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

[Gray Lensman]

In countries without a two-party system, everybody considers a plurality a kind of majority. But we actually do run-off elections in most countries, which leads to real majorities. Your presidential election system is very broken, and it's not just the Electoral College. It's the spoilers.

Especially when the last big Regressive president (Wilson) won due to spoilers as well. I am seeing a theme here.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Trump took shelter in White House bunker as protests raged

Not a good look for him

But, it inspired a new nickname for Trump.... #BunkerBitch

Just be careful. Same to everyone else who might find themselves too close to the storm.

Thanks for the concern. I'm doing okay, even though I'm a stone's throw from a local shopping corridor that, so far, hadn't been targeted by looters.

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Unrest Overshadows Peaceful U.S. Protests For Another Night

From Boston to San Francisco, demonstrators took to the streets Sunday to demand justice for George Floyd, who died after an officer kneeled on his neck.

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Democrats, Republicans Urge Trump To Stop His Incendiary Rhetoric As Protests Rage

Leaders implored the president not to fan the fire as the nation is gripped by unrest over the death of George Floyd and other Black victims of police violence.

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Biden Visits George Floyd Protest Site, Urges Americans To Turn ‘Anguish Into Purpose’

“We are a nation in pain, but we must not allow this pain to destroy us,” said the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

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‘We’re Witnessing The Collapse Of The Legitimacy Of Leadership,’ Warns Cornel West

West slammed the “vicious legacy of white supremacy” and “legalized looting” as America turned out to protest George Floyd’s death for another night.

**********

Trump Justice Department Killed Police Reform Programs That Could Have Helped Minneapolis

Instead of helping cities change police practices, the Justice Department is threatening to turn federal resources on protesters.

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Oh, by the way, boys and girls....THERE'S STILL A GODDAMN PANDEMIC GOING ON!

Massive U.S. Protests Raise Fears Of New Coronavirus Outbreaks

Health experts fear that silent carriers of the virus who have no symptoms could unwittingly infect others at protests where people are packed cheek to jowl, many without masks.

[worstblogever]

I'm sure there are plenty on the left who aren't ideologically consistent in their views on the tea party and Occupy Wall Street.

The police didn't tear gas, pepper spray, or try to run over the Tea Party. Can't even compare the two.

Biden is leading in some polls by about ten points, and by some metrics is in a better position than any challenger in recent political history.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/31/polit...ion/index.html

We don't yet know what impact the riots will have on the polls. This could very well lead to a bounce for Trump, as the guy who seems tough on crime, and who sent in the national guard. But the bump might not be that big. Biden's probably not going to be associated with rioting.

See below, where Trump hid in the basement like the craven reptile he is, and Biden has gone out to actually talk with people and said things that sound presidential. Like, that's the low bar for Biden, to only look more presidential than Trump.

This might also be forgotten in November, as the election will be about the economy, the response to COVID (How bad is the second wave? How close is a vaccine?) and other crises.

Unemployment is the measuring stick. Not Wall Street. 40 million people are out of work right now, growing every day. There's no plan on how to fix it and get people to work. Trump hasn't come up with job creation ideas since multiple botched infrastructure weeks.

The vaccine will almost definitely not be in widespread dissemination among the populace by November. If it's made, people are going to watch as only the privileged get access to it for the first stretch of its release. The number of dead will top 200,000 by then, if not 250K.

Trump took shelter in White House bunker as protests raged

Not a good look for him

The country looks to presidents for calm in times of strife... and they turned out all the White House lights and he hid in the basement like the s***lord he is. Yeah, that's gonna be inspiring leadership to give him a bounce in the polls, all right.

You know who else hid in his bunker during the last days of being in power?

I think I remember something in Blazing Saddles about that.

https://trailers.getyarn.io/yarn-cli...3-fc4f402fc62b

[numberthirty]

...

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Oh, by the way, boys and girls....THERE'S STILL A GODDAMN PANDEMIC GOING ON!

Massive U.S. Protests Raise Fears Of New Coronavirus Outbreaks

Health experts fear that silent carriers of the virus who have no symptoms could unwittingly infect others at protests where people are packed cheek to jowl, many without masks.

That feels like it is going to be a bad situation that the country is going to have to try to make the best out of. I can't really see any way to undo that said bell has been rung.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

That feels like it is going to be a bad situation that the country is going to have to try to make the best out of. I can't really see any way to undo that said bell has been rung.

I don't know if BunkerBitch reads HuffPost, but he won't like this:

They Were Fervent Trump Supporters. Then Coronavirus Hit.

In his northern Missouri town of about 6,000, Vincent Harris suspects he was one of the most vocal supporters President Donald Trump had there.

The 54-year-old Navy veteran was a self-described “deplorable” (a reference to Hillary Clinton’s notorious dig at Trump supporters in 2016). He fiercely defended the #MAGA mindset on social media, acting as one of the president’s model “keyboard warriors.”

But his staunch support for Trump began to slip as the coronavirus began to spread.

“Up until that time, I felt like the press had been uncharacteristically hard on him,” Harris said. For him, Trump’s “disregard for science” amid a pandemic marked a turning point that warranted national scrutiny.

Harris grew frustrated and discouraged as he watched Trump contradict the country’s top public health experts from the White House podium, downplaying the threat of the virus in the U.S. and hawking unproven treatments.

“I think what some may perceive as attacks from the media now are very fair, are accurate and are pointing out the inconsistencies that are incredibly dangerous from a public health perspective,” said Harris, a lifelong Republican.

Still, Trump maintains strong backing overall from those who voted for him in 2016, according to the poll. Just 12% of Trump voters disapprove of his response, with a staggering 85% who approve, the poll showed.

Melody Paquin of Barrow County, Georgia, is one of the former.

“He acts like everything comes down to money, like he doesn’t really care about the people,” Paquin, 69, said. “I have a daughter who is a nurse, and she puts herself at risk all the time. So if she can do that, why can’t he man up and do his job in a professional manner?”

Paquin said she’s been a strong Republican for as long as she can remember and was first drawn to Trump because he was a businessman. But his initial decision to publicly shrug off the virus’ potential threat, followed by his push to reopen the country despite a dearth in testing capacity and hospital preparedness, repelled her in recent months.

“Testing, testing, testing ― if that would have been done very early on, we wouldn’t have the mass number of deaths that we have had,” Paquin said.

“He was running his mouth about everybody having [personal protective equipment] while my own daughter in a big hospital was having to reuse masks,” she added. “He just lied and lied and lied.”

Like Paquin, Harriette Sucher, a 61-year-old in Northern California, voted for Trump because of what she considered to be his business acumen. She said she “started to question things” when Trump appeared to ignore the warnings coming from Chinese doctors about the virus. His dubious suggestion that injecting disinfectant might help COVID-19 patients recover didn’t help.

“I started seeing a less intelligent man who’s not understanding the simple science,” Sucher said. She added: “It really matters how we handle this COVID-19 pandemic as a nation and how our leaders handle it. This disease does not know political boundaries.”

[jetengine]

Why are people just blindly going "He's a buisnessman" as uf thats a good thing ? Its a job title. Actually check his record, you can see he is indeed a buisnessman, a bad one.

[Tendrin]

Why are people just blindly going "He's a buisnessman" as uf thats a good thing ? Its a job title. Actually check his record, you can see he is indeed a buisnessman, a bad one.

A century or more of capitalist propaganda?

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Why are people just blindly going "He's a buisnessman" as uf thats a good thing ? Its a job title. Actually check his record, you can see he is indeed a buisnessman, a bad one.

Something fans of Trump choose to ignore, time after time. Literally every business venture Trump created ended up going under, including casinos he bankrupted, CASINOS for god's sake.

[worstblogever]

Why are people just blindly going "He's a buisnessman" as uf thats a good thing ? Its a job title. Actually check his record, you can see he is indeed a buisnessman, a bad one.

"Businessman" has a better ring than the more accurate monikers of "Slumlord", "D-List Celebrity with no discernible talents" or "Failson".

[worstblogever]

Something fans of Trump choose to ignore, time after time. Literally every business venture Trump created ended up going under, including casinos he bankrupted, CASINOS for god's sake.

Just read this up until 2007 for most of the Trump business stories.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/201...-Timeline-Pt-1

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Trump Was Reportedly Rushed To Underground Bunker For Protection During D.C. Protests

Melania and Barron Trump reportedly accompanied him. This from the badass he-man who once made the following boast:

[worstblogever]

Remember when Ted Cruz led a bunch of Tea Party Yokels to throw things on the White House lawn and Pastor Larry Klayman demanded Obama "put down the Koran and come out with his hands up"?

Didn't hear about Obama becoming a BunkerBitch that day. And those people were armed.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Anti-Racism Protesters Around The World Demand Justice For George Floyd

Hundreds of demonstrators gathered in London, Berlin and Copenhagen over the weekend, chanting “Black lives matter” and “say his name.”

[worstblogever]

It was on this date in 2015 that “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled Chip Rogers, who at one point was the Majority Leader for the Georgia State Senate, but his career started to fall apart after he began to host conferences for Georgia Republicans to warn about the threat of the Agenda 21 Conspiracy Theory, and that President Obama was using “the Delphi Technique”, a supposed form of mind control to that could be utilized to coerce large segments of the populations into city centers where they could be more easily be controlled. Rogers also had a prolifically extreme conservative record, supporting legislation like 20 week abortion bans without exceptions for rape or incest, as well as drug testing. Rogers went on to retire and become a lobbyist, because of course he did.

It was on this date in 2016 that “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” posted a profile of John Diehl, a former member of the Missouri House of Representatives who went and put himself at the center of a sex scandal, where he was sexting with a 19 year old college intern who just so happened to be three decades his junior, who he wanted to (hold your lunches) leave “quivering”. When news first broke that Missouri Southern university was scrapping their entire program to send interns to the capital, rumors began to swirl, and when they led back to Diehl, he actually spend some time hiding in his office, trying to deny any wrongdoing until the texts themselves were dug up by the Kansas City Star, and at that point he released a public apology, decided to spend time at home resolving some… well, marital issues that were now presenting themselves, and resigned. Diehl was supposedly a “family values” Republican, who counted himself a member of the local branch of that anti-gay hate group, the Family Research Council (who have a knack for having members cheat on their wives), fiercely defended biblical marriage (except apparently his own), and even led a move by the Missouri GOP to try and ban any extracurricular activity in public schools that might ever “discuss sexual orientation other than its purpose for human reproduction”. As a member of the legislature prior to his affair being exposed, Diehl had no inkling of how to work across the aisle and would talk of impeaching Governor Jay Nixon for… reasons, we guess. Diehl never seemed to specify. His voting record hardly paints a picture of a stable individual, as he voted for the most insane legislation Missouri Republicans came up with over his career. That includes their attempts to ban Sharia Law, prevent the Agenda 21 controversy, to nullify federal firearms laws, to attempt to nullify the Affordable Care Act, to assure presidential candidates submit their birth certificates (yes, he’s a Birther, too), responding to the Sandy Hook Massacre by trying to put more guns in schools, creating stricter Voter ID Laws, adding additional requirements for a woman having an abortion, cutting the amount of time a person could collect unemployment, to drug test welfare recipients, and to force children in public schools to not just participate in the Pledge of Allegiance, but to make them do so in English. Diehl has been publicly humiliated and run out of office.

[worstblogever]

It was on this date in 2017, 2018, as well as 2019, that “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” published profiles of Mike Moon, a member of the Missouri House of Representatives since 2013, and the only person we’ve profiled whose name can be spelled by Tom Cullen. Moon first took office in 2013 after a special election and was re-elected in 2018 on the benefit of facing no opposition at all in the GOP primary, and coasting to victory in the general election with 79% of the vote.

Which, for Moon, is pretty lucky. After all, he’s made some of the most embarrassing remarks from a Republican anywhere in the country regarding abortion over the past few years, and that truly is saying something. In January of 2016, he sponsored legislation called the “All Lives Matter” act (uh oh). But don’t worry, it didn’t have anything to do with police violence, it was just a slap in the face to folks in Ferguson, Missouri added on to a Personhood bill he filed. It was even more of a bit of an eyebrow-raiser back in March of 2016 when during debate on a bill that would ban abortion at any stage of development, Moon was laughed out of the room when he compared abortion to the enslavement of African Americans for a moment before he claimed to be a “reproductive expert” based on his qualifications of being a “former embryo”. Alas, Mike Moon did not learn his lesson about looking like a boob for trying to get high and mighty about fetal development without knowing what the hell he was talking about. In February of 2017, Missouri Republicans were again looking to pass some form of Personhood legislation, even though it would obviously be overturned. And this time, Mike Moon didn’t just compare abortion to slavery. We mean, he did that, mentioning the Dred Scott ruling during debate, but this time, he also compared legalized abortion to “Jews being slaughtered by Nazis”, because why not add Godwin’s Law while we’re at it? But he STILL wasn’t done. He then began to argue that life begins farther than people think, comparing sperm to tadpoles, rhetorically asking, “Is a sperm alive?” Moon, an Ash Grove Republican, asked during a hearing Tuesday night on a bill that would enshrine in the Missouri Constitution the statement that life begins at conception. “Have you ever seen a tadpole? Is a tadpole alive?”

So, since Mike Moon cares so much about life at all stages, you would think he would care a lot about saving the lives of refugee children fleeing war, right? HA HA! Trick question! Are those kids Muslims? Because if so, Mike Moon wrote a nice letter in November of 2015 where he explained he would like those kids placed in camps, and sent back home at the first opportunity, especially because you can’t trust ‘em because they lie so danged much.

”I do realize that the refugees we should be scrutinizing most is one who professes the muslim faith. Unless I'm mistaken, a practicing muslim can do whatever is necessary for the ‘good’ of the faith - telling ‘fibs’ is a smallpart of what they might do. Our preference, as a nation, should be to place the refugees in camps so that they can be properly cared for and returned safely home when the time is right.”

Mike Moon doesn’t like the idea of special protections in schools for transgendered youth, and in his arguments against them, he cites the work of Dr. Paul McHugh, who classifies being transgendered as a “mental disorder”, even though the American Psychiatric Association stopped classifying “gender dysphoria” as a mental disorder years ago. He also introduced a resolution that he and his fellow legislators should appeal to Congress to repeal the Affordable Care Act with “manly firmness”, as if they would be able to pull it off if they just took an extra large dose of Viagra, or something? As you’d expect, Mike Moon’s whole voting record is pretty “out there”, including a vote to try and block the implementation of the United Nations’ Agenda 21 Environmental Treaty, votes to attempt to nullify federal firearms laws, and a vote for the unconstitutional HB 499, which would have forced schoolchildren to recite the pledge of allegiance… specifically in English.

Since we first introduced you to Mike Moon, he has continued to be a goddamned lunatic. Take for example in June of 2017, how he decided to put up a video on his Facebook page to announce he was introducing new anti-choice legislation in Missouri, and he did so by discussing it as he decapitated a chicken. That is not a typo, Mike Moon cut off a chicken’s head and started to pull its innards out while discussing abortion.

Now, if that isn’t crazy enough, there’s also the matter of former Governor of Missouri Eric Greitens, who’s been all over the news cycle for being accused of taking nude photos of his mistress without her consent, assaulting her during rough sex, and threatening to release the nude photos of her if she ever exposed him as an adulterer. After Mike Moon spent four years trying to impeach Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon without any real cause, when a governor comes along who isn’t just a sexual predator, but is caught breaking the law in multiple campaign finance violations and abusing charitable organizations to further his own political career, can you guess what Moon wants to do? NOTHING. Mike Moon thought it would be unfair to impeach Gov. Greitens for ANY of his moral, or legal failings.

We’ll close this update out by reporting on Mike Moon’s voting record since we last checked in with him. Because maybe he’s mellowed out… NOPE. He’s voted for legislation to have public schools teach Bible courses, and voted for a bill that prohibits all abortion in Missouri “if Roe v. Wade is overturned”.

It is, at least, perhaps possible that Mike Moon will not be in office come this time next year, as he is term-limited in the Missouri House of Representatives. He is, however, taking a crack at getting elected to District 29 of the Missouri State Senate, and currently will find out if he makes the jump to the upper chamber when he faces off against former Chairman of the Missouri Republican Party, David Cole. At this time, we’re pretty sure the state would be at least marginally better off with Cole instead of Moon, because he hasn’t ever said anything bats*** crazy publicly.