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

[WestPhillyPunisher]

So any bets on how long before Youngkin comically does what a lot of Republicans do as they proclaim themselves as saviors and commit some stupid fraud ? I mean anyone got an over/under bet how long ? lol

I’ll give him four months, and that might be a generous estimate. I’m more curious to see if he’ll roll back mask/vaccine mandates, or try to push through a Texas styled anti-abortion bill.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Passing the infrastructure bill *might* have helped, but I don't think it would have been transformative on an election that was run on bias against transgender people, book bannings, and 'critical white people don't wanna learn their history' theory.

The fact is that Biden's presidency is seen as ineffective by a lot of people and without a major signature promise of a bill with both houses of Congress run by his party, it doesn't make things better.

I do think his unpopularity in poll numbers is undeserved because he's done well in a lot of respects and I agree with him pulling out of Afghanistan.

I’ll give him four months, and that might be a generous estimate. I’m more curious to see if he’ll roll back mask/vaccine mandates, or try to push through a Texas styled anti-abortion bill.

Dems still have the State Legislature Senate and it seems the house might be split evenly (or it did before it checked), so he's not gonna pass legislation like that. Vaccine mandates will likely be rolled back but who knows.

[worstblogever]

It looks like murphy is gonna take it. Latest count with 87% in has Murphy and Ciattarelli seperated by less than 2k.



I'd WAY rather be Murphy in this situation, but it's still possible for Ciattarelli to win.

The idea that the most popular Democratic governor, or governor from either party in polls around the country is going to barely win re-election in a state that leans blue is f***ing bonkers. Especially when his competition is a cretin like Ciatterelli.

[Tendrin]

The idea that the most popular Democratic governor, or governor from either party in polls around the country is going to barely win re-election in a state that leans blue is f***ing bonkers. Especially when his competition is a cretin like Ciatterelli.

As usual, low turn out harms Dems, no matter how popular they are. A little over 2 million of NJ's 6 million eligible voters have been counted so far. Looks like a lot of complacent voters.

[Gray Lensman]

As usual, low turn out harms Dems, no matter how popular they are. A little over 2 million of NJ's 6 million eligible voters have been counted so far. Looks like a lot of complacent voters.

Swing voters have the attention span of a goldfish.

[CSTowle]

Anyway, non-college white women being scared by transes and the critical race theory garbage is what drove this election, alongside white men of course.

In fairness, if they polled non college-educated latino or black women do you think they'd be significantly more pro-trans rights? Or the men for that matter? Ignorance sadly knows no race.

[numberthirty]

In fairness, if they polled non college-educated latino or black women do you think they'd be significantly more pro-trans rights? Or the men for that matter? Ignorance sadly knows no race.

Never mind that you are still in "Coin Flip..." races...

Something is in a position to "Drive..." an election if you are "Fourth And Ten..." once Trump is no longer there to be a voter's biggest worry.

[Tami]

Haven't heard anything new, but yeah, I'm sending prayers your way, Tami. With Virginia having been lost to one Trumper, we don't need New Jersey to fall to another.

I woke up to a race with a .05% difference. There apparently are still some votes left to count, so we'll see. I could be wrong, but I don't think NJ has ever had Governors race this close.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2014, 2015, 2016, as well as 2017, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day posted profiles of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who has a deserved reputation as a bully, not just for doing whatever it takes to get his way politically, but for acting like an extra from The Sopranos and screaming at reporters and constituents alike, calling them “idiot” and “stupid” for having the nerve to ask him questions. (Honestly, he might have been the impetus for Donald Trump thinking he could be taken seriously as a candidate.) And wow, speaking of Donald Trump and Christie, nothing was sadder than Trump making Gov. Christie stand behind him in press conferences with a look on his face like a deer in headlights, lie on his behalf on cable news as a surrogate for months on end, get picked on for his weight and eating Oreos by Trump at a press conference, and if rumors are true, be reduced to running errands like picking up McDonalds for Trump during his 2016 presidential campaign as Christie begged to be named his VP pick, or during the transition, begged to be Attorney General. Perhaps his lowest moment was his speech on the second night of the 2016 Republican National Convention, when he held a trial for imagined crimes committed by Hillary Clinton with her in absentia, leading the crowd to shout out her being found “GUILTY!” of all of them before leading them in chants of “LOCK HER UP!”

Christie’s strict Catholic upbringing has him opposed to abortion, and birth control, but somehow also makes him able to refuse to take in refugees even if, and we quote, “they are orphans under the age of five” and to lie about climate change and claim “it’s not a crisis” as the Jersey shoreline slowly moves inland due to rising sea levels, and Superstorm Sandy devastated New Jersey. Gov. Christie is also been under constant corruption investigations, from everything to usage of the state helicopter to fly to his son’s basketball games, to handing out wreckage from the 9/11 Ground Zero site to allies and donors, to closing down almost entire lanes of highways as a “screw you” to mayors in his state that wouldn’t endorse him for his re-election campaign in 2013 (trust us, we’ll be talking some Bridgegate here today) and several senior aides to Christie went to jail as a result. The citizens of New Jersey are also still trying to figure out what happened to all the Hurricane Sandy relief funding he was put in charge of, and were less than thrilled to discover $25 million was spent on “Stronger than the Storm” ads that, in effect, were presidential campaign ads where Christie declared himself a hero who successfully rebuilt the state. An FBI, federal, and statewide investigation all simultaneously are going on to figure out how the aid money was so mismanaged, and Christie’s approval ratings dropped from levels that were the highest in the country in 2012 all the way to the lowest in the country, and in the teens by 2017. In classic abrasive d*** mode, Christie responded in June 2017 to his state’s disgust with him by saying, “I don’t care”, and proceeded to demonstrate how true of a statement that really is when a few weeks later, he ordered the closure of a public beach over the Fourth of July weekend, and then photos surfaced that showed Gov. Christie took his family to that beach on the holiday so they had it all to themselves. He now has almost zero chance of being elected to anything in New Jersey or anywhere else after his disgraceful time in office.

On this date in both 2018, 2019, as well as 2020, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” profiled U.S. House Representative Denver Riggleman, who served Virginia’s 5th Congressional District from 2019-2020. While Riggleman, a local distillery owner, was chosen to be the nominee for what the Virginia GOP felt was their best chance to keep this seat from flipping blue in 2018, perhaps they should have done their due diligence while researching the candidate… Denver Riggleman was revealed to have penned several online stories that are, for a lack of a better term… sasquatch erotica. Riggleman’s opponent, Leslie Cockburn, was simply doing some research into her opponent, who liked to campaign with Neo-Confederate loon Corey Stewart, and has campaigned with Isaac Smith, the co-founder of the group that put on the “Unite the Right” hate rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that resulted in the death of Heather Heyer. Cockburn was doing some online research to see if she could find comments that would show Riggleman was as dedicated to white nationalism as Stewart, when she unearthed the treasure trove of Bigfoot porn, including drawings Riggleman had on his social media account of a Bigfoot standing with prolific genitalia. (In our opinion, the white nationalism is still the worse offense, but would be more typical of modern Republicans.) At first, Riggleman was insisting that the posts have nothing to do with erotica but were rather “a joke his military friends layed on him”. Riggleman did set his old social media accounts to private, so it was no longer possible to fully investigate the context in which the posts arose… HOWEVER… he did have a Facebook author page that listed a planned book to be titled The Mating Habits of Bigfoot and Why Women Want Him, which sounds a bit less like his interest was Jack Links Jerky or Harry and the Hendersons, you know? By and large, Riggleman’s entire election strategy after being selected for the nomination by the Virginia GOP was to keep his mouth shut, hope no one realizes how closely he can be linked to Charlottesville, to pretend he never wrote anything about the missing link’s wang, and hope that Virginia’s 5th Congressional District is simply gerrymandered to be a sure-win for anyone with an “R” next to his name to win office. The less he said to the press, the better for his chances. Unfortunately for him, he did have to debate Cockburn before the election, and the event was scheduled right around the time of the Brett Kavanaugh hearings. When a question was asked what could be done to deter the high number of sexual assaults on college campuses, and he came up with a solution to prevent it… he put the onus on the women to educate themselves better on how to not be raped, saying, "I think a lot of it comes to educating females, right, specifically in the fraternities and sororities that they’re a part of." Regrettably, Virginia’s 5th Congressional District had a +6 Republican lean in the Cook Partisan Voting Index, and that partisan lean was enough for Denver Riggleman to win office with 53% of the vote in. He thus went to Washington, D.C., and voted almost entirely along party lines for this term in office…But was his only term in office not because of his fascination with human-on-sasquatch action… but because in July of 2019, he did something they couldn’t allow… he officiated a same sex wedding that took place for two of his former campaign staffers. And that act of acceptance of LGBTQ rights is enough that he’s got Republican groups back in Virginia demanding he be censured, the Virginia GOP trotted out Bob Good, an Associate Athletic Director Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University (no word on if he ever got to know Mrs. Falwell while Mr. Falwell watched) to be Riggleman’s primary challenger. And Good ended up beating Denver Riggleman, leaving him out of office as of January 2021. As Riggleman is now out of office, we will set aside his profile at this time, however, to cover another wacky Republican today instead. (Current crazy/stupid scoreboard, is now 1039-50, since this was established in July 2014.

[worstblogever]

Mark Ronchetti

Welcome to what is the 1039th original profile here at “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day”, where we’ll be profiling Mark Ronchetti, who was a 2020 candidate for U.S. Senate in New Mexico, who was campaigning for the seat of retiring Democratic Senator Tom Udall. His Democratic, opponent, Ben Ray Lujan, made it a point to underline Ronchetti is that he’s simultaneously a meteorologist and yet also a climate change denier, scoffing at the idea that an increase in wildfires over the past several years is in any way due to man-made client change.

”Fires aren’t caused by anything other than a spark or a lightning strike. ... Climate change doesn’t cause fires, come on.”

We’ll also note Ronchetti supports the white nationalist/xenophobic boondoggle/vanity white supremacy project that is the border wall along the U.S./Mexico border, as well as being anti-choice at any stage of pregnancy. Past that, on the issues, he’s as vague as someone can be, but that’s sadly typical of Republicans these days… they don’t have much in the way of policy.

Mark Ronchetti is believed to be plotting a 2022 run for Governor of New Mexico, which he botched his announcement by leaking a “Ronchetti for Governor” logo on the day he announced he was resigning from his meteorologist gig a few weeks ago.

[Tami]

Murphy just went past Ciattarelli, by about 1,407 votes.

Murphy now leads with 7,200 votes.

[kidfresh512]

Murphy just went past Ciattarelli, by about 1,407 votes.

Murphy now leads with 7,200 votes.

Fingers crossed.

It will be increasingly harder to get voter apathy under control for Dems. GOP never have to worry about turnout. Their base always turns out. And Democrats have to usually have monster turnouts to overcome them.

With Biden's agenda being held hostage constantly with Manchin and Sinema it just gets harder and harder to get the turnout needed. Where are the Voter protection bills to combat all the GOP initiatives around the country to suppress minority votes after the turnout in 2020.

Obviously the solution is we need MORE turnout everywhere to make Manchin and Sinema irrelevant. But, that is easier said than done. And we are more likely to loose the House and Senate in midterms than regain control.

[JB]

You have to look at why Democrat voters are not turning out. The people of NJ (where I lived for many years) are tired of having some of the highest taxes in the country, especially when there are larger states with bigger expenses but no state income tax.
This is in part why a Dem Governor has not been re-elected in 44 years in NJ.

Murphy’s unemployment debacle last year and having some of the worst pandemic numbers in the country are big issues. Sweeping policy changes have to happen to get Dem voters out to vote in the numbers needed.

EDIT: It’s now being reported that a recount might have to happen. Wow.

[babyblob]

It kind of seems there are two different mindsets between Dem and GOP voters. The GOP most of the time turns out heavy. And they seem to have a long haul outlook. Dont get this election we will just bitch and moan and obstruct things to make the Dems look bad and get them next time. While The Dems seem to want an instant result. Like this year I have heard so many people going "Well there is no change like we were promised so why vote this time around." The Dem voter turn out always seems to be much lower on average and I have heard the GOp talking heads today talk about how the Dem bark is worse then their bite and they will regain seats in 2022 because the Dems just wont turn out.

The GOP plays so dirty and looks at the big piture of what they need to do no matter how slimly. They are already bitching about Fraud in NJ for crying out loud.

[babyblob]

On the you get what you deserve file In Mason Ohio the city council a couple weeks ago voted to make the city a sanctuary for the unborn even though most of the people in the city did not want it. Well last night all the members of the council who voted for that were voted out. The 2 members who voted against it were reelected. mason City Council spent most of the year dealing with this Sanctuary Ordinance and ignored a lot of city business. guess the people got tired of the BS and drama and said enough and booted them out.