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

[Malvolio]

Might as well just replace "Republican party" with "America," or perhaps the entirety of Western civilization. These reactionary fantasies that many supposed liberals have of returning to a time when American values were wholesome and genuine instead of racist and oppressive, and when this country actually lived up to its proclaimed ideals of freedom and equality, makes them no better than religious fundamentalists in my book.

Er, when has this country ever lived up to its proclaimed ideals of freedom and equality?

[Malvolio]

OMG I just realized....we're almost living in the prequel to the Star Trek episode Miri

That only works if the virus gives near immortality to anyone under the age of 18.

[numberthirty]

My mind is beyond boggled, I just can't comprehend what I read. And THIS is why the virus is running amok, threatening millions of people. I mean, Jesus, what good is "liberty" when you're hooked up to a ventilator and struggling to breathe? What good is "freedom" when you're dead and in a pine box after having contracted COVID? How is it none of these lunatics understand that?

Man, we are the place that cooked up "Live Free Or Die..."

It's sort of like actually having a right to own a gun. Once it's almost an impossibility that the sort of gun that a citizen can own will serve something like it's intended original intent, is there even a point to that you have the right(well, past hunting...)?

That said, a lot of folks are willing to get completely stupid over those things.

[sammy_hansen]

Might as well just replace "Republican party" with "America," or perhaps the entirety of Western civilization. These reactionary fantasies that many supposed liberals have of returning to a time when American values were wholesome and genuine instead of racist and oppressive, and when this country actually lived up to its proclaimed ideals of freedom and equality, makes them no better than religious fundamentalists in my book.

Ahh, there’s my wet blanket!

[worstblogever]

Back in 2014, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" ran a profile of Rich Iott, a 2010 Tea Party Congressional candidate from Ohio, who had the fun hobby of participating in World War II reenactments, always for whatever reason, dressing up as an officer of the Nazi SS in them, which is the sort of extra-curricular activity that won’t win you any elections.

In 2015, we published our original "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" profile of Tom Smith, the owner of a coal mine who ran for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania in 2012, who was not undone by his stances on same sex marriage, climate change, or privatizing Social Security, as he was his flub during the "War on Women". That being, he was asked if he agreed with Todd Akin about "legitimate rape", and he compared it to a family member who had chosen life in a similar circumstance. That circumstance that was as bad as rape? Having a child out of wedlock. And that... really finished off Tom Smith's chances.

In both 2016, and in 2017, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” presented profiles of the former Nevada Congressman Joe Heck, who came to Washington, D.C. back in the 2010 Tea Party Wave as the U.S. House Representative for Nevada’s 3rd Congressional District, and whose career went sideways after he made an ill-advised attempt at winning a U.S. Senate seat and lost to Catherine Cortez-Masto in the 2016 elections. Now, in spite of the fact that the skunk-haired Heck is a doctor who went to medical school for eight years, he has plenty of moments where you wonder how the hell he could survive in higher education that long. Perhaps the most glaring example of Joe Heck being clueless came in May of 2016, where he agreed with a crowd of constituents that a majority of Muslims wanted to pass Sharia Law in the United States, volunteering that it had already happened in Michigan (not just false, but easily proven false). Heck also managed to embarrass himself when trying to argue about why the attack on Benghazi justified an attempt on blocking the nomination of Susan Rice to be Secretary of State in an interview with CNN’s Soledad O’Brien back in November of 2012, when she pointed out that by his logic, Condolezza Rice was already proven to be a deliberate liar, and was approved to the position by the GOP, but Susan Rice, if she lied at all, would have done so unknowingly. Somehow, though, Joe Heck found Susan Rice to be clearly worse. Wouldn’t you know it, Joe Heck is also a climate change denier, who claims that “CO2 is a natural, biological process”, and that “We’ve Seen Changes In Our Climate Both Ways, And I Think Throughout The Future Millennia We Will Continue To See Climate Change That Goes Both Ways.” The retirees counting on Social Security checks in Nevada, were probably also dismayed that Joe Heck thinks “Social Security is a pyramid scheme” and would like to get rid of it. Heck’s voting record in Congress includes support for hardline anti-choice legislation across the board, including two attempts at defunding Planned Parenthood, votes against disaster relief for victims of Hurricane Sandy, a vote for the 2013 Government Shutdown, and virtually every attempt at repealing the Affordable Care Act. There’s also the matter of Rep. Heck’s son, Joey. Apparently, a parental intervention was needed back in June 2013 after people started to notice the younger Heck had a habit of posting racist, sexist, and homophobic slurs on Twitter, including Joey’s summary during the presidential debate on October 3rd, 2012, between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, where the teen said Romney “raped” Obama in the debate and made him his “slave” before later in the conversation saying the president had achievements “yeah like spear chucking and rock skipping. The sports they do in his home country…” Well, he seems like a good kid, huh? Heck apologized and assured the public he had NO IDEA where all his son’s attitudes came from, but it sure wasn’t anything HE taught him. Joe Heck had one moment of decency towards the end of his career, when he withdrew his support of Donald Trump in 2016 after the Access Hollywood tape emerged. Unfortunately, after he lost to Catherine Cortez-Masto in the Senate race, that only made the rest of Republicans blame his lost on not defending Trump, and dig in to defend any grotesque statements he made going forward. It’s a sad legacy from a terrible politician, really.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2018, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled the former State Treasurer of Ohio, Josh Mandel, who has managed to also be a two-time loser in attempts to defeat U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown for his seat in Washington, D.C. Mandel, as a state legislator, voted against a law to make cockfighting in Ohio a felony, and never gave a valid reason why. In August of 2012, Mandel embarrassed himself even further when he placed himself firmly in the category of climate change deniers, originally just whining about the mythical “war on coal”, and going as far as to say scientific research into climate change “is inconclusive and riddled with fraud.” His main strategy in trying to win office was to tell utterly outrageous lies and get blasted for it by fact-checkers. It would be one thing to say Sherrod Brown had voted for the Affordable Care Act, but that just wasn’t enough of a barb for Mandel, who decided to push the story to the fact that Brown was “the deciding vote”.And Mandel even got a “Pants on Fire” rating from Politifact when he tried claiming that somehow, Sherrod Brown was responsible for half a million jobs in Ohio being outsourced to China, which wasn’t even remotely true. So, yes, Josh Mandel lost. But don’t worry, he had the consolation prize of… a brand new car! Or… wait, he didn’t. Mandel got nailed for campaign finance fraud charge that he tried to keep a vehicle bought using campaign money, and actually tried saying that it was a positive, and proved he was a “fiscal conservative”. In 2014, Mandel won a second term as state treasurer, and was biding his time for six years to try for a bit of political revenge. Still looking like he was 39 going on 13, in 2017, he managed to hustle his way into a promotional ad with Ohio State Buckeyes football coach Urban Meyer, touting a plan to aid disabled Ohioans. Not a bad photo op if you can get it. Unless, of course, taxpayers find out that they’re the ones who paid $1.84 million to see Mandel hanging out with Meyer to promote the program, and ask where the hell most of the money really went. By mid 2017, it was official, Mandel was challenging Sen. Brown again. His 2018 efforts were somehow even worse than those he had six years prior. Because, in November of 2017, for whatever reason, after a report from the Anti-Defamation League, a proud Jewish organization dedicated to fighting back against bigotry and anti-Semitism spoke out against both Mike Cernovich and Jack Pobosiec for fomenting the “Pizzagate conspiracy” (the delusional myth that Hillary Clinton and other high-ranking Democrats were running a child sex ring out of the basement of a pizzeria that did not, in fact, even have a basement, let alone a child sex ring operating out of it)… for whatever stupid reason, Josh Mandel chose to post a defense of the Pizzagate masterminds on Twitter, and call the ADL a “partisan witchhunt group”. If that isn’t sad enough to see, it’s sadder than you think. Josh Mandel is the grandson of survivors of the Holocaust. And he chastised the ADL for holding White Nationalist conspiracy theorists accountable for their lies. And he also had the hypocrisy of defending individuals blatantly making up accusations of pedophilia by a political candidate while simultaneously also being unable to muster the courage to condemn Roy Moore when he was accused of doing the same thing by multiple women when they were teens decades prior (and not just right-wing loons making things up out of whole cloth). Early polling showed that Josh Mandel was likely to fare even worse in his November matchup with Sherrod Brown, between a Democratic Blue Wave and his latest rounds of stupidity. The loss was likely to be by double digits. A month before the candidate deadline to file for office, Mandel dropped out of the Senate race, to spend time with his wife while she was recovering from an unspecified health issue. That’s probably a better reason for leaving a race than Mandel just suffering from chronic rectal-cranial inversion, we reckon. Hopefully she recovers without incident, and her husband’s political career doesn’t

On this date in 2019, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled Javier Manjarres, a 2018 candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives for Florida’s 22nd Congressional District. Let us say now that this guy has the political acumen of someone who climbs into a shark tank after rolling around in a vat of chum first. Manjarres is a Trump supporter and Colombian immigrant who even supports the construction of the stupid-ass border wall. In 2016, he was actually charged with ATTEMPTED MURDER after he attacked his sister’s boyfriend, punching him five times in the face as he went to exit his vehicle, and then reaching for his gun. As the boyfriend drove away, Manjarres fired three shots that struck the truck. Somehow… charges were dropped, and this guy thought, “Well, now I’m Congressional material!” Which is amazing that a guy who attempted to murder someone with a gun would run for office there. You see, Florida’s 22nd Congressional District is the home of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and was not far removed from its student body being victimized by a mass shooting. When it occurred, the Congressman for that district, Democrat Ted Deutch immediately left the capitol, telling staffers “I’m going home.” He then comforted the survivors, and the families of the victims, and called again on smarter gun control laws in our country. Javier Manjarres wasted no time attacking Rep. Deutch, claiming that his statement, “I’m going home” was a lie, and claiming that Deutch didn’t actually live in his district. He then accused him of being a “shameful extremist” who was “exploiting victims of the shooting for political expediency and gain”. If you’re thinking that makes Manjarres an ***hole, you better strap in, because this actually gets worse. One of the victims at Parkland was Jaime Guttenberg, and her father, Fred, already had battled against the NRA and its spokeswoman, Dana Loesch, on Twitter. Only five months removed from Jaime’s death, Javier Manjarres managed to get into a Twitter war with Fred Guttenberg, one of his prospective constituents, and accused HIM of “exploiting his daughter’s death in the name of some political agenda”. Needless to say, that utter lack of humanity and the attempted murder were likely the reasons why Javier Manjarres failed to advance out of the GOP Primary for the seat to represent Florida’s 22nd Congressional District, only earning 34% of the vote in that race. As much as he shot his mouth off prior to the election, it seems unlikely that he could win office anywhere in Florida anytime soon. We’ll retire his profile at this time and take a look at another wacky Republican today instead. (Current crazy/stupid scoreboard, is now 895-45, since this was established in July 2014.)

[worstblogever]

Gary Palmer

Welcome to what is the 895th original profile here at “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day”, where we’ll be discussing the U.S. House Representative from Alabama’s 6th Congressional District, Gary Palmer, who was first elected to office back in 2014, with a previous career of being the president of the Alabama Policy Institute, a conservative think tank. Palmer’s focus on being a social conservative for a quarter century straight was evident through his first term in office, as he was raging about the Supreme Court’s ruling on same sex marriage, throwing tantrums about transgendered Americans using the bathroom of their sexual orientation and not of their birth, and his sponsorship of a bill to defund Planned Parenthood based on outrage over the fraudulent video sponsored by the Center for Medical Progress. He actually had the nerve to complain that Planned Parenthood frequently donates to Democratic candidates, which surprise, this motherf***er takes money from Koch Industries and Trinity broadcasting network, just to name a few.

What truly shows us that Palmer is a true extremist, was how back in October, he was one of 41 Republicans willing to crash a classified hearing regarding Donald Trump and Ukraine that would lead to Trump’s impeachment, a meeting that he and his party actively chose not to participate in. Anyone willing to follow Matt Gaetz’s lead is huffing paint, frankly.

As far as how he’s handled himself during the Covid-19 pandemic, Gary Palmer was calling for the economy to be opened as early as April 22nd (i.e. WAY TOO SOON and part of the reason we’re still seeing Americans die in the thousands daily) and besides that, Palmer is stupid enough to actually argue against the House voting for rule changes to allow for proxy voting and remote work to preserve his life, and that of any other members of Congress in the “at risk” group.

• January 22nd, 2015: Gary Palmer votes for HR 7, an anti-abortion bill that makes even some Republicans pause before voting for it because of its language that tries to define the conditions for what “rape” is, in it.
• February 3rd, 2015: Rep. Palmer votes for the 60th Republican attempt at repealing the Affordable Care Act. This in spite of the fact that by this point, the law is not just working, but better than experts predicted.
• September 11th, 2015: Palmer votes against the United States' nuclear treaty with Iran.
• September 18th, 2015: Rep. Palmer votes for a bill with most House Republicans to defund Planned Parenthood.
• November 19th, 2015: Palmer votes for the American Security Against Foreign Enemies Act, reacting to the terror attacks in Paris by jihadists from France and Belgium by trying to create greater restrictions to keep out Syrian refugees, of whom exactly zero were involved in those attacks.
• February 16th, 2017: Palmer votes for HJR 69, to make it legal for hunters on wildlife reserves to kill several species of hibernating bears or wolves while they’re sleeping.
• May 4th, 2017: Palmer votes for the GOP's healthcare plan, that would allow 24,000 more people to die a year, give $50,000 in tax breaks to millionaires, would eliminate coverage for pre-existing conditions, and would treat pregnancy, post-partum depression, and sexual assault as "pre-existing conditions". Oh, and a provision in the bill would make sure that Palmer would be allowed to keep his healthcare plan as it exists under the ACA.
• June 8th, 2017: Gary Palmer votes for HR 10, the GOP’s attempt to repeal Dodd-Frank financial reform, because what the country really needs is to allow the big banks to make the same mistakes that imploded the economy only a decade earlier.
• October 3rd, 2017: Palmer votes for HR 36, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, that would try to create an unconstitutional ban abortion at 20 weeks (even though medical science tells us fetuses do not have the capability to feel pain until 29 weeks).
• December 19th, 2017: Gary Palmer votes for HR 1, the GOP’s $1.7 trillion tax cut to benefit the wealthiest Americans and corporations permanently that coincidentally also removes the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate and kicks 13 million people off their health insurance.
• February 18th, 2018: Rep. Palmer and his fellow Republicans decide that poor big businesses are suffering too much at the hands of the Americans with Disabilities Act too much, and vote for HR 620, which would strip most of the civil rights protections guaranteed by it.
• January 23rd, 2019: Rep. Palmer voted against HR 648, because he was gleefully enjoying the longest government shutdown in history.
• February 28th, 2019: Palmer votes against HR 1112, a bill which would have required universal background checks on all firearm purchases, and close the gun show loophole.
• March 14th, 2019: Rep. Palmer votes against HJR 46, which sane members of Congress voted for to reject Donald Trump’s “national emergency” regarding the U.S. border and his attempts to reallocate funds for a border wall without Congressional approval.
• April 4th, 2019: Gary Palmer is one of 158 Republicans who choose to vote 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.
• May 17th, 2019: Palmer votes against The Equality Act, which would have prevented discrimination towards Americans based on their gender identity or sexual orientation.
• June 4th, 2019: Rep. Palmer votes against the Dreamers Act, because he’s too xenophobic and partisan to care about immigration reform.
• July 16th, 2019: Gary Palmer votes against a resolution to condemn Donald Trump for his racist statements that four people of color in Congress should “go back where they came from”.
• October 17th, 2019: Palmer is one of 60 Republicans who vote against HJ Res 77, which opposed Donald Trump’s disastrous decision to abandon Syrian Kurdish forces in Northeast Syria to the mercies of a Turkish invasion.
• December 3rd, 2019: Rep. Palmer is one of 71 Republicans who votes against a resolution to disallow Russia from re-entering the G7 and makes it the G8 until it leaves Ukraine.
• December 18th, 2019: Palmer ignores his Congressional duty to hold a president who has been proven to commit high crimes and misdemeanors accountable and votes against the impeachment of Donald Trump.
• May 15th, 2020: Palmer votes against the HEROES Act, to further support the healthcare industry and citizens affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Palmer seems highly likely to earn a fourth term in office, as no Democrats even filed to challenge him in his highly conservative Alabama district. Unless, if by some fluke, his district is reconfigured after the 2020 Census to be less conservative, he’s likely going to remain in office as long as he feels like staying in it. Which… is not a fact we’re thrilled about, to say the least.

[Tami]

Words matter. That’s why we will no longer use the term ‘freeholder.’ | Opinion

Changing the name of the Washington D.C. football team does not lessen the tradition of rooting for the team. Removing the name of former New Jersey governor and U.S. President Woodrow Wilson from Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs due to his racist policies does not lessen the education of its students. Instead, doing so is an important step toward an all-inclusive society and one that does not perpetuate traditions rooted in bias and prejudice. And that’s why Thursday the New Jersey Legislature passed a bill to change the name of our county elected officials from “freeholder” to “commissioner.”

[Steel Inquisitor]

Might as well just replace "Republican party" with "America," or perhaps the entirety of Western civilization. These reactionary fantasies that many supposed liberals have of returning to a time when American values were wholesome and genuine instead of racist and oppressive, and when this country actually lived up to its proclaimed ideals of freedom and equality, makes them no better than religious fundamentalists in my book.

And Democrats are worse than Republicans for some reason, which may or may not involve being better at containing the Chinese government. Who are the real heroes in this story. S/

[InformationGeek]

And now Donald Trump is screaming about banning Tik-Tok. Nothing more important happening right now of course.

[Tendrin]

And now Donald Trump is screaming about banning Tik-Tok. Nothing more important happening right now of course.

More than likely he just wants to ban it given how vital it has been to the tiktok kids in jamming up his campaign a time or two.

[Wildling]

More than likely he just wants to ban it given how vital it has been to the tiktok kids in jamming up his campaign a time or two.

Sounds like a good old get off my social media lawn fit from the golden spray fossil. I was expecting as much since apparently those kids fooled him and Parscale about the yard sale level flop rally a bit ago.

And because I can't stop thinking of how many movies and documentaries are clogged up to release for this era, has anybody told Kevin Bacon he could play, in his evil mode, the current Georgia governor Trump/GOP stooge?

[Robotman]

Trump's continued campaign against the US Postal Service

In recent weeks, at the direction of a Trump campaign megadonor who was recently named the postmaster general, the service has stopped paying mail carriers and clerks the overtime necessary to ensure that deliveries can be completed each day. That and other changes have led to reports of letters and packages being delayed by as many as several days.

Voting rights groups say it is a recipe for disaster.

“We have an underfunded state and local election system and a deliberate slowdown in the Postal Service,” said Wendy Fields, the executive director of the Democracy Initiative, a coalition of voting and civil rights groups. She said the president was “deliberately orchestrating suppression and using the post office as a tool to do it.”

[Username taken]

Trump's continued campaign against the US Postal Service

In recent weeks, at the direction of a Trump campaign megadonor who was recently named the postmaster general, the service has stopped paying mail carriers and clerks the overtime necessary to ensure that deliveries can be completed each day. That and other changes have led to reports of letters and packages being delayed by as many as several days.

Voting rights groups say it is a recipe for disaster.

“We have an underfunded state and local election system and a deliberate slowdown in the Postal Service,” said Wendy Fields, the executive director of the Democracy Initiative, a coalition of voting and civil rights groups. She said the president was “deliberately orchestrating suppression and using the post office as a tool to do it.”

People need to pay more attention to this.

Trump is doing everything possible to sabotage the election and these attacks on the postal service is part of it.

A desperate Trump is a dangerous one.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

More than likely he just wants to ban it given how vital it has been to the tiktok kids in jamming up his campaign a time or two.

The White House (as far as I know) hasn't said squat about Microsoft being interested in buying TikTok, despite alleged security concerns regarding the app. Yeah, this is all about a butthurt Trump wanting revenge for the Tulsa debacle.

People need to pay more attention to this.

Trump is doing everything possible to sabotage the election and these attacks on the postal service is part of it.

A desperate Trump is a dangerous one.

Trump knows what's on the horizon if he loses the election, that being a federal trial and, quite possibly, prison, so he's doing all he can via his henchman running the Postal Service to screw up mail-in voting.