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

[SUPERECWFAN1]

A cynic would say Republicans intentionally stonewalled the bill so Trump could look like a hero to the rubes by riding to the rescue like he had today. Chicanery aside however, the GOP’s all too genuine reluctance to agree to the original $600 a week stipend had been a major sticking point in getting that bill passed. Trump giving up on the payroll tax cut was a surprise though, given that was a poison pill both sides disliked, perhaps he had no choice on that score.

You may wanna dig further into this Executive Order. Its said he wants to defer Payroll taxes and it pretty much hurts the Social Security program. Trump has claimed after election he wants to do away with oayroll tax as well if he gets a 2nd term. Pretty much a clear sign he wants to destroy SS.

[AnakinFlair]

Trump is fact checked about Veterans Choice and he abruptly ends press conference


Little Donny got caught lying so he turned tail and ran.

About God-damned time. This needs to happen at every single press conference, because he's always lying about something.

[Wildling]

trump's also trying to take credit for insurances dropping the pre existence condition.

So Trump, who has Obama rent-free in his head for any term he could have, eventually can't help but kinda policy like Obama?

So it's actually true, 2020 is a Jordan Peele movie.

[sammy_hansen]

It does depend on who Biden picks.

Duckworth (who lost limbs in war) and Bass (whose only daughter died in a car accident) would be poor choices to attack personally.

With other candidates, it doesn't seem there's a big difference with one or two more weeks to mention controversies.

Hmm, he did mock a journalist with a disability.

[Steel Inquisitor]

It does depend on who Biden picks.

Duckworth (who lost limbs in war) and Bass (whose only daughter died in a car accident) would be poor choices to attack personally.

With other candidates, it doesn't seem there's a big difference with one or two more weeks to mention controversies.

Bass is a no-go because of her supporting Scientology and Castro.

[Iron Maiden]

Trump is fact checked about Veterans Choice and he abruptly ends press conference


Little Donny got caught lying so he turned tail and ran.

It's about time a reporter called him out on this. He's been getting away with this since his term began.

[The Chou Lives]

All I will say is this.

I hope Donald is not re elected. His term has done nothing but divided the country and made us look like a bunch of bigger idiots to elect such a man.

I had a friend (had) who acted like the Donny embodies the American dream yet I fact checked all the **** he did and said and he backed the F down.

I personally feel there are no good leaders at the moment, which I feel is something we need. But please, no more Trump.

And yeah I happen to be a southern “white” man ( long family story to debunk that) and I happen to not be a beer drinking, nascar loving, republican brain washed red neck.

Though yeah the other side ya it’s whack jobs too. But still, I do not support this president. The b the basis of good taste.

[The no face guy]

Looking at the NYT article I suppose my favourite choices in no particular order would be...

1. Susan Rice (She comes with a lot of experience especially with foreign policy
2. Kamala Harris (The obvious choice)
3. Tammy Duckworth - (A former Lieutenant Colonel who lost both legs in the Iraq War. Wow! That's a stark contrast to a President who was able to duck out of Vietnam)
4. Gretchen Whitmer - (She's a Governor of a state, which shows she can run things)

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Trump is fact checked about Veterans Choice and he abruptly ends press conference


Little Donny got caught lying so he turned tail and ran.

Hardly a good optic for the Orange Menace. Why Trump isn't challenged more by reporters I have no idea. I particularly love it when he's challenged by women who won't stand for his bully tactics.

It does depend on who Biden picks.

Duckworth (who lost limbs in war) and Bass (whose only daughter died in a car accident) would be poor choices to attack personally.

Do you think Trump gives a **** at this point? Don't forget Trump mocked a disabled reporter during his 2016 campaign and got away with it.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2014, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” published a profile on John Koster, a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives for Washington’s 1st District who took publicity photos of himself on the lawn of the home of his female opponent Suzan DelBene to taunt her, who really torpedoed his chances by claiming that rape exceptions for abortion shouldn’t be a thing because it was “just more violence on a woman’s body”. This was, of course, but days after Todd Akin, so Koster ended up losing in his third bid to get elected to Congress.

In both 2015, and in 2016, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” featured profiles of Jeb Bush, the former Florida Governor and 2016 presidential candidate who went from the consensus favorite to win the GOP nomination, to a goofy, pitiable mess before all was said and done. In that original article, we dug deep, and covered every last bit of detail that we could find on Jeb, because to be honest... he was widely thought by pundits to be the eventual 2016 GOP nominee for president, especially with a campaign war chest that exceeded $100 million. As such, we took hard aim at Jeb, going all the way back to the 1980s, where he frequently had shady business dealings with a Miami businessman who defrauded Medicare, all the way up to the interim after he left office as Governor and before his presidential run when he worked for Lehman Brothers bank. During his first failed campaign for Florida governor in 1994, he compared gay people to pedophiles, and when asked what he would do to help black people he answered, "Probably nothing." In 1995, Jeb wrote a book where he had a great idea for preventing single motherhood... SHAME THE WOMEN. Jeb, in case you forgot, ordered the voter rolls purged in the 2000 election, and threw tens of thousands people off them... primarily minorities, who would find out on election day that they were ineligible to vote in the election that Jeb's idiot brother would win by 537 votes in the state. Jeb has a bizarre and obsessive pro-life record, including the time in 2004 when he tried to give a state guardian to the fetus of a rape victim who had cerebral palsy in an attempt to try and stop the victim from getting an abortion, when he tried to stop a 13 year old ward of the state from getting an abortion even though her life was at risk, and his desperate attempts to force Terry Schiavo to not be allowed to die with dignity.

In 2015, Jeb was supposed to be making the case of why he was the best Republican for the job, because he was the moderate one... but quickly made people wonder how he was ever thought of as "the smart Bush Brother". In his first foreign policy speech, he incorrectly stated the number of ISIS troops as ten times the actual amount, could not successfully name the leader of ISIS, referred to Nigerian terror group Boko Haram as “Beau-Coup Haram”, and provided no details on what he would do differently than the status quo to better combat such foes. It didn't get much better from there, as Jeb said that his brother President George W. Bush would be his “chief adviser” on the Middle East, as well as Iraq War architect Paul Wolfowitz, and when asked by Fox News Megyn Kelly, “Knowing what we know today, that Iraq did not have WMDs, would you still have invaded?” Jeb said he still would have authorized the invasion, and it was not a mistake. After being lambasted for this, he gave excuses that indicated that he did not understand how hypothetical questions work.

Jeb also took time to praise Indiana's hugely unpopular "religious freedom" law, that allowed for discrimination and gave his support for the rights of Christian businesses to use their “religious freedom” to discriminate against LGBTQ citizens, and said that it would be “intellectual arrogance” to agree with scientists about humans driving climate change before criticizing Pope Francis’ stance on the environment. (Hint for you Jeb… good Catholics like you aren't supposed to question the Pope’s infallibility.) In response to the mass shooting in Charleston, S.C. at the AME church, Jeb Bush says he doesn’t “know what was on the mind of shooter” that made him kill those present. (The shooter, Dylann Roof, had already repeatedly stated it was racially motivated. For whatever reason, he chose to talk about “phasing out” Medicare, and did an about face on immigration by clamoring for “sanctuary cities” to be shut down. And lastly, right before we published that original profile, Jeb suggested we eliminate not just Planned Parenthood funding, but funding to all women’s health because “we don’t need it”.

And that was only in our first profile, in our second, we talked about the embarrassing Jeb! 2016 campaign, that seemed to be just one sad shot kicking a man while he was down. In June of 2016, Jeb was campaigning in Miami with his mother, former first lady Barbara Bush, and said that he got her to admit that he's her favorite. Barbara Bush has always been noted as a brutally honest woman, and replied, "No I didn't." Jeb continued reversing his position on issues to try and keep up with the lunatic front-runner, Donald Trump, endorsing the use of torture, and going as far in his reversal on immigration to actually use the term "anchor babies" for the children of immigrants... when in 2013 Jeb wrote a GOP strategy about how to address immigration without looking insensitive to minorities, and advised them to not use the term "anchor babies" himself. To try and save face, then Jeb insisted he wasn’t actually badmouthing Latinos, he was referring to Asians when he said “anchor babies”, thus alienating a second minority group. But he wasn’t done. Jeb also managed to piss off Native Americans by coming out in defense of the nickname of the NFL’s franchise in Washington, D.C., argued against replacing the Voting Rights Act because “it isn’t necessary” and tried commenting on the police shooting of Tamir Rice but incorrectly named Chicago as the city it happened in, offering a meager “My bad…” when the mistake was pointed out to him.

By November 2015, Jeb's struggling campaign tried a new campaign slogan... "JEB CAN FIX IT". Unfortunately, it is quickly deflected into reminders of how he helped fix the 2000 election for his brother. A month later, at a Republican Primary debate, Jeb told Donald Trump that he will never be president, and Trump responded by saying he's "trying to be a tough guy" before pointing out the poll numbers that show he was "At 42. You're at 3." As things spiraled further out of control, Jeb started giving out plastic toy turtles to people on the campaign trail, reminding them of the old adage that "slow and steady wins the race". The end truly was near in February 2016, as Jeb gave a speech on the campaign trail, and after what seemed like a rousing promise to be an effective commander in chief, he is met with silence. He then filled it by quietly pleading, "Please clap." Jeb was utterly humiliated in his quest for the White House in 2016 and seems unlikely to ever hold office again.

[worstblogever]

It was in both 2017, 2018, and in 2019, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled the U.S. House Representative from Illinois’ 6th Congressional District, Peter Roskam, who after serving in the Illinois state legislature from 1993 through 2006, served six terms in Congress since winning office in the 2006 elections. That’s no small feat, considering 2006 was a Blue Wave year, his opponent in that race was (now Senator) Tammy Duckworth, and he attacked her stance on the Iraq War as “cut and run” which is a hell of a thing to say to an Iraq War veteran who lost both her legs in that conflict in a helicopter crash. Still, Roskam’s connections within the GOP establishment. Back in the 1980s, Roskam was originally taught under the tutelage of former House Speaker Tom DeLay, who is a great example of a mentor you would want a member of Congress to have if you wanted them to learn about money laundering, before Roskam went on to work under Illinois Congressman Henry Hyde, who you may know as the guy the anti-choice Hyde Amendment is named after, who was also the only member of Congress sued in the Savings and Loan Scandal, who defended the Reagan administration during the Iran-Contra hearings, and was one of the Congressional leaders who oversaw the attempted impeachment of Bill Clinton for lying about an extramarital affair (note: Hyde had also once had an extramarital affair). So, Rep. Roskam’s two mentors were some of the most crooked, hypocritical, partisan bastards of note in Congress from the past half century but are decidedly not small fish in the Washington fish bowl. And when Hyde stepped down in his eighties, Roskam jumped at the opportunity to replace him, and in spite of his rhetoric against Duckworth as well as accusations that he had plagiarized several issue stances on his campaign website from the National Republican Congressional Committee… he won the seat over Duckworth in 2006 with 51% of the vote to her 49% thanks in part to the party support he’d built up through the years. Now, we made it pretty clear that Peter Roskam’s mentors had a long history of corruption while serving in the U.S. House of Representatives. So you would think he’s already not a fan of ethics investigations. He’s probably even less of one after he himself was a target of one in 2013 after taking a $25,000 trip to Taiwan on the dime of Chinese Culture University. And that likely was his motivation for trying to defund the Office of Congressional Ethics at the start of the current session of Congress in January of 2017. Because what’s the point of being in Congress if you have to be ethical, right? Roskam here at CSGOPOTD is also climate change denier. Back in his 2006 campaign, during a debate against Tammy Duckworth, he drew groans from the crowd after he called studies into global warming “junk science”. It may not be a coincidence, then, that one of the pieces of legislation he once sponsored, that called for oil drilling in the Alaska Arctic Wildlife refuge. A brief look at Roskam’s supposedly “moderate” voting record shows that he has voted against Minimum Wage Increases, equal pay for women, voted against the renewal of the Violence Against Women Act, voted several times against LGBTQ protections as well as voted against the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, voted against the widely successful "Cash for Clunkers" program that helped save the American auto industry, voted against Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform, voted against the DREAM Act, has a harsh anti-choice record including twice voting to defund Planned Parenthood, voted against Disaster Relief Funding for victims of Hurricane Sandy… etc. Peter Roskam knew he was in serious jeopardy of losing his seat representing Illinois’ 6th in the 2018 elections, when you factor in that it voted in favor of Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump, and Roskam supported many of Trump’s craziest initiatives including his vote for Trumpcare and some support for Trump’s xenophobic Muslim ban, even as it has repeatedly been overturned by the courts as unconstitutional. He cancelled all his scheduled town halls so far over the past year and a half, including bailing on attending a packed March for Our Lives town because of last minute “scheduling conflicts”, like sitting at home and cowering for his political future.In the 2018 elections, Roskam only got 46% of the vote, and that Democrat Sean Casten sent him packing. As such, we’ll set aside his profile at this time, and take a look at another kooky Republican today instead. (Current crazy/stupid scoreboard, is now 900-45, since this was established in July 2014.

[worstblogever]

Doug Collins

Welcome to what is the 901st original profile here at “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day”, where we’ll be discussing the U.S. House Representative from Georgia’s 9th Congressional District, Doug Collins, who was first elected to Congress back in 2012, and prior to that, he served two terms in the Georgia House of Representatives. We profile Rep. Collins because he is one of the more hyperbolic, full-of-s*** members of the GOP these days (and that’s saying something) falling all over himself to defend the indefensible Donald Trump whenever he can. Take for example, on January 8th, 2020, where after Trump ordered an airstrike to assassinate Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, and Democrats and most of the free world were outraged that he could be dragging the country to the brink of war, Collins came skulking onto Fox News to claim:

"Democrats are in love with terrorists, we see that they mourn Soleimani more than they mourn our gold star families."

This, of course, is how Doug Collins operates… hyperbolic attacks on Democrats not based in reality, while convenient amnesia over the worst sins of his own party… considering Donald Trump has outright bashed Gold Star families and brushed off widows of fallen soldiers by telling them their husbands “knew what they signed up for”.

Similarly, throughout the second half of 2019, Collins made himself known as one of the most ardent stooges Donald Trump has in Congress, making statements prior to the testimony of Robert Mueller before Congress in July of 2019 about how the FBI should not be allowed to investigate private citizens due to “political leanings” (all indications are the FBI were investigating Carter Page and others within the Trump campaign based on legitimate reasons) and calling the entire impeachment over his attempt to solicit foreign aid from Ukraine to win the 2020 election as a “sham”, in spite of the mountain of evidence, and witnesses that testified in Congress. This man is always ready to jam soap into his mouth to give Trump a thorough tongue bath.

If we’re still not making it clear enough, Doug Collins is the sponsor of the “Covid-19 Accountability Act”, which if passed, would allow Trump to sanction China if they do not cooperate with an investigation into the Covid-19 pandemic, claiming China conducted some sort of “cover-up”, and frankly, we’re getting into deranged conspiracy theory territory now. But every time an issue comes up, Collins is on the wrong side of the argument, for what keeps Americans safe and prosperous. He can demand people “reopen the economy” during the Covid-19 pandemic, but then tell them after they’re risking their lives in catching the disease, that the recovery will “take time”, which makes one wonder what they’re even putting their necks on the line for.

On police violence, of course Doug Collins would interject to demand that charges be pressed after the police killing of Rayshard Brooks… but he wanted an investigation launched against the Atlanta DA who prosecuted the cops for killing Brooks.

We’re serious… every time. The wrong side. Look at this voting record:

• January 15th, 2013: Doug Collins votes against Disaster Relief Funding for victims of Hurricane Sandy.
• February 28th, 2013: Collins votes against the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act.
• June 19th, 2013: Doug Collins votes against restoring $20.5 billion towards the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program.
• September 30th, 2013: Rep. Collins votes for the 2013 Government Shutdown. When the vote came up seventeen days later to re-open the government, Collins voted to keep it closed.
• Feb 26th, 2014: Doug Collins goes "all in" on the faux-scandal surrounding the IRS researching SuperPACs by voting for the "Stop the Targeting of Political Beliefs by the IRS Act".
• July 10th, 2014: Collins votes for House Amendment 1040, to prevent the implementation of the dreaded United Nations Agenda 21 Treaty, that in spite of just being recommended climate change guidelines, have many conspiracy theorists within the extreme right convinced it’s a plot for global domination.
• January 22nd, 2015: Doug Collins votes for HR 7, an anti-abortion bill that makes even some Republicans pause before voting for it because of its language that tries to define the conditions for what “rape” is, in it.
• February 3rd, 2015: Rep. Collins votes for the 60th Republican attempt at repealing the Affordable Care Act.
• March 3rd, 2015: Collins votes against funding the Department of Homeland Security as part of a Republican protest of President Obama’s executive orders on immigration.
• September 11th, 2015: Collins votes against the United States' nuclear treaty with Iran.
• September 18th, 2015: Rep. Collins votes for a bill with most House Republicans to defund Planned Parenthood, based on highly edited “sting” videos submitted by a Pro-Life advocacy group that was repeatedly debunked by investigators.
• November 19th, 2015: Collins votes for the American Security Against Foreign Enemies Act, reacting to the terror attacks in Paris by jihadists from France and Belgium by trying to create greater restrictions to keep out Syrian refugees, of whom exactly zero were involved in those attacks.
• February 2nd, 2016: Doug Collins votes for HR 3762, the 61st attempt by Congressional Republicans to repeal the Affordable Care Act (which is still working better than was predicted).

[worstblogever]

Continued...

• February 16th, 2017: Collins votes for HJR 69, to make it legal for hunters on wildlife reserves to kill several species of hibernating bears or wolves while they’re sleeping. Because… well, the logic really isn’t there as to why, it’s just awful.
• March 16th, 2017: Doug Collins votes for HR 1181, which would allow veterans deemed mentally incompetent to continue to own firearms, and not have them taken away without a judge's written order. We feel safer already.
• May 4th, 2017: Collins votes for the GOP's healthcare plan, that would allow 24,000 more people to die a year, give $50,000 in tax breaks to millionaires, would eliminate coverage for pre-existing conditions, and would treat pregnancy, post-partum depression, and sexual assault as "pre-existing conditions". Oh, and a provision in the bill would make sure that Collins would be allowed to keep his healthcare plan as it exists under the ACA, which would be repealed for the rest of the country. He and his Republican compatriots threw themselves a beer bash to celebrate taking away healthcare from millions and then gloated about it with Donald Trump at a White House press conference, as well.
• June 8th, 2017: Doug Collins votes for HR 10, the GOP’s attempt to repeal Dodd-Frank financial reform, because what the country really needs is to allow the big banks to make the same mistakes that imploded the economy only a decade earlier.
• October 3rd, 2017: Collins votes for HR 36, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, that would try to create an unconstitutional ban abortion at 20 weeks (even though medical science tells us fetuses do not have the capability to feel pain until 29 weeks).
• December 19th, 2017: Doug Collins votes for HR 1, the GOP’s $1.7 trillion tax cut to benefit the wealthiest Americans and corporations permanently that coincidentally also removes the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate and kicks 13 million people off their health insurance.
• February 18th, 2018: Rep. Collins and his fellow Republicans decide that poor big businesses are suffering too much at the hands of the Americans with Disabilities Act too much, and vote for HR 620, which would strip most of the civil rights protections guaranteed by it.
• January 23rd, 2019: Rep. Collins voted against HR 648, because he was gleefully enjoying the longest government shutdown in history.
• February 28th, 2019: Collins votes against HR 1112, a bill which would have required universal background checks on all firearm purchases, and close the gun show loophole.
• March 14th, 2019: Rep. Collins 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: Doug Collins 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: Collins votes against The Equality Act, which would have prevented discrimination towards Americans based on their gender identity or sexual orientation.
• June 4th, 2019: Rep. Collins votes against the Dreamers Act, because he’s too xenophobic and partisan to care about immigration reform.
• July 16th, 2019: Doug Collins 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”.
• December 3rd, 2019: Rep. Collins is one of 71 Republicans who votes against a resolution to disallow Russia from re-entering the G7 and makes it the G8 until it leaves Ukraine.
• December 18th, 2019: Collins 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.
• May 15th, 2020: Collins votes against the HEROES Act, to further support the healthcare industry and citizens affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.

So we’re loathe to report that in 2020, Doug Collins has decided he’s worthy of being a U.S. Senator, and is one of a slew of candidates vying for the Senate seat currently held by the almost-immediately corrupt Sen. Kelly Loeffler. He, of course, has the endorsement of Donald Trump, being a white nationalist and all that would go to bat for Cheeto Mussolini no matter how egregious his offense… but as the incumbent and Collins sling mud at each other, civil rights activist Ralph Warnock, the leading Democratic candidate is potentially going to end up in the top two finishers, and is polling almost even with Collins in the general election.

We know Georgia is trending more purple, and both of its Senate seats are up this year… and the only good news should Collins win is… he’ll have to defend that seat again in 2022.

[Kusanagi]

Hardly a good optic for the Orange Menace. Why Trump isn't challenged more by reporters I have no idea. I particularly love it when he's challenged by women who won't stand for his bully tactics.



Do you think Trump gives a **** at this point? Don't forget Trump mocked a disabled reporter during his 2016 campaign and got away with it.

Oh Trump will mock whoever is going to be VP and he will not care in the least, but mocking Duckworth would be an easy PR victory for Biden, who's already been able to sit back and let Trump make the political ads for him.

[Gray Lensman]

Oh Trump will mock whoever is going to be VP and he will not care in the least, but mocking Duckworth would be an easy PR victory for Biden, who's already been able to sit back and let Trump make the political ads for him.

True. Trump has been doing enough work for Biden that the latter's campaign should have to cut him a check. That's a grift we can all support (provided Joe wins).