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

[numberthirty]

Or Cohen knows he's in enough trouble and won't admit to blackmail.

Back into the deck, Mulder!

Again, that's like the idea that Bolton heard Trump insult the military and is just tucking that leverage in his back pocket.

At the very least, Cohen would probably tank any deals he as cut if anyone can prove he was involved in blackmailing Falwell.

Seems like "Lots Of Risk...."/"Right Around 'Zero' Reward..."

[Zauriel]

Trump Declares Himself “the No. 1 Environmental President”

He’s decided he’s the greatest environmentalist “since Teddy Roosevelt.”

Since taking the oath of office 45,000 years ago, Donald Trump has made it abundantly clear that he has about as much regard for the environment as he does for soldiers who die or are captured during war. In that time, he’s ditched the Paris climate agreement; gutted regulations on toxic air pollution; moved to poison about 60% of the nation’s waterways; embraced a pesticide that causes brain damage in kids; rolled back Obama-era fuel efficiency standards; and replaced his predecessor’s Clean Power Plan with “regulations” that would turn the planet into a urinal cake and kill up to 1,400 Americans a year. Not only has he done everything in his power to bury the environment in a shallow grave, he does so as a point of pride. So you probably wouldn’t have expected President Love Me Some Coal to declare himself the greatest environmentalist in more than 100 years but, surprise!

President Trump on Tuesday banned oil drilling off the coasts of Florida, Georgia and South Carolina—dramatically expanding a more narrow expiring moratorium covering Florida’s Gulf Coast. Trump compared himself to conservationist President Teddy Roosevelt during a speech in swing-state Florida, which he called “my home.”

“Number one since Teddy Roosevelt. Who would have thought, Trump is the great environmentalist?” he said. “I am, I am. I believe strongly in it.”

In his remarks in Florida, Trump touted his recent signature on the National Parks-funding Great American Outdoors Act. In that context, he first compared himself to Roosevelt, who was president from 1901 to 1909. “They came to my office, a lot of the senators that I just introduced and [Florida Governor] Ron [DeSantis] and everybody, they came to my office, they said that this will make us and make you the number one environmental president since Teddy Roosevelt,” Trump said. “I said, ‘Huh, that sounds good.’ Because I wasn’t going to do it, I figured you know let’s not do it. But when they said that, that was like a challenge. So I said, ‘Well, why does it only have to go back to Teddy Roosevelt, which is over 100 years? Why can’t we say from George Washington?’… They said. ‘Well, we’re not quite there yet, but one other bill like this, we will be there.’”

His actions speak differently than his words.

[Tendrin]

I was thinking about how your avatar is a close-up of mine...

I had it first! ;P

[numberthirty]

Considering that character's profile, it probably doesn't hurt for at least two folks to have that avatar...

[Tendrin]

Considering that character's profile, it probably doesn't hurt for at least two folks to have that avatar...

Just fooling.

[numberthirty]

Just fooling.

Sure.

Doesn't really change that the character can use all of the "Street Team..." that he can get.

[Tendrin]

Sure.

Doesn't really change that the character can use all of the "Street Team..." that he can get.

Yes, it really needed you to provide commentary.

[Zauriel]

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/08/u...ase/index.html

Rochester police chief retires amid protests over Daniel Prude's death

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Well that's suspicious and probably illegal.

In short, our tax dollars are paying for Trump's defense. Let me say this again, folks----OUR. TAX. DOLLARS! While I'm sure Moscow Mitch and the rest of the gutless Republicans in Congress will either brush it off, hide in their offices to avoid commenting or worse, say it's Trump's prerogative, Joe, Kamala and the Democrats need to scream bloody murder about just how freaking illegal that is!

[The Cool Thatguy]

Trump Declares Himself “the No. 1 Environmental President”

He’s decided he’s the greatest environmentalist “since Teddy Roosevelt.”



His actions speak differently than his words.

It still gets me how Trump always declares he's the best/most whatever, like a six year old, and his followers still think he's some kind of genius.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" published profiles of U.S. Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa, the woman whose original campaign for office in 2014 was built around running ads where she shot up copies of the Affordable Care Act with a gun (which she offered as a 2nd Amendment alternative to the government not operating as we like three weeks prior to the election), and promised to go to Washington, D.C. to use her experience growing up on a farm castrating hogs to make veteran politicians "squeal". Since being elected, Sen. Ernst has continued to be a vacuous never-ending stream of moronic, pandering statements. A few examples include her State of the Union rebuttal where she talked about walking home from school wearing bread bags on her feet on wet or snowy days during "tough times" (which she grew up during the Reagan administration, so...), the time she said Hillary Clinton "wasn't doing enough on women's issues" (ignoring like, her entire quarter century record on them), and claiming President Obama ordered flags lowered to half mast after a mass shooting in Chatanooga because "he wanted to distract from the Iran deal". She also voted against funding the Department of Homeland Security, as well as voted to defund Planned Parenthood in her first nine months in office. And the GOP is hell bent on making Joni Ernst one of their "rising stars" of the party. Giving her the rebuttal of the 2015 State of the Union wasn't enough for them, and they wanted to make sure she got a prime-time slot at the 2016 Republican National Convention to cement herself nationally as a figure in the Republican Party. There was just one problem... the 2016 RNC was, of course, being overseen by the wisdom of Donald J. Trump. As such, the long line of Trump-backed speakers coming out to fear-monger pushed Ernst's remarks further and further back into the night, as well as The Donald's own WWE-styled entrance on Night 1 of the convention just to introduce his own wife, Melania, so she could plagiarize Michelle Obama at length took precedence. By the time Joni Ernst got on stage to bad-mouth Hillary Clinton (which everyone else had already spent the whole night doing), over half the delegates and attendees had already left that night, probably closer to nine tenths (check the photo from correspondent Alan Rappeport). Those who remained had already been in their seats for over four hours, and barely seemed to even notice a U.S. Senator was pandering to them, and Ernst reported found speaking to an empty arena "excruciating". We find that to be true of her voting record, where she has twice voted to defend the Second Amendment rights of suspected terrorists, and feels that anyone on the “no fly list” should still have a firearm. And even though she claims she’s “pro-life” to her core, Ernst voted against funding for the prevention of the spread of Zika Virus, which causes birth defects in the unborn.

Since the beginning of 2017, Joni Ernst voted for the Senate GOP’s attempt to repeal Obamacare that crashed and burned on a 51-49 vote, voted to place Neil Gorsuch onto the Supreme Court, and voted to confirm every single member of Donald Trump’s “Cabinet of Horrors”. That’s part of the reason her constituents wanted to make the supposed pig farmer “squeal” herself when she has returned to Iowa for her own halls in July of 2017, where people who depend on affordable healthcare to survive kept her scrambling, and the only real applause she got through the whole night was when she agreed with them that Donald Trump should release his tax returns.

Six months later, it didn’t get much better. In January of 2018, Ernst hosted another town hall, and her own constituents laughed in her face when she defended their criticism that Donald Trump’s talk of white supremacy wasn’t doing anything to help our standing with countries around the world, and Ernst was asked what countries Trump’s rhetoric helped, and she meekly responded, “Norway”. As in, Norway, a country that is 83% Norwegian, and predominantly white. The crowd of Iowans also audibly groaned when Sen. Ernst defended Trump from charges of being racist, saying he wasn’t racist “deep inside”.

That town hall didn’t have the only folks back home who are disenchanted with Joni Ernst, as only a little more than a year ago, her husband filed for divorce. (And the timing would be potentially damning if there’s anything in the court documents that would get released in the middle of her 2020 re-election campaign.)

Joni Ernst has only accelerated her downfall as her freshman term as a senator winds down... She has yet to castrate anything in Washington, D.C., that we know of, has yet to produce any legislation of note, and seems to be a running joke for the GOP. Her re-election campaign kicked off in June 2019, and what was Ernst’s rallying cry? “THE RADICAL LEFT WANT SOCIALISM FROM COAST TO COAST!!!” Keep in mind, she’s stupid enough to try to deride government assistance at a time when Iowa farmers are desperate to get more of it because of Donald Trump’s stupid trade war with China and all the tariffs getting thrown around crippling her state’s farm industry. She’s also claiming that “Medicare for All means Healthcare for None”, because she hasn’t developed a better lie to attack it like better people at messaging did during the Tea Party Wave to lie about the Affordable Care Act. And her constituents are noticing, heckling her at town halls throughout the state, and mocking her openly when she does things like try to convince people that active shooter drills were something that used to take place in schools when she was a child (again, she grew up during the Reagan administration, so she’s full of s*** about that).

She’s also a goddamned hypocrite when it comes to the Supreme Court, as she sat and watched Mitch McConnell hold up a seat on the court in the year before the 2016 election that should have gone to Judge Merrick Garland, but now that it’s 2020, and there’s only months before this one, she’s ready and waiting for Ruth Bader Ginsburg to keel over so she and the GOP can hot-shot the next alleged rapist like Brett Kavanaugh into place to do kegstands at the SCOTUS. She sees no double standard on that.

A lot has happened since our last update on Joni Ernst, and the biggest narrative that she’s botched politically while running for re-election is how she’s responded to the Covid-19 pandemic. She’s tried to simultaneously criticize President Obama’s handling of an Ebola outbreak that she campaigned on six years ago where only two people died, while claiming Donald Trump’s handling of Covid-19, where 150,000 people died in four months was “stepping forward”. Just a few days ago, as she is beginning to see polls where she’s in a dead heat or trailing her Democratic opponent, Theresa Greenfield, Sen. Ernst began promoting a completely originally conspiracy theory… that Covid-19 numbers aren’t as bad as the media is reporting, and greedy doctors are only reporting more positive tests so they can bilk more money out of health insurance companies. Does that sound bats*** crazy and incredibly hard to prove? Because it is.

Dear Iowa: Six years ago, you made a mistake. It happens. It’s now 2020, and you have all the proof you need to swap out a self-identifying hog castrator for an actual sensible, caring, reality-based Senator. Get that done, please and thank you.

[thwhtGuardian]

Trump has become such a caricature of himself that he has blurred the line between satire and reality.

He hasn't blurred it to the point where someone claiming he blamed WWII on Obama is credible though, it's funny satire because Trump does make crazy claims but at the same it is obvious satire and if you can't tell it from reality you need help in your life.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Ruh-roh:

AstraZeneca Pauses Covid-19 Vaccine Trial After Illness in a U.K. Subject

’Worst case scenarios’ at Sturgis rally could link event to 266,000 coronavirus cases, study says

Half a million US kids diagnosed with Covid-19

[InformationGeek]

Ooooooooh WBE!

NC Senator Tillis staffer responds to constituent with cancer asking what to do because she can’t afford health insurance by joking that if he “doesn’t have the money to buy a new dress shirt, he doesn’t get to buy one” and telling her to “figure it out.” https://t.co/a6mfTh3U70

[Tami]

No, The Government Did Not Break Up A Child Sex Trafficking Ring In Georgia

Human trafficking has been having an eventful summer. In July, internet sleuths accused online retailer Wayfair of selling missing children in overpriced cabinets. In August, QAnon supporters (along with some well-meaning if ill-informed influencers) held nationwide “Save the Children” rallies.

And last week, there was the trailer story.

“U.S. Marshals Find 39 Missing Children in Georgia During ‘Operation Not Forgotten,’” proclaimed the government’s official press release. Federal agents and local law enforcement, it said, had rescued 26 children, “safely located” 13 more and arrested nine perpetrators, some of whom were charged with sex trafficking.

t wasn’t.

“This was not a designated anti-trafficking operation,” Darby Kirby, a U.S. Marshals Service inspector involved with the operation, told HuffPost. Operation Not Forgotten, the name law enforcement gave the recovery effort, was a collaboration between state and federal authorities to locate 78 “critically missing” children. That term means they could be at risk for trafficking, but they could also be at risk of parental abuse or have medical conditions that make their recovery more urgent.

The operation was a success. Authorities found all but 13 of the 78 missing children. Of the 65 they located, 39 were “recovered,” meaning they were removed from whatever situation they were in — which could be anything from living on the streets to crashing on a friend’s couch to staying with a parent who didn’t have custody rights. The other 26 cases were closed without the child being “recovered.” Albright said this could mean that another agency, such as Child Protective Services, found them — or that they had been home all along.

Yeah, there was no trailer.

Federal agents did not rescue a large number of children from a single location — or even a single jurisdiction. Kirby told HuffPost that only two children were recovered together. The other kids were found individually across 15 Georgia counties and six other states: South Carolina, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Florida, Kentucky and Michigan. The operation took place over two weeks, not one night.

In other words, the “sex trafficking sting” described in headlines and social media posts was neither a sex trafficking operation nor a sting. Kirby noted that the agency did not conduct any raids (she capitalized and underlined the word “not” in her email) during the effort to locate the 78 children. This was a knock-on-doors and question-suspects situation, not a bust-in-with-a-battering-ram kind of deal.

It’s also worth noting that the operation was also set up to arrest children, not just rescue them. Katie Byrd, the communications director for the Georgia attorney general’s office, noted that two of the missing kids were suspects in homicide cases, and one was a person of interest in another.

Plus, 11 of the kids had, in Byrd’s words, “some kind of gang affiliation.” Byrd did not specify how many juveniles were arrested in connection with the operation, but, according to numbers her office provided, it appears that up to seven warrants were issued for underage offenders.