since the Great Depression.

Meanwhile currently we are, as per 538, in uncharted territory with out-of-control debt that's only getting worse even as the economy is (supposedly) largely doing okay.

The Stock Market is doing well, the economy feels pretty crap for the rest of us. All that means is the Billion Dollar Megacorporations are making record profits, but they don't pay taxes so *shrug*

[Malvolio]

The next time some Blue Collar right wing guy brags about how great the economy is doing, ask him how much he has invested in the stock market or much he intends to invest over the next month. My guess would be zero, except for any retirement accounts and I'm willing to bet that most blue collar guys who have invested retirement accounts have no idea where they're invested or how well or how poorly they're doing.

[Zauriel]

37 days to go until the iowa primary. I bet warren, castro and booker will drop out from the race before the primary.

[numberthirty]

The next time some Blue Collar right wing guy brags about how great the economy is doing, ask him how much he as invested in the stock market or much he intends to invest over the next month. My guess would be zero, except for any retirement accounts and I'm willing to bet that most blue collar guys who have invested retirement accounts have no idea where they're invested or how well or how poorly they're doing.

There's another side to that coin though...

While they might not be able to give you the "Chapter"/"Verse" on how the market has actually been doing, they probably can tell you how a market going nose over tail impacted them years ago.

Accounting for that, someone not actively being kicked in mouth by market fallout probably does see the economy as doing pretty great.

[worstblogever]

37 days to go until the iowa primary. I bet warren, castro and booker will drop out from the race before the primary.

Warren no. She's still in the Top 3 or 4.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, as well as 2018, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day posted profiles of Larry Pittman, a member of the North Carolina House of Representatives, a pastor and a Birther who was first appointed to office in 2011, and has barely survived a few re-election scares because his great ideas for making our country better seem to fit the pattern of working towards a theocracy, naming Christianity our state religion, and eliminating all income taxes and using only sales tax to generate revenue for the government. Pittman also was a trendsetter in demonizing Planned Parenthood years prior to the Center for Medical Progress doing so, saying they were a “murder for hire” organization and 75% of their revenue was generated in making money off of abortions, and insists that in 1992, he and his friends found baby parts in a Planned Parenthood dumpster that were, we quote, “the consistency of hamburger”. He’s so pro-life, in fact, that he has called for a return to public hangings, and in the order of who went to the gallows, he listed “abortionists, rapists, and kidnappers”, remarkably forgetting that abortion is legal, and omitting murderers from his list. His other big wacky moment from our first profile was when he reacted to meager gun control suggestions by producing pro-gun legislation after the Sandy Hook massacre, and when asked to defend such an action from the press, warned against the government coming for or the United Nations coming for all our guns, and he also thinks Common Core Standards are “a Marxist attack to destroy us fom within”, in but two of his paranoid rants worthy of an episode of Alex Jones’ InfoWars. This should perhaps come as little surprise, but you may have heard about how the North Carolina GOP produced the anti-gay HB 2 Law that allowed for the legal discrimination of LGBTQ citizens in the state… well, it should come as little shock that Larry Pittman was a co-sponsor of the bill. Who would have guessed that a Fundamentalist theocratic lunatic also hates gay people, right?

So, how bugs*** crazy can Larry Pittman get? Well, back in April of 2017, he got on Facebook to talk about his insane effort to try to pass legislation to ignore the Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges ruling (good luck with that) and decided to wax poetic about the founder of the Republican Party, Abraham Lincoln. And, the Great Emancipator, it seems, in the eyes of Larry Pittman, is just like Hitler:

“And if Hitler had won, should the world just get over it? Lincoln was the same sort (of) tyrant, and personally responsible for the deaths of over 800,000 Americans in a war that was unnecessary and unconstitutional.”

Through 2018, Pittman remained bonkers. After the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, Pittman posted on Facebook that the entire shooting was staged, and part of a conspiracy created by “Communist Democrats” to “push for gun control so they can take over the country”. The outrage over his comment made Pittman pause from sponsoring a bill he had planned to try and arm teachers… for all of six months until June.

We reiterate, Pittman is insane. But in spite of that, he narrowly won re-election in 2018 with 53% of the vote, and has apparently focused his attention on seeing schoolchildren beaten and or shot with this term in office. In March of 2019, Pittman filed legislation to allow teachers to carry guns in the classroom, and towards the end of the month, he voted against a bill to ban corporal punishment in schools, commenting that he is grateful for every “whipping my daddy gave me”.

In September of 2019, Pittman filed HB 65, also known as the “Marriage Reaffirmation Amendment Act”, which would supposedly ban marriage equality in North Carolina and order state officials to ignore the Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges ruling. (Pretty safe to say that’s some unconstitutional “state’s rights” lunacy). But, after a constituent wrote a letter to Pittman telling him that pandering to intolerant old people who think the Bible should be the law of the land, Pittman responded calmly and politely explaining his position. NAH, we’re just kidding, Pittman wrote back to his own constituent and told them that he wouldn’t “change with the times” and told them that “if you have a complaint about that, tell it to Satan when you see him.”

Larry Pittman will be facing a primary challenger in 2020 in the form of Jay White, because perhaps the North Carolina GOP is finally wising up and realizing they shouldn’t have Fundamentalist lunatics who push forth completely unconstitutional bills and taunt their own constituents going forward. Whoever wins that matchup will face off against Democratic candidate Gail Young in the general election, who was close to beating Pittman in 2018, and has already raised three times the amount of cash for her campaign than he has. Whatever the results, come November of 2020 we just hope if it's not Young, that it's not Pittman, either.

[numberthirty]

37 days to go until the iowa primary. I bet warren, castro and booker will drop out from the race before the primary.

While anything could happen, I'd just let it unfold.

I don't think anyone would have called Yang still making the debates at this point.

[SquirrelMan]

I think we'll hear about Tulsi running for Ross Perot's old party soon.

[Tendrin]

Gosh. It's almost like a third party Tulsi run was predicted months ago by somebody.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

5 People Injured In Stabbing Attack In NY Rabbi’s Home During Hanukkah Celebration

“We will NOT allow this to become the new normal,” said New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. Let's call a spade a spade: it's open season on Jews! I can't put it any plainer than that. The president needs to pull his fat orange ass off the golf course and condemn these heinous actions in the strongest terms, like TODAY!

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100 Gold Star Families Sue U.S. Defense Contractors For Allegedly Paying Off Taliban

U.S. troops were “attacked by a Taliban-led terrorist insurgency that Defendants helped finance” by paying protection money, the suit charges.

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Mass Killings In U.S. Hit Record High In 2019, Most Were Mass Shootings

A new database shows that there were more mass killings in 2019 than any year dating back to at least the 1970s. I'm sure the NRA has nothing to say about that....unless talk of gun control comes up.

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Biden Waffles On Potential Senate Subpoena After Saying He’d Defy It

The Democratic candidate first said he wouldn’t testify in Trump’s impeachment trial because it would be based on “specious grounds.” Waffle much, Joe? Sheesh!

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More Than 900 Accused Clergy Members Left Off Church’s Sex Abuse Lists

An Associated Press investigation found hundreds of priests accused of sexual abuse have not been identified by the Roman Catholic Church. One wonders if that was accidental, or intentional. My vote's for the latter.

[Tami]

37 days to go until the iowa primary. I bet warren, castro and booker will drop out from the race before the primary.

Booker is very stubborn (and optimistic). He'll hang in there as long as possible. As much as I like him, and I really do like him, realistically it's going to be hard. But, then again, the polls have been wrong before.

[Tami]

How Are Socialism and Communism Different?

Both socialism and communism are essentially economic philosophies advocating public rather than private ownership, especially of the means of production, distribution and exchange of goods (i.e. making money) in a society. Both aim to fix the problems they see as created by a free-market capitalist system, including the exploitation of workers and a widening gulf between rich and poor.

But while socialism and communism share some basic similarities, there are also important differences between them.

I was curious to learn more about this and found this article to start with.

[Tami]

‘I don’t believe in violence, but…’: Trump’s most rabid supporters warn of ‘civil war’ if he loses in 2020

On Saturday, The New York Times profiled an October gathering of Trump supporters in Golden Valley, Arizona, at least some of whom are prepared for violence if the president is not re-elected in 2020.

“Great American Pizza & Subs, on a highway about 100 miles southeast of Las Vegas, was busier and Trumpier than usual. On any given day it serves ‘M.A.G.A. Subs’ and ‘Liberty Bell Lasagna.’ The ‘Second Amendment’ pizza comes ‘loaded’ with pepperoni and sausage. The dining room is covered in regalia praising President Trump,” wrote Times reporter Astead W. Herndon. “But this October morning was ‘Trumpstock,’ a small festival celebrating the president. The speakers included the local Republican congressman, Paul Gosar, and lesser-known conservative personalities. There was a fringe 2020 Senate candidate in Arizona who ran a website that published sexually explicit photos of women without their consent; a pro-Trump rapper whose lyrics include a racist slur aimed at Barack Obama; and a North Carolina activist who once said of Muslims, ‘I will kill every one of them before they get to me.'”

“They label us white nationalists, or white supremacists,” said California right-wing activist Guy Taiho Decker. “There’s no such thing as a white supremacist, just like there’s no such thing as a unicorn. We’re patriots.” Decker, according to Herndon, was previously arrested “on charges of making terrorist threats.”

[Tendrin]

We see evidence of this in this thread from time to time:

https://twitter.com/Wilson__Valdez/s...07283998806017