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

[Reviresco]

The North Carolina Supreme Court has reversed its rather recent earlier rulings finding that partisan gerrymandering violates the state constitution. Republicans can now continue to rig elections there.

Reversed it's decision because the NC Supreme Court now leans Republican.

The Republican-controlled North Carolina Supreme Court – reversing previous rulings that were handed down when the state Supreme Court leaned Democratic – said Friday that North Carolina’s constitution gave state courts no role to play in policing partisan gerrymanders.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/28/polit...urt/index.html



Why don't these so called impartial judges, who allegedly have a better ability to make fair decisions, and thus impose them on the rest of us, realize that every time they reverse a decision after a partisan change, that they are sabotaging the legitimacy of their institution? Invalidating the alleged impartiality of the judicial system?

Of course, the rot comes from the top, with the Supreme Court that has tossed out decades of laws, because the Republicans are now in power.

[Reviresco]

Revealed: Senate investigation into Brett Kavanaugh assault claims contained serious omissions

Most people know he was guilty. It basically came down to whether that was disqualifying for the court seat. And we know how that fell out.

[Reviresco]

Chalked that up to that he seems to be reading a good bit of what he is saying there.

Past that, agree to disagree I guess?

Doesn't seem winded to any degree that I can't chalk up to the difference between being seventy-nine and eighty-one.

As for "Slumped...", the angle does seem more "Shooting From Straight On..." in the older clip versus the newer clip seemingly being shot from a bit above where the guy is.

When you are that age, changes have a far greater impact than they do when you are younger. We made a major move, and I could tell it really effected my mom's health and cognition. She's had to make three moves since, because she fell and broke her leg, twice. Each move was very stressful for her. And I can't tell you how many older people that I've seen decline and die within a year of a bone breaking fall. He has a better support system and a mentally engaging job, so he'll do better, but I don't think he'll be the same.

So, yes, we'll have to agree to disagree on McConnell's state.

His speech is definitely more slurred on words like "judiciary", almost as bad as Trump's now.

He does have some affectations, but yes, his speech seems different to me.

[Jack Dracula]

Reversed it's decision because the NC Supreme Court now leans Republican.



https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/28/polit...urt/index.html



Why don't these so called impartial judges, who allegedly have a better ability to make fair decisions, and thus impose them on the rest of us, realize that every time they reverse a decision after a partisan change, that they are sabotaging the legitimacy of their institution? Invalidating the alleged impartiality of the judicial system?

Of course, the rot comes from the top, with the Supreme Court that has tossed out decades of laws, because the Republicans are now in power.

I’m curious who, if not the court, has the ability to decide whether the redistricting is fair?
I mean, the general assembly is hardly non-partisan.

[worstblogever]

Biden will beat Trump if there's no third party candidate eating up votes in a swing state. So we have to hope that doesn't happen.

Also, Trump being on the ballot brings out the freaks from under the rocks who don't vote in other elections or for other Republicans, so the race will be closer in states like WI, MI and PA than they were in the midterms.

Republicans almost always do better in mid-terms than general elections... both parties will see extremely high turnout.

[worstblogever]

They said the same thing about gay marriage. Gay marriage was supposed to destroy society. Well, it's been the law of the land for eight years now. Where's the destruction? I'm not seeing it.

Remember when Michelle Bachman and Louie Gohmert promised we were all gonna get wiped out in biblical hurricanes and earthquakes when they made gay marriage legal?

Nevermind that other countries passed it and were not consumed in Old Testament pillars of fire.

[numberthirty]

His speech is definitely more slurred on words like "judiciary", almost as bad as Trump's now.

...

He does have some affectations, but yes, his speech seems different to me.

Listen closely to close of this video. "Understand..."/"So..."/"Strength..."



Whatever that lisp/slur sort of a thing is?

I've always just chalked it up to that these people are less than ten years from hitting ninety.

[numberthirty]

Jimmy Carter is one of the few folks that I have felt like there wasn't really much of whatever that is there. It's kind of there in the "Said..."

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, as well as 2022, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” published profiles of George Cleveland, from the North Carolina House of Representatives who we still think looks like Carl from Pixar’s “Up”, but is decidedly far less lovable, in our eyes. Cleveland has been allowed to run for office virtually unopposed in every election since 2002, and while he has missed a large percentage of the votes in the North Carolina House, he has turned up for some of the most notorious pieces of legislation passed in it during his tenure. Cleveland has supported the state constitution having a ban on same sex marriage, blocked minimum wage increases, restricted early voting, blocked the Medicaid Expansion in the Tar Heel State, and voted for the notorious “motorcycle safety” bill that through amendments put forth by Republicans, became one of the harshest anti-abortion laws in the country. Cleveland also has gone to the floor of the North Carolina House to pitch ideas for illegal immigration, like profiling potential undocumented immigrants based on what they’re wearing, tried forcing the owner of the North Carolina State Fair to allow people to carry guns at the event, against his wishes, and once argued that there aren’t actually any people who are extremely poor in North Carolina, it’s just an illusion created by statisticians who redefine what poverty is (for the record, 8% of North Carolina lives in extreme poverty, and 17.5% live below the poverty line, in total).

George Cleveland was one of several North Carolina Republicans who reacted to South Carolina’s state legislature removing the Confederate flag from state grounds by instead voting for SB 22, to make it HARDER to remove Confederate iconography from around the state. Cleveland also supported two pieces of legislation that were created by the North Carolina GOP to stick it to the LGBTQ community, voting for SB 2, a bill aimed at allowing for state officials to refuse to perform marriage duties based on their “sincerely held religious beliefs” and sponsoring the now-infamous disaster that is HB 2, which isn’t just written to force people to use bathrooms according to the sex they were born as, but it was written to specifically allow people of “religious faith” to use it as a justification to discriminate against the gay community in North Carolina.

He was, of course, one of many North Carolina Republicans who responded to the loss in the governor’s race by Republican incumbent Pat McCrory by trying to supplant democracy by stripping many of the main powers of governance away from incoming Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper. Cleveland followed that up by co-sponsoring a bill with fellow FRED Michael Speciale and Larry Pittman of the North Carolina state legislature to attempt to eliminate the prohibition on seceding from the United States that was written into the North Carolina state constitution after the Civil War to reiterate the fact that the Tar Heel State should totally not do something that stupid ever again. Well, George Cleveland wants the option to start another American Civil War back on the table, apparently.

Cleveland won re-election in 2018 after surviving the GOP Primary with but 52% of the vote, and then won with 58% of the vote in the general election. For those keeping track, George Cleveland is now just shy of his 81st birthday, and has co-sponsored legislation to ban abortion at not just 20… but 13 weeks, and the completely over-the-top anti-choice bill known as the “Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act”. Oh, and lest we forget, he also voted against extending the statute of limitations on child abuse cases, because he apparently would like molesters to still have a better chance of getting away with their crimes.

Cleveland won re-election in 2020 with 60% of the vote and immediately sought to work to limit the ability of Gov. Roy Cooper to continue state-of-emergency orders, co-sponsoring a bill to limit such orders to a 30 day window, and past that, requiring approval from the state legislature. Because heaven forbid any governor keep mask mandates in order during a pandemic to save lives.

In March of 2021, George Cleveland was still doing his part to promote Donald Trump's “The Big Lie”, by sponsoring HB 259, a bill to “require that all voting machines in the future be manufactured in the U.S.”, furthering the narrative that Donald Trump and his supporters have pushed about foreign entities having hacked into voting machines made overseas to influence the outcome of 2020 and “steal” the election for Donald Trump.

Of course George Cleveland ran for re-election for a tenth term in office in 2022 at the age of 83 years old, and won another term in office. His priorities in the new session of the North Carolina state legislature were… sadly, to sponsor a bill to try and ban gender-affirming treatments for minors. Because he didn't already do enough damage to the LGBTQ community and his state when he sponsored HB 2.

[worstblogever]

I'll help solve the mystery of "why do old politicians have slurred speech?" pretty easily.

Loose dentures.

I mean, some they're just drunk, but more often than not, it's slipping dentures.

[JCAll]

They said the same thing about gay marriage. Gay marriage was supposed to destroy society. Well, it's been the law of the land for eight years now. Where's the destruction? I'm not seeing it.

They haven't given up on ending gay marriage either. Republicans never seem to run out of LGBT targets to attack.

[numberthirty]

I'll help solve the mystery of "why do old politicians have slurred speech?" pretty easily.

Loose dentures.

I mean, some they're just drunk, but more often than not, it's slipping dentures.

I was trying to be just a little bit nicer than that but...

[worstblogever]

I was trying to be just a little bit nicer than that but...

It's dental science, #30. Polident's website is available for confirmation.

[Darkspellmaster]

The real problems concerning the Syrian refugees would be in Europe. Erdogan had been using the thousands of refugees currently in Turkey as a threat to force some EU countries to follow his lead against allowing certain non-EU countries join. If they didn’t follow he’d force the refugees out and over to Greece or other Mediterranean countries, almost all of which have had recent economic problems due to the pandemic and social problems due to earlier refugee surges from Syria, Middle Eastern, and African nations.

Yeah and the EU isn't really kind to people coming from those countries. Erdogan is a bastard and he knows that it would cause the Eastern EU to ramp up their bs "immigration is bad" .

[Malvolio]

A Montana lawmaker suggested she’d rather risk her child’s suicide than let her transition



It's becoming increasingly difficult for me to not say something that would ultimately get me banned, so I'll just leave this here.

I'll say it. When Rep. Seekins-Crowe's kid turns 18, they will most likely move out, and good luck, Representative, on seeing any grandchildren that the kid has.
See, that's the thing about these people. They don't seem to realize just how much they are alienating their own children.