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

[worstblogever]

Me to WBE's failing liver: Attachment 124023

[worstblogever]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...79d4329d67b7c5


This election is unprecedented territory and will carry with it numerous surprises. We really don't know what's going to happen. The overturning of abortion rights and the attendant horrors it has already brought have placed us there.

The smartest evil bastards are aware they're the dog that caught the car.

McConnell says Republicans may not win Senate control, citing ‘candidate quality’

For Moscow Mitch to start conceding defeat in the mid-terms and lowering expectations that he'll be Majority Leader again in August... there's something cooking, for sure. We've seen individual polls that aren't in Republican candidates' favor, but... I'll note, he still feels like they have a chance at taking back control of the House due to gerrymandering.

[worstblogever]

It was on this date in 2014 that “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” published a profile of Joe Wurlzebacher, aka "Joe the Plumber", who after getting fifteen minutes of fame from his sudden appearance late in the 2008 presidential race where he pretended to be an unaffiliated voter whose business would supposedly be greatly harmed by Barack Obama's tax plan, was actually revealed to have been working without a license, and to have grossly exaggerated what his earnings were (so he would not have been in the tax bracket that would have been inconvenienced anyway). While the McCain campaign lost all use for Wurzelbacher, Fox News and the Tea Party movement kept dragging Joe the Plumber in front of microphones for several years that followed, where he would say offensive or idiotic things like talking about lynching Senator Chris Dodd, or how "Our Founding Fathers knew communism and socialism didn't work", which would have been quite the revelation for them, as it would be over a century before those systems of government would even be conceived. Wurzelbacher was finally prodded into attempting a run for office in 2012 against Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur, and kept embarrassing himself by being quoted linking gun control to the Holocaust andto stop illegal immigration by "put a damned fence on the the border, going to Mexico, and start shooting". The minute of Wurzelbacher's 15 minutes came in 2014, when after the Isla Vista killings, he got on social media to write an open letter to the grieving families only four days after the shooting that said, in part, "Your dead kids don't trump my Constitutional rights. We still have a right to bear arms." He has now become a forgotten footnote in American politics, at best.

It was on this date in 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018, that “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” shared our profiles of Ohio Governor John Kasich, who we said at the time was the moderate* candidate in the GOP Presidential primary field, with the asterisk denoting how whenever Kasich supposedly had a moderate position, you could find either a quote to contradict that supposed moderate stance, or the fact that it only meant he wasn't as extreme as the other 16 nuts in the field. During the Clinton administration, John Kasich twice voted for government shutdowns. He still defends the lie that he told to justify that action to this day, and never delivered on his promise to “change parties an become a Democrat if the Clinton economic plan didn’t steer the economy into a ditch” that he had said at the time. Kasich spent six long years from 2001 to 2007 as a forgettable FOX News anchor, hosting the show Heartland, spending a lot of that time working a second job for the Lehman Brothers, earning somewhere between $140-500K a year (depending on bonuses) until the banking giant declared bankruptcy. As Governor of Ohio, Kasich signed a sweeping anti-union law to limit the collective bargaining rights of public workers. It ended up being repealed when Ohio citizens signed a petition to put it on the public ballot, to sidestep what Kasich and his allies in the legislature had done. In his February 2012, Kasich gives his “state of the state” speech in Ohio, and offered the energy policy, "We’re the Saudi Arabia of coal. Clean it and burn it. Clean it, Gordon, and burn it. Clean it, Battelle, and burn it. Use it.” John Kasich signed one of the most aggressive anti-choice laws in our country’s modern history on July 3rd, 2013, which featured a myriad of measures restrictive to women including medically unnecessary, mandatory ultrasounds for any woman seeking an abortion, the doctor providing the service to read a pre-written anti-choice speech to the patient, preventing rape crisis centers from mentioning abortion, stripping Planned Parenthood of most of its funding, redefining pregnancy, and forcing doctors at abortion clinics to have admitting privileges at a hospital or be shut down, which closed seven of the sixteen clinics in the state (and yes, that last part was by design). Under Gov. Kasich’s leadership, police departments in Ohio have been at the forefront of several news stories about brutality against citizens, including various incidents resulting in the death of citizens. Amongst those killed include Samuel Debose, John Crawford, Tamir Rice, Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams. Kasich did little in response, only laying out an executive order that said that lethal force should not be an option to be used against a fleeing suspect*. (Which was already the law.) In June 2015, Kasich expressed his “disappointment” at the Supreme Court’s ruling on same-sex marriage. When LGBTQ advocates still began asking if Ohio would do something to prevent discrimination based on sexual orientation, since you can be fired for being gay in Ohio, Kasich was quoted as saying, “Let’s not create problems where there frankly is none- or very little.” Once he was in the presidential race, Kasich decided to publicly state his opposition to birthright citizenship for the children of immigrants born in the United States, and the repeal of the 14th Amendment. Through the 2016 GOP Primary, Kasich still managed to piss off any variety of women or other supporters. Like how he missed out on any potential endorsement from teachers’ groups when he was recorded confessing that if it were up to him, he would abolish teacher's lounges, altogether. Or how about when Kasich tried some voter outreach towards Hispanics, by talking about how nice the Hispanic maid that cleaned his hotel the previous night was. So nice... he actually tipped her. And the misogyny. John Kasich was speaking at the University of Richmond, and a girl in the audience asked him about what his immigration policy will be like. He seemed to try and blow the young woman off, making a joke at her expense and belittling her inquiry by telling her, "I'm sorry, I don't have any tickets to Taylor Swift." Or while campaigning in Dubuque, Iowa, a prospective female voter asked Gov. Kasich about how he had managed to do reasonably well in balancing Ohio's state budget, and he responded by asking her, "Have you ever been on a diet?" At a town hall in Virginia, Kasich harkens back to the good old days, boasting about how women used to "leave their kitchens" to campaign for him. And at a CNN town hall, Kasich inexplicably started flirting with a questioner in response to her question of who he might pick as a vice-presidential running mate, asking her, “Are you available? You look great tonight." At yet another town hall in Waterton, Pennsylvania, Kasich was asked what policies he might enact to curtail the growing number of sexual assaults on college campuses to make her feel safer on campus, and he advised her to "not drink at parties" (This revealed that in Kasich's mind, the onus of preventing assault is entirely on the victim). On April Fool’s Day 2016, Kasich celebrated the holiday properly at another town hall and while bragging about his record as governor, touted several positive statistics. Oddly, he brought up the infant mortality rate not being as low as he would like, and blamed minorities, saying, “The issue of infant mortality is a tough one. We have taken that on and one of the toughest areas to take on is in the minority community, And the community itself is going to have to have a better partnership with all of us to begin to solve that problem with infant mortality in the minority community, because we’re making gains in the majority community.” Critics responded by pointing out that Kasich had cut funding to Planned Parenthood and several other health programs that helped young mothers and their children. It wasn’t until May 4th, 2016 that John Kasich finally... FINALLY announced he was dropping out of the 2016 presidential race and was the last Trump opponent to concede defeat. He then reneged on his pledge to support the Republican Party's nominee from months earlier, and stubbornly refused to attend the Republican National Convention to endorse Donald Trump, or speak in any way… which was the only admirable thing we can say about him. John Kasich, had not made much of a peep since the 2016 Republican National Convention, when aides revealed that Mike Pence was not Donald Trump’s first choice for Vice-President, and Donald Trump, Jr. had called one of his aides to offer to make him “the most powerful vice-president in history”. But during the Trump administration… when Donald Trump is at his weakest, like say when the Comey memos dropped? That’s when Kasich pops up on cable news to give an “I told you so.” When the day-to-day things like extremists and lunatics being placed in the Cabinet or on the Supreme Court? Silence. Even after Charlottesville, as Donald Trump went out of his way to not criticize Neo-Nazis and White Supremacists and even in some places defend them, sure, John Kasich went on cable news to call his Trump Tower press conference “terrible”, but he balked at the thought of going to Republican leaders and ask them to denounce Trump saying, “Look, he’s our president, okay?” Kasich’s going to create dissent within the GOP without looking like he’s doing it. Because, surprise, he saw a “moral imperative” to challenge Trump in 2020. He failed, of course, due to the nihilism of his party and their cultish devotion to Trump. He endorsed Biden for president, and has practically vanished from public view since.

[hyped78]

His opinion on russia's illegal war is a disappointment, but not unexpected:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...skiy-blame-war

I also remember a comment from another forum made by someone from Brazil, it was something like "We have a candidate who is racist, sexist, homophobic, corrupt populist. And his opponent Bolsonaro."

That's a good one!
It looks like Bolsonaro is also not condemning Putin:
https://www.reuters.com/world/bolson...on-2022-02-27/

Newsmax. The sad middle child of right wing news. FOX News is the eldest, who gets to be a little bit mature every now and then and admit that Democrats have a point when Republicans go too far. Then there's the baby, OAN, who continue to throw their tantrums, even after they've been de-platformed by having every satellite and cable provider remove them from their packages. But Newsmax is somewhere in between. They know enough not to say things blatantly that could get them sued, but you'll never her them give a kind word to a Democrat or liberal and the only time you'll hear them criticize a Republican is when that Republican is someone like Liz Cheney attacking Donald Trump.

In some/ many countries, those channels wouldn't be allowed to exist

[worstblogever]

On this date in both 2019, 2020, as well as 2021, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” published profiles of Virginia State Senator Amanda Chase, who represents District 11, and is pictured above using open carry firearms laws to ensure her protection as she submits bills on the floor of the Virginia State Senate where she has served since 2015.

Chase began brandishing her firearm as a “deterrent” to anti-immigration protesters who she imagined were out to kill her in January of 2019. It’s not only her firearm obsession, as she’s also decidedly against LGBTQ rights, having voted for marriage officiants to deny people same sex marriages, against bills that would prevent racial discrimination in housing, and also voted against bans on gay conversion therapy on minors.

She started her career palling around with former Congressman Dave Brat prior to him getting the boot from Virginia voters in 2018, and how she was openly talking about banning books from the state’s libraries that she took personal objection to. And ejecting anyone from a town hall who had the nerve to disagree with her or Brat.

Amanda Chase also has shown herself with contempt for law enforcement, such as when she was screaming at state capitol police for not getting to park wherever she pleases whenever she wants, and whining about the Equal Rights Amendment not being applied to her because of being denied drive-up access to the capitol. When the incident made the news with the official police report back in April of 2019, she referred to the police as “partisan liars”.

In July of 2019, she decided to get on Facebook to boast about her pistol-packing, and used it to point out that she hadn’t been raped, in a way that blamed rape victims for their own assaults:

“It’s those who are naive and unprepared that end up raped. Sorry but I’m not going to be a statistic.”

But maybe you would expect someone to has referred to her gun as “my own ERA”, and the actual Equal Rights Amendment as “a ploy by the left to eliminate gender altogether”.

Then in September of 2019, two months prior to the Virginia off-year elections, she put her foot in her mouth again when she ran ads on Facebook about how she is “not afraid to shoot down” gun control groups. After immediate outrage, she admitted that her ad was poorly worded, and released a second version where she unironically declared “gun rights are women’s rights” while leaving in the more offensive statement.

In June of 2020, Chase made headlines yet again when during protests over the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, she claimed calls to remove Confederate monuments were an “overt effort to erase white history”.

”I think it's racially insensitive and racist in itself not to respect the history of all Americans. It's all about shoving this down people's throats and erasing the history of the white people. And I think it's wrong. I would never do that to another person, another culture. Removing the Robert E. Lee statue is a cowardly capitulation to the looters and domestic terrorists.”

Guess it’s official, that she’s a white nationalist now, especially with how her Facebook page has become a frequent source of paranoid ramblings about Antifa.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, she went to a local restaurant, and when she was asked to wear a mask, she allegedly threatened to sue them because she had “a medical exemption” to wearing a mask per Virginia’s state mandate to so.. Y’know, the mask that you need to avoid the medical situation that is Covid-19. She dug in on this unscientific nonsense enough that when she refused to wear a mask on the floor of the Virginia State Senate, she forced the solution to create a plexiglass partition around her desk at taxpayer expense so that she wouldn’t spread respiratory droplets upon the rest of the people present. Rather than, y’know, wear a piece of cloth on her face.

Now, in a development that honestly should surprise no one, Amanda Chase was present during the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, 2021. She has since lied and claimed that it was a “peaceful” rally and any violence was the result of operatives who infiltrated the protest to frame Trump supporters, referring to the domestic terrorists who stormed the building as “patriots”, saying that Ashli Babbit was “murdered” by police, and that “The insurrection is actually the deep state with the politicians working against the people to overthrow our government. She was censured for her presence, and her comments in the wake of the attack by the Virginia State Senate, with three Republicans joining Democrats to vote for it.

Chase tried suing to overturn her censure (she is becoming more impotently litigious), but was unsuccessful in her attempt.

Instead, she’s continued to promote “The Big Lie” about election fraud stealing Trump’s not-a-victory from him, and wants to do a repeat of the “fraudit” conducted in Arizona’s Maricopa County in her own state, because it wasn’t embarrassing enough when it happened in Phoenix.

Amanda Chase had a run for Governor of Virginia in 2021, finishing third in the nominating votes at her state party convention, which may have had something to do with her embarrassing her party further having an aide pull a gun on a constituent during a live online debate she was having on gun control. She responded to the announcement that the Virginia GOP would hold their primary in this method back in February by suing her own party, and having a judge quickly dismiss her groundless case.

So it seems like she might have some issues with them.

In 2022, Amanda Chase made an ill-fated run for Congress, seeking to unseat Democratic Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger, but never even made it on the ballot. Maybe rallying people to her cause was difficult because she was facing scrutiny regarding her association with OathKeepers leader Stuart Rhodes (there’s video of them together on January 5th, a day before the Capitol attack, so good luck on playing dumb, Mandy).

Her seat in the Virginia State Senate will be up for re-election in 2023, and we’d like to think she won’t narrowly win another term, given all the, y’know, sedition and insanity.

[worstblogever]

That's a good one!
It looks like Bolsonaro is also not condemning Putin:
https://www.reuters.com/world/bolson...on-2022-02-27/

In some/ many countries, those channels wouldn't be allowed to exist

They should be allowed to exist... but if they're going to put "News" in their name, they should not be an entertainment channel in federal filings so they can shrug off libel lawsuits for all the lies they tell. That's the real problem with these right-wing outlets. They don't follow journalistic standards and ethics, and for those paying attention, have no intention to do so. It makes it easier to just make up a narrative devoid of facts. It's scary that Comedy Central's Daily Show, which is supposed to parody the news, does a better job of sticking to the facts.

It's toxic to their viewers, and disservice to the American people. It's just not classified properly as "news".

[hyped78]

They should be allowed to exist... but if they're going to put "News" in their name, they should not be an entertainment channel in federal filings so they can shrug off libel lawsuits for all the lies they tell. That's the real problem with these right-wing outlets. They don't follow journalistic standards and ethics, and for those paying attention, have no intention to do so. It makes it easier to just make up a narrative devoid of facts. It's scary that Comedy Central's Daily Show, which is supposed to parody the news, does a better job of sticking to the facts.

It's toxic to their viewers, and disservice to the American people. It's just not classified properly as "news".

Exactly. I agree they should either disclaim they're an "entertainment channel" or something like that, or become an objective/ factual news channel

Interesting chart on that topic:
Media-Bias-Chart-10.0_Aug-2022-Licensed_Hi_Res-scaled.jpg

[WestPhillyPunisher]

The smartest evil bastards are aware they're the dog that caught the car.

McConnell says Republicans may not win Senate control, citing ‘candidate quality’

For Moscow Mitch to start conceding defeat in the mid-terms and lowering expectations that he'll be Majority Leader again in August... there's something cooking, for sure. We've seen individual polls that aren't in Republican candidates' favor, but... I'll note, he still feels like they have a chance at taking back control of the House due to gerrymandering.

Well, one candidate in question who's done nothing but shit the bed since he launched his campaign has been Mehmet Oz in the Pennsylvania Senate race which he's losing bigly to Democrat John Fetterman. Oz the Obnoxious, already getting trolled by running in PA as a carpetbagging rich dude from New Jersey really made an ass of himself the other day:

Dr. Oz Goes Shopping

[Kirby101]

Well, one candidate in question who's done nothing but shit the bed since he launched his campaign has been Mehmet Oz in the Pennsylvania Senate race which he's losing bigly to Democrat John Fetterman. Oz the Obnoxious, already getting trolled by running in PA as a carpetbagging rich dude from New Jersey really made an ass of himself the other day:

Dr. Oz Goes Shopping

Doesn't he know that Salsa does not go with a crudités? And, is he in a New Jersey Wegman's?

[Kirby101]

Here is McConnell, not only admitting that their new Senate candidates are unqualified Right Wing Nut Jobs and unqualified celeb posers, but also they have gerrymandered enough to take the House no matter the popular vote.


McConnell says Republicans may not win Senate control, citing ‘candidate quality’

“I think there’s probably a greater likelihood the House flips than the Senate. Senate races are just different — they're statewide, candidate quality has a lot to do with the outcome,”

In other words, the Senate candidate has to win the whole State, the Congressional candidate just has to win districts they rigged.

[Tendrin]

Well, one candidate in question who's done nothing but shit the bed since he launched his campaign has been Mehmet Oz in the Pennsylvania Senate race which he's losing bigly to Democrat John Fetterman. Oz the Obnoxious, already getting trolled by running in PA as a carpetbagging rich dude from New Jersey really made an ass of himself the other day:

Dr. Oz Goes Shopping

Fetterman's relentless social media team trolling of Oz has been amazing to watch. And it seems to be working.

Meanwhile, here's an overdue win for trans rights.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/16/polit...ria/index.html

Washington (CNN)A federal appeals court said Tuesday that the Americans with Disabilities Act covers individuals with "gender dysphoria," handing a win to trans people in a case concerning a former inmate who alleged discrimination at a Virginia prison.

In a majority opinion issued by a three-judge panel with the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, the court wrote, "In light of the 'basic promise of equality ... that animates the ADA,' we see no legitimate reason why Congress would intend to exclude from the ADA's protections transgender people who suffer from gender dysphoria."
Gender dysphoria describes an uncomfortable conflict between a person's assigned gender and the gender with which the person identifies, according to the American Psychiatric Association.
"We have little trouble concluding that a law excluding from ADA protection both 'gender identity disorders' and gender dysphoria would discriminate against transgender people as a class, implicating the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment," the ruling read, referring to a constitutional clause that has been used in court to protect minority groups from discrimination.

[Tendrin]

This seems, I dunno guys, pretty bad.

Much of the training by the Florida Department of Education (FDOE) focused on slavery, the Founding Fathers, the country’s creation, and, throughout, a focus on “Christian principles” as America’s bedrock.

According to one teacher who attended a training in June, the curriculum implies that the Founding Fathers never wanted a separation of church and state.

“Founders expected religion to be promoted because they believed it to be essential to civic virtue,” one slide read, while another slide noted that, without virtue, citizens become “licentious” and open to tyranny.

Barbara Segal, a 12th-grade government teacher at Fort Lauderdale High School, told the Tampa Bay Times, “It was very skewed… There was a very strong Christian fundamentalist way toward analyzing different quotes and different documents. That was concerning.”

One of the most frightening and inaccurate aspects of the presentation to teachers was the answer to a question about who came to the British colonies and why. The answer included a list of those who’d immigrated: “Aristocrats, Indentured Servants, Religious Dissenters, and Enslaved People.”

Of course, enslaved people never immigrated to the British colonies, or to the American colonies, or to the United States. They were brought from their homes without their permission and forced into slavery—but I digress.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/202...d-secular-laws

[Dalak]

Fetterman's relentless social media team trolling of Oz has been amazing to watch. And it seems to be working.

Meanwhile, here's an overdue win for trans rights.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/16/polit...ria/index.html

While I'm happy for some good news on this front, I'm thinking that this is going to be taken to the 6-3 Supreme Court so they can fuck em over again.

[Dalak]

This seems, I dunno guys, pretty bad.




https://www.dailykos.com/stories/202...d-secular-laws

Once more, something that has been warned about for years happening (Republicans twisting History teaching for political ends). Why do they think we are fearmongering again?

And after banning books for being political on the left, it's clear they just don't want the liberal spin on history just their own.

[hyped78]

This seems, I dunno guys, pretty bad.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/202...d-secular-laws

Generally speaking, how are high-school curriculums (in this case, History) decided/ approved in the US? Does each state have autonomy to have whatever curriculums and approved books they want, or is there a minimum common bar for all states? I was reading your article and, because I've never studied in the US, was just wondering about that.