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

[Powerboy]

That’s the thing. People who fawn over Trump see themselves in him, they like it that he’s not a polished, mealy-mouthed, two-faced charlatan like most Washington politicians, that he’s just as lowbrow and thuggish and racist as they are. That’s the appeal of Trump to his lemmings, a Pied Piper like spell that’s near impossible to break.

That's the problem. They see Trump as the good guy and themselves as being with him against the conniving politicians who know the court system and *know* it works like a Dirty Harry movie with all the real evidence ruled inadmissible. They *know* that these liberals are destroying the country by undermining the police in favor of criminals who are the only ones liberals want to defend in the name of racial justice while undermining Christianity as the National religion that this country was based on, tearing down statues to national heroes like General Lee and John Wayne and exaggerating a virus and the numbers dead and hospitalized all in order to get rid of the greatest president we've ever had so they can profit by it, murder babies and get good positions in the new regime when the Chinese invade from Canada and turn us into a Commie nation.

Of course, it's patently insane asylum looney tunes but half of conservatives believe most of it and totally see themselves as the heroes in a liberal nation gone mad.

[worstblogever]

The time for the country to stop treating conservatives' feelings as a representation of reality is now. I could give two s***s that they "feel" like Trump is the good guy. He's a s*** heel. He's a wanton criminal. It's literally recorded for posterity. This is Watergate without the missing minutes of tape. And whether or not they "feel" like Trump should be president... that's not reality, or the facts. He lost. He's committed crimes. He continues to commit crimes. There is no "feeling" around those facts.

It's long past time to stop coddling the right and their "feelings" about this. It's utterly toxic to pretend that there's a hero to be found in the s***pile that is Trump.

[mathew101281]

I'm concerned that Trumpists in Georgia are going to try cast fake ballets in order to cast doubt on the first election.

[Wildling]

Bob Woodward says it's worse than Watergate, Ted Lieu said the FBI should have a criminal investigation as does Lawrence Tribe. You? Are you going to defend him the way the majority of your Party is? I expect you do, since you have made clear you only oppose Trump and still solidly stand behind the GOP.

Maybe if Abramson had a Medal of Freedom it would be a-okay, and everybody here probably feels deep down knows it wouldn't impact Mets' party vote standing for the next relevant cycles, whether he argues for 20 pages against everyone about ad hominems or not.

[BroHomo]

I honestly wanna know how can people still support him? I just put my those of my friends who supported his presidency and reelection attempts on blasts. Its troubling to think that I have folks in my life who is okay with this dude and IMHO seriously just my thoughts....are so afraid of white people losing any sort of monopoly on EVERYTHING in America that their willing to feign ignorance and disregard facts to be in tune with his propaganda

[Agent Z]

Enrique Tarrio, leader of the Proud Boys, has been arrested

https://******.com/article/joe-biden...32d1e4c19aeab6

[ed2962]

Enrique Tarrio, leader of the Proud Boys, has been arrested

https://******.com/article/joe-biden...32d1e4c19aeab6

The link isn't working.

However, I googled the story and what a tool...

In response to a few of your guys getting attacked, instead chasing down the people who attacked you, you steal a sign from church and burn it. What's was all the training and no fapping for if you're not going to actually fight?

[Username taken]

That’s the thing. People who fawn over Trump see themselves in him, they like it that he’s not a polished, mealy-mouthed, two-faced charlatan like most Washington politicians, that he’s just as lowbrow and thuggish and racist as they are. That’s the appeal of Trump to his lemmings, a Pied Piper like spell that’s near impossible to break.

This pretty much.

There’s always been a segment of society that’s mean, wants to bully, be as openly bigoted as they like and basically run everyone down without consequences. Trump is their thoughts to life. That’s why the whole “polite debate” or “reconciliation” should be forgotten, the die-hard Trumpists are living in a parallel reality and should be ignored. The US has a long destructive history of people constructing alternate realities.The whole parallel reality is why slavery, Jim Crow, segregation lasted so long, it’s what gave birth to garbage like manifest destiny, it’s the same reason for people actively fighting against ostensibly good policy like healthcare for all, women’s reproductive rights, LGBT rights and it’s this same nonsense that’s given rise to absolute garbage like gamergate, comicsgate and qanon. These people should be ignored and when they speak up they should be confronted with the truth and condemned for choosing to live in absolute “wrongness”. There’s no common ground to be had with these idiots.

Trump has also exposed just how power hungry some in the political class are. Guys like Ted Cruz represent everything wrong with politics, not just in the US but in the whole world. He’s so desperate to secure his political future that he’s gone out of his way to fight for a man that insulted his wife, insulted his family and insulted him. How low can you go?

[Tami]

I'm concerned that Trumpists in Georgia are going to try cast fake ballets in order to cast doubt on the first election.

Then they will be like that guy in PA who was caught tr5ying to vote fro Trump twice by pretending to be his dead mother.

[Iron Maiden]

Yeah. What I hate most about Trump is that he's got no class or charisma. He's little more than animal cunning and an utter lack of shame.

And still people lap up his every God damn word.

Hitler, Stalin and all the other monsters of the world must look up from hell and wonder how it is that Trump so effortlessly commands loyalty that they had to actually work for.

I tend to think a big factor remains the image people of Trump from The Apprentice TV show (along with having a propaganda show on TV like Fox News) esp among the middle aged Trump zombies. And that was all just show biz fakery since Trump was still trying to recover from his massive bankruptcies. What we did was a scam....state of two of the shows creators director Fisher Stevens and producer Bill Pruitt

What we did, that was a scam,” says producer Bill Pruitt. “That was an entertainment.” Pruitt describes Trump’s real office within New York’s Trump Tower as dated, so the show built the boardroom where Trump uttered the now famous line “You’re Fired!” The famous boardroom was a set based on the classy, high-powered office portrayed in the movie Pruitt describes Trump’s real office within New York’s Trump Tower as dated, so the show built the boardroom where Trump uttered the now famous line “You’re Fired!” The famous boardroom was a set based on the classy, high-powered office portrayed in the movie Network.

“If you walked around Trump’s actual office in Trump Tower you’d see the wood’s chipped, and what’s that smell?” says Pruitt in the film. “It wasn’t the empire we were going to have to sell to people. We needed to gussy it up a bit. And we did.”

Trump wasn't actually a billionaire at that time. Trump sued writer Timothy O'Brien who in his book "Trump Nation" from 2005 stated that Trump was worth 150 - 250 million. Trump lost that suit. A source for the article, New York gossip columnist AJ Benza used to get gossip about the Manhattan nightlife scene from Trump in exchange for labeling him a billionaire. “He wanted to be paid back in a particular way, regardless of what you mentioned,” says Benza “He never really cared as long as you said the word ‘billionaire.’ “

[worstblogever]

I'm concerned that Trumpists in Georgia are going to try cast fake ballets in order to cast doubt on the first election.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2015, 2016, 2017, as well as 2018, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day posted profiles of Lyle Rowland, a member of the Missouri House of Representatives, hailing from the Show-Me-State’s District 155 who wrote Missouri’s own “Birther Bill”, HB 283 back in 2011, and after it did not pass, he actually submitted a second one in 2012, HB 1046. The idea that President Obama is secretly not an American citizen and “stole” the 2008 and 2012 elections is not the only paranoid conspiracy theory that Rowland believes in, though, as he also submitted legislation to prevent the adaptation of environmental standards from the United Nations’ Agenda 21 treaty from 1992, with his reason for the move being a video from Glenn Beck raving like a lunatic about how it’s a secret plot for global domination. Among his “smaller government” priorities has been his need to respond to the public outcry after the killing of Michael Brown by Officer Darren Wilson, by taking the classy step of trying to vote for SB 199, to amend the justification for deadly force to make it EASIER for police to get away with shooting civilians, and also another vote for HB 499, a bill that would require not just all public school students to recite the Pledge of Allegiance with “under God” in it, but specifically to have to do so in English (which based on previous court rulings, is unconstitutional on multiple levels). He’s also tried to nullify federal gun laws, legalize guns in schools, and pass legislation to create unnecessary waiting periods for abortions, to round out his rap sheet. Since Rowland took office in 2010, he only once faced a primary challenger for his seat in 2016, and has never been challenged by a Democrat. After four terms in the Missouri House, he faced term limits in 2018 and had to leave office.

On this date in 2020, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” first profiled Warren Love, a member of the Missouri House of Representatives first elected in 2016. He's pretty damned racist, as we’ll get to the bulk of why, but there was a tip-off in January of 2016 when he made a reference to a “black Negro” in a committee meeting. It didn’t get better from there. In August of 2017, after the campaign of terror carried out by White Nationalists in Charlottesville, a push back against hatred began, with Confederate monuments around the country getting torn down, or in some instances, vandalized. Warren Love responded to the removal and vandalism by getting on Facebook and calling for those who would act against memorials to a failed rebellion carried out in the name of keeping African Americans slaves to be “hung from a tall tree”. We’ll repeat that… he called for opponents of Confederate monuments to be LYNCHED. Now, almost immediately after that, Love was criticized from both sides of the aisle, but he tried a folksy version of the “I was taken out of context” defense, saying, “That was an exaggerated statement that, you know, a lot of times is used in the Western world when somebody does a crime or commits theft.... That’s just a Western term, and I’m very much a Western man.... You know, I wear a coat. You know, I dress Western. And, you know, I’m the cowboy of the Capitol.” And then, people realized that his comments were not a one off, as Love, a member of the GOP, offered some unique thoughts in another Facebook post, about the founder of his party, Abraham Lincoln, and how “Lincoln was the greatest despot and tyrant in American history.” Almost every Democrat in the Missouri state legislature, and several Republicans called for Love’s resignation, but when it came time to actually reprimand him and remove him from his committee assignments, Missouri Republicans managed to somehow look the other way, and not vote to take him to task. We’ll note that when you look at Warren Love’s voting record, you’ll find other evidence other than his love for the Confederacy that shows he’s has his head either up his arse and/or in the 19th Century, like how he voted against a measure to prevent child marriages in Missouri, is a supporter of Personhood, as well as support for Voter ID measures that are the modern equivalent of Jim Crow legislation. Love also voted for nullification legislation to attempt to ignore federal firearms legislations, voted for paranoid and unnecessary anti-Sharia legislation aimed at banning “foreign laws”, and voted to try and block the implementation of the United Nations’ Agenda 21 Treaty (because he’s apparently convinced it’s a plot for global domination), and he also voted for a clearly unconstitutional measure that not only would force schoolchildren to recite the Pledge of Allegiance every day, but specified that it must be spoken IN ENGLISH. Luckily, Warren Love was term-limited in 2020, so will we also retire his profile and take a look at another wacky Republican today instead. (Current crazy/stupid scoreboard, is now 950-45, since this was established in July 2014.


Joe Thalman
Welcome to what is the 950th original profile here at “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day”, where we’ll be discussing Joe Thalman, who was a 2020 candidate running for a seat in the Minnesota House of Representatives, specifically in District 49B. We are profiling him because he is yet the latest in a line of Qanon conspiracy theorists who got on the ballot this year as a Republican trying to win office, having repeatedly made posts on social media with the Qanon hashtag. When asked about Qanon by the local press, Thalman offered:

”I’m aware of Q and I’m aware that there are other attributions of that phrase as well. General (Michael) Flynn had made the same statement on a post that he had done a day or two before. I love the sound of it. … I like the spirited statement.”

When the negative press started to be a detriment to Thalman, he revisited the topic, adding:

“It’s one of many news sources that a lot of people are going to outside of the traditional mainstream media. I would suggest people always do their own research and come to their own conclusions.”

We couldn’t find much else about Thalman on issue stances outside of his love of Qanon, but we can say when it comes to Coronavirus, he’s a true Covidiot, focusing on wanting the economy opened without giving any thought or mention to the hundreds of thousands of people who have died, or any concern for public health. Joe Thalman was defeated in the November election, getting only 38% of the vote. Hopefully he does not turn up in the news shooting up any pizzerias while trying to find child sex dungeons in the basement where there isn’t a lower level anyway.

[Mister Mets]

Maybe if Abramson had a Medal of Freedom it would be a-okay, and everybody here probably feels deep down knows it wouldn't impact Mets' party vote standing for the next relevant cycles, whether he argues for 20 pages against everyone about ad hominems or not.

Whatever you think of me, it doesn't make Abramson reliable.

That said, I will be glad to have the question of whether Seth Abramson is reliable be a proxy for whether I'm right or whether the people who disagree with me on this thread are right.

Bob Woodward says it's worse than Watergate, Ted Lieu said the FBI should have a criminal investigation as does Lawrence Tribe. You? Are you going to defend him the way the majority of your Party is? I expect you do, since you have made clear you only oppose Trump and still solidly stand behind the GOP.

I don't have any problem with an investigation of Trump, nor do I defend him about the phone call. The closest thing I've said to a defense was linking to an article about how it may be hard to prosecute him, which doesn't make what he did right.

I will note I have also expressed support for Democrats in some key races in the past. A difference between me and many of the other posters is that my voting habits have been affected by Trump, whereas many of the rest would be voting for the same races in the same elections no matter what Trump did, or whether he had run for office. There's nothing wrong with having clear policy preferences, but it seems odd to criticize me for being solidly behind a political party, when the same is more true of many of the posters here.

[Tami]

Statement of Congressman Jamie Raskin and Sarah Bloom Raskin on the Remarkable Life of Tommy Raskin

A beautifully written tribute, followed by the strongest case for treating Depression as a Medical Condition. I think society still tends to view it as something you will get over, or a mental problem that can be solved easily.

[Tami]

The Trump-Raffensperger call was big news — unless you were following conservative media

In the media ecosystem that reliably supports the president, the significance of President Trump’s attempts to persuade Georgia’s secretary of state to toss aside the will of the voting public was downplayed or rationalized — and sometimes largely ignored. Conservative outlets such as the Daily Caller and Breitbart paid it scant attention.

Others rallied to the president’s defense. Newsmax, the TV and digital-commentary outlet that has backed Trump’s baseless claims of voter fraud since he began making them, gave the Georgia story extensive coverage, largely casting it as a legitimate exercise of presidential power.

“Trump Ga. Transcript Shows Case for Vote Fraud, President Acted Properly,” was the headline on one of Newmax’s stories.

Among mainstream news outlets — CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, The Washington Post — Trump’s captured-on-audiotape call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger was big news, dominating opinion and as well as news coverage, and reflecting various shades of alarm about the president’s blatant efforts to undermine a result that has survived court challenges and been certified by the state.

It was, in short, another reflection of two media realities — one in which Trump’s actions are rationalized or ignored, another in which the same facts are treated as matters of grave concern.