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

[worstblogever]

Another Capitol domestic terrorist goes to trial. His lawyer has the cojones to try and convince the court the guy who is cosplaying Hitler with his hair and moustache isn't a white nationalist.

But, y'know, folks in the GOP like Ron Johnson, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Andy Biggs would like to gaslight us and convince us this was all Antifa.

Never forget who told the big lie, who acted on it, and then who started lying to cover for them.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Another Capitol domestic terrorist goes to trial. His lawyer has the cojones to try and convince the court the guy who is cosplaying Hitler with his hair and moustache isn't a white nationalist.

But, y'know, folks in the GOP like Ron Johnson, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Andy Biggs would like to gaslight us and convince us this was all Antifa.

Never forget who told the big lie, who acted on it, and then who started lying to cover for them.

By the by, I wonder if anyone here is familiar with this website which has been keeping tabs on the scumbags who participated in the 1/6 riot:

Sedition Tracker

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Stacey Abrams Slams GOP Push To Restrict Voting As ‘Jim Crow In A Suit And Tie’

“The only connection that we can find is that more people of color voted, and it changed the outcome of elections in a direction that Republicans do not like.” DING DING DING!

**********

Reports: NY Gov. Cuomo’s Vaccine Czar Made Concerning Calls To Gauge Loyalty

Larry Schwartz, who runs New York’s coronavirus vaccination effort, has reportedly called county officials to determine their loyalty to beleaguered Governor Andrew Cuomo. THAT is sick! Meanwhile....

**********

Trump Should Encourage His Supporters To Get Vaccinated, Fauci Says

A recent survey found that nearly half of all people who voted for Trump in 2020 don’t want to get the coronavirus vaccine. Well, if Trumpanzees want to get sick and die from the virus, all I can say is....see ya!

**********

Democrats Bank On Relief Aid To Win Back Wary Working Class

The $1.9 trillion stimulus package dramatically expands tax credits for families, bolsters unemployment benefits and reduces taxes on student loan debt.

**********

Dog Rescue Charity Linked To Lara Trump Funneling Money Into Donald Trump’s Pocket

The Big Dog Ranch Rescue has spent as much as $1.9 million at his properties in recent years and is spending $225,000 more at Mar-a-Lago this weekend. Show of hands if anyone's surprised. Disgusting!

[WestPhillyPunisher]

New Press Secretary Jen Psaki takes no bullshit and takes no prisoners:

REPORTER: “No Republican voted for the COVID relief package, and they argue that this is the sixth package and it adds to a deficit that’s already a trillion dollars this year alone. What do you say to that criticism, that ultimately this type of a sweeping piece of legislation will be a drag on the economy down the line?”

PSAKI: “Well, I would say to them we’re in the midst of twin crises, from the pandemic to an economic downturn that is impacting tens of millions of people in this country. People are struggling to make ends meet. They are worried about whether their grandparents, their cousins, their friends are able to get a vaccine, and they are suffering because they're worried about the mental health of their kids, who aren’t back in school yet. And the president’s focus is on addressing those crises. And I would point, send a question back to many of these Republicans as to why the deficit spending wasn’t as concerning when they were giving tax cuts to the highest incomes, but now it’s concerning when we’re giving direct checks and relief to the American people.”

[worstblogever]

New Press Secretary Jen Psaki takes no bullshit and takes no prisoners:

She's quickly becoming a hated figure by the right... because she's giving their "reporters" asking bulls*** questions answers that speak truth to power, and leave them without anything to do in response. Also, she's a woman, and lord knows they can't stand when they get put in their place by a lady.

She's this amazing cross of C.J. from The West Wing and Tilda Swinton in like... everything.

[Tendrin]

She's quickly becoming a hated figure by the right... because she's giving their "reporters" asking bulls*** questions answers that speak truth to power, and leave them without anything to do in response. Also, she's a woman, and lord knows they can't stand when they get put in their place by a lady.

She's this amazing cross of C.J. from The West Wing and Tilda Swinton in like... everything.

I like Psaki a lot. Her refusal to indulge bad faith GOP talking points is great to see. All it took was for Trump to whine he wasn't getting credit and the press falls all over itself to make sure they raise this Very Serious Business and Psaki isn't having it.

[worstblogever]

I like Psaki a lot. Her refusal to indulge bad faith GOP talking points is great to see. All it took was for Trump to whine he wasn't getting credit and the press falls all over itself to make sure they raise this Very Serious Business and Psaki isn't having it.

What she keeps doing to Steve Doocy's poor dumb little boy five days a week when Fox News runs him in there... *chef's kiss*

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2015, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" ran a profile of Jase Bolger, the former Speaker of the House of the Michigan House of Representatives who once ordered a female Democratic legislator silenced for saying the word "vagina" during a debate on abortion, as if she had used profanity. That was only slightly more sexist than the time he posed for a photo with fellow GOP members with a fashion magazines to show the know what their female constituents want. He also supported wasteful and unsuccessful legislation such as Michigan's "Emergency Manager" law, to begin drug testing welfare recipients, altering the collective bargaining rights of public school teachers, and , creating stricter Voter ID laws to disenfranchise voters and keep voter turnout low. Hell, his efforts to rig elections got so out of hand, he wanted to pass a law to change how Michigan awards electoral votes in the presidential elections to split them and see if he could help Mitt Romney game the 2012 elections. But what really crossed the line and brought about his political downfall was when he was investigated for election fraud for offering a man $1,000 to run as a Democrat, and then getting the actual Democrat on the ballot to switch parties right at the deadline. That scandal put a fork in his miserable career.

On this date in 2016, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” posted a profile of Rick Brinkley, who we could have simply profiled for his support of Oklahoma's "Birther Bill" as well as Personhood legislation, but he particularly stood out for being massively corrupt. Brinkley embezzled $1.8 million from the Better Business Bureau. He got caught on five counts of wire fraud and one count of filing a false tax return, and plead guilty, and will likely spend the rest of his life in federal prison. Brinkley was apparently using the stolen money to pay off his mortgage, credit card bills, and numerous gambling debts accrued at local casinos. Being a white collar criminal kind of destroyed his career.

On this date in 2017, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" profiled former Nebraska State Senator Bill Kintner, whose office was practically wallpapered with photos of former President Ronald Reagan and whose greatest achievement as a Republican politician was believing enough in the Agenda 21 Conspiracy Theory that he decided to sponsor legislation to try to block its implementation in Nebraska. That bill was best summarized by fellow legislator Ernie Chambers as "in the category of those people who wear tin-foil hats for protection from I don't know what." Kintner was a hardliner on abortion, believing life starts at conception, and during his time in office, voting against measures that would have raised the minimum wage (during the greatest period of income inequality in the United States in almost a century), voted against a measure that would have prevented wage discrimination based on gender, and voted against a bipartisan effort by the Nebraska state legislature to repeal the death penalty in the state. It wasn’t shocking to see another Republican guy who’s opposed to equal pay for women and wants to ban all abortion and birth control pills volunteering his opinions about the difference between the sexes, and summarizing women as being “crazy” and impossible for anyone to figure out. I mean, that’s just standard misogyny. When news broke, however, that Bill Kintner was involved in a sex scandal, well, he was a bit more toxic for the Nebraska GOP. Sure, participating in some cybersex online might have some people argue that he wasn’t actually cheating on his wife, and honoring good Christian values, but the story got more complicated than that… Almost immediately after Kintner was done sharing a good ol’ tug & rub on Skype with his new pal from the Ivory Coast, he was immediately blackmailed by his online sex buddy, who wanted $4500 in hush money. Kintner knew he done goofed up, and spent almost a year trying to keep the story out of the news. Not just because he was running around on his wife, but because he was also stupid enough to have used the laptop computer issued to him as a member of the state legislature for his extramarital shenanigans, which added a layer of ethical impropriety to the marital kind. For almost a year, the Nebraska GOP was calling for Kintner to resign from the state legislature, but alas, he was determined he could survive the controversy, claiming it was a “witch hunt” against him. And then, during the Women’s March in January, Kintner thought it would be a good idea to respond on social media to photos of some of the marchers holding up signs that said, “You can’t grab my p***y” that they had nothing to worry about, because they weren’t attractive enough to sexually assault. And with that, the full weight of the Nebraska GOP’s pressure finally caused Kintner to give up the ghost and leave office. Hopefully Kintner didn’t throw his back out leaving the job with a box full of Reagan photos.

[worstblogever]

It was in both 2018, 2019, as well as 2020, that “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” first profiled John Ragan, a member of the Tennessee House of Representatives first elected in… yes, the 2010 Tea Party Wave. While in 2012, he barely survived re-election with 51% of the vote, in 2016, he won re-election to a fourth term with 66% of the vote. CSGOPOTD had John Ragan on its radar for quite some time, after he made himself a bit of a laughing stock back in 2013 for sponsoring his “Don’t Say Gay” bill in Tennessee, HB 1332. While it would have been enough of an eyebrow-raising piece of legislation for its desire to forbid public school teachers from saying “gay, lesbian, transgender, or bisexual” in classrooms as a piece of legislation from ALEC, but that Ragan amended the bill a few times in Tennessee to change its language requiring teachers to report gay students to their parents for mental health counseling (which is messed up enough because homosexuality stopped being classified as a mental disorder four decades earlier in 1973). After being hit with widespread criticism that he was anti-gay, Ragan released a statement that his legislation was “pro-mental health”, only drawing the ire of the LGBTQ community even more. It of course, died in committee every time he tried to get it passed. In 2014, Ragan began speaking out against gay couples that he felt were leaving Tennessee to get married out of state to come back home and enjoy cheaper insurance premiums as married couples. Apparently, that’s the only reason same sex couples wanted to be married, in his bigoted eyes. As of 2017, Ragan hasn’t mellowed out much, sponsoring legislation in at the start of the new session to try and limit the terms “mother and father” to exist only in households with opposite sex parents in an end-around to try and argue against gay adoption.

He also has sponsored a bill that would require those on work visa to have their driver’s licenses label them as “alien” so law enforcement could more easily identify them as immigrants or undocumented immigrants. While several balked at the term “alien” being used, they also pointed out that expiration dates on Tennessee driver’s licenses already expire to coincide with the expiration of their work visas. John Ragan wasn’t going to let that fact change his opinion, instead invoking 9/11 as the justification for his anti-immigrant legislation. When he failed to whip up support by invoking the tragedy, he finally pulled his legislation. Ragan’s overall voting record is a hot bed of nuttery, including support voter GOP voter suppression bills, his co-sponsorship of HJR 587, a resolution against the United Nations Agenda 21 treaty, for fears from hard-right conspiracy theorists that it’s a plot to establish global domination, and his vote for HB 3808, a bill written to gather “abortion statistics” that made many critics realize the data could help identify women going to clinics to seek abortions. He co-sponsored the GOP’s attempt to block the Medicaid Expansion in Tennessee, and voted for bills to prevent Civil War monuments from being renamed on multiple occasions.

John Ragan was, sadly, re-elected in 2018 with 61% of the vote. He to work in Nashville to do… what else? Attack the rights of LGBTQ people, this time sponsoring legislation that critics have noted sounds a hell of a lot like he’s trying to get transgender citizens arrested on indecent exposure charges for daring to use a public bathroom. That and hosting town halls where told a gay man why he and his husband shouldn’t be allowed to adopt, or the mother of a transgender youth should be denied taking hormonal treatments that would block puberty.

In 2020, he responded to a constituent who asked him to denounce Nathan Bedford Forrest, the founder of the Ku Klux Klan. Ragan responded first by defending Forrest. thusly:

”Dear Mr. Riden,
Your description of Fort Pillow is questionable when considered objectively. It remains unclear whether Forrest ordered the massacre, encouraged it, ignored it, or — as he later claimed — was unaware of it. He was never charged or tried for the events at Fort Pillow.
Please consult any of the following sources and you will see that Forrest was never convicted of any of the accusations you posited:
These trials can be found via a link on the catalog records on the Library of Congress Online catalog. The military trials encompass several departments:
Military Trials: Middle Department, 1862 – 1866
General Court Martial Orders: Department of the South, 1862 – 1868
General Court Martial Orders: Department of the Cumberland, 1866 – 1870
General Court Martial Orders: Department of the Missouri, 1861 – 1863, 1866 – 1867, 1868, 1869 – 1870, 1871 – 1872
General Court Martial Orders: Department of the Gulf, 1862 -1867
General Court Martial Orders: Department of Texas 1861, 1865 – 1866, 1870 -1872
The military trials are viewable in PDF and Page turner versions. The name indexes have been included and tabbed in the PDF view, and in some of the volumes a subject index is available.
Relative to your other questions: you may consult my record and you will have your answers.
Good Day,
John D. Ragan“

The constituent then just sent a reply asking if he was willing to condemn and denounce the KKK itself. And John Ragan is making it plain, he won’t speak ill of white supremacists:

“Dear Mr. Riden,
Neither I, nor any of my direct forbearers, going all the way back to the one exiled by Oliver Cromwell to Jamestown in 1690, ever owned slaves. While I condemn that institution unequivocally, I owe no one an apology for it.
Moreover, my children have ancestors who fought for both the Union and the Confederacy. However, none of those ever owned slaves, either. Therefore, neither they, nor I, owe anyone apologies for slavery.
Furthermore, there were atrocities as well as heroes and villains on both sides of the Civil War. Additionally, there were black slave owners and blacks fought for both the Union and the Confederacy. There were slave owners in the North and the South including Union General U.S. Grant.
Your historical research relative to Confederate General Forrest is inadequate. If you refuse educate yourself, it appears future discussion on the topic is futile.
Finally, your juvenile attempts at insults to a veteran of two theaters of conflict though 24 year of military service, of which 8 were overseas, are ridiculous. I have served in deserts and jungles and picked up body parts of a comrade-in-arms from blood soaked ground. Moreover, while on active duty, I have had the very sad duty of escorting my squadron mate and best friend’s widow down a funeral isle to stand before his flag draped casket…an active duty fatality. Consequently, I do not need you to churlishly challenge my loyalty to the US Constitution, especially the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments.

You may consult my record for answers to your other questions.”

This ***hole’s voting record has shown him voting to maintain Confederate monuments multiple times over the past few years. Now he’s twisting himself in knots rather than condemn the literal Klan. John Ragan was allowed to run for another term in office in 2020 unopposed, because of course he was.

To that news… we are going to hope that the next time we binge drink we just forget about this terrible, terrible man. But probably not.

[kidfresh512]

What she keeps doing to Steve Doocy's poor dumb little boy five days a week when Fox News runs him in there... *chef's kiss*

I love how the right's big critique with her is her signature "I'll circle back to you on that". Like thats so awful for her to admit she needs to get more information rather than flat out lie like all of trump's Press Secretaries.

[worstblogever]

I love how the right's big critique with her is her signature "I'll circle back to you on that". Like thats so awful for her to admit she needs to get more information rather than flat out lie like all of trump's Press Secretaries.

And they don't understand... it's a promise. She's gonna circle back to you.

In the dark of the night, when you're alone, and least expect it... Jen Psaki's gonna come drop the facts on you.

[Mister Mets]

I guess if you can find a single instance of somebody on the other side posting evidence that had been debunked, then that disproves the whole argument........

When did I suggest anything like that?

I thought a description of how informed individuals were was inaccurate, and pointed that out.

It's not meant to be a proxy for the larger argument.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

She's quickly becoming a hated figure by the right... because she's giving their "reporters" asking bulls*** questions answers that speak truth to power, and leave them without anything to do in response. Also, she's a woman, and lord knows they can't stand when they get put in their place by a lady.

She's this amazing cross of C.J. from The West Wing and Tilda Swinton in like... everything.

I like Psaki a lot. Her refusal to indulge bad faith GOP talking points is great to see. All it took was for Trump to whine he wasn't getting credit and the press falls all over itself to make sure they raise this Very Serious Business and Psaki isn't having it.

Joe Biden hit a 500 foot homer when he hired Psaki who's quickly become a villain of the right. And I like that a whole lot!

[Tendrin]

Buttigege framing transportation as an environmental, civil, and racial justice issue is right.

A central plank in President Joe Biden's agenda of improving racial equity requires dismantling or reimagining parts of America's transportation system, which has long stacked the odds against people who most rely on it to climb up the economic ladder.

Black households are three times less likely to own a car than white households, meaning they lack access to the infrastructure most heavily prioritized and funded nationwide. People of color also make up a majority of transit riders and have longer commutes. And America’s urban landscape is packed with examples of highways carving up Black communities, cutting off accessibility and spewing disproportionate amounts of pollution.

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/0...-equity-473928

[worstblogever]

Buttigege framing transportation as an environmental, civil, and racial justice issue is right.



https://www.politico.com/news/2021/0...-equity-473928

It's almost like when the current crop of Democrats get called out for not doing enough for people of color, they don't just reflexively defend what they've done, and continue to do nothing... they actually take criticism and strive to do better.

(HINT, HINT, the other party doesn't do that because they're not the same. Well, and they've become a white nationalist party by failing to speak against it or do better.)

[GOLGO 13]

...

(HINT, HINT, the other party doesn't do that because they're not the same. Well, and they've become a white nationalist party by failing to speak against it or do better.)

Every Trumpanzee is a self-identified white-power nationalist. They got big-time pride about that.