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

[AnakinFlair]

Meadows sues Jan. 6 committee after panel vows contempt proceedings

Meadows is suing members of the Jan. 6 committee as well as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. The specifics of the civil rights lawsuit were not immediately available at the U.S. District Court in Washington on Wednesday evening.

The move by Meadows came after the committee said it would pursue contempt proceedings as a result of the former top White House aide deciding to no longer cooperate with the panel’s requests.

Thompson said his committee has repeatedly tried to identify the areas of inquiry that Meadows believes are protected by executive privilege, but neither Terwilliger nor Meadows have “meaningfully provided that information.” He added that he had given Meadows opportunities to comply with the committee and questioned how the former White House chief of staff could produce documents but then decide not to appear for a deposition to answer questions about them.

Thompson also questioned how Meadows released a new book in which he wrote about Jan. 6, but is “denying a congressional committee the opportunity to ask him about the attack on our Capitol.” That “marks an historic and aggressive defiance of Congress,” Thompson wrote.

So if this lawsuit gets fast-tracked, and is found in favor of Congress, would that affect the Bannon trial?

[worstblogever]

Meadows sues Jan. 6 committee after panel vows contempt proceedings





So if this lawsuit gets fast-tracked, and is found in favor of Congress, would that affect the Bannon trial?

Meadows is an idiot, if he's not careful, he's going to end up giving the information over in discovery.|

And I'm not a lawyer, and even I know that's what can happen.

[numberthirty]

Meadows is an idiot, if he's not careful, he's going to end up giving the information over in discovery.|

And I'm not a lawyer, and even I know that's what can happen.

One guy's take...

He's doing it intentionally so he can fork it over while saying that he tried not to give it up.

[worstblogever]

One guy's take...

He's doing it intentionally so he can fork it over while saying that he tried not to give it up.

That's... a weird take. He already has spilled too much tea in his book and angered Trump.

The hokey pokey he's doing over testifying to the committee seems much more likely a deliberate time-wasting/stalling scenario if he's smart about it... but it seems more like he's a flailing idiot.

[JB]

Senate votes to block Biden vaccine mandate — but measure is unlikely to become law
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/08/bide...osha-rule.html

The Senate voted Wednesday to block President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate on private employers in the latest blow to his push to flex federal power to boost vaccinations in the U.S.

The measure heads to the Democratic-held House. It faces a tougher path to passage in the House, and the Biden administration has threatened a veto if it reaches the president’s desk.

The Senate approved the measure in a 52-48 vote. Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.V., and Jon Tester, D-Mont., joined every Republican in supporting it. It needed only a simple majority to pass under the Congressional Review Act, a process that allows Congress to overturn rules made by federal agencies.

[numberthirty]

That's... a weird take. He already has spilled too much tea in his book and angered Trump.

The hokey pokey he's doing over testifying to the committee seems much more likely a deliberate time-wasting/stalling scenario if he's smart about it... but it seems more like he's a flailing idiot.

You just laid out the entire reason someone would do what I said.

He's just trying to get out of the corner he painted himself into. Which will obviously look like someone they are about to hit the gong on.

[worstblogever]

You just laid out the entire reason someone would do what I said.

He's just trying to get out of the corner he painted himself into.

It's a sad state of affairs if people fear Donald Trump more than they fear jail. He's a f***ing coward who fails at anything he tries.

Nevermind, I see your point. The GOP are spineless ***holes that don't know what's worth being afraid of, and empower the worst actors on the planet.

[numberthirty]

I don't even know if I feel like he is spineless.

The dude is just smart enough to know that it doesn't matter that every single option that he has is a bad one.

He's got to just pick the option with the lowest "Acme Kit Going Off..." percentage, and put on his best Pee Wee when he says "I meant to do that..."

[worstblogever]

It was on this day in both 2014, as well as 2015, that we published our original "Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day" profile of South Dakota State Senator Phil Jensen, a man who drew national headlines back in March of 2013 for producing legislation that would allow businesses to discriminate against whoever they want, Civil Rights Act be damned. Jensen actually tried claiming that if a bakery owned by the KKK tried discriminating against an African American, that the matter would take care of itself, because customers would be too offended to patronize such a place. This logic, of course then fails to understand everything about the Jim Crow era South. Anyway, South Dakota Republicans threw Jensen under the bus for his remarks, but have never said anything about other extreme legislation he's produced or supported, including drug testing welfare recipients, an unnecessary ban on Sharia Law in the United States, and an attempt to criminalize abortions as "attacks on a fetus". More recently, he has become obsessed with transgendered citizens, sponsoring as many transphobic bills as he can to limit their access to public bathrooms as well as high school locker rooms, while also co-sponsoring a "religious freedom" bill to try to make it legal to discriminate against the LGBT community. Believe it or not, Phil Jensen is enough of a crazy ***hole that we accidentally profiled him twice within a calendar year, the other being on May 15th.



Jerry Sonnenberg

It was in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, as well as in 2020, that “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” profiled Jerry Sonnenberg, a member of the Colorado State Senate, representing District 1, in what is most of rural eastern Colorado. Sonnenberg was a member of the Colorado House of Representatives for eight years from 2007-2015, and when he was term-limited in 2014, he successfully got himself elected to the upper chamber. Sonnenberg drew some attention back in 2011, when he had a meltdown and began screaming profanities at a medical marijuana advocate at the state capitol, and literally shredded up the written amendment that legislators had been working on because he was outraged that someone had dared to film him while he was negotiating with lobbyists (which was their right). Sonnenberg then claimed the cameraman had spit on a lobbyist during their exchange with the cameraman (which was false, because DUH, they filmed their exchange). Through the years, Jerry Sonnenberg has developed a reputation as being staunchly anti-gay rights, and perhaps the best measuring stick to determine that would be that he has voted against bans on gay conversion therapy on minors when Colorado Democrats have attempted to do away with the ridiculous practice back in April of 2015. Sonnenberg is an anti-abortion radical as well, co-sponsoring a bill to attempt to redefine what a "person" is in the legal definition of assault and murder so that it included "fetus" as a person. Y'know, to just outlaw all abortions as "murder", because that's constitutional. Mind you, he's so "pro-life" that he voted against Colorado's attempts to repeal the death penalty in 2009. Sonnenberg even voted against a bill to set regulations in youth corrections facilities, because he’s apparently comfortable with abusive conditions being placed on minors in custody. He also co-sponsored legislation while in the Colorado House of Representatives to attempt to nullify the Affordable Care Act back in 2012, but hands down, perhaps the most disgusting moment from Jerry Sonnenberg came in January of 2016, not long after President Obama announced several executive orders on gun control, after seeing Republicans in the Senate block all gun control legislation since the Newtown Massacre. Reflecting on several mass shootings, the president thought of the victims, and became emotional, with a tear running down his face. Sonnenberg thought it was a great time to be a partisan troll, so he got on social media to share a picture of a gun being lubricated with "Obama tears".

Mind you, we're talking about the same Jerry Sonnenberg who once defended a rodeo clown for wearing a racist caricature mask of President Obama, so it seems to be a bit of a hang-up he's got.

Jerry Sonnenberg also added himself to the long, long list of Republicans who deny climate change, arguing that people who want to reduce carbon emissions would “kill all the trees and plants”:

”So, you know, when we talk about carbon dioxide and those type of things, actually, those are important to agriculture and to the balance of nature. Trees and plants use carbon dioxide to create oxygen. It’s part of their process. And it’s nature’s way to make things work. So I guess my argument to those enviros that want less carbon is, ‘Here, you want to kill all the trees and plants.’”

While the Colorado State legislature has come under the control of Democrats, the 2018 Blue Wave was far from enough to sweep Jerry Sonnenberg out of office in District 1, as he was re-elected with 79% of the vote in that conservative bastion in the northeastern corner of the state. Sonnenberg continues to be a complete obstructionist, if he bothers to show up to vote at all. He most recently admitted during a debate on gun storage (a bill stemming from a Colorado police officer "misplacing" his gun that ended up being used to kill a woman so he could "find" it) that he has no idea where some of the firearms he personally owns even are. Jerry Sonnenberg is term-limited in 2022, a date that cannot come fast enough.

[worstblogever]

I don't even know if I feel like he is spineless.

The dude is just smart enough to know that it doesn't matter that every single option that he has is a bad one.

He's got to just pick the option with the lowest "Acme Kit Going Off..." percentage, and put on his best Pee Wee when he says "I meant to do that..."

How about I just check with someone who had to deal with him as a member of his caucus. What did former House Speaker John Boehner's biography say about Mark Meadows?

Boehner: "“He’s an idiot. I can’t tell you what makes him tick."

He dealt with him for six years, so it seems that might be the best assessment we're gonna get.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

It's a sad state of affairs if people fear Donald Trump more than they fear jail. He's a f***ing coward who fails at anything he tries.

Nevermind, I see your point. The GOP are spineless ***holes that don't know what's worth being afraid of, and empower the worst actors on the planet.

Oh, I can understand fully why Meadows and his fellow Qpublicans are scared shitless of Trump. On 1/6 of last year, a horde of rabid, out of control Trump supporters stormed the Capitol Building in a doomed attempt to overturn the election results IN HIS NAME, even going so far as to set up a gallows outside to string up then vice-president Mike Pence because he wouldn't go along with the Big Lie. I'm sure all those yellow bellied GQP quislings watched what happened that day and thought: "If those lunatics were willing to risk going to prison in an insurrection plot to help Trump, what would happen if he aimed those madmen at me or my family because I pissed him off?" Fear. That's what keeping the party toeing The Former Guy's line, and that won't end until he's in the ground, and perhaps not even then.

[Ragged Maw]

It's a sad state of affairs if people fear Donald Trump more than they fear jail. He's a f***ing coward who fails at anything he tries.

Nevermind, I see your point. The GOP are spineless ***holes that don't know what's worth being afraid of, and empower the worst actors on the planet.

"What's worth being afraid of". Interesting choice of words. Just saying because fear doesn't really wait for the cognitive part of the brain to tell it when to fire off.

[babyblob]

A 100 Million dollar law suit has been filed in the Michigan School shooting against the school district.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/mic...it-2021-12-09/

[babyblob]

The Boeberts have you Six Massie


https://denver.cbslocal.com/2021/12/...thomas-massie/

Dont even know any more.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

A 100 Million dollar law suit has been filed in the Michigan School shooting against the school district.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/mic...it-2021-12-09/

Not at all unexpected, if anything, I wonder what took so long to issue the filing. There's no sense in rehashing the blame game, I've already stated my position on the matter, the school district screwed up, and Ethan Crumbley's parents were criminally culpable. Heads will certainly roll in the former, and deservedly, while, if there's any justice, a long stretch in prison awaits the latter. More importantly, I hope invaluable lessons will be learned to prevent a future tragedy like this from taking place.