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

[Tami]

The headlines I’ve seen so far on the insulin thing are ridiculous. CNN is “Democrats lose …”. Another was “Democrats fall short …”. Screw that. How about “Republicans vote for higher insulin prices”, “Republicans vote against insulin cap”.

Maybe on TV or something, but this is from the website: Senate passes Democrats’ sweeping health care and climate bill

CNN —

The Senate on Sunday afternoon passed Democrats’ $750 billion health care, tax and climate bill, in a significant victory for President Joe Biden and his party.

The final, party-line vote was 51-50, with Vice President Kamala Harris breaking the tie. The package is the product of painstaking negotiations, and its final passage would give Democrats a chance to achieve major policy objectives ahead of the upcoming midterm elections.

The Democrat-controlled House, which is expected to take up the legislation on Friday, August 12, must approve the bill before Biden can sign it into law.

The sweeping bill – named the Inflation Reduction Act – would represent the largest climate investment in US history and make major changes to health policy by giving Medicare the power for the first time to negotiate the prices of certain prescription drugs and extending expiring health care subsidies for three years. The legislation would reduce the deficit, be paid for through new taxes – including a 15% minimum tax on large corporations and a 1% tax on stock buybacks – and boost the Internal Revenue Service’s ability to collect.

It would raise over $700 billion in government revenue over 10 years and spend over $430 billion to reduce carbon emissions and extend subsidies for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act and use the rest of the new revenue to reduce the deficit.

Senate Democrats, with a narrow 50-seat majority, stayed unified to pass the legislation, using a special, filibuster-proof process to approve the measure without Republican votes. Final passage came after a marathon series of contentious amendment votes known as a “vote-a-rama” that stretched nearly 16 hours from late Saturday night until Sunday afternoon.

[useridgoeshere]

Maybe on TV or something, but this is from the website: Senate passes Democrats’ sweeping health care and climate bill

Look down three headlines … “Democrats lose effort to cap insulin at $35 for most Americans before passage of Senate reconciliation bill”.

My post was specifically referring to insulin.

[babyblob]

Look down three headlines … “Democrats lose effort to cap insulin at $35 for most Americans before passage of Senate reconciliation bill”.

My post was specifically referring to insulin.

Republicans block on all fronts Democrat efforts to make life saving medicine cheaper for all Americans.

That is damn sure how it should have been written.

[numberthirty]

The headlines I’ve seen so far on the insulin thing are ridiculous. CNN is “Democrats lose …”. Another was “Democrats fall short …”. Screw that. How about “Republicans vote for higher insulin prices”, “Republicans vote against insulin cap”.

Look...

Republicans didn't say that they were going to look out for the voter on the price of insulin.

If you are the one saying that you are going to address it, you are the one who is going to get the credit/blame once the whole thing shakes out.

[CSTowle]

There are Rights that are not up to a majority of voters. The Supreme Court rightfully ruled in Roe that a woman's medical decision is one of them.

What is taught in school, or what we spend on the military are not Rights.

There are issues like gay marriage or gay adoption or the ongoing discussion of trans rights that, while you and I may think should be left to the individual, nonetheless are voted on by representatives who are voted on by all of us collectively.

I'm not saying it's ideal, just that it is. I often hear (from both sides of the aisle) that rights are universal, inherent, etc. but the truth is they're not. We have to decide on them as a society (usually by voting for representatives, who then vote and vote on those who will decide their fitness in the courts), and while luckily we live in a country that in the grand scheme of things values individual and human rights more than the average we're not perfect for many (either not as tolerant or too permissive, depending on your perspective) and has been shown just this year rights can be stripped away.

There's no guarantee we're going to go in the direction in the future that you or I may want either. Unless you're a religious person there's no indisputable set of rules or laws or rights that we're entitled to. If we want them we have to work towards them by doing things like voting, and convincing others that either don't care or don't agree that we're better off as a society if we have those things.

A large portion of the population just wants to be left alone and not told what to do (whether it's the right thing to do or not), and another portion has an idea that the moral teachings of a desert tribe written thousands of years ago when far less was known about the universe and keeping the tribe in line and pumping out young farmers and soldiers was top priority was the pinnacle of morality (except where it's inconvenient, then probably ignored). We're going to have to work around both things if we want to have a society with more rights. They are certainly not guaranteed, and won't be left to the individual to decide (whatever we might wish).

[numberthirty]

Exactly that. Why CNN didn’t call out Qpublicans for their neverending obstruction, I have no idea.

If you need CNN to handle that one for you?

You might not actually be cut out for politics.

[CaptainEurope]

If you need CNN to handle that one for you?

You might not actually be cut out for politics.

Are you saying that the way media reports on things has no effect on how people vote, or that said effect, if it exists, can be copletely undone by a party's own messaging?

[numberthirty]

Are you saying that the way media reports on things has no effect on how people vote, or that said effect, if it exists, can be copletely undone by a party's own messaging?

Put simply...

- First - Go back in time to when the ACA passed.
- Second - Think about if Republicans were fine with the ACA passing or not.
- Third - Seriously ask yourself if Republicans needed the media to explain why the ACA was bad for Americans(whether it actually was or not...), or if they handled doing that on their own.

Did some of the media play into how they handled doing that on their own? Sure.

Did they wait around for the media to do it themselves before they jumped on it?

Come on...

[numberthirty]

Past that...

The media are own their own side. Have been for decades now.

If you are waiting for that side to do the right thing?

Again, might want to think about doing something that has right around "Zero..." to do with politics.

[Tendrin]

Are you saying that the way media reports on things has no effect on how people vote, or that said effect, if it exists, can be copletely undone by a party's own messaging?

fuckdemocrats.jpg

Please remember the attached 'Guide To Understanding 30's Politics'.

[numberthirty]

fuckdemocrats.jpg

Please remember the attached 'Guide To Understanding 30's Politics'.

Long story short...

Past that...

The media are own their own side. Have been for decades now.

If you are waiting for that side to do the right thing?

Again, might want to think about doing something that has right around "Zero..." to do with politics.

The actual fact of that?

Ain't got much to do with what I actually do think of Democrats.

That said, a party that is waiting around for that fact to change?

Probably ought to rethink doing so, at the very least.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, as well as 2021, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” published profiles of Pete Sessions, the former U.S. House Representative from Texas' 32nd Congressional District, and somehow still only the second s***tiest person to hold the surname Sessions in American government. In our first look at Rep. Sessions, we identified him as a man perpetually under investigation for ethics investigations, who as the former chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee would assure the “party of family values” would meet annually in Las Vegas to see burlesque shows for entertainment, but then was OUTRAGED when Janet Jackson’s nipple fell out at the Super Bowl halftime show. In news stories you only wish were made up, we also talked about how Sessions once missed the ceremony to take his oath to uphold the Constitution because he was too busy attending a fundraiser, and how he was the one who helped orchestrate the 2013 Government Shutdown as a head of the House Rules Committee.

In our 2015 follow up on what hijinks Pete Sessions had gotten up to, we added his continued extremist voting record, as well as how he had accused the Obama Administration and Democrats of being “accountable for murders everyday committed by illegal immigrants” that they release (that aren’t actually happening), and how he reacted to the Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling on the Affordable Care Act by saying that they had decided that “words do not matter” for upholding the flimsy challenge presented in King vs. Burwell. In March of 2016 Pete Sessions decided it’s a great time to introduce legislation “recognizing magic as a rare and valuable art form and national treasure confirming that he believes in magic more than he does climate change (and he’s produced more legislation to acknowledge it). After House Republicans in ruin any chance of passing funding for the prevention of the Zika Virus by repeatedly inserting “poison pill” legislation, if not far underfunding the cost estimates to successfully prevent the disease, Rep. Sessions said that it was proof that the House was running properly (Note: He still considers himself a champion of the unborn).

And, after the tragic mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Pete Sessions tries to invalidate that the shooter was motivated by resentment towards gays, and instead lied to try and change the narrative, claiming, The Pulse wasn’t “even a gay club. It was a young person’s club. They were Latinos”. (Someone might want to tell Rep. Sessions that young people or Latino people can also be gay. Oh, and that the Pulse is actually a gay nightclub, it clearly says so on their website and was founded as such in the memory of a gay man who died of AIDS.)

Sessions faced no Democratic challenger in the 2016 elections, and coasted to earning an eighth term in office with 71% of the vote against the scarecrows put out by the Libertarian and Green Parties, respectively. But, After fourteen-plus years of Pete Sessions’ bulls***, it seems that maybe even a red district like Texas’ 32nd has decided they’re fed up with him. At a March 2017 town hall, Sessions was mercilessly heckled and jeered by the audience, who were chanting “PETE MUST GO”. He didn’t make matters much better when he during his discussion of Trumpcare that he tried a unique method for calming them down… patronizing:

"I understand why you're so frustrated. You don't know how to listen."

Actually, Pete, the problem might be that you’re not listening to your constituents, what with voting for a healthcare bill that only 20% of the country or less think is a good idea. Whether or not all the boos from that town hall translate to the polls in November of 2018, but did Pete Sessions end up with someone badass enough to take him down? OH. HELL. YEAH. Colin Allred… pull up a chair. Make no mistake, football is one of the biggest pillars of Texas life, and Allred was a four year starter for the Baylor Bears who went on to play in the NFL for the Tennessee Titans. But maybe you’re thinking that makes him just some slab of beef that Team Blue is running? You would be so, so wrong. Allred is also a law school graduate from the University of California-Berkley who specializes in civil rights law who worked in both the Obama White House, for Julian Castro, and the U.S. Attorney’s office. We were ecstatic to watch on Election Night 2018 when results were coming in, and Republican Congressmen were sent packing, and among their number? Pete Sessions’ dumb ass, as he only got 45% of the vote against Allred.

Here's the thing, though… Pete Sessions. Like a bad penny, the motherf***er turned up again. He carpet-bagged his way over to Texas’ 17th Congressional District where he’s ran for, and won the seat that was being vacated by the retiring Bill Flores. TX-17 is the third separate Congressional District that Pete Sessions has tried to be the representative of since he arrived in Washington, D.C. in 1997, and it has a +12 Republican lean, which is 7 points more conservative than TX-32, where he lost in and abandoned in 2018.

[worstblogever]

Thus, he returned to Washington, and jumped right back into the role of being a partisan s***heel:

• January 6th, 2021: Pete Sessions votes for the objection to the electoral college’s votes in the 2020 election, a failure to send any sort of message that he wasn’t intimidated or sympathetic to those who attacked the Capitol to attempt a violent coup.
• January 13th, 2021: Rep. Sessions votes against the second impeachment of Donald Trump, because the Republican Party no longer feels like they should be accountable for anything, including failed coups that result in the deaths of both their participants and police officers.
• February 4th, 2021: Pete Sessions votes to keep Marjorie Taylor Greene’s committee assignments, because he wouldn’t want her to be accountable for all the bigoted remarks and conspiracy theories she’s spread online (probably because she’s a kindred spirit).
• February 25th, 2021: Sessions votes against HR 5, the latest version of the Equality Act, that would provide workplace protections for LGBTQ Americans.
• March 3rd, 2021: Rep. Sessions votes against HR 1, a bill created to prevent the corruption of money in politics, and protect voter access to the ballot box.
• March 3rd, 2021: Pete Sessions votes against the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2021.
• March 10th, 2021: Sessions votes against the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, because he feels people deserve to die in poverty during a pandemic.
• March 17th, 2021: Rep. Sessions votes against the re-authorization of the Violence Against Women Act, likely because they feel the 2nd Amendment remaining absolute is more important than preventing people with a history of domestic abuse from owning a firearm (which statistics show, makes them more likely to use those firearms against women in their lives).
• May 19th, 2021: Pete Sessions votes against HR 3233, the creation of a commission to investigate the Capitol Attack.
• November 5th, 2021: Pete Sessions votes against HR 3684, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
• March 31st, 2022: Sessions votes against HR 6833, the Affordable Insulin Now Act, which would limit the cost that drug companies could list insulin at to $35 and make sure no diabetic was priced out of surviving their condition. Pete Sessions would rather they be gouged by pharmaceutical giants and/or die.
• May 18th, 2022: Pete Sessions is one of 192 Republicans who vote against HR 7790, to create supplemental funding for infant formula (while claiming to be pro- life).
• May 18th, 2022: Rep. Sessions votes against HR 350, the Domestic Violence Prevention Act, because these days, a plank of the Republican Party is ostensibly domestic terror.
• May 19th, 2022: Sessions votes against HR 7688, a bill which would help prevent gas companies from gouging customers on prices.
• July 15th, 2022: Pete Sessions votes against House Amendment 262, which would require the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, and Secretary of Defense to publish a report on the infiltration of American law enforcement by Neo-Nazis and white supremacists, offer measures to be taken to remove them from their ranks, and prevent further infiltration by others.
• July 19th, 2022: Rep. Sessions is one of 157 Republicans who vote against the “Respect for Marriage Act”, which would codify same sex marriage into law nationally.
• July 21st, 2022: Sessions is one of 195 Republicans who vote against the Right to Contraception Act, which codified the right of Americans to have access to birth control.

Now, perhaps more telling than Sessions’ voting record upon his return to Washington, DC was that he spent the weeks in between Election Day 2020 and January 6th, 2021 egging on the “Stop the Steal” crowd repeatedly, which, surprise, led to an attempt by domestic terrorists to attack the Capitol on that day. On January 3rd, 2021 Sessions posted on Twitter that he had met with the “Stop the Steal” organizers and encouraged them to “keep fighting”. When the media started noting who was responsible for inciting the mob in the days that followed while the country was in shock, Pete Sessions cravenly deleted the post on Twitter, hoping that nobody would remember his role in helping set off the powder keg.

And that, of course, is how you know the GOP are aware how responsible they are. When the true political animals try pretending it never happened, and nobody saw anything.

Pete Sessions continues to use his position in Congress to not help anyone but himself, as he’s currently under investigation for violating the STOCK Act. Whether or not his support of a failed coup and the fact that he’s been as corrupt as they come for two decades… we hold out hope that a second Texas Congressional District that elected him sees through his bulls*** and instead votes for his opponent, Mary Jo Woods, in November.
 

[Tendrin]

I have a question for WBE.

Now that Louis Gohmert is leaving congress, how are you intyending to celebrate the eventual retirement of *the* profile?

[hyped78]

No, I imagine it would be fired by a right-wing protestor who's been enamored by laws that allow people to run over protestors or 'stand your ground'. Maybe someone who idolizes Kyle Rittenhouse who got away with something very similar, or who's a member of one of the MANY 'militias' out there.

Then again it might be a cop who guns down the wrong unarmed protestor, but I doubt that the first shot would be aligned with the left as they have to be worried about the police reacting violently to their unarmed protests while most of the time aggressive people open carrying are looking for the excuse for someone to cause them a problem so they can assert their rights. At least that's what I could tell from the few I have met, as they rarely if ever get hassled by police.

A crazy protestor or a cop firing a shot doesn't trigger a civil war... those are actually things that unfortunately already happen quite often

But didn't you say that we shouldn't go to extremes to call people far-left?

Same as calling people far-left and socialists. Lead by example!

No, I didn't say that at all? I said I consider Trump/ MTG far-right and Bernie/ Corbyn far-left. Regarding "socialists", Bernie describes himself as a "democratic socialist", so I wouldn't be calling him something he doesn't already call himself

Got an alert that Alex Jones has been ordered to pay $45 million to Sandy Hook parents. To quote Montgomery Burns….EXCELLENT!

Does he even have the money?

I remember when they showed the Blob putting on reading glasses, it broke the Internet in half. What there was of the Internet back then.

Huh? The water in Germany must've gone bad. This is a Comic Books forum, btw.