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

[babyblob]

And as for reviewing the process? There were tons of reviews by both Dems and GOP. Hell the GA Attorney General said there is no, NO evidence of wide spread fraud that many in the GOP bitch about. And he is in the same damn party. He backed Trumped in the election and in speeches and even he said it was just not true at all. And there is a recording of Trump telling him to find the votes any way he could. That is a case of a sitting president demanding an elected official commit fraud on his behalf. But many in the GOP want to gloss over this fact this case of attempted fraud and would rather bitch about Illegals casting these votes that never have been proven. And then use the veil of security to restrict and make it harder for a segment of the population to vote because they are of the wrong party, or race. I have a hard core Trumper Aunt. I hear her thoughts and the thoughts of her friends every day. Their view and the view of many in the GOP is not pass these bills for security. it is pass these Bills to keep the wrong crowd form voting.

[PwrdOn]

Your fallacy here is that the risk is too high and by that same measure fraud upon other state and federally funded benefits would not be exploited. Cheats in one are just as likely in another. ignoring the border crisis is in effect an executive order to scoff at the law.

The illegal immigrants that you think are voting are by definition already living in the country and therefore unaffected by whatever is currently going on at the border.

[worstblogever]

how is that different from freeing the ballot from suppression when the only understood un-suppressed vote is a Dem victory?

You seem to have somehow forgotten our nation is supposed to be a representative democracy. Your "freeing the ballot from suppression" is anti-democratic fascism.

If you would rather Republicans win some elections, start voting for people who have actual ideas that aren't, "suppress the vote so we can unjustly be awarded power", or "do things that spread as much Covid-19 as possible". Because those aren't real ideas, or good policies to win votes.

[Tami]

how is that different from freeing the ballot from suppression when the only understood un-suppressed vote is a Dem victory?

If un-suppressed votes ends up electing more Democrats than Republicans, then you need to consider why voters don't want to vote for Republicans.

Consider this, there is a prime job at a major corporation. The choice has been narrowed down to two people. One is a proven dedicated worker who measures his/her success by the success of the Business. The other is in it for the power and the money, has a poor track record in terms of work and productivity, has been suspected of bribery or otherwise playing dirty in order to get past promotions, and has even shown favoritism to competing corporations.

Who would you hire?

This is the choice many voters have. If more Republican candidates played it straight, worked hard, and focused on the needs of their constituents instead of their own self interest, then more Republicans would get elected.

[AnakinFlair]

Well, in some good news today: DeSantis' school mask mandate ban is unlawful, Florida judge rules

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, as well as 2020, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" published profiles of U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who made a run at the presidency as well in 2016. In our original profile, we talked about his background as a career military reservist and lawyer who is always spoiling for a war that he never seems to give much thought as to the why or how it will be fought, just that we should ABSOLUTELY fight it. Sen. Graham also is prolifically paranoid, worrying about terror threats both foreign and domestic, from roaming gangs after a hurricane that would require the citizenry to be armed with automatic weapons, or that every nation in the Middle East from Iran, to Iraq, to Syria has developed a nuclear weapon. He also justifies the permanent detainment of people at Guantanamo Bay based off the precedent set by internment camps for Japanese Americans during World War II, which is a pretty dark chapter of American history to use as a guideline, while claiming that Hilary Clinton “got away with murder” during the Benghazi attacks, acting like she was in on the attack on her own friend, Ambassador Chris Stevens. Oh, and speaking of his criticism of Hillary Clinton, he tried criticizing her about her usage of an e-mail server by boasting that he had never written an e-mail (because that's exactly the sort of tech-savvy guy that should be president). Oh, and he later compared that to the Monica Lewinsky scandal, because e-mails are like getting a blowie from an intern, apparently.

Anyway, during Graham's run for the presidency in 2016, we covered how he admirably tried defending his amigo, Sen. John McCain's service record to insults from Donald Trump, and for his trouble, he had his cell phone number given out by Trump, publicly. Sen. Graham's response was then to release a campaign video of himself destroying his cell phone with several implements (rather than just get his number changed). Graham has frequently been caught lying about facts surrounding 9/11 to shape immigration policy, and through the presidential debates (at least, the "kid's table" debate he was in because his poll numbers were that awful) continued fear-mongering, using every question about any topic to segue into a discussion of ISIS and declaring, "The world is a battlefield and radical Islam is everywhere." His response to the terror attacks in Paris, was to insist the United States send 10,000 ground troops to fight ISIS in Iraq and Syria, warning that "there's a 9/11 coming". A short time later, though, after Democrats produced some common sense gun legislation, that anyone who is found to be on a terror watch list during a background check should not be allowed to purchase a firearm or explosives (which they could use to carry out a terror attack)… well, Lindsey Graham loves the Second Amendment way more than he hates terrorism, as he voted against it. On two occasions.

Now, here's the thing about CSGOPOTD and Lindsey Graham... he’s a lot like his old friend John McCain. By which we mean, he’ll pretend to be far more moderate when he has designs on higher office. Around 2015, we saw that more chill Sen. Graham, who would admit the Republican National Commitee "couldn't run a one-car funeral" after the clusterf*** of a debate plan they had for 2016. Or the time he was speaking before the Republican Jewish Coalition and flat-out admitted that the conservative obsession with being ultra-pro-life was out of hand, because "If you are going to tell a woman who has been raped she has to carry the child of a rapist, you’re losing most Americans." Yeah, that happened. And how surreal was it to see Lindsey Graham of all people defend peaceful Muslims from the sort of ideas Donald Trump was putting forth, and saying, "Leave the faith alone, go after the radicals that kill us all." Who was that man? Where had he been for the past twelve years? He actually compared the options of Donald Trump or Ted Cruz as potential presidential nominees as good of an option as being poisoned or being shot, and by February 2016, he admitted the GOP had gone "bats*** crazy" for voting for Donald Trump, and adding "If you kill Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate, and the trial was in the Senate, nobody could convict you."

As we got closer to the date where Graham would have to defend his U.S. Senate seat in a GOP Primary in a red state like South Carolina in 2020… and his heel turn came due. And when it arrived, it was pretty f***ing hard to miss. It was in the midst of the hearings to confirm Trump Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh that Graham snapped back hard to the right, digging in on conspiracy theories, and defending an admitted drunk and alleged rapist in a near-spittle-projecting tirade playing out across live cable news broadcasts. He blew off protesters trying to relate their own experiences with sexual assault, coldly telling them, “Go to the cops” rather than stop and listen to them.

Since that day, Graham has been relentlessly partisan, and suckling at the teat of Trump whenever possible, because he’s so loyal to his old friend John McCain that he didn’t even let the body get cold before selling out. He’ll argue against gun control, claiming he needs an AR-15 to “fend off looters during a hurricane”, and spending most of the summer of 2019 lying his ass off about the Trump administration’s concentration camps that hold immigrants, saying “I don’t care if they stay for 400 days” (the legal allowed holding time for undocumented immigrants to be held per the law is 90 days) and for whatever reason, he wanted to make it easier for the Trump administration to keep children locked in cages.

Perhaps the most damning description of Lindsey Graham’s political personality has come from former Republican and former campaign manager for John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign, Steve Schmidt, who called Graham a “pilot fish”.

”The way to understand him is to look at what's consistent. And essentially what he is in American politics is what, in the aquatic world, would be a pilot fish: a smaller fish that hovers around a larger predator, like a shark, living off of its detritus. That's Lindsey. And when he swam around the McCain shark, broadly viewed as a virtuous and good shark, Lindsey took on the patina of virtue. But wherever the apex shark is, you find the Lindsey fish hovering about, and Trump is the newest shark in the sea. Lindsey has a real draw to power — but he's found it unattainable on his own merits.”

[PwrdOn]

If un-suppressed votes ends up electing more Democrats than Republicans, then you need to consider why voters don't want to vote for Republicans.

Consider this, there is a prime job at a major corporation. The choice has been narrowed down to two people. One is a proven dedicated worker who measures his/her success by the success of the Business. The other is in it for the power and the money, has a poor track record in terms of work and productivity, has been suspected of bribery or otherwise playing dirty in order to get past promotions, and has even shown favoritism to competing corporations.

Who would you hire?

This is the choice many voters have. If more Republican candidates played it straight, worked hard, and focused on the needs of their constituents instead of their own self interest, then more Republicans would get elected.

Ugh no, this sounds like a Republican talking point just with the party names switched. The country is not a business and should not be run like one, and the reason Republicans can't get elected in fair contests is because their policies don't serve the interests of most voters so no matter how they spin it, they always end up losing if they don't resort of electoral shenanigans.

[worstblogever]

In spite of all his capitulation to Trump, Lindsey Graham managed to hang onto his seat in the 2020 elections against Jamie Harrison, so we’ll now reflect on his past year and a half in office:

• January 27th, 2020: On the fourth day of the impeachment trial of Donald Trump, Sen. Graham tells reporters that there should be an investigation of HUNTER BIDEN for HIS dealings in Ukraine, instead (remember this one around say, August of 2020).
• January 31st, 2020: Lindsey Graham votes against witnesses being allowed in the impeachment trial of Donald Trump, effectively making it a “trial”.
• February 5th, 2020: Sen. Graham votes against the first impeachment of Donald Trump, in spite of the mountain of evidence showing that he solicited foreign assistance in the 2020 elections.
• November 6th, 2020: Three days after the presidential election, Lindsey Graham is on Fox News with Sean Hannity and is open to the suggestion that Pennsylvania’s state legislators should ignore the will of the people and just declare Donald Trump the winner of the state’s electoral votes, even though Biden won by over 80,000 votes.
• November 9th, 2020: Six days after the presidential election, Graham goes on Fox News to spread further lies about election fraud with Maria Bartiromo, claiming “a lot of shenanigans” happened.
• November 13th, 2020: Sen. Graham calls Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to try to convince him to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential vote there, which ends up putting him under investigation for soliciting a crime.
• December 9th, 2020: Lindsey Graham calls into a conservative talk radio show to claim Stacey Abrams “conned” the Republican-controlled state legislature in Georgia into letting more people vote.
• January 7th, 2021: Graham speaks after the failed coup attempt carried out by domestic terrorists loyal to Donald Trump fails, defends the election results and certification of the electoral college vote, and calls for a massive investigative effort to make sure those responsible were all found, prosecuted and held responsible. (SPOILER ALERT: Graham flipped on everything he said in this speech and started backpedaling within days of these words leaving his mouth.)
• January 11th, 2021: Sen. Graham gets on Twitter to begin arguing against any attempts to impeach Donald Trump for inciting his followers to attack the Capitol and attempt to hang Vice President Mike Pence in a violent coup attempt.
• January 17th, 2021: Lindsey Graham tries to flip the script on the Capitol attack, and tries blaming it on Nancy Pelosi for having inadequate security set up around the Capitol (Pelosi of course gets no say into how much of a force the Capitol Police have present).
• February 2nd, 2021: Graham goes on Fox News and tells Democrats that if they call any witnesses in a second impeachment trial, it will be “opening a Pandora’s box” and he would call witnesses they wouldn’t like as well.
• February 7th, 2021: Lindsey Graham dismisses impeachment as being necessary for Donald Trump, saying that “history will blame him” for his role in the January 6th Capitol attack, and that such a footnote in history books would be enough punishment for him.
• February 10th, 2021: Graham returns to Fox News, and repeats his stupid claim that Nancy Pelosi is somehow responsible for the security at the Capitol on January 6th (she still wasn’t), saying, “What did Nancy Pelosi know and when did she know it?”
• February 13th, 2021: Sen. Graham votes to acquit Donald Trump in his second impeachment trial.
• February 17th, 2021: Days after the second impeachment trial for Donald Trump ends, Graham again goes on Fox News and tells Sean Hannity that “the Republican Party doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell without Donald Trump” in the mid-term elections.
• February 25th, 2021: Sen. Graham argues with the CEO of Costco about why he would pay his employees more than the current minimum wage of $7.25 and seems generally baffled about why paying employees an actual livable wage would instill loyalty and productivity from them.
• March 6th, 2021: Lindsey Graham votes against the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, because he can’t be bothered to care if people need financial assistance during a pandemic.
• March 28th, 2021: Graham goes on Fox News with Chris Wallace, and begins claiming gangs would come to his house last while looting during a natural disaster because they would know he owns an AR-15.
• April 25th, 2021: Lindsey Graham claims there is no problem with systematic racism in the United States, arguing that it’s not there because Kamala Harris is currently the vice-president.
• June 9th, 2021: Graham goes on Fox News to try to spread the conspiracy theory that Covid-19 was deliberately released by China after being created in a lab, and that if that’s the case, it would somehow remove all blame from Donald Trump for his terrible Covid-19 response over the last year of his presidency.
• July 16th, 2021: Lindsey Graham posts on Twitter that he was willing to “go to war” in defense of… Chik-Fil-A.
• July 27th, 2021: Sen. Graham goes on Fox News and claims that crime rates were down because gun control was not as strict, and ownership had gone up. Former Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele fact-checked him, pointing out the murder rate in South Carolina had gone up 25% in the past year.
• August 15th, 2021: Reports emerge that in January of 2021, just before Joe Biden was sworn in, Lindsey Graham called Joe Biden, and tried to “aw shucks, I didn’t mean it” about all the election fraud lies and attacks on President Biden’s son, Hunter, and that he was just doing it to appease Trump supporters. Biden told him to pound sand.

Due to Lindsey Graham winning re-election in 2020, he will remain in office theoretically until at least 2026. We don’t know if he will make another run for president in 2024, but he’s unlikely to try unless Donald Trump is unavailable due to serving a potential prison sentence for tax fraud, since he fears his supporters too much to challenge him again, and is more than anything, a craven little s***.

[Tami]

Ugh no, this sounds like a Republican talking point just with the party names switched. The country is not a business and should not be run like one, and the reason Republicans can't get elected in fair contests is because their policies don't serve the interests of most voters so no matter how they spin it, they always end up losing if they don't resort of electoral shenanigans.

Some people don't understand politics, but they do understand how it feels when the wrong person gets the promotion/job. Especially if it is a job that impacts them directly [like now having to deal with a really bad manager].

I could have used other analogies as well.

[kidfresh512]

Justice Breyer on Retirement and the Role of Politics at the Supreme Court

In an interview prompted by his new book, the 83-year-old leader of the court’s liberal wing said he is working on a decision about when to step down.

WASHINGTON — Justice Stephen G. Breyer says he is struggling to decide when to retire from the Supreme Court and is taking account of a host of factors, including who will name his successor. “There are many things that go into a retirement decision,” he said.

He recalled approvingly something Justice Antonin Scalia had told him.

“He said, ‘I don’t want somebody appointed who will just reverse everything I’ve done for the last 25 years,’” Justice Breyer said during a wide-ranging interview on Thursday. “That will inevitably be in the psychology” of his decision, he said.

“I don’t think I’m going to stay there till I die — hope not,” he said.

Interesting interview. Makes me feel better than he KNOWS he needs to step down in time for Biden to appoint his successor. He needs to go ahead retire do a nice book tour let us thank him for his work and not allow even more of a shift.

[babyblob]

Justice Breyer on Retirement and the Role of Politics at the Supreme Court

In an interview prompted by his new book, the 83-year-old leader of the court’s liberal wing said he is working on a decision about when to step down.




Interesting interview. Makes me feel better than he KNOWS he needs to step down in time for Biden to appoint his successor. He needs to go ahead retire do a nice book tour let us thank him for his work and not allow even more of a shift.

To be honest He may want to get out sooner rather then later. What if The GOP take back the Senate in the mid terms? Then Biden would not be able to get a replacement in. He is 83. No sense in waiting much longer. RBG did that so she could have a woman nominate her replacement and look what happened.

[The Cool Thatguy]

It is not as if I alone make tese claims or feel like no assurance had been made to answer the extraordinary circumstances, rules and changes of the election system. The system itself refuses to be accountable when per your example illegals vote yet the state of California refuses to audit its motor voter rolls to clean out the system of such.

Statements like this just amaze me

How do people think that voting occurs? That people just turn in a slip on who they voted for, and absolutely nothing else?

States have always had voter rolls. They've always verified votes and addresses. And to commit voter fraud on a scale to tip any election, you'd need fake names and addresses in the thousands. And then you'd need at least a few hundred people to impersonate those thousands, over and over again.

And in this conspiracy of hundreds, you'd need none of them to be recognized or caught.

But because people like yourself don't understand basic logistics, we get ignorant posts like this.

[babyblob]

Statements like this just amaze me

How do people think that voting occurs? That people just turn in a slip on who they voted for, and absolutely nothing else?

States have always had voter rolls. They've always verified votes and addresses. And to commit voter fraud on a scale to tip any election, you'd need fake names and addresses in the thousands. And then you'd need at least a few hundred people to impersonate those thousands, over and over again.

And in this conspiracy of hundreds, you'd need none of them to be recognized or caught.

But because people like yourself don't understand basic logistics, we get ignorant posts like this.

And not only can none of them ever be caught but in this day of social media and Facebook they would have to remain very quiet and all of these thousands of people and the people who are running it would have to stay quiet. Not one word could be uttered, they could not brag about it, make jokes with friends or family or even bring it up in any way. No texts, no emails nothing. it would have to be the most well organized plot in the history of plots but also the biggest kept secret. it is just not possible.

Other then some nut jobs on Twitter who saw a person do this and that or know a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy no one is claiming any kind of responsibility. And all of these people with so called proof have not come forward or their proof has been reviled to be faked or lies.

[Tami]

How can you not love a Governor who posts this:

Dear Matt Putz, it seems like you have more important things to be worried about right now than me.

Jersey Smackdown by Phil Murphy

[WestPhillyPunisher]

How can you not love a Governor who posts this:

Dear Matt Putz, it seems like you have more important things to be worried about right now than me.

Jersey Smackdown by Phil Murphy

Game, set and match to Mr. Murphy.