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

[Mister Mets]

Republicans in Government are running on several fallacies that they seem to believe in for some crazy reason

1. That stopping people from voting will get more of them elected into office
Possible Alternative Outcome: The ones being driven away from voting are the ones most likely to vote Republican. Non-white voters, young voters, Democrats, often get riled up at the very idea of voter suppression and will likely stand in long lines just to vote.

2. Cutting back on Health Care, on Vaccines, on unemployment Benefits, on distribution fo financial benefits from the Federal Government will make voters angry at Biden. that he will be blamed instead of them.
Possible Alternative Outcome: Voters most likely to vote Republican will get sick and die at record numbers, while other voters will get angry at the State level legislatures for creating an intolerable situation.

3. Keeping the Big Lie going will get them re-elected.
Possible Alternative Outcome: Those that buy into the big lie will be discouraged from voting. Those that buy intot eh big lie are most likely the ones who would vote Republican. Hence, more Republicans will lose their elections.

4. Keep Donald Trump happy and you keep his voting base, his supporters happy. Do this and they will continue to vote Republican.
Possible Alternative Outcome: Those people who still support Donald Trump in 2022 and 2024 will be few in numbers and are less likely to vote. Most are anti-government. If they aren't arrested and in jail for the Jan 6th incident, or for other acts of violence, even if they can and will still vote, they won't likely vote for anyone who isn't Donald Trump and isn't approved by Donald Trump. Since Trump hates the Republican Establishment as much as he hates the Democrats, it will be highly unlikely that his supporters will vote for 'mainstream' Republicans, instead voting for the crazy ones that are more likely to lose to a sane Democrat.

Bottom line, they are doing all of this and there is a good chance [it won't be proven or dis-proven until 2022 or 2024] that everything that teh republicans are doing now will simply end in the Democrats gaining control of more and more seats in Government at all levels.

Still, we can't let this insane experiment continue. Regardless of the outcome it is going to hurt hundreds of thousands of people.

There are possible alternatives, but it doesn't mean there's a better strategy.

Just as Democrats aren't a hivemind, Republicans aren't a hivemind.

From meetings with Republican voters/ activists, they are nervous about voter fraud. For the most part, they're wrong to do so. I don't see any evidence of widespread voter fraud. But that's part of where #1 comes in. If we're just looking at political strategy, Democrats may be overrepresented among groups that are affected the most by voting restrictions (people with no fixed address, younger people who haven't voted before, college students.)

The motive of #2 is not to make pissed off at Biden. They think unemployment benefits are incentivizing people not to work. They're generally against financial benefits, as they prefer lower taxes.

With #3 and #4, given Trump's popularity with the base, they don't want to piss off voters by pointing out things that are true and unpopular. They would prefer Trump fade away, because the next Republican President is going to need a coalition of people who like Trump and people who do not. Depressing turnout among people who like Trump is unlikely to be a winning strategy. As an example, Ronald Reagan didn't get to be President by bashing Nixon. Obama didn't become President by completely disavowing the Clintons. Weirdly, Trump did succeed in primaries by bashing an earlier Republican President, so he's the one exception.

Question for the folks of this thread who may reside in New Hampshire (I know CSTowle does): what's the political climate like there? I might finally receive a job offer over there and I'm eager to accept it. Your garden-variety Montanan is a black hole of ignorance and poor life choices. Naturally, many are enthralled by the GQP. Please tell me New Hampshire is better, or at least that politics aren't as polarizing of a force with the locals there.

I don't reside in New Hampshire, but here would be a few differences.

New Hampshire is more of a purple state, so there are more Democrats. The elections are much more contentious, so politics is a bigger issue. The state legislature swings back and forth. And you've got the presidential primaries.

Again with the disengenuousness. Working on the best advice from people who actually know what they're talking about does not equate to 'government raising your kids'.

I don't know more than doctors about medicine. That's why I'm willing to follow their advice when my kids are sick, rather than try and figure it out myself or use the "information they don't want you to know about!" I saw posted on Uncle Jesse McHeeHaw's Facebook page last week.

I'm not endorsing the viewpoint. I'm just explaining it.

I can't think of any example in the last thirty years when a vaccine has been harmful, so on that specific question, I definitely disagree with the policy in Tennessee.

You do still need voters to go along with policies, so that's where other considerations come in, when it comes to the questions of outreach to minors.

[Tami]

Kremlin papers appear to show Putin’s plot to put Trump in White House

Vladimir Putin personally authorised a secret spy agency operation to support a “mentally unstable” Donald Trump in the 2016 US presidential election during a closed session of Russia’s national security council, according to what are assessed to be leaked Kremlin documents.

The key meeting took place on 22 January 2016, the papers suggest, with the Russian president, his spy chiefs and senior ministers all present.

They agreed a Trump White House would help secure Moscow’s strategic objectives, among them “social turmoil” in the US and a weakening of the American president’s negotiating position.

Russia’s three spy agencies were ordered to find practical ways to support Trump, in a decree appearing to bear Putin’s signature

They agreed a Trump White House would help secure Moscow’s strategic objectives, among them “social turmoil” in the US and a weakening of the American president’s negotiating position.

Russia’s three spy agencies were ordered to find practical ways to support Trump, in a decree appearing to bear Putin’s signature.

By this point Trump was the frontrunner in the Republican party’s nomination race. A report prepared by Putin’s expert department recommended Moscow use “all possible force” to ensure a Trump victory.

Western intelligence agencies are understood to have been aware of the documents for some months and to have carefully examined them. The papers, seen by the Guardian, seem to represent a serious and highly unusual leak from within the Kremlin.

The Guardian has shown the documents to independent experts who say they appear to be genuine. Incidental details come across as accurate. The overall tone and thrust is said to be consistent with Kremlin security thinking.

The report – “No 32-04 \ vd” – is classified as secret. It says Trump is the “most promising candidate” from the Kremlin’s point of view. The word in Russian is perspektivny.

There is a brief psychological assessment of Trump, who is described as an “impulsive, mentally unstable and unbalanced individual who suffers from an inferiority complex”.

There is also apparent confirmation that the Kremlin possesses *********, or potentially compromising material, on the future president, collected – the document says – from Trump’s earlier “non-official visits to Russian Federation territory”.

[BeastieRunner]

Kremlin papers appear to show Putin’s plot to put Trump in White House

I was literally coming here to post this!

Hopefully this is the beginning of the end of a 2024 bid.

[worstblogever]

I was literally coming here to post this!

Hopefully this is the beginning of the end of a 2024 bid.

Or it'll make him more desirable to Republican voters because they can really "trigger the libs" if they renominate a patsy of our greatest geopolitical foe.

[Kirby101]

Mets, that you are blind, willfully or otherwise that the GOP is using the spectre of "voter fraud" which you admit does not exist, as an excuse to pass voter suppression laws speaks volumes.
They know it is BS, just as they know tax cuts for the Rich never "pay for themselves".

[Tami]

Mets, that you are blind, willfully or otherwise that the GOP is using the spectre of "voter fraud" which you admit does not exist, as an excuse to pass voter suppression laws speaks volumes.
They know it is BS, just as they know tax cuts for the Rich never "pay for themselves".

If any of them don't know, they are either ignorant, lazy, or in denial.

[Tami]

I was literally coming here to post this!

Hopefully this is the beginning of the end of a 2024 bid.

Even Putin knew that Trump was unstable, a mental case, a big bag of troubling psychological issues.

Personally, I'm convinced that he terrorized his kids as they were growing up so as to make them submissive and just as twisted as he is.

[The Cool Thatguy]

Even Putin knew that Trump was unstable, a mental case, a big bag of troubling psychological issues.

Personally, I'm convinced that he terrorized his kids as they were growing up so as to make them submissive and just as twisted as he is.

"Even Putin."

In fairness, anyone with functioning eyes could see that Trump is freakin' crazy

[Mister Mets]

Mets, that you are blind, willfully or otherwise that the GOP is using the spectre of "voter fraud" which you admit does not exist, as an excuse to pass voter suppression laws speaks volumes.
They know it is BS, just as they know tax cuts for the Rich never "pay for themselves".

I'm going with what I've heard from Republicans in county meetings, poll watcher training and the like. People are generally not mustache-twirling villains. They'll think they're doing the right thing and accept the arguments that support their side.

I'm not sure how often you regularly interact with Republicans that any will tell you how they secretly feel about a contentious issue.

My own view is that it does not appear that organized fraud is a serious issue, likely due to relatively recent (within the political career of our current President) changes. That said, I don't want to leave an opening for fraud in the future. I suspect that if people figure out how to get away with it they'll do it. This is why it's important to have a paper trail and a record of who voted, all of each would help determine if fraud occurs.

There are a few other unresolved questions on voting and I suspect one problem in the discussions is that there are different assumptions about what's obviously the right thing to do and what the constitution calls for. I was listening to a progressive podcast on legal matters and one of the hosts (Mark Joseph Stern) talked about how mail-in voting was obviously better and what we're heading towards and it occurred to me he figured the Supreme Court should just decide for it, which is very different from the understanding that this would be an decision for state legislators.

[Kirby101]

I'm going with what I've heard from Republicans in county meetings, poll watcher training and the like. People are generally not mustache-twirling villains. They'll think they're doing the right thing and accept the arguments that support their side.

I'm not sure how often you regularly interact with Republicans that any will tell you how they secretly feel about a contentious issue.

My own view is that it does not appear that organized fraud is a serious issue, likely due to relatively recent (within the political career of our current President) changes. That said, I don't want to leave an opening for fraud in the future. I suspect that if people figure out how to get away with it they'll do it. This is why it's important to have a paper trail and a record of who voted, all of each would help determine if fraud occurs.

There are a few other unresolved questions on voting and I suspect one problem in the discussions is that there are different assumptions about what's obviously the right thing to do and what the constitution calls for. I was listening to a progressive podcast on legal matters and one of the hosts (Mark Joseph Stern) talked about how mail-in voting was obviously better and what we're heading towards and it occurred to me he figured the Supreme Court should just decide for it, which is very different from the understanding that this would be an decision for state legislators.

I realize the Republican leaders have hoodwinked the rank and file to believe there is rampant voter fraud. You just have to look at the outright falsehoods that the majority of Republicans believe to know that. We just went through a Presidency with the majority of Republicans believing the provable lies of Trump.
But it is also obvious that those passing these voter suppression legislations are doing so to prevent another Democratic win like in Georgia and Arizona.
Funny how your Party opposed all bills that secured the vote and demanded a paper trail.
You see this as all benign with a misunderstanding of the facts. It's not Mets, it is an effort to stop mostly minorities from voting. There is a long history of it in this country.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2014, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” published a profile on Christine O’Donnell, the former U.S. Senate candidate from Delaware who assured us all that SHE WAS NOT A WITCH. As if that isn’t enough of an explanation of her wackiness, we’ll remind everyone that she also seemed to be unable to explain any amendments of the Constitution after the Second, and her understanding of the First Amendment seemed to indicate she didn’t grasp that it also included a separation of church and state. The fact that she was anti-masturbation, and chalked up several campaign finance investigations added to her wide swath of dumbassery. She was, quite possibly, the most embarrassing candidate for Senate the Republicans have mustered in the past decade, and that’s saying something.

In 2015, 2016, 2017, as well as 2018, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” published profiles of the now former U.S. House Representative from North Carolina’s 9th District, Robert Pittenger, who first won election in 2012, and has gone on to be one of the worst commenters on LGBTQ rights in Congress. In September of 2014, Pittenger discussed ENDA, and compared businesses having the ability to fire workers for their sexual orientation to also having the freedom to establish bans on smoking in the workplace. A month later, Pittenger was fretting over the threat of Ebola and calling for a travel ban to Africa (which experts only said would help spread the disease). In 2016, Pittinger discussed protesters in Charlotte upset about the police shooting of Keith Lamont Scott, and dismissed them by saying they just "hate white people because white people are successful and they're not", which is a nice blended cocktail of racism and insensitivity. In February of 2015, Pittenger also teased some Godwin’s Law potential when he gave his opinion on negotiations with Iran over their nuclear program, comparing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Winston Churchill, and President Obama to Neville Chamberlain. Within a few more months, he went full-on Godwin’s Law, and declared Iran to be “Hitler with nuclear arms”, which is amazing because partly in thanks to a nuclear treaty that Pittinger himself opposed, Iran wasn’t planning on having any. At a July 2015 prayer rally featuring such CSGOPOTD luminaries as Louis Gohmert, Dave Daubenmire, Trent Franks, and E.W. Jackson, Pittenger declared that his “primary mission in Congress is to be an Emissary of Christ”, which probably means he’s not too keen on that whole separation of church and state thing we’ve got. Other than that, Pittenger has had a conservative record that is one of the hardest to the right in all of Congress, including a vote for the 2013 Government Shutdown, attempts to ban abortion at 20 weeks without rape or incest exceptions, and an attempt at defunding Planned Parenthood that saw him take to the floor of the house to claim they profit from the “sale of little baby body parts”. Which were the key words that are believed to have served as a stochastic terror trigger to make Robert Lewis Dear snap and shoot up a Planned Parenthood clinic few months later. In his final term in Congress, Pittenger straight-up lied about the GOP’s new healthcare plans that would allow insurance companies to refuse to cover pre-existing conditions at the state level, justifying that because “People can go to the state that they want to live in. States have all kinds of different policies and there are disparities among states for many things: driving restrictions, alcohol, whatever. We’re putting choices back in the hands of the states.” See? It’s easy… just pack up and move to whatever state is left to provide you with good healthcare. He also praised Donald Trump and derided the media, even only days after Donald Trump, Jr. posted proof he colluded with Russians on Twitter, writing “It’s “just another story in the media’s neurotic, weekly tabloid obsession of Trump-Russian collusion.” Robert Pittenger, however, will no longer darken the doors of Congress, ironically being beaten in a tainted election by fellow Republican Mark Harris.

It was on this date in 2019 that “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled Stacey Dash, who you may remember as “that actress who was the best friend in the movie Clueless”, a minor bit of fame which Dash used to get on Fox News as their main guest pundit to kick the discussion to when they want to have a discussion on race and have someone willing to sell out their own. And, we’re lucky enough to not have to watch every minute of her appearances as a pundit, but among her ridicilous and offensive statements, she has said the Democratic Party has a “plantation mentality” and that this “mentality” kept African-Americans “on entitlements”, that government assistance is the “Democratic Party’s new version of slavery”, the time she attributed a rise in divorce rates to women not knowing “how to take care of their men”, while discussing a rise in sexual assault on college campuses, Dash intimated that some sexual assaults are the result of “bad girls … who like to be naughty”,during a 2015 discussion about the gender pay-gap in Hollywood, Dash blamed the women, saying they needed to “be better negotiators”, and the time she said actresses facing pay discrimination should “be grateful” for opportunities to star alongside famous men. In 2015, Dash was briefly suspended from Fox News after she suggested that President Barack Obama didn’t “give a shit” about terrorism. And in 2016, when #OscarsSoWhite was trending on Twitter, Dash hopped onto Fox News to respond to that that “either we want to have segregation or integration” and claiming that “there is no need” for the NAACP or BET Awards. She also said that “there shouldn’t be a black history month” because there isn’t a white history month. Stacey Dash used her Fox News fame to run for U.S. House of Representatives in California’s 44th Congressional District. Even with that high profile, it is a very blue district, and most predicted she was only doing it to be a troll and stay relevant for another few years. That seems accurate, because Dash actually finished fourth in the primary, not even coming close to qualifying for the general election with only 7% of the vote. She is highly unlikely to ever be elected to political office and her fifteen minutes of fame outside of Fox News ran out at least a decade ago.

[worstblogever]

On this date one year ago, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” first profiled the U.S. House Representative from South Carolina’s 7th Congressional District, Tom Rice, who has served in that role since the district was first created back in 2012 after redistricting. Our reason for hot-shotting Tom Rice up the queue is related to his outlook on Covid-19. You see, on May 28th, 2020, he was interviewed by CNN’s Manu Raju, and asked why in the midst of the public health crisis and with other members of Congress already ending up testing positive, why Rice was refusing to wear a mask. Rep. Rice defended it by claiming he was social distancing and standing six feet away from others and would only wear a mask when he couldn’t be apart from others…

Fast forward two weeks later, and Rep. Rice’s refusal to wear a mask apparently led to him, and his entire family testing positive for Covid-19, because he’s a stubborn jackass. Oh, and he had a healthy reaction to becoming infected, as in his announcement of his condition, he referred to it in the racist terms of being the “Wuhan flu”.

We’ll add that he supports the expensive, ineffective, stupid, and xenophobic idea that is Donald Trump’s border wall along the U.S./Mexico border, and that he’s also a climate change denier.

After winning re-election in 2020 with 62% of the vote, his voting record has continued to be staggeringly dumb:

• October 17th, 2019: Rice is one of 60 Republicans who vote against HJ Res 77, which opposed Donald Trump’s disastrous decision to abandon Syrian Kurdish forces in Northeast Syria to the mercies of a Turkish invasion.
• December 18th, 2019: Rice ignores his Congressional duty to hold a president who has been proven to commit high crimes and misdemeanors accountable and votes against the first impeachment of Donald Trump.
• May 15th, 2020: Rice votes against the HEROES Act, to further support the healthcare industry and citizens affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
• December 10th, 2020: Rice signs his name to an amicus brief to the Supreme Court, begging them to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The same election that he won re-election in.
• January 6th, 2021: Tom Rice votes for the objection to the electoral college’s votes in the 2020 election, a failure to send any sort of message that he wasn’t intimidated or sympathetic to those who attacked the Capitol to attempt a violent coup.
• February 4th, 2021: Tom Rice votes to keep Marjorie Taylor Greene’s committee assignments, because he wouldn’t want her to be accountable for all the bigoted remarks and conspiracy theories she’s spread online (probably because she’s a kindred spirit).
• February 25th, 2021: Rice votes against HR 5, the latest version of the Equality Act, that would provide workplace protections for LGBTQ Americans.
• March 3rd, 2021: Rep. Rice votes against HR 1, a bill created to prevent the corruption of money in politics, and protect voter access to the ballot box.
• March 3rd, 2021: Tom Rice votes against the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2021.
• March 10th, 2021: Rice votes against the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, because he feels people deserve to die in poverty during a pandemic.
• March 17th, 2021: Rep. Rice votes against the re-authorization of the Violence Against Women Act, likely because they feel the 2nd Amendment remaining absolute is more important than preventing people with a history of domestic abuse from owning a firearm (which statistics show, makes them more likely to use those firearms against women in their lives).
• May 20th, 2021: Rice is one of 63 Republicans who vote against the Covid-19 Hate Crimes Act.

We will note, however, that Tom Rice is one of the 10 Republicans who after the Capitol Attack on Jan. 6th, still voted to challenge the election results, but after the impeachment hearings, did the right thing and voted to impeach Donald Trump, as well to create a commission to investigate the attack. That has made him a virtual dead man walking in his blood-red district in 2022, with a whole line of Trump-aligned challengers have appeared to try to knock him off in the 2022 GOP Primary.

This might be the last time we profile him, only because he might be toast by this time next year.

[Tami]

I'm going with what I've heard from Republicans in county meetings, poll watcher training and the like. People are generally not mustache-twirling villains. They'll think they're doing the right thing and accept the arguments that support their side.

I'm not sure how often you regularly interact with Republicans that any will tell you how they secretly feel about a contentious issue.

My own view is that it does not appear that organized fraud is a serious issue, likely due to relatively recent (within the political career of our current President) changes. That said, I don't want to leave an opening for fraud in the future. I suspect that if people figure out how to get away with it they'll do it. This is why it's important to have a paper trail and a record of who voted, all of each would help determine if fraud occurs.

There are a few other unresolved questions on voting and I suspect one problem in the discussions is that there are different assumptions about what's obviously the right thing to do and what the constitution calls for. I was listening to a progressive podcast on legal matters and one of the hosts (Mark Joseph Stern) talked about how mail-in voting was obviously better and what we're heading towards and it occurred to me he figured the Supreme Court should just decide for it, which is very different from the understanding that this would be an decision for state legislators.

I have a thought and a question. Since you know what is going on in the Republican Party, at least from the base level, do you have any insight as to why Republicans are going full force over 'voter fraud' and creating voter restricting laws in the name of that voter fraud belief....yet, they didn't seem all that interested in doing so after 2016. Yet, we know, the article about the Putin document that was recently posted confirms it, that there may have been issues with the 2016 election.

So, what is the rationalization for claiming voter fraud now, and not claiming voter fraud four years ago?

[WestPhillyPunisher]

I was literally coming here to post this!

Hopefully this is the beginning of the end of a 2024 bid.

Unlikely. Qpublicans will shrug off the report while the hardcore Trumpanzees either won't believe the story, or be elated that Putin helped The Former Guy "own the libs".

Even Putin knew that Trump was unstable, a mental case, a big bag of troubling psychological issues.

Personally, I'm convinced that he terrorized his kids as they were growing up so as to make them submissive and just as twisted as he is.

All Trump had to do to terrorize his kids was to say he'll cut them out of his will unless they kissed his ass daily. But yeah, the Mary L. Trump book (which I read) clearly demonstrated The Former Guy had a truckload of bad wiring upstairs.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

I have a thought and a question. Since you know what is going on in the Republican Party, at least from the base level, do you have any insight as to why Republicans are going full force over 'voter fraud' and creating voter restricting laws in the name of that voter fraud belief....yet, they didn't seem all that interested in doing so after 2016. Yet, we know, the article about the Putin document that was recently posted confirms it, that there may have been issues with the 2016 election.

So, what is the rationalization for claiming voter fraud now, and not claiming voter fraud four years ago?

I suspect Mets won't give you a straight answer, so I'll advance my own theory, one I'm sure we all share. Because Trump (unwilling to this day to admit he lost the election) claimed there was voter fraud, Qpublicans naturally followed his lead and made (and are making) the same baseless claims.