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

[babyblob]

Federal Authorities search the home of Former DOJ official Jeffery Clark.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/23/u...tice-dept.html

[Kirby101]

The Supreme Court just ended any and all restrictions on carrying guns and gutted any Miranda protection. Yesterday they ended the separation between Church and State and destroyed public education. Next up abortion and Right to Privacy. But her Emails!

[worstblogever]

Federal Authorities search the home of Former DOJ official Jeffery Clark.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/23/u...tice-dept.html

He was the key figure Trump wanted to install at the DOJ behind Barr to declare there WAS proof of election fraud publicly... but never produce it.

[Catlady in training]

Looks like another European contry is villing to kill women to "protect" a fetus that is going to die anyway. And they don't even care if they cause an international conflict by doing so:

https://www.euronews.com/2022/06/23/...fe-say-doctors

The life of a US woman is in grave danger after Maltese doctors refused to grant her a potentially life-saving abortion following a medical emergency, her partner Jay Weeldreyer told Euronews.

Andrea Prudente, who was on holiday in Malta with Weeldreyer for a "babymoon" holiday, suffered a premature breaking of her waters on Thursday.

Despite her 16-week-old foetus no longer being viable and the acute risks to her life, doctors told Prudente, 38, from the Seattle area, she could not have an abortion as it is illegal in Malta, according to Weeldreyer.

He said staff at Mater Dei hospital in Msida informed them that she must instead wait until her foetus' heartbeat stops or there is an imminent risk to her life before it can be removed.

Abortion is illegal in all cases in Malta.

Under Maltese law, those found to have terminated a child or "caused a miscarriage" can face imprisonment for up to three years. This includes both pregnant women and medical professionals.

Her lawyer, Dr Lara Dimitrijevic, told Euronews Prudente is to be evacuated to an undisclosed location in Spain, possibly sometime on Thursday.

Dr Isabel Stabile, a gynaecologist helping the couple, pointed out that, alongside "very significant mental stress", Prudente is facing "two big risks".

One is an infection, such as sepsis. The other is haemorr*****g since the placenta can separate at any time and start bleeding.

"She is essentially being asked to watch and wait," said Dr Stabile. "This could go on for weeks."

Although the foetus still has a heartbeat, it has a zero chance of survival and is brain dead, says Weeldreyer. There is no amniotic fluid left in Prudente’s womb as its membranes have ruptured and her placenta is partially separated.

“This is a catastrophic loss,” said Weeldreyer. “The baby is going to die.”

He continued: “There is a good chance the baby is suffering as it is being compressed between the mother’s tissues.”

Dr Stabile told Euronews on Thursday afternoon that Prudente is medically stable at the moment, but that this could change very quickly, which is why she is in immediate need of evacuation.

Weeldreyer described the options now facing the couple are “grim”.

Since Monday, they have tried to organise a medical evacuation to the UK, although arranging this with their travel insurer and paperwork issues is taking time.

Travelling 2,550 km to the UK by air ambulance also carries with it the risk that Prudente will develop potentially life-threatening complications en route, according to Dr Stabile.

The alternative is for the couple to stay in Malta “until the miscarriage completes” or the “baby's heart stops”, said Weeldreyer, which exposes Prudente to the risk of potentially fatal blood poisoning.

“We have the choice of slow death through infection staying in Malta or getting on a plane and the quick death of bleeding out,” he added.

[thwhtGuardian]

The Supreme Court just ended any and all restrictions on carrying guns and gutted any Miranda protection. Yesterday they ended the separation between Church and State and destroyed public education. Next up abortion and Right to Privacy. But her Emails!

Eh, I've seen a lot of hand wringing about the school vouchers case from Maine and it seems blown out of proportion. The whole thing stemmed from the state offering vouchers for families living in rural Maine (where it's so sparsely populated it doesn't make sense to have a school in every town) to be able to go to a school in another town of their choosing and the voucher was to offset the costs of those students to those other school districts since these student's families weren't paying into those systems with their taxes. A few years back they opened up the program to include not only public schools in other towns but also charter schools and private schools and once you do that there is no reason to deny cash towards a particular school because it happens to a religious school.
If they had never allowed private schools that don't receive state money to begin with to be choices for the voucher program there would be no problem in telling families they can't choose to send their kids to a private Catholic school but once you do allow that choice limiting to just non-denominational private schools(if such things even exist) doesn't work.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, as well as 2021, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” published profiles of the current U.S. House Representative from New Jersey’s 4th Congressional District, Christopher Smith, who is currently serving in his 19th term in office, and who we gave praise for his work in stopping international child sex trafficking. That however, does not change the fact that Smith is one of the worst anti-abortion zealots in our entire government, and has been linked to "7 Mountains" Dominionist groups of Fundamentalists who believe Christians are destined to take over all of American life. He has compared abortion to the Holocaust, and referred to it as "child slaughter" and prior to the 2012 election as well as in 2015 said that Barack Obama is “the abortion president” who has promoted “radically pro-abortion” people to the government who are promoting “evil” with an “anti-child, anti-woman mentality.” Not surprisingly, whenever a controversial pro-life bill hits the floor of the House, Rep. Smith is usually a sponsor or co-sponsor, including Personhood legislation, and attempts to redefine the definition of "rape" by doing things like classifying if it's "forcible" rape or not. When the Center for Medical Progress released their fraudulent video to frame Planned Parenthood (which Smith refers to PP as “Child Abuse, Inc”) in 2015, Smith still didn't hesitate to fire off one of the most unhinged press releases when the story first hit, graphically describing "crushing babies" and accusing Planned Parenthood supposedly selling "baby body parts". (Which were the exact things the mass shooter at the Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood was rambling about… so nice use of stochastic terror triggers there, Rep. Smith! As extreme as he is on the issue of abortion, he's also rather appalling on the issue of LGBTQ rights, not just being opposed to gay marriage, but trying to argue that homosexual rights are not human rights, and going with Rep. Trent Franks to the United Nations to demand they not give recognition to the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, siding with nations against them like Egypt, Angola, Burundi, China, Pakistan, Qatar, Russia and Sudan. (In all those countries but China, LGBTQ people can be jailed, fined, or whipped.) Nothing like allying yourself with the world’s classiest countries to deny rights to gays, right?

[worstblogever]

Christopher Smith was still re-elected in 2020 with 60% of the vote, and his voting record since shows he’s still feverishly hyper-conservative:

• March 7th, 2019: Smith votes against HR 183, a resolution to condemn anti-Semitism as a hateful extension of intolerance.
• December 18th, 2019: Rep. Smith ignores his Congressional duty to hold a president who has been proven to commit high crimes and misdemeanors accountable and votes against the first impeachment of Donald Trump.
• May 15th, 2020: Smith votes against the HEROES Act, to further support the healthcare industry and citizens affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
• December 10th, 2020: Smith signs his name to an amicus brief to the Supreme Court, begging them to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The same election that he won re-election in.
• January 6th, 2021: Chris Smith votes for the objection to the electoral college’s votes in the 2020 election, a failure to send any sort of message that he wasn’t intimidated or sympathetic to those who attacked the Capitol to attempt a violent coup.
• January 13th, 2021: Rep. Smith votes against the second impeachment of Donald Trump, because the Republican Party no longer feels like they should be accountable for anything, including failed coups that result in the deaths of both their participants and police officers.
• February 4th, 2021: Chris Smith votes to keep Marjorie Taylor Greene’s committee assignments, because he wouldn’t want her to be accountable for all the bigoted remarks and conspiracy theories she’s spread online (probably because she’s a kindred spirit).
• February 25th, 2021: Smith votes against HR 5, the latest version of the Equality Act, that would provide workplace protections for LGBTQ Americans.
• March 3rd, 2021: Rep. Smith votes against HR 1, a bill created to prevent the corruption of money in politics, and protect voter access to the ballot box.
• March 3rd, 2021: Chris Smith votes against the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2021.
• March 10th, 2021: Smith votes against the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, because he feels people deserve to die in poverty during a pandemic.
• March 17th, 2021: Rep. Smith votes 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 (which statistics show, makes them more likely to use those firearms against women in their lives).
• May 19th, 2021: Chris Smith votes against HR 3233, the creation of a commission to investigate the Capitol Attack.
• March 31st, 2022: Smith votes against HR 6833, the Affordable Insulin Now Act, which would limit the cost that drug companies could list insulin at to $35 and make sure no diabetic was priced out of surviving their condition. Chris Smith would rather they be gouged by pharmaceutical giants and/or die.
• May 18th, 2022: Chris Smith is one of 192 Republicans who vote against HR 7790, to create supplemental funding for infant formula (while claiming to be pro- life).
• May 18th, 2022: Rep. Smith votes against HR 350, the Domestic Violence Prevention Act, because these days, a plank of the Republican Party is ostensibly domestic terror.
• May 19th, 2022: Smith votes against HR 7688, a bill which would help prevent gas companies from gouging customers on prices.

Again, we want to be clear. Congressman Chris Smith has done a great deal of good with the office he has held for 40 years. His work in preventing human trafficking is commendable. He has, in the past few years, argued for a permanent renewal of the Zadroga Act. But when it comes to women's rights and LGBTQ rights... well, those are a whole other story. He’s still been yelling his head off about Planned Parenthood and calling them “Child Abuse, INC” when he speaks in front of religious right groups.

However, outside of “safe places” where he panders to his own element, Smith has spent the better part of the past four years hiding from his constituents in New Jersey’s 4th District like a coward rather than face them regarding a lot of his votes, and they were forced to host a town hall without him in February 2017. Of course, Rep. Smith hasn’t hosted a town hall in over a quarter century, so there’s that.

Christopher Smith is now trying his best to blend in with the worst members of his party, claiming in the wake of the attack on the Capitol that he’d seen protesters with “hammer and sickle tattoos”, because you just know all those folks weren’t Trump supporters, they were secret communists so committed to framing Trump supporters for their crimes that they couldn’t be bothered to wear sleeves. Meanwhile, weeks later, he became one of the few Republicans to have been in Congress long enough to vote to impeach Bill Clinton for lying about a blowjob that also voted against impeaching Donald Trump for attempting a violent coup upon our country’s legislative branch.

However, in spite of his loyalty when it came to Trump’s coup attempt, Trump felt extremely wounded when Chris Smith voted for the infrastructure bill and called on any New Jersey Republican to come forward and primary him out of office (nobody had the balls to take on a 4 decade Congressman, knowing Trump’s endorsement would likely mean f*** all in New Jersey, where they know him all too well).

This is a man who when our country needed him the most, left it wanting. Just having someone with a modicum of a spine and a grip on reality would have been nice.

[Catlady in training]

As I understand it that was a parody of the anti-vaccine crowd, a bit he did on Colbert. I'll track down the video for context. It was hard to understand it was parody, but apparently that was the aim.

I'm vaccinated and boosted and have been doing the mask thing since early on, and I can still see the reasoning behind believing that a virus appearing to originate in the same city as an international biolab dedicated to studying corona viruses might be more than a coincidence. China's not exactly renowned for their quality control, safety measures, or competence.

Would it truly be surprising once all's said and done if they came out and said, "whoops, looks like it actually was accidentally released by someone at the lab"? We've already gone from "masks are effective" to "certain masks are highly effective, but not the basic paper masks most of the public is using (though those are still somewhat effective, like the vaccine itself they're not necessarily going to be full protection but rather a better percentage than nothing at all)".

The problem with zero tolerance of "misinformation" is when it turns out the narrative is wrong, or at least incomplete, you open the door to people dismissing you entirely. It's a trust issue. And most don't even trust our government, let alone a Communist Chinese one that's locking up minorities and doing who knows what to them.

Video for context:

I think it is perfectly acceptable to consider that the virus could have leaked from a lab. The fact that Chinese government has forbidden an international investigation (which should be a damned requirement, considering the pandemic is international) does nothing to convince me otherwise, just makes me more suspicious.

I am all for equality, ending racism, xenophobia, etc., but that doesn't mean we should be trusting authoritarian regimes just because they are a different ethnicity or because there are others who attack them using racist language. Or that we are not allowed to criticise them. Everything that China has done at the beginning of the pandemic, from keeping the situation a secret, prosecuting doctors who tried to speak up, to how quick they were to label all questions about the virus' origin as racist, is one huge red flag.

I understand that the situation is delicate because idiots have been attacking Asian people who have nothing to do with it all over the World, but I think that in this case, the way that some progressive/liberal people are going to the other extreme, dismissing all valid criticism or even questions as racist, is counterproductive and potentially very dangerous.

BTW, I didn't think that Stewart was doing a bit in that interview, with the way Stephen was reacting. And the way people on another forum I go to have been discussing it, most of them weren't either.

[babyblob]

Looks like another European contry is villing to kill women to "protect" a fetus that is going to die anyway. And they don't even care if they cause an international conflict by doing so:

https://www.euronews.com/2022/06/23/...fe-say-doctors

This is sickening. And it is upsetting this is being allowed to happen. And the GOP here in the USA are smiling going

"Just wait it is only a matter of time for us here!"

[Catlady in training]

This is sickening. And it is upsetting this is being allowed to happen. And the GOP here in the USA are smiling going

"Just wait it is only a matter of time for us here!"

Honestly, I hope this story spreads (let's hope it will have relatively good ending) and causes a drop in their tourist industry. It might make them reconsider their laws if they hurt a major source of income just because pregnant tourists have to fear for their lives. I was actually surprised, because Malta otherwise doesn't sound so conservative, even though they are heavilly catholic they are continually ranked as one of the best countries in Europe for LGBT+ rights for example.

[JackDaw]

The Supreme Court just ended any and all restrictions on carrying guns and gutted any Miranda protection. Yesterday they ended the separation between Church and State and destroyed public education. Next up abortion and Right to Privacy. But her Emails!

In some ways the Supreme Court is more powerful than the President, the Senate, and the House of Representatives?

[babyblob]

I was going to post this in the 6th Hearing thread but I dont know if everyone that goes here goes there.

But I wanted to point out that our country has fallen to the point that an United States deputy attorney general had a conversation where the President of the United States wanted an investigation into the fact that Italian Satellites were being used to send signals to American Voting Machines to change votes from Trump to Biden. Not only was he serious about this investigation happening because he saw it on the internet. But he was mad as Hell when he was told that such a thing is not possible.

So to recap. An American President saw a video on Youtube and demanded his Justice Department investigate it and got mad when it turned out to be a lie.

That is where we are In Merica Ladies and Gentleman.

[worstblogever]

I was going to post this in the 6th Hearing thread but I dont know if everyone that goes here goes there.

But I wanted to point out that our country has fallen to the point that an United States deputy attorney general had a conversation where the President of the United States wanted an investigation into the fact that Italian Satellites were being used to send signals to American Voting Machines to change votes from Trump to Biden. Not only was he serious about this investigation happening because he saw it on the internet. But he was mad as Hell when he was told that such a thing is not possible.

So to recap. An American President saw a video on Youtube and demanded his Justice Department investigate it and got mad when it turned out to be a lie.

That is where we are In Merica Ladies and Gentleman.

Trump also asked his Secretary of Defense to investigate it and address it with the Italian government.

Rudy probably just showed Trump a video of the Super Mario Bros. Super Show as "proof" and he started making calls to all the higher ups. Because he's f***ing insane.

[Kirby101]

In some ways the Supreme Court is more powerful than the President, the Senate, and the House of Representatives?

Next will be Obergefell, Griswold, Loving and probably Brown. (Gay Marriage, Right to Privacy, Interracial Marriage and Equal Rights)

According to these six jokers, the Constitution is unconstitutional.

[Mister Mets]

Next will be Obergefell, Griswold, Loving and probably Brown. (Gay Marriage, Right to Privacy, Interracial Marriage and Equal Rights)

According to these six jokers, the Constitution is unconstitutional.

Could we stick a pin in this for two years, and reevaluate for accuracy?