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

[worstblogever]

On this date, in 2014, in 2015, and in 2016, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" published profiles of former six-term Georgia Congressman Lynn Westmoreland, , who is perhaps most famous for passionately campaigning for bills he wrote to recognize the Ten Commandments in all public schools and courtrooms (which isn’t constitutional). He was later interviewed by Stephen Colbert during his “Better Know a District” series, and was asked to name the Ten Commandments he loved so much, and could not. Rep. Westmoreland’s press secretary later claimed that the segment was edited to make him look bad, and said that he actually successfully named SEVEN of the ten. He’s also been known to be controversial on matters of race, having campaigned against the renewal of the Voting Rights Act as far back as 2006, and having referred to the first African-American president and first lady as “uppity”, only to be shocked when the media informed him that the term was racially charged. He has since had the decency to only refer to Barack Obama as “our enemy at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue”, which is somehow an improvement in discourse. He’s also lambasted the media for having the nerve to report stories about Hillary Clinton and Benghazi (which he also thinks Obama should be impeached over) that indicate she committed no wrongdoing, and demanded investigations to prove that her top aide, Human Abedin, was not a secret operative for the Muslim Brotherhood. Westmoreland retired in 2016.

It was on this date in 2017 that “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled A.J. Kern, a failed candidate for Congress from Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District in the 2016 elections whose career would best be described as “Monetizing Islamophobia”, as she is one of many known bigots in the state who spread as many lies as thy can about Muslims, which have led to an increase in attacks upon Somali immigrants in the state. Perhaps her most insane rant is against “female gential mutilation” being performed by Muslims, in spite of there being no edict in the Quran about such a thing. When she doesn’t do that, she claims Somali immigrants are driving up state and federal budget deficits because they somehow (she’s not clear on her math) exploit government assistance programs. Kern also agreed with Ben Carson during his 2016 presidential campaign, he stated his belief that the United States should never have a Muslim president. Apparently, she felt like Congressman Tom Emmer hadn’t hated Muslims enough, or that he was too busy being a homophobe to be a good enough Islamophobe, so A.J. Kern decided to challenge him for what was once the seat in Congress held by CSGOPOTD Hall of Famer, the bats*** Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann. A.J. Kern managed to snag 26% of the vote in the GOP Primary in 2016 and 18% in 2018, which should tell you a lot about the modern Republican Party, that a person whose resume amounts to “dedicated bigot” could get over a quarter of their votes. She has returned to just giving hate speeches around Minnesota and isn’t currently running for elected office.

On this date in 2018, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profile, where we’ll be discussing Jim Newberger, a candidate for U.S. Senate in Minnesota to challenge Sen. Amy Klobuchar here in 2018, who cut his teeth in the Minnesota House of Representatives since 2012. Perhaps Newberger’s most infamous moment in his six years as a state legislator was back in 2015, when Minnesota Democrats were discussing expanding their own light rail out past the St. Cloud prison (no stops in that neighborhood, we would guess), and Newberger chimed in, saying, "Right on the edge of St. Cloud, maybe a half a mile, a quarter-mile, from the rail tracks is the St. Cloud State Prison.... Boy, wouldn't that be convenient, to have that rail line going from that prison to North Minneapolis…" For those not in the know, Northern Minneapolis is also the most diverse community in the entire state, and is where most of the Somali immigrant population of the United States has settled. So… immediately after Newberger blurted that out, he was raucously booed by his colleagues, and immediately tried backtracking before putting out an insincere apology. And no, that xenophobia wasn’t a one-off, as during his campaign, Newberger has been calling for a block on all refugees being resettled in Minnesota, warning of the “rise of Sharia Law” and Muslim “no-go zones” in the Land of 10,000 Lakes (neither of which are happening). But if supporting the kind of bigotry that Newberger does wasn’t off-putting enough, he is also a defender of climate change, instead offering the incorrect scientific theory that the Earth is somehow moving closer to the sun. This stupid theory is debunked on NASA’s home page, suffice to say it shows a great deal of ignorance on Newberger’s part. Newberger’s voting record shows him consistently voting against minimum wage increases and workplace protections, supporting transphobic bathroom legislation, and voting against the legalization of same sex marriage. Newberger failed miserably in his attempt to unseat Sen. Amy Klobuchar in the 2018 elections and has yet to re-emerge in politics

On this date in 2019, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled Courtland Sykes, a 2018 candidate for U.S. Senate in Missouri whose campaign strategy was to try to win over Republican voters by being the most sexist candidate in the race. When asked in a forum about your stance on women’s rights, he answered, “I want to come home to a home cooked dinner every night at six. One that she fixes and one that I expect one day to have daughters learn to fix after they become traditional homemakers and family wives. Feminists push an agenda that they made up to suit their own nasty snake-filled heads. I hope my daughters don’t go on to be career obsessed banshees who forgo home life and children and the happiness of family to become nail-biting manophobic hell-bent feminist she devils who shriek from the top of a thousand tall buildings they are think they could have leaped in a single bound — had men not been ‘suppressing them.’ It’s just nuts.” Needless to say that the press took attention to this misogynistic lunatic, and were wondering, “WHO THE HELL IS THIS GUY?” after he opened with that rant… and they were left with more questions than answers. Sykes apparently just moved to Missouri from Arkansas, where he worked as a defense contractor, and prior to that, he was a Congressional aide to Arkansas Congressman Bruce Westerman. Big surprise, he was anti-abortion. Also not shocking… he supported Donald Trump’s stupid idea for a border wall along the U.S./Mexico border. The only other political stance that could be found from Sykes was that he attacked the media for being too “liberal”, and claiming it was “fake news” like Trump, and that he was a fervent defender of Roy Moore. Courtland Sykes ended up finishing 9th out of 12 possible candidates in the GOP Primary for Missouri’s U.S. Senate seat, getting only 2.1% of the vote and has thankfully disappeared from view. As he seems unlikely to ever reach office, we will set aside his profile at this time, and take a look at another wacky Republican today instead. (Current crazy/stupid scoreboard, is now 929-45, since this was established in July 2014.

[worstblogever]

Mike Dunleavy
Welcome to what is the 929th original profile here at “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day”, where we’ll be discussing the sitting Governor of Alaska, Mike Dunleavy, who was first elected to office in 2018 after serving for six years in the Alaska State Senate. It was about six months into his term as governor that the people of Alaska realized how deep they stepped in it by electing him when he started trying to defund anything that didn’t agree with his hyper-partisan point-of-view, including the University of Alaska, and the Alaska Supreme Court, who he was annoyed with for daring to uphold funding to Planned Parenthood. Because, y’know, spitefully defunding your own state Supreme Court is a normal thing that happens, right? But those two budgetary vetoes are but the tip of the iceberg for what he wants to trim funding off of. This sparked a recall effort the next month in July, and gathered twice the required number of signatures, but sparked a legal battle over the past year and change where the Republican Attorney General of Alaska, Kevin Clarkson, has tried invalidating the recall effort by claiming that Gov. Dunleavy has not done anything wrong that would warrant a recall. The Alaska Supreme Court ended up having to rule that yes, the recall could go forward, but the effort again required more signatures to be gathered.

This is hardly normal, and gives you an idea of how much he’s loathed as a leader of a state.

But we’re not going to simply label his abuses of power as the reason we’ve dropped a profile on him, as he’s also quickly becoming the latest in a long line of high profile Republicans who are best described as “Covidiots”. After several local reporters in Alaska noted Gov. Dunleavy was flouting mask guidelines and appearing maskless in public at fundraisers, days later, they’re reporting on how a number of people within his governor’s office have begun testing positive for Covid-19. But at this point, the only thing hampering more signatures being gathered to boot Dunleavy from office is the recall effort heeding public health guidelines. But Dunleavy won’t have Kevin Clarkson around to protect him, as he resigned after getting busted for sexually harassing a subordinate and sending her hundreds of uncomfortable text messages. Dunleavy might help him survive until the 2022 elections, but they might not be patient enough to wait that long, given that the state has seen wildfires, earthquakes, and a pandemic hit Alaska, and the governor seems clueless on how to do anything that isn’t simply, “help oil companies get rich”.

[worstblogever]

I want the monopoly on the drugs wifey’s taking. I’ll be richer than Warren Buffet inside of a week. By the way, Higgins sounds like a loon too.

If you want a reminder of who we're talking about...

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

[Tendrin]

Among many other great things, it includes tuition free public college for all families with incomes below 125,000. That means 80% of American families — the 80% who really need the help, could send their kids to college without incurring debt, for themselves of their kids.

BuSinEss aS Usualk111111

[PaulBullion]

I love the fact that Lou Dobbs is throwing Lindsey Graham under the bus for

(checks note)

not doing anything about oBaMAgATE.

Lou may have really given the Senate majority to Democrats with this.

[Tendrin]

I love the fact that Lou Dobbs is throwing Lindsey Graham under the bus for

(checks note)

not doing anything about oBaMAgATE.

Lou may have really given the Senate majority to Democrats with this.

I think that necessarily overestimates the impact of Lou Dobbs, tbh.

[Mister Mets]

So these guys aren't Nazis?

They seem to want to be considered the successors to the group that killed millions, so these guys are Nazis.

Prominent members of the Trump administration are probably not Nazis.

[Mister Mets]

Americans aren't ready for any kind of serious introspection into how we leverage our military and economic power to keep most of the world starving and destitute to secure the supply of natural resources and cheap labor, or how all of the ways that our sociopolitical system is supposedly broken are simply just natural consequences of the inherent flaws in how our racist, slave-owning forefathers set it up. People just want to be able to go to brunch and get their nails painted again, never mind the pandemic, global warming, institutional racism, or all that.

Extreme poverty around the world has been steadily declining which doesn’t quite fit the idea that Americans are trying to keep the rest of the world destitute.

[PaulBullion]

I think that necessarily overestimates the impact of Lou Dobbs, tbh.

I would think that the overlap of people who vote for Graham and people who believe everything Dobbs says is pretty significant.

[PaulBullion]

Trump Vs. Biden Race Tilts Toward Democrat After Last Debate, IBD/TIPP Presidential Poll Shows

[Tendrin]

trump vs. Biden race tilts toward democrat after last debate, ibd/tipp presidential poll shows

..but hunter biden guyz

[worstblogever]

Prominent members of the Trump administration are probably not Nazis.

As Sebastian Gorka attended the inauguration wearing a Hungarian-Nazi group's medal...

[PaulBullion]

They seem to want to be considered the successors to the group that killed millions, so these guys are Nazis.

Prominent members of the Trump administration are probably not Nazis.

The word "probably" does a lot of work in that post. A lot of work.

[Mister Mets]

..but hunter biden guyz

Hunter Biden's younger than Trump was when he cheated on his wife with a porn star shortly after the birth of their child, and bragged about grabbing women by the pussy, so he's got a few years left to mature.

[PaulBullion]

what


Anyway, several members of Senator Loeffler's staff tested positive, but she vows not to quarantine and typhoid mary as many places in Georgia as she possibly can.