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

[WestPhillyPunisher]

And counting.We're going to be at 100K around the middle of this month, and probably double that number by the end of it.

Factor in governors in red states champing at the bit to lift lockdown restrictions so they can please Drano Don, those numbers will spike like no one's business.

Four dead Americans got us years and years and years of investigations. 100-200k will get us nothing but crickets. The trump body count is real, and the GOP just doesn't give a flying $#$#.

What a shock, given that the GOP is the "Party of Life" (said with tongue in cheek).

[worstblogever]

It was on this date in 2015 that “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” posted a profile of Glenn McConnell, a former South Carolina State Senator and Lieutenant Governor who left office in 2014 to become the President of Charleston University after almost two decades of people noticing he was a big Neo-Confederate supporter. Whether it was running a store with his brother that sold Team Gray paraphernalia, going on Nightline in 1999 to make comments in support of keeping the Stars & Bars at the state capitol, and keeping an active membership it the Sons of Confederate Veterans, McConnell couldn’t stop getting all lathered up over the Confederacy. Perhaps the most shocking display of McConnell's defense of a rebellion fought in support of slavery were photos that surfaced of him at a party where he was wearing a general's uniform, and posing for photos with African American actors were paid to portray slaves working at the plantation home where the party was taking place. McConnell retired as president of the University of Charleston in 2018, during a tenure that feaured protests against his hire in the first place.

It was on this date in 2016 that “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” posted a profile of Karen Davis, a 2014 candidate to represent California's 9th Congressional District, and former clerk for Stanislaus County. As a Stanislaus County Clerk back in the 1990s, she became a symbol of bravery for public officials, during a time when several anti-government anti-tax extremists, the Juris Christian Assembly, began harassing state employees. An Oregon man, Roger Steiner, was actually arrested and sent to prison for 18 years for sending her death threats, including bullets in her mailbox and a simulated bomb under her car, before she was actually physically assaulted back in 1994. But Karen Davis did not retreat from politics, even writing a novel about her experiences, "The Terrorist in My Garage". Steiner, meanwhile, maintained his innocence for two decades. Mind you, producing that book led to Davis' career as a clerk ending, as she had created a job to net her son a paycheck, and having her secretary, on the clock, helping write it for her, and using government FedEx accounts to ship copies to Hollywood producers, hoping it would be made into a movie. As Davis was making some noise about running for Congress, when suddenly, she received more death threats in the mail, against both herself and her husband. She harkened back to her experience in such matters, talking tough about how she wouldn't be intimidated, and that if she backed down she'd be "letting the terrorists win". Well, even with Davis on the ballot, it wouldn't matter, as she finished fourth among four candidates in the blanket primary. Except for one detail... investigators thought it strange that the threats she received were labelled "white bitch", which she said was what Steiner called her during her 1994 attack. She indicated to investigators that she felt it was Steiner, again... until finally, investigators realized her story didn't add up, and they submitted Davis to a polygraph, which she failed. She finally admitted to sending the death threats to herself, likely to stir up sympathy for her campaign for office. Now, not only is her first report of a crime to authorities bogus, but her 1994 assault accusations against Roger Steiner, who served 18 years of a 22 year sentence, are highly in doubt. Steiner, now 77 and unable to leave Fresno because he's still on probation, is seeking to have his conviction overturned, and if it is, he could likely sue the state of California for being wrongly imprisoned on the word on Karen Davis, who now seems pretty unelectable, what with lying to send an innocent man to prison for almost two decades.

One this date in 2017, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” posted a profile of Mike Fair, who served two decades on the South Carolina State Senate, from 1996-2016, and back in 1998, he made an unsuccessful bid at running for Congress in South Carolina’s 4th Congressional District. After two decades in office, Mike Fair went bonkers starting in 2014, and was fighting the culture wars against everyone and anyone without any level of patience to actually prepare an appropriate response. In January of 2014, as an investigative report was released that South Carolina’s prison system was neglectful enough of mentally ill prisoners that it was being faced with legal action over the abuses. Mike Fair is the head of the Corrections and Penology Committee in the South Carolina State Senate, and responded to this revelation by saying he "didn't know that we had a problem with any particular aspect of mistreating or not treating inmates who have a diagnosis of mental illness". And that is remarkable, because about a decade earlier, Mike Fair was the chair of a Task Force whose findings were that the mentally ill in South Carolina’s prisons were facing terrible conditions. After a ruling from Judge Michael Baxley found that inmates had died because of a lack of basic care in South Carolina’s prisons, there obviously was going to be a discussion on how to fix the problem held by the Committee on Corrections and Penology… except that Mike Fair literally opened that meeting by trying to silence everyone and forbid them from discussing Judge Baxley’s findings. A month later, in February 2014, Fair started making headlines because he was opposing teaching standards for teaching evolution in school, holding up the process at almost the last minute. This was not uncommon, however, as Fair had argued as a Creationist against teaching natural selection in schools as far back as 2005. But it really was two months later in April 2014 that Mike Fair went off the deep end in his opposition to evolution… an 8 year old girl by the name of Olivia McConnell had petitioned to the South Carolina State legislature that she thought it would be a nice nod to the history of South Carolina if they would name the Colombian Wooly Mammoth as the official state fossil of South Carolina. And a bill got submitted on behalf of her teacher and class by one of the state legislators, to teach the kids how government works. The lesson they got, however, was less than inspiring. That would be because Mike Fair decided to try and litigate his fight over evolution again, and felt this “Colombian Wooly Mammoth” bill should be fought tooth and nail, because it was attacking his belief in Creationism by being older than he thought the Earth was. The rest of the Republicans in the South Carolina State Senate realized it’s bad optics to be a d*** to an 8 year old bill and dropped the Creationist language that Fair had added. Only two weeks after that in April, Fair was teaming up with CSGOPOTD alumni Lee Bright and freaking out about a play being performed at the University of South Carolina Upstate titled “How to Be a Lesbian in 10 Days or Less”, calling it a “recruitment tool” and comparing those performing the play to “skinheads and radical Islam” looking to bring others into the fold. Almost a full year went by before Mike Fair made the papers again, this time in April of 2016, when he actually tried following the disastrous lead of North Carolina to pass transphobic bathroom legislation, co-sponsoring a bill on a bathroom ban submitted by his buddy Lee Bright. It fortunately went nowhere, but true to form, Fair would take out his frustration on the dreaded left in America soon thereafter. An LGBTQ advocate named Caleb Laieski, who was actually invited to the White House in 2011, frequently writes letters to state legislators asking them to consider having their states submit and pass legislation to ban the practice of “gay conversion therapy”, because of that nagging little detail where international groups are beginning to consider it a human rights abuse. Well, rather than respond politely with a “this would not pass muster in our legislature at this time”, or just choosing to not respond at all, Mike Fair sent a letter back to Laieski where he called him “warped”, “sick”, and “shameful”. Charming, right? Well, we’d like to say that all of these sorts of moments were Mike Fair’s undoing in that primary race, but it seems much more likely that the people of South Carolina were just tired of voting the same gasbags into office, and went with someone new instead. After all, it’s not like the rest of the Republicans in South Carolina are catching any flack for anti-choice votes, pushing for voter-disenfranchising Voter ID laws, attempts at trying to nullify the Affordable Care Act, or trying to legalize carrying firearms in bars. Mike Fair had all that, and more, in his own voting record, though, adding to our own concerns about him. Fair was torpedoed in the GOP Primary for his seat in the South Carolina State Senate by William Timmons in 2016.

[worstblogever]

It was on this date in 2018, as well as 2019, that “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled Phil Covarrubias, a former member of the Colorado House of Representatives elected to represent District 56 who was in his freshman term in office when during a debate on the floor of the Colorado House regarding Donald Trump’s attempts at proposing a Muslim ban, Phil Covarrubias started defending one of the most shameful moments in American history, that being when the United States government placed Japanese-American citizens in internment camps during World War II. In October of 2017, he posted a rant on Facebook that featured his thoughts on how “liberals are racist against Americans”, or that “Russian collusion is Hitlery Clinton and the selling of uranium”, on top of defending Donald Trump’s admitted sexual assaults of women. A month later, e was caught on Facebook caught hitting “Like” at conspiracy theories that the mass shooting in Southerland Springs, Texas, was carried out by Antifa. In January of 2018, he again demonstrated a definitive case of rectal-cranial inversion (his head up his ass) on the floor of the Colorado House, this time during an abortion debate. For whatever reason, Covarrubias began comparing abortion to prostitution. We are thrilled to report that Phil Covarrubias was defeated in the GOP Primary in the 2018 elections, and is now longer in office. As it seems his career is now over, we will set aside his profile at this time and take a look at another wacky Republican today instead. (Current crazy/stupid scoreboard, is now 865-45, since this was established in July 2014.)


Randy Fine

Welcome to what is the 865th original profile here at “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day”, where we’ll be discussing Randy Fine, a member of the Florida House of Representatives from District 53 who was first elected back in 2016, and a second term with 55% in 2018. He did so with the campaign strategy of attacking his Democratic opponent, Phil Moore, by accusing him of thinking he was “above the law” and giving the shocking examples of… traffic citations.

In his three years and change in office, Fine has decided to call for a city to be dissolved due to them not being able to afford to build a highway on their city budget, and called for the University of Central Florida to be shut down in 2019 because of “excessive spending” he didn’t like (Heaven forbid money be spent on education).

But Randy Fine really got onto our radar back in November of 2017 after an insane social media outburst. You see, Fine is the only Jewish member of the Florida GOP. And when his own constituents began asking him why he was sponsoring bills that would forbid businesses and municipalities to do business with”anti-Semitic” companies. What that definition includes is any business that Fine gets annoyed with for not blindly supporting Israel. But his constituents weren’t even AGAINST the idea… they were just wanting to know how it would work, and were asking their representative online… Fine doesn’t deal well with being questioned, though, and anyone who wanted details he would quickly declare was also “Anti-Semitic” or straight up a “NAZI”. One such “Nazi” was a disabled veteran of the U.S. Armed Forces.

That wasn’t a one-off, and Fine didn’t learn anything, as evidenced how in April of 2019, he got into another online argument and was attacking a constituent in a similar manner. Once he learned the person he was calling an “anti-Semite” was Jewish, though, Fine instead referred to his 68 year old opposition as a “Judenrat”, a term for a Nazi-installed council made of Jewish members during World War II.

When confronted with the fact that doing so is just, y’know, f***ed up, Fine doubled down, and insisted he was using the term properly.

We’re hoping the voters of Florida’s District 53 remember this in November, and don’t let any speeding tickets Phil Moore may or may not have justify voting for this bullying loon.

[CaptainEurope]

Do you think a Clinton presidency would have magically prevented the pandemic? She wouldn't say as much idiotic stuff in daily briefings but the pandemic would have still happened and still ravaged the country and world.

Except Clinton would have been a better Merkel and not a worse Bolsonaro.

[PaulBullion]

Prominent lawyer, Trump donor representing Biden accuser

A guy who actually worked for one of the organisations tasked by Putin to destroy democracy in the United States.


Any questions?

[PaulBullion]

Except Clinton would have been a better Merkel and not a worse Bolsonaro.

There's actually a strong correlation between the quality of the covid-19 pandemic response and the gender of the country's leader.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

I heard on my local all-news radio station that Trump will host half a dozen or so World War II veterans today as part of ceremonies for the anniversary of V-E Day. I find this troubling, I mean, we're talking about Trump who's been openly reckless about the pandemic since he refuses to wear a mask in public, and that was BEFORE a valet at the White House recently tested positive for coronoavirus. Now he's going to be near a group of elderly men who probably aren't in the best of health and could well be susceptible to COVID-19. I'm surprised this event is being held in the first place, but then, I shouldn't be since Trump will use and abuse anyone for the sake of a photo op, to hell with the consequences.

[skyvolt2000]

I'm gonna say it.

Anyone who brings up the crime bill automatically loses their argument and is a partisan hack. African Americans wanted it, the left and right wanted it. At the time it seemed like a good idea. It was turned into a bad one but hindsight etc.

Some of the main ones crying about that crime bill-were some of the ones who cried FOR it in the first place.
While you had folks in the black community cry about it targeting black folks-they failed to understand-WHO were the main ones doing the crime?

What happen is there was no check and balances to make sure that bill was working.
No one questioned the jail sentencing disparity between blacks and others for certain crimes.

Every black person in jail is innocent mindset don't work. Yet fake woke culture wants that to be fact.
They only look at the surface and only see the skin color and numbers.

They don't look at everything and cherry pick. They want to yell and fuss and be seen.

[Tami]

Mike Pence caught on hot mic delivering empty boxes of PPE for a PR stunt.

Twitter Link with Video

Screenshot_2020-05-08 Matt McDermott on Twitter Trump’s White House, summarized.jpg

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Twitter Link with Video

Screenshot_2020-05-08 Matt McDermott on Twitter Trump’s White House, summarized.jpg

And on a hot mic to boot. Typical bullshit for this administration.

[Tuck]

We are already over 76500 as I type this...

None of the numbers we get count deaths caused indirectly. (We probably won't be able to estimate those numbers for years.)

But, for example, here EMTs are not allowed to bring in cardiac arrest cases they can't revive on scene. (I doubt the survival rate is much of anything in that case, but it has to be something.)

You have people avoiding hospitals and urgent care who would otherwise go, and may not realize they have situations more severe than their symptoms suggest to them.


We're underestimating the death toll if we're being honest.

[Tendrin]

None of the numbers we get count deaths caused indirectly. (We probably won't be able to estimate those numbers for years.)

But, for example, here EMTs are not allowed to bring in cardiac arrest cases they can't revive on scene. (I doubt the survival rate is much of anything in that case, but it has to be something.)

You have people avoiding hospitals and urgent care who would otherwise go, and may not realize they have situations more severe than their symptoms suggest to them.


We're underestimating the death toll if we're being honest.

'Excess Mortality' is real.

[4saken1]

The only direct way Trump has affected me is the tax cuts he passed means more money in pocket overall.

I guess if you're OK with the fact that those tax cuts were ultimately unnecessary for the economy (except to artificially boost an already stable one) and have needlessly added trillions to the national debt, which you and I will have to pay back someday anyhow, then there's not much else to say on that.

Many people are blinded by partisan blindness acting like immigration camps on the border are something new and didn't exist during the Obama years.

I don't know of many people that are saying that they didn't exist, just that the comparisons are intellectually dishonest. Obama didn't separate children from parents as a policy. There was less overcrowding. Duration of detention was shorter. There were zero deaths reported in the camps under Obama. Children detained under Obama didn't experience exorbinant rates of mental illness due to inhumane treatment and separation from their parents.

On the flip side Obamacare screwed me up the ass without lube. My employer attracted employees with its great benefits despite pay that was actually lower than comparable jobs in the region. Our health insurance plan was considered the gold standard of the state. Then comes Obamacare and our benefits fell under the tax that great plans like ours would get as a penalty for being too good. So our benefits and healthcare got gutted while having our out of pocket monthly costs go up astronomically. Our pay didn't go up though. So basically the net effect was a massive paycut and reduced benefits.

I'm wondering if you would have had those same issues if the Public Option were allowed to pass.

[GindyPosts]

None of the numbers we get count deaths caused indirectly. (We probably won't be able to estimate those numbers for years.)

But, for example, here EMTs are not allowed to bring in cardiac arrest cases they can't revive on scene. (I doubt the survival rate is much of anything in that case, but it has to be something.)

You have people avoiding hospitals and urgent care who would otherwise go, and may not realize they have situations more severe than their symptoms suggest to them.


We're underestimating the death toll if we're being honest.

People that are afraid or unwilling to go to hospitals right now as they don't want to contract COVID-19 or feel like they'll be a burden to the health care system is going to be an unreported consequence of this pandemic. It's a tragic scenario, but it's currently one we're seeing.

[GindyPosts]

Very conservative state as I basically said when I brought up that Trump got 60% of the vote here. So really the only way to make my presidential vote matter is 3rd party in hopes that someday we will get better options than crap sandwich #1 or crap sandwich #2 which is what the liberals and conservatives throw at us.

The only direct way Trump has affected me is the tax cuts he passed means more money in pocket overall. I'm aghast at some of the stupid things he says but policy wise he really isn't that much different. Many people are blinded by partisan blindness acting like immigration camps on the border are something new and didn't exist during the Obama years.

I hate to break it to you, but this is America, and we value third parties as much as we value an Iranian restaurant or Nickelback. As much as it would be good to have at least one third party that did matter in elections and wasn't just a few thousand people "throwing their vote away", the truth is our options are either "Conservative policies" or "Centrist policies with maybe a chance for the liberals to say something just to shut them up?" That being said, the logic that "all politicians suck" is sort of the logic that allows truly incompetent and terrible people to get elected and stay elected. Are politicians by nature dishonest? You can make the argument, absolutely. But, it never hurts to actively engage in the political theater before giving way to total cynicism and letting crap happen because you think the entire system is crap. Ironically, you end up fulfilling your own prophecy that way.

Meanwhile, we didn't really need another tax cut. We've been getting fucking tax cuts for decades. I'm not advocating for a 400% tax hike to compensate or anything absurd of that nature, but as I keep saying, our infrastructure is falling apart, our public services are underserved, more states are handing off schools to for-profit institutions who run them like businesses that want to earn the most money and don't have the best intentions for the students in mind, and the pandemic has shown we should at least consider expanding our safety net in various departments in case of emergency, not just for war, but for any crisis. To pay for these services has to come somewhere, and that has to be the dreaded "t" word. Sure we'll have to deal with another wave of idiots on social media and in real life, but the truth is, taxes have been coming down for years and we have to come up with some solution.

On the flip side Obamacare screwed me up the ass without lube. My employer attracted employees with its great benefits despite pay that was actually lower than comparable jobs in the region. Our health insurance plan was considered the gold standard of the state. Then comes Obamacare and our benefits fell under the tax that great plans like ours would get as a penalty for being too good. So our benefits and healthcare got gutted while having our out of pocket monthly costs go up astronomically. Our pay didn't go up though. So basically the net effect was a massive paycut and reduced benefits.

Well, sorry for you, but the Affordable Care Act was meant to try and help everyone, and really it's the fault of your company for being bullish on not adjusting to the new system, not the health care system. Again, it's not perfect, but I'd rather have something than nothing. Before the ACA, I did not have any healthcare whatsoever, and after it, I was finally able to get mental health therapy, basic access to clinical needs, and dental work done which finally helped deal with some extractions that improved my overall well-being.

I'm basically fed up with both sides as all they do is screw you.

The difference is one side deliberately screws you while the other screws you by association, but I would rather avoid the one that screws you on purpose.