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

[MajorHoy]

Moscow Mitch did a real good job of screwing up the Senate.

Unfortunately, I think things were already headed that way when Harry Reid was in charge before Mitch. They just became worse after Reid was gone.

[worstblogever]

Unfortunately, I think things were already headed that way when Harry Reid was in charge before Mitch. They just became worse after Reid was gone.

Mitch was minority leader in January 2009 when he called the meeting to tell everyone he was opposing EVERYTHING Obama was going to do. That's your origin story for the Senate being broken.

[Marvell2100]

Mitch was minority leader in January 2009 when he called the meeting to tell everyone he was opposing EVERYTHING Obama was going to do. That's your origin story for the Senate being broken.

Pretty much. He said his goal was to make Obama a one-term President. Then the Republicans became the party of No. They opposed everything Obama and the Dems proposed and tried to strip out everything the Dems wanted in their bills. People complained about some parts of Obamacare but it was the things the the Republicans put in the legislation that really hurt people. Reid did what he had to just to get the ACA over the finish line because Mitch wouldn't vote on it

[worstblogever]

Pretty much. He said his goal was to make Obama a one-term President. Then the Republicans became the party of No. They opposed everything Obama and the Dems proposed and tried to strip out everything the Dems wanted in their bills. People complained about some parts of Obamacare but it was the things the the Republicans put in the legislation that really hurt people. Reid did what he had to just to get the ACA over the finish line because Mitch wouldn't vote on it

And it progressed further when Rand Paul and Marco Rubio arrive in the Senate in 2010. Then Mike Lee and Ted Cruz in 2012. 2014 gave us Joni Ernst... Just... pretenders where real leaders are needed who only produce outrage to fundraise. They have no real goals but seeking more power, but doing nothing with it but seeking even more.

[Jack Dracula]

She's a former Cabinet Secretary. So it only shows they're full of s*** about how it's supposedly "impossible" to impeach former office holders.

The problem with his "threat" is... she's done with holding office in any capacity. Like, she retired. She's done. Not running for president, not running for any office, doesn't want to get nominated to any Cabinet post. Also, what are they going to charge her with, Benghazi? AGAIN? And if they do, how are they getting 2/3 vote.

He's using Hillary as a poor example but the answer to his argument is YES. Regardless of who it is we absolutely should be able to impeach a former officeholder, BUT only under the conditions already specified, those being if they're guilty of committing actual crimes while in office.
He's using the slippery-slope argument that if they set a precedent now it will happen every time administrations leave the white house but that can't be allowed to stop them from enacting a fail-safe for preventing a populist autocrat from running for office again.
That is a far worse slippery-slope for the country to go down than the possibility of false impeachments.

[Tendrin]

Holy crap, if this blows up and they STILL acquit...

They will.

And they will because 'the dems didn't make it part of their case, if only they had then we might have so it's all their fault, they just HAD to rush to impeach before a full investigation'.

Second verse same as the first.

[Kevinroc]

They will.

And they will because 'the dems didn't make it part of their case, if only they had then we might have so it's all their fault, they just HAD to rush to impeach before a full investigation'.

Second verse same as the first.

Yup. People should be under no illusions about what is happening and what is going to happen. The GOP are the party of Trump.

[Tendrin]

Yup. People should be under no illusions about what is happening and what is going to happen. The GOP are the party of Trump.

Recent polls showed 4 in 10 Republicans thought 'political violence' might be necessary. The GOP is shrinking and that means that what's left over is going to be even more extreme. GOP delenda est at this point.

[Iron Maiden]

What are you referring to?

Edit: Is it this one?

New details about Trump-McCarthy shouting match show Trump refused to call off the rioters

I guess now we know why McCarthy flew down to kiss the ring at Mar-A-Lago. He probably apologized profusely for cussing at Trump.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2015, 2016, 2017, as well as 2018, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day posted profiles of Arizona State Senator Steve Yarbrough, a member of the Arizona House of Representatives who was one of the co-sponsors of Arizona’s draconian anti-immigrant law, SB 1070, sued former Governor Jan Brewer for approving the Medicaid Expansion in Arizona, and voted for Arizona’s version of the Birther Bill, as well as trying to nullify that United Nations’ Agenda 21 environmental conspiracy, presumably because he thinks it somehow is a plot for global domination. Yarbrough is also yet another Republican we’ve profiled who supports drug testing welfare recipients, in spite of how failed of a policy that’s been whenever it’s been implemented around the country. Yarbrough has also voted to attempt to nullify federal firearms laws, and voted to pass legislation that would force Arizona businesses to also accept gold and silver as legal tender. On social issues, Yarbrough is also an extremist, though, having once tried to pass what amounted to a “Personhood Plus!” bill that said life started at ovulation, and was the sponsor of Arizona’s own attempt at passing a “religious freedom” bill to stop same sex couples from getting married once the Supreme Court started working towards overturning bans on it. Steve Yarbrough was term-limited in 2018, and was so was desperate to find a way to hang onto his office, he actually submitted legislation in his last term to try and re-write the law on term limits for Arizona State Senators to be four-year terms, so that he would get eight more years before he would actually be term-limited in the way the law is written. It fortunately failed and he’s now out of office.

On this date in 2019, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled Alice Novoa, a former write-in candidate for Governor of Arizona in 2014, who was trying a tad bit harder to get on the ballot to be Arizona Secretary of State in 2018, and failed miserably in both attempts to be elected to office. Novoa first came onto the scene in Arizona politics, however, back in 2010, and by that we mean she showed up at a rally in support of the mostly unconstitutional anti-immigrant law, SB 1070, where she appeared alongside Neo-Nazis, militia groups, conspiracy theorists, nativists, and other lunatics. She qualifies for at least two of those categories of attendees. Novoa was more than happy to be interviewed by the Phoenix New Times at that event, where she introduced herself as a candidate for Justice of the Peace in Douglas, Arizona before warning the paper of a conspiracy that includes pro-Aztlan forces, the Catholic Church and radical Muslims intends to take back the Southwest and get rid of all white people. This massive conspiracy went all the way to Pope Benedict, and her source of information was “the Internet”. (Because we all know if there’s one thing that’s been proven through the years, is how often and effective team-ups between the Pope and Muslims can be, right?) Not long after Alice Novoa’s latest failed attempt to be elected to office in 2018, she emerged in headlines with a new Birther conspiracy, as the day before the 2018 general election, she filed a lawsuit against Democratic Arizona state legislator Racquel Teran, claiming that she isn’t actually an American citizen. This would be the second time, however, that Novoa has attempted to disqualify Teran from office, pulling the same insane and racist trick back in 2012. You would think that after Teran presented her birth certificate six years ago and that lawsuit was dismissed immediately, that would have been the end of it, but Alice Novoa is a special kind of nutter.

One this date in 2020, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled Kelly Townsend, a member of the Arizona State Senate whose most infamous moment was in May of 2018, as she was demonizing Arizona teachers on Twitter, and complaining about “socialists” who support public education and want to be paid to teach children (THE NERVE!). And at that point, a user named “Peppercoyote” came along to put her in her place as a loon. But another commentator noted that Peppercoyote’s profile pic was a fur suit, and their profile listed them as a musician who attends furry conventions, and said, quote, ”Imagine going to all this trouble to get elected to the state legislature of Arizona only to get logically destroyed by a furry. Poor Townsend was confused, and asked a question you should never ask on the internet, ”please educate me as to what a furry is.” Another user tried to warn Townsend that she was opening up a veritable Pandora’s Box, writing, "Ma'am, I'm not really sorry for what's about to happen to you" Which only made Townsend ask “Is that some kind of threat?” before all hell broke loose. As Furries came in waves to share their fursonas, pictures of fur-cons and all sorts of furry porn cartoons, Townsend tried to play it cool when someone asked if they could draw her in her fursona, and she agreed, provided it was of herself as a lioness. They obliged… and then immediately Rule 34 of the internet kicked in and they started making porn of the Kelly Townsend as an anthropomorphic lion being violated in colorful ways (we’re not going to link to it, and we won’t judge you if such a thing ends up in your search history). While we often note when CSGOPOTD candidates we profile waste the public’s time by supporting bills that declare “pornography is a public health crisis”, Townsend might be the one person who we’ve seen do so that we kind of understand where the crusade’s coming from, based on what she saw in her Twitter feed in the day she was “enlightened”. Now, before anyone goes and feels bad for Kelly Townsend, keep in mind that only four months prior to her Fur Frenzy, that she posted an image of a topless protester in the Arizona state capitol during the annual Women’s March, and decided to justify that such a form of expression against the government would have justified it if that protester had been raped by a passerby., writing, "I hope the history books say it was I who gave a warning to women everywhere that if you continue down this path you will have no defense when you are sexually harassed or even worse, raped." In February of 2019, Townsend’s idiocy on social media continued as she posted an image of herself with teardrops drawn on her face with makeup as a form of protest against abortion. Now, a rallying symbol like that might make sense, but unfortunately, tear-drop tattoos are already a gang-affiliatted thing to indicate when you’ve murdered someone. When this was brought to Townsend’s attention, she claimed she was aware of the connotation, but went with her “pro-life” post that made it look like she was confessing to murder, saying the teardrops were a “visible reminder of how sad it is that some advocate for infanticide.” Spoiler alert: Literally no one advocates for “infanticide,” defined by the law as “the crime of killing a child within a year of birth.” Which makes it even more strange that Townsend came out hard in May of 2019 as an anti-vaccination nut, despite how vaccines can save children’s lives. A day after Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey went on record that he was pro-vaccination, Townsend responded online with her thoughts (or lack thereof) on the matter, which included, ]”Dearest friends and people of Arizona, it seems we are prepared to give up our liberty, the very sovereignty of our body, because of measles. I read yesterday that the idea is being floated that if not enough people get vaccinated, then we are going to force them to. The idea that we force someone to give up their liberty for the sake of the collective is not based on American values but rather, Communist.” There’s all of that, before you even look at Townsend’s extremely conservative voting record, that is littered with votes for some of the most insane bills Arizona Republicans have drafted, including her sponsorship of HB 2338, to allow concealed carry near public schools (And we thought her opposition to raising teacher’s wages was the worst thing she might have been doing to educators and kids) her co-sponsorship of SB 1367, which would have required physicians to attempt to revive any fetus they were attempting to abort or be fined $5,000, repeatedly supporting work requirements for Medicaid recipients (many of whom are physically incapable of working and that’s why they’re on Medicaid…) and her support for Arizona Republicans’ insane bills to try and make gold and silver legal tender. While Kelly Townsend remains in office at this time, we’re going to pause from profiling her at this time and take a look at another wacky Republican today instead. (Current crazy/stupid scoreboard, is now 964-45, since this was established in July 2014.

[worstblogever]

John Scheiss

Welcome to what is the 964th profile here at “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day”, where we’ll be profiling John Scheiss, a man who failed to get elected Governor of Wisconsin in 2010, then opted instead to run for U.S. Senate in Wisconsinin 2012, 2016 and 2018, (plus a 2014 crack at U.S. House in Wisconsin’s 7th Congressional District) before he went to Arizona to try to get elected to U.S. Senate there in 2020. Yes, we’re talking about one of those wacky “perennial candidate” Republicans. Meaning these were not, of course, mainstream campaigns, as he failed to get enough signatures in 2012, got 5 votes as a write-in candidate in 2014, and withdrew prior to the GOP Primary in 2016 and 2018. It’s hard to win in politics when your surname is but one letter away from being a word for poop in German.

John Scheiss’ general musings on social media, though, are truly s***ty. For example:

”Just remember, I’m the number one terrorist, racist, Nazi, homophobe in America… and I’m full of many micro and macro aggressions! Get over it!”

Among Scheiss’ other grotesque opinions: (because of course he says horrible things consistently)

• Black culture is "evil”
• "The founding White culture of our forefathers is under attack for what should be obvious reasons."
• "White power is the answer"
• "what we need are some White sanctuary cities"
• "White anglo-saxon europeans founded this free nation, and only White people will save it, so White up!"
• Support for Confederate monuments.
• There was the day he recently he was sharing memes about Vice President Kamala Harris being the prophesized “Whore of Babylon” from the Book of Revelations
• Or the day he was spreading conspiracy theories about Covid-19 being deliberately unleashed by the Chinese government
• Or of course he’s into conspiracy theories about election fraud because Trump didn’t win.

If you want to see what white nationalism looks like, feel free to peruse John Scheiss’ Facebook page. He got a personal best 92 votes in the GOP Primary in 2020 while running for U.S. Senate in Arizona, because of COURSE his fortunes would improve there. He currently is threatening to quit Facebook because they’ve started pulling down his posts when he posts false information. Feel free to report some of them to help the platform show him the door first.

[worstblogever]

And by the by, we keep mentioning how insane the Arizona GOP, in particular its state legislators have become in the past few weeks, right?

Here's John Fillmore, a state rep responding to the existence of a 15 year old non-binary child from Tucson by sponsoring legislation to lock in that birth certificates only have a "male" and "female" option before he then commenting with a "slippery slope" argument:

""What’s going to happen when someday someone wakes up and they want to go to a far extreme and identify as a chicken or something for crying out loud. Where do we draw the line?"

Absolute trash.

[Tendrin]

And by the by, we keep mentioning how insane the Arizona GOP, in particular its state legislators have become in the past few weeks, right?

Here's John Fillmore, a state rep responding to the existence of a 15 year old non-binary child from Tucson by sponsoring legislation to lock in that birth certificates only have a "male" and "female" option before he then commenting with a "slippery slope" argument:



Absolute trash.

The arguments have no changed, ever, they just apply them to the new wedge they hope to create. The arguments people trot out against gendered nonconformity is the exact same language that was used against homosexuals. It's sad and vile.

[worstblogever]

The arguments have no changed, ever, they just apply them to the new wedge they hope to create. The arguments people trot out against gendered nonconformity is the exact same language that was used against homosexuals. It's sad and vile.

Pretty much. 10-15 years ago, it was "marry a RANDOM KIND OF ANIMAL HERE". Now it's "identify as RANDOM KIND OF ANIMAL HERE".

But it's marginalize, demean, and lord over a sexual minority in both instances. This is the GOP brand, and how they try to appeal to Evangelicals under their umbrella. They failed on gay marriage, so they've tried moving on to a battle in the culture war they haven't lost just yet.

Yet. Using the same logic, they're gonna lose it at some point.

[RisingForce]

It seems a little ridiculous to me for a country that is so capitalist and was built by immigrants somehow could become so staunchly and defiantly nationalist but yet maybe in some strange way is saying a lot coming from the likes of America.

I personally have decided to be a genuine socialist at this point, but I am not really all that fond of the current socio-political and bilateral business dealings which currently exist and seem to make up the resounding amount of commerce that we are somehow forced to make amends with. I can tolerate and put up with a lot of things, but one thing I cannot stand is this continual and gradual seeming disregard for free speech and certain levels of personal autonomy or choice which I think have gradually been chipped away at in recent years and it's quite startling and frightening to me and has inevitably led me to being quite uncomfortable and personally distraught with how the established neo-liberal type order of things has changed the resounding and resulting social world as well. I cannot not really stand and want to live with the idea and experience of instead or in exchange living in some awful far right wing fascist national dictatorship that a percentage of the GOP would like to incite and impose about the unsuspecting scrupulous population and people, it is just another type or kind of nightmare, but unfortunately I am really fond of my free speech and personal freedoms so I have yet to reach a really sensible and secure choice for the time being as to what exactly I should do, except maybe get involved to promote socialist type causes, but we know the history America has with socialism (which you know they could do, but nope instead let's just get Donald Trump which is the equivalent of just getting giant sledgehammer or wrecking ball to solve all your problems)

Personally business leanings and formations aside, I just cannot stand the type of technocratic plutocratic, bureaucracy type established clergy that have seemingly become indentured so firmly the last decade, I have just not had very good experiences with it at all. I mean it's just been like a nightmare and this awful dictatorship, why is that? for one I think it (unfortunately the GOP's are kind of right here) not too far removed from the road to communism and the far left, and you know, for a long time everyone was just obsessed with living the high life, being really exclusionary and making a lot of money from outsourcing, and mass immigration, undercutting labour, the real estate market's inflation bubble, and you know, half of it leads to communist china and the Chinese are alright but I am just not a communist. I lived in Vancouver BC for a while, and it's basically what would happen if these types of business incentives were unopposed, you would just have wealthy foreign investors like the Chinese coming in and virtually buying up all the real estate and gentrifying whole entire neighbourhoods and cities, and then they like enforce this quasi seemingly communist regime on everyone and you HAVE to accept it or else, no rights or opportunities for you, which is not that simple or easily rectifiable either because I believe I was on the brunt end of experiencing serious discrimination and racism as well, so of course you get the crazy GOP and far right wing fascists.

But I am just a libertarian socialist at this point, what can I really do? it's like that episode of Transformers, the Autobots attempt to flee Cybertron, and then they're surprise ambushed and attacked by the deceptions and they stick this suction cup boarding beam so they can cut a whole and enter the Autobots ark ship. That's just what it feels like trying to do fair business dealings, like there's no such things, dang.