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

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, as well as 2020, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day posted profiles of John Kavanagh, an Arizona State Senator a man who proudly roasted his good pal, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, by forgetting at a roast you harass the guest of honor, and instead, chose to make a series of racially insensitive jokes at the expense of Hispanics. Kavanagh is also a big beneficiary of the prison industrial complex, having once been labelled by John Oliver on Last Week Tonight as a man who Satan waits in hell for, sharpening his pitchfork, because he defended Arizona's prison hospitals showing pure sugar into a woman's c-section surgical wound as a story that "should be taken with a grain of salt, or in this case, a grain of sugar".

Kavanagh is also wildly anti-immigrant, supporting Arizona's SB1070, and wanting birthright citizenship granted by the 14th Amendment to be ignored. He's widening his portfolio of bigotry over time, though, trying to create a bill to criminalize transgendered individuals from using the "wrong" bathroom. Inexplicably, he's an Arizona politician who resents the use of solar power, as well. Kavanaugh supported another one of those insane bills to allow any coin with gold or silver content to it to be used as legal tender in Arizona, and as a former police officer (because of course), Kavanagh was pulling for a bill in February 2015 which would have prevented the release of an officer's name from the media if they were involved in an incident where they had to use deadly force. That's right... in one of the worst eras in recent memory for police violence against the public, Kavanagh and his fellow Republicans decided to provide cover for the police to continue their behavior, or even allow it to get worse without the public being made aware. While a few years ago, Kavanagh also sponsored legislation that would allow a pharmacist to deny to prescribe birth control or other abortion drugs to patients no “moral grounds”, that law had some very sad consequences in June of 2018 when a Walgreens worker refused to fill a prescription for a woman seeking a drug to treat herself with following a miscarriage, and a CVS pharmacist refused to fill a hormone prescription for a transgendered customer.

Kavanagh has continued to make Arizona a more dangerous place to live, sponsoring legislation to attempt to eliminate background checks on gun sales at gun shows completely (so criminals or potential terrorists can buy them without worry), and also an insane anti-abortion bill to try and force doctors to attempt to “revive viable fetuses” after an abortion. This man makes the term “extremist” seem inadequate to describe his lunacy. He also likes to champion legislation to attempt to allow people to sue cities who don’t enforce immigration laws harshly enough for his liking, in particular cities like Tucson.

Perhaps the worst moment from John Kavanagh from the past year was a quote he gave prior to the start of Arizona’s “Fraudit” review of their 2020 election results, where they were upset an actual Democrat won the state’s electoral votes and U.S. Senate races, so they hired the totally legit company Cyber Ninjas to do the audit, in spite of them having no experience in looking at elections. Kavanagh’s quote regarding the proceedings:

“We’re moving forward to do bills to correct problems that came up during the election that need to be solved, regardless of whether there was actual fraud or nonexistent fraud.”

Yes, he said it out loud. What “problem” would there be if there was no fraud, other than someone winning who dared to not be a Republican on the ballot? That’s the game, right there.

Kavanagh continues to be not just a man who Satan sharpens his pitchfork and waits for, but also a legislator, because he was just re-elected to another two year term in the 2020 elections, but only getting 37% of the vote in the effort. He seems content to try and stay in office like a bloated tick by abusing loopholes in Arizona’s term limits system, that lets you be in the state house for 8 years, then run for State Senate to interrupt that cycle, then go back to the lower chamber to start a new 8 year cycle. He pulled this trick off, and is not term-limited in the Arizona House of Representatives until 2026.

Well, that’s just f***ing great.
 

[Wildling]

On this date in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, as well as 2020, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day posted profiles of John Kavanagh, an Arizona State Senator a man who proudly roasted his good pal, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, by forgetting at a roast you harass the guest of honor, and instead, chose to make a series of racially insensitive jokes at the expense of Hispanics. Kavanagh is also a big beneficiary of the prison industrial complex, having once been labelled by John Oliver on Last Week Tonight as a man who Satan waits in hell for, sharpening his pitchfork, because he defended Arizona's prison hospitals showing pure sugar into a woman's c-section surgical wound as a story that "should be taken with a grain of salt, or in this case, a grain of sugar".

Kavanagh is also wildly anti-immigrant, supporting Arizona's SB1070, and wanting birthright citizenship granted by the 14th Amendment to be ignored. He's widening his portfolio of bigotry over time, though, trying to create a bill to criminalize transgendered individuals from using the "wrong" bathroom. Inexplicably, he's an Arizona politician who resents the use of solar power, as well. Kavanaugh supported another one of those insane bills to allow any coin with gold or silver content to it to be used as legal tender in Arizona, and as a former police officer (because of course), Kavanagh was pulling for a bill in February 2015 which would have prevented the release of an officer's name from the media if they were involved in an incident where they had to use deadly force. That's right... in one of the worst eras in recent memory for police violence against the public, Kavanagh and his fellow Republicans decided to provide cover for the police to continue their behavior, or even allow it to get worse without the public being made aware. While a few years ago, Kavanagh also sponsored legislation that would allow a pharmacist to deny to prescribe birth control or other abortion drugs to patients no “moral grounds”, that law had some very sad consequences in June of 2018 when a Walgreens worker refused to fill a prescription for a woman seeking a drug to treat herself with following a miscarriage, and a CVS pharmacist refused to fill a hormone prescription for a transgendered customer.

Kavanagh has continued to make Arizona a more dangerous place to live, sponsoring legislation to attempt to eliminate background checks on gun sales at gun shows completely (so criminals or potential terrorists can buy them without worry), and also an insane anti-abortion bill to try and force doctors to attempt to “revive viable fetuses” after an abortion. This man makes the term “extremist” seem inadequate to describe his lunacy. He also likes to champion legislation to attempt to allow people to sue cities who don’t enforce immigration laws harshly enough for his liking, in particular cities like Tucson.

Perhaps the worst moment from John Kavanagh from the past year was a quote he gave prior to the start of Arizona’s “Fraudit” review of their 2020 election results, where they were upset an actual Democrat won the state’s electoral votes and U.S. Senate races, so they hired the totally legit company Cyber Ninjas to do the audit, in spite of them having no experience in looking at elections. Kavanagh’s quote regarding the proceedings:



Yes, he said it out loud. What “problem” would there be if there was no fraud, other than someone winning who dared to not be a Republican on the ballot? That’s the game, right there.

Kavanagh continues to be not just a man who Satan sharpens his pitchfork and waits for, but also a legislator, because he was just re-elected to another two year term in the 2020 elections, but only getting 37% of the vote in the effort. He seems content to try and stay in office like a bloated tick by abusing loopholes in Arizona’s term limits system, that lets you be in the state house for 8 years, then run for State Senate to interrupt that cycle, then go back to the lower chamber to start a new 8 year cycle. He pulled this trick off, and is not term-limited in the Arizona House of Representatives until 2026.

Well, that’s just f***ing great.
 

Him and SCOTUS Beer Keganaugh make me wonder how many other Naughties that party has.

[Tendrin]

Racism is solved ya'll. We definitely do not need critical ways to study its pernicious influence on systems of power.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/black...b07fe2012a3f67

I was outside my house gardening a few weekends ago when a neighbor, whom I had known for almost 30 years, stopped by so I could pet his large, fluffy dogs. I took my gloves off, squatted down to give the dogs a really good scratching around their ears and felt the sun on my back. What could be better? And then my neighbor said: “Why do you have a ‘Black Lives Matter’ sign on your front lawn when all those people do is kill each other?”

My lovely day screeched to a halt.

[PaulBullion]

The Biden Boom seems to be real and the GOP might not have as easy a time in the mid terms as they thought.

[kidfresh512]

Two election workers break silence after enduring Trump backers' threats

ATLANTA, Dec 10 (Reuters) - Death threats from angry Trump supporters forced Georgia election worker Ruby Freeman, a 62-year-old grandmother, to flee her home of 20 years. Some messages called for her hanging; one urged people to “hunt” her. Freeman showed hundreds of menacing messages to police and called 911 three times.

But a year after Donald Trump and his allies falsely accused Freeman - along with her daughter and co-worker Wandrea “Shaye” Moss - of election fraud, the threats have not been investigated by local police or state authorities, according to a Reuters review of Georgia law enforcement records. Federal agents have monitored some of the threats, but made no arrests.

Kanye West publicist pressed Georgia election worker to confess to bogus fraud charges

ATLANTA, Dec 10 (Reuters) - Weeks after the 2020 election, a Chicago publicist for hip-hop artist Kanye West traveled to the suburban home of Ruby Freeman, a frightened Georgia election worker who was facing death threats after being falsely accused by former President Donald Trump of manipulating votes. The publicist knocked on the door and offered to help.

The visitor, Trevian Kutti, gave her name but didn’t say she worked for West, a longtime billionaire friend of Trump. She said she was sent by a “high-profile individual,” whom she didn’t identify, to give Freeman an urgent message: confess to Trump’s voter-fraud allegations, or people would come to her home in 48 hours, and she’d go to jail.

My god reading what these election workers have had to endure is shocking. I mean we knew these people are crazy attacking workers over lies. But, this intimidation and threats is next level. And then you add to it that at the highest levels of the GOP people are still pushing these lies that do real harm to real people like this. Its lucky none of these workers have been physically attacked or killed by these crazies.

It is just not right that it can be legal for people to falsely target you for this level of harassment. The stress and fear of these people just trying to do a job and count votes. Getting caught up in lies and targeted by bad actors peddling conspiracies across the country and all over right wing media.

[Kirby101]

The Biden Boom seems to be real and the GOP might not have as easy a time in the mid terms as they thought.

Not as long as the MSM keeps reporting it as "INFLATION!!" instead of one of the best jobs recoveries we've had in decades.

[PaulBullion]

Not as long as the MSM keeps reporting it as "INFLATION!!" instead of one of the best jobs recoveries we've had in decades.

Meh. The infrastructure deal will lead to months and months of people seeing real differences in their lives. Gas prices are likely to go down.

At the same time, the AG of NY subpoenaed Trump and Republicans are in complete disarray. I'm feeling better about 2022.

[Kirby101]

Meh. The infrastructure deal will lead to months and months of people seeing real differences in their lives. Gas prices are likely to go down.

At the same time, the AG of NY subpoenaed Trump and Republicans are in complete disarray. I'm feeling better about 2022.

I envy you your optimism.

[4saken1]

Not as long as the MSM keeps reporting it as "INFLATION!!" instead of one of the best jobs recoveries we've had in decades.

I don't think that it matters. People who have been working this whole time who will by Election time be paying 10% more on goods and services than they were in 2020 will think of job growth when they cast their vote as much as they will inflation. This may depend on whether or not their pay has gone up at a commensurate rate, however.

[worstblogever]

Meh. The infrastructure deal will lead to months and months of people seeing real differences in their lives. Gas prices are likely to go down.

At the same time, the AG of NY subpoenaed Trump and Republicans are in complete disarray. I'm feeling better about 2022.

Republican voters are fanatics.

They weren't dissuaded for five years of watching their elected officials fall all over themselves to protect Trump from admitted sexual assault on the Access Hollywood tape, to 26 accusers coming forward. They rallied behind a guy who blatantly was in the tank for Putin, and all fell in on that, with many praising him. They kept defending all his racist chatter. They defended his incompetence, even when he was stupid enough to stare into the sun. They defended him Trump when he was exposed as a tax cheat. They defended Trump and all the Republicans when he sabotaged our country's pandemic response team prior to the worst pandemic in a hundred years, and as his mismanagement and misinformation saw hundreds of thousands of deaths come in months when he promised "the number would soon be zero." They watched him plot, in plain sight, a coup attempt to be carried out by domestic terror groups to attempt to scare his own vice president from certifying the electoral college vote. And the members of Congress closed ranks, and the voters rabidly fell in line behind the plan to actually steal our democracy for him in four years.

These motherf***ers know who they are. They're showing up to vote for the simple factor of putting people in office that are blindly loyal to a bigoted old crank who lies as easily as he breathes for only one reason...

They, and he, make the other side hurt more. They're one issue voters and that's the issue. They elect people to inflict pain on the "other", and no amount of power is enough for any of them.

No hyperbole.

[Xheight]

Racism is solved ya'll. We definitely do not need critical ways to study its pernicious influence on systems of power.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/black...b07fe2012a3f67

Typical Left attitude - to study it is to cure it. It is not a disease or even just ignorance that your wand of enlightenment is just going to wipe away.

The article follows the same modern Enlightenment project of "humanist narrative" hoping that what indoctrination won't solve sympathy will. Social fact is that we live and will continue to live with prejudice, which is a better descriptive term btw than racism, because it is based on a person's world experience that some factoid is never going to flip. Of course that's not what a liberal education espouse these days in trying to CHANGE the world or country rather than taking the advice of one of the original Enightenment writers - "cultivate your own garden" !!!

As a member of a "model" minority things there are privileges and prejudice that follow me around but there is a rational basis for ghettos of similar peoples as they look to their cultures to grow positive values regardless of what others say and think. Perhaps our society and institutions are simply TOO big to accommodate the diversity. Maybe we need smaller countries and economies that are scaled to this natural society of association. Universalism is perhaps asking too much of our humanity and was an insufficient answer to theology which not coincidently was the great opponent of the Enlightenment to begin with.

[Malvolio]

Typical Left attitude - to study it is to cure it. It is not a disease or even just ignorance that your wand of enlightenment is just going to wipe away.

When did he say that? No one ever said that. But in order to find a cure, one does have to study the problem to find out what caused it.

[Mister Mets]

The Biden Boom seems to be real and the GOP might not have as easy a time in the mid terms as they thought.

What evidence do you have here?

[Jack Dracula]

Republican voters are fanatics.

They weren't dissuaded for five years of watching their elected officials fall all over themselves to protect Trump from admitted sexual assault on the Access Hollywood tape, to 26 accusers coming forward. They rallied behind a guy who blatantly was in the tank for Putin, and all fell in on that, with many praising him. They kept defending all his racist chatter. They defended his incompetence, even when he was stupid enough to stare into the sun. They defended him Trump when he was exposed as a tax cheat. They defended Trump and all the Republicans when he sabotaged our country's pandemic response team prior to the worst pandemic in a hundred years, and as his mismanagement and misinformation saw hundreds of thousands of deaths come in months when he promised "the number would soon be zero." They watched him plot, in plain sight, a coup attempt to be carried out by domestic terror groups to attempt to scare his own vice president from certifying the electoral college vote. And the members of Congress closed ranks, and the voters rabidly fell in line behind the plan to actually steal our democracy for him in four years.

These motherf***ers know who they are. They're showing up to vote for the simple factor of putting people in office that are blindly loyal to a bigoted old crank who lies as easily as he breathes for only one reason...

They, and he, make the other side hurt more. They're one issue voters and that's the issue. They elect people to inflict pain on the "other", and no amount of power is enough for any of them.

No hyperbole.

And those Trump loyalists they elect to office are fixing the process so it will take absolute Democratic landslides in every election to keep our Democracy intact. I doubt anyone here believes that Democratic voters are reliable enough to pull that off every two years. Biden hasn’t even been President for a full year and his approval rating is falling.
My hope is that the Jan 6 investigation will turn something up that will put a stake in the heart of Trumps chances for re-election.

[Scott Taylor]

And now there are arson threats over vaccine mandates. Someone made both an in-person threat (wearing a ski mask) and left a threatening note on a couple of businesses.

Bar, fitness club appear to be threatened by same anti-vaxxer in Marin County

MARIN, Calif. - Authorities are investigating arson threats against two Marin County businesses, targeted because of their COVID vaccination requirements.

Both a bar and a fitness club appear to have been singled out by the same person. The note said 'If your vaccine passport is not removed by this time next week, this place will burn'", said Jared Litwin, manager of the Papermill Creek Saloon in unincorporated Forest Knolls in west Marin.

About 10 people were in the bar last Friday night when someone hand-delivered the threat, demanding vaccination requirements be eased.

"The door opens up, and a guy in a ski mask wearing all black, throws a note on the floor and runs off," Litwin said. "And as soon as I read it, we all ran out to look for him but it's dark, there are no street lights out here."

The Papermill Creeek Saloon requires proof of vaccination for entry.

https://www.ktvu.com/news/bar-fitnes...n-marin-county

I was just up in Marin County a couple of weeks ago. The entire Bay Area is pretty strict on the mask requirements, etc. And I know there is a healthy mix of political views around the bay. But crap, some people are losing their heads.