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

[Mister Mets]

Is there some list of the worst people in history that could be considered objective? Maybe by number of deaths they caused?

What I can think of on the top of my head:

Genghis Khan
Mao Ce-Tung
Lenin
Stalin
Hitler
...and now Putin

That would be 3 for russia.

Any other suggestions?

Ivan the Terrible worked for his name. Peter the Great had a great body count. Beria was never that powerful but he had mass Graves on his property and raped minors.

[Panfoot]

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/...ender-84698087

AUSTIN, Texas -- Texas Supreme Court allows state to resume some abuse investigations into gender-confirming care for transgender youth.

Republicans won't rest until they wipe out as many minorities as they can.

[JackDaw]

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/...ender-84698087



Republicans won't rest until they wipe out as many minorities as they can.

Or to modify a very bleak joke a friend made years ago: “No, of course they won’t wipe out the minorities, a dead slave is no use to anyone”.

[Robotman]

The problem is that Alito, Roberts, Thomas, and just about every Qpublican currently making life hellish for everyone who’s not white, male, straight and Christian could care less how history will remember them. That’s why they’re doing all the evil things they’re doing without so much as a shred of guilt or conscience, because they just plain don’t give a shit about going down in infamy. Hell, they might even see that as a badge of honor. And that mindset won’t change either.

They’re being celebrated as heroes and champions of Christianity by 50% of the country and that’s all they care about. Being thought of as villains by the left? That’s the badge of honor.

Trump’s image will forever hang next to a picture of blonde haired blue eyed Jesus in every pro-life home. He’s the man who finally allowed them to overturn Roe. Of course rich evangelicals will always be able to get their mistresses abortions.

Given how Republicans are targeting education now, they won't have to worry about how history treats them because the real history will no longer be taught.

Exactly. History is written by the winners.

[Kirby101]

They’re being celebrated as heroes and champions of Christianity by 50% of the country and that’s all they care about. Being thought of as villains by the left? That’s the badge of honor.

Not quite, only 28% of the country supports this. The great majority want abortion legal. But Mitch McConnell has made sure the majority doesn't matter.

[SUPERECWFAN1]

I had one friend who sent me this video. I already looked up one claim made and saw it was debunked about food processing plants etc. I'd debate him but usually here is how it goes...

- Sees something online. Becomes an instant expert on it.

- I counter with fact based article which counters something he watched and it leads into a whole...

" You clearly don't understand..." Etc etc...

So im not even gonna debate it. I don't have time to counter Bill Gates conspiracy stuff...

[babyblob]

Not quite, only 28% of the country supports this. The great majority want abortion legal. But Mitch McConnell has made sure the majority doesn't matter

Funny thing is Mitch has convinced himself or he is lying about what people want. in his speech the other day about the Dems attempts to make Abortion rights into law (Something they should have been trying to do for a couple of decades and I am mad about that) he said the Dems are out of touch with the American people because most Americans want Abortion outlawed. It is such a joke he could say that with a straight face.

[Mister Mets]

Not quite, only 28% of the country supports this. The great majority want abortion legal. But Mitch McConnell has made sure the majority doesn't matter.

These statistics are complicated and sometimes contradictory.

The position of the Democratic party isn't just pro-abortion, but they're in favor of it in pretty much all circumstances.

Only 28 percent of Americans support abortion in the second trimester.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...n-in-5-charts/

This is curious considering the support for Roe V Wade, although a simple explanation is that most people don't understand the nuances of a legal opinion.

[CaptainEurope]

Poland is a member of NATO. The only way that Russia (plus Belarus) could "de-Nazify" Poland without initiating an all-out war against every country in NATO would be for them to provide support to an insurgent movement within Poland itself which would overthrow the existing government and replace it with one that aligns the country with Russia / Belarus. This is the same type of operation that Russia has been conducting in eastern Ukraine and in eastern Moldova for years.

It's also a member of the EU, which means drawing in even more countries.

[CaptainEurope]

I bet he was trolling.

I bet he thought it would make him popular and cool. When he realized people ridiculed him and hated him more, his feelings got hurt.

[worstblogever]

It was on this date in 2015, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” had a profile of Jeffrey Wood, a former member of the Wisconsin State Assembly who over the course of several years, was arrested for DUI on five separate occasions. In one incident, he flipped his vehicle, and police arriving on scene found him trapped inside, in possession of marijuana. That sort of hinders Wood’s argument made as Republican to support the drug testing of welfare recipients, when you think about it. At least he’s not a hypocrite on other legislation he supported, like stricter Voter ID laws or trying to ban same sex marriage, he’s just terrible for it. As Wood was charged and convicted of felony offenses and ended up with a 9 month prison sentence, a political comeback for him seems pretty unlikely.

On this date in 2016, 2017, and 2018, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” presented profiles of Jesse Kremer, a member of the Wisconsin State Assembly who, in spite of having first been elected in 2014, has quickly garnered our attention for the myriad of extremist bills he’s submitted. We’ve already seen him push for anti-choice extremism, in the form of a ban on abortion at 20 weeks, his push to allow for the concealed carry of firearms in schools to prevent hypothetical “terrorist attacks”, or his repeated calls for transphobic bathroom bills, which he has repeatedly submitted since being elected. Kremer is closely allied with Julaine Appling, the head of the Wisconsin Family Action group, a Pro-Life and anti-LGBT rights group that has warned the legalization of same sex marriage could lead to adult-child covenants. Kremer and Appling insist that transphobic bathroom bills are in no way discriminatory and have been caught exchanging e-mails that show they’re going out of their way to make more experienced legislators look like “the bad guy” if they’re afraid to push it forward based on their fearmongering of transgendered citizens. Kremer has gone far enough to insist that “the real war on women” is the fact that transgendered attackers are being allowed to go into the wrong restroom and attack women and pretending that anyone who opposes the bills are allowing the attacks (which aren’t based in reality) to continue. After Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker failed to deliver on his promise that Wisconsin would see 250,000 new jobs produced under his leadership, critics took him to task for it. Rushing to his defense came Jesse Kremer, who explained that the real problem behind the job crisis wasn’t a failure of opportunities (which it is), but instead, the blame lies on “entitled graduating college students” seeking too much pay and those on public assistance who feel getting a job will “cut into their benefits”. Kremer has also supported the drug testing of welfare recipients, stricter Voter ID laws to combat the statistically non-existent problem of “in person voter fraud” at the cost of disenfranchising hundreds of thousands of voters and also decided there was too much “rampant fraud” happening with EBT cards by people on public assistance, so he sponsored legislation to require Photo Identification for when people want to use them to be able to buy food to curtail his imagined abuse. This in spite of the fact that the USDA warns that such measures would stop family members who the food is also supposed to go to can’t use the card. Y’know, say if a single mother sends a teen to the store on her behalf… no food for you, get out to the store yourself, mom! Kremer also tried to exploit the mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, as proof that "Our country has been torn apart by President Obama's divisive racism, hatred of Christianity and lambasting of the military and law enforcement” In 2017, Kremer, he completely embarrassed himself by stating his “Biblical belief” that the Earth is only 6,000 years old. Kremer opted to not run for re-election in 2018, likely because the Wisconsin GOP preferred a candidate that wasn’t bats*** crazy.

On this date in 2019, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” profiled Burt Minor, a candidate for the Illinois House of Representatives for District 42 in that body in 2018. His candidacy, however, was damaged from a member of his own party, as Erika Harold, a GOP candidate for Illinois Attorney general, went public with the fact that Minor had asked her if she was a “lesbo” and used the N-word around her (and yes, she is African-American) after she announced her own candidacy. Harold let Minor know, that no one should ever use that word to express her discomfort. He repeated it. So she repeated her warning, and he said it a third time, as if he was trying to summon some sort of racist Beetlejuice. Once Harold made Minor’s comments public knowledge, he claimed his comments were “misinterpreted” and tried to play the victim. Burt Minor lost in the GOP Primary, only getting 22% of the vote. We’re not sure if this will be his only run for the state legislature or not.

[worstblogever]

On this date in both 2020, as well as 2021, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day”, first profiled U.S. Senator from Louisiana, Bill Cassidy, who first got his Senate seat back in the 2014 elections, after serving three terms in the U.S. House of Representatives for Louisiana’s 6th Congressional District. Make no mistake, the timing of our release of this profile in 2020 is in the hopes that the people of Louisiana decide to go a different direction to help flip the Senate blue, because GEEZ, this guy.

Perhaps during the Covid-19 pandemic that it was best that we looked at Sen. Cassidy’s passion for denying health insurance to the American people. He opposed the passage of the Affordable Care Act, supported repealing it once the GOP retook the House in 2011, and as a senator in 2017, worked hand in hand with Sen. Lindsey Graham to try and repeal the Affordable Care Act with the Graham-Cassidy Bill. Now, the public debate on this bill was what really told you everything you needed to know about Bill Cassidy. He appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live, likely expecting a softball interview, only to be surprised when Kimmel pitched him a healthcare situation that was absolutely not hypothetical. Kimmel’s son was born with a congenital heart disease, and he asked Cassidy if such a child born with a pre-existing condition would be able to get everything he or she would need in that first year of life under Cassidy’s plan, and if their parents would have the surgeries required to keep their infant alive paid for under it. Cassidy, in front of a national audience, lied and said it would. However, after experts and analysts took a hard look at Cassidy’s bill, they determined that the bill would cut healthcare by just shy of $300 billion in the year 2027 and leave 32 million more Americans not covered… and oh yeah… it would have not covered Jimmy Kimmel’s kid. Kimmel, in a monologue, called Cassidy a liar, and Cassidy responded that Kimmel just “doesn’t understand” his bill, and went on to double down and claim it would cover MORE people than the ACA, which was utter bulls***.

But that’s Bill Cassidy. There’s a pathological nature to his mendacity and cruelty… he just doesn’t care who lives or dies, as long as he can avoid tax dollars going towards paying for the poor, and money staying in the pockets of the rich. He was even bored during the hearings on his doomed piece of legislation, lazily yawning as protesters in wheelchairs were carried out by capitol police in front of him.

We should also note that after Donald Trump made national headlines for his “s***hole countries” comments regarding African nations and Haiti, that Bill Cassidy had some harsh words of criticism… for Senator Dick Durbin, for telling the media how much of a disgusting racist the president is. Yup, he didn’t seem to object that Trump said it, just that the public found out, thanks to Durbin.

And that’s not the only moment where Senator Cassidy chose the side of bigots in our national political discussion. As white nationalists repeatedly were making the news for carrying out mass shootings and other domestic terror attacks over the summer of 2019, Cassidy and Senator Ted Cruz thought it was a great time to draft a resolution to criticize the real problem…antifa. Only a few weeks later, he used the Senate's time to address the very important problem that he was upset about the New Orleans Saints getting hosed by referees in the NFL playoffs six months earlier.

Your tax dollars at work.

Taking a look at Cassidy’s worst moments as a legislator… well, there’s a lot to choose from:

• July 30th, 2010: Months after the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico, a bill comes to the floor to better regulate off-shore drilling. Cassidy is apparently alright with ecological disasters continuing in the future, as he votes against it.
• December 8th, 2010: Rep. Cassidy votes against the DREAM Act.
• December 15th, 2010: Cassidy votes against the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell".
• On January 5th, 2011, Rep. Cassidy votes the first attempt by Republicans to repeal the Affordable Care Act an would vote for almost every attempt to do so since.
• January 15th, 2013: Bill Cassidy votes against Disaster Relief Funding for victims of Hurricane Sandy.
• June 19th, 2013: Bill Cassidy votes against restoring $20.5 billion towards the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program.
• September 30th, 2013: Rep. Cassidy votes for the 2013 Government Shutdown. When the vote came up seventeen days later to re-open the government, Cassidy voted to keep it closed.
• January 6th, 2015: Bill Cassidy’ first act in the Senate is to vote for the Keystone XL Pipeline.
• Sept. 24th, 2015: Cassidy votes to defund Planned Parenthood, based on conservative outrage over a video concocted by the Center for Medical Progress that had been repeatedly debunked by investigators, and eventually resulted in the CMP being hit with criminal charges.
• December 3rd, 2015: Sen. Cassidy votes to protect the right of people on terror watch lists to still buy guns and explosives.
• July 25th, 2017: Cassidy votes for the BCRA, aka Trumpcare.
• December 20th, 2017: Sen. Cassidy votes for the GOP Tax Plan/Scam, that places the burden of taxation upon the working class and almost none upon our country’s billionaires.
• October 6th, 2018: Bill Cassidy votes to put accused attempted rapist Brett Kavanaugh onto the Supreme Court.
• January 31st, 2020: Sen. Cassidy votes against witnesses being allowed in the impeachment trial of Donald Trump, effectively making it a “trial”.
• February 5th, 2020: Bill Cassidy votes against the impeachment of Donald Trump, in spite of the mountain of evidence showing that he solicited foreign assistance in the 2020 elections.
• February 25th, 2020: Cassidy co-sponsors and votes for the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, an insane piece of anti-choice legislation that would ask abortion providers to try to admit aborted fetuses to a hospital if they were “alive” after the procedure, which is medically impossible given the age that abortions can be performed at.
• March 30th, 2022: Tillis votes against putting the extremely qualified nominee, Judge Kentanji Brown-Jackson, onto the Supreme Court.

And yet, AND YET… this conscienceless douche-nozzle was re-elected in 2020, winning every parish in the state except one for 59% of the vote. Since returning to the Senate, Sen. Cassidy refused to hold anyone accountable for a violent coup attempt on the Capitol that resulted in five deaths and very nearly could have caused the deaths of elected officials, voted against the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 because he would rather do nothing to help Americans during a pandemic, against raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, and has voted against the majority of President Biden’s Cabinet nominations.

After he was one of the six Republicans who voted to convict Donald Trump during his second impeachment trial for inciting the Capitol attack on Jan. 6th, Cassidy has likely assured himself a primary challenge the next time he’s up for re-election. However, barring any scandals forcing his resignation, that won’t be happening until 2026. Rumors are already starting that he might make a run for Governor of Louisiana in 2023, but time will tell…

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Funny thing is Mitch has convinced himself or he is lying about what people want. in his speech the other day about the Dems attempts to make Abortion rights into law (Something they should have been trying to do for a couple of decades and I am mad about that) he said the Dems are out of touch with the American people because most Americans want Abortion outlawed. It is such a joke he could say that with a straight face.

My vote is for lying. He knows damn well what the people want, but that doesn't fit the GQP's narrative which keeps the base good and angry about the so-called "evils" of abortion. And, like all Qpublicans who lack anything even remotely resembling morals or a conscience, yeah, Mitch most definitely COULD say what he did with a straight face.

[Starter Set]

Is there some list of the worst people in history that could be considered objective? Maybe by number of deaths they caused?

What I can think of on the top of my head:

Genghis Khan
Mao Ce-Tung
Lenin
Stalin
Hitler
...and now Putin

That would be 3 for russia.

Any other suggestions?

Actually Stalin was from Georgia.

And putin is quite an amateur next to those guys.

Hell, Bush did worst.

[thwhtGuardian]

These statistics are complicated and sometimes contradictory.

The position of the Democratic party isn't just pro-abortion, but they're in favor of it in pretty much all circumstances.

Only 28 percent of Americans support abortion in the second trimester.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...n-in-5-charts/

This is curious considering the support for Roe V Wade, although a simple explanation is that most people don't understand the nuances of a legal opinion.

They aren't that complicated at all really, nor are they really contradictory.

I don't think it's the nuance of legal opinion, just a misunderstanding of health terms. Most people who aren't doctors seem to think that start of the second trimester coincides with when the fetus first becomes viable outside the womb but the truth is that doesn't actually happen until nearly the end of the second trimester. Basically, it goes back to the terrible standard of sex education that we have in this country as its so bare bones as to nearly be useless and usually only a mandatory class for a few short years(all most always in middle school/ jr. high).

I'd bet big cash that had the question been phrased, "Should abortion generally be legal before the fetus is viable outside the womb?" it would have yielded a much higher percentage of support than the phrasing of, "Should abortion generally be legal in the second trimester?" The phrase " viable outside the womb" is clear to even laymen who's only knowledge of reproductive health was severely lacking and occurred years ago, while "second trimester" is broader and more nebulous in meaning to the uneducated so much so that I question whether the intent of the pollster was to show a conflicted opinion where none truly exists.

Again, this comes down to the question of why should a small number of uneducated people get to dictate policy to the rest of the country?

The answer is, "They Shouldn't."

You believe abortions are wrong?

Don't get one, no one is forcing you.