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

[JackDaw]

Speaking of UK vaccinations, the anti-lockdown rally in Trafalgar Square had some truly insane moments.

Anti-vaxx conspiracy theorist Kate Shemirani tells rally that healthcare workers fighting COVID could face Nuremberg-style trials

Kinda nice to see that the US doesn’t have a monopoly on bat-**** crazy.

*I guess CBR doesn’t allow this site.

She’s been in UK news a fair bit, truly bizarre individual, her own kids have been trying in vain to get her to see sense, stop talking nonsense, and get vaccinated.

And…of course…you’re right every country this side of heavens door has got a good supply of nutcases.

[BeastieRunner]

Speaking of UK vaccinations, the anti-lockdown rally in Trafalgar Square had some truly insane moments.

Anti-vaxx conspiracy theorist Kate Shemirani tells rally that healthcare workers fighting COVID could face Nuremberg-style trials

Kinda nice to see that the US doesn’t have a monopoly on bat-**** crazy.

*I guess CBR doesn’t allow this site.

[worstblogever]

Saving this guy for a later CSGOPOTD but...

Maine GOP state legislator Chris Johansen and his wife have been posting anti-vaccine and anti-mask content on social media for the past year and a half...

You'll never guess who are now hospitalized now with Covid-19. Mrs. Johansen had the added precondition of asthma, and is having a decidedly rough time of it.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Saving this guy for a later CSGOPOTD but...

Maine GOP state legislator Chris Johansen and his wife have been posting anti-vaccine and anti-mask content on social media for the past year and a half...

You'll never guess who are now hospitalized now with Covid-19. Mrs. Johansen had the added precondition of asthma, and is having a decidedly rough time of it.

Karma not just came knocking on the Johansen's door, she kicked it in, and now they're suffering. That sort of thing always seems to happens to anti-vaxxers. Can't imagine why though. (said with tongue in cheek)

[Tami]

Questions the January 6 Select Committee Should Ask Its Witnesses

The House select committee established to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol will hold its first public hearing on July 27. Like the 9-11 Commission before it, the select committee is investigating how our nation’s defenses failed and how we can prevent similar attacks from occurring again. In an era when alternative facts have all too often substituted for the truth, it is important for Americans to have a definitive, reliable understanding of what happened. That will be a difficult challenge in today’s hyper-politicized environment, so it is critical that the committee function as a neutral collector of the evidence, acquiring relevant information and following it wherever it leads, without any predetermined outcome.

At the outset it is important to distinguish the mission of the select committee from that of the criminal investigations being conducted by the Department of Justice, which has charged more than 500 defendants with crimes. Whereas DOJ’s role is to bring criminal charges, the select committee must instead examine and chronicle what happened leading up to, on the day of, and in the wake of the attack, including the failure by government agencies and officials to properly assess the threat, collect intelligence, share information, act on that information, and provide adequate security for the Capitol and the people who were there that day. By necessity, the inquiry must study the threat of domestic terrorism in America, particularly groups that are motivated by anti-government sentiment and white supremacy. The committee should review the ways these extremists use social media and other communications platforms to recruit members and coordinate activities, and the role of disinformation in fueling violent extremism.

The committee should consider the acts and omissions of executive and legislative branch entities and individuals, up to and including former President Donald J. Trump, his associates, and others involved in the runup to the events of Jan. 6, and the use of disinformation to incite violence. Suggesting collection of this evidence is not to presuppose liability; but the country needs an accurate record, collected as contemporaneously to events as possible. Only by understanding all of the factors that did or did not contribute to the attack can we hope to prevent similar attacks in the future.

Listed below are some of the topics, witnesses, and documents the committee should seek to obtain voluntarily, or by subpoena where necessary, as well as some of the key questions to be asked. Witnesses, in fulfilling their civic responsibilities, should proactively address some of these questions in their prepared remarks without having to be asked by a member of the committee. Journalists and the general public may also want to keep an eye on these questions as a guide to key areas that should be covered in the hearings and in the select committee’s final report. Finally, the lists below may serve another, indirect purpose. They show current and former U.S. officials who may want to communicate with the committee — including potential whistleblowers — questions of importance to Congress and the American public in uncovering the truth.

[worstblogever]

On this date, in both 2014, as well as in 2015, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" profiled Allen West, the former Tea Party Congressman from Florida’s 22nd Congressional District, who was forced into retirement by the United States Army for detaining an Iraqi policeman and using advanced interrogation techniques like threatening to shoot him in the head, and firing the gun next to his ear, causing him to lose half his hearing. Attempting forced confessions in this matter is frowned upon in most rational circles, because we don’t live in the universe of Jack Bauer, you see. In his one term in Congress, Allen West said things like, “Joseph Goebbels would be proud of the Democratic Party”, “take your message of equality of achievement and take it to Europe, to the bottom of the sea, to the North Pole, but get it out of the United States of America”, that people with Obama bumper stickers were “a threat to the gene pool”, that the Democratic Party is “a 21st Century plantation”, that there were “78 to 81 communists in the Democratic Party”, that “George Bush got snookered into going into some mosque, taking his shoes off, and saying Islam was a religion of peace”, and chastised the Pentagon for saying “tolerance and inclusion” were a key to mission success. Allen West backed a military strike in Benghazi, over a year after the attack on the diplomatic compound there, as if the perpetrators were still holed up and waiting. He’s also convinced the Muslim Brotherhood has infiltrated our government, that President Obama is a secret “Islamist”, and that any Muslim advocacy group is secretly a terrorist organization. Oh, and illegal immigrants are being used to spread diseases through the population as a biological warfare experiment by the Obama administration, that gay marriage will lead to a civil war, and complained when the state of South Carolina moved to take down the Confederate flag at the state capitol, blaming it on “Islamofascists and socialists” who were attempting to re-write history “just like ISIS and the Taliban”. He is, for lack of a better term, a goddamn lunatic. While Allen West has been booted from office for half a decade, yet he still has a following in Tea Party circles, who bizarrely think he’s telling it as it is. West has gone on to start his own “journalism” site online, that exists simply as a platform for West to editorialize world events through his own paranoid, deranged prism. There have been growing rumors that West may run for Congress in Texas in 2020, but that is unconfirmed at this time.

On this date in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, as well as in 2020, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” presented profiles of the sitting U.S. House Representative from North Carolina’s 6th Congressional District, Mark Walker, who has already caught our attention while serving in his freshman term in office. As some of our more extreme GOP House members seem to be, Mark Walker was a newcomer to politics, only formerly serving as a pastor before jumping into politics in 2014, where he has deeply concerned for his psychological stability. At a town hall, he derided Islam, saying, “You can’t have a religion of peace when you’ve got nearly a billion” – that’s with a “b” – “people chopping off heads all over the country.” He also talked of impeaching President Obama for things he never did and will never do, like refusing to leave office, instituting Sharia Law, and “spending billions on vacations” (Obama spent less time on vacation than any president in decades). Walker also casually discussed going to war with Mexico to stop border crossings (because that wouldn’t make more people flee there), saying the military along the border could "laser or blitz somebody with a couple of fighter jets". He felt war with Mexico would be okay because "We've done it before." Ah, a pastor willing to go to war over immigration, just like Jesus would have wanted. Walker also made a threat to shut down the government over Planned Parenthood funding, and his belief that any criticism of North Carolina’s HB2 law is “bullying” (which is precisely backwards) and perpetuating the myth that transgendered citizens are assaulting women in public bathrooms. Walker’s outlook on climate change from his website isn’t just denial, but a partisan attack on Democrats, or as he called them, the “secular left”, who he accuses of using the issue to get rich. Anyway, during the GOP Primary in 2014, Pastor Walker, not surprisingly, stated his absolute dedication to being pro-life, without exceptions. Once he got to the general election of course, he suddenly DID believe in exceptions for rape and incest. His voting record once he got to office indicates his primary stance was his true one. On June 21st, 2016, as House Democrats staged a sit-in on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives after the largest mass shooting in modern history in Orlando, trying to force Speaker Paul Ryan and Republicans to vote on legislation to make sure that those on the no-fly-list for being suspected terrorists could also not by firearms to carry out terror attacks…Paul Ryan attempted to hide the GOP's embarrassment by cutting C-SPAN cameras filming the sit-in, only to discover Democrats were filming it on Periscope, and providing live-feeds on the internet. Mark Walker wasn't going to take the protest in stride, and got on Twitter to shame the Democrats for their gun control support, by comparing their move to the REAL masters of the sit-in, who fought during the Civil Rights era: "Calling this a sit-in is a disgrace to Woolworth's. They sat-in for rights. Dems are 'sitting-in' to strip them away." There was just one humungous problem with that line of attack... one of the leaders of the Democratic sit-in was Georgia Congressman John Lewis. As in, civil rights hero John Lewis, who crossed the bridge in Selma only to be clubbed in the head by police, and actually SAT at the Woolworth's lunch counter that Mark Walker was referencing during his social media white-splaining. There's barking up the wrong tree, and then there's putting on a dog suit and yapping at a cactus until you get poked in the nose. Walker had done the latter. Mark Walker was torched by his constituents in a town hall he hosted in March 2017, where many were turned away from attending, and only eleven… ELEVEN people were allowed to ask questions. The less than a dozen who did so, though, were concerned about the AHCA and its potential effects, and called out Rep. Walker on several attempts to lie or deflect to justify his vote for that god-awful legislation. We will finish our update by pointing out that with such relevant issues happening in our country such as Russia hacking into our election systems, or how we could better protect those voting systems… Mark Walker likes to get on social media to focus on other, more pressing issues. Like to complain about “government waste” evidenced by the installation of small ramps near the reflecting pool in our nation’s capitol so that ducklings can get in and out without drowning. A soul so compassionate, he’d rather see dead baby animals on his way to work than have any solution created with taxpayer dollars. A man who is only pro-life as it applies to fetuses, and not any living being. Walker’s fanaticism has even angered his own Republican colleagues, including during the brief search for a new House chaplain in April, when Walker requested candidates have “adult children and wives”. That ended up having him being forced to leave the committee to pick the next chaplain because he just effectively admitted he wanted to disqualify anyone who was Catholic, off hand, given their vows of chastity making the whole “wife or kid” prerequisite impossible. Apparently he’s only tolerant of fellow Baptists, at this point. Mark Walker opted to not run for re-election in 2020, which may or may not have something to do with the fact that he was implicated in a corruption probe by federal investigators. He is believed to have accepted $150,000 for his campaign in a bribery scheme to force North Carolina Insurance Commissioner Mike Causey to replace his deputy. As he is now out of office, we will retire his profile at this time to cover another kooky Republican today instead. (Current crazy/stupid scoreboard, is now 1008-50, since this was established in July 2014.

[worstblogever]

Sammy Gindi
Welcome to what is the 1008th original profile here at “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day”, where we’ll be profiling Sammy Gindi, who was a 2020 candidate for U.S. House of Representatives in New Jersey’s 6th Congressional District. He is of course, yet the latest in our long line of Qanon conspiracy theory supporters who were running for Congress in 2020, but that was far from the only conspiracy theory he spread on social media.

It seems Gindi’s campaign strategy, which was, “troll a lot and wish death on the left”. That isn’t an exaggeration, as he posted this gem while discussing his “pro-life exceptions” on Twitter in April of 2020:

“I am 100% anti-abortion. Unless it comes to liberals. Please do the rest of America a favor and do not breed.”

Gindi also managed to spread the conspiracy theory that Joe Biden was suffering from late-stage Alzheimers, and other anti-Islamic conspiracy theories about Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar:

“If anyone knows Arabic, she is saying Praise Allah, just like suicide bombers who yell Allah Akbar before blowing themselves up,” he said. “She is literally saying praise god for many Americans dying. How did we get such a unabashed traitor in the house?”

Sammy Gindi literally got zero votes as a write-in candidate in the GOP Primary. Yes, this dips*** couldn’t even be bothered to remember to vote for himself.

And it’s not like winning the primary was a high bar to clear, considering his opponent, Chrisitian Onuoha defeated him with only 504 votes himself.

We think that means this would be his only run for office. And it will be harder for him to troll, since he was enough of a dips*** that Twitter has banned his account.

YOU HATE TO SEE IT. *wink*
 

[skyvolt2000]

Does Greg Abbott have a profile???? If not here is some ammo

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/07...r-health-care/

Gov. Greg Abbott said Monday he was preparing to take action to restrict transition-related medical care for transgender minors in Texas after legislation to do so failed during the regular session.

"I have another way of achieving the exact same thing, and it's about a finished product as we speak right now and may be announced as soon as this week," Abbott said during a radio interview. He did not provide further details.

https://www.chron.com/coronavirus/ar...s-16340505.php

In a letter signed to Gov. Greg Abbott and the Texas Education Agency Commissioner Mike Morath, 32 Texas Representatives are asking the pair to reconsider the current COVID-19 protocols amid a shocking jump in cases this month. The letter asks the governor and commissioner to allow Texas school districts to offer fully funded virtual learning and enforce masks in school.

On July 20, Abbott told Houston TV station KPRC he won't impose another face mask mandate, despite the rapid rise of the highly contagious delta variant in Texas. Instead, Abbott says it's time for individual responsibility and leaves it up to parents if they want their children to wear a mask or not.

Former San Antonio Mayor Julián Castro also chimed in on the matter, writing on Twitter that Abbott is so "afraid of losing his primary" that he'll put millions of children, their education, and their families at risk.

In Texas, the positivity rate rose from 12.7 percent to 13.22, and the number of hospitalizations broke 4,000 on Friday for the first time since March, according to data from the Texas Tribune. As of July 24, about 43 percent of Texans have been fully vaccinated.

https://www.kvue.com/article/news/ed...6-f6288a66fc7f

Four prominent lawmakers — one each with ties to Baylor University, Texas Christian University, Texas Tech University and Texas A&M University — met with Gov. Greg Abbott’s staff Thursday, one day after news broke that UT and OU had reached out to the Southeastern Conference about joining, according to a source briefed about the meeting and an Abbott spokesperson. Abbott is a UT alumnus and outspoken Longhorn fan.

The four lawmakers were Rep. Greg Bonnen, R-Friendswood, who chairs the influential House Appropriations Committee and attended Texas A&M; Rep. Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, who received his law degree and MBA from Texas Tech and chairs the powerful House Calendars Committee; Rep. Jeff Leach, R-Plano, who chairs the House Committee on Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence and was a student body president at Baylor; and Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, chair of the Health and Human Services Committee and a former TCU athlete.

Now we had that power outage and THIS is the mess Republicans want to talk about.

[worstblogever]

Does Greg Abbott have a profile???? If not here is some ammo

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/07...r-health-care/



https://www.chron.com/coronavirus/ar...s-16340505.php




https://www.kvue.com/article/news/ed...6-f6288a66fc7f



Now we had that power outage and THIS is the mess Republicans want to talk about.

Oh, he's got a profile... HEEEEEY ABBBOTTTT!!!

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/202...tt-2020-Update

[Malvolio]

Sammy Gindi
Welcome to what is the 1008th original profile here at “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day”, where we’ll be profiling Sammy Gindi, who was a 2020 candidate for U.S. House of Representatives in New Jersey’s 6th Congressional District. He is of course, yet the latest in our long line of Qanon conspiracy theory supporters who were running for Congress in 2020, but that was far from the only conspiracy theory he spread on social media.

It seems Gindi’s campaign strategy, which was, “troll a lot and wish death on the left”. That isn’t an exaggeration, as he posted this gem while discussing his “pro-life exceptions” on Twitter in April of 2020:



Gindi also managed to spread the conspiracy theory that Joe Biden was suffering from late-stage Alzheimers, and other anti-Islamic conspiracy theories about Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar:



Sammy Gindi literally got zero votes as a write-in candidate in the GOP Primary. Yes, this dips*** couldn’t even be bothered to remember to vote for himself.

And it’s not like winning the primary was a high bar to clear, considering his opponent, Chrisitian Onuoha defeated him with only 504 votes himself.

We think that means this would be his only run for office. And it will be harder for him to troll, since he was enough of a dips*** that Twitter has banned his account.

YOU HATE TO SEE IT. *wink*
 

With that few votes for the entire Republican primary, I'm guessing this is one of those "safe" districts in New Jersey that are 99% Democratic.

[CTTT]

Any Conservatives post here? I hope I'm not alone. Geez, it's a forest fire in here with all the negativity about Republicans. Show me a Dem who's not smart and does stupid things.

[numberthirty]

Any Conservatives post here? I hope I'm not alone. Geez, it's a forest fire in here with all the negativity about Republicans. Show me a Dem who's not smart and does stupid things.

Already happened.

[numberthirty]

Past that?

The Republican Party is a lost cause, and has been for ages.

It's like saying that Insane Clown Posse dig Faygo.

Pointing that reality out?

It is about "Negativity..." in the same way that saying "Screamin' Jay Hawkins had an issue with having children out of wedlock..." was "Negativity..."

[Tami]

Any Conservatives post here? I hope I'm not alone. Geez, it's a forest fire in here with all the negativity about Republicans. Show me a Dem who's not smart and does stupid things.

Ask and you shall receive

State lawmaker won't seek reelection after anti-Asian slur

DOVER, Del. -- Democratic House leaders in Delaware have indicated that they have no plans to initiate an ethics investigation that could lead to the ouster of a fellow Democrat who used a racist and sexist slur to refer to sex workers.

Amid public backlash and calls for his resignation, Rep. Gerald Brady of Wilmington said in a statement issued Monday that he would not seek reelection after his current term expires.

“I cannot in good conscience ask the voters to put their faith in me again after I betrayed theirs,” said Brady, who is executive director of the Delaware AFL-CIO and was elected to the House in 2006.

Brady made the racist comments in a June 27 email he inadvertently sent to an advocate for decriminalizing prostitution. Thinking he was forwarding an email from an advocate to another person from whom he was seeking input, Brady instead mistakenly hit “reply” and sent his comments to the advocate.

“Is the dude basically saying, if we provide free (sex acts) for Uncle Pervie there will be few rapes and few (a slur for Chinese women) will be shipped in CONEX containers to the Port of Wilmington??” Brady wrote from his official government email address.

[Tami]

The YouTubers who blew the whistle on an anti-vax plot

"It started with an email" says Mirko Drotschmann, a German YouTuber and journalist.

Mirko normally ignores offers from brands asking him to advertise their products to his more than 1.5 million subscribers. But the sponsorship offer he received in May this year was unlike any other.

An influencer marketing agency called Fazze offered to pay him to promote what it said was leaked information that suggested the death rate among people who had the Pfizer vaccine was almost three times that of the AstraZeneca jab.

The information provided wasn't true.

It quickly became apparent to Mirko that he was being asked to spread disinformation to undermine public confidence in vaccines in the middle of a pandemic.

"I was shocked," says Mirko "then I was curious, what's behind all that?"