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

[Robotman]

That was a damn good article. Safeguards MUST be put in place IMMEDIATELY, because you can bet the house the next Qpublican as corrupt as Trump but smarter than Dolt45 will certainly push the envelope should he win the presidency.

Unfortunately, it seems less and less likely that major steps will be taken to prevent the next would be dictator from taking over of the US. Significant voting rights progress is being stopped dead by Manchin and Republicans in Congress have shown they have no interest in checking a Republican President’s power.

I don’t want to think about the damage a President DeSantis would do.

[CaptainEurope]

On this date in 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" published profiles of the current U.S. House Representative from Washington’s 8th Congressional District, Dave Reichert, a former police officer who fell all over himself to take credit for catching the Green River Serial Killer (in spite of botching the case for years until the murderer’s body count was approaching triple digits), and for using over-aggressive tactics on protesters at the 1999 World Trade Organization conference that led to the situation escalating into “The Battle for Seattle” (where he abandoned his post when cameras showed up to chase after looters). Reichert ran sexist campaign ads against Darcy Burner in both 2006 and 2008, has been caught on tape joking about Hillary Clinton falling to her death out of a plane, and told fellow Republicans they should “be worried about Barack Obama stealing money out of your wallets”. His voting record is widely conservative, including votes against Dodd-Frank, against regulating offshore oil rigs after the Deepwater Horizon incident, voting against the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, and consistently voting against the Affordable Care Act (lying about its success whenever he gets the chance). Oh, and Reichert, always quick to defend police violence and extend unconditional support for law enforcement, as an ex-cop himself, celebrated National Police Week in March 2016 by taking to the floor of the House to give a speech called “Blue Lives Matter”, a deliberate slap in the face at the “Black Lives Matter” movement, because of course he did. Dave Reichert decided to retire from office in 2018, rather than face down the Blue Wave.

On this date in 2019, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled Nick Miccarelli, a former member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives who served District 162 in that body from 2009-2018. It wasn’t Miccarelli’s voting record that stood out to us so much, with your basic Republican support for anti-choice regulations, voter suppression efforts with unnecessary Voter ID laws, and opposition to firearm regulations. Now, where Nick Miccarelli really drew our attention was the series of allegations brought against him during his career as a legislator. A fellow Republican member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, Tarah Toohill, got an order of protection against Miccarelli, citing two separate incidents where he threatened her life. In one, in 2012, he pulled a gun on her. In another, in 2014, he threatened to crash a car both were in where he was speeding at 100 MPH. A legislative aide also reported being sexually assaulted by Miccarelli. and while retaliating against the woman who reported him having raped her, Miccarelli allegedly decided to attempt to silence her in the most classy of methods… revenge porn, naming his accuser and providing nude photos of her to media outlets. He refused to resign even though politicians from both sides of the aisle called on him to do so, because he’s enough of a motherf***er that he still wanted to finish out the last few months of his term and qualify for his benefits as a legislator. That proved difficult, though, considering Toohill had a restraining order against him, he was yanked from all his committee assignments, and he was about as much of a pariah as someone could be. Nick Miccarelli’s career is over, and we’re going to be ready to hand anyone the largest hammer we can find should he attempt to pop up in a game of MeToo Whack-A-Mole in a couple years.



On this date one year ago, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled the appointed U.S. Senator from Georgia Kelly Loeffler, who we predicted was unlikely to be that for more than the six months to come thereafter. She became Senator Loeffler back in January of 2020, with her previous experience in politics being “nothing” and her husband being the head of the NYSE while she was the owner of the WNBA team the Atlanta Dream. This appointment was not without controversy in Republican circles, as Donald Trump wanted his sycophantic lackey Doug Collins to be named the next Senator from Georgia, but the vote-stealin’ wonder, Gov. Brian Kemp picked Loeffler based on thinking from stalwarts within the Republican Party, who thought having a good female Senator would help them win back votes from women in the Georgia suburbs in 2020 to hang onto this Senate seat, and not see it flipped blue.

Loeffler started trying to garner some favor with the Trump administration by coming out in favor of his stupid f***ing vanity project, the border wall, and it seemed like maybe she could coast into a permanent seat on the Senate. There was just one problem with Kemp and the mainstream GOP’s thinking… Kelly Loeffler doesn’t really seem to have any ethical compass, whatsoever, and within six weeks after being sworn in, she went to a Senate Intelligence hearing on Covid-19, learned that the country was f***ed, and then she and her husband just coincidentally started to immediately make million-dollar stock portfolio adjustments that seem almost certainly to be motivated by the upcoming pandemic. In other words, she violated the STOCK Act, and was insider trading, because pulling money out of tourism and putting it into tele-working is an AMAZING coincidence. She and other Republicans who got caught using a public health crisis as a money-making venture and was facing calls to resign, which she ignored.

Kelly Loeffler had a unique strategy to try and hold onto her seat, to just be as racist as possible. Whether it was feuding with the players on her own WNBA team over social justice issues, or to blame the spread of Covid-19 on China, she continued to show herself to be a worse human being the longer she was in the spotlight as the election approached.

She ended up losing in the runoff election against the Reverend Rafael Warnock, getting only 49% of the vote, and spent the days that followed attacking the integrity of Georgia’s election results, going along with Donald Trump’s Big Lie, and helping lay the seeds for the violent coup attempt carried out by Trump supporters on January 6th. She finally flipped after seeing the rioters storm the Capitol, and word is, the whole experience has made her realize maybe she doesn’t want to be in politics, after all.

At this time, we’d like to wish this corrupt twit our heartiest “GOOD RIDDANCE” salutes.

This tweet doesn't look that flipped:
https://twitter.com/KLoeffler/status...397368834?s=20

[numberthirty]

Unfortunately, it seems less and less likely that major steps will be taken to prevent the next would be dictator from taking over of the US. Significant voting rights progress is being stopped dead by Manchin and Republicans in Congress have shown they have no interest in checking a Republican President’s power.

I don’t want to think about the damage a President DeSantis would do.

Never mind that the current administration is going to bat for a lot of the previous adminstration's "Executive Branch..." nonsense like there could never be a future Republican President where we will think "Man, I Wish Someone Had Curbed The Power He Has As The Leader Of The Executive Branch A Little..."

[worstblogever]

It's done:

https://www.opb.org/article/2021/06/...tol-incursion/

As WBE would say, Good riddance!

May Nearman f*** off, f*** off out of American politics, and keep f***ing off until he's over the horizon and into jail.

[Kevinroc]

Unfortunately, it seems less and less likely that major steps will be taken to prevent the next would be dictator from taking over of the US. Significant voting rights progress is being stopped dead by Manchin and Republicans in Congress have shown they have no interest in checking a Republican President’s power.

I don’t want to think about the damage a President DeSantis would do.

America is so very close to full-blown fascism. I fear for the future.

[Tami]

America is so very close to full-blown fascism. I fear for the future.

I'm a little more optimistic than that. Let's say that there are more people in the country who actually like it a as Democracy than there are who need serious mental health counseling.

[Kirby101]

I'm a little more optimistic than that. Let's say that there are more people in the country who actually like it a as Democracy than there are who need serious mental health counseling.

That is the thing about fascism. It doesn't matter about the majority. Between the Electoral College, the small Red State advantage in the Senate and gerrymandering and suppression. The fascist GOP can take control without the majority and then prevent the voters from removing them.
Biden won by a pretty good margin of 7 million votes. But in reality a difference of less than 50,000 votes over 3 States would have given Trump the victory. And yes, Georgia gave the Democrats the Senate, but they then enacted laws that will prevent that the next time.

[Mister Mets]

America is so very close to full-blown fascism. I fear for the future.

What would that look like?

[worstblogever]

This tweet doesn't look that flipped:
https://twitter.com/KLoeffler/status...397368834?s=20

Let's hope she decides to remain a political donor, and not involve herself in politics directly.

Although, with as corrupt as she was (what with the insider trading on pandemic news), if she remains a donor she's going to get caught at some point violating those laws. I'd bank on that.

[worstblogever]

What would that look like?

A second Trump administration.

Got any other questions with answers that are easy to predict?

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, as well as 2020, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" published profiles of Texas State Senator Charles Perry, who we noted that immediately after being sworn in as a state senator, talked of a "spiritual battle" being fought over abortion and same sex marriage that he likened to stopping the Holocaust. He has tried to pass same sex marriage bans based on "state's rights", voted for "trap laws" to close down the majority, if not all abortion clinics in Texas, pushed for unnecessary Voter ID bills to combat the statistically non-existent problem of in-person voter fraud, and voted to drug test welfare recipients (still always a failed conservative experiment). While this might make him sound like a Fundamentalist Baptist pillar, there's also word that Perry frequents gentleman's clubs and has had exotic dancers accuse him of stalking them. So, add some hypocrisy to the mix. In April of 2015, Perry co-sponsored SB 2065, a "religious freedom" bill that was written to allow people to use their faith to refuse marriage services to same sex couples. But believe it or not, that isn't the worst issue position Perry took, as in July of 2015, he appeared at a "Homeland Terrorism Conference" hosted by the dodgy Christian Reporter News. (At the event, ISIS was referred to as "true Islam", to give you an idea of how intolerant their ideas are.) Oddly, their discussion of Islamic terror also delved into theories that Muslims keep male sex slaves, or have sex with donkeys. So... that's some healthy rhetoric. And it wasn't a one-off, as Charles Perry freaked right the hell out after the Paris terror attacks, where he wrote to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to ask if there were any way that the state could refuse to admit Syrian refugees.He reiterated his paranoid fears on local conservative talk radio thereafter, insisting that Texas was a target for Islamic terror, especially if they took in Syrian refugees.

But it's not like Charles Perry had to face any consequences of hanging out with hatemongers, and demonizing a whole religion in 2016, as he was allowed to run for re-election completely unopposed. Because Texas, that's why.

So then it should come as little surprise that Charles Perry has not dialed back his Fundamentalist insanity. He was a sponsor of SB 892, a religious freedom bill of sorts aimed at deferring to the “deeply held faith” of Christian adoption agencies, hoping that they might turn away prospective same sex couples looking to adopt.

Perry insisted that the legislation must exist, or Christian religious organizations would ignore the various things Jesus spoke of helping children if it didn’t get passed, saying:

“This bill is not a license to discriminate. Rather, it is a license to participate.”

Based off of a lot of his other quotes and actions, we’re calling bulls***.

Now, where Charles Perry has definitely stepped up his game is in his anti-immigrant fervor. One of the bigger state level battles going on right now is over Texas’ anti-immigrant law SB 4, which would ban sanctuary cities from existing within the state. Perry has not only voted for this xenophobic nightmare of a piece of legislation (using the word “legislation” loosely), but he has defended it by claiming it “upholds the rule of law”. Considering the constitutionality of the bill has been questioned because of how it empowers Texas law enforcement to racially profile people to enforce it, that’s a really interesting perspective.

That does not mean, however, that he isn’t still an anti-abortion zealot, because he responded to the news of three Planned Parenthood centers opening in Texas by starting what amounted to a symbolic petition on his Facebook page, writing that “The abortion industry has officially targeted West Texas. Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, has multi-million dollar plans to re-open clinics in our communities, and they must be stopped.” (For the sake of facts, Planned Parenthood does not profit in any way from providing abortions, which is only 3% of their budget anyway, none of which comes from government funding, and it definitely is not an “abortion industry”.) Charles Perry dedicated his focus on discriminating against the LGBTQ community, sponsoring a “religious freedom” bill, SB 17, that would allow homophobic bigots to use their faith as an excuse for hating gay people.

And regrettably… no one filed to run against him in 2020, so Perry entered into another term in office where he’s spent the past six months sponsoring more transphobic bills, including one to ban transgender children from participating in women’s sports, another that would classify gender reassignment procedures being performed on minors as “child abuse”, and finally, Perry was a co-sponsor of Texas SB 8, a ban on abortion if a fetal heartbeat is detected (aka at 6 weeks before many women even realize they’re pregnant).

This man is a fanatic of the highest order.

[BeastieRunner]

Beastie's Cartoons of the Week

[BeastieRunner]

I found this interesting.

Incentives may have little impact on American anti-vaxxers: But those who did not vote in the 2020 elections seem more easily swayed, especially by money.

This has an implication that the 2020 fence sitters are pretty flexible when motivated correctly.

[Jack Dracula]

So a doctor and a nurse are making this conspiracy theory? That's insane

I think they may have meant it’s polarizing people.

[The Cool Thatguy]

I think they may have meant it’s polarizing people.

The hottest ring of Hell is reserved for people who make puns like that