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

[Tami]

Opinion: Don’t be afraid of the election audits — they may be our only ticket out of this mess

Really. As a Republican election lawyer who has participated in more than 30 post-election recounts, contests and audits, I am extremely confident: They won’t find anything. The massive fraud that former president Donald Trump claims tarnished the 2020 election has been and will remain illusory — because it didn’t exist.

But audits, I believe, can be the friend of sanity, helping everyone in the political process, especially the Republicans who understand that convincing their voters that elections are hopelessly rigged is no way to win elections.

Denying reality is not a successful electoral strategy. My argument to Republicans is simple: In the end, Trump’s elections-are-rigged message is going to hurt not only our democracy but also Republicans more than it hurts Democrats.

It’s time to call Trump’s bluff. Let’s stop decrying the wasteful idiocy of the Arizona audit (or quote-unquote “audit,” as it became universally known due to its sloppy procedures). That was conducted by Cyber Ninjas loyal to Trump yet unable to come up with anything more than 360 additional votes for Joe Biden and easily refutable charges about illegal voters. Let’s have more: Wisconsin, Pennsylvania — even states Trump won comfortably such as Ohio and Texas (especially puzzling since Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton already spent more than 22,000 staff hours fruitlessly searching for fraud).

The hope here isn’t to convince the entire 30 percent that they’re being bamboozled. As a realistic matter, that isn’t going to happen, but it’s a mistake to see them as a monolithic group.

Belief in the myth of the rigged election has persisted for months — for years, actually. But every time Trump has had the opportunity to prove fraud, he’s failed.

Challenging election outcomes when one party doesn’t like the results is a door Republicans need to realize swings both ways. Having two-thirds of your voters not trusting election results will over time injure Republicans more than Democrats. Why should Republican voters turn out? It’s a lethal path for a party that has already seen depressed turnout in some elections, such as the Georgia Senate runoffs and California governor’s recall.

While he has a point about this being self-defeating for republicans, he is wrong that it will stop there. Someone in the comment section made a point that the Republicans won't stop with the Audits. if they don't get the result they want, they will likely become more aggressive as far as stopping all people from voting.

I don't think Trump supporting Republicans want a Democracy, they don't want people to vote. All they want is a way to hold onto power.

[seismic-2]

If these amateurish "audits" result in finding only one ballot, anywhere, that was possibly miscast (whether through actual fraud or through honest mistake), that will be sufficient for the Trumpists to claim that the entire election process was deeply flawed and cannot be trusted. ("Who knows how many votes were really phony? This shows that it happened, and it's probably only the tip of the iceberg!") Citing this "finding" as proof, in the future they will demand that the results of all elections that they lost be summarily thrown out and the elections be reverted to the State legislatures, which they control in most States.

[Tami]

Another possible for WBE's collection? If not already.

Kari Lake, the Trump-endorsed candidate for Arizona Gov, says she would not have certified Arizona's 2020 election results if she was governor at the time.

[worstblogever]

Another possible for WBE's collection? If not already.

Kari Lake, the Trump-endorsed candidate for Arizona Gov, says she would not have certified Arizona's 2020 election results if she was governor at the time.

I'm quite familiar with her. She's a former news anchor. It's not just that she's into the Big Lie... it's not just that she's stated her desire to completely end early voting... she's also making anti-Semitic attacks upon people who work for the station who used to employ her.
https://www.azcentral.com/story/opin...do/8135380002/

[Tami]

I'm quite familiar with her. She's a former news anchor. It's not just that she's into the Big Lie... it's not just that she's stated her desire to completely end early voting... she's also making anti-Semitic attacks upon people who work for the station who used to employ her.
https://www.azcentral.com/story/opin...do/8135380002/

I kinda figured that you might be.

[worstblogever]

In 2014, 2015, as well as 2016, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" published profiles of Rick Santorum, the former U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania, a two-time failed candidate for President of the United States aka “The Frothy One” himself. We're talking about a guy who demonizes the LGBTQ community, compares homosexuality to bestiality and relating his fight against marriage equality to the war on terror after 9/11. He also declared children conceived during rape to be "a blessing in disguise", said JFK's speech about his faith not excluding him from the presidency made him nearly "throw up in his mouth", and a variety of other race-baiting lines about minorities on welfare that I'd just as soon let you click on the link back to that original profile than have to type again. His presence in the 2012 elections drove the GOP so hard right that candidates were falling all over themselves to compete with him to match his opposition to BIRTH CONTROL, in a day and age where 98-99% of Americans have no problem with it. Santorum was inexplicably the runner-up to Mitt Romney for the GOP nomination for the office of President of the United States in 2012, and briefly threw his hat into the ring as a presidential candidate in 2016, although, without the curiosity he inspired four years earlier. He now just serves as a terrible pundit who occasionally turns up on cable news.

It was on this date in 2017, as well as 2018, that “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled Danny Tarkanian, who repeatedly tried parlaying his family name into a career in politics, but in Nevada state-wide elections since 2004, is a six time loser. Yes, that is SIX times. In 2004, he lost a bid for U.S. Senate. In 2006, he failed to become Nevada's Secretary of State. In 2010, he had a second losing bid for U.S. Senate. In 2012, he bumbled away a shot at becoming the U.S. House Representative from Nevada's 4th Congressional District, and he tried carpet-bagging himself into Congress again unsuccessfully in 2016, losing against Congresswoman Jackie Rosen in Nevada’s 3rd Congressional District. And in 2018, Danny Tarkanian again had designs on Nevada’s 3rd Congressional District, now that Jacky Rosen is running for U.S. Senate, only to lose yet again to Susie Lee. For those who think his surname sounds familiar, Danny is the son of Jerry Tarkanian, the former head basketball coach of UNLV who led the Runnin' Rebels to a national championship, but also had the reputation of running some of the most corrupt programs in NCAA history. But while we've established Danny Tarkanian is a loser in politics of historic proportions, but the "why" still matters. Going back years, Tarkanian was also deeply involved in anti-immigrant rhetoric, so much so that he was endorsed by the anti-immigrant militia group known as the Minutemen, and in 2016, he endorsed Donald Trump's disastrous plan to build a border wall along the U.S./Mexico border. Immigration, of course, is not Danny Tarkanian's only extremist political stance, as he also believes there should be zero restrictions on the right to bear arms (so enjoy your tanks and tactical nukes, NRA nuts), and on abortion, believes there should not even be exceptions for incest or victims of rape. We also have to factor in Danny Tarkanian's shady real estate ventures, like the 2007 land deal that saw him lose a $17 million settlement, where his only defense was that it was the bank's fault (a bank which collapsed during the 2007-2008 finanical crisis) for giving him a loan that he would never actually be able to pay off. Truly, another example of hos the GOP is the Party of responsibility, right? Tarkanian has impotently threatened to sue the past two Democrats who trounced him for running attack ads bringing up his shady financial dealings and bankruptcy, that will, of course, be laughed out of court. He may re-emerge for a 2022 run for something... stay tuned...

On this date in 2019, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled Kevin Nicholson, a 2018 candidate for U.S. Senate from Wisconsin, who was also a man who was such a terrible candidate that his own parents donated the maximum amount to his potential opponent, Sen. Tammy Baldwin, to defeat him. In a move that was the latest in GOP “Christian values”, Nicholson responded by writing an op-ed to rip his own parents, and claim that this was an example of “the intolerance of the Democartic Party”. In a later radio interview, Nicholson attacked the “cognitive thought process” of veterans who support Democrats, claiming that they “abandoned the Constitution”, and that they “have shown overt disrespect to our veterans”. (We’ll remind you that Nicholson backs Donald Trump, a draft dodger who attacks Gold Star families, questions the honor of the late Sen. John McCain, and has repeatedly whined about not being able to violate the rights of others as they are granted in the Constitution.) Bizarrely, in 1999-2000, Kevin Nicholson was the leader of the College Democrats of America, which earned him a bit of a double-take from Republican Primary voters, given his statements. His time with the group was highly tempestuous, though, as he acted more like someone conducting a coup than a progressive. Serving in the military during the war on terror only seemed to have turned him into a conservative nationalist, though, make no mistake, as he vocally supported Tump’s immigration policies and failed economic policies with tariffs on China. Anyway, Kevin Nicholson couldn’t woo Republican voters by bagging on his parents, and lost in the GOP Primary to Leah Vukmir. We’re pretty sure we’ve not heard the last of him, given that he is still in his early 40s, however his first foray onto the political scene wasn’t exactly overwhelming.

On this date in 2020, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day”, where we’ll be discussing Steve Von Loor, a candidate for U.S. House of Representatives for North Carolina’s 4th Congressional District in both 2018 and 2020. Von Loor, who was born in Alabama but grew up in Ecuador, was of course, able to take nothing personally from his international experiences, instead being a die-hard supporter for Donald Trump’s immigration policies, focusing on an end to family-based immigration. Von Loor’s xenophobia was focused more extensively on his intolerance for Muslims. In May of 2018 on social media, he posted a debunked Islamophobic meme that the entire religion was banned in the United States decades ago by the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act to make the claim that “ISLAM IS NOT ALLOWED IN THE USA!” and claimed, “Islam is trying to destroy America.” Not surprisingly, was endorsed by rabid Islamphobe Dinesh D’Souza, and commented on the social media feed of white nationalist Nick Fuentes (one of the organizers of Charlottesville’s “Unite the Right” rally), where he practically begged to be interviewed by Fuentes. If Steve Von Loor’s issues with Muslims and immigrants weren’t off-putting enough for voters, it was then revealed that he had a long history of allegedly committing domestic violence against his ex-wife. To say nothing about how he conducts himself online, as several stories came forward of Von Loor making inappropriate comments in the social media feeds of models he was lusting after. These problems had a lot to do with why Steve Von Loor lost in 2018 with only 24% of the vote. Steve Von Loor has become even more unhinged of late, as several times while campaigning for the nomination to challenge Congressman David Price in 2020, he began posting on Twitter while using Qanon hashtags, if not outright posting the Qanon slogan. It didn’t help him much, as he failed to even exit the GOP Primary, finishing a distant third with only 17% of the vote. As such, we will set aside his profile at this time, however, to cover another wacky Republican today instead. (Current crazy/stupid scoreboard, is now 1031-50, since this was established in July 2014.

[worstblogever]

Mike Cargile

Welcome to what is the 1031st original profile here at “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day”, where we’ll be profiling Mike Cargile, who was a 2020 candidate in California’s 35th Congressional District, hoping to unseat Democratic Congresswoman Norma Torres.

Cargile is the… hell, we’ve completely lost count of how many dips***s there are who were proponents of the Qanon conspiracy theory and ran for office as Republicans in 2020. But Cargile was committed enough to put the Qanon slogan on his campaign page. But Mike Cargile was not committed to just one reality-detached conservative quest. He also was a Covid-19 truther who refereed to the crisis as a “scamdemic”, claimed the virus was“NOTHING compared to the diseases and plagues headed this way via the rats and the homeless”; and has praised the lie-filled Plandemic video as “EXACTLY why I'm in this race!”

As Media Matters continued digging into Cargile’s social media profile, they found he repeatedly had made homophobic posts, to the extent he advocated for “Straight Pride”, posted xenophobic ignorance about how “Two illegal aliens having an anchor baby does not equal an American.” (The 14th Amendment of our Constitution would disagree, and not use inflammatory language to explain it.) and he went on a racist rant where he not only used the n-word, but chided African Americans by saying:

”Quit blaming white folks for your problems. Take your black ass out there and show them kids there's a better way than husslin' on the street.”

And… that was finally enough to get the California Republican Party to retract their endorsement of Cargile. Not that they condemned him, either, they just pulled his endorsement off their website quietly and hoped no one would notice, because of course they’re craven s***s afraid of enraging the Qanon wing of their flock.

Mike Cargile ended up getting wrecked by 39 points at the ballot box when Election Day rolled around. Hopefully the fact that the California GOP abandoned his campaign means they won’t be supporting any of his future endeavors.

 

[WestPhillyPunisher]

If Trump, a hopeless narcissist totally unable to accept defeat had never opened his mouth and whined about the election having been "stolen" from him, would Qpublicans be hellbent on going through with the "Big Lie", the damn audits, January 6th and the rest of the nonsense? I mean, where was all the outrage from right wingers after Mitt Romney lost in 2012?

[4saken1]

While he has a point about this being self-defeating for republicans, he is wrong that it will stop there. Someone in the comment section made a point that the Republicans won't stop with the Audits. if they don't get the result they want, they will likely become more aggressive as far as stopping all people from voting.

I don't think Trump supporting Republicans want a Democracy, they don't want people to vote. All they want is a way to hold onto power.

All true. These people, without missing a single step, without admitting that yet again their near complete lack in critical thinking skills has been exploited by whatever YouTube 'news' channel they get their misinformation from, have moved on from "the Election was rigged" to "it COULD have been rigged, ergo we need stricter Election laws".

[seismic-2]

I mean, where was all the outrage from right wingers after Mitt Romney lost in 2012?

The right-wingers never really liked Mitt Romney. Sure, they supported him after he won the GOP nomination, but they felt no real connection with the plutocratic wing of the party. When he lost, it just reinforced their belief that it was because he wasn't a "real" conservative. (After all, he had been a governor of Massachusetts!) His loss intensified their drive to make sure that the right wing would win total control of the party, as has now happened.

[Tendrin]

The right-wingers never really liked Mitt Romney. Sure, they supported him after he won the GOP nomination, but they felt no real connection with the plutocratic wing of the party. When he lost, it just reinforced their belief that it was because he wasn't a "real" conservative. (After all, he had been a governor of Massachusetts!) His loss intensified their drive to make sure that the right wing would win total control of the party, as has now happened.

Yeah, one of the predominant things I always heard whenever a GOP guy lost any race was that he 'wasn't a real conservative'.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Yeah, one of the predominant things I always heard whenever a GOP guy lost any race was that he 'wasn't a real conservative'.

Well, has any GQPer said that about Trump? Or are they afraid of making him mad if they did?

(I think we all know the answer to that question)

[Tendrin]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opini...?ocid=msedgntp

An article on the awfulness of Gorsuch worth checking out.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opini...?ocid=msedgntp

An article on the awfulness of Gorsuch worth checking out.

Short and sweet: this bastard is dangerous!

[thwhtGuardian]

Well, has any GQPer said that about Trump? Or are they afraid of making him mad if they did?

(I think we all know the answer to that question)

Nah, they're still clinging to "the election was stolen" garbage