All purpose news and politics thread part v: The quickening

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, as well as 2019, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day posted profiles of profiled the current U.S. House Representative from Arizona's 4th District, Paul Gosar, who we noted consistently has one of the worst voting records on issues that impact women, and not just on abortion, because Gosar also voted against the renewal of the Violence Against Women Act, but also voted against legislation that would allow female victims of sexual assault within our military to decide who determines their case, a military trial or a civilian one. He also not only voted for the 2013 Government Shutdown, but when the time came to reopen the government, he voted to keep it closed. During the standoff between the Bureau of Land Management and Cliven Bundy in 2014, Gosar actually travelled to Nevada to show support for Bundy, stopping to take photos with him, as well. Gosar's also a conspiracy theorist, having called for the impeachment of Attorney General Eric Holder over Benghazi, immigration, Fast & Furious, Guantanamo Bay and “violating criminal smuggling laws”. In September 2015, as the nation excitedly awaiting a visit from Pope Francis to come speak before the United States Congress, Paul Gosar, a Catholic in a district full of them, announced that he would be boycotting the pontiff’s speech because he refused to listen to the Holy Father’s talk of climate change, instead insisting writing an op-ed where he said he didn’t want to hear “leftist talking points”, and saying that “climate has been changing since “first created in Genesis”.

Now, we want to point out before we get into our update on Paul Gosar’s EXTREMELY conservative voting record, that he’s made news over the past five months for being a complete… well, for lack of a better term, paranoid douche-nozzle. It might be one thing if we could only say he was trying to stir up right-wing conspiracies regarding California Congressman Devin Nunes dud of a memo regarding Carter Page’s FISA warrant, claiming that its contents “constitutes treason” by the FBI like he did back in early 2018.

No, what concerned us far more was how back in October of 2017, Rep. Gosar tried to revise history regarding the terrorist attack carried out by a Neo-Nazi in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August of 2016. Heather Heyer’s death is something Gosar couldn’t have Neo-Nazis left hanging on their spotless record as American protesters, so in the middle of an interview on CNN, he started pushing the conspiracy theory that the entire weekend of terror carried out by White Nationalists was actually orchestrated by George Soros.

He wasn’t done slandering Soros, though, as he also claimed while he was fleeing the Nazis in Hungary eight decades ago that he was turning in other Jews to the Nazis. This entire narrative was so insane and bizarre that all six, yes SIX of Gosar’s siblings wrote a letter to publicly distance themselves from him. Gosar blew them off as “disgruntled Hilary supporters”, and that “Stalin would be proud” of them, and then a few weeks later, blamed Barack Obama on their rejection of him, because he’s a partisan lunatic.

And we can’t underline how explicitly true that is, as he chose to use his time in the House Oversight Committee to respond to the testimony of Michael Cohen to quite constructively taunt Cohen with the not-at-all-childish rhyme, “LIAR, LIAR, PANTS ON FIRE!” Not being content to simply do it out loud, he had in intern present a giant poster of Cohen’s face with the taunt, as well. Sane pundits, including Republican ones, were embarrassed of their party’s performance that day, as they looked like incompetent flacks for Donald Trump, grasping at straws, who failed to refute any of Cohen’s claims.

Because Arizona’s 4th Congressional District has a +20 Republican lean according to the Cook Partisan Voting Index, Gosar still won re-election with 68% of the vote even though he shared anti-Semitic conspiracy theories that made his own family turn their backs on him.

[worstblogever]

And so, Paul Gosar resumed being downright awful as a legislator:

• January 22nd, 2019: Gosar can’t be arsed to vote against HR 676, which would prevent Donald Trump from doing the unthinkable and walking away from our allies in NATO to appease the Russians.
• January 23rd, 2019: Rep. Gosar voted against HR 648, because he was gleefully enjoying the longest government shutdown in history.
• January 27th, 2019: Paul Gosar votes against HJR 30, which was meant to express disapproval of Donald Trump not acting against Russian Federation for attack Gosar our democracy. You see, he’s fine with our nation being sublet to Vladimir Putin.
• February 28th, 2019: Gosar 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: Gosar votes against HR 183, a resolution to condemn anti-Semitism as a hateful extension of intolerance.
• March 14th, 2019: Rep. Gosar 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: Paul Gosar 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: Gosar votes against The Equality Act, which would have prevented discrimination towards Americans based on their gender identity or sexual orientation.
• June 4th, 2019: Rep. Gosar can’t be arsed to vote for the Dreamers Act, because he’s too xenophobic and partisan to care about immigration reform.
• July 12th, 2019: Gosar is one of 12 Republicans who vote against the re-authorization of the Zadroga Act to provide healthcare to 9/11 First Responders.
• July 16th, 2019: Paul Gosar 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”.
• October 17th, 2019: Gosar is one of 60 Republicans who vote against HJ Res 77, which opposed Donald Trump’s disastrous decision to abandon Syrian Kurdish forces in Northeast Syria to the mercies of a Turkish invasion.
• October 23rd, 2019: Gosar is one of 41 Republicans who, while staring down the possibility of Donald Trump being impeached, stage a ridiculous publicity stunt in response by crashing a classified impeachment inquiry hearing for a “protest”. He was supposedly upset that he didn’t get to participate in the hearings, which is a lie, because Gosar just chose to not show up for them.
• December 18th, 2019: Rep. Gosar ignores his Congressional duty to hold a president who has been proven to commit high crimes and misdemeanors accountable and votes against the impeachment of Donald Trump.

Paul Gosar hasn’t done much to dispel the image that he’s a conspiracy theorist. Particularly when in November of 2019, he put out a series of posts on Twitter whose first letter all spelled out “Epstein didn’t kill himself”, and referencing a story from the conspiracy site Project Veritas to the same.

He followed that up by posting about Area 51.

We must also note that on January 6th, 2020, Rep. Gosar got on Twitter to post a fake photo of former President Barack Obama smiling and shaking hands with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, writing, “The world is a better place without these guys in power.” The two have never actually met, and Rouhani is still in power. (CNN did the research and determined the original photo of Obama was from his meeting with India’s former Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh.) Paul Gosar is currently fear-mongering to appease Islamophobes, making baseless accusations about the University of Arizona’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies.

We can’t decide at this point what Paul Gosar likes more, being a submissive for his Russian daddies, or defending white nationalists and Neo-Nazis. Either should be more than enough reason for him to get a primary challenger.

[InformationGeek]

Meanwhile, WBE, get a load of this charmer.

“Arizona Republican Rep. Andy Biggs, one of the 40 lawmakers who voted against the coronavirus stimulus bill, said he did so in part because the legislation included paid sick leave benefits for domestic partnerships.” https://t.co/RopzBkRJHs

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Meanwhile, WBE, get a load of this charmer.

Tsk! Biggs should've voted yes. I mean, Republicans are most likely to have mistresses on the side, where will their baby mamas go when they need benefits?

[jetengine]

Why do Republicans still claim to be small government ? Small government doesnt care who your fucking just that your paying tax (and they cant even do THAT right)

[Tami]

Florida governor refuses to close beaches as coronavirus cases rise

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said Tuesday that he will not be ordering the beaches in his state to close despite growing concerns over the international COVID-19 outbreak, NBC News reports.

DeSantis said that beaches in the state must adhere to guidelines issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which has advised the public to practice social distancing and avoid gatherings with more than 10 people.

"What we're going to be doing for the statewide floor for beaches, we're going to be applying the CDC guidance of no group on a beach more than 10 and you have to have distance apart if you're going to be out there. So that applies statewide,” DeSantis reportedly said at a press conference.

“We’ve seen some big crowds on the west coast of Florida and I’ve had a chance to speak to mayors on both coast today,” DeSantis also said, according to a local NBC affiliate. “If … they want to continue to [leave the beach open], we want them to have the freedom to do that, but we also want them to have the freedom to do more if they see fit.”

[Tami]

USDA fights to purge food stamps recipients despite pandemic

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Agriculture Department said Wednesday that it would appeal a judge’s ruling that it would be “arbitrary and capricious” to move forward during a global health crisis with food stamp changes that could force hundreds of thousands from the program.

Federal Judge Beryl Howell, in a ruling late last week, stopped a set of changes that would have taken effect on April 1. On Wednesday, an Agriculture Department spokesperson responded to an Associated Press query with a terse email saying only that “USDA disagrees with the court’s reasoning and will appeal its decision.”

Under the current rules, able-bodied adults without dependents must show they’ve worked at least 80 hours per month for more than three months in a 36-month period to stay in the SNAP or Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — commonly known as food stamps.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Florida governor refuses to close beaches as coronavirus cases rise

The hopeless cynic in me suspects DeSantis (a Republican naturally) wants the beaches to remain packed with people eager to spend money and fill the state's coffers, despite the nightmarish risk to public health and safety. Of course, no one in the White House will be the adult and order Florida to shut down the beaches since Trump only just recently was dragged kicking and screaming into the realization that COVID-19 is dangerous. And those idiots on those beaches will return home with coronavirus, infect others and this thing will literally explode. Jesus! Talk about a clusterfuck!

[worstblogever]

Meanwhile, WBE, get a load of this charmer.

Look for Andy Biggs to pop up in CSGOPOTD on May 22nd.

[Gray Lensman]

The hopeless cynic in me suspects DeSantis (a Republican naturally) wants the beaches to remain packed with people eager to spend money and fill the state's coffers, despite the nightmarish risk to public health and safety. Of course, no one in the White House will be the adult and order Florida to shut down the beaches since Trump only just recently was dragged kicking and screaming into the realization that COVID-19 is dangerous. And those idiots on those beaches will return home with coronavirus, infect others and this thing will literally explode. Jesus! Talk about a clusterfuck!

Isn't Florida the state with the oldest population in the country? Considering the way COVID-19 age selects combined with the refusal to act, it isn't hard to imagine Florida eventually looking like Dark Ages Europe.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Isn't Florida the state with the oldest population in the country? Considering the way COVID-19 age selects combined with the refusal to act, it isn't hard to imagine Florida eventually looking like Dark Ages Europe.

I have friends who live in Florida and are self-isolating. I can't imagine they're at all happy with what's going on.

[XPac]

Why do Republicans still claim to be small government ? Small government doesnt care who your fucking just that your paying tax (and they cant even do THAT right)

Cause in addition to paying taxes they also care about actually winning elections, and catering to those conservative values ensures a very solid reliable voting block come election time.

[worstblogever]

Cause in addition to paying taxes they also care about actually winning elections, and catering to those conservative values ensures a very solid reliable voting block come election time.

The greatest victory for a Republican is denying a victory to a different politician who might do something with their power to help actual people. The people's continued suffering is the "win".

Not even joking.

[XPac]

Florida governor refuses to close beaches as coronavirus cases rise

If I'm interpreting this correctly, he's saying that the specific mayors on both coasts are allowed to make the call. And if that's the case, then I put that more on the mayors than the governor.

It's not like the governmor is ordering the beaches to stay open... he's merely allowing the local government the authority to make that call themselves, provided they are following CDC guidelines. It's not that unusal that public open spaces like beaches and parks remain open to the public. The issue is more that some people may not be safe and smart about it.

[ed2962]

The working class people in those states voted for center-left establishment executives to be their Governors.

Gretchen Whitmer was the minority leader of the state house of representatives in Michigan. Tom Wolf was a businessman who served in a previous democratic governor's administration. Tony Evers had won a nonpartisan statewide election to be Superintendent of Public Instruction of Wisconsin.

No one's immune, but most younger people recover faster. "Most" doesn't mean all. Freak situations occur, and there are plenty of younger people with compromised immune systems. A famous early victim was the 34-year old whistleblower in China.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51403795

Granted, someone being blase about a disease because it kills an age group they disagree with sometimes is pretty shitty.

So weird that the Democratic governor of Pennsylvania was unable to avoid the voter suppression implemented by the Republican governors of Michigan and Wisconsin.


Would it be wise for Biden to limit himself to African-American female running mates? Why should the governor of New Mexico, purple heart winning junior senator from Illinois or senior senator from Nevada be off the table? He may very well pick Kamala Harris, Susan Rice, Val Demings, Stacey Abrams or Keisha Lance Bottoms, but he probably doesn't want to be in the situation McCain was in with Sarah Palin of boxing himself in.

I wonder if it would make sense for him to pick someone backed by different corners of the party (IE- determine what names excite both Sanders, Clyburn and Gilibrand.)



I suspect it was a riff on Trump referring to his sex life as his personal Vietnam.

https://money.cnn.com/2016/10/14/med...tds/index.html

OH! I see. Ok....