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

[Jack Dracula]

Some trolls fish for attention by casting many lines and baiting their hooks with personal attacks and outrageous viewpoints they don't actually support.

[worstblogever]

On this date, in both 2014, as well as in 2015, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” profiled Bobby Jindal, the former Governor of Louisiana, and absolute bottom-feeder in the 2016 GOP Presidential Primary. Bobby Jindal was born Piyush Jindal, but got a man-crush on Bobby Brady on the Brady Bunch and renamed himself. While Gov. Jindal’s call to his colleagues in the GOP to “stop being the stupid party” sounds like a brave call for better discourse, he might want to practice what he preaches, considering he’s fighting to have creationism taught in schools instead of evolution, and in 2014, refused to answer if he believed in evolution with the defense that he’s “not an evolutionary biologist”. That defense might have worked better if Jindal’s degree wasn’t in biology. In 1994, Jindal wrote an article in the New Oxford Review about noticing a classmate who had a smell of sulfur about her, so he and some classmates performed an amateur exorcism on her that had the side effect of curing her skin cancer. If that isn’t quite KOO-KOO for Cocoa Puffs enough for you, Jindal also has come out repeatedly in defense of Phil Robertson from Duck Dynasty, no matter what homophobic things he’s saying at the time. Then there’s just Jindal’s record as governor of Louisiana, where he inherited a post-Hurricane Katrina state and brought it from the bottom in most statistical categories like job creation, crime rates, high school graduation rates to numbers elevated so far that they have stayed in the bottom five in the nation. During Jindal's brief time in the 2016 Presidential Primary, he admitted that if president, he would use the IRS as a tool to attack Planned Parenthood, said President George W. Bush "made absolutely the right decision on Iraq", and said he would force the resignations of House Speaker John Boehner, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and all 535 members of Congress. Just before his campaign ended, he came up with the solution to defeat ISIS, a "no fly zone", which he had immediately pointed out to him would not work so well, since ISIS doesn't have an air force. Jindal will be remembered as one of the worst governors of the past decade in terms of job creation, education, and poverty of his citizens, which is amazing because he inherited a state recovering from Hurricane Katrina and never raised its fortunes any higher, really.

In both 2016, as well as 2017, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day" profiled former sex term Louisiana Congressman Charles Boustany,… Whoops. Freudian slip. I mean six terms. But if you believe current headlines, perhaps it is the sex terms of Rep. Boustany that need to be addressed, as his name was alleged to be tied to a prostitution scandal back in Louisiana. As the story goes, in a book called "Murder on the Bayou" about several prostitutes who have turned up dead in Boustany's district, is alleged that Boustany was a frequent customer of those sex workers, and several of them worked out of a hotel owned by Martin Guillory, a field representative for Boustany prior to their deaths. The veracity of the accusation has not been verified, but Boustany insists it was all a "dirty tricks" attack from fellow U.S. House Rep. John Fleming, as both were candidates in the GOP Primary for the U.S. Senate seat for Louisiana that was up for grabs with the retirement of David Vitter, a guy who truly knows how to be implicated in a prostitution scandal. Boustany is also noteworthy for, prior to running for office, being a rather terrible doctor. He was sued for malpractice eight times, twice being found at fault, and what makes that even more relevant is Congressman Boustany also is the co-sponsor of the provision of the Affordable Care Act that had Medicare money being approved for end-of-life counseling... also known as the thing Republicans themselves wet their pants over, and fearmongered to the public as being "death panels". Charles Boustany remained utterly inflexible about gun control, which isn't uncommon for a Republican, but when you consider the fact that he personally has recently had a relative shot in a mass shooting, it just seems callous. When John Houser went on a killing spree at a movie theatre in Lafayette, Louisiana in 2015, Boustany's cousin was among those wounded... and yet, he still is unmoved to enact any gun control legislation, including the kinds of improved background checks that would have prevented Houser from carrying out his mass shooting in the first place. But his story gets even weirder... at one point back in the mid 1990s, Rep. Boustany was a victim of a fraud scheme... because he was trying to buy a title of British nobility (really). Two con artists ran a scam where they hoodwinked dumb wealthy Americans like Congressman Boustany into believing they could buy an English title for a hefty sum. That would earn him not just the right to refer to himself as "Lord Boustany", but would grant him a seat to ride in the Queen Mum's 100th Birthday celebration. Most millionaires would just write the money off as a loss on a flight of fancy. But not Congressman Lord Boustany. Nuh uh. He filed a lawsuit that never went anywhere in Lafayette Parish, but the record is available to the public. Here is a link to all three pages of the complaint, but the most relevant one is page 2, which shows how much he paid for the Title - $18,500 - and lists both his name and that of his wife in the pleading, and why they are filing suit. Ironically, as Boustany tried to pay to alter the record to make it show he was a British noble, he was also one of many Republicans who questioned the circumstances of the birth and citizenship of President Obama publicly back in a 2009 interview, before quickly backpedaling when he was called out on it. Anyway, all of that weirdness, as well as a hyper-partisan voting record may have been what led to Charles Boustany finishing only third in the 2016 race for the U.S. Senate seat to represent Louisiana.

On this date in 2018, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” profiled the now-former Governor of Illinois, Bruce Rauner, who was elected to a single term in office back in 2014, and has been so staggeringly incompetent at his job that he was very nearly pushed out of office in the GOP Primary while running for re-election here in 2018, winning over Jeanne Ives with only 51% of the vote to Ives’ 49%. And Jeanne Ives is a completely bats*** homophobe, to put it mildly. Rauner tripped over his own feet and any other part of his anatomy for four years… everything that Rauner attacked former Democratic Govenror Pat Quinn on in 2014 to get elected… he’s managed to be worse. Job creation? Worse. Budget shortfalls? Worse. Violent crime, in virtually every statistical category? Worse. AND he’s not just worse on crime, he impotently tries blaming mayors for that violence rather than accept any criticism, like a true leader would. Meanwhile, as the Illinois state legislature moved to pass popular legislation like automatic voter registration, Rauner vetoed it. As teachers began to strike around the country for increased wages, the Illinois state legislature passed a salary increase to end the problem…and Bruce Rauner vetoed it. That’s par for the course because for the past four years, Rauner refused to raise taxes, and instead, wanted to run Illinois by the same kind of model with which Sam Brownback ran Kansas into the ground… by cutting “entitlements” like funding for Medicaid, public education, funding for programs addressing domestic violence, homeless youth, autism, and immigrant integration that most critics found flat-out morally wrong. He emulated Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s stupid quest to wipe out labor unions in his state, trying to pass “right to work” legislation. That’s something he didn’t campaign on, and if there’s one city where you don’t f*** with unions outside of New York, it’s Chicago. You would think that as far away from Mexico as Illinois is, that maybe the good Illini wouldn’t have to get pissed about Bruce Rauner on the issue of immigration, compared to say, most border states… and then they found out he was personally profiting from ICE detention centers that were holding children separated from their families in cages. Even the National Review considers Bruce Warner to the be the worst GOP Governor in the United States, which is amazing because that means he rated worse than people like Mary Fallin and Paul LePage. Gov. Rauner’s main survival tactic through this past year seemed to try to blame all the problems in his state on Mike Madigan, the Democratic Speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives. This included trying to blame Madigan for what happened with Nick Sauer. For those don’t know that story… Nick Sauer was appointed to a state position by Bruce Rauner to be the State Tollway Authority Board director, eventually ran for the state legislature. And, during Sauer’s first term in office, he went and carried out a revenge porn scheme by releasing nude photos of his ex-girlfriend online. When the media reported on this, and noted Rauner was behind Sauer’s rise in politics… Rauner tried blaming Sauer’s actions on a “culture of abuse” Madigan had created in the capitol. No one bought it. Everybody hates Bruce Rauner. Republicans hate him for being too moderate on abortion and LGBTQ rights. Rauner was defeated in 2018 by J.B. Pritzker, and now is a forgotten man in Illinois politics.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2019, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” profiled Jason Reese, a failed 2012 candidate for district 46, as well as failed 2018 candidate to be a member of the Oklahoma House of Representatives, specifically to represent District 83. Where Reese became notorious was his second campaign, when he filed a campaign expense report that had an online porn site specializing in BDSM listed on his campaign expense report filed with the FEC. Reese used the excuse that it was just an “error” made by a staffer who accidentally cut and pasted the wrong address from the wrong web window, because THAT’S TOTALLY A THING THAT HAPPENS and that it didn’t raise questions about Reese’s campaign staff getting their rocks off to bondage porn on the clock. Now, one would think someone who’s enough of a hypocrite to claim to represent family values in a red state and yet try to list online porn as a campaign expense… well… you would think that person would gracefully step aside for another Republican right? Well, welcome to the 21st Century Republican Party, where not only will that candidate not exit from an election to help a candidate without scandal win, but GOP voters are stupid enough to still advance them out of a primary. Yup, Jason Reese won by 400 votes, and advanced to the general election in November 2018… but he at least lost to Democrat Chelsea Branham with 48% of the vote. At least Reese will have the free time to watch the continuing adventures of Hot Wife Chloe and whatever punishment she might get. In the meantime, it looks like he’s going to continue to float around the Oklahoma state legislature as a legislative aide until he can find a way to carpet-bag into a seat that comes available.

On this date in 2020, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day”, profiled Kathaleen Wall, a 2020 candidate for U.S. House of Representatives in Texas’ 22nd Congressional District, who also lost in 2018 while trying to get elected over in Texas’ 2nd Congressional District in the GOP Primary. She wasn’t messing around this year, though, dropping $8.3 million of her own money into a campaign to win a seat in Congress, a new record for anyone running for office in Texas. Wall is an anti-choice extremist who celebrated the news that during the Covid-19 outbreak, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott declared abortions “non-essential care”, and she took to Twitter to say, “Covid-19 will save more lives this week than it takes!” Which, even if you believe life begins at conception (she does), would not even be remotely mathematically true. Wall was still in the top 2 in the GOP Primary against front-runner Troy Nehls, and decided that she should make up the huge deficit she faced in the first round of voting by putting all her chips in on “racist Covid-19 conspiracy theories” and running an ad that blamed the spread of the disease on China. The ad declares, “China poisoned our people” as a graphic shows a world map where arrows labeled “Chinese Virus” travel across the Pacific and to the United States. After the ad praises Trump for using this racist term, a narrator promises that Wall would “cut off trade, aid, and support to China.” It concludes in calling the world’s largest country—and our nation’s largest trading partner “a criminal enterprise masquerading as a sovereign nation.” When that advertisement didn’t shift the polling numbers to her favor, Kathaleen Wall followed up by using her own money for a new commercial that featured a sex-trafficking victim and her family hammering her opponent, Nehls for failing to protect them while he was still a sheriff. That amounted to little difference, as Wall still lost the runoff to Nehls by 40 points. If her 2020 candidacy did anything, it was lighten her wallet, and make it easier for Democrat Preston Kulkarni to beat Nehls on November 3rd. We’d thank her, but she’s still awful so we’ll pass.


It was in both 2017, and in 2018, that “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” profiled Wendy Rogers, who not only failed to get herself elected to the Arizona State Senate during the 2010 Tea Party Wave then failed in four consecutive elections to get herself elected to Congress, first losing in 2012 in the GOP Primary for Arizona’s 9th Congressional District, then in 2014 in the general election to Kyrsten Sinema for that district, before carpet-bagging her way down to try to get elected further north in Arizona’s 1st District and lose in the primary to the child-abusing anti-gay, anti-immigrant sheriff who dates gay illegal immigrants, Paul Babeu in 2016, before losing to Democratic Congressman Tom O’Halleran in 2018 after petitioning voters to “send Trump some back up”, while calling Democrats “radical, crazy, and unhinged” in campaign ads.

Now, why is it that Wendy Rogers has repeatedly failed to win office? Well, she touts her experience as an Air Force veteran, which is always good. On the other hand, she runs fear-mongering ads that should come with trigger warnings like when she included a few seconds of footage of ISIS beheading James Foley in her 2014 campaign video. Even the traditionally conservative Arizona Republic condemned that choice, especially because Foley lived in Phoenix, where his loved ones could get triggered whenever their local television programming went to commercials during election season. After Rogers’ campaign manager actually argued why this bit of Islamophobic propaganda wasn’t so bad…they changed the ad so instead it showed head lice, because once Kyrsten Sinema pointed out there were polls out that said Congress was less popular than head lice (and was correct).

Her insane campaign tactics continued, but this time may have proved more fruitful, as she won the GOP Primary in 2018 for this seat by running attack ads against fellow Republican, and State Senator Steve Smith, claiming the modeling agency he works for “specializes in under age girls” and is “linked to sex trafficking” (law enforcement actually spoke in Smith’s defense on this, and Smith’s former employer has filed a libel lawsuit against Rogers for it as of October of 2021).

Anyway, looking at her issue stances, on immigration, she supported building a physical wall along the U.S. Mexico border (which explains why she campaigned with Trump in Arizona), opposed migrant resettlement including from Syria (of course she does, she’s scared of those Muslims doing all the terrorisms!), and even pushed for English to be made the official language of the United States, which has kind of repeatedly been established as unconstitutional (and the first historic time was in her home state, to boot). Her national security policy is her belief that the American government was doing nothing to help Christians being attacked by ISIS, but America was committing “suicide” by allowed Muslim refugees in “without screening”, in spite of the quite rigorous screening process in place. In May of 2018, she compared the fact that abortion is legal in the United States to… oh… you know… the Holocaust. It’s these sorts of details that have made Rogers 0 for 5 in her attempts to get elected from 2010 through 2018.

[worstblogever]

Regrettably, in the 2020 elections, Wendy Rogers set her sights on winning a seat in the Arizona State Senate in District 6 of that body, in spite of her listing her “primary residence” at two addresses in the state over a hundred miles apart (and one well outside of her district) yet somehow pulled it off with 54% of the vote. She has repeatedly been making headlines for being an absolute lunatic since:

• January 25th, 2021: Rogers sets a record for the shortest amount of time in office any Arizona state legislator has served before having an ethics complaint filed against her, after she allegedly berates a legislative aide for not reporting for work while he had tested positive for Covid-19, and that she repeatedly asked him to perform campaign work while on taxpayers’ dime.
• March 8th, 2021: Wendy Rogers confirms that she is a member of the violent domestic terror group the Oathkeepers, less than two months after they are linked to the attack on the national capitol. The fellow Republican State Senator who shares her district with her, Walter Blackman, responds to this by promising to never campaign with her, and warns that her only goal is to find a way to Congress.
• July 16th, 2021: Rogers does not react well to the results of the Arizona “audit/fraudit” of the 2020 election, that did not find proof of election fraud, calling to “decertify” the results of the 2020 election and “recall Biden voters” in her deranged demand to vote again.
• July 20th, 2021: Wendy Rogers defends repeatedly promoting the white nationalist “Replacement Theory” on Twitter after coverage from local media noting her fondness for sharing articles about it..
• July 21st, 2021: Rogers appears on a conspiracy theory show hosted by Rick Wiles to be interviewed by Lauren Witzke, noted for its history of anti-Semitic statements.
• July 23rd, 2021: Wendy Rogers posts a quite telling statement to Twitter to express her outrage that the Cleveland Indians would be changing their mascot, posting, “I like Indians and I like R******s. I like Aunt Jemima and I like Uncle Ben. I like Robert E Lee and I like Stonewall Jackson. I don’t like traitors who hate America. Stand up for our culture!” Other than the fact that she just posted a racial slur on this Tweet, historians remind her that both Confederate generals were traitors to the United States.
• August 3rd, 2021: Rogers calls for the incarceration of Maricopa County election officials, going as far to demand it be “solitary confinement” because of course she’s into immediately denying their human rights for acknowledging what a farce trying to overturn the 2020 election was.
• August 4th, 2021: Wendy Rogers goes on the Stew Peters Show, a right-wing conspiracy theory website to talk about her push back against vaccine mandates. She does not question or challenge Peters, whatsoever, when he claims during the interview that “there’s no way to prove a virus exists” or that “vaccines have killed 55,000 people”.
• September 21st, 2021: Rogers again calls for someone to “decertify” the 2020 presidential election results, a process which frankly, still doesn’t f***ing exist.
• October 8th, 2021: Wendy Rogers turns up as a part of an anti-vaxx protest outside a local medical center that would require its employees to get vaccinated for the safety of patients.
• October 11th, 2021: As the news drops that DC comics will introduce a bisexual version of Superman, Rogers starts foaming at the mouth and gets on Twitter to rage, writing, “Superman loves Louis Lane. Period. Hollywood is trying to make Superman gay and he is not. Just rename the new version Thooperman so we can all know the difference and avoid seeing it.” While her intent was obviously homophobic, her typo in spelling “Lois” as “Louis” is the sort of wild incompetence she’s known for.

We aren’t sure what Wendy Rogers’ 2022 plans are at this time, because it is thought that Walter Blackman’s assessment is correct, and she has yet to announce if she’s running for her Arizona State Senate seat again, or if there’s a Congressional seat she’s going to take a run out. Expect her to file a “primary residence” as wherever she feels her best opportunity might be when that happens.

[Kid Devil]

What line of work are you in worstblogever? You are certainly have admirable writing skills.

[worstblogever]

What line of work are you in worstblogever? You are certainly have admirable writing skills.

Medical Technologist.

[Kid Devil]

Medical Technologist.

Wow. That certainly explains why. Good for you man.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

How about this one?

Attachment 115140

I’d roll with this one. After all, Jack C is in your neck of the woods.

[Tami]

Watching CNN and it looks like Tucker Carlson is creating a TV series that is nuts. It's conspiracy theories on steroids.

Fox is putting it on it's streaming service to get people to pay to watch this nonsense.

[Tami]

I’d roll with this one. After all, Jack C is in your neck of the woods.

Just posted it. Feel free to retweet it.

[Kid Devil]

One thing I do not like about Fox is how much the hosts say they despise vaccine mandates yet Fox itself requires everyone to be vaccinated or do 2 COVID tests a week which is stricter than what Biden proposed. It makes me wonder if they really believe what they are saying or if they just want to speak to appease their audience?

[thwhtGuardian]

One thing I do not like about Fox is how much the hosts say they despise vaccine mandates yet Fox itself requires everyone to be vaccinated or do 2 COVID tests a week which is stricter than what Biden proposed. It makes me wonder if they really believe what they are saying or if they just want to speak to appease their audience?

They're just appeasing their ignorant viewers...it's pretty obvious.

[babyblob]

One thing I do not like about Fox is how much the hosts say they despise vaccine mandates yet Fox itself requires everyone to be vaccinated or do 2 COVID tests a week which is stricter than what Biden proposed. It makes me wonder if they really believe what they are saying or if they just want to speak to appease their audience?

They will tell people tooth and nail not to do they very thing they have done to stay safe. To be honest I wonder how many people on Fox news even believe what they say any more. Like is Tucker so caught up in the character that he just goes with it. I mean I know he is a racist POS but how much does he amp up his bit to keep viewers?

[Mister Mets]

One thing I do not like about Fox is how much the hosts say they despise vaccine mandates yet Fox itself requires everyone to be vaccinated or do 2 COVID tests a week which is stricter than what Biden proposed. It makes me wonder if they really believe what they are saying or if they just want to speak to appease their audience?

Someone can make the rational argument that vaccination is a good thing, but it shouldn't be mandated. That said, it is hypocritical for Fox to not practice what they preach when it comes to their own policies.

When your satire is so subtle that even smart people don't immediately recognize it as satire, it's a fail.

It's not subtle. It's playing to some people's expectations.

It's close to the boogaloos who broke stuff during Black Lives Matter protests, with the important distinction that the Lincoln project people came forward pretty quickly to explain their stunt (although there was already plenty of skepticism about why purported supporters of the Republican candidate were acting in a way that would help the Democrat.

[Malvolio]

One thing I do not like about Fox is how much the hosts say they despise vaccine mandates yet Fox itself requires everyone to be vaccinated or do 2 COVID tests a week which is stricter than what Biden proposed. It makes me wonder if they really believe what they are saying or if they just want to speak to appease their audience?

It's the old "Do as I say, not as I do" argument. That said, I have to wonder if everyone at FOX News is really vaccinated. I mean, a roadie for KISS recently died of Covid only a few days after being diagnosed, even though he was fully vaccinated. Except, as they found out later, he wasn't really vaccinated at all and he just forged a vaccination card. So if a roadie for KISS could fake being vaccinated, how hard would it be for someone at FOX News to do the same?