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

[Zauriel]

Both Georgia Senate seats will have a new, runoff election in January, if the Democrats get both, they will have the majority with 50 seats and the Vice President casting the deciding vote.

First, Georgia elects Joe Biden. Now they will elect both two democratic senators? I didn't expect Georgia to flip blue. I think North Carolina or Ohio would be more likely to turn blue.

[Kirby101]

First, Georgia elects Joe Biden. Now they will elect both two democratic senators? I didn't expect Georgia to flip blue. I think North Carolina or Ohio would be more likely to turn blue.

Me too, but we have to wait until January 5 to see who they elect for Senator.

[Madam-Shogun-Assassin]

Democrats have one month until the GA runoff & the leaders are still spending more time attacking the modern civil rights movement than telling people why it matters who controls the Senate or how Democrats plan to relieve their suffering should they take full control of gov’t.

Then there's Obama’s response to the lynching of George Floyd was to call for “reforms” that already exist & have proven ineffective, promising they would “reduce” the amount of Black people murdered by police like there’s an acceptable quota for our deaths. He is not a leader on this issue.

[PwrdOn]

I'm not sure if art for the masses has a worse track record than other art. A lot of great art has been rather popular. Dickens and Twain were able to make a living as writers. HBO had produced some of the best TV shows ever.

Some art does require subsidies, but it doesn't stand to reason that the government needs to be the primary patron.

Just remember Sturgeon's Law - 90% of everything is crap. Do you think a system centered around the profit motive would really be able to tolerate a failure rate that high, no matter how visionary the other 10% was?

[DrNewGod]

I’ve always been of the belief Trump wouldn’t have the balls to flee the country to avoid that trial hanging over his head once his term is over and he officially loses presidential immunity, however, I’m starting to have second thoughts. Is it in any way possible Trump actually would sneak out of Washington in the middle of the night and jet to a country with no extradition treaty (the obvious destination of course being Russia), with or without Melania and his kids?

I won't so far as to say Trump sneaking out of the country is impossible, but it wouldn't be easy. For one thing, there's a Secret Service detail to ditch...

[PaulBullion]

Right about now, Pence should be swearing in Mark Kelly and Arizona will have to Democratic senators for the first time in 67 years.

[Malvolio]

I didn't even know they have been convicted of a crime...yet.

When Ford pardoned Nixon, it was for "...crimes he may have committed..." Trump could use the same wording.

[MacrossPlus]

Thoughts on this, anybody?
Honestly, I hate to say it but he's right. We live in a country where damn near half the population voted for a who promised to take healthcare away from folks during a Pandemic, That's the selfish ass electorate that we have to deal with


https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/12/02/p...ice/index.html

[Surf]

I won't so far as to say Trump sneaking out of the country is impossible, but it wouldn't be easy. For one thing, there's a Secret Service detail to ditch...

For life too...

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, as well as 2019, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day posted profiles of Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, whose real name is Dannie Goeb, but he legally changed it in 2003 after he rose in the ranks of the Texas Republican cult of personality over a fifteen year career working as a conservative talk show host. He made numerous racist remarks on his show, particularly directed at Asians, including discussing trade negotiations between the Clinton administration and China by speaking in pidgin English and pronouncing Clinton’s name as “President Crinton”. Patrick has also insisted illegal immigrants are bringing tuberculosis and leprosy (yes, LEPROSY) into the United States, claimed ISIS is sneaking across the U.S./Mexico border, and has tried to pass legislation patterned after Arizona’s controversial SB 1070 anti-immigration law. As a Texas State Senator, Dan Patrick walked out of the chamber in protest when a fellow lawmaker (who was Jewish) asked for a Muslim cleric to give a prayer before the legislature. Patrick is also fiercely opposed to abortion, comparing his rivalry with State Senator Wendy Davis to Jesus facing off with the Pharisees , and once asking a fellow legislator during a debate on abortion, “And if those aborted souls were in the gallery, what you say to them right now?” (Really, he seems to think there are ghost embryos about.) As if we needed to add anything else, Patrick has also denied the existence of a separation of church and state in the United States Constitution, and after Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson publicly bashed gay people in 2013, Patrick heralded him as one of God’s modern day prophets while spending his own money on misleading and fear-mongering ads to support ballot initiatives to ban transgendered citizens from using the public bathroom of their choice by insisting there are mythical sexual assaults taking place in those bathrooms by men in drag. In 2016, Patrick called for a boycott on Target, for suggesting that they would allow transgendered citizens to use the restroom of their choice in their stores, and in June of that year, responded to the shooting at The Pulse nightclub in Orlando by getting on Twitter and quoting the Bible passage Galatians 6:7, that seemed to indicate he felt the victims got what was coming to them.

Immediately upon the new session of the Texas state legislature hit, Dan Patrick has taken it upon himself to introduce a transphobic bathroom bill into the state legislature, calling it a “top priority” to prevent all the non-existent sexual assaults from the transgender community from occurring (while conveniently doing nothing about any of the members of his own party who seem to be in the news for them these days). He continues to insist that a bill designed to discriminate is “not discriminatory”.

Outside of that, he has also blamed Democrats for the deaths of several undocumented immigrants who overheated in a semi as part a human smuggling ring, as their fault because of policies of “open borders”, which is about as ass-backwards logic as you might see. Or at least, it would have been had he not also got on board with arguing against the University of Texas at Austin removing Confederate statues in 2019, where he invoked Godwin’s law by mentioning Nazis, and posited a “slippery slope” argument that seemed to wonder if eventually statues at the Alamo might be taken down, too.

Dan Patrick outraged many in 2018 after reacting to a a mass shooting at Sante Fe High School in Texas, explaining that the real problem causing mass shootings is that “too many entrances” are available to mass shooters, so buildings are harder to defend. Now, not only is this just dumb in terms of a need for gun control in Texas, but it means that Patrick fails to understand that “too many entrances” are also “many exits” for kids having to flee buildings when they’re being shot at.

In]August of 2018, after the murder of Iowa college student Mollie Tibbets, Dan Patrick said that CNN and MSNBC are “accomplices” in the murder, as Tibbetts’ family are telling Republicans around the country to not politicize her death.

A month later, in September of 2018: Patrick, on the campaign trail, ranted impotently at Colin Kaepernick appearing in Nike’s new ad campaign (the highly successful one). He was regrettably re-elected to another term in office as Texas’ Lieutenant Governor, narrowly beating Democrat Mike Collier with only 51% of the vote. Eking out a win was due to his brilliant strategy of being a coward who doesn’t like having to have his idiocy challenged, as evidenced by Dan Patrick’s refusal to debate his opponent.

In September of 2019, Patrick again disgusted people around the country after blaming the video game industry for “teaching people to kill”, and proposing the solution to curtail gun violence was to allow prayer in schools. One might think that would prove that Patrick is heartless, but that would apparently be medically inaccurate because two weeks later Patrick was hospitalized with a blocked artery. He survived, only to somehow find a way to reach a new low.

Because, as many dumbass Republicans have begun attacking public health mandates that will save lives during the Covid-19 pandemic, Dan Patrick was one of the first to rush to the microphone to encourage people to die. That sentence in no way has any hyperbole, as Patrick literally offered up not only himself, but other senior encouraged people to be willing to sacrifice the elderly in order to “save the economy”.

”Those of us who are 70 plus, we’ll take care of ourselves. But don’t sacrifice the country. No one reached out to me and said, 'As a senior citizen, are you willing to take a chance on your survival in exchange for keeping the America that America loves for its children and grandchildren?' And if that is the exchange, I'm all in.”

While perhaps less evil of a move, but still decidedly out-of-touch with reality and partisan (Patrick’s wheelhouse), after Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, Dan Patrick fanned the flames of voter fraud conspiracies by literally offering a $1 million bounty if anyone around the country had proof of any voter fraud cases. The only response he got was from Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman let him know that his state caught two REPUBLICANS trying to vote fraudulently, and said he’d like his $2 million. To the surprise of no one, Patrick, the true motherf***er that he is, didn’t pay.

Dan Patrick still remains in office at the age of 70… we’re unsure if he will run for Governor in 2022, but it would seem like if Texas keeps trending blue, if he faces the right opponent, based on his weak 2018 performance, he shouldn’t have a prayer of winning.

[Tami]

Thoughts on this, anybody?
Honestly, I hate to say it but he's right. We live in a country where damn near half the population voted for a who promised to take healthcare away from folks during a Pandemic, That's the selfish ass electorate that we have to deal with


https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/12/02/p...ice/index.html

Obama is right. You can't expect people to go 180, you need change to happen in a way that is as inclusive as possible then progress from there.

[Tami]

Eyerolling time

"Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) has been telling colleagues and allies that he plans to challenge the Electoral College votes when Congress officially certifies Joe Biden’s victory on Jan. 6"

The GOP’s electoral mischief

MO PROBLEMS -- Scooplet: Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) has been telling colleagues and allies that he plans to challenge the Electoral College votes when Congress officially certifies Joe Biden’s victory on Jan. 6, as long as a Senate Republican joins him in the long-shot effort, sources tell your Huddle host.

Brooks confirmed his plans in a phone interview, adding that he is still considering objecting to the vote-counting process even if no one joins him — though he acknowledged that would be more of a symbolic protest. Brooks, echoing President Donald Trump’s baseless claims of voter fraud without providing evidence, argued that the election was “badly flawed” and that most mail-in voting is “unconstitutional.”

“In my judgment, if only lawful votes by eligible American citizens were cast, Donald Trump won the Electoral College by a significant margin, and Congress’s certification should reflect that,” Brooks said. “This election was stolen by the socialists engaging in extraordinary voter fraud and election theft measures.”

Lawful, by his definition, are votes cast fro Trump. All other votes are unlawful.

[PwrdOn]

Obama is right. You can't expect people to go 180, you need change to happen in a way that is as inclusive as possible then progress from there.

Obama spent the entirety of his two terms pushing for incremental change, and even that created such a backlash among the usual suspects that it gave us four years of Trump. No matter what Biden does, you can bank on a rerun of the same in 2024, if Trump doesn't try to run again himself it'll be somebody else pushing the same message to the same base. Those voters don't feel marginalized or excluded, in fact, they are probably more energized and motivated than they ever have been, and they're in no mood to compromise or extend olive branches.

[Adam Allen]

Democrats have one month until the GA runoff & the leaders are still spending more time attacking the modern civil rights movement than telling people why it matters who controls the Senate or how Democrats plan to relieve their suffering should they take full control of gov’t.

Then there's Obama’s response to the lynching of George Floyd was to call for “reforms” that already exist & have proven ineffective, promising they would “reduce” the amount of Black people murdered by police like there’s an acceptable quota for our deaths. He is not a leader on this issue.

He has always been super cautious and moderate around racial issues. In fact I'm sure a good deal of his success is owed to that, his ability to play to a center lane that isn't as scary as those who would like to see real considerable change. I've always found it kind of frustrating, but at the same time I also have to acknowledge I don't think he's just saying what he thinks people want to hear -- I think his moderate "work within the system" crap is his real opinion.

And he was president, and obviously a much better one than the lunatic we've had for the last four years. So, he's entitled to his opinion. But agreed, he is not who is needed at point on this issue.

Thoughts on this, anybody?
Honestly, I hate to say it but he's right. We live in a country where damn near half the population voted for a who promised to take healthcare away from folks during a Pandemic, That's the selfish ass electorate that we have to deal with


https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/12/02/p...ice/index.html

I disagree with him, because his argument ignores the obvious fact that "Defund the Police" is exactly what we're talking about. It is the conversation we are having. It is the only reason we're having the conversation.

Let people get terrified and call you insane for saying you want to get rid of the police completely. They can be the insane one, for jumping to the conclusion and ignoring everything else you're saying. But if it takes that, to move you beyond Thoughts and Prayers, then that's what we have to keep saying.

Minneapolis is still struggling over the slogan. Police feel unsupported, and are supporting the communities less because of it. And it pains me to see how much of my city still has not recovered after all the rioting and arson -- it's not on the news, because it is not news, but it's not like everything just snapped back to normal, after all of that. But I can't say we should back off the slogan, because I don't feel like we can ignore that all this started because a man was murdered in a supposedly liberal town, because the officer who murdered him felt the force he was a part of condoned it. Because they in fact did condone it! It took all the rioting and arson, to make it clear that it was not okay.

And just saying "reforms" will just send the message everybody has calmed down, and we can go back to business as usual. But, we shouldn't go back to that.

[DrNewGod]

Those NY prosecutors really need to knock all of the Trumpsters on their ass. If they don't we will be seeing them again.