All purpose news and politics thread part v: The quickening

[GindyPosts]

But why should this be limited only to Election Day, rather than primaries?

Or should we also have national (or state) holidays for primaries?

Because different states hold different primaries at different times? I know this may be a rare case of sincerity on your behalf instead of kowtowing to your Republican instincts, but the problem is we often don't give primaries a lot of sway, what with the voters only being allowed to vote for their political party and the candidates that will represent them, unless it, unsurprisingly, involves the presidential campaign, and sometimes the candidates are decided long before the states that vote later get a chance to make a decision. Meanwhile, I think it's better to just let people have Election Day as a paid holiday so not only will the day have significance (even in odd number years, states and cities will hold elections), but it could help reinvigorate a lost art in the Americana that the older generations keep harping about us ungrateful youngsters are taking for granted.

As for what you say about voting, we're talking about people of voting age who deal with restrictions. Voter ID laws were enacted all around the country under the pretense to stop "voting fraud", which supposedly was rampant and corrupting our most sacred of processes, but given how not only is it sometimes difficult to make it to the polls, but it's also getting harder to get IDs (it took me ages to get my state ID... I literally had to order my birth certificate from a third party service and pay over $50 for said service because nobody else in my family had the ID to get it from the ISDH and my mother was too frail/indignant to get her state ID replaced), not to mention how conclusive evidence of this "rampant" voter fraud is hard to come by legitimately, can we safely say these laws were made to give Republicans an unfair advantage, knowing their constituents will likely have their stuff, while minorities likely won't, and thus will probably not vote or be too stressed out by the process to continue voting in the future? It's like Gerrymandering; Democrats are guilty of taking advantage of it, as well, but when it's clear a political party abuses the system to game voters, shouldn't you have an issue?

Oh, I forgot; it helps Republicans so... it won't bother you.

[Tendrin]

Oh, I forgot; it helps Republicans so... it won't bother you.

We have a winner.

[InformationGeek]

Oh WBE. Got a Democrat for April's Fools Day.

[Tendrin]

What on earth.

[Malvolio]

Yeah, but Collins is talking about Christian gold star families.

Look at this! Mets throwing snarky shade at a Republican! Hell must be freezing over.

[numberthirty]

Oh WBE. Got a Democrat for April's Fools Day.

...

While I'm not going to say there's nothing to any of what was said(auto accidents/fatalities...), that might have been the worst possible way to attempt to address it.

[Malvolio]

While I'm not going to say there's nothing to any of what was said(auto accidents/fatalities...), that might have been the worst possible way to attempt to address it.

Yeah, I see what the Senator was trying to do, write a bill that you don't really want to pass, in order to make a point. Charlie Rangel did something similar a few years ago with a bill to bring back the draft. The thing is though, that this particular bill, in the way it's written, just might pass. And that would be a bad thing.

[wjowski]

What if Election Day were treated like Jury Duty, where people are required to be reimbursed for their time off in the name of fulfilling their civic duty?

Have we ever had a majority of citizens vote in a general election?

I've been saying this for years.

Turning it into a national holiday would have the opposite effect of what people think it'll do.

[Tendrin]

I've been saying this for years.

Turning it into a national holiday would have the opposite effect of what people think it'll do.

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

And you'd be wrong about that part. Some nations do have compulsory voting but I don't think that'll fly here, while a Holiday is almost certain to actually increase turn out.

The 55.7% VAP turnout in 2016 puts the U.S. behind most of its peers in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), most of whose members are highly developed, democratic states. Looking at the most recent nationwide election in each OECD nation, the U.S. placed 26th out of 32 (current VAP estimates weren’t available for three countries).

Please look at the list of nations in that link, and what days the yote on. Most of them are going to have a higher percentage of voting age turn out than we do, and while there are other reasons are percentage of votes is lower than them, increasing accessibility to the franchise through a holiday for election day is almost certain to increase turn out by some degree. The barriers we throw up between a voter and their ballot remains intolerable affront to the notion that we're a democratic republic, but then, those affronts only help Republicans so I don't expect our local republicans to care much.

[worstblogever]

Oh WBE. Got a Democrat for April's Fools Day.

... I feel like I need more context on this fella. Like, there's the lady Democratic legislator who wants to criminalize men who masturbate to prove a point about reproductive health. They only do it to point out hypocrisy.

[shooshoomanjoe]

Yup.

You did get that I'm mocking Collins, right?

I'm curious as to what I've said in the past that is so outrageously Islamophobic as to indicate that this would be my view.

You might be projecting because I didn't bring up Islam. I said that because Collins didn't specify Christians but you did.

[jetengine]

The phone thing sounds like a shot at either drinking or guns I think.

[zinderel]

But why should this be limited only to Election Day, rather than primaries?

Or should we also have national (or state) holidays for primaries?

You're right! There SHOULD be a state holiday on primary day, and a national holiday on Voting Day. How do we pay for it, you ask? Well, that's easy! We just need to get your party leaders to agree to blow up a few less Muslim children in the coming war. That's a good start.

Majority of citizens is going to be tough, since many Americans can't vote (IE- minors.)

Oops. You got us, there. Kids can't vote, so what's the point of making voting easier for adults. Damn...oh well. Back to the drawing board, guys!

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2015, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” posted a profile of Steve Southerland, whose career prior to joining Congress included working as a mortician and funeral home director, and felt he was qualified to serve in our government because he was “a grief expert”. Southerland was quoted as once saying his $174,000 Congressional salary was “not much money”, yet still managed to get drunk on the clock and go skinny-dipping in the Sea of Galilee with several Republicans on a trip to Israel back in 2012. He also was “shocked” and “insulted” by comments by President Obama at the 2014 National Prayer Breakfast after the president heralded the United States’ proud history of respecting the religious freedoms of others, for whatever reason. Southerland also drew criticism for hosting a “Men Only” fundraiser in March 2014, that on its flier advised to “tell the misses not to wait up”, and then tried defending it later by saying his primary opponent, Gwen Graham, probably had hosted lingerie parties and not invited men, so there was nothing wrong with it. Because that doesn’t sound misogynistic at all. Steve Southerland lost in the 2014 elections to Graham in the GOP Primary for his seat, and already announced he will not try to avenge that loss in the 2016 election cycle. His political career is seemingly over already.

On this date in 2016, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” posted a profile of Steve Katz, a former veterinarian, who was accused of illegally disposing of the remains of a German shepherd, and another time, attacking a Chihuahua in his care (because Katz was not a dog person, go figure) yet somehow managed to get elected to the New York Assembly in the Tea Party Wave in 2010. Despite of Katz being on the York Assembly’s Committee on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse, and voting against a bill in 2012 that would have legalized medical marijuana… he was arrested while, you guessed it, in possession of marijuana. Katz decided against running for re-election in 2016.

[worstblogever]

On this date in both 2017, 2018, as well as 2019, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” published profiles of the man who looks like the answer to the question, “What if Beavis and Butt-Head were the same person?”, the U.S. House Representative from Florida’s 1st Congressional District Matt Gaetz. Gaetz schlepped his way onto the political scene back in the Tea Party Wave in 2010 (in spite of the fact that he was arrested for DUI only two years prior), where he was elected to three terms in the Florida state legislature through the benefit of not facing a primary challenger or general election opponent, EVER. He was, of course, following in the footsteps of his daddy, in the sort of political nepotism that seems to be the norm in the GOP far too often. And with his daddy’s help and a lot of campaign financing, Gaetz won a crowded GOP primary in a conservative-leaning district in 2016 over six other challengers, and coasted to victory over Democrat Steven Specht in the general election.

Gaetz’s own campaign site touted his fanatical defense of the 2nd Amendment, including fighting to maintain Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” Laws (even after the death of Trayvon Martin), his deranged obsession with abortion that sees him try to force women to undergo medically unnecessary ultrasounds before getting one and his desire to defund Planned Parenthood, his pride in supporting legislation that makes life harder for all illegal immigrants. His voting record backs all that up, and more, as it includes opposition to same-sex marriage, support for stricter Voter ID laws to combat the statistically non-existent problem of in-person voter fraud at the cost of disenfranchising tens of thousands of voters, and drug testing welfare recipients, which has been a failed conservative policy every time it’s implemented until judges throw the law off the books for being unconstitutional. From the point he announced his campaign, Gaetz was hyping Donald Trump as president, and ranting about immigrants and Muslim terrorists, which is the sort of rhetoric that plays in a district in the Florida panhandle that borders Alabama, sadly.

Well, setting all of his xenophobia and conservative extremism aside, we actually took notice of Matt Gaetz because of what we can only summarize as a “total dick move” that he pulled on the morning of September 25th, 2016. The sports world was shocked and saddened to learn of the tragic death of young Miami Marlins pitcher Jose Fernandez at that time… and for whatever reason, Matt Gaetz decided to politicize it for all that it was worth like an opportunistic douchebag, and turn it into a criticism of those who were kneeling during the national anthem to protest police violence.

”To all who will kneel during the anthem today - just remember how Jose Fernandez risked his life just for the chance to stand for it.”

The criticism for exploiting a tragedy for political gain was fast, and sharp, but not enough to overcome the sheer amount of money Gaetz dumped into his Congressional run and the partisan lean of the district.

CSGOPOTD was not wrong to train our eyes on this little weasel. On February 16th, 2017, he introduced modest legislation to… oh… y’know, just abolish the entire Environmental Protection Agency. Gaetz didn’t even flinch about what a disgrace this attempt was, planning to attend all his town halls, albeit his idea to curtail dissent at them? Have militia groups loyal to him show up to provide a sense of “security”.

If you were wondering how “in deep” with the hard right Matt Gaetz has become, look no further than House Resolution 477, a bill that Matt Gaetz sponsored that was written by one of his top aides, who went on Reddit to ask a sub-forum dedicated to Donald Trump and white nationalism, that often has open discussions of Neo-Nazi ideals, Islamophobia and white supremacy. THAT is where the Congressman’s ideas are coming from, and surprise, the bill itself was written to investigate former FBI Director James Comey and… yup, Hilary Clinton.

And, when it comes to legislation he doesn’t write, Gaetz frequently is opposed to any sort of governance, voting against Disaster Relief for Hurricane Harvey (even though his Florida district itself is almost certainly going to need hurricane relief at some point), and in December of 2017, Rep. Gaetz became the sole member of Congress to vote against an anti-human trafficking bill, because he’s apparently okay with the practice of slavery and sex slavery.

It’s curious to see that as his first year in office was coming to a close, Matt Gaetz has been desperately flailing about trying to protect Donald Trump from Special Counsel Robert Mueller at every opportunity. Whether it’s going on Fox News to say, "If Bob Mueller were any more biased, we'd have to give him credentials for the mainstream media,"or meeting with Trump and then telling the media that the Mueller investigation is “infected with bias” (remember, Mueller is a life-long Republican), Gaetz seems determined to handcuff himself to Trump to his own peril. This included his January of 2018 attacks upon FBI agents Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, and when there were texts between the two not being immediately made public, Gaetz claimed it was “the biggest coincidence since the immaculate conception”. When asked on CNN to explain what the hell that actually means, Gaetz was unable to explain how the situation applied to the origin story of Jesus Christ, because of course he couldn’t, he’s a moron.

Gaetz hasn’t dialed back his racist diatribes since our first profile as well, claiming that Haiti is “disgusting” with “everywhere you look in Haiti, it’s sheet metal and garbage” in an interview with Chris Hayes on MSNBC. He invited Chuck Johnson, an alt-right conspiracy theorist and Holocaust Denier to Donald Trump’s first State of the Union address, and Gaetz himself has gotten in the habit of spreading conspiracy theories, himself. In October of 2018, Gaetz was claiming that women and children in Honduras were being paid by George Soros to join a caravan of migrants leaving that country for the United States. Which, was exactly the sort of rhetoric which enraged MAGA-Bomber Cesar Sayoc and Neo-Nazi synagogue shooter Robert Bowers within days of him aiding the spread of that conspiracy theory. Only a few weeks later, only the day after the 2018 election, Gaetz was leading the 2018 equivalent of the Brooks Brothers riot outside of the Broward County Board of Elections, spreading conspiracy theories about Democrats attempting to steal the election from Republican candidates.