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

[WestPhillyPunisher]

I hear that it's more like they know their clients are going to get convicted so they are setting up a reason to take the case to Appeals court. Filing an Appeals Court brief claiming that the Lawyers for the defendants was biased and incompetent and tired to unduly influence the jury in an unethical sort of way.

I can't imagine anyone falling for that scheme. But then, I never imagined millions of people electing an orange skinned reality show carnival barker president either.

[Gray Lensman]

I can't imagine anyone falling for that scheme. But then, I never imagined millions of people electing an orange skinned reality show carnival barker president either.

Maybe they are hoping to get a Trump appointee on the appeal. Someone who will leap at a flimsy excuse to arrive at the verdict they want.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2018, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” profiled Leslie Gibson, a 2018 candidate for the Maine House of Representatives, specifically District 57. Gibson, who had spent years on social media ranting about immigration and wetting his pants about how his 2nd Amendment rights were “under attack by liberals” was on the ballot unopposed through March of 2018, when he went and made himself notorious by reacting to the mass shooting at Stoneman High School in Parkland, Florida, by attacking the victims on Twitter for having the nerve to speak out about the need for gun control only days after the shooting, taking particular focus on Emma Gonzalez (who Gibson tried claiming shouldn’t be counted as a victim because of the distance to the shooter when the attack started) and David Hogg, calling the former a “skinhead lesbian” and the latter a “bald-faced liar”. The Parkland kids, though, ain’t nothin’ to be f***ed with. David Hogg responded with a call for anyone willing to run against Leslie Gibson on Twitter, and immediately a candidate appeared in the form of Eryn Gilchist, inspired to run for office because you just shouldn’t let ***holes run unopposed. The Maine GOP started making noise about rushing out another candidate against Gibson, and he took a hint and dropped out of the race less than a week after his grotesque words hit the internet. He has not resurfaced in politics since.

On this day in both 2014, in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2019, and in 2020, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” posted profiles of Steve Scheffler, a member of the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition and the 2016 Republican National Committee who is one of the key driving forces behind the GOP’s endless campaign against LGBTQ rights and same sex marriage. In effect, when Republican presidential campaigns go through Iowa every four years, their road to the nomination goes through him, no detours. Any perceived “moderate” stance on gay rights is a death sentence in a candidate, and Scheffler is the judge and executioner who carries it out. Scheffler, who once worked on the 1988 presidential campaign of Pat Robertson, publicly admonished John McCain for having the nerve to have an appearance on the Ellen Degeneres Show, warned the legalization of gay marriage in Iowa would make Des Moines “the homosexual capital of the Mid-West”. Scheffler also made it a point to block gay Republican candidate Fred Karger from participating in GOP debates, and with the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition, claims there are scientific studies that gay men only live to an average age of 47, that gay conversion therapy works, and that if social conservatives win the culture wars, it will result in an endgame where Jesus returns to Earth. Steve Scheffler served again on the GOP’s Platform Committee in 2016. You may have heard something about that platform, the one that was the most extreme party platform on social issues the GOP has ever put forth, including opposition to abortion even in cases of rape and incest, requiring the Bible to be taught in public high schools. Scheffler also decided that if you’re not conservative, you can’t be down with Jesus, declaring that progressive Christians “Don’t preach the gospel. They preach a social doctrine of whatever fits their personal agenda.” Yet spent most of the Trump administration taking steps to cement Donald Trump as the GOP’s 2020 nominee for president and availing him of any primary challenge, showing the utter hypocrisy of a man who prides himself on “faith” and “values” rallying around one of the worst examples of morality on the planet while marveling at the supposed enthusiasm his party had for the worst president in modern history. Since this blog has a queue that goes on… well… for a while… we’re going to set aside our profiles of Steve Scheffler for the moment to cover another wacky Republican today instead. (Current crazy/stupid scoreboard, is now 1046-50, since this was established in July 2014.


Bob Vander Plaats

Welcome to what is the 1046th original profile here at “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day”, where we’ll be profiling Bob Vander Plaats, who has been floating around Iowa politics for quite some time, mostly as the president and CEO of “The Family Leader”, but on occasion, he has thrown his own hat into the ring as a candidate, such as in the 2002 or the 2010 Iowa Gubernatorial race. Whether or not he does this because he thinks he has a chance to win is unclear, but the end result is the same, and even in a loss, he wins, as he forces the GOP candidate running against him to come further to the right to appear in any way conservative, compared to his… shall we say, quite defined and terrible stance on the issues.

And, while well-informed people out there in these United States realize that the Founding Fathers intended there to be a separation of church and state, that simple truth eludes Mr. Vander Plaats. Per Bob-O the Bible-Thumpo, judges and legislators today “have forgotten who is the Lawgiver. That God institution (sic) government. He has three institutions: He has the Church, he has the family, and he has government. Where those three intersect, that is the focus of The Family Leader.” He insists all government should be operating with his version of the Almighty’s will in mind, and we quote, “You apply his principles and precepts to economics, then your economic house is in order. You apply his principles and precepts to marriage and the family, well marriage and family is in order. You apply his principles and precepts to foreign policy, and foreign policy is in order.”

And that means he’s into “family values” that amount to homophobic hate, as in 2013, he fumed that the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Defense of Marriage Act “defied the law of nature and the law of nature’s God”. Seeing judges then begin overturning bans on same-sex marriage in several states, he claimed “runs contrary to liberty”, which is absolutely the opposite of what was happening. So he predictably called on state governments to just ignore the Supreme Court’s ruling, because he’s ready to veer off into the sort of Constitutional crisis that caused the Civil War if he can’t stop two dudes from getting wed to each other.

We can’t even begin to explain how deep his bigotry runs… just a quick rundown… Vander Plaats once played a video prior to a speaking engagement that talked of a “darkness” that has fallen over American, and showed a clip that spliced together a montage of the Boston Marathon bombing, several aftermaths of mass shootings… and then a gay pride parade. Yes, Pride Month is just one 30 day stretch of terrorism and violence for this God-fearin’ wanker.

It's sadly predictable, then, that he’s also warned that gay marriage would lead to the legalization of pedophilia, or that the “Family Leader” once had a conference where speakers openly talked about making being gay a capitol offense.

Vander Plaats also claimed God would deliver “divine retribution” after an Iowa state representative invited a Wiccan priestess to give an opening invocation to a session of the legislature. He thankfully did not get a bundle of wood and torches to burn her at the stake, but it’s a safe bet the thought crossed his backwards-ass mind.

Bob Vander Plaats is currently trying to play kingmaker, and see that Donald Trump gets phased out of the GOP ticket in 2024, and instead, a ticket consisting of Mike Pence and Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds emerges.

Whatever the end game he’s got planned for the country is, we hope it implodes in on itself. With or without Trump.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

On this date in 2018, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” profiled Leslie Gibson, a 2018 candidate for the Maine House of Representatives, specifically District 57. Gibson, who had spent years on social media ranting about immigration and wetting his pants about how his 2nd Amendment rights were “under attack by liberals” was on the ballot unopposed through March of 2018, when he went and made himself notorious by reacting to the mass shooting at Stoneman High School in Parkland, Florida, by attacking the victims on Twitter for having the nerve to speak out about the need for gun control only days after the shooting, taking particular focus on Emma Gonzalez (who Gibson tried claiming shouldn’t be counted as a victim because of the distance to the shooter when the attack started) and David Hogg, calling the former a “skinhead lesbian” and the latter a “bald-faced liar”. The Parkland kids, though, ain’t nothin’ to be f***ed with. David Hogg responded with a call for anyone willing to run against Leslie Gibson on Twitter, and immediately a candidate appeared in the form of Eryn Gilchist, inspired to run for office because you just shouldn’t let ***holes run unopposed. The Maine GOP started making noise about rushing out another candidate against Gibson, and he took a hint and dropped out of the race less than a week after his grotesque words hit the internet. He has not resurfaced in politics since.

On this day in both 2014, in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2019, and in 2020, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” posted profiles of Steve Scheffler, a member of the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition and the 2016 Republican National Committee who is one of the key driving forces behind the GOP’s endless campaign against LGBTQ rights and same sex marriage. In effect, when Republican presidential campaigns go through Iowa every four years, their road to the nomination goes through him, no detours. Any perceived “moderate” stance on gay rights is a death sentence in a candidate, and Scheffler is the judge and executioner who carries it out. Scheffler, who once worked on the 1988 presidential campaign of Pat Robertson, publicly admonished John McCain for having the nerve to have an appearance on the Ellen Degeneres Show, warned the legalization of gay marriage in Iowa would make Des Moines “the homosexual capital of the Mid-West”. Scheffler also made it a point to block gay Republican candidate Fred Karger from participating in GOP debates, and with the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition, claims there are scientific studies that gay men only live to an average age of 47, that gay conversion therapy works, and that if social conservatives win the culture wars, it will result in an endgame where Jesus returns to Earth. Steve Scheffler served again on the GOP’s Platform Committee in 2016. You may have heard something about that platform, the one that was the most extreme party platform on social issues the GOP has ever put forth, including opposition to abortion even in cases of rape and incest, requiring the Bible to be taught in public high schools. Scheffler also decided that if you’re not conservative, you can’t be down with Jesus, declaring that progressive Christians “Don’t preach the gospel. They preach a social doctrine of whatever fits their personal agenda.” Yet spent most of the Trump administration taking steps to cement Donald Trump as the GOP’s 2020 nominee for president and availing him of any primary challenge, showing the utter hypocrisy of a man who prides himself on “faith” and “values” rallying around one of the worst examples of morality on the planet while marveling at the supposed enthusiasm his party had for the worst president in modern history. Since this blog has a queue that goes on… well… for a while… we’re going to set aside our profiles of Steve Scheffler for the moment to cover another wacky Republican today instead. (Current crazy/stupid scoreboard, is now 1046-50, since this was established in July 2014.


Bob Vander Plaats

Welcome to what is the 1046th original profile here at “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day”, where we’ll be profiling Bob Vander Plaats, who has been floating around Iowa politics for quite some time, mostly as the president and CEO of “The Family Leader”, but on occasion, he has thrown his own hat into the ring as a candidate, such as in the 2002 or the 2010 Iowa Gubernatorial race. Whether or not he does this because he thinks he has a chance to win is unclear, but the end result is the same, and even in a loss, he wins, as he forces the GOP candidate running against him to come further to the right to appear in any way conservative, compared to his… shall we say, quite defined and terrible stance on the issues.

And, while well-informed people out there in these United States realize that the Founding Fathers intended there to be a separation of church and state, that simple truth eludes Mr. Vander Plaats. Per Bob-O the Bible-Thumpo, judges and legislators today “have forgotten who is the Lawgiver. That God institution (sic) government. He has three institutions: He has the Church, he has the family, and he has government. Where those three intersect, that is the focus of The Family Leader.” He insists all government should be operating with his version of the Almighty’s will in mind, and we quote, “You apply his principles and precepts to economics, then your economic house is in order. You apply his principles and precepts to marriage and the family, well marriage and family is in order. You apply his principles and precepts to foreign policy, and foreign policy is in order.”

And that means he’s into “family values” that amount to homophobic hate, as in 2013, he fumed that the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Defense of Marriage Act “defied the law of nature and the law of nature’s God”. Seeing judges then begin overturning bans on same-sex marriage in several states, he claimed “runs contrary to liberty”, which is absolutely the opposite of what was happening. So he predictably called on state governments to just ignore the Supreme Court’s ruling, because he’s ready to veer off into the sort of Constitutional crisis that caused the Civil War if he can’t stop two dudes from getting wed to each other.

We can’t even begin to explain how deep his bigotry runs… just a quick rundown… Vander Plaats once played a video prior to a speaking engagement that talked of a “darkness” that has fallen over American, and showed a clip that spliced together a montage of the Boston Marathon bombing, several aftermaths of mass shootings… and then a gay pride parade. Yes, Pride Month is just one 30 day stretch of terrorism and violence for this God-fearin’ wanker.

It's sadly predictable, then, that he’s also warned that gay marriage would lead to the legalization of pedophilia, or that the “Family Leader” once had a conference where speakers openly talked about making being gay a capitol offense.

Vander Plaats also claimed God would deliver “divine retribution” after an Iowa state representative invited a Wiccan priestess to give an opening invocation to a session of the legislature. He thankfully did not get a bundle of wood and torches to burn her at the stake, but it’s a safe bet the thought crossed his backwards-ass mind.

Bob Vander Plaats is currently trying to play kingmaker, and see that Donald Trump gets phased out of the GOP ticket in 2024, and instead, a ticket consisting of Mike Pence and Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds emerges.

Whatever the end game he’s got planned for the country is, we hope it implodes in on itself. With or without Trump.

Jeez! Where DO these psycho nutbags come from? They're multiplying faster than rabbits juiced on fertility drugs.

[Mister Mets]

I hear that it's more like they know their clients are going to get convicted so they are setting up a reason to take the case to Appeals court. Filing an Appeals Court brief claiming that the Lawyers for the defendants was biased and incompetent and tired to unduly influence the jury in an unethical sort of way.

Why would the lawyers want to go along with this?

[Tami]

Why would the lawyers want to go along with this?

The Lawyer who has been complaining about Black Pastors and making other questionable comments appears (and I'd need to check on this to be sure) to be the lead Attorney on the case. If so, the others woudl have to defer to his crazy scheme, even if it makes them cringe.

Also, these three defendants didn't have the kind of money needed to hire high class representation like Kyle Rittenhouse did. So basically you get what you pay for.

[InformationGeek]

Oh WBE, Gohmert is looking to expand his horizons.

U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Tyler, announced Monday he is running for attorney general, challenging fellow Republican Ken Paxton, in the already crowded primary.

"Texas I am officially running to be your next Attorney General and will enforce the rule of law," Gohmert tweeted after announcing his campaign on Newsmax.

Gohmert announced earlier this month that he would join the GOP lineup against Paxton if he could raise $1 million in 10 days. The 10th day was Friday. Gohmert said in an announcement video that he has “reached our initial goal of raising $1 million in order to start a run for” attorney general, though he did not confirm whether he was able to collect it in 10 days.

[Tami]

Amusing in a weird sort of way profile

Opinion: Our Foghorn Leghorn Republican senator little resembles his former Democratic self, but in Louisiana we know the type

Many Americans took fresh notice of Louisiana’s sardonic junior U.S. senator, John Neely Kennedy, last week when the Republican lawmaker questioned the patriotism of President Biden’s nominee for comptroller of the currency.

“I don’t know whether to call you ‘professor’ or ‘comrade,’” Kennedy told Saule Omarova, a Cornell Law School professor, during her confirmation hearing before the Senate Banking Committee on which Kennedy serves.

When Kennedy asked if she had a resignation letter from the Communist youth group the Soviet-controlled Kazakhstan government forced her to join as a child, Omarova responded, “Senator, I’m not a Communist. I do not subscribe to that ideology. I could not choose where I was born.” Omarova told Kennedy the Communist regime persecuted her family, adding, “That’s who I am. I remember that history. I came to this country. I’m proud to be an American.”

But Kennedy’s antics at the hearing should have surprised no one in the room. Since entering the Senate in 2017, he has specialized in outrageous comments on Fox News, on the Senate floor and in committee hearings.

An acerbic Biden critic, Kennedy is a fount of sharp-but-folksy one-liners. He punctuated his 2016 Senate campaign spots with, “I will not let you down. I’d rather drink weedkiller.” With his exaggerated Southern accent, he affects a mixture of Mr. Haney, the con artist of the 1960s CBS sitcom “Green Acres,” and the bombastic Looney Tunes rooster, Foghorn J. Leghorn.

But Kennedy’s antics at the hearing should have surprised no one in the room. Since entering the Senate in 2017, he has specialized in outrageous comments on Fox News, on the Senate floor and in committee hearings.

An acerbic Biden critic, Kennedy is a fount of sharp-but-folksy one-liners. He punctuated his 2016 Senate campaign spots with, “I will not let you down. I’d rather drink weedkiller.” With his exaggerated Southern accent, he affects a mixture of Mr. Haney, the con artist of the 1960s CBS sitcom “Green Acres,” and the bombastic Looney Tunes rooster, Foghorn J. Leghorn.

But Kennedy’s antics at the hearing should have surprised no one in the room. Since entering the Senate in 2017, he has specialized in outrageous comments on Fox News, on the Senate floor and in committee hearings.

An acerbic Biden critic, Kennedy is a fount of sharp-but-folksy one-liners. He punctuated his 2016 Senate campaign spots with, “I will not let you down. I’d rather drink weedkiller.” With his exaggerated Southern accent, he affects a mixture of Mr. Haney, the con artist of the 1960s CBS sitcom “Green Acres,” and the bombastic Looney Tunes rooster, Foghorn J. Leghorn.

Mostly, we wonder what happened to the reasonable, non-incendiary Kennedy we once knew.

In preparing this piece, I found a lengthy interview Kennedy did in October 2004 with the Shreveport Times. In pitching his Democratic Senate candidacy, he was articulate, restrained and progressive. He scorned the tax cuts for wealthy Americans that then-President George W. Bush had signed. He favored increasing the federal minimum wage.

He was no Bernie Sanders liberal, but he was the progressive Democrat in the race — so much so that some prominent Black leaders, including our congressional delegation’s most liberal member, Rep. William J. Jefferson of New Orleans, backed him.

But what stood out in that 2004 interview was the absence of the homey sayings, abusive zingers and character assassinations that have become Kennedy trademarks. He was nothing like the man you see these days insulting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) — “It must suck to be that dumb” — or vilifying then-Interior secretary nominee Deb Haaland as “a neo-socialist, left-of-Lenin whack job.”

But what stood out in that 2004 interview was the absence of the homey sayings, abusive zingers and character assassinations that have become Kennedy trademarks. He was nothing like the man you see these days insulting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) — “It must suck to be that dumb” — or vilifying then-Interior secretary nominee Deb Haaland as “a neo-socialist, left-of-Lenin whack job.”

This is bizarre to me.

[Xheight]

Two Fox News Contributors Quit in Protest of Tucker Carlson’s Jan. 6 Special

Good riddance to the cowering establishment - Patriot Purge is what Fox needs to be doing more of along with more long form investigation. That it wasn't even on Fox News is part of the mess that led to Lou Dobbs being put to the curb.

[Xheight]

Balance is achievable, as long as you can juggle having an open mind with the understanding that some of what you read or hear is likely to have no basis in facts.

It's good to hear from both sides, however, these days the other side often doesn't even make any sense.

I have access to a wide variety of news sources, including international publications. I just stay away from 'news' sources that are NOT news sources.

I think you mean authority sources which unfortunately is its own bias. Since you cut and paste from Politico so extensively you should be familiar with The Revolt of The Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium, by Martin Gurri.

[Xheight]

You talk about your opinion but I'm unclear about what it is. Are you skeptical of claims of fraud, or do you think the election was stolen?


The term "ignorant" isn't meant as a slur. It's objectively true. Pretty much everyone on the planet is ignorant about something. Ignorance can often lead to people being mistaken, as they make assumptions that have no basis in reality. This gets into the Dunning-Kruger effect, the way ordinary people with low ability will overestimate their own abilities at something because they don't have the framework and competence to understand it. It becomes easy for people who know a little bit about something to trick those who don't know as much, and this is something we should oppose.


Sometimes we will need emergency regulations. There are still procedures for putting those into place. There is a bad-faith argument from the left pushing for the permanent adoption of emergency regulations without ever making it clear that it was meant to be temporary, framing it as a matter of regression rather than as something that was successful and that should be made permanent (someone can make a good-faith argument that early voting or other emergency provisions worked well and should become part of the standard process going forward.) Bad-faith arguments on the left don't excuse bad-faith arguments on the right.

Braynard could always present his evidence, much of which wasn't based on restricted evidence. It is worth noting that more data has been released since then, for anyone to investigate whether there were shenanigans in the election.

As for technocrats and experts, these are the people who are supposed to evaluate complex systems. There are going to be plenty of right-wingers, who would have all the incentives in the world to expose massive election fraud. It would be very useful for the careers of many Republicans if they could prove that 50,000 votes in Georgia were manufactured.

The alternative to technocrats evaluating evidence is people who have no idea what the hell they're doing, like the Arizona state senate auditors checking ballots for bamboo fibers.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...ots-audit-2020

My opinion is simply that the technical aspect of "proving" the fraud is beyond the reach now of those that trying do so for a number of reasons( your 'Braynard could always present his evidence, much of which wasn't based on restricted evidence. It is worth noting that more data has been released since then, for anyone to investigate whether there were shenanigans in the election. Just doesn't hold up to being the falsifiable data of "evidence" ), one of which access to information, another is having the allied expertise you allude to has no reason to join as no career can be made in blowing up the election system altogether(There are those that have done the best they can like Braynard), so we come back to that much of the GOP relies on its instinctual understanding of players involved and can't begin to convince the comfort zone Majority that has faith in the system.

This is the role of the data science people "who know a little bit about something to trick those who don't know as much" in the campaign and provide the lawyers with non falsifiable scenarios - like mail in ballots which are legally inseparable from regular ballots. As note this isn't a conspiracy in the sense of a group of people working around a plot but merger of interests where the bounds are not set and lead to the go ahead of criminal activity. We see this time and again where people think they are simply pushing the boundaries amounts to excusing horrible things.

[Tendrin]

My opinion is simply that the technical aspect of "proving" the fraud is beyond the reach now of those that trying do so for a number of reasons( your 'Braynard could always present his evidence, much of which wasn't based on restricted evidence. It is worth noting that more data has been released since then, for anyone to investigate whether there were shenanigans in the election. Just doesn't hold up to being the falsifiable data of "evidence" ), one of which access to information, another is having the allied expertise you allude to has no reason to join as no career can be made in blowing up the election system altogether(There are those that have done the best they can like Braynard), so we come back to that much of the GOP relies on its instinctual understanding of players involved and can't begin to convince the comfort zone Majority that has faith in the system.

This is the role of the data science people "who know a little bit about something to trick those who don't know as much" in the campaign and provide the lawyers with non falsifiable scenarios - like mail in ballots which are legally inseparable from regular ballots. As note this isn't a conspiracy in the sense of a group of people working around a plot but merger of interests where the bounds are not set and lead to the go ahead of criminal activity. We see this time and again where people think they are simply pushing the boundaries amounts to excusing horrible things.

In othert words, Xheight just 'knows' fraud happened, despite their being zero evidence of it, but it's mostly just because he hates Democrats and liberals.

[Xheight]

I can't imagine anyone falling for that scheme. But then, I never imagined millions of people electing an orange skinned reality show carnival barker president either.

Just as I couldn't imagine the Dems losing a chance to dump their oligarchs, and put Bernie in but went with ole Joe.

[Xheight]

In othert words, Xheight just 'knows' fraud happened, despite their being zero evidence of it, but it's mostly just because he hates Democrats and liberals.

If you had been following the discussion, courts have disallowed access to falsifiable evidence and there is only the suggestive evidence. That and Democrats are lying hypocrites working a machine of greed and power.

Witness -

why Biden decided to reappoint Fed Chair JEROME POWELL to the post: “People close to Biden say he did it because of Wall Street’s confidence in Powell’s stewardship during the pandemic — the Dow jumped a couple of hundred points on Monday right after the news. And Biden by nature tends to favor incumbents, continuity and bipartisanship.” Ben writes that “there also wasn’t an overwhelming case to fire Powell, though the scary surge in inflation offered one potential way out.”

Hire a Republican to make money and Blame Republicans when it goes in the tank because of inflation. Almost the very definition of Fake "bipartisanship"

[Dalak]

In othert words, Xheight just 'knows' fraud happened, despite their being zero evidence of it, but it's mostly just because he hates Democrats and liberals.

When Experts and Evidence are so reviled it's hard to prove when Lies and Misinformation are spread, and I wonder who benefits the most from that? Could it be the people who proudly champion the right to lie with no consequences and commit violence on those they disagree with?