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

[SuperiorIronman]

Like a lot of things the answer as to whether Trump if a convicted felon can run for the presidency is that it depends. Some states will not allow someone to run if they're a felon or happen to be in jail at the time but this applies to state office. Some states will also allow someone to run but unable to hold office making the whole thing kind of pointless but that's at the state level. If a conviction puts Trump in prison then he'd unable to run for reelection pretty much on the basis that he'd be in prison and unable to leave in order to campaign. Trump is 74 according to Google and also according to Google the sentence for Tax crimes would be about 3-5 years. He could die or become unfit for duty during this period especially if convicted later and the sentence is put on top of that. At this current juncture within Biden's time in office he'd be unable to run purely on the basis he'd be in prison and be unable to serve. There's also the question of if a person in prison can perform the duties of the presidency and whatever crimes committed might bar a future President or if related to the former's time in office if that might disqualify one from the position. Like a lot of things Trump has done and did we don't have any easy answer.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Today marks the one year anniversary of this tweet

Yeah, that tweet didn't age at all well. Meanwhile, Trump wasted no time going on Faux News yesterday to offer best wishes to Tiger Woods after his accident, but has yet to offer anything in the way of condolences or sympathy to the families of the hundreds of thousands who died from the virus on his watch.

[AnakinFlair]

Like a lot of things the answer as to whether Trump if a convicted felon can run for the presidency is that it depends. Some states will not allow someone to run if they're a felon or happen to be in jail at the time but this applies to state office. Some states will also allow someone to run but unable to hold office making the whole thing kind of pointless but that's at the state level. If a conviction puts Trump in prison then he'd unable to run for reelection pretty much on the basis that he'd be in prison and unable to leave in order to campaign. Trump is 74 according to Google and also according to Google the sentence for Tax crimes would be about 3-5 years. He could die or become unfit for duty during this period especially if convicted later and the sentence is put on top of that. At this current juncture within Biden's time in office he'd be unable to run purely on the basis he'd be in prison and be unable to serve. There's also the question of if a person in prison can perform the duties of the presidency and whatever crimes committed might bar a future President or if related to the former's time in office if that might disqualify one from the position. Like a lot of things Trump has done and did we don't have any easy answer.

Thanks for explaining that!

[Tendrin]

Oi.

WBE, not sure if you've got her in the queue or profiled her before, but this statement from State Rep Dianne Grendell of Ohio on Amish folks dying of COVID...

https://twitter.com/Tylerjoelb/statu...05603403284482

They've culled the herd, so to speak"

[worstblogever]

Remember the story about how the Republican AG of South Dakota "thought he hit a deer" when he actually struck and killed a man while driving back in September?

Seems he might be lying about having known he killed a person, as police can confirm he had to have known he struck a person... as the victim's face hit his windshield, and went through it. As in, the victim's glasses were found inside the AG's vehicle.

Party of responsibility and life, at it again.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Biden’s COVID Package Is Overwhelmingly Popular. Republicans Hate It Anyway.

“I would be surprised if there was support in the Republican caucus if the bill comes out at $1.9 trillion,” said Sen. Susan Collins of Maine. If the bill was $1.9 MILLION, Qpublicans would still hate it since Biden helping Americans doesn't help the GQP.

**********

GOP Science Deniers Lecture Interior Secretary Nominee Deb Haaland On Science

“Republicans, by the way, are guided by science,” Sen. Bill Cassidy told the Native American congresswoman, despite his past vote rejecting climate science. the hypocrisy is strong in assclowns like Cassidy who followed the lead of science denying Donald Trump. PLEASE! This isn't about Haaland's qualifications, but her gender and race, nothing more. Speaking of which....

**********

Joe Biden’s Nominees Of Color Are Facing Outsize Opposition

The Senate has been much easier on his white nominees. Gee whiz! What a shock. Washington's Old Boy network, heavy emphasis on BOY is alive and strong!

**********

Biden Nominates 3 To Postal Service Board Of Governors, Putting Pressure On Postmaster General

The move could alter the course of an agency grappling with delivery delays and rumored cuts under its Republican leader. Things would be a lot easier if Biden just fires DeJackass.

**********

Capitol Police Chief Says Officers Were Unsure About Using Force During Jan. 6 Riot

Police chief Yogananda Pittman submitted a statement to Congress, filling in crucial details of what went wrong during the attack on the Capitol. The whole business is sounding more and more like an unholy clusterfuck with each passing day.

**********

Marjorie Taylor-Greene Antagonizes Democratic Colleague With Anti-Transgender Sign

The congresswoman’s neighbor at the U.S. Capitol is Rep. Marie Newman, whose daughter is transgender. That hateful QAnon bitch has GOTS. TO. GO.

[worstblogever]

Oi.

WBE, not sure if you've got her in the queue or profiled her before, but this statement from State Rep Dianne Grendell of Ohio on Amish folks dying of COVID...

https://twitter.com/Tylerjoelb/statu...05603403284482

I really don't want to keep calling the GOP a death cult, but... *gestures*

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Oi.

WBE, not sure if you've got her in the queue or profiled her before, but this statement from State Rep Dianne Grendell of Ohio on Amish folks dying of COVID...

https://twitter.com/Tylerjoelb/statu...05603403284482

Remember the story about how the Republican AG of South Dakota "thought he hit a deer" when he actually struck and killed a man while driving back in September?

Seems he might be lying about having known he killed a person, as police can confirm he had to have known he struck a person... as the victim's face hit his windshield, and went through it. As in, the victim's glasses were found inside the AG's vehicle.

Party of responsibility and life, at it again.

Oh, yeah, the GQP is all about the sanctity of life. Makes me wish they'd just give up that pretense, because it's bullshit, and everyone knows it.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2015, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" ran a profile of Andy Tobin, a former member of the Arizona House of Representatives and failed Congressional candidate in the 2014 elections. Tobin, in his time as a legislator, had voted to legalize the use of gold and silver as legal tender, among a lot of other strange bills including a "religious freedom" bill to legalize discrimination against gays, and random, warrantless searches to be conducted of abortion clinics whenever law enforcement felt like it. Tobin is also decidedly anti-immigrant, having not only supported Arizona's controversial law, SB 1070, but also once telling the public that people sneaking across the U.S./Mexico border were bringing Ebola Virus with them (which isn't true, given it is an African virus). Tobin also sent out fundraising e-mails promising to hold President Obama accountable for "what happened in Benghazi”. Tobin currently does not hold elected office, and instead was appointed to a cushy job on the Arizona Corporation Commission by Republican Governor Doug Ducey.

On this date in 2016, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” posted a profile of Rick Berg, a former one-term Congressman from North Dakota who failed to win election to the U.S. Senate against Heidi Heitkamp back in 2012. As a state legislator he voted to make abortion a felony offense, even including cases where the pregnancy is from rape or incest, without exception. Looking back even further, to 2005, they found Berg supported the privatization of Social Security by the Bush Administration, in an assembly vote. As election day approached in 2012, Rick Berg was starting to sweat about how closely he and Heidi Heitkamp were polling, not just because of his record, but because of his business ties to a shady real estate company, Goldmark Property Management, that was the target of dozens of tenant complaints and fire safety violations. It also didn't look so good that he had missed 38 votes in his one term in office in the House. Berg grew desperate enough that in his final debate against Heitkamp, he decided to try and make up ground by attacking the Affordable Care Act, brazenly lying about its effects on the national debt, and claiming it took money from Medicare (when it actually cuts costs that caused less spending on Medicare, which wasn't the same thing). Berg lost by a few thousand votes to Heitkamp, and has yet to reemerge as a candidate for any office.

On this date in 2017, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" profiled Tom Price, the former U.S. House Representative from Georgia’s 6th House District for six full terms from 2005 through early 2017 who went on to become the not-long-tenured Cabinet Secretary for Health and Human Services in the Trump Administration. For those who weren’t paying attention to the Bizarro World way that Donald Trump picked his cabinet, in almost all instances he chose individuals who seemed tailor fit to destroy the government institution they were placed in charge of, who had made previous statements or dedicated their careers to acting as antagonists to the very post they were appointed to. While Tom Price is, at least, a former orthopedic surgeon with a medical background, is a founding member of the GOP House’s Tea Party Caucus, has been accused of violating the STOCK Act, and committing insider trading, and has long been touted as a member of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, a conservative group that argues that the government should do NOTHING in regards to healthcare, whatsoever, and to allow socialized medicine is “evil” or “immoral”. That’s not even the weirdest thing about the AAPS, as its journal has published articles in the time Tom Price served in Congress with such fine topics as a discussion about rescinding the citizenship of so-called “anchor babies,” (the children of undocumented immigrants), who it falsely claimed were responsible for increased leprosy rates, others that pushed the myth of a link between vaccines and autism, another that suggested a link between abortion and breast cancer, and one that questioned the relationship between HIV and AIDS. The AAPS also once requested the U.S. Supreme Court should to release post-mortem photos of Vince Foster, the Bill Clinton White House counsel whose suicide conspiracy theorists believe actually was an assassination. Oh, and the AAPS was a top source for all the rumors during the 2016 elections swirling about Hillary Clinton’s supposed “failing health”, as well. If you needed any other evidence that Tom Price is hanging out with a bunch of kooks, the AAPS website once published an article about how President Obama’s powerful oratory could actually be a form of hypnosis, and that he won the presidency by hypnotizing impressionable voters like young people and Jews. In any other Cabinet nomination process, Tom Price would have been laughed out of the Senate, but he’s somehow one of the more “normal” or “qualified” members of the Trump Cabinet, relatively speaking. Tom Price is also a bit of a homophobe, as virtually all of the Trump Cabinet is, and it’s not hard to find evidence to that fact even outside of his anti-LGBTQ voting record. When a guy releases a statement reacting to the Obergefell v. Hodges ruling and declared it a “sad day for marriage”, it’s a pretty open and shut case that he’s bigoted towards gays, you know? And as far as women’s rights go, well, Tom Price isn’t just anti-abortion, he’s against birth control. In fact, Price didn’t just co-sponsor the Right of Life Act that would have given Constitutional rights to zygotes, he argues that there’s no such thing as a woman without access to birth control in the country. Price’s voting record was, as you might expect, hyper-partisan, and his time as a member of the Cabinet came to a quick end when he was forced to resign after it was discovered he was abusing his travel budget at taxpayer expense to do things like fly to Nashville on the urgent business of having lunch with his son.

On this date in 2018, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled Jon Stanard, a member of the Utah House of Representatives from 2012-2018, and whose downfall will not take us very long to explain. You see, Stanard is a “family values” Republican, who quite predictably was caught cheating on his wife (allegedly). But wait, there’s more. He cheated on her with a porn star, Brie Taylor. But wait, there’s still more. He cheated on his wife with a porn star who he was paying for sex, and therefore his name isn’t just Jon, he was a john with a prostitute he frequents. But wait, THERE’S STILL MORE to make it worse… Jon Stanard was billing the taxpayers for the hotel he was banging an ex-porn star turned prostitute behind his wife’s back. But of course, you could look through his voting record and laugh at the level of hypocrisy in Stanard’s votes to “defend marriage” and in other matters, like how he wanted to block legislation that would prohibit discrimination against an individual based on their sexual orientation. He was shamed into resigning.

On this date in 2019, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled the former candidate to be the U.S. House Representative from Florida’s 22nd Congressional District, Adam Hasner. Hasner was a member of the Florida House of Representatives from 2002 through 2010, hitting term limits as the Tea Party came to power. He served in that body along side future Senator Marco Rubio, and by 2007, was the Majority Leader serving in that body, and was frequently criticized for his partisan extremism by colleagues. At one point, video even emerged of Hasner boasting that he was “the most partisan Republican in Tallahassee”. The least offensive thing about Adam Hasner might be that he’s just a hypocrite, as he campaigned for Congress against politicians who “raise their pay” and “pad their pensions”, and meanwhile, he had a history of doing exactly that as a state legislator. But really, it’s the rolling with hate groups that bothers us more. During Hasner’s first two years out of office in 2011 and 2012, and around the time he started trying to build momentum for his Congressional run, he suddenly took a huge turn for the Islamophobic. And not limited to the ways you might expect. While some Republicans were content to foment fears of the Muslim Brotherhood infiltrating the Democratic Party like bigoted twits, Hasner went “next-level” in his fearmongering. During a speech before the Republican Liberty Caucus of East Central Florida where he said that "there has also been an infiltration of the conservative movement by stealth jihadists in this country." He also bizarrely imagined that President Obama had aligned himself against Occupy Wall Street and that the group also had in its ranks “ranting anti-Semites who want to destroy Israel." Before long, Hasner had opted to appear in public with hate group leaders like Pamela Geller, the leader of the anti-Muslim hate group ACT!, legendary Islamophobe Frank Gaffney, as well as Dutch white nationalist Geert Wilders. While raving about Sharia Law all the time was one thing, his opinions that Jews in Israel had “superior claims” to the land than Palestinian Arabs was a bit more extreme of an opinion than one would hope for. Maybe when he went so far as to boycott an imam’s prayers in the Florida State Legislature, it should have become pretty clear that he was an outright bigot. Adam Hasner ended up losing in 2012 to Lois Frankel, getting 45% of the vote.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2020, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” first profiled Candice Keller, a member of the Ohio House of Representatives from District 53, who first won office in her extremely conservative district back in 2016. It has not taken her long to draw headlines for being a raging bigot with a twisted worldview where anyone that isn’t white and straight are the cause of all the ills of the world.

That might sound a bit harsh, but it was only a few weeks into her freshman term in office that Keller submitted a bill that would place any lawmaker who tried to do anything to protect a sanctuary city in jail. She tried justify it by claiming that over 8,000 immigrants in Ohio had gone on a crime spree, but were being protected by sanctuary cities.

”There are 8,000 unauthorized immigrants with criminal records that have been treated by sanctuary cities despite the fact that federal authorities have been requested that they be turned over for deportations. A lot of the culture and a lot of what we are seeing come in includes not only terrorism and crime but sexual assault, sexually transmitted diseases, child marriage, child rape and prostitution. Six states have already reported rape and sexual assault.”

No one in the state seemed to know where she was even getting her statistics.

Now, if It wasn’t abundantly clear that maybe Ohio’s newest state legislator was a screaming racist, Keller went on to promote her bill by going on a radio show hosted by Sonny Thomas, a white power advocate and explain its intent. When she was justifiably called out by the media for hanging out with a professional hatemonger, she claimed she actually intended on being interviewed by a different radio host from Cincinnatti, Brian “Sonny” Thomas. Uh huh.

That isn’t the only controversy Keller got herself into. Back in March of 2018, she attacked the Parkland survivors, dismissing their activism by saying they just are “eating Doritos and playing video games”. In August of this year, she responded to a mass shooting in Dayton, not with “thoughts and prayers” or to break from her party to call for reasonable gun control… instead, she posted a rant on Facebook where she blamed thousands of deaths a year in mass shootings on President Obama, video games, drag queens, and children without fathers:

”After every mass shooting, the liberals start the blame game. Why not place the blame where it belongs?
The breakdown of the traditional American family (thank you, transgender, homosexual marriage, and drag queen advocates); fatherlessness, a subject no one discusses or believes is relevant; the ignoring of violent video games; the relaxing of laws against criminals (open borders0; the acceptance of recreational marijuana; failed school policies (hello, parents who defend misbehaving students); disrespect to law enforcement (thank you, Obama); hatred of our veterans (thank you, professional athletes who hate our flag and National Anthem); the Dem Congress, many members whom are openly anti-Semitic; the culture, which totally ignores the importance of God and the church (until they elect a President); state officeholders, who have no interest whatsoever in learning about our Constitution and the Second Amendment; and snowflakes, who can’t accept a duly-elected President.
Did I forget anybody? The list is long. And the fury will continue.”

We’ll also note that already in her career, Keller has compared Planned Parenthood to Nazis, and expressed her belief that the U.S. will soon fight a second Civil War… over abortion.

And as discouraging as we might find it that someone could be elected to office with such an ugly agenda, we’ve got some even more frightening news… Candice Keller isn’t just running for re-election to the Ohio House of Representatives in 2020… she’s seeking to move up into the upper chamber by running for Ohio State Senate in District 4. She lost in the GOP primary in that attempt, only getting 32% of the vote. With any luck, she does not make another run for office, and this is the last time we have to mention her.

[JackDaw]

I really don't want to keep calling the GOP a death cult, but... *gestures*

Isn’t it time a different acronym was found for Republican Party...”grand” is sort of over-flattering?

I’d suggest COP

[Odd Rödney]

Isn’t it time a different acronym was found for Republican Party...”grand” is sort of over-flattering?

I’d suggest COP

I’d go with CQP: Crazy Qanon Party

[Tami]

Just throwing this out as something I heard on the news. There was a discussion about QAnon and the talk was that QAnon was dying out, but that something even worse was likely to take its place. This based on reporting by someone who has been studying this up close for a long time.

So, who knows what's going to happen next? Nearly 1/3 of the country's population are either hooked on dangerous conspiracy theories or who idolize Hitler or who either are paranoid enough to think that the government is out to get them, or crazy enough to think that the world would be better if the government was destroyed and replaced by the Confederacy 2.0.

[Amadeus Arkham]

[Kirby101]

In that clip, she also says we will not see terrorism come here too. Let's acknowledge how truly awful those people at the Trump White House were. Every one of them.