All purpose news and politics thread part VI: This Is Not The Time For Posing

[kidfresh512]

You feel they're buying into talking points, like a cult. Understood. I'd suggest taking the time to look into how they really feel. I had no interest in doing so at first because I couldn't fathom why they would vote Republican, but I was asked by peers to hear some presentations from conservative latino groups and I learned a lot. I may not agree with all of their opinions and beliefs but I found myself much better educated for it.

It doesn't matter how they "feel". No one wants America to be Venezuela. That is a false narrative. What needs to change perhaps to reach voters that "feel" like that is education. And targeted outreach. I don't think a good enough job is done to explain that Democrats are not socialists.

Thats the biggest thing Democrats can do other than deliver policies that directly improve lives. Is counter the massive hysterical nonsense and talking points. A big mistake I see being made is allowing the far right media to "dictate" what a Democrat is. You see it all the time. Even with things like "Critical Race theory". They make it into some kind of boogeyman that libs are trying to make your white children feel bad about being white or some bs. Its all nonsense but it works

[Kirby101]

All good questions and I think it's required to drill down and find out. It appears to be across the board in terms of financial status, from laborers to CEOs. Cubans in particular, whether first or tenth generation, are still dealing with a lot of trauma their families endured.
You're asking the right questions, but I think that Democrat, Latino strategist knows what he's talking about in his essay.

I grew up in Florida, Cubans NEVER voted Democratic, still don't. But their neighbors from Puerto Rico are more solidly Democratic. It's why treating them as a block is a problem.
People act like the 38% Trump got was a major trend. It just shows treatment of immigrants isn't the defining issue for Latinos.. But GW Bush got 44%. So why aren't they asking why the GOP isn't losing Latino voters?

[JB]

All of those demographics share a few things in common, they or their parents were very likely brought up in devoutly religious, male-centric authoritarian households where the ideas of a strong work-ethic and financial conservatism were stressed.
The ideas of welfare, LGBTQ rights and abortion are likely to be less popular.

All good points. While my immediate family was very loving and accepting, I had a very hard time with my extended family while coming out.

It doesn't matter how they "feel". No one wants America to be Venezuela. That is a false narrative. What needs to change perhaps to reach voters that "feel" like that is education. And targeted outreach. I don't think a good enough job is done to explain that Democrats are not socialists.

Thats the biggest thing Democrats can do other than deliver policies that directly improve lives. Is counter the massive hysterical nonsense and talking points. A big mistake I see being made is allowing the far right media to "dictate" what a Democrat is. You see it all the time. Even with things like "Critical Race theory". They make it into some kind of boogeyman that libs are trying to make your white children feel bad about being white or some bs. Its all nonsense but it works

And what I'm saying is that it's not as simple as them being brainwashed or scared into submission. ChadH listed some of their beliefs and stances accurately.

I grew up in Florida, Cubans NEVER voted Democratic, still don't. But their neighbors from Puerto Rico are more solidly Democratic. It's why treating them as a block is a problem.
People act like the 38% Trump got was a major trend. It just shows treatment of immigrants isn't the defining issue for Latinos.. But GW Bush got 44%. So why aren't they asking why the GOP isn't losing Latino voters?

Obama was a big draw as the first person of color and he had a lot of new ideas that were very appealing. He made a major impact. But now the trend is sliding back the other way because for whatever reason Latino voters are not seeing in Biden what they saw in Obama.
I'm just going off of what Democratic experts are saying because they are the ones I trust with this research.

[JB]

Controversial Atlantis Cruise Now Has A Reported Death While At Sea
https://instinctmagazine.com/controv...-while-at-sea/

The information that has been released does not attribute the passing of one of the cruise participants to COVID, but it has been stated the death is apparently from a cardiac arrest of a cruise-goer in one of Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas cabins.

I can't even believe this cruise wasn't cancelled. The death wasn't covid-related but the photos of the massive crowds are shocking. Tragic.

[JB]

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema formally censured by Arizona Democratic Party
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/sine...ry?id=82375185

The Arizona Democratic Party's executive committee formally censured Sen. Kyrsten Sinema on Saturday morning as a result of her inaction on changing the filibuster rules to pass voting rights reform.

"...on the matter of the filibuster and the urgency to protect voting rights, we have been crystal clear. In the choice between an archaic legislative norm and protecting Arizonans’ right to vote, we choose the latter, and we always will," Chairwoman Raquel Teran said in a statement.

"While we take no pleasure in this announcement, the ADP Executive Board has decided to formally censure Senator Sinema as a result of her failure to do whatever it takes to ensure the health of our democracy.”

[Malvolio]

Maher offered a platform to Milo Yiannopolous, so I can't be on the fence that he's not getting any love for me ever again.

If I "reflexively" hate anyone who gives a white nationalist a chance to get on their soapbox, I just call that "good reflexes".

Maher also offered a platform to Ann Coulter. But both Coulter and Yiannopolous got almost universally booed on Maher's show, so I don't think we have to worry too much about their appearances on Real Time flipping anyone to the right wing.

And there is a reason why Democratic candidates lose in certain precincts and some of it has to do with an obsession with shutting people up, as if that will solve the problem that the person was talking about. Sure, they're full of ****, but changing the words or shutting them up entirely doesn't really help the people who are hurting. For instance, several years ago, Susan Olsen, the actress who played Cindy Brady on the Brady Bunch, had a once a week gig as a commentator on some conservative radio show. Well, she said something that got her in trouble. I don't remember exactly what she said, but I do remember that I disagreed with it and thought that she was full of ****. But that's not the point. The point is that I first heard about it not by actually listening to the radio show, but by way of an e-mail from Daily Kos urging me to sign on to a petition to get Susan Olsen thrown off the radio show. I did not sign the petition. I don't like the idea of firing people for what they say. But the petition worked and Olsen was thrown off of the show. I later got another e-mail from Daily Kos crowing about their big win. Of course, nothing else changed, just the loss of a one day a week gig for a former child star. But the e-mail crowed as if they had just won Brown vs. Board of Ed. See, I want to know exactly what people like Coulter and Yiannopolous are saying. I don't want a summary from some group screaming, "You won't believe what they said this time!" And if Bill Maher doesn't give them a platform, someone else will, probably FOX News or someone similar who will just agree with everything they say. At least Bill Maher challenges them.

And finally, like I said before, even if Bill Maher is an *******, it doesn't mean he's always wrong. Sometimes, he says things that no one else will say, but need to be said.

[Tami]

Va. Gov. Youngkin’s assertive first week in office leaves Republicans jubilant, Democrats fuming

RICHMOND — The big unknown about Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) as he ran for office last year — apart from the exact size of his vast fortune — was just how red the political newcomer really was behind that easygoing demeanor.

One week into his term: Mystery solved.

Youngkin stormed into Richmond with an assertion of executive power that has thrilled the GOP base but caught even some allies off guard, and he has made clear that he views his two-point margin of victory as a mandate for conservative change.

RICHMOND — The big unknown about Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) as he ran for office last year — apart from the exact size of his vast fortune — was just how red the political newcomer really was behind that easygoing demeanor.

One week into his term: Mystery solved.

Youngkin stormed into Richmond with an assertion of executive power that has thrilled the GOP base but caught even some allies off guard, and he has made clear that he views his two-point margin of victory as a mandate for conservative change.

“I was wondering if he would be more like DeSantis or Larry Hogan,” said longtime Richmond political analyst Robert Holsworth, referring to hard-right Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Maryland’s more moderate Republican governor. “But he really started with the culture wars, and, I think, in doing so, he has lost some political capital that he might have had with the Democrats.”

Youngkin’s wish list also includes a bill aimed at undoing some pro-labor measures Democrats enacted, such as repealing a mandate for project-labor agreements on public works and repealing the ability of public employees to engage in collective bargaining. Other legislation would pay for establishing public charter schools, putting resource officers in all schools and giving parents more power to prevent their children from being exposed to sexually explicit works in the classroom.

All of it would require action by the General Assembly and buy-in from Senate Democrats to become law.

[Kirby101]

The fact that anbody wondered how this Trumper would govern only shows how easily voters are fooled.
Have fun the next 4 years Virginia.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

The fact that anbody wondered how this Trumper would govern only shows how easily voters are fooled.
Have fun the next 4 years Virginia.

But hey, right wing/conservative Virginans wanted to win those nasty culture wars. To them, nothing else matters, so they got the governor they wanted.

[worstblogever]

In 2015, in 2016, and in 2017, “Crazy Stupid Republican of the Day” published profiles of Gary Kiehne, a candidate for Congress hoping to represent Arizona’s 1st Congressional District in 2014 and 2016. Kiehne is a local rancher and Tea Party wild card who lost in 2014 to State Senator Andy Tobin by a mere 407 votes. It is remarkable that the race was that close, considering Kiehne supported the cause of Cliven Bundy to the extent that he wanted the Bureau of Land Management to lose their control over protected government lands, referred to Arizona law enforcement as "Nazi and SS Officers" during a 2011 wildfire evacuation, and during a primary debate when the conversation turned towards gun control, made the outlandish claim that 99% of all mass shootings are perpetrated by Democrats. Well, Gary Kiehne took another crack at politics in 2016, and again Kiehne managed to lose again, this time finishing second in the GOP Primary by a much wider margin of about five thousand votes. To whom, you might ask? Paul Babeu. Yes THAT Paul Babeu, the anti-immigrant sheriff who got outed as gay when he was threatening to deport his illegal immigrant boyfriend, and who once was the headmaster of a private school where the staff were systematically abusing children there. Kiehne has, at least for now, given up on his dreams of becoming a Congressman.

It was on this date in 2018 that “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” profiled Dan Kirby, a former four-term member of the Oklahoma House of Representatives for a decade first elected back in 2008. During his eight years in office, he was frequently absent during votes, but when he was present, supported Republican Voter Suppression tactics via stricter Voter ID laws and opposed minimum wage increases during the greatest period of income inequality in perhaps our nation’s history. Kirby made headlines right at the end of 2016, prior to the new session of the Oklahoma State Legislature though, after news surfaced that the 58 year old Kirby not only sexually harassed a legislative aide three decades his junior, not only responded to her reporting him by firing her (which would be a violation of whistleblower protections), but that he settled her lawsuit against him by using $16,000 of legislative funds meant to be used on cleaning supplies to keep the Oklahoma House of Representatives all spotless and lemon-scented. While that scandal would easily be enough to force a lawmaker’s resignation, Kirby actually tried reversing his resignation a few days after making it, but he finally relented and went off into the sunset in shame.

On this date in 2019, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” profiled Steven McLaughlin, a former member of the New York Assembly representing District 107 who rose to office as part of, what else, the 2010 Tea Party Wave. His voting record saw him trying to prevent some of the rather reasonable progressive ideas New York has had over the past few years, like his votes against minimum wage increases, pay equality for women, protecting “marriage equality”, or a vote against a ban on gay conversion therapy on minors. And, during his seven years in office, McLaughlin was certainly not a shrinking violet, as in 2013, while New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo was pushing for gun control legislation, McLaughlin decided to compare Cuomo to just… y’know, Hitler. And Vladmir Putin. McLaughlin, over the years, also began to embrace what the Republican Party has been coming under Donald Trump, such as when he was running to be the Rensselaer County Executive, and he referred to the Times Union Leader as “fake news” and a “worthless rag” because he didn’t like their reporting about him, like say wehen they covered his sexist harassment of one of his aides, in which the audio had him telling her, “You’re still fat. You are. Not attractive — and you’re a (expletive) awful human being.” Laughlin resigned from the New York State Assembly after that aide successfully filed sexual harassment charges against him He is finishing a four-year term as Resselaer County Executive and seems unlikely to win any other political office when his term is up in 2021.

[worstblogever]

On this date in both 2020, as well as 2021, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” first profiled Florida State Senator Dennis Baxley, a man who is referred to as “The Steve King of Florida”, because holy s***, is he vomiting out some white nationalist talking points. Baxley was first elected to the Florida House of Representatives from 2001-2006, before returning in the 2010 Tea Party Wave (of course he came with the Tea Party), and after winning two more elections unopposed and serving for six non-consecutive terms in the lower chamber, he moved up to the Florida State Senate in 2016, narrowly winning the GOP Primary for District 12 by a few hundred votes.

So for a time, nobody was paying Baxley too much mind in Tallahassee, but maybe they should have. In 2007, he raised a stink when the state of Florida voted to change the state’s song so that it no longer used the term “Darkeys” in its lyrics. As years went by, Baxley continued to make public comments supporting the legacy of Confederates, and thumbed his nose at acknowledging any other non-white group in Florida’s state history. In 2014, he fought against adding a memorial to fallen Union soldiers to the same patch of land inside the Olustee Battlefield Historic State Park that held three monuments honoring Confederate soldiers, saying, "My biggest concern is that this is revisionist history and that these decisions are being made by park officials and not an elected body." A year later, in 2015, Baxley hailed a decision by Marion County commissioners to fly the Confederate flag at their government complex and would also oppose a bill in the House that would ban the display of Confederate flags on state and local government property.

By 2017, Dennis Baxley wasn’t even being subtle about how racist he was.

“I don’t want to celebrate defeat. I would rather celebrate overcoming the heartbreak of slavery. I wouldn’t want to build a memorial to child abuse; I wouldn’t want to build a memorial to sexual abuse. I have a discomfort about memorializing slavery. ... I would like to take it in a more positive direction than a memorial to slavery.”

And… we’re just going to point out that if this motherf***er didn’t want to “celebrate defeat” then maybe he shouldn’t be championing the Confederacy so much, since they were, y’know, defeated.

Only a few weeks later, people already keeping a close eye on Baxley noted that he went to a pro-Confederate event only two weeks after the events at Charlottesville, Virginia, which was a fundraiser being held by “Save Southern Heritage Florida”, a group that claimed “leftists and Antifa” were responsible for the violence in Charlottesville (online conversations show the white nationalists were planning violence for weeks ahead of time, incidentally). Baxley lied and claimed he was attending to “condemn racism, bigotry, and violence” at the closed door event.

We’ll pause from discussing Baxley’s racism to point out that in 2005, he sponsored Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law that resulted in the death of Trayvon Martin at the hands of George Zimmerman. He scoffs at the idea that he might have any blood on his hands, because of course he does.

But that isn’t his only foray into idiotic extremism when it comes to guns. In 2018, when asked about gun control in the wake of the shooting at Parkland, he said that we shouldn’t ban guns to stop gun violence, because “Spoons are used to eat stuff to kill yourself with obesity, but we're not picking up spoons to get rid of obesity."

We’re not even touching the surface of how low this guy will stoop. In the wake of Hurricane Irma in October of 2017, Dennis Baxley tried claiming that 14 deaths in one Florida nursing home where staff failed to avoid deaths from exposure after the air conditioning system failed that there was no negligence, saying, "Look at the population. You're dealing with the 90-somethings. Some of these deaths would naturally occur, storm or no storm."

In 2019, it hasn’t just been frustrating to see Baxley trying to allow for “alternative science” to be taught in schools, and giving “opposing views” to things like climate change or evolution… Go figure that most of his sources during debate on such a measure in the Florida State Senate was supplied by a hate group that says LGBTQ people are guilty of “deviant behavior” and has a decidedly Islamophobic agenda for public schools.

No, we’re more freaked out about how Baxley started making calls recently for stricter anti-choice legislation, but it was the reasons he gave that turned some heads, as he began adopting white nationalist talking points again, and lamented that Western Europeans were “disappearing” because supposedly enough abortions were happening that the Western Europeans were “being replaced by folks that come behind them and immigrant, don’t wish to assimilate into that society, and they do believe in having children. So you see that there are long range impacts to your society when the answer is to exterminate.”

Baxley spent 2020 addressing the threat of Covid-19… HAHAHAH of course he didn’t, this ***hole tried getting legislation passed to ban gender reassignment treatments for transgender youth, and sponsored two separate bills to try to find an end-around to get prayer in schools by claiming he wanted a “moment of silence” in classrooms. And what was Baxley’s first priority at the start of 2021? Voter suppression, as he sponsored a bill to make it more difficult to vote by mail, because that’s what a record number of Democrats did in 2020. CAN’T HAVE THAT.

Just… holy f***. All we know for sure is that when 2022 rolls around, Florida Democrats and yes, Florida Republicans had better have candidates lined up to boot this bigoted old bag of garbage from office.

[CaptainEurope]

That's like trying to do in Wile E. by getting him an Acme catalog.

He already had it covered just fine.

Your daily reminder that the Democrats are much more successful at legislating than any other currently active party in the US.

[CaptainEurope]

(Please keep this one in mind the next time someone thinks to tell folks about something Bill Maher has to say about anything...)

https://bleedingcool.com/tv/bill-mah...-in-interview/

Every time I think there is nothing that the world agrees on now that Betty White is dead, we can all agree that Bill Maher is a worthless turd.

[Tendrin]

Every time I think there is nothing that the world agrees on now that Betty White is dead, we can all agree that Bill Maher is a worthless turd.

Bill Maher is a reactionary douchebag given 'liberal' cred because he likes pot and dislikes God. He's transphobic, islamaphobic, sexist, and overall fits the picture of 'smarmy urban elite liberal' that a certain segment of the populace wants to present as a caricature of the left. His audience is primarily white dude-bros and hate-watching conservatives who liike to trot out 'Even Liberal Bill Maher Agrees...'.

Right now, that's playing out on twitter. 'Liberals Barry Weiss and Bill Maher agree we've gone too far on our reaction to covid!'.

[CaptainEurope]

"Latino voters" is becoming to broad a category. Who are we talking about here? What is the country of origin for their family? How long has their family been here? Are they first generation citizens, or tenth? What is their religious affiliation? Are they from Central America? South America? The Caribbean? Are they low income workers or rich professionals or business owners.
I don't know if the Dems have a problem with Latinos, or they are just becoming more like other Americans.

I read somewhere that there also has been a massive Spanish language campaign in Florida spreading false news and baseless allegations about high ranking Democrats like Kamala Harris. People calling into radio shows etc.