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

[babyblob]

Been gone a week and I come back and find a 3 page block on text books. Glad nothing else is going on in the world right now.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Been gone a week and I come back and find a 3 page block on text books. Glad nothing else is going on in the world right now.

Some folks have their priorities I guess.

[babyblob]

I may be eating crow soon. Time and time again that trump would never be convicted let along arrested. But now trump is posting about he soon will be.

The question is if it does happen how will his cult react?

[scourge]

I may be eating crow soon. Time and time again that trump would never be convicted let along arrested. But now trump is posting about he soon will be.

The question is if it does happen how will his cult react?

He's trying to get them to start violence again. That worm McCarthy and the lunatic-Rs in Congress are trying to launch 'investigations' to stall. People are demanding that DeSantis mobilize anything in Florida he can to prevent the orange scumbag from being arrested. And a good number of meal-team-6 types are clutching their flags and guns in tears and crying they'll start a second civil war if it happens.

[aja_christopher]

Arrest warrants for Putin and Trump -- Dark Brandon has more power than first realized.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

I may be eating crow soon. Time and time again that trump would never be convicted let along arrested. But now trump is posting about he soon will be.

The question is if it does happen how will his cult react?

I have my doubts. Considering Trump is a pathological liar with a monster persecution complex, can that post be taken as real, or just more bullshit?

[aja_christopher]

[CaptainEurope]

I still say the hope GOP donors and members have for Trump to self-destruct is foolish; the narrative of Trumo is what his supporters care about more than the man hismelf, because they’re part of the narrative.

A lot of his current supporters initially turned to him somewhat reluctantly, telling themselves they were choosing the best candidate they could of two bad ones, and were told by even other Republicans that they were wrong, and thus staked their own self-respect for their ability to judge others on being right.

Now, they can’t tolerate the idea of being wrong, because it’s not an “oopsie, I supported a subpar GOP candidate,” but instead a “oh ****, I supported an Un-American, Pharisee-like hypocrite who would totally sell out or betray our nation if he weren’t also an incompetent buffoon” type of realization to have.

In a weird way, Trump’s obvious malice, incompetence, and lack of character pushes his supporters to see him as a paragon because of the “Emperor Has No Clothes” rule.

That's an excellent analysis. Where can I subscribe to your newsletter?

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, as well as 2022, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” posted profiles of profiled the current U.S. House Representative from Arizona's 4th District, Paul Gosar, who every time we profile him, gets more hyper-conservative, partisan, and frankly, white nationalist-y. We noted in our original profile that he has consistently had one of the worst voting records on issues that impact women, and not just on abortion, because Gosar not only has 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 traveled to Nevada to show support for Bundy, stopping to take photos with him, his first but certainly not last flirtation with domestic terrorists. 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”.

By 2017, Paul Gosar was “all in” on Donald Trump’s white nationalist agenda for the country, including defending him by stirring 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. In October of 2017, Rep. Gosar was immediately trying 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 (similar to how after 1/6/21, he would try to blame the attack on the Capitol on “Antifa”).vHe 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, and in every election since 2018, they have endorsed his opponents. Gosar blew them off as “disgruntled Hilary supporters”, and said 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.

We can’t underline how explicitly true that is, as he chose to use his time in the House Oversight Committee in 2019 during 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 had a +20 Republican lean according to the Cook Partisan Voting Index for years, won re-election to a sixth term in office in 2020 with 70% of the vote, even though he shared anti-Semitic conspiracy theories that made his own family turn their backs on him. Then, he cranked the crazy up to 11 (He’s currently at like a 13, at least). 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 referenced a story from the conspiracy site Project Veritas to the same. He followed that up by posting about Area 51.

A few weeks later, 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.) He then spent some time making baseless accusations about the University of Arizona’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies, because why not try and stoke the fires of Islamophobia with more lies, to see if you can get someone disturbed and paranoid enough to go and attack a professor for daring to educate people?


Paul Gosar’s extremist has advanced to new lows, and hopefully he has hit the bottom (although he keeps finding ways). There have been multiple reports since Trump supporters attacked the Capitol in an attempt to subvert our democracy on January 6th, 2021, that certain members of Congress were helping those who carried out the attack in planning it prior to that date. The organizer of “Stop the Steal”, Ali Alexander, himself gave credit to three for helping. They were Alabama Congressman Mo Brooks, as well as Arizona Congressmen Andy Biggs and… Paul Gosar.

Now, once you’re on the FBI’s radar for potentially criminally aiding an attack by domestic terrorists on the Vice-President and entire legislative branch of the government, you’d think you might want to keep a low profile and finally cease your bulls***, right?

NOT PAUL GOSAR. He’s cranked it up into even higher gear, like we said earlier, blaming the failed coup we watched unfold live on cable news on “Antifa”, to gaslight all Americans. And then, rather than vote to get us much needed help from the government in the form of Covid-19 stimulus, he prioritized attending a political conferen- you know what, we’re not even going to mince words… the bigoted goon went to give a speech at a white nationalist conference where all the racist bastards in attendance were chanting his name like the white nationalist cult members they are.

[worstblogever]

We’ll review just the past four years...

• 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.
• March 7th, 2019: Gosar votes against HR 183, a resolution to condemn anti-Semitism as a hateful extension of intolerance. https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/116-2019/h108
• 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.
• 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 first impeachment of Donald Trump.
• May 15th, 2020: Gosar votes against the HEROES Act, to further support the healthcare industry and citizens affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
• October 2nd, 2020: Paul Gosar is one of 17 Republicans who vote against a resolution to condemn the Qanon conspiracy theory after its followers started to make death threats against Democratic Congressman Tom Malinowski.
• January 6th, 2021: Paul Gosar not only allegedly gives assistance to the Trump supporters who literally storm the U.S. Capitol Building, he votes against certifying the electoral college results after the attack, a practical endorsement of the lies about election fraud that inspired them.
• January 13th, 2021: Rep. Gosar votes against the second impeachment of Donald Trump, because the Republican Party no longer feels like they should be accountable for anything, including failed coups that result in the deaths of both their participants and police officers.
• February 4th, 2021: Paul Gosar votes to keep Marjorie Taylor Greene’s committee assignments, because he wouldn’t want her to be accountable for all the bigoted remarks and conspiracy theories she’s spread online (probably because she’s a kindred spirit).
• February 25th, 2021: Gosar votes against HR 5, the latest version of the Equality Act, that would provide workplace protections for LGBTQ Americans.
• March 3rd, 2021: Paul Gosar votes against HR 1, a bill created to prevent the corruption of money in politics, and protect voter access to the ballot box.
• March 3rd, 2021: Gosar votes against the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2021.
• March 10th, 2021: Rep. Gosar votes against the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, because he feels people deserve to die in poverty during a pandemic.
• March 17th, 2021: Paul Gosar is one of 172 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 19th, 2021: Rep. Gosar votes against HR 3233, the creation of a commission to investigate the Capitol Attack.
• May 20th, 2021: Paul Gosar is one of 63 Republicans who vote against the Covid-19 Hate Crimes Act.
• June 15th, 2021: Rep. Gosar is one of twenty-one Republicans who pick a side to have rooted for in the failed coup attempt on 1/6/21 and votes against awarding Congressional gold medals to members of the Capitol Police who bravely defended members of Congress during the attack.
• June 16th, 2021: Paul Gosar is one of 14 Republicans who vote against celebrating Juneteenth as a federal holiday.
• July 22nd, 2021: Rep. Gosar is one of 16 Republicans who vote against HR 3895, the Allies Act, which was passed without his support to raise the amount of visas offered and to expedite their issue to Afghan translators and their families to honor our promise to protect them against the Taliban after U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, thus feeling we should go back on our word and leave them to die.
• November 5th, 2021: Paul Gosar votes against HR 3684, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
• November 16th, 2021: Gosar posts a video online of the anime “Attack on Titan” except his own face is on the main character, depicting himself beheading and stabbing the giant antagonists of the series whose faces were replaced with Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and President Joe Biden. He ends up censured for his stupid, stupid, and inflammatory attempts at inciting stochastic terror.
• November 22nd, 2021: Paul Gosar celebrates Kyle Rittenhouse being declared “not guilty” because a white kid got away with murdering protesters at a Black Lives Matter rally, and declares his belief that Rittenhouse “deserves a Medal of Honor”, which isn’t just racist, it’s an insult to every Medal of Honor winner in our nation’s history.
• March 18th, 2022: Gosar is one of 8 Republicans who vote against suspending normal trade with Russia and Belarus over their invasion of Ukraine.

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[worstblogever]

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• March 31st, 2022: Paul Gosar votes against HR 6833, refusing to continue to support our allies in Ukraine against a Russian invasion.
• April 7th, 2022: Paul Gosar, under pressure from the press, backs out of speaking at a white nationalist conference scheduled on Hitler’s birthday.
• May 18th, 2022: Rep. Gosar votes against HR 7791, to amend the Child Nutrition Act of 1966 so that waiver authority could be granted to solve supply chain crisises for shortages of baby formula.
• May 18th, 2022: Paul Gosar is one of 192 Republicans who votes against HR 7790, to create supplemental funding for infant formula (while claiming to be pro- life).
• May 18th, 2022: Rep. Gosar votes against HR 350, the Domestic Violence Prevention Act, because these days, a plank of the Republican Party is ostensibly domestic terror.
• May 19th, 2022: Gosar votes against HR 7688, a bill which would help prevent gas companies from gouging customers on prices.
• July 15th, 2022: Paul Gosar votes against House Amendment 262, which would require the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, and Secretary of Defense to publish a report on the infiltration of American law enforcement by Neo-Nazis and white supremacists, offer measures to be taken to remove them from their ranks, and prevent further infiltration by others.
• July 13th, 2022: Gosar votes against the Honoring Our PACT Act, to provide healthcare to veterans affected by toxic burn pits while serving in the War on Terror that leave them more susceptible to forms of cancer.
• July 19th, 2022: Rep. Gosar is one of 157 Republicans who vote against the “Respect for Marriage Act”, which would codify same sex marriage into law nationally.
• July 21st, 2022: Gosar is one of 195 Republicans who vote against the Right to Contraception Act, which codified the right of Americans to have access to birth control.
• July 28th, 2022: In a move that shows he doesn’t care about optics, Paul Gosar is one of 19 Republicans who vote against a bill aimed at preventing human trafficking.
• September 15th, 2022: Rep. Gosar calls for the FBI to be “destroyed” after they raided Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence to recover classified documents he refused to return for over a year.
• September 29th, 2022: Paul Gosar is one of 49 Republicans who vote against HR 8888, the Food Security for All Veterans Act.
• October 27th, 2022: Video emerges of Paul Gosar praising people who claim to have murdered migrants attempting to cross the U.S./Mexico border.
• December 1st, 2022: Rep. Gosar is one of 90 Republicans who vote against HR 6878, meaning he is perfectly fine with pregnant women in prison being placed in solitary confinement while claiming to be “pro-life”.
• December 6th, 2022: Gosar, embracing the GOP’s white nationalist, anti-immigrant sentiment votes against HR 7946, which was meant to honor the promise to grant citizenship to immigrants who served in the United States Armed Forces.
• December 7th, 2022: Rep. Gosar endorses Donald Trump’s call to “terminate the Constitution”.
• December 21st, 2022: Paul Gosar is one of 28 Republicans who votes against the Respect for Child Survivors Act, a bill created to aid the survivors of child abuse, which shows you how much the GOP truly care about stopping “groomers”.
• February 2nd, 2023: Gosar has the unmitigated call after hanging out with white nationalists and Neo-Nazis to accuse Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar of “anti-Semitism”.

If the Republican Party is serious about addressing its current identity as a white nationalist party, they’re going to need to find a primary challenger to Paul Gosar and seriously push that person to replace him. Because he’s not chilling out anytime soon, as evidenced how last week Gosar shared a cartoon meme of a sex worker propositioning a man to do anything he wants for $50 and he asks that she declare “AMERICA FIRST IS INEVITIBLE.” (This is a member of Congress. Seriously.) Considering how quick the GOP were to act against Steve King (as in letting be a complete bigot for decades and then just taking his committee assignments away), we wouldn’t hold our breath. It’s much more likely than he’s arrested by the FBI for any assistance he may have given to domestic terrorists that qualifies as sedition than they develop the will to expel one of their own. But House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is a coward, and has done nothing about the growing ranks of white nationalists’ in his caucus, which only has emboldened Gosar to keep attending such conferences, and with him getting away with it, others are following suit.

In a sane world Paul Gosar would have resigned in disgrace, or been primaried years ago. Alas, Republican voters insist that we’re not allowed to live in a sane world, and keep this idiot around to file attempts to impeach Joe Biden that are doomed to fail advancing out of the House, let alone getting anywhere in the Senate. But he'll continue being a blight on our national discourse, now after redistricting in the new version of Arizona's 9th Congressional District, which has a +16 Republican lean. We really hope his career ends up with him being arrested for his role in January 6th. The sooner, the better.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

So much for standing by your man:

'This is his problem': Former aide claims Melania is staying 'far' from Trump as indictment looms

I for one don't expect that situation to last very long. All Trump has do is say he'll cut Razor Cheeks off without a cent in alimony, or drop her from his will if she doesn't support him like any self-respecting European mail order bride should.

[SquirrelMan]

So those stories about McConnell being totally fit and eager to leave the hospital early that some of you were eating with a spoon?

Frhxo_UagAIp5xf.jpg

Details remain light on Senator Mitch McConnell’s recovery

[SquirrelMan]

The second most powerful senate republican has literally not heard McConnells voice since he was hospitalized 10 days ago.

"I have not spoken with him," Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., the GOP whip said. "I have communicated with him, but I look forward to making that happen."

"I would like to add to what Sen. Thune said about all of our thoughts and how much we miss our leader, Sen. McConnell," Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, of West Virginia, added during Wednesday's press conference.

[Tendrin]

That sounds like McConnel could have suffered a stroke, to be honest, not that concussions can't do a number on you.