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

[numberthirty]

She ranked it third, 30. They gave the slot to someone else who ranked it higher than their third priority. This is another illuminating episode of you not knowing how congress actually works.

And probably won't be rocking the boat much.

Yeah, I caught that.

[Tendrin]

And probably won't be rocking the boat much.

Yeah, I caught that.

Sure, they may or may not. We'll find out. But if Porter had wanted on it so badly, she could have stayed on it. If she hadn't ranked it *third*, we might have reason to complain. Instead, we get some fresh faces, who may or may not make themselves stars too.

I like Porter, but I like letting her *pick her own priorities* better than assuming I know what's best for her.

Would I have liked her to stay on finances? Sure. She was fun to watch. But fun to watch isn't the same as 'effective'.

[numberthirty]

Sure, they may or may not. We'll find out. But if Porter had wanted on it so badly, she could have stayed on it. If she hadn't ranked it *third*, we might have reason to complain. Instead, we get some fresh faces, who may or may not make themselves starts too.

I like Porter, but I like letting her *pick hr own priorities* better than assuming I know what's best for her.

Would I have liked her to stay on finances? Sure. She was fun to watch. But fun to watch isn't the same as 'effective'.

Since it was clearly enough of a priority that she pointed out that she thought the move was bunk?

"Priorities..." is just a pretty lame way to try to justify that this ultimately came down to waiver that a party could very easily have issued.

No one would even have had to take so much as a quick smack across the side of the head to do it, either.

Just issue a simple waiver.

[Tendrin]

Since it was clearly enough of a priority that she pointed out that she thought the move was bunk?

"Priorities..." is just a pretty lame way to try to justify that this ultimately came down to waiver that a party could very easily have issued.

No one would even have had to take so much as a quick smack across the side of the head to do it, either.

Just issue a simple waiver.

The only comment I saw on it was this:

"Under House Dem rules, a member is allowed to serve on two non-exclusive committees. Mine are Oversight and Natural Resources. One can ask for a waiver for a third committee. I asked. Others in same situ got waivers. I did not. I play by the rules," Porter said in a tweet.

Were there others?

[numberthirty]

While I'm gonna avoid a "Dude..." sort of a situation, it was right there in the article Tami posted that I quoted -

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...-worse-off-it/

Porter is not pleased with the decision, and not shy about saying so. She first took to Twitter to complain, before releasing a statement Friday, saying in part: “Over the last two years, I have a clear record of getting things done on the Financial Services and Oversight Committees, calling out powerful people, exposing corruption, and inviting the American people into conversations. When I got to Congress, I wanted to change up what we see in hearings — I wanted to actually ask questions and get answers. Too often, what we see instead is stonewalling and speechifying.”

[numberthirty]

You don't really need to say a whole lot past that.

[Iron Maiden]

Or Ted Neely:

You forgot Max von Sydow and Jeffrey Hunter

[Tendrin]

While I'm gonna avoid a "Dude..." sort of a situation, it was right there in the article Tami posted that I quoted -

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...-worse-off-it/

'Dude', I missed Porter's quote there. That isn't quite the same as what you're implying.

[numberthirty]

Come to think of it? Related. Worth the mention. "My Bad..." in advance if someone else has already brought this one up.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-polit...rs-cancer-drug

Why the new pharma business model can be bad for research and development

A new report from Rep. Katie Porter has an illuminating case study on the value of antitrust in health care.

Not necessarily, according to a new investigation from Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA) shared exclusively with Vox. Porter’s office zeroed in on Immunex, a small biotech firm that was bought by one of the major pharma companies in the early 2000s — and promptly saw its culture of innovation and risk-taking start to deteriorate.

[numberthirty]

'Dude', I missed Porter's quote there. That isn't quite the same as what you're implying.

Where did you get "Implying..."?

While it's typed out?

Them's the jokes.

"Dude..." ain't really suited to any serious "Implying..." sort of business.

[numberthirty]

Went back a day or so to see if this came up. Doesn't look like it did. Might actually account for some of the kooky dust Graham has been kicking up.

Probably be trying to keep eyes off of this, if I was him...

https://www.vox.com/2021/2/13/222816...lindsey-graham

A Trump criminal probe in Georgia expands to include Sen. Lindsey Graham

[Tendrin]

Where did you get "Implying..."?

While it's typed out?

Them's the jokes.

"Dude..." ain't really suited to any serious "Implying..." sort of business.

If I could roll my eyes any harder, I would.

[worstblogever]

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2015, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" ran a profile of Ian Bayne, a failed candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives for Illinois’ 11th Congressional District in the 2014 elections. Bayne was a long shot from the start, but his odds went to the level of unlikely of navigating the Millenium Falcon through an asteroid field after he came rushing to the defense of Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson after Robinson gave his now infamous screed against the gay community in GQ magazine. Because Bayne not only commended Robertson, he compared him to Civil Rights icon Rosa Parks for what he said. Maybe that sort of conservative trolling would help a guy get elected in Mississippi, but not Illinois.

In 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, as well as in 2020, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" published its profiles of Kansas State Senator Mary Pilcher-Cook, who served eight years in the Kansas House of Representatives during the Bush administration but came to our attention back in February 2015 when she introduced a bill, SB 56, which would have amended Kansas’ public morals statute by deleting an exemption that protects K-12 public, private and parochial schoolteachers from being prosecuted for presenting material deemed harmful to minors, focusing, but not limited to sex education classes. In other words, any book could result in the arrest, prosecution, and possibly jailing of teachers and librarians, if “deemed harmful to minors”. She produced this legislation after supposedly receiving a single angry letter from a parent whose child’s sex education class had a poster that acknowledged that some people try oral or anal sex. Well, nothing says “party of smaller government” like going the full Mrs. Lovejoy and trying to ban books, and arrest teachers that don’t play ball and accommodate the supposed morality you feel the need to push on everyone, eh? Intelligent people pointed out that Pilcher-Cook’s bright idea would also ban reading to students that featured any discussion of “harmful” content, but she didn’t back down, and was still threatening teachers with jail for teaching sex education. Mary Pilcher-Cook is a special, elite kind of social conservative. She once voted to place restrictions on any and all “adult entertainment" in the state, opposes the exceptions for rape and incest to exist for abortion, referring to them as “political hijinks”, wanted to pass a law to force women to report their miscarriages to the authorities, has tried to criminalize surrogate parenting (on the factually incorrect basis that those parents are "creating a child purposely that you know is not going to have a biological mother") and once had the Public Health and Awareness Committee host a meeting where they got to witness a live sonogram in the state legislature to try to justify a mandatory ultrasounds for abortions bill. And she scheduled it on the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade ruling. She compares the use of long-term birth control to eugenics, in an astounding leap of logic. This in spite of the fact that her own colleagues booted her off of the Senate Health and Public Committee, while she was serving as Chairwoman, because she tried to add an amendment to an unrelated bill to try and act against the Affordable Care Act, and prevent the Medicaid Expansion in Kansas. She still is doggedly obsessed with restricting abortion rights, as evidenced by a bill she co-sponsored in 2017, that would require all women seeking an abortion to be given a pamphlet that MUST have all its information to try and talk them out of getting one presented in 12 point Times New Roman font, because that’s the GOP brand of “smaller government” at work right there. Pilcher-Cook spent her final term in office impotently rambling about her objections to cities and communities approving LGBTQ protections in Kansas, taking out opinion editorials in local papers where she tries claiming that since you can’t truly define “sexual orientation” or “sexual identity”, you shouldn’t be able to consider it a protected status in the courts (Supreme Court kind of already has done so, Mary, in several instances). Oh, and she co-sponsored resolutions within the Kansas State Senate to condemn pornography, which is probably any book that isn’t the Bible or Little House on the Prairie, in her mind, and claiming that is causes “infidelity and erectile dysfunction”. While Mary Pilcher-Cook she abruptly announced she was resigning in January of 2020, in between Christmas and New Year’s of 2019. As she’s retired, we’ll also retire her profile at this time and take a look at another wacky Republican today instead. (Current crazy/stupid scoreboard, is now 965-45, since this was established in July 2014.

[worstblogever]

Nicholas Ochs

Welcome to what is the 965th profile here at “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day”, where we’ll be profiling Nicholas Ochs, a Republican candidate for District 22 of the Hawaii House of Representatives in the 2020 elections. He is more importantly the founder of the chapter of the Proud Boys from Hawaii, and yes, he was dumb enough to photograph himself as part of the violent coup attempt on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6th, 2021. He was arrested when he landed in Honolulu the day after and charged for his crimes on Jan. 8th. The judge overseeing Ochs’ case has forced him to turn in his passport so he cannot flee the country, and is only allowed to leave Oahu if he is returning to Washington, DC for court hearings related to his seditious activities. This isn’t his first run in with police, as we was escorted off the campus of the University of Hawaii for allegedly threatening a professor. Go figure, Ochs was already banned from several social media platforms for racist posts prior to being an active part in insurrection against our government, but insisted he wasn’t racist because he married an African-American woman (that… is not the case). The federal government isn’t handling him with kid gloves, either, as they indicted him on federal conspiracy charges.

We don’t feel like we need to discuss a piece of garbage like Nicholas Ochs any further and hope the Hawaii GOP gets their s*** together, because they were endorsing a guy running a hate group for office in their state.