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

[AnakinFlair]

Kim Potter, ex-Minnesota officer, found guilty of manslaughter in death of Daunte Wright

Kind of surprised, but pleased by this outcome.

[SUPERECWFAN1]

Kim Potter, ex-Minnesota officer, found guilty of manslaughter in death of Daunte Wright

Kind of surprised, but pleased by this outcome.

This was the one who claimed by accident she pulled the gun and used it. Of course the prosecutor destroyed that concept you could make that big a mistake.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

I was wondering if the differences were that she lived in reality and he did not.

Or, maybe she wasn’t into insurrections.

[Tami]

Kim Potter, ex-Minnesota officer, found guilty of manslaughter in death of Daunte Wright

Kind of surprised, but pleased by this outcome.

I still don't understand why she kept saying taser....this whole case is strange. But the verdict was a good one.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Kim Potter, ex-Minnesota officer, found guilty of manslaughter in death of Daunte Wright

Kind of surprised, but pleased by this outcome.

Same here. But, the right outcome had been reached.

[GindyPosts]

I'm sure anti-vaxxers who get sick at the next conservative superspreader event will claim they contracted the Black Plague. Lord, what fools right wingers are.

Man, when anthrax was a thing back in the early 2000s, that **** killed most of the people who got it within hours. I can't wait for them to cite gangrene and a witch's curse as the next excuses for when they catch COVID.

[AnakinFlair]

In the 'You couldn't make this **** up if you tried' news today:

Parents of school shooting suspect seek lower bail on involuntary manslaughter charges

Yeah, don't see THAT happening. Then again they are white, so who knows?

[AnakinFlair]

And then there was this:

Teen in dressing room fatally shot by L.A. police firing at assault suspect, officials say

LOS ANGELES — A teenage girl in a dressing room was fatally shot by police who were firing on an assault suspect at a store full of last-minute holiday shoppers Thursday, authorities said.

The 14-year-old girl was found dead behind the dressing room wall, which was penetrated by gunfire, Los Angeles police officials said.

Assistant Police Chief Dominic Choi said at a news conference that a preliminary investigation indicated that the teen was fatally struck by an officer’s round.

"These are a tragic and unfortunate sequence of events," Choi said.

Officers also shot and killed the assault suspect, police said.

A third person, whom police described as the victim of an assault that triggered the first calls to officials, was hospitalized with unspecified injuries, authorities said.

Unfortunate?! What the ever loving F*** were cops doing shooting at anyone in a crowded store?

[WestPhillyPunisher]

And then there was this:

Teen in dressing room fatally shot by L.A. police firing at assault suspect, officials say



Unfortunate?! What the ever loving F*** were cops doing shooting at anyone in a crowded store?

Heads need to roll over that unholy debacle, starting with those idiots who thought that shooting guns in a store full of people was a good idea.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Trump Takes Personal Credit For COVID-19 Vaccines In Interview With Candace Owens

The former president touted the shots as “one of the greatest achievements of mankind” in a chat with the right-wing media host, who said she is unvaccinated. Trump? Touting the vaccine? Someone tell Satan to buy a parka, because hell just froze over!

**********

Police Chief Told Officers Where To Get Fake COVID-19 Vaccination Cards

T.J. Smith, the police chief in Oakboro, North Carolina, was placed on probation after an external investigation confirmed the scheme. **** probation! That ******* needs to be fired since what he did is, I do believe, a federal offense.

**********

Search For A COVID-19 Test Means Sold-out Signs, Long Lines

The extra-contagious omicron variant plus people trying to gather and travel for the holidays is fueling the surge in demand for tests. I've seen those lines outside a health clinic a block away from my house, and it's crazy.

**********

China Puts 13 Million On Lockdown Following Coronavirus Spike Just Weeks Before Winter Games

China has also been dealing with a substantial outbreak in several cities in the eastern province of Zhejiang near Shanghai. The NHL already pulled their players out of the Olympics. Will other athletes decide to stay home?

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, as well as 2018, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day posted profiles of the U.S. House Representative from Texas’ 7th Congressional District, John Culberson, a particularly xenophobic Republican (and that’s saying something these days) who as far back as 2005 was claiming members of Al Qaeda were caught trying to sneak across the U.S./Mexico border, and in 2008 made the wild accusation that students at American universities from China were actually there to steal state secrets. Culberson has also proposed a plan to divide Texas up into smaller states to stack the U.S. Senate with more right-wing senators, told the public to “calm down” about the BP Gulf Oil Spill because it was a “statistical anomaly”, and proposed legislation to defund ACORN three years after it ceased to exist. Perhaps his tackiest moment, though, came during the 2013 Government Shutdown, when he said, “LET’S ROLL!” when it came time to vote, echoing the last known words from the passengers of Flight 93 when they tried to storm the cockpit of the hijackers. He more recently has panicked over Syrian refugees being resettled into the country, as well as attempting to defund Planned Parenthood over the hoax “sting” videos provided by the Center for Medical Progress. The latest session of Congress has not go well for Culberson back home, and as early as February of 2018, his attempt to meet with wealthy donors at a local country club was met with a massive protest, and his town hall did not go much better for him. After several constituents asked him questions that he seemed unable to answer, only being able to respond with a vague “freedom” answer on issues, and was booed when he affirmed his support for repealing the Affordable Care Act. One constituent asked him about net neutrality, which he showed even less understanding of. Culberson attempted to end the town hall early and exit out a side door to avoid further confrontation, but wandered right into a legion of protesters outside, causing him to flee even faster. Culberson was trailing in fundraising to all if his Democratic opponents in the 2018 elections, and he had reason to be nervous, as Texas’ 7th District only has a +7 partisan lean, and going into the election, generic Democrats had a +8 advantage. And then, as his final showdown in November approached, Culberson was being investigated for election campaign fraud, after it was found that he was using campaign funds to buy himself $50,000 of books and collectibles. So it was that Democrat Lizzie Fletcher managed to unseat John Culberson, and send him packing in the 2018 Blue Wave election.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2019, as well as 2020, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” first profiled Briscoe Cain, who may be a puppet character who escaped from Lazy Town, but was nonetheless elected to District 128 of the Texas House of Representatives in 2016, when he upset the GOP incumbent, Wayne Smith, by all of 23 votes in a runoff election and then coasted to victory against a Libertarian in the general election. He has made it into office in spite of referring to violence against trans-women as “dudes waking around in dresses getting beat up”, which is somehow still far from the most offensive thing we’ll reveal in this profile.

In 2018, Cain was allowed to run for re-election unopposed. In his freshmen term in office, he had the most conservative voting record in the Texas House, which is saying something, because we’re talking about Texas. Cain is also the Texas legal counsel for the Fundamentalist fanatics, Operation Rescue, and is a member of the Texas House Freedom Caucus… but again, we can’t understate how much Cain takes extremism to a whole different level. Seriously, look at his voting record, and try to make sense how someone can crusade against a women’s right to choose and Planned Parenthood because they supposedly respect keeping babies alive, and try and figure out how that same person can literally vote against child car safety seats for children under 2 based on “smaller government” principles.

In his first year in office, Briscoe Cain caused several confrontations within the state legislature, including his puzzling attack on state funding towards pallative care, which he referred to as “death panels”, and wanted it removed. When questioned by his colleagues, it became abundantly clear that Cain had no idea what pallative care actually was, and had to have it explained to him on the floor of the legislature. But hey, f*** those terminally ill people dying in pain from getting any kind of pain relievers until they pass, right?

In October of 2017, Briscoe Cain was scheduled to speak at Texas Southern University, and after the event was cancelled at the last minute because protesters would not allow Cain to speak (similar to how Richard Spencer has been booed out of several college bookings), Cain whined about his First Amendment right to speak being infringed upon, which the protesters pointed out they had a First Amendment right to drown his punk ass out.

In a superbly classless move, upon the death of legendary astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, a self-identifying atheist in May of 2018, Briscoe Cain took a Creationist pot-shot at the deceased, posting on Twitter that, “Stephen Hawking now knows the truth of how the universe was made”.

But one of our main concerns about Briscoe Cain is the fact that he has, on more than one occasion, threatened people with a gun. In June of 2018, Cain crashed the Texas Democratic Party’s state convention, and started to pass out signs that read, “This home is a gun-free safe space” to dare those who want gun control to declare it publicly and then, y’know, get robbed because people wouldn’t be scared they weren’t armed (in theory). When an attendee asked Briscoe when he went gun-free, he responded by lifting his shirt to show he was packing (this isn’t hearsay, there’s video of it). Cain was summarily thrown out.

The second incident, was far more publicized… during the second Democratic Presidential Primary debate in September of 2019, former Congressman Beto O’Rourke talked about gun control, proposed buy-backs of AR-15s, which enraged Brisco Cain enough to throw out a thinly-veiled death threat at O’Rourke:

"My AR is ready for you Robert Francis”

It was enough of a threat that Twitter deleted his post, and eventually gave him a 141 day ban, which is remarkable in and of itself because that platform censors almost nothing.

Briscoe Cain spent 2020 offering pro bono legal services to any Texan fined for refusing to wear a mask in public (because of course this supposed pro-life hypocritical ***hole did) before in November, he won re-election in 2020 with 68% of the vote. Cain could not be content with his own victory, instead abandoning Texas to travel up to Pennsylvania during a pandemic to offer his legal services to the aggrieved soon-to-be-former-president, Donald Trump, in his mad quest to have the election results tossed out so he could be declared president again for… reasons. Yes, that’s right, when you think about what kind of idiot lawyers were representing Donald Trump and submitting legal documents with spelling errors, fictitious accounts from people who may or may not exist, and from states that definitely don’t… rest assured that part of the reason is this moronic jackass was involved, and making sure that Rudy Giuliani wasn’t alone in being a f***up on the Trump legal team.

We would like to note that there were a lot of headlines in 2021 from Texas about Gov. Greg Abbott trying to get a voter suppression bill passed, and that Democrats had to walk out of special sessions of the state legislature to try and prevent its passage. We now will tell you that it shouldn’t be a surprise, given his support for Donald Trump’s “Big Lie” that the 2020 election was stolen, that Briscoe Cain was the little pissant who sponsored that anti-democratic bill, and in pulling vocabulary from the best white-nationalist speeches he could find, declared it would restore “purity to the ballot box”.

And finally, we’ll note that in August of 2021, there was a hydrogen sulfide leak in La Porte, Texas, so Harris County Pollution Control Services gave out a warning and advised residents to shelter in place to avoid exposure to the gas which, can be lethal in high concentrations. Back on Twitter, Cain had the levelheaded response of, “What in the sweet libtard hell is this Stay inside & wear a face mask to avoid exposure to hydrogen sulfide?”

The sooner this little fascist gets bounced from office the better Texas, and the country will be.

[Tami]

Trump Takes Personal Credit For COVID-19 Vaccines In Interview With Candace Owens

The former president touted the shots as “one of the greatest achievements of mankind” in a chat with the right-wing media host, who said she is unvaccinated. Trump? Touting the vaccine? Someone tell Satan to buy a parka, because hell just froze over!

**********

Police Chief Told Officers Where To Get Fake COVID-19 Vaccination Cards

T.J. Smith, the police chief in Oakboro, North Carolina, was placed on probation after an external investigation confirmed the scheme. **** probation! That ******* needs to be fired since what he did is, I do believe, a federal offense.

**********

Search For A COVID-19 Test Means Sold-out Signs, Long Lines

The extra-contagious omicron variant plus people trying to gather and travel for the holidays is fueling the surge in demand for tests. I've seen those lines outside a health clinic a block away from my house, and it's crazy.

**********

China Puts 13 Million On Lockdown Following Coronavirus Spike Just Weeks Before Winter Games

China has also been dealing with a substantial outbreak in several cities in the eastern province of Zhejiang near Shanghai. The NHL already pulled their players out of the Olympics. Will other athletes decide to stay home?

I started out searching for a at-home test online, but most pharmacies were sold out. I checked in my state's website, and they offered a free at-home test, only it was kind of complicated and would have taken a long time to received and process the results. I sent a message to my health care provider asking about COVID testing and was told to call the the office, I did and they set up an appointment the next day. That was so fast and easy, I almost feel guilty.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

I started out searching for a at-home test online, but most pharmacies were sold out. I checked in my state's website, and they offered a free at-home test, only it was kind of complicated and would have taken a long time to received and process the results. I sent a message to my health care provider asking about COVID testing and was told to call the the office, I did and they set up an appointment the next day. That was so fast and easy, I almost feel guilty.

I’ve debated getting an at-home test kit, but, it’s only been two weeks since I got my booster, and I’m doing just fine. I go to my doctor for my annual checkup next month, perhaps I’ll ask about one then.

[Tami]

Report shows the extent of Republican efforts to sabotage democracy

Research identifies at least 262 bills were introduced in 41 states this year with the intent to hijack the election process

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Black Americans continue to see higher jobless rate despite market recovery

Black Americans had 6.7% unemployment rate in November as economists unsurprised by disparity

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Russia fines Google £73m over failure to delete ‘illegal’ content

Moscow ruling is first revenue-based fine of its kind in Russia and comes amid fears of internet crackdown

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A flood of climate aid is coming from Washington. Will those who need it miss out?

Advocates for communities seeking a piece of the hundreds of billions of dollars in new assistance worry that the process may be "too weighty, too heavy and too full of bureaucracy."

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Dems face off in Maryland primary — in an ‘incredibly Republican year’

Looming over the gubernatorial primary is a political environment likely benefiting Republicans — amplified by the GOP’s victory in neighboring Virginia last month.

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TrumpWorld Becomes Unglued Over Trump’s Praise of Vaccine and Booster Shots

The former president is losing hardcore supporters over his support for COVID-19 vaccines.

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This Scientist Created a Rapid Test Just Weeks Into the Pandemic. Here’s Why You Still Can’t Get It.

Irene Bosch developed a quick, inexpensive COVID-19 test in early 2020. The Harvard-trained scientist already had a factory set up. But she was stymied by an FDA process experts say made no sense.

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He Was a Board Member of the Oath Keepers. Now He’s Holding State-Approved Trainings for Law Enforcement in Texas.

Richard Mack wants your sheriff to defy the government.

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A Disturbing Gun Case Further Reveals the Peril of January 6

US prosecutors disclose more evidence of how armed Trump extremists attacked Congress.