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

[numberthirty]

It really isn’t though. The idea that you fall on the sword of idealism and are able to cry, “We practiced what we preached” is gonna be a cold comfort to women who are punished for having abortions federally once the Supreme Court strikes down constitutionality and for people who are disenfranchised from being able to vote.

It’s so maddening to insist that we maintain moral superiority and consistency when that will literally cause us to lose and thus be no help to anyone, anywhere.

...

Yeah... It actually is.

If you are running on executing what the net result of The For The People Act would actually be, but just say "Nah, I Guess We Are Good..." when the state's Congress sticks to gerrymandering?

It is not anything like separate.

You cannot pull the two apart while saying "While The Opposition Are A Clear Issue Every Single Time That They Do This? Here's Why It Was Above Board When We Did It Just Now..."

[numberthirty]

...

Again, moral consistency is great and all. But that is of cold comfort to your voters who vote for you every time, but still end up not seeing actual results because they have been so remarkably disenfranchised by the opposite party while we continued to hide behind, “Well, be the change you want to see!” so that we could lose “righteously”.

It literally accomplishes nothing to lose. As of right now, we fight on the battlefield as it is. We put more initiatives in places like Texas and Florida to establish independent commissions. Then, we can start to move the rules.

You are assuming that actually walking the walk will lead to a loss every single time.

Meanwhile, you are never going to know if you keep deciding that your elections should not be governed by the rules that The For The People Act would put into place.

[worstblogever]

"You see, the real problem with this democracy is all the people voting, and the idea that politicians shouldn't be allowed to pick their own constituents. BOTH SIDES, YOU GUYS."


The law. Would change. This. For. BOTH. SIDES.

Therefore, you should support it. Even when you're an "independent" that is clearly in the tank for the right.

[Tendrin]

"You see, the real problem with this democracy is all the people voting, and the idea that politicians shouldn't be allowed to pick their own constituents. BOTH SIDES, YOU GUYS."


The law. Would change. This. For. BOTH. SIDES.

Therefore, you should support it. Even when you're an "independent" that is clearly in the tank for the right.

Darman had it exactly right.

[numberthirty]

"You see, the real problem with this democracy is all the people voting, and the idea that politicians shouldn't be allowed to pick their own constituents. BOTH SIDES, YOU GUYS."


The law. Would change. This. For. BOTH. SIDES.

Therefore, you should support it. Even when you're an "independent" that is clearly in the tank for the right.

Support it, but do not actually execute exactly what it would amount to when right around "Nothing..." is what the things that are actually stopping you amount to.

Never mind that this...

Which you wouldn't need if Pritzker had come through on a campaign promise.

That the entire thing should be independent?

Whole other kettle of fish.

Also does not change that you kick the legs out from under the whole "Should Be Independent..." argument every time you pull a move like Pritzker just did.

What argument do you really have that the other side should not be doing it if you will not do away with it yourself?

... was literally posted less than a full page ago.

[numberthirty]

Also worth noting...

"You see, the real problem with this democracy is all the people voting, and the idea that politicians shouldn't be allowed to pick their own constituents. BOTH SIDES, YOU GUYS."


The law. Would change. This. For. BOTH. SIDES.

Therefore, you should support it. Even when you're an "independent" that is clearly in the tank for the right.

Politicians are still doing exactly that in Illinois.

That it was an issue that needed to be addressed was what Pritzker ran on.

A lot of why I voted for the guy.

Now, he seems largely fine with that politicians in Illinois will keep right on picking their own constituents.

I know that this thread runs on a lot of "Them..." versus "Us..." but it is truly baffling just how often it is attempting to pick fights that really do not exist.

[worstblogever]

Politicians are still doing exactly that in Illinois.
.

What part of where I posted "the law would change this for BOTH SIDES" did you miss?

You're choosing to omit the relevant parts to argue against WHAT YOU WANT WHERE YOU ARE.

Why would you do this? Unless you just enjoy talking in circles that repeat right-wing talking points or something.

[numberthirty]

What part of where I posted "the law would change this for BOTH SIDES" did you miss?

You're choosing to omit the relevant parts to argue against WHAT YOU WANT WHERE YOU ARE.

Why would you do this? Unless you just enjoy talking in circles that repeat right-wing talking points or something.

Pretty obvious that right around "No One..." has missed anything.

Meanwhile?

It still looked like that perfectly reasonable law that would do the right thing isn't going anywhere any time soon last I checked.

Having accounted for that reality?

Nothing has changed about that I am still for actually doing the right thing in my home state.

[worstblogever]

Pretty obvious that right around "No One..." has missed anything.

Meanwhile?

It still looked like that perfectly reasonable law that would do the right thing isn't going anywhere any time soon last I checked.

Having accounted for that reality?

Nothing has changed about that I am still for actually doing the right thing in my home state.

In other words, we agree, the For the People Act should pass, and you're just being needlessly confrontational with everyone about it.

Got it.

[numberthirty]

Since there are some "Illinois..."-adjacent folks who might actually know folks who live inside of the state, it seems like it might be worth pointing this one out...

https://peoplesworld.org/article/ill...nal-amendment/

Illinois voters to decide on worker rights constitutional amendment

In yet another example of how state elections make—and will make—a practical difference in workers’ lives and livelihoods, Illinois voters will decide in November 2022 whether to enshrine the right to collective bargaining and a ban on so-called “right to work” laws, in the state constitution.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, as well as 2020, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" published profiles of Arkansas Lieutenant Governor Tim Griffin, who in 2004, as accused of attempting a voter registration scheme in Jacksonville, Florida, and then after laying low for a few years, was one of the beneficiaries of the Bush Administration’s culling of U.S. Attorneys. After it was revealed that his predecessor was fired on Karl Rove’s orders to make a job opening for Griffin, he resigned six months into the job, citing “spending time with his family” for bailing. He resurfaced in 2010 to run for the U.S. House of Representatives in Arkansas’ 2nd Congressional District, and won in spite of being named one of CREW’s “Most Crooked Candidates of 2010”. His most noteworthy moment in office came in October of 2013, when during a point when the capitol was on lockdown after a woman ran a barricade at the White House and began a high speed chase that ended with her being fired upon by the Secret Service, Griffin, while hiding in his office, took to social media to blame the event on President Obama’s “violent rhetoric” while the situation was still active, and before any details were known. Halfway through his second term in office, Griffin again resigned to “spend time with his family”, only to turn around and six months later register as a candidate for Arkansas Lieutenant Governor, making people wonder if his family tell him to go away after a couple months of him bothering them. He currently is serving as lieutenant governor while bizarrely cashing in big by working for a consulting firm through an obscure legal loophole, as well. In May of 2016. He, along with Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson and Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge all surfaced around the same time to respond to President Obama’s directive about transgendered bathroom use, with Griffin himself taking to social media to call it “misguided”.

Griffin has seemingly remained content with sitting in Arkansas, giving a thumbs up’ to the spree of executions that Gov. Asa Hutchinson went on in April 2017, while also hiring a guy who worked for the Koch brothers on a SuperPAC to serve as his own deputy chief of staff and communications director, because that’s not shady at all.

In any event, Tim Griffin won re-election in 2018, and in his last term as Lieutenant Governor, straight up lied to children about Covid-19 as Arkansas Republicans chose to ignore the warnings of public health experts and reopened the state without any concern for how that would spread the virus exponentially faster and cause many more fatalities.

We’ve been expecting Griffin to run for Governor at the end of the current term of Asa Hutchinson when he was term-limited… but alas, Griffin looked down the pike and saw that such a bid would mean he would have to win a primary featuring the far higher-profile candidate and nepotism choice of the people, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, in a Primary, and thus, Tim Griffin blinked, and decided to just run for Arkansas Attorney General instead, and bide his time presumably for another four to eight years.

[worstblogever]

Update on a previous CSGOPOTD who fell by the wayside after she resigned...

When we last left former South Dakota House of Representatives member Lynne DiSanto, she of the "All Lives Splatter" meme being shared and starting up a conspiracy theory blog where she would imagine causes behind the disappearances and murders of very real people... including a woman in Wyoming whose husband went missing and DiSanto harassed until she could get a restraining order to keep DiSanto the f*** away. But as of late 2019, stories were out that Lynne and her husband Mark were getting a divorce and she was going to move to Montana.

Well, it seems at some point she went back to South Dakota and called the cops on her husband, claiming she was assaulted and choked. The officer on scene was about to arrest her husband when he provided an airtight alibi that he was playing racquetball with a friend, who confirmed it. At that point the cop noted that she had waited a day after the assault, and hand not a scratch or bruise on her, so he got suspicious. Eventually, cell phone records confirmed neither she, nor her husband were at the house when the assault happened. Lynne got charged with filing a false police report. She pleaded no contest to the charges in March 2021 and was given a 90 day suspended sentence and $250 dollar fine, which the crime is supposed to be for up to a year in jail... but white privilege and all that.

This... this s*** is bonkers.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Update on a previous CSGOPOTD who fell by the wayside after she resigned...

When we last left former South Dakota House of Representatives member Lynne DiSanto, she of the "All Lives Splatter" meme being shared and starting up a conspiracy theory blog where she would imagine causes behind the disappearances and murders of very real people... including a woman in Wyoming whose husband went missing and DiSanto harassed until she could get a restraining order to keep DiSanto the f*** away. But as of late 2019, stories were out that Lynne and her husband Mark were getting a divorce and she was going to move to Montana.

Well, it seems at some point she went back to South Dakota and called the cops on her husband, claiming she was assaulted and choked. The officer on scene was about to arrest her husband when he provided an airtight alibi that he was playing racquetball with a friend, who confirmed it. At that point the cop noted that she had waited a day after the assault, and hand not a scratch or bruise on her, so he got suspicious. Eventually, cell phone records confirmed neither she, nor her husband were at the house when the assault happened. Lynne got charged with filing a false police report. She pleaded no contest to the charges in March 2021 and was given a 90 day suspended sentence and $250 dollar fine, which the crime is supposed to be for up to a year in jail... but white privilege and all that.

This... this s*** is bonkers.

Man! What is it with Qpublicans that they're so freaking cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs? I know I've asked this question here before, but I just don't understand why so many members of the GQP have so much bad wiring upstairs.

[Tami]

Why the Mexico City Metro Collapsed

On a balmy night in May, Tania Lezama Salgado hopped on the metro with her sister Nancy after spending hours looking for the grandest pink dress and the sparkliest shoes possible for her 15th birthday party.

Suddenly, she heard a loud bang, then screams, as the overpass collapsed and the train plummeted about 40 feet to the street below.

When Tania came to, her neck was wedged between the doors of the metro, her head poking out of the wreckage, the smell of blood curling into her nostrils.

Bodies strewn on top of her, her outstretched hands felt what seemed to be the straps of her sister’s backpack. As she pulled, she said, she discovered they were the entrails of another passenger.

Tania now spends her days in the hospital, unable to walk, her shattered pelvis held together by a metal contraption, four screws poking out of each side of her body. Above her hospital bed is a photo of her 22-year-old sister Nancy — one of 26 people who died in the metro crash that night.

But a New York Times investigation — based on years of government records, interviews with people who worked on the construction, and expert analysis of evidence from the crash site — has found serious flaws in the basic construction of the metro that appear to have led directly to its collapse.

The disaster has already spiraled into a political crisis, threatening to ensnare two of the nation’s most powerful figures: the president’s foreign secretary, Marcelo Ebrard, and one of the world’s wealthiest businessmen, Carlos Slim.

Mr. Ebrard was mayor of Mexico City when the new metro line, known as the “Golden Line,” was built, a heralded expansion of the second largest subway in the Americas that could boost his credentials for a possible presidential run. And Mr. Slim’s construction company, Carso Infrastructure and Construction, built the portion of the line that collapsed — the firm’s first rail project, paving the way for more.

The Times took thousands of photographs of the crash site and shared the evidence with several leading engineers who reached the same conclusion: The steel studs that were vital to the strength of the overpass — linchpins of the entire structure — appear to have failed because of bad welds, critical mistakes that likely caused the crash.

That is one of the primary explanations being considered by Mexico City officials, according to several people familiar with the official investigations into the disaster, and it underscores a pattern of political expediency and haphazard work as the metro was being built.

[worstblogever]

Another update on a CSGOPOTD who has left office, and this one's a bit of a bigger fish in an even more compromising position...

The SeditionHunters Twitter that has helped crowdsource help to ID people at the coup attempt carried out by Trump supporters on 1/6 noticed someone in the background behind someone already arrested, and then started to spot him all over the East Plaza on Jan. 6th...

Take a peek at former GOP Congressman and all-around nutcase, Dana Rohrabacher, grinning like a doofus as insane people are incited to try and murder his former colleagues.