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

[Odd Rödney]

Trump presses Barr to target his perceived enemies before election

This is fascism. Straight up.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

I confess to not seeing the obvious advantage for McConnell here. Is the point to limit the investigative powers of the FBI in order to allow Trump more latitude to stretch the law?

DING DING DING! You are correct, sir! At least that's my suspicion.

Trump presses Barr to target his perceived enemies before election

Perceived enemies? ****! For Trump, that could be everyone under the sun who either dissed him, refused to lie/cheat/steal/break the rules for him or wouldn't kiss his ass. That list figures to be a LONG one.

[Tami]

NEWS: GAO has concluded that Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf and Acting Deputy Secretary Ken Cuccinelli were invalidly appointed and are *ineligible* to serve in their current roles.

Twitter Link

GAO Decsion Matter of: Department of Homeland Security—Legality of Service of Acting Secretary of Homeland Security and Service of Senior Official Performing the Duties of Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Twitter Link

GAO Decsion Matter of: Department of Homeland Security—Legality of Service of Acting Secretary of Homeland Security and Service of Senior Official Performing the Duties of Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security

I'm shocked, shocked I tell you that this happened!

NOT!

[Iron Maiden]

USPS Warns At Least 2 States That Mail-In Ballots May Not Be Delivered On Time

Pennsylvania and Washington have been informed by the U.S. Postal Service that some ballots may not be delivered on time to be counted in the Nov. 3 election.


This is such complete and utter crap. I guess Trump knows that there are no consequences to his actions so he can just blatantly cheat.

I live in a small precinct so I feel comfortable going to the poll in person.....as long as there isn't some shenanigans and they close it. OR I could do early voting at the police center if they are still doing it.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

I live in a small precinct so I feel comfortable going to the poll in person.....as long as there isn't some shenanigans and they close it. OR I could do early voting at the police center if they are still doing it.

It would behoove you to cover all the bases and find out in advance what options will be available to you before election day.

[Iron Maiden]

The scary thing is the Justice Department of old would be shutting Trump's nonsense down but they've gotten rid of any " troublemakers" and probably more than a few are just trying not to get fired. The corruption has taken over so thoroughly that we have to get rid of Trump to save this nation from this poison.

[Iron Maiden]

It would behoove you to cover all the bases and find out in advance what options will be available to you before election day.

Oh yeah, I plan too. I will probably stop by the police/community center long before that to find out if they will be doing the early voting there as always. Fortunately the City Council had a Democratic majority.

[Tami]

Governor Murphy and the NJ Sec of State, in today's press briefing, outlined the whole election process. Mail-in ballots can be dropped off at polling places on election day, or in other secure locations as well as by mail. All ballots should be received by the 1st week of October, if not, voters can get info from the state and county websites to deal ith it. Basically, they are covering as many bases as they can.

If I get my ballot 1st week of October, I'll have it filled out and mailed within 48 hours. No matter how backed up the post office is, 1 month should be enough time to deliver it.

Otherwise, I'll drop it off on election day at the polling location.

[Tami]

Clinical Trials of Coronavirus Drugs Are Taking Longer Than Expected

As the coronavirus pandemic continues to wreak havoc in the United States and treatments are needed more than ever, clinical trials for some of the most promising experimental drugs are taking longer than expected.

Researchers at a dozen clinical trial sites said that testing delays, staffing shortages, space constraints and reluctant patients were complicating their efforts to test monoclonal antibodies, man-made drugs that mimic the molecular soldiers made by the human immune system.

As a result, once-ambitious deadlines are slipping. The drug maker Regeneron, which previously said it could have emergency doses of its antibody cocktail ready by the end of summer, has shifted to talking about how “initial data” could be available by the end of September.

And Eli Lilly’s chief scientific officer said in June that its antibody treatment might be ready in September, but in an interview this week, he said he now hopes for something before the end of the year.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

For anyone wondering on the real lasting damage of Trump’s Presidency they should look at the 9th circuit ruling on guns today. That judicial shift is taking years to get back

[The no face guy]

Ah, the irony, the symbol of American freedom destroying the all seeing eye of surveillance.

JK, drones have their purposes, but it was a cute story.

https://thehill.com/policy/energy-en...d-a-government

[KOSLOX]

Trump ally and self-proclaimed (but unsubstantiated) stable genius James Woods is on Twitter making an ass of himself again.

Guess he's taking a break from trying to pick up young girls.

[worstblogever]

On this date, in both 2014, as well as in 2015, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" profiled former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, who was trying to force any woman seeking to get an abortion to undergo a mandatory medically-unnecessary transvaginal ultrasound, re-interpret the 14th Amendment so that the children of immigrants were not guaranteed citizenship, and an obsession with upholding anti-sodomy laws that would have outlawed any kind of sexual penetration not of the P-into-V variety, which kind of already was a moot point after several previous Supreme Court hearings. "The Cooch" was unsuccessful in his 2013 run for Governor of Virginia, and considering he was being investigated in scandals for accepting gifts illegally while AG, similar to the scandals that ended the career of Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, it seems like Cuccinelli has opted to move out of the political arena, after his hard-right social conservative agenda has been rejected repeatedly by the American people. Instead, Cuccinelli is trying to get by as an oyster farmer (really). Donald Trump has now promoted Ken Cuccinelli to be the head of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration services, where he’s pushing some of the anti-immigrant positions we saw from him as a state Attorney General nationally. Today, the GAO announced his appointment was illegal.


On this day in both 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019, that “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” presented a profile of the sitting U.S. House Representative from Texas’ 31st Congressional District, John Carter, now in his eighth term in Washington, coming into office back in 2002 after spending two decades as a district court judge in the Lone Star state. Carter almost always coasts to victory when his seat comes up for re-election, with his worst showing being a still-impressive 58% of the vote back in the “blue wave” election year of 2006. Due to the extensive bounty of Texas Republicans out there exhibiting obvious signs of mental deficiency or psychological imbalance out there, you might not have heard much about Rep. Carter. Well, that and when you do a Google search of "John Carter" you either get news about a movie that completely tanked at the box office, or art inspired from the book it’s based on featuring a shirtless guy posing with a scantily clad Martian woman wrapped demurely around his leg. I'll wait a moment while everyone tests that fact to ogle some cheesecake and/or beefcake.

Okay, back to Congressman Carter, now. Our main objection to John Carter being in Congress is not just that he opposes climate change, but to the extent that he does. He actually thinks a phenomenon proven by the great majority of scientific studies is just the result of some massive campaign to trick the populace into supporting it:

“Global warming is simply a chicken-little scheme to use mass media and government propaganda to convince the world that destruction of individual liberties and national sovereignty is necessary to save mankind, and that the unwashed masses would destroy themselves without the enlightened global dictatorship of these frauds."

And that's right off his campaign website. If that quote alone doesn't show you how deep he's into the cause of climate change denial, feel free to read some of his other comments from the Congressional record on January 24th, 2011.

John Carter was also a huge proponent of the 2013 Government Shutdown, and he was in full spin mode in the build up to it, trying to convince the American people that his cause was noble, and if he didn’t bring the federal government to a screeching halt, and the Affordable Care Act was allowed to go forward, that all would be lost:

“We must postpone this overreaching and damaging law that I believe will bankrupt the hard-working every day American.”

One of the things about John Carter that we find unsettling, though, is that he is the Chairman of the Homeland Security Appropriations Committee, and one of his responsibilities is preventing cyberterrorism. It's quite troublesome that Rep. Carter cannot even pronounce the word "cyber", admits "I don't know anything about this stuff", and then proceeds to try and conduct a hearing to discuss encryption where he would demonstrate how much of an understatement that really was. Now in his mid-seventies, John Carter doesn’t “get” technology, and doesn’t seem to be in any hurry to figure it out, with our national security hanging in the balance.

While the rest of Carter's opinion on national security past that, of course, is to keep out all immigrants and refugees, and his voting record since hitting office has been highly partisan, supporting a resolution towards creating a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, against the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, voted against equal pay, a woman’s right to choose, against Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform, for the 2013 Government Shutdown and against reopening the government after it was over.

As his voting record goes on…

• January 23rd, 2019: Rep. Carter voted against HR 648, because he was gleeully enjoying the longest government shutdown in history.
• February 28th, 2019: John Carter 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. Carter 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.
• June 4th, 2019: Rep. Carter votes against the Dreamers Act, because he’s too xenophobic and partisan to care about immigration reform.
• July 16th, 2019: John Carter is one of 187 Republicans who vote 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”.
• October 17th, 2019: Carter is one of 60 Republicans who vote against HJ Res 77, which opposed Donald Trump’s disastrous decision to abandon Syrian Kurdish forces in Northeast Syria to the mercies of a Turkish invasion.
• December 3rd, 2019: Rep. Carter can’t even be bothered to show up to vote for a resolution to disallow Russia from re-entering the G7 and makes it the G8 until it leaves Ukraine.
• December 18th, 2019: Carter 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: Carter decides to stay home rather than show up to vote for the HEROES Act, to further support the healthcare industry and citizens affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.

He’s now 79 years old, and is running for re-election in 2020 for what would be his tenth term in office. Considering he barely won in 2018 against M.J. Hegar when he only pulled down 50.6% of the vote in 2018, Carter is shaking in his boots at how his prospects for 2020 look, and Texas is starting to become a purple state.

He faces off against computer programmer Donna Imam in November, and we’re hoping the upstart progressive puts the boots to him at the ballot box to flip another Texas seat blue. If nothing else, she’s a hell of a lot better person to put in Congress to address cyberterrorism than the current occupant of the seat, but then again, John Carter sets that bar REEEEALLL low.

[AnakinFlair]

For Trump who's spent most of his adult life skirting, if not outright breaking rules in any way possible, this is just more of the same old same old. Meanwhile....

Trump has dealt seniors, who represent 23% of registered voters, 2 devastating blows in a matter of days



We're talking nearly a quarter of all registered voters, and they ain't all Democrats. Perhaps the GOP doesn't give a **** about seniors, after all, Republicans openly encouraged grandma and grandpop to sacrifice themselves for the sake of the economy when they called for the country to re-open ahead of schedule a couple of months ago, but the AARP set isn't going to tolerate this nonsense, regardless of their political bent.

Republicans only care about people when they are fetuses.

Trump ally and self-proclaimed (but unsubstantiated) stable genius James Woods is on Twitter making an ass of himself again.

Guess he's taking a break from trying to pick up young girls.

Makes me feel bad for Sean Young. She had the right idea after all.