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

[C_Miller]

It's a sad, lonely way to die.

I struggle to feel bad for the guy though. Maybe the family, but what are the chances they spent their lives enabling him? This is a death caused by pure hubris. The Greeks were writing narratives about the dangers of hubris over 2000 years ago originating in the words of Hesiod and Aeschylus. Two of the most famous Greek Proverbs that I know everyone has heard before deal with hubris. Achilles believed himself to be immortal and had no concern for his well-being in the Battle of Troy, not realizing that he had a fatal weakness and Icarus flying too close to the sun covers largely the same ground with the problem being with either Icarus or Daedalus' pride depending on the telling.

I don't wish death on others, but my mental health cannot handle being upset for people that caused their own demise.

[Joker]

It would be sad if he hadn't rallied against masks. "The people are fed up" he tweeted before likely contracting Covid at the Tulsa rally, and passing away from Covid shortly thereafter.

I cannot, and will not feel sorry for him.

[Surf]

RIP Herman Cain. Got everything he wanted out of life then died for his cause. He knew full well there would be no champion of 'conservatism' movement retrospective on his life on the FOX News and he was groovy with that.


Now I gotta get back to the, actually somber, Congressman John Lewis funeral proceedings on TV.

[BeastieRunner]

Cain's family presser said he died due to COVID-19 complications after contracting it at the Trump Tulsa rally.

[Radical]

It's a sad, lonely way to die.

It's a dumbassed way to die, if you'll pardon my French.

[Personamanx]

It's a dumbassed way to die, if you'll pardon my French.

Plenty of non-dumbass people have died in the exact same way he did. Cain wasn't a great guy, there's certainly a lot of suffering he's responsible for in this pandemic. But I don't wish Covid-19 on anyone, nor do I take joy from people dying of it.

[PwrdOn]

Cotton might be considered a rising star, although it's a stretch to call him the 2024 frontrunner, as some have done. I'm unaware of any poll showing him in the top five, let alone in first place.

A wrinkle with Cotton making such a big deal of the 1619 project is that the main purpose seems to be to to elevate an African American candidate for statewide office.

The whole episode is sort of emblematic of how the GOP treats its black members, they are just there to be the "black best friend" to cover for blatantly racist nonsense, but the Tom Cottons of the world can't be bothered to even stop being scumbags for even a second to acknowledge them and make the scheme work. Done "properly" this little stunt would have involved Cotton appearing in public with James and pointing him out as an example of an honorable black man who loves his country and isn't ashamed of its history as opposed to the PC liberals who care more about making white people feel guilty than empowering blacks, but even that would be seen by the GOP base as conceding too much to the culture warriors.

[Mister Mets]

This is worth reading: Does the Constitution allow for a delayed presidential election?

Trump can't hold onto office without an election. Even if there is a crisis, the election can be delayed but only for a short time and only with a hard deadline as to when it will occur. There is a hard date for the Electoral College to meet and vote, and a hard date as to the last day for a President, January 20, unless he or she is reelected to a 2nd term.

If Trump somehow manages to disable the election process, there would be no clear winner. As long as the Democrats hold the House:



Nancy Pelosi would be the next Presdient.

Congress could delay the election, but Pelosi certainly has no interest in doing so.

This does show Trump's incompetence. If he really wanted to delay the election, it would be better to strongly insist that it will be held on November 3rd no matter what. He's so toxic, taking a stand (school reopenings, protests) encourages people to be on the other side.

[InformationGeek]

Oh hey, as a reminder, this is the woman the Republicans are running to take John Lewis's old seat.

All the celebrities and Democrats catch COVID and magically heal. But Herman Cain is dead! I swear I hate it here. I was right there with him. We were perfectly fine!!! This is WAR!!!

Also...

Men also reproduce.
Where are their reproductive rights? Give them a voice and a choice! #Abortion

[PaulBullion]

Tom Cotton – The Holocaust “A Necessary Evil”



I thought this might be a parody, a joke, but maybe not.

Apparently not true.


Yet.

[worstblogever]

https://twitter.com/bencjacobs/statu...857220608?s=21

Just saw this that Herman Caine has passed away.

So, Herman Cain died.

Cain's family presser said he died due to COVID-19 complications after contracting it at the Trump Tulsa rally.

Imagine you put your life on the line, and you do it so you can see Donald Trump ramble at a podium like a dumbass for an hour, and that's what killed you. I mean, life can be a challenge, like can be impossible, but sometimes, you just have to have the wisdom to take a threat seriously.

[PaulBullion]

Life can be a challenge. Life can seem impossible. It's never easy when there's so much on the line.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

It would be sad if he hadn't rallied against masks. "The people are fed up" he tweeted before likely contracting Covid at the Tulsa rally, and passing away from Covid shortly thereafter.

I cannot, and will not feel sorry for him.

Same here, but how many innocent people had Cain come in contact with since Tulsa? How many of them are sweating bullets, worrying if they've contracted the virus after learning he tested positive? That's what makes me angry, these assholes flaunt their defiance when it comes to masks when all they're doing is subjecting innocents who's only crime is having come in contact with these cretins.

[worstblogever]

It was back on this date in 2014 that "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" published our profile of former 2014 Idaho gubernatorial candidate Walt Bayes, who along with Harley Brown, captured the imagination of the entire nation four years ago when he showed up to a spectacularly insane debate where who boasted of having 16 children, and 77 living descendants, as well as the fact that he previously had been given visits from Child Protective Services for home-schooling his children, spent most of his time at the debate quoting scripture, and stated his desire to “take Idaho back from the federal government” because “we’re wasting all kinds of wood out there.” Needless to say, he did not fare too well against Gov. Butch Otter in that election.

In both 2015, 2016, as well as 2017, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" profiled Peter DeGraaf, a member of the Kansas House of Representatives representing District 82 who during a debate on an anti-abortion bill back in 2011, compared being impregnated during a rape to being something women should actually have a contingency plan for, because it’s “just like getting a flat tire”. DeGraaf also supports drug testing welfare recipients, votes against minimum wage increases, supports voter ID bills strict enough to disenfranchise tens of thousands of people to prevent statistically nonexistent "in person voter fraud", trying to block the relocation of Syrian refugees, and has supported nullification legislation to try and avoid enacting the Affordable Care Act or enforcing federal firearms laws. Oh, and he's so fanatical about abortion, as he submitted a resolution to have the Bill of Rights applied to all human beings from the point of fertilization. We reported in our original profile that DeGraaf has discovered he suffers from Parkinson's, but chose not to receive stem cell treatments for his condition because of his pro-life beliefs. While we wished him the best in his fight against that degenerative disease, even by his own decision to tie one arm behind his back, he did end up resigning from the legislature. As such, We wish him the best in his battle with it, and breathe a sigh of relief that his retirement has mercifully come.

[worstblogever]

On this date in both 2018, as well as 2019, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” published our original profile of the man who was the Secretary of State of Georgia, and who is now Governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp. Kemp was elected Secretary of State back in the 2010 Tea Party Wave, who you may have heard of as that troglodyte who actually ran a campaign ad where he cocked a loaded shotgun at a young man who supposedly wanted to date his daughter to prove what a manly man he is. Yes, woe to us all, it’s this sort of idiocy that stirs something in the hearts of GOP Primary voters, and that led Kemp to make the ad to make up the thirty points he was trailing in polls to his main opponent, Casey Cagle, and not ask themselves, “Wait, did he just point a loaded gun at a child?” and wonder if he’s perhaps a bit too unstable to be given the governor’s mansion. Maybe if the gun-totin’ loon was off message a little, he decided to point his gun in a different direction in his next ad, as he marched around with the same gun boasting about how he’d “round up criminal illegals myself” with his big ol’ pickup truck. Yes, it seems there is no better utility tool to rule over Georgia with than a shotgun. It solves all the problems, if you ask Kemp. Well, not all problems. He also went full “Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Macho Camacho” and released a third ad where he took a chainsaw to a “stack of regulations” before blowing them up in a giant fiery explosion. (We’re not sure if this will remain symbolic, or if he’s actually nuts enough to try it.)

Kemp’s gamble seemingly paid off, as he closed enough ground to keep Casey Cagle under the 50% threshold needed to avoid a runoff election, which going into the final stretch, polls showed Kemp and Cagle neck-and-neck. It didn’t help that Cagle was literally caught on tape admitting that the two Republican candidates were focused on “who had the biggest gun, who had the biggest truck, and who could be the craziest”, either. Kemp wore that accusation like a badge of honor, and released the audio hoping that blue-collar people in Georgia would rally behind him because of it.

Kemp, a die-hard anti-immigrant Trump supporter… hmm… maybe this would be a good time to point out that while serving as the Secretary of State of Georgia, Brian Kemp’s brilliant oversight managed to release the names and social security numbers of millions of registered voters, and he repeatedly fought with the Department of Justice regarding the security of Georgia’s voting systems (which were hacked by Russians), and resisted preventing any investigation into the intrusions even after the 2016 elections. His name appears in declassified reports alphabetically just prior to “Jared Kushner”, for some reason. Isn’t that an interesting coincidence…

Even more disturbing? He claimed in the buildup to the 2018 midterms that our own Department of Justice is “hacking” Georgia election systems, and he wants Donald Trump to personally investigate the matter (this would more than likely be a guy setting up a future claim of “voter fraud” when he loses). Just days prior to the election, he then claimed that Democrats had hacked the voting rolls… which is ironic, because the e-mail he cited as “evidence” was between a voter and a Democrat who noted how easy it was to hack Georgia’s voter information under Kemp’s watch, and that Democrat forwarded their concerns to the FBI herself.

Brian Kemp narrowly “defeated” Stacey Abrams at the polls in the 2018 elections, and we put that word in quotations because Stacey Abrams never conceded, and neither do we, really, given of how suspect the final counts are… and Kemp’s actions after the election. One of his first hires as governror was to bring on a lobbyist who not coincidentally, worked for the company the voting machines used in Georgia were purchased from… mysteriously at a price tag far higher than Georgia should have paid (and a price tag Kemp tried to conceal from the public). All of this reeks of voter fraud carried out by the man who was supposed to secure Georgia’s elections, but all signs point to the fact that he rigged them in his own favor. And that is why the would-be Governor Kemp is getting called before Congress, specificially the House Oversight and Reform Committee, where Chairman Elijah Cummings will be waiting to ream him a new orifice for a systematic voter purge that likely kicked just enough Democratic votes off the voter rolls to ensure Kemp’s victory. And expect some discussion of the latest news, that Kemp and the Georgia Secretary of State’s office ignored a judge’s order to follow up on an FBI investigation into the 2018 election potentially being hacked, and never served a subpoena to the FBI for their copy of the records, per the judge’s request. It's almost like they have something to hide and don’t want to check and make sure that it was a fair election, you know?

And that has left Brian Kemp under suspicion of being an illegitimate executive. One who can do terrible things like sign off on a fetal heartbeat bill, HB 481 in the hopes of overturning Roe v. Wade, and respond like a complete maniac to a proposed boycott by film and television studios on filming in Georgia (which brings billions to the state) by calling those who voiced their displeasure “C-List celebrities squawking”. At least he didn’t point a shotgun at them. This time.

Now, obviously since our last look at Gov. Kemp, a lot has changed… particularly in the spread of Covid-19 across the country. And several red-state governors have embarrassed the hell out of themselves in the things they’ve said, and the ways they’ve responded or in many instances, not responded to the pandemic. And Kemp has been no different. Almost a month into the crisis, and well after CDC experts warned that Covid-19 can be spread by people who are infected by asymptomatic, Kemp revealed that fact as if it had just been discovered, and that it was a “game-changer”.

He didn’t even keep a “stay home” order through April, being one of the first to reopen his state on April 28th, and wouldn’t you know it, Georgia rose to one of the top states in the country in new Covid-19 cases. By the end of June, he signed an executive order to do away with most of the remaining restrictions on businesses, including opening up restaurants, and in mid-July, he signed another order to rescind any mask-wearing mandates from local municipalities that actually had the nerve to give a damn about public health and safety, and filed a lawsuit against the Mayor of Atlanta for trying to get people to wear one.

What we’re getting at is… considering Brian Kemp had to cheat to win in 2018, and that he’s not just being incompetent, but willfully taking actions that are costing people their lives… we’re thinking in 2022 he’s going to end up being a one-term governor.