1. #28651
    Old school comic book fan WestPhillyPunisher's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by worstblogever View Post
    Here's some fun news... the guy who at 23, started "Students for Trump" back in 2016? Stop me if you've heard this before about someone involved in the 2016 Trump campaign, but John Lambert was a complete fraud.

    Lambert just got sentenced to 12 years in prison for impersonating a lawyer during the 2016 campaign.

    It does make sense though, given when Trump used to pretend to be John Barron, his own publicist.
    I wonder if that loser saw that conviction coming and asked Trump for a pardon?
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    In 2015, as well as 2016, and 2017, that "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" published profiles of former Minnesota State Senator Sean Nienow, a man who prior to running for office, was a key ally of legendary CSGOPOTD Michelle Bachmann who during his tenure, was sued by the Small Business Association for failing to pay off $613,000 in loans. The company in question folded in less than a year, and taxpayers would thus have to pay for its bankruptcy. Nienow has repeatedly shown himself to support bans on same sex marriage, stricter Voter ID measures that disenfranchise voters in order to combat the statistically non-existent problem of “in-person voter fraud”, and has voted against equal pay for women. Nienow’s must discouraging political alliance, however, would be how one of his own legislative assistants, Michelle Lentz, was a member of the Minnesota Child Protection League, which is classified as an anti-gay hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Nienow was mercifully defeated in the 2016 GOP Primary for his seat in the Minnesota State Senate, so we'll move on and start profiling a different wacky Republican on this date instead. (Current crazy/stupid scoreboard, is now 674-30, since this was established in July 2014.)



    On this date in both 2018, 2019, as well as 2020, that “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” first profiled Tennessee State Senator Joey Hensley, who served ten years in the Tennessee House of Representatives from 2003-2012 before making the jump to the upper chamber to serve District 38 starting in the 2012 elections. Now, Hensley fancies himself a “Family Values” Republican, who has a history as a legislator to back that up, sponsoring harsh anti-choice legislation, the fact that he was the sponsor of a bill that would have prohibited public school teachers in sex education classes from daring to even breath a word about the existence of homosexuality in April of 2012, and that he also sponsored a bill to allow Christian counselors at public schools and universities to use their “religious freedom” to refuse to help LGBTQ students, whatsoever.

    Maybe if he was really all about family values, Joey Hensley would not have ended up being married and divorced four times, and his last wife accused him during their divorce of hitting her twice with his car during a domestic dispute. She later withdrew the allegations, but not before Hensley filed a bill concerning how judges could divide marital assets during a divorce, a bill he admitted was based on his own life circumstances. Also, perhaps Joey Hensley wouldn’t have seen his name come up during the divorce proceedings of his second cousin. Why would that happen? Well, Joey’s a doctor, she’s his nurse, and he’s apparently been having an affair with one of his relatives. Who he also illegally prescribed opioids to. And the affair happened in hotels believed to have been paid for with taxpayer money.

    We’ll repeat that. Joey Hensley is a cousin-f***ing hypocrite who also violates medical ethics by dating his nurse/patient/cousin, and expecting taxpayers to foot the bill for whatever place they choose for their incestuous love shack.

    At this point, looking at the rest of Hensley’s voting record is just overkill as to why he deserves a profile, including how he voted for HB 368, to limit teachers’ ability to challenge students who give “opposing viewpoints” on scientific theories in public school classrooms (In other words, deny the existence of evolution, or the age of the Earth.), and co-sponsored HJR 587, a resolution against the United Nations Agenda 21 treaty, for fears from hard-right conspiracy theorists that it’s a plot to establish global domination. He also supported HB 3808, a bill that would “require the publication of abortion statistics” that also included the addresses of the people performing, and receiving the procedure. Because the radical anti-choice movement wouldn’t then harass or attack those people at their own homes, like they already do, and is so “pro-life” that he also voted for SB 2580, to allow the return of the electric chair as a means of execution in the state of Tennessee., and sponsored HB 1023, a bill inspired by the John Birch Society’s paranoia about fluoridated water, and restrict the amount of fluoridation in the drinking water in Tennessee. He also voted for HSR 467, to plead with the Attorney General of the state to file a lawsuit over Syrian refugees being allowed to resettle Tennessee and the highly unconstitutional HB 615, a bill created by Tennessee Republicans to try and make the King James Bible the state book.


    We know that we’ve had our fair share of radical lunatics that we’ve profiled in the Tennessee state legislature, but a state senator who’s banging his cousin is a new low, even for the Republican Party. We’ll note that in spite of the scandal, and in spite of the ethical violations that were dug up as a result… Joey Hensley has not resigned from office, and is not up for re-election again until 2020. He did his best to rally support to overlook the whole incestuous love affair thing by submitting legislation that would place fees on money transfers in between the citizens of the United States and those of Mexico that would have that cash set aside to fund Donald Trump’s stupid f***ing border wall, and he also sponsored legislation to outlaw same sex couples being able to adopt children into loving homes. As of February of 2020, Hensley’s greatest cause for concern was that women might not be taxed heavily enough for their tampons. Because, y’know, he’d like to use that taxpayer money to pay for his hotel stays with mistresses.

    We’ll note that while he’s still a physician, he was using his medical background to call for Tennessee to reopen as early as April 7th, 2020, thinking it was time to end social distancing, against the advice of every national public health expert, because this motherf***er obviously puts partisan ideals ahead of people’s actual lives.

    Frankly, we were hoping Hensley just skulked off into the backwoods like most extras from Deliverance would. But no, he won re-election in 2020. He has gone back to work doing what you’d expect a cousin-f***er in Tennessee would… trying to protect the legacy of the founder of the Ku Klux Klan, Nathan Bedord Forrest, by dismantling the historical commission that could order monuments to him removed.
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  3. #28653
    Ultimate Member Mister Mets's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Zauriel View Post
    Ah you mean gerrymandering? After all the Republicans have gerrymandered their congressional districts, so why shouldn't democrats return the favor?
    I do not know much about NY and CA laws but I think both the legislatures have the power to determine the redistricting of the states.

    If Ca and NY lost people, that means the ones who left the two states are probably Republicans who are fed up with the states' liberal policy. If the Republicans did leave NY or CA, then the Republican congresspersons will lose their seats.
    Democrats have engaged in gerrymandering, so it's not something unique to Republicans. Former Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley said state Democrats gerrymandered to keep Republicans out while under oath.

    https://www.baltimoresun.com/politic...601-story.html

    California's redistricting is supposed to be in the purvey of the nonpartisan California Citizens Redistricting Commission.

    New York had a redistricting commission, but there are ways for local Democrats to make it toothless.

    https://tinyurl.com/du52s3s9

    One problem with the idea of just letting everyone gerrymander is that geographic sorting gives Republicans enough of an early edge that they'll be better at it, before you take into account where Republicans have control when it comes to redistricting.

    https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com...ting-maps/#GOP


    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    The supporter of the Iraq War tends to pick topics that produces worst takes, who knew,
    Isn't this an ad hominem, where the reaction is about him as a person rather than his specific argument? Would it be a good idea in all situations to dismiss everything anyone's said, because of a view they've held when in their early twenties? Anyone who has been vocal about politics for a while has probably said something wrong at some point.

    What makes his take bad? Is he wrong to suggest that a training program used by powerful institutions is meaningful? Or was Tema Okum correct in identifying a preference for tangible results, defined timeline and documentation as uniquely symptomatic of racism and white supremacy?

    * Edit- Had to change an Associated Press link into a tinyurl link.
    Last edited by Mister Mets; 05-12-2021 at 03:44 AM.
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    Quote Originally Posted by CaptainEurope View Post
    "Eviction" makes it sound like there is a legal basis, like those people did not pay their rent. These are forced removals.
    That is literally what this is. The families of the people who owned the buildings before 1948 still have all the legal documentation proving their ownership, the people the Jordanian government moved in after they ethnically cleansed the area of Jews were only ever given the status of renters by the Jordanians. Decades ago Israeli courts ruled that they could stay as long as they paid rent to the rightful owners, but they didn't, and now the owners are seeking to have them evicted for failing to pay the rent they owe.

    This flare-up started because Mahmoud Abbas called for elections and then cancelled them at the last minute because he'd lose and decided to try to turn his people's anger at a more convenient target. Anything else is an excuse.

  5. #28655

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    Quote Originally Posted by WestPhillyPunisher View Post
    I wonder if that loser saw that conviction coming and asked Trump for a pardon?
    See, that would have been an underhanded and clever thing to do...

    No word on if he was expecting one, but he didn't get it, and now will be in jail until he's 40 (barring parole or time off for good behavior).
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  6. #28656
    Ultimate Member Tendrin's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by sunofdarkchild View Post
    That is literally what this is. The families of the people who owned the buildings before 1948 still have all the legal documentation proving their ownership, the people the Jordanian government moved in after they ethnically cleansed the area of Jews were only ever given the status of renters by the Jordanians. Decades ago Israeli courts ruled that they could stay as long as they paid rent to the rightful owners, but they didn't, and now the owners are seeking to have them evicted for failing to pay the rent they owe.

    This flare-up started because Mahmoud Abbas called for elections and then cancelled them at the last minute because he'd lose and decided to try to turn his people's anger at a more convenient target. Anything else is an excuse.
    Oh brother.

    According to Ottoman documents presented by the settler organizations, the disputed land in Sheikh Jarrah was bought by Jewish trusts from Arab landowners in the 1870s;[31] the authenticity of these documents has been questioned.[32] In 1956, the Jordanian government, in cooperation with the United Nations' organization for refugees, UNRWA, housed 28 Palestinian refugee families with tenancy rights in a compound on land that Jordan managed as Custodian of Enemy Property. After the Six-Day War, the area fell under Israeli occupation. In 1972, the Israeli Custodian General registered the properties under the Jewish trusts, which in turn demanded that the Palestinian tenants there pay the trusts rent. Eviction orders began to occur in the 1990s.[33] The Jewish trusts sold the homes to a right-wing settler organization, who have since made repeated attempts to evict the Palestinian residents. Under Israeli land and property laws, Israelis have the right to reclaim properties in East Jerusalem owned by Jews before the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, but no similar law exists that would allow Palestinians to claim their lost property inside Israel during the hostilities. The Sheikh Jarrah district houses the descendants of refugees expelled or displaced in 1948 in the Nakba. According to the Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research, this approach to property rights is unacceptable in international law.
    So, we have disputed documentation being used by a right-wing settler organization which has continually attempted to evict Palestinians from land they've been living on for decades. This isn't about 'rent'. It's about a settler-colonial project seeking any legal patina it can, existing within a legal framework which denies equal rights to those it targets. There's a word for that.

    A pro-settler organization called Nahalat Shimon is using a 1970 law to argue that the owners of the land before 1948 were Jewish families, and so the current Palestinian landowners should be evicted and their properties given to Israeli Jews.
    Pretending this is about 'rents' is to pretend that there is no broader context or Israeli settler project.

    Here's a video of an Israeli settler walking into a Palestinian's house in Sheikh Jarrah.

    https://twitter.com/RamAbdu/status/1388520211574317057
    Last edited by Tendrin; 05-12-2021 at 04:22 AM.

  7. #28657
    Invincible Jersey Ninja Tami's Avatar
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    Eritrean troops disguised as Ethiopian military are blocking critical aid in Tigray

    Axum, Ethiopia — Eritrean troops are operating with total impunity in Ethiopia's war-torn northern Tigray region, killing, raping and blocking humanitarian aid to starving populations more than a month after the country's Nobel Peace Prize winning leader pledged to the international community that they would leave.

    A CNN team traveling through Tigray's central zone witnessed Eritrean soldiers, some disguising themselves in old Ethiopian military uniforms, manning checkpoints, obstructing and occupying critical aid routes, roaming the halls of one of the region's few operating hospitals and threatening medical staff.

    Despite pressure from the Biden administration, there is no sign that Eritrean forces plan to exit the border region anytime soon.

    On April 21, a CNN team reporting in Tigray with the permission of Ethiopian authorities traveled from the regional capital Mekelle to the besieged city of Axum, two weeks after it had been sealed off by Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers. An aid convoy also made the seven-hour journey.
    Ethiopia's government has severely restricted access to the media until recently, and a state-enforced communications blackout concealed events in the region, making it challenging to gauge the extent of the crisis or verify survivors' accounts.

    But CNN's interviews with humanitarian workers, doctors, soldiers and displaced people in Axum and across central Tigray -- where up to 800,000 displaced people are sheltering -- indicate the situation is even worse than was feared. Eritrean troops aren't just working hand in glove with the Ethiopian government, assisting in a merciless campaign against the Tigrayan people, in some pockets they're fully in control and waging a reign of terror.

    The testimonies, shared at great personal risk, present a horrifying picture of the situation in Tigray, where a clash between Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and the region's ruling party, the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), in November has deteriorated into a protracted conflict that, by many accounts, bears the hallmarks of genocide and has the potential to destabilize the wider Horn of Africa region.
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    Because I want this to happen it definitely won't. My guess is they regroup and take back the White House in '24. Democrats will probably do OK in midterms, we're turning the corner and economy will be on an upswing. But 4 years is a long time, and Biden wasn't 100% this past year. Add 3 more, and a candidate lower on the ticket whose charisma netted them a hefty 1% in the Democratic Primaries and things are wobbly. Probably won't be a Trump to kick around then. Here's hoping we get to at least replace a Justice before that happens.

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    Extraordinary Member PaulBullion's Avatar
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    Isn't it ... interesting how, as soon as the Biden administration got a handle on the situation at the border to Mexico, Russians hacked a gas pipeline's software and literally manufactured a new crisis for MAGA twitter to be outraged about?
    "How does the Green Goblin have anything to do with Herpes?" - The Dying Detective

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    Invincible Member numberthirty's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by PaulBullion View Post
    Isn't it ... interesting how, as soon as the Biden administration got a handle on the situation at the border to Mexico, Russians hacked a gas pipeline's software and literally manufactured a new crisis for MAGA twitter to be outraged about?
    That part in blue is a bit of an overstatement.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Tendrin View Post
    Oh brother.



    So, we have disputed documentation being used by a right-wing settler organization which has continually attempted to evict Palestinians from land they've been living on for decades. This isn't about 'rent'. It's about a settler-colonial project seeking any legal patina it can, existing within a legal framework which denies equal rights to those it targets. There's a word for that.



    Pretending this is about 'rents' is to pretend that there is no broader context or Israeli settler project.

    Here's a video of an Israeli settler walking into a Palestinian's house in Sheikh Jarrah.

    https://twitter.com/RamAbdu/status/1388520211574317057
    The documentation is not seriously disputed and hasn't been since the 1970s when the courts decided. Even according to your Wikipedia, hardly a reliable source, the dispute is very clear cut, one side has documentation and proof of ownership, the other doesn't and hasn't paid rent. Legally-speaking, the owners are well within their rights.

    This is the best explanation for what's going on in Sheikh Jarrah case I've come across so far.

    https://en.kohelet.org.il/wp-content...rrah-brief.pdf

    The current round of violence started on April 12, the first night of Ramadan. Anticipating large crowds and violence which typically accompanies Ramadan, Israel set up barricades at the Damascus Gate of the Old City of Jerusalem to limit the size of crowds at the gate, which is an entrance to the Old City, not the Temple Mount. This was met with violent protests which led to Israel removing the barricades on April 25.

    The violence began to escalate on April 15 when an Arab man slapped two Jewish teenagers at a train station in Jerusalem, filmed it and uploaded the video to TikTok. This started a trend of increasingly violent and brutal attacks which were also filmed and became known as the 'TikTok Intifada.' This violence was precipitated by a wave of incitement to violence by official Palestinian Authority television in the first week of April leading to the start of Ramadan.

    A far-right Jewish group held a protest in response to the growing number of attacks on Jews on April 22. This protest got international attention because a few dozen people chanted 'death to Arabs.' The violence in Jerusalem became an international news story from then on. Immediately afterwards the PA began to voice support for the violent attacks on Jews.

    On April 29, Abbas announced that the PA elections, the first since 2006, would be delayed indefinitely in a move which was long expected by pretty much everyone because of Fatah's bad poll numbers and which Fatah had been strongly hinting at for weeks. To divert anger from his move, the PA ramped up its incitement and made increasingly incendiary statements about Jerusalem, playing the old card of 'Al Aqsa is in danger' which has been used to justify massacre after massacre over the last century. Hamas, unable to be less radical than the PA, joined in and fired dozens of rockets at Israel in the last week of April and has been firing rockets sporadically since then, Israel responding with limited airstrikes. On May 2 three Israeli students were shot by a terrorist while waiting at a bus stop, one of whom died from his wounds a few days later.

    The Sheikh Jarrah protests began on May 6, well after all of this violence began and in the midst of all this incitement despite what Wikipedia says.

    May 10 was Jerusalem Day, when Israelis celebrate the reunification of the city and their being able to return to their holy sites. Anticipating that the violence would reach a crescendo, Israel barred all Jews from going on the Temple Mount and the police ordered the route of the annual 'Flag Dance' to the Western Wall be changed. On May 9 and 10 Arabs on the Temple Mount gathered stones and explosives. On Sunday police were attacked with stones, leading to clashes on the Mount. On Monday several dozen people threw stones down at people praying at the Western Wall in addition to the attacks on police which now included explosives. Police responded to this violence by storming the mount and arresting the attackers. Hamas demanded that the Israeli forces withdraw from the Temple Mount and release everyone who was arrested by 6 PM. At 6 PM Hamas launched 7 rockets at Jerusalem and Hamas and Islamic Jihad began launching hundreds of rockets at Israel's southern communities, leading to Israel launching retaliatory airstrikes in Gaza, and that brings us to where we are today.

  12. #28662
    Extraordinary Member PaulBullion's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by numberthirty View Post
    That part in blue is a bit of an overstatement.
    Not really.
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    Ultimate Member Tendrin's Avatar
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    Oh, hey. We have a stenographer.

    I should point out that Avi Bell works for the Kohelet Policy Forum, which is itself a US Billionaire funded far-right Israeli organization with heavy policy influence on the march of the ever further-right wing Israeli government. It, and the people involved in it, are not exactly someone to turn to to get a fair-minded reading of events.

    https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/...sset-1.6514722

    They advise members of Knesset and ministers, attend Knesset committee meetings, sit at conferences, write policy papers, publish newspaper articles and petition the High Court. Meet the Kohelet Policy Forum.

    Quietly, under the radar, this research institute, officially a nongovernmental organization, has become one of the strongest and most influential bodies in Israeli politics. Kohelet’s fingerprints are visible in every explosive and divisive issue that has weakened the legal system and regulation, from the nation-state law through personal political appointments of senior professional positions to the override clause (that would let the Knesset reenact laws overturned by the High Court of Justice).
    I'll need to rebut some aspects of the rest of the post, assuming the thread has not moved on too much, another time, but I think the Ramadan/Iftar protests and the so-called 'tiktok intifada' and the Sheikh Jarrah protests aren't as linked in as direct a continuum as is stated here, amongst other things.
    Last edited by Tendrin; 05-12-2021 at 06:35 AM.

  14. #28664
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    Quote Originally Posted by Zauriel View Post
    If Ca and NY lost people, that means the ones who left the two states are probably Republicans who are fed up with the states' liberal policy. If the Republicans did leave NY or CA, then the Republican congresspersons will lose their seats.
    It seems like most of the fleeing Californians have made their way into my state, and sadly, most of the ones I've encountered are definitely Republican-leaning.
    MAGNETO was right,TONY was right, VARYS was right.

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    Invincible Jersey Ninja Tami's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Hellion View Post
    It seems like most of the fleeing Californians have made their way into my state, and sadly, most of the ones I've encountered are definitely Republican-leaning.
    From history, we had the Great (Black) Migrations of the early 1900's. Then we had White Fight in the 1950's and 1960's.

    I wonder what Historians will call this? The Republican Relocation? The Trumpian Consolidation? Right-Wing Flight? White Flight II?
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