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

[InfamousBG]

...but Gay Marriage is next on the agenda to remove.

Which is very very sad.

[worstblogever]

Which is very very sad.

Leave it to the Sinister Six on the SCOTUS to try and take down a right that about 7 out of 10 people in the country support.

Minority rule. F*** any right that wasn't in the original constitution.

[worstblogever]

It was on this date in 2015 that “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” profiled Dale Mensing, a Bob Jones University graduate and grocery clerk who, in his mid-fifties, dove into politics for a challenge to Rep. Jared Huffman for his seat to represent California’s 2nd Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2014. His campaign ads were primarily YouTube videos of Mensing in the picturesque California redwoods, claiming the Affordable Care Act was created to start attacks on the freedom of religion, or was a violation of the Bill of Rights. In others he warned of Common Core education as “One World Order education concepts”. Not surprisingly, Mensing lost the election by 50 points, and will likely never perform better in any election, should he make another go of it.

In 2016, 2017, and 2018, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” profiled former Arizona State Senator Kelli Ward, who in 2016 was the latest in a long line of nut-jobs we’ve profiled who decided to challenge Senator John McCain for his seat to represent Arizona in the U.S. Senate, and she lost in 2018 as well running for the seat formerly held by Sen. Jeff Flake. For starters, Ward was running a osteopathic clinic in Lake Havasu City back in 2009, and not particularly well from a financial standpoint. She then sold her practice to a company named NorthCountry. That included the clinic, employees and all, and her buyout was paid for with… half a million dollars in Obama Stimulus Funds that came from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. But she tells all her prospective voters she HATES Obamacare, go figure, while she laughs all the way to the bank. In 2012, she even gave an interview to an osteopathic magazine to discuss the matter with no regrets. As a state legislator in Arizona, Kelli Ward hosted a town hall meeting with her constituents to discuss the threat of… CHEMTRAILS. That’s only the tip of the proverbial iceberg, though, as Ward has the nasty habit of supporting OTHER conspiracies, and appearing on the radio talk shows of every right-wing paranoid conspiracy theorist lunatic who will host her. Back in 2013, she co-sponsored Arizona’s attempts to reject the United Nations’ Agenda 21 Treaty, and spoke on the floor of the Arizona legislature about how she believes it’s not about better environmental standards, but tricking rural Americans into moving back into metropolitan centers and cities. Mother Jones Magazine also has reportied about how Ward has appeared on the radio show of a local Arizona conspiracy nut named Luca Zanna, where Ward chatted about mysterious helicopters that had been spotted in Arizona, finding agreement how Common Core standards were turning children into “slaves”, as well as the prospect of martial law, or the possibility of a foreign power sending troops to subdue American citizens. Mother Jones was also good enough to note how Kelli Ward made a trip up to the Cliven Bundy Ranch to hang out with him and the Oathkeepers in 2014, and she described the armed standoff where domestic terrorists had assault rifles pointed at federal agents from the Bureau of Land Management as a “family friendly” event. Just… yikes. After Cliven Bundy made his comments “about the negro”, Ward tried downplaying her visit to see the would-be hero turned racist domestic terrorist, but noting Bundy had a “1st Amendment right” to his remarks. She also actually did an interview in 2014 with self-described conspiracy theorist and fellow Bundy supporter Pete Santilli, who called John McCain “a domestic enemy”, and brought up both Chemtrails and 9/11 Trutherism during their talk. Funny side story thought? Remember when Donald Sterling still owned the Los Angeles Clippers, and after decades of racist remarks and lawsuits over racial discrimination against Sterling, he was caught on tape making racist remarks by his girlfriend about the company she was keeping with African Americans being something he didn’t approve of. The NBA voted to force Sterling to sell the Clippers, and most people felt it was because the league didn’t need anyone that racist as part of their day-to-day operations. Well, Kelli Ward, for whatever reason, came running to Donald Sterling’s defense, saying that forcing him to lose his team in such a manner created a “slippery slope”, and promised the public that she would “fight for free speech”. Kelli Ward also received a 2016 endorsement from Nohl Rosenthe leader of a group of racist protesters who are pro-police, taunting Black Lives Matter protesters with Confederate flags, or the time Rosen participated an armed protest with assault rifles of a Phoenix mosque (where they talked about the possibility of having a “Draw Muhammed” contest). While most assumed Ward would distance herself from a bigoted crank like Rosen… she re-Tweeted his endorsement. Then you do a little bit of checking and find out… Ward has spoken at some of Rosen’s “Back the Badge” rallies that defend police violence (especially the times against minorities). And that sort of mentality jibes with Mother Jones’ other reporting, that when asked about her position on birthright citizenship at a local GOP gathering in September 2014, she responded by making a thumbs-down gesture and blowing a raspberry, stating that it had been "misinterpreted for years" and that immigrants shouldn't be able to stay just because they "create a child." (Which isn’t how birthright citizenship works.) In radio interviews, Ward has fear-mongered in the worst possible ways, warning that "polio-like illnesses" are spreading "throughout the country as the federal government shipped all of these illegal immigrants all across the country without properly treating them for health and wellness, and they're exposing our kids, our families, to things that we should never have to be exposed to." (Remember, now, we’re talking about a woman with medical training…) Establishing that Ward is off her rocker seems like an open and shut at this point, but we’ll note she also was a co-sponsor of extremist Arizona Republicans attempts to make gold and silver legal tender as one of her first priorities as a legislator, as well as voted for both an attempt to nullify federal firearm laws, and voted for Arizona’s attempt at passing a “religious freedom” law to prevent same sex marriage back in 2013. So to sum up, she frequents the company of bigots, is supported by leaders of hate rallies, says unfounded things about immigrants, tries making conspiracy theories into actual policy, and only seems to mention the importance of the First Amendment when someone says something really racist. Perhaps then, it should come as little surprise that she has spoken at Trump events and praised Cheeto Jesus himself, Donald Trump. Ward was left desperate enough to tout “endorsements” from fake news sites that her own campaign manages, and YET… she rose to become the new Chairwoman of the Arizona Republican Party, pushing hard to get them to do push for the “Fraudit”, where they hired a Trump-backing firm with no experience in election monitoring to come and investigate the 2020 election ballots for non-existent fraud and in the process, cost the state a small fortune in corrupting the existing voting machines’ databases, and for whatever reason, sending the ballots to a cabin in Montana. She is still bats***, and currently facing subpoenas for being implicated in the coup attempt staged by Donald Trump after the 2020 election, specifically for ties to the slate of false electors from Arizona.

On this date in 2019, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” profiled Carl Nett, who lost in an attempt to get elected to the Kentucky state legislature in 2014, and in 2019, was a candidate to be the Secretary of State of Kentucky. Nett, however, decidedly crossed a line during the build-up to the 2018 elections, harming his own reputation by making a threat towards longtime Democratic Kentucky Congressman John Yarmuth. Rep. Yarmuth posted a picture of himself wearing an “F” pin, which he revealed was his pride in knowing that “F” is the lifetime rating the NRA gave him. Nett, a former law enforcement officer and Secret Service agent, posted on Twitter that Yarmuth should, “move it over a bit, I was trained center mass”, indicating he wanted to shoot him square in the chest. Nett deleted the post, but not before it was seen, screen-captured, and sent to the FBI to investigate. He ended up apologizing, but his reputation was already damaged. Not that he seems to have a good idea of what a good reputation looks like, as Nett not only insisted that he has the nickname “Trump”, but he threatened to sue the state of Kentucky if they didn’t include that nickname for him on the ballot in 2019, only to have a judge laugh his frivolous lawsuit out of court. Nett finished fourth among four candidates for the GOP Primary, getting only 13% of the vote. As he seems unlikely to ever reach elected office now that he threatened to shoot a sitting politician (we hope, at least).

[Malvolio]

We no longer see the big picture because we refuse to understand that it takes years to make forward progress work. Instead, we are addicted to instant gratification and that’s why we’re failing.

This exactly. They were willing to wait fifty years to get Roe v. Wade overturned. We're not willing to wait fifty days for a Democratic Presidential candidate to think something over and come to a proposal to solve a problem.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2020, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” profiled Fern Shubert, who was a GOP Primary candidate in the special election for U.S. House Representative for North Carolina’s 9th Congressional district in 2019, an unsuccessful campaign for North Carolina State Senate in 2010, and way back in 2004, she had an unsuccessful run for Governor of North Carolina. upon her announcing her intention to try and get into Congress, the media did some looking back at her 2004 campaign site, and discovered that Fern Shubert believes that support for same sex marriage leads to “rising crime rates”, which has precisely zero statistical correlation outside of Fern Shubert’s warped brain. Further inspection into that website showed that Shubert compared homosexuality to pedophilia, stated her opposition to gun control because she believes in the urban legend that “Hitler supported it”, and compared Democrats to the Taliban. Fern Shubert finished sixth out of ten candidates, having all of 433 people vote for her, for 1.5% of the vote.

On this date in 2021, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” profiled Katherine Tate, a 2018 candidate for U.S. House of Representatives from Mississippi’s 3rd Congressional District, who absolutely should not be confused with Catherine Tate, the brilliant English actress who portrayed one of Dr. Who’s all-time best companions and was Nellie on the original UK version of The Office. No, the Mississippi Republican Katherine Tate we’re profiling is spelled with a K, although we wouldn’t be shocked to find out she spells it with three of them. Katherine Tate actually posted several times about Facebook to defend her family’s history of owning a plantation and how the slaves on it “were well treated members of the family.”and how they were “worse off” after emancipation. Now, as bad as that bit of revisionist history is, her social media also had a pattern of maligning billionaire philanthropist George Soros, calling him “Satan” and sharing a number of conspiracy theories about him, while also claiming that Muslims on London were running secret slave markets, presumably not as wholesome as her idea of the Christian ones her ancestors did. She defended Confederate monuments, of course, in other posts. Just in case anyone was unsure that Tate was a reality-challenged individual, she turned some heads during the GOP Primary debate for the seat by proposing the solution to mass shootings as “Get the federal government out of this godless, Marxist, statist, anti-god, anti-Christian control of schools." And when you mention some variant of Judeo-Christian God oppression three times in one sentence, we’re not sure if you’re trying to summon the Anti-Christ like Beetlejuice or if you’re just raving mad. While being incredibly racist hasn’t been a dealbreaker for Republican voters in Mississippi at any point since 1965 or so, we are relieved to say that Katherine Tate only got 416 total votes, f and has since remained out of American politics. Thus, we will set aside her profile at this time to cover another wacky Republican today instead. (Current crazy/stupid scoreboard, is now 1116-55, since this was established in July 2014.


Audra Lemons-Johnson

Welcome to what is the 1116th original profile here at “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day”, where we’ll be discussing Audra Lemons-Johnson, a 2022 candidate for U.S. House of Representatives in Michigan’s 3rd Congressional District who was looking to replace Peter Meijer for his seat in Congress (he is facing a tough path to re-election after his party started a coup and he felt Donald Trump should be held accountable for plotting it). Her credentials? She was running with the resume of “fanatically committed to Donald Trump so much that she literally plastered “MAGA” down the front of her wedding dress, and “TRUMP” across her arse, as well as all over her wedding cake, starting off her marriage by alienating her father-in-law, who boycotted the event because Trump is racist (not an opinion, the gentlemen is factually correct). Not for nothing, they also asked wedding guests to sign a petition to support a fetal heatbeat abortion bill, as to lock women into giving birth if their period is but two weeks late.

Y’know, normal wedding reception stuff.

Lemons has membership in a Michigan militia group, has been arrested several times for trespassing for breaking into the Michigan capitol building, and was present at the U.S. Capitol during Donald Trump’s coup attempt on January 6th, 2021, so her extremism goes well past her choice in wedding attire. Her own brother outed her as having ties to the Liberty Militia group that were arrested for plotting to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer. It seems a pretty easy thing to confirm, given she’s posted images of the group’s patch on her Instagram page.

So we’re relieved to report that Audra Lemons-Johnson was polling terriblly, and dropped out of the race well ahead of the GOP Primary in August. Hopefully, she can get some deprogramming therapy, for her children’s sake.

[Tami]

An opinion piece that I'm still thinking on and haven't made up my mind if she is right or not.

The Far Right and Far Left Agree on One Thing: Women Don’t Count

The right’s position here is the better known, the movement having aggressively dedicated itself to stripping women of fundamental rights for decades. Thanks in part to two Supreme Court justices who have been credibly accused of abusive behavior toward women, Roe v. Wade, nearly 50 years a target, has been ruthlessly overturned.

Far more bewildering has been the fringe left jumping in with its own perhaps unintentionally but effectively misogynist agenda. There was a time when campus groups and activist organizations advocated strenuously on behalf of women. Women’s rights were human rights and something to fight for. Though the Equal Rights Amendment was never ratified, legal scholars and advocacy groups spent years working to otherwise establish women as a protected class.

But today, a number of academics, uber-progressives, transgender activists, civil liberties organizations and medical organizations are working toward an opposite end: to deny women their humanity, reducing them to a mix of body parts and gender stereotypes.

As reported by my colleague Michael Powell, even the word “women” has become verboten. Previously a commonly understood term for half the world’s population, the word had a specific meaning tied to genetics, biology, history, politics and culture. No longer. In its place are unwieldy terms like “pregnant people,” “menstruators” and “bodies with vaginas.”

Planned Parenthood, once a stalwart defender of women’s rights, omits the word “women” from its home page. NARAL Pro-Choice America has used “birthing people” in lieu of “women.” The American Civil Liberties Union, a longtime defender of women’s rights, last month tweeted its outrage over the possible overturning of Roe v. Wade as a threat to several groups: “Black, Indigenous and other people of color, the L.G.B.T.Q. community, immigrants, young people.”

It left out those threatened most of all: women. Talk about a bitter way to mark the 50th anniversary of Title IX.

The noble intent behind omitting the word “women” is to make room for the relatively tiny number of transgender men and people identifying as nonbinary who retain aspects of female biological function and can conceive, give birth or breastfeed. But despite a spirit of inclusion, the result has been to shove women to the side.

The word 'Woman" hasn't disappeared from the vocabulary, people who are female and adults are referred to as Women or a Woman. I don't know of any group of any kind that objects to the use of the word Woman.

Don't know if this is actually a thing.

[Panfoot]

It's only a thing among TERFs really, it's JK Rowlings big "thing".

EDIT: Yeah reading the article, she has a whole "woe is me section" on that. Opinion piece is garbage.

[4saken1]

States say abortion bans don't affect IVF. Providers and lawyers are worried anyway.

I don't understand why they wouldn't! If this is really about killing babies, why would it matter in one case and not the other? Could somebody challenge the law in court if there is a deliberate refusal to enforce it uniformly? <Looks at 150 years of virtually undisputed law enforcement disparity between whites and minorities> Ah.....never mind!

[babyblob]

Akron Police release Body cam video. The big note about statements from the police Chief. Jayland Walker was unarmed at the time his officers shot at him more then 90 time hitting him 60 times. That is what Cnn is reporting.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/...lker-rcna36494

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Akron Police release Body cam video. The big note about statements from the police Chief. Jayland Walker was unarmed at the time his officers shot at him more then 90 time hitting him 60 times. That is what Cnn is reporting.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/...lker-rcna36494

Heads need to roll here, starting with the chief of police while the bastards who fired at Mr. Walker should be jailed and prosecuted for their reprehensible actions.

[babyblob]

Heads need to roll here, starting with the chief of police while the bastards who fired at Mr. Walker should be jailed and prosecuted for their reprehensible actions.

I hope they do. Sadly we already have the Back the Blue Blue Lives matter crowd and their spin on this.

I knew these cops messed up when my aunt of all people said "Damn those cops deserve to go to prison for life."

[Malvolio]

An opinion piece that I'm still thinking on and haven't made up my mind if she is right or not.

The Far Right and Far Left Agree on One Thing: Women Don’t Count







The word 'Woman" hasn't disappeared from the vocabulary, people who are female and adults are referred to as Women or a Woman. I don't know of any group of any kind that objects to the use of the word Woman.

Don't know if this is actually a thing.

No one is stopping anyone from saying the word "woman." It's just that some people feel more comfortable using other terms. But I haven't seen any of them forcing those terms on anyone else.

[skyvolt2000]

I hope they do. Sadly we already have the Back the Blue Blue Lives matter crowd and their spin on this.

I knew these cops messed up when my aunt of all people said "Damn those cops deserve to go to prison for life."

I know they found a gun in the car but that does not warrant enough bullets to make the Predator bleed.

90 shots for one person? You don't need to be a cop. Cobra, Storm Troopers, Cylons and Star Trek Red Shirts don't miss that much.

What if those 30 missed shots hit someone else?

[Robotman]

Gavin Newsom seems to be one of the few prominent Democrats who understands that you can’t play nice with the modern GQP.

From a recent CNN article:

Newsom insists he's not taking digs at President Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi when he says he's trying to prod his party into getting angrier and more activated. He called the hearings held by the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol a "master class" but said Democrats need to be looking past Trump and toward how Trumpism is evolving. After spending much of the pandemic watching and reading right-wing media, Newsom said he's grown more and more alarmed to see how much is taking root.
"My expression is one of frustration, watching now for many years, in many ways predating the current climate and the current administration," Newsom said in the interview. "The success of the right to define the terms of the debate, the success of the right to dominate the narrative ... they're winning in ways that are alarming to me."
The ad, he promised, will be the start of much more to come.
"Things have changed, rules of engagement have to change," Newsom said. "You've got to take the fight to them."

[WestPhillyPunisher]

I hope they do. Sadly we already have the Back the Blue Blue Lives matter crowd and their spin on this.

I knew these cops messed up when my aunt of all people said "Damn those cops deserve to go to prison for life."

There is NO spin for that atrocity, no way to gloss over what had been the assassination of an unarmed man, plain and simple.