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

[The Cool Thatguy]

So you are suggesting a Deep State that persecutes as much as it prosecutes? Let's be truthful it is not "crimes" that they are chasing but his threat to their presumptions. We saw that absolutely with the first impeachment and the outrage of blocking counties that were a threat to the US from visiting.



So conspiracy is NOT by definition a necessary component.

I know I shouldn't feed the trolls, but if you're going to quote me, at least reply to what I said and not your amazing ignorance.

Trump is a moron who doesn't care about concealing his crimes in any meaningful way. He's only gotten away with it because he was rich and no one had reason enough to look. Now that he's committed treason, the calculus has changed.

[JB]

When it comes to poverty, the system has failed people of all political stripes. One of poorest cities in the US is Detroit and it continues to get worse, despite a large Democrat voter base. Same with Hartford, CT, Baltimore, MD, and Newark, NJ which I lived next door to when I was in Jersey City.

I used to volunteer for an LGBTQ+ center on the west side of Jersey City (high poverty rate) and it was like pulling teeth to get them, and the area in general, help from the government. Meanwhile the waterfront neighborhoods just 2 miles away were pristine and beautifully manicured all around the luxury hi-rises. Absurdity.

[Tami]

When it comes to poverty, the system has failed people of all political stripes. One of poorest cities in the US is Detroit and it continues to get worse, despite a large Democrat voter base. Same with Hartford, CT, Baltimore, MD, and Newark, NJ which I lived next door to when I was in Jersey City.

I used to volunteer for an LGBTQ+ center on the west side of Jersey City (high poverty rate) and it was like pulling teeth to get them, and the area in general, help from the government. Meanwhile the waterfront neighborhoods just 2 miles away were pristine and beautifully manicured all around the luxury hi-rises. Absurdity.

Tell me about it. I grew up in Jersey City, I've seen it before and after the 'Gold Coast' redevelopment. I know Newark as well, and have seen the changes over time.

[JB]

Tell me about it. I grew up in Jersey City, I've seen it before and after the 'Gold Coast' redevelopment. I know Newark as well, and have seen the changes over time.

That's awesome. I lived in JC for about 15 years until 2018, and the "Gold Coast" has come a long way. They need to continue progress west of the turnpike extension though.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2014, "Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day" published profiles of Terri Proud, a former member of the Arizona House of Representatives who during the one term she did serve in office, tried to get the Bible taught in public schools, while voting against having classes in the same schools that would teach ethnic studies, and once responded to a constituent's letter to ask why Proud supported a ban on abortion on 20 weeks by telling her that all women having one should be forced to watch a video of the procedure first, and saying "until the dead child can tell me that she/he cannot feel pain, I have no intentions of clearing the conscience of the living - I will be voting YES." Hopefully this means Proud has not sought out necromancers to talk to aborted fetuses. Anyway, when the media began to report on her irrational response, she released a statement that accused Planned Parenthood of running a for-profit industry based on aborted fetuses. After those PR disasters for the Arizona GOP, and against the wishes of Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, Terri Proud was hired in the Women's Services Department of the Arizona Veterans' Services Department, where she gave an interview with the local media where she argued against women in the military, altogether, because they get periods, and was summarily fired for her remarks.

On this date in 2017, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” profiled David Gowan, a former House Speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives, who served in that body from 2009-2017 before term limits ended his time in the legislature. He’s enough of a boob to have used the incorrect spelling of “Republican principals” rather than “Principles” upon his own campaign website, and in the eight years he was a state legislator in Arizona, Gowan’s name poppped up as a supporter of some of the stupidest legislation to be submitted in the Grand Canyon State, from the anti-immigration law SB 1070 that allowed racial profiling of Latinos, to SB 1610, a bill to name an “official state gun” for Arizona, to HB 2625, which was meant to allow employers the right to reject health insurance coverage for contraceptives for their female employees, to his co-sponsorship of SB 1439, an insane bill that intended to make gold and silver as acceptable legal tender in Arizona, to HB 2284, to allow law enforcement to conduct an unannounced, warrantless search upon any abortion clinic whenever they choose, the Fourth Amendment be damned, to his vote for HB 2643, an attempt by Arizona Republicans to nullify the enforcement of the Affordable Care Act… those are just a few of the extreme pieces of legislation he was attached to. However, the moment that hands-down made him stand out enough to earn a CSGOPOTD profile back in early 2016 was how in January of 2016, Hank Stephenson, a reporter from the Arizona Capitol Times, published a piece about how David Gowan had logged nearly 4,800 miles on a state-issued vehicle over only a 19 day span. Some of the events he traveled to were related to Gowan driving around to campaign for a seat in U.S. Congress to represent Arizona’s 1st Congressional District, that he was running for in 2016, and using a state vehicle for that purpose is against the law. Gowan, as a result, was required to reimburse the state more than $12,000, and his office ended up under investigation by Arizona’s Attorney General for misuse of public resources. Gowan held a grudge and after two unsuccessful attempts at banning Hank Stephenson specifically from the floor of the Arizona House of Representatives, he made a third attempt that was peculiar to many, as moved to implement a new policy requiring reporters who want to cover the legislature from the House floor to undergo rigorous background checks (but still not for anyone purchasing a firearm), including an examination of their criminal, civil, and driving records. Gowan’s new policy goes as far as to list specific offenses, including misdemeanor ones like trespassing, which would automatically disqualify a reporter from being on the House floor for up to 10 years. And guess what? Hank Stephenson was convicted of misdemeanor trespassing following a bar fight he was in a couple years prior. Reporters who covered Arizona’s state legislature stuck by Stephenson, and began reporting from the capitol balcony to avoid submitting background checks while legal challenges to Gowan’s policy mounted. Gowan tried claiming the move was to ensure the safety of legislators, and when opponents to the move pointed out that no legislator had been attacked in the capitol going back decades, Gowan invoked 9/11 to justify his attack on journalists, saying, “There had never been an attack on 9/11 either, like that occurred either, before on our shore. But it did.” On the bright side, as a result of Stephenson’s reporting, and likely, his treatment of that reporter after the fact, karma came in the form of a last place finish in the primary for Arizona’s 1st Congressional District in 2016, and David Gowan is, at least for the time being, out of office.]

In 2015, 2016, and 2018, "Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day" published profiles of Arizona Secretary of State Michelle Reagan, who prior to winning that office, was a member of the Arizona State Legislature from 2002-2015, first with eight years in the Arizona House of Representatives and then with four in the Arizona State Senate. As a legislator, Reagan supported “religious freedom” legislation to allow for the legal discrimination of LGBT citizens and bans on same sex marriage, voted to allow employers to refuse to provide health insurance coverage for contraception, tried to extend waiting periods for divorces, supported disastrously ineffective drug testing for welfare recipients (always overturned by courts as unconstitutional), co-sponsored the anti-immigrant law SB1070, tried to make English the official language in Arizona (in spite of such laws being repeatedly overturned by the courts as unconstitutional, including in Arizona in 1998), co-sponsored Arizona’s version of a “Birther Bill”, tried to prevent the implementation of the United Nations’ Agenda 21 treaty based on paranoid conspiracy theories, and voted for a bill that would allow for surprise unannounced inspections of abortion facilities (which was overturned for being a flagrant violation of the 4th Amendment). After a single term as a state senator, Reagan filed to run for Arizona Secretary of State. During the lead up to the election, she was asked by reporters about her votes to support both Arizona's "Birther Bill", as well as Arizona's "religious freedom" law to allow discrimination towards gays. After an awkward pause, all she could muster was to meagerly say,"I just think that we just need to follow the state laws, and the state laws are pretty clear and, um, what is required in state law is what needs to be followed," she said. "As secretary of state, the laws are very clear." Michelle Reagan, since taking office, she has begun using the power of her office to try and prevent the release of information by dark-money donors, announcing in late May 2015 that she would not enforce Arizona election law to do so, and declaring the law unconstitutional (which is for the courts to decide, actually). If that's not brazen enough for you, she then also threatened to sue the Clean Elections Commission if they themselves researched where the dark money in politics was coming from to create political ads.(I'm no public relations expert... but when you're threatening to sue a "clean elections" organization, frankly, you look like you're supporting dirty ones, don't you?) That might be precisely the main interest that Michelle Reagan has, as she's also trying to intervene to prevent Arizona's legislative map from being re-districted by the non-partisan Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission. She also insists there is massive “voter fraud” out there, despite a lack of evidence to prove it, and thus keeps calling for stricter Voter ID laws, that could disenfranchise even more voters in Arizona. Michelle Reagan continued to find her name in the news a lot during the 2016 elections. First, after abysmally long lines to vote in the primaries of the 2016 election that she somehow was not prepared for, she feigned ignorance about the difficulties, and accidentally blurted out that her actions were meant to suppress the vote, before blaming the lines on people actually voting. She was also so breathtakingly bad at her job that she allowed Russian operatives to hack into Arizona’s voting rolls, trying to justify the security breach as “they looked like an employee” in an e-mail sent to her office used to fish their way in, and repeatedly was sued for trying to reject voter registration by Democrats (go figure). She was lucky that the state attorney general of Arizona is a Republican as well, as he launched an investigation into her activities, and deemed them to be not criminal, but decidedly incompetent. And, after all this gross incompetence, and with the Blue Wave mounting, Michelle Reagan was unseated in the 2018 GOP Primary for Arizona’s Secretary of State, earning only 33% of the vote in that race, and getting beat by a 2/1 margin by Steve Gaynor, the man who would go on to be narrowly defeated by new Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2019, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” profiled former Arizona House of Representatives member David Stringer, who advanced out of the GOP Primary in the 2016 elections in a conservative Arizona district by all of 700 votes. His time in office was brief, where his only real legislative moves seemed to be to vote for a resolution to declare pornography “a public health crisis”, and to vote for an insane anti-choice bill that would require physicians to attempt to revive “viable” fetuses after an abortion (we used quotation marks because by definition at the age the procedure is permitted, those fetuses would not be viable). David Stringer was infamous not for any legislative action, but instead, for the series of racist statements he made during his brief time in office. In June of 2018, Stringer went on an extended rant where he said immigration was "politically destabilizing" labelling it an "existential threat" that would radically alter US demographics for the worse. He openly groused about how 60 percent of public school students were minorities, so there weren't "enough white kids to go around". That grotesque bit of xenophobia was enough to make even Gov. Doug Ducey, who’s been photographed with white nationalists, call for him to resign for being too racist. David Stringer was supposed to apologize for his remarks at a press conference that he chose to hold at a LoLo’s Chicken & Waffles (really), where yes, he gave a non-apology that amounted to him being sorry if any minorities were offended by remarks he claimed were taken out of context, and did not immediately give a clear answer when asked if he was a white nationalist. Stringer then started channeling white nationalist Congressman Steve King by talking about the benefits of racial “homogeneity”: A few weeks later, David Stringer decided to speak at Arizona State University, and again managed to get racist as hell, claiming that “diversity in our country is relatively new” and giving his opinion that African Americans “don’t blend in because they look different”, before finishing his polluted stream of thought with his observation that "The difference between the Polish-American immigrant and the immigrant from Somalia is the second-generation Polish immigrant looks like the Irish kid and the German kid and every other kid. But the immigrant from Somalia does not." Other than a few Arizona Republicans calling upon Stringer to resign for his racist comments, they didn’t actually do a damned thing about it, and he kept hovering around the legislature for months, waiting for his next chance to blurt out something bigoted. They weren’t about to grow a backbone and actually expel him from his position, and he was going to stubbornly refuse to apologize or leave office. That is, until a 1983 Baltimore Police Department report surfaced that showed David Stringer was arrested for soliciting sex from two underage boys, both under the age of 15, and also was in possession of child pornography. Stringer tried claiming the extensive description given of his disturbing behavior by the victims was false (even though he entered a special plea to the charges that earned him five years’ probation), but resigned in April of 2019 while claiming he was forced out of office and it was “deeply and shamefully offensive to free elections and democratic governance”. This racist old motherf***ing pedophile shouldn’t have passed a background check to work in a school, let alone a state legislature. David Stringer had the gall to run for Yavapai Country Attorney in 2020, but lost in the GOP Primary.

On this date in 2020, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” profiled Suzanne Sharer, a 2020 candidate for Arizona State Senate who is into the Trump regime enough to do a free brand deal with Goya products, following the Hatch Act violations of both Donald and Ivanka doing the same. She is yet the latest in what has been a too-long line of Republicans we’ve profiled who gave credence to the ridiculous Qanon conspiracy theory that Democrats run underground Satanic rituals where children are kidnapped and sacrificed to harvest fear hormones that are the secret fountain of youth for “globalist” leaders. Y’know, your boiler-plate GOP policy these days. Sharer went a step farther than most, often sharing Qanon articles on Facebook that included the sub-conspiracy theory about how JFK Jr. was going to re-emerge after faking his death to be Donald Trump’s 2020 running mate instead of Mike Pence and reveal even more dirty secrets about the Democratic Party. Of course, having an account that constantly reposts Qanon nonsense ended up being a less-than-viable 2020 election strategy, especially when social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter started removing accounts peddling it about. Sharer had lived up to her name, shared whatever conspiracy sites offered up, and when she lost hundreds if not thousands of followers during the crackdown, she played the victim and pretended she was deliberately, personally being targeted, responding to a post by white nationalist douchebag Sebastian Gorka by saying, ]“They just took down many followers of mine coincidentally after my Democrat opponent for State Senate decided to attack me for my interest in Q discussions! Called me extreme and radical! This is how the left silences their opposition!” As mail-in voting began in September in certain states, Suzanne Sharer also began spreading conspiracy theories about it, reposting an easily debunked claim by a Trump supporter that “people where finding thrown away Trump ballets everywhere”, showing a picture of the aftermath of a postal worker quitting his job and leaving letters on the side of the road in New Jersey in 2018 (HINT: NO BALLOTS, and also the guy from New York doesn’t know the difference from voting materials and ballerinas.) Sharer never backed down from her post, even after getting easily fact-checked about it. Sharer ended up losing her own race in the first year since 1996 that Arizona was a blue state, getting only 42% of the vote in a State Senate District where Republicans traditionally can win. We hope she never escapes the stigma of supporting Qanon, and it plagues her at every attempt to find elected office, because that’s what she deserves. As she seems unlikely to win office any time soon, we will set aside her profile to cover another wacky Republican today instead. (Current crazy/stupid scoreboard, is now 1057-50, since this was established in July 2014.


Richard Champion

Welcome to what is the 1057th original profile here at “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day”, where we’ll be discusisng Richard Champion, who was appointed to fill a vacancy for District 38 of the Colorado House of Representatives in the middle of 2020. The highest office he held prior to that was as the mayor of Columbine Valley. His time in office, however, would not be for long, as he was bounced from office in the 2020 elections by Democrat David Ortiz, a veteran of Operation Afghani Freedom and the first openly bisexual legislator in state history. Ortiz bounced Champion, who got just 44% of the vote and losing by double digits. Colorado does seem to be trending more blue every year of late…

So why are we profiling Richard Champion?

Because he’s a seditious motherf***er. It’s not just that after he lost his seat, he was promoting Donald Trump’s Big Lie, but that he actually made the trip to Washington, D.C. with his wife to join the “Stop the Steal” rally that would be the final incitement towards having a violent mob of domestic terrorists storm the U.S. Capitol to try and find Vice President Pence or any members of Congress they didn’t like to take them out to a gallows to be hung for certifying the election results. And it’s not just that he was there, but afterwards, this gaslighting piece of s*** tried to tell people that the media reports and live cameras shouldn’t be trusted, because the protests were actually “extremely polite” and “very peaceful”. Y’know, the ones that five people died in. It wasn’t a “protest” at all, DICK CHAMPION, it was a coup attempt.

We’re glad this absolute pillock is no longer in office, appointed, elected or otherwise. We’re hoping that if he hasn’t gotten one already, that the FBI give him a visit. Because that’s what should happen with flagrant, gaslighting seditionists currently.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

I get tired of poor people being treated as idiots that cannot be trusted with money, which is used as justification that they should not be given money.

If someone wastes their money, then that's on them, but giving someone cash that they could use to buy work clothes, bus passes, groceries, and pay bills can make a huge difference and turn their lives around. It's all about trusting them enough, and American politics is all about assuming the worst in the lower class.

The dead LAST thing I need to hear is an entitled ******* politician who owns a yacht AND a Maserati complaining about poor people spending money irresponsibly.

[numberthirty]

The dead LAST thing I need to hear is an entitled ******* politician who owns a yacht AND a Maserati complaining about poor people spending money irresponsibly.

Actually?

The last thing I want to hear is that the press has not put a microphone in his face to ask if he actually said it and if he had concrete examples from the state that he represents.

[Gray Lensman]

I know I shouldn't feed the trolls, but if you're going to quote me, at least reply to what I said and not your amazing ignorance.

Trump is a moron who doesn't care about concealing his crimes in any meaningful way. He's only gotten away with it because he was rich and no one had reason enough to look. Now that he's committed treason, the calculus has changed.

Certain people know they can't win a debate so they instead argue with the imaginary versions that only exist in their heads.

[babyblob]

Actually?

The last thing I want to hear is that the press has not put a microphone in his face to ask if he actually said it and if he had concrete examples from the state that he represents.

Would be nice if Pelosi or Shummer called him out on that ****. or anyone in the party really. the only people who I have heard say anything about it are Fox News who of course agree with him.

[shooshoomanjoe]

When it comes to poverty, the system has failed people of all political stripes. One of poorest cities in the US is Detroit and it continues to get worse, despite a large Democrat voter base. Same with Hartford, CT, Baltimore, MD, and Newark, NJ which I lived next door to when I was in Jersey City.

I used to volunteer for an LGBTQ+ center on the west side of Jersey City (high poverty rate) and it was like pulling teeth to get them, and the area in general, help from the government. Meanwhile the waterfront neighborhoods just 2 miles away were pristine and beautifully manicured all around the luxury hi-rises. Absurdity.

Yea but the dems at least want to help the poor. The republicans go after safety nets for the poor.

[numberthirty]

Would be nice if Pelosi or Shummer called him out on that ****. or anyone in the party really. the only people who I have heard say anything about it are Fox News who of course agree with him.

I don't expect them to.

They are just punching a clock, and not rocking the boat.

The press?

Can't come up with one good excuse that they have not.

(Well, outside of that they are a part of the problem...)

[Mister Mets]

I don't expect them to.

They are just punching a clock, and not rocking the boat.

The press?

Can't come up with one good excuse that they have not.

(Well, outside of that they are a part of the problem...)

The main reason for the press not to piss off Joe Manchin this way is that it would be quite hypocritical if they only go after him, rather than every other member of Congress who has some kind of wealth signifier despite a career primarily in public service.

For example, Republicans have noted that Bernie Sanders has more houses than you might expect a socialist to have. If the press were to go after Manchin more it would seem like a bad faith argument, which means they should no longer be trusted.

Would be nice if Pelosi or Shummer called him out on that ****. or anyone in the party really. the only people who I have heard say anything about it are Fox News who of course agree with him.

Mitch McConnell agrees that Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi should openly criticize Joe Manchin as a human being.

[CSTowle]

It is not a outrageous notion that people with less money need to be more judicious with their money choices as those impact greater on their overall life.

In addition, taxpayers and the officials they vote for have the right to insist that funds be spent wisely.

If someone has a job, and wastes money they earn, that's on them.

If people are given money for the purpose of taking care of their children, and they do not spend the money as wisely as a thrifty taxpayer from whom money was taken, an angry response is understandable.

Like gun fetishists insisting mass shootings are a mental health problem, I'd have an easier time taking it seriously if I thought it wasn't an excuse to avoid the issue. In this case, attempting to eliminate benefits to poor folk and grabbing at any excuse they can find. Like drug testing for benefits, or idiots who buy King Crab legs and find themselves out of money their first week of the month, or the dreaded "welfare queens" of the Reagan era there's an attempt to outrage the middle class and convince them poor people (and with a nod and a wink, "those people") are living on easy street on their dime in the hopes that they can build the political support to pull back or at least reduce those benefits and save money for their real constituency, the $1,000 a plate donor class. It's not hard to build support, because people are working hard and finding their money stretches less than it used to and nobody likes to feel cheated. But gun to their heads, not a one of them would switch places with those living on benefits.

In a perfect world where we had digital currency and government benefits spending could be tracked in real time and certain items could be approved/not approved I'd be all for limiting items purchased. It's easier with WIC and food items, certain items on a list (at least in my days as a kid living on government assistance, a few decades ago) can be covered while others aren't. There are people with bad judgment (like the infamous King Crab legs guy) who would buy designer jeans and blow through a winter clothing budget, for example, in one item. In the end it really hurts them, as would buying high end food items and then starving through the last week or two weeks each month, and if it were easier to do I'd be for it. But I'm not for scrapping it or indulging those looking for excuses to do so.

There are many ways we could reform welfare/entitlements, such as encouraging part-time work for those who are able rather than punishing them with reduced benefits. Perhaps incentivizing work with partial but pro-rated increased benefits for part-time workers, and a limited "get on your feet" benefit program for those able to get up to full employment for a certain time. The problem is there are those on the left who are afraid those looking for excuses to scrap the whole deal will take any step in that direction as an excuse to go full-bore, and those on the other side aren't as interested in reform so much as elimination.

Certain people know they can't win a debate so they instead argue with the imaginary versions that only exist in their heads.

I believe the kids call that a "strawman".

[numberthirty]

The main reason for the press not to piss off Joe Manchin this way is that it would be quite hypocritical if they only go after him, rather than every other member of Congress who has some kind of wealth signifier despite a career primarily in public service.

For example, Republicans have noted that Bernie Sanders has more houses than you might expect a socialist to have. If the press were to go after Manchin more it would seem like a bad faith argument, which means they should no longer be trusted.

...

Unless those members have instances of them seemingly having said folks will use a child tax credit to buy drugs?

Can't see anything that gets within a mile of "Hypocrisy..."