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

[WestPhillyPunisher]

'Marvel' actor Evangeline Lilly shares that she attended anti-vaccine mandate rally

To quote the immortal Bugs Bunny....wotta maroon!

[Tendrin]

Latinos are showing little sign of shifting significantly away from the Democratic Party, a Gallup analysis published Thursday states.

Hispanics’ identification with Democrats edged down in 2021 along with the larger adult U.S. population.

But Latinos continued to identify with Democrats over Republicans by about 30 percentage points, according to an analysis by Gallup senior scientist Frank Newport.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...?ocid=msedgntp

[CaptainEurope]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...?ocid=msedgntp

So Pelosi doesn't have to step down in favor of Jennifer Lopez after all?

[Mister Mets]

The majority of American voters do not consider who will lead the Democratic party in the House when they cast their votes. They will look at the actual candidates.

Most voters are going to go based on party. As Speaker of the House, Pelosi is a big part of the Democratic party's brand.

[Catlady in training]

You didn't even bother to read the article did you. The article doesn't cite anything about liberals but it does cite books that conservatives banned.

I thought it was clear that my comment about liberals was tongue in cheek. Who in their right mind would think that liberals would try to ban Maus?

I will just add that it is especially sad that this news came on the International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

[JB]

Yikes. I'm glad everyone is alive and hope they heal soon.

Three hospitalized after Pittsburgh bridge collapse near site of Biden speech
https://nypost.com/2022/01/28/pittsb...biden-remarks/

A bridge collapse in a Pittsburgh park resulted in injuries to 10 people, three of whom had to be taken to a hospital, officials said early Friday — hours before President Biden was due to arrive in the city to give remarks touting his infrastructure plan.

“The good thing, at this point, is that there’s no fatalities,” Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey told reporters. “We were fortunate.”

The bridge carrying Forbes Avenue through Frick Park east of downtown gave way shortly before 7 a.m., according to a tweet from the city’s Department of Public Safety.

[JB]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...?ocid=msedgntp

Latino Dems warn about midterm fall-off
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/0...midterm-527265

"The first step is admitting there’s a problem, and there’s a lot of people in my movement and my party that don’t," said one strategist.

Democrats admit they’re losing ground with Latino voters.

But Latino Democratic leaders and operatives are increasingly worried that time is running out to do anything that would make a significant difference ahead of the 2022 midterms, when the party needs a robust Latino turnout to preserve its slim majorities in Congress.

For years, those leaders have warned that the party needs to invest earlier in outreach, hire more Latinos for decision-making positions and talk to Latino voters about more issues than just immigration.

But even after a presidential election marked by former President Donald Trump’s impressive gains with Latinos across the country — not just in Latino-heavy South Texas and South Florida — they see a lack of urgency in addressing those issues. Between that and a failure to keep pace with GOP efforts to communicate with Latinos on newer platforms, there’s a creeping fear that the traditional Democratic advantage with Latino voters will continue to erode in November.

I'm listening to what the Democrat political analysts and strategists are saying.

[worstblogever]

It was on this date in 2015 that “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” posted a profile of Jack Whitley, the former Chairman of the Big Stone County Republican Party in Minnesota whose bigotry went into overload in November 2014 and compelled him to post on Facebook to say Islam is a form of witchcraft, all Muslims must accept Jesus or leave the United States, that the First Amendment in regards to Freedom of Religion does not apply to them, that practitioners of Islam are "parasites" and Satan has infiltrated most “supposedly religious” industries like Christian music, and the church needs to get more militantly anti-gay and anti-abortion to prove to him they’re serious about it. That got his Facebook account deleted, and since he was fired not just from his position as Big Stone County Chairman of the GOP, but even the hardware store where he worked

On this date in 2016, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” posted a profile of Eric Turner, a man who served twelve terms in office over three decades in the Indiana House of Representatives until he resigned in November of 2014 for killing legislation that would have halted new nursing home construction in Indiana and could have potentially harmed his family's nursing home development business. Other than this major ethical lapse, we also noted that Turner kept trying to add amendments to Indiana's state constitution to define marriage as between one man and one woman, voted to drug test welfare recipients (but voted to block a bill that would have forced state legislators to do the same) and defund Indiana Planned Parenthood clinics. Turner didn't just resign in disgrace and retire from politics, he left the state of Indiana altogether.

On this date in both 2017, as well as 2018, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” posted a profile of former Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, who after taking office, had thea Republican-controlled state legislature abuse the procedure of "immediate effect" votes to repeatedly pass legislation by a voice vote determined as "won/lost" by the Republican acting as Speaker of the House at the time to grant Snyder a rubber-stamp to do things like cut funding from public school classrooms to pay for retirement funds for school employees when a much more prudent use of taxpayer money to solve that crisis would not have been to give $1.7 billion in corporate tax breaks while also raising taxes on lower class families. Snyder also made Michigan a right-to-work state, with false promises of job creation that never arrived and the only real result was to reduce membership in unions. He also repeatedly attempted to get legislation passed to start drug-testing welfare recipients, only to watch predictably as the program cost a fortune and drug testing and found statistically no significant drug use. As in, NONE. But perhaps the most controversial of the legislation signed by Gov. Snyder was Michigan's new emergency manager laws, which would allow a city's local officials to place a lone individual in charge after an "emergency", which in Detroit, was meant to be the city declaring bankruptcy. This was despite the measure being placed on the ballot in November of 2012 and rejected, so a new version was hastily thrown together by the Michigan GOP. And, it's that emergency manager law that allowed Governor Snyder to place Michael Brown as Emergency Manager of Flint, Michigan on November 29th, 2011. Dennis Rick Snyder's chief of staff then began insisting the city's water supply be provided by the Flint River, known for being particularly corrosive, because hey, let's save a couple hundred dollars a year on cheaper ideas. Well, the switch came in spite of repeated warnings from, y'know, smart water engineers, and in April of 2014, and the lake water began corroding the old lead pipes leading into the city... meaning those lead particles were actually in people's drinking water, and poisoning them. Children were drinking the water, which slows their development, as well. Six months later, General Motors stopped using the water in their Flint plants, as it was too corrosive to touch engine parts. As the contamination began to be bad enough that residents could actually visibly SEE the iron and lead in water that was clearly brown over several months... the Snyder administration lied and told people the water was still safe. Internal e-mails however, show they KNEW they had a major city drinking poisoned water for months, and their attempts at a coverup meant people were still drinking it. The Snyder administration actually tried arguing with the findings of the scientists who were trying to survey the damage that was done. The damage to the pipes would take YEARS to fix (and still isn’t, as of this posting as he just left office). Gov. Snyder's response to the crisis (that he helped create) was tepid, and in the meantime, an outbreak of Legionairre's disease occurred from the river water, leading to at least nine attributed deaths. His promise to bring in an independent investigator in to investigate how bad his administration botched things was also quickly broken when Snyder's own campaign donor became the "independent investigator". Rick Snyder was called before Congress to be raked over the coals about Flint, is still likely to get called to be grilled about potentially obstructing the federal investigation into his incompetence now that Democrats have control of that body again. The only reason Snyder was not impeached for his incompetence is that Michigan, hhas a nearly impossible process for removing a governor from office. What really pisses us off here at FRED, though, is because of Rick Snyder's incompetence... Flint, Michigan still does not have clean drinking water, 69 months after this crisis began (YES, that’s almost SIX YEARS NOW). In any event, Snyder’s reign of terror poisoning his citizenry is now over.

On this date in 2019 “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” profiled Allen Quist, a former Minnesota state legislator who served four terms there back in the 1980s, twice ran for Governor of Minnesota in both 1994 and 1998, made two runs for Congress to serve Minnesota’s 1st Congressional District in 2010 and 2012, and tried to get back into the Minnesota state legislature unsuccessfully in a special election in 2013. Now, we want to point out that Allen Quist is a political mentor to another FRED alumni here, Michelle Bachmann, and if you know anything about politics, you know you had best buckle up for a lot of crazy. Some of the more insane things Allen Quist has said, done, and believes:

• As a Minnesota State Senator, Allen Quist “went undercover” at a gay bookstore to see if people were having gay sex there in the bathroom. Quist denied this in 2012, but finally admitted it after the interview where he confessed to it in the 1990s was unearthed by reporters.
• In 1986, when Quist’s first wife was tragically killed in a car accident while six months pregnant, he had her fetus placed in her arms at her open casket funeral. (Quist has been quoted as saying that he believes abortion should be classified as a first degree homicide.)
• In 1988, Quist argued against having a gay counseling center at the University of Minnesota-Mankato, comparing it to building a center to support the Ku Klux Klan.
• In 1993, while campaigning for Governor of Minnesota, Quist called for mandatory AIDS testing to be done on anyone seeking a marriage license.
• In a 1994 interview, Allen Quist argued that men have a “genetic predisposition to lead the family”. He repeatedly denied making this statement during his 2012 campaign, until audio emerged.
• In 2010, Quist cited his desire to go to Congress because he considered defeating liberals to be a more important battle than defeating terrorism:
• Allen Quist argued that “human beings lived alongside stegosaurs” citing an artist’s image from a 12th Century Cambodian temple as proof.

Quist is now into his late seventies, and unlikely to ever win political office.
 

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2020, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day”profiled former Colorado State Senator Kent Lambert, who served in office from 2011-2018 after spending the prior four years to that in the Colorado House of Representatives. He earned himself a day under FRED’s radar because of his twelve year career of homophobia, including how during the 2007 session when he filed a formal ethics complaint against the Colorado Education Association for sending emails making claims Lambert disagreed with (it was dismissed by the Colorado Legislative Council’s Executive Committee) and his attempt to ban adoption by same-sex couples. In 2010, he went “all in” to by badmouthing Matthew Shephard, the victim of a hate crime, when the foundation named for him was to be centered in Denver, saying ”What Hickenlooper did was compare people in rural Colorado to terrorists and murderers because of the homosexual up in Wyoming that was assaulted.” By 2013, as the Obergefell v. Hodges ruling approached, Lambert grew incensed enough with state governments around the country, including his own, trying to legalize gay marriage that Lambert referred to just civil unions for gay and lesbian couples as “mind control”. We’ll keep this profile very brief, and note that in 2010, Lambert also sponsored anti-immigrant legislation based on Arizona’s SB 1070 to Colorado, sponsored a bill to attempt to change the meaning of a “person” in the legal definition of murder to include fetuses to outlaw abortion, and sponsored legislation to remove background checks on firearm transfers. After coming up against term limits in the Colorado state legislature in 2018, Kent Lambert was forced to retire.


On this date in 2021, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” profiled Cindy Pugh, a former member of the Minnesota House of Representatives from 2012-2018. She was a Tea Party organizer prior to 2012 who became a disciple of Michelle Bachmann and upset Steve Smith in the GOP primary for 33B when he was, at the time, the longest-tenured member of the Minnesota GOP. In the six years she was in office, she had several extreme decisions in her voting record, including but not limited to her vote against legalizing same sex marriage, her support of transphobic public bathroom legislation, her sponsorship of a bill to create unnecessary regulations upon abortion clinics in the hope of having them all shut down in the state, her vote against equal pay legislation, and her vote against raising the minimum wage in Minnesota during the greatest period of income inequality in our nation in a century. And yet, NONE OF THAT is why we’re profiling Pugh. In January of 2018, Pugh decided to go on Facebook and lob Islamophobic conspiracy theories. She claimed “a friend” (never named) went to a caucus training held at a local mosque, where he alleged he witnessed Muslim-Americans being taught to “penetrate” and “infiltrate” American politics to enact a Muslim political agenda. It was bigoted enough that the Minnesota GOP almost unanimously condemned her remarks. Pugh tried to pass off her post as an attempt to create interest in the caucus process for Minnesotans, but nobody was buying her bulls***.When the Blue Wave hit in 2018, Pugh was defeated by Democrat Kelly Morrison and was bounced out of the state legislature. She was last seen trying to moderate sex education classes in public schools, and filing a baseless lawsuit against Democratic Congressman Dean Phillips for supposedly violating the Stock Act. As she is now out of office, we will set aside her profile at this time to cover another wacky Republican today instead. (Current crazy/stupid scoreboard, is now 1069-50, since this was established in July 2014.


Loren Culp

Welcome to what is the 1069th original profile here at “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day”, where we’ll be discussing Loren Culp, a law enforcement officer who was celebrated by Republicans for refusing to do his job and enforce gun laws, who wrote a book about his experiences that compared gun control to the Holocaust and features a lot of alternate history and quotes from the Founding Fathers that they never actually said. Culp parlayed that into a bid to as the 2020 Republican candidate for Governor of Washington and in 2022, is making a run for U.S. House of Representatives in Washington’s 4th Congressional District, looking to challenge three term GOP Congressman for his seat for having the audacity for voting to impeach Donald Trump for staging a failed coup attempt on Jan. 6th, 2021. Culp’s take on that “betrayal” is framed as so:

” “Newhouse voted with the socialists to impeach one of the greatest presidents of my lifetime.”

Sure he was. Sure. But keep in mind, Loren Culp is also consistently out of touch with reality. He lost the Governor’s race in 2020 by over 545,000 votes, and responded by mimicking Donald Trump’s false allegations of election irregularities and fraud, featuring Culp also peppering in some anti-Semitism by blaming George Soros, and later, seeing him file a lawsuit against the Washington Secretary of State, Kim Wyman. Mind you, he tucked his tail, and turned and fled from his own lawsuit when his realized, unlike Trump’s “Kraken” law team, that filing lawsuits based on flagrant lies can lead to legal sanctions against you as a lawyer.

But alas, Loren Culp is not limited to just one conspiracy theory, as in the build-up to the gubernatorial lection, in September of 2020, Culp began spreading conspiracy theories that wildfires in his state were actually coordinated arson, and right-wing conspiracy nuts took the ball and ran with it, adding to Culp’s theory to say it was being carried out by “Antifa”. Which, of course, there was never any proof of, and Culp never helped authorities by admitting he was talking out of his *ss.

But Loren Culp always has deep-seated, irrational fears. His reason for running for governor in the first place was that he was so afraid when Gov. Jay Inslee took measures to stop the spread of Covid-19 that he began comparing the governor to famous communist leaders.

”The problem with Democracy — you can look at quotes from famous Chinese leaders like Mao, Gorbachev — they loved Democracy because Democracy is a step toward socialism, which is a step towards communism.”

We will cross our fingers and hope that Loren Culp does not somehow emerge from the crowded GOP Primary to unseat Dan Newhouse as the nominee, because Washington’s 4th Congressional District has a +13 Republican lean, and whomever comes out of it is almost guaranteed a win, regrettably.

[Tendrin]

Latino Dems warn about midterm fall-off
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/0...midterm-527265



I'm listening to what the Democrat political analysts and strategists are saying.

The post I linked wasn't about whether or not latino voters will vote or not -- that's up to them -- but whether or not they're more inclined to identify with the GOP than before. There has been a lot of hand-wringing about that in certain circles. Dem outreach to a lot of latino comunities has been abysmal, and they've barely invested in confronting their massive misinformation problem.

[Tendrin]

Toitally not an attempt to stop voting, you guys!

https://www.motherjones.com/politics...eorgia-voters/

During municipal elections in November, Georgia voters were 45 times more likely to have their mail ballot applications rejected—and ultimately not vote as a result—than in 2020. If that same rejection rate were extrapolated to the 2020 race, more than 38,000 votes would not have been cast in a presidential contest decided by just over 11,000 votes.

[JB]

The post I linked wasn't about whether or not latino voters will vote or not -- that's up to them -- but whether or not they're more inclined to identify with the GOP than before. There has been a lot of hand-wringing about that in certain circles. Dem outreach to a lot of latino comunities has been abysmal, and they've barely invested in confronting their massive misinformation problem.

I definitely agree, and I think that's why many have said they feel like they're slipping through the cracks. Direct outreach by the Dems would go a long way and I believe would swiftly reverse the trend.

[JB]

Toitally not an attempt to stop voting, you guys!

https://www.motherjones.com/politics...eorgia-voters/

Speaking of mail-in voting, this just came out of Pennsylvania.

Court finds Pennsylvania mail-in voting law unconstitutional
https://www.abc27.com/news/pennsylva...onstitutional/

The Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania has found the commonwealth’s no-excuse mail-in voting law, Act 77, is unconstitutional.

According to court documents, 14 members of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives filed a petition to block the 2019 law that would allow any qualified voter to vote by mail.

The ruling can be read here: https://www.scribd.com/document/5555...-22#from_embed

I'm sure Wolf is working on the appeal to the state Supreme Court as I type.

[4saken1]

Toitally not an attempt to stop voting, you guys!

https://www.motherjones.com/politics...eorgia-voters/

Well if you can't win elections fairly.........

[4saken1]

Speaking of mail-in voting, this just came out of Pennsylvania.

Court finds Pennsylvania mail-in voting law unconstitutional
https://www.abc27.com/news/pennsylva...onstitutional/

Well there you have it:

The decision, by a five-judge Commonwealth Court panel of three Republicans and two Democrats......

Both of the dissenting judges were the Democrats.