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

[JB]

More than 2,000 flights canceled on Christmas Eve
https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/23/busin...eve/index.html

Airlines have canceled thousands of flights on Christmas Eve, including hundreds of US domestic flights, as staff and crew call out sick during the Omicron surge.

Globally, airlines have canceled over 2,000 flights, 454 of which are within, into or out of the United States.
Operational snags at airlines are coming as millions are still flying in spite of rising coronavirus cases. The TSA says it screened 2.19 million people at airports across the country on Thursday, the highest figure since the uptick in holiday travel started a week ago.

I'm glad I decided not to fly home this year. What a mess.

[Jack Dracula]

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

I saw the camera video when the case first entered the news cycle. Two other officers were trying to pull Wright out of the car at the time and she was shouting “taser” to warn them she was about to discharge hers.

[Jack Dracula]

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.

In my uninformed opinion, the majority of these incidents are simply due to poor training. Not sure if it’s because police unions push back against training reform?

[Tami]

Trump’s newest business partner: A Chinese firm with a history of SEC investigations

A Chinese firm helping former president Donald Trump take his new media company public has been the target of investigations by federal securities regulators, who say the firm misrepresented shell companies with no products and few employees as ambitious, growing enterprises, documents and interviews show.

Arc Capital, an investment advisory firm based in Shanghai, has repeatedly helped create or finance companies with little or no revenue, no customers and office locations that point to P.O. boxes, according to a Washington Post review of regulatory and court filings. One claimed to be developing autonomous drone software despite having no employees; another said it operated a publicly traded in-home bakery “specializing in freshly-made cakes and cupcakes” before saying it pivoted into touch-screen technologies for a “diversified blue-chip client base,” regulatory filings show.

The United States allows shell companies to be listed on public markets but requires operators to truthfully represent them as businesses with no active operations, securities lawyers said. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has accused Arc of deceiving investors about the scope of its operations, the locations of the businesses and the identities of the people behind them, documents show.

This year, Arc helped create Digital World Acquisition, an investment vehicle that has raised over $1.2 billion to conduct a merger with Trump Media and Technology Group. Digital World is what’s known as a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, a type of shell business that raises money from investors to acquire a private start-up with strong growth prospects. The deal, which still must be approved by shareholders and regulators, has the potential to enrich the former president and turn his nascent social media start-up into a public company overnight.

[Zauriel]

In my uninformed opinion, the majority of these incidents are simply due to poor training. Not sure if it’s because police unions push back against training reform?

The police then needs to train their officers better. If the police department is not remorseful about this incident, then perhaps a lawsuit from the deceased victim's family will inspire them to seek better training for their officers.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2014, 2015, 2016, as well as 2017, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day posted profiles of Bob Marshall, a particularly homophobic and misogynistic member of the Virginia State Assembly who made a bid for Congress in 2016 to serve Virginia’s 1st District, only to lose in the GOP Primary to Barbara Comstock. How homophobic, though? He literally described himself as “Virginia’s chief homophobe”. As conservative as Barbara Comstock is, Bob Marshall is far, far worse. Among the uglier Marshall moments in regards to the LGBT community brought to the fore were the fact that he co-wrote Virginia’s ban on same-sex marriage, how he worried that the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” would lead to gays bringing more STDs into the military population, and when he saw an LGBT flag flying on state property and tried claiming it was a class six felony. Heck, after some Supreme Court rulings where Justice Anthony Kennedy ruled in favor of gay rights, Marshall publicly commented that he thought it was because Kennedy was secretly gay, too. As far as women’s issues go, he once tried to pass a Personhood bill that would have outlawed many forms of birth control in Virginia, and the time during a debate in 2011 about funding Planned Parenthood that he claimed there was a spike in birth defects and it was because God was angry about abortion. Just to name a couple. Rounding out this summary of that profile, we’ll mention the time Bob Marshall was asked about the Affordable Care Act, and he said it was “forcible economic rape” and in 2016 when he compared his passion to nullify federal gun laws to those who fought to keep the Fugitive Slave Act in place. We are happy to say that as you may have heard, Bob Marshall was booted from office by Danica Roem, who beat him with 54% of the vote in Virgina’s 2017 elections. The story gets even sweeter. You see, Bob Marshall being a huuuuuge homophobe and transphobe who supported transgender bathroom bans and not common sense legislation that might actually help his constituents was what inspired Roem, a transgendered woman and heavy metal singer, to become a candidate for political office, and take him on in 2017. Marshall could not help himself, refusing to debate Roem in person, taking all sorts of potshots at her lifestyle and gender identity, and even had the Virginia GOP send out campaign fliers that deliberately misgendered her. Roem defeated Marshall, and he has faded into obscurity.

On this date in 2018, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” profiled Dennis Hof, the winner of the race for the seat to represent District 36 Nevada’s State Assembly. It was a remarkable upset for several reasons. The first was… Dennis Hof was a pimp. That’s not a euphemism for anything… he was a literal 72-year old pimp, and is part owner of the Bunny Ranch in Nevada as well as several other brothels. This was hardly a secret to the public, what with Hof featuring his businesses on an HBO reality show called “Cat House” in the years prior, where he coached whores in their craft. Adding to the circus-like spectacle of a man employing sex workers winning a GOP Primary was the fact that he had convicted felon and madam Heidi Fleiss attend his victory party. And while some Nevada Republicans distanced themselves from Hof… guess what? HE GOT THE EVANGELICAL WING’S SUPPORT (Merry Christmas, from full-of-s*** conservative Christians everyone!). This in spite of Dennis Hof being, again, a pimp. And not just any pimp, a pimp whose former workers accused him of making unwanted sexual contact with them, and who frequently tried to get a mother and daughter both in his employ to engage in incestuous sex acts. While Hof may have won the election on November 6th, he didn’t live to serve in office, as he died on October 16th, 2018, at a party where people like CSGOPOTD alumni Joe Arpaio and porn star and alleged sexual predator Ron Jeremy were reveling with prostitutes (your party of family values at its finest).

[worstblogever]

On this date in both 2019, as well as 2020, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” first profiled the sitting U.S. House Representative from Arkansas 1st Congressional District, Eric “Rick” Crawford, who was first elected to that office in… you guessed it, the 2010 Tea Party Wave. Crawford was formerly a news anchor and agriculture reporter before running for office, and still seems like he’s laying fertilizer when he makes public statements. Perhaps the most ridiculous one we’ve seen from Crawford came in August of 2017, when he spoke out in defense of Confederate monuments, and felt that removing them “would lead to closing the Holocaust museum”.

”These people want to sanitize history and make it politically correct so that everybody can breathe easy and not feel any level of offense. This global history sanitation movement that basically says all of these statues have to come down because they might offend some people. At what point are we gonna shut down the Holocaust Museum? Is that on the agenda at any point, because it makes people uncomfortable? I mean, it never stops.”

And if there’s one thing that’s fine it’s conflating a museum commemorating victims of Nazi violence with Confederate monuments that serve as tributes to slavery and white supremacy.

Rick Crawford also got our attention back in 2015 when he responded to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges by saying that “The opinion of five lawyers, not elected by the American people, should not and cannot define what millions of Americans affirm as the true and divine institution of marriage.” Ah yes… the justices are just “lawyers not elected” when they do things you don’t like. How cute, Rick.

Anyway, Crawford also denies the science behind climate change, saying there are “questions about the validity” into the research (that 98% of climate scientists agree is solid), and in January of 2017, came out in support of Donald Trump’s proposed “Muslim ban”. Crawford continued wanking to Trump’s craziness, by claiming the Mueller Report wasn’t finding anything but had cost taxpayers $10 million (which ignores the profit it actually made in seizing Paul Manafort’s ill-gotten assets). In November of 2019, Rick Crawford furthered his fanatical support of Trump, calling the impeachment inquiry a “impeachment hoax”, and resigning his place on the House Intelligence Committee to cede his place on it instead to… Congressman Jim Jordan.

So… yeah… we have Rick Crawford to thank for that. If you’re not getting the idea about how hard right this guy leans, here’s the highlights of his voting record over the past term in office:

• December 3rd, 2019: Rick Crawford is one of 71 Republicans who vote against House Resolution 546, which stated disapproval of any attempt to readmit the Russian federation back into the G7 and make it the G8.
• May 15th, 2020: Crawford votes against the HEROES Act, to further support the healthcare industry and citizens affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
• December 10th, 2020: Crawford signs his name to an amicus brief to the Supreme Court, begging them to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The same election that he won re-election in.
• January 7th, 2021: Rick Crawford votes for the objection to the electoral college’s votes in the 2020 election, a failure to send any sort of message that he wasn’t intimidated or sympathetic to those who attacked the Capitol to attempt a violent coup.
• January 13th, 2021: Rep. Crawford votes against the second impeachment of Donald Trump, because the Republican Party no longer feels like they should be accountable for anything, including failed coups that result in the deaths of both their participants and police officers.
• February 4th, 2021: Rick Crawford votes to keep Marjorie Taylor Greene’s committee assignments, because he wouldn’t want her to be accountable for all the bigoted remarks and conspiracy theories she’s spread online (probably because she’s a kindred spirit).
• February 25th, 2021: Crawford votes against HR 5, the latest version of the Equality Act, that would provide workplace protections for LGBTQ Americans.
• March 3rd, 2021: Rep. Crawford votes against HR 1, a bill created to prevent the corruption of money in politics, and protect voter access to the ballot box.
• March 3rd, 2021: Rick Crawford votes against the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2021.
• March 10th, 2021: Crawford votes against the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, because he feels people deserve to die in poverty during a pandemic.
• March 17th, 2021: Rep. Crawford votes against the re-authorization of the Violence Against Women Act, likely because they feel the 2nd Amendment remaining absolute is more important than preventing people with a history of domestic abuse from owning a firearm (which statistics show, makes them more likely to use those firearms against women in their lives).
• May 19th, 2021: Rep. Crawford votes against HR 3233, the creation of a commission to investigate the Capitol Attack.
• November 5th, 2021: Rick Crawford votes against HR 3684, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

Rick Crawford ran for a sixth term in office in 2020, and it seems and as Arkansas’ 1st Congressional District has a +17 Republican lean these days, and he faced no challenger, whatsoever, he won and felt inspired enough to be a seditious mother***er and sign on to that amicus brief to discredit confidence in American elections. On January 6th, 2021, as law enforcement officials were still engaged with Trump-supporting domestic terrorists to regain control in Washington, Rick Crawford gave an interview with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette where he said his goal was to “compel” the Supreme Court to reexamine Trump’s election-related legal challenges. The damning quote:

“And listen, if today’s action with these rioters didn’t get the Supreme Court’s attention, I don’t know what will,” he told the Democrat-Gazette.”

Crawford faces a primary challenger in 2022, but don’t get too excited about this being a return to sanity, it’s Brandt Smith, an Arkansas state legislator who wants our approach to combating Covid-19 and handling immigration to be Donald Trump’s, and he was educated at Liberty University, land of self-righteous hypocrisy.

Just… great… that’s like the options of being kicked in the face or the groin.

[Zauriel]

Fast food diet and lack of exercise should make Donald Trump the fattest president. But it is not the case. Only two presidents are heavier than him. They are William Howard Taft and Grover Cleveland. Does swinging your arms during golf help you burn calories and lose weight?

Fast food didn't exist in the Cleveland or Taft's days, so how are they fatter than Trump?

https://www.potus.com/presidential-f...ential-weight/

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Fast food diet and lack of exercise should make Donald Trump the fattest president. But it is not the case. Only two presidents are heavier than him. They are William Howard Taft and Grover Cleveland. Does swinging your arms during golf help you burn calories and lose weight?

Fast food didn't exist in the Cleveland or Taft's days, so how are they fatter than Trump?

https://www.potus.com/presidential-f...ential-weight/

Genetics, perhaps? Both Taft and Cleveland looked like large boned men which doesn’t have much to do with diet. But, even though there wasn’t any processed food back their day, I’m guessing both men ate a lot of red meat, maybe drank as well.

[Zauriel]

Genetics, perhaps? Both Taft and Cleveland looked like large boned men which doesn’t have much to do with diet. But, even though there wasn’t any processed food back their day, I’m guessing both men ate a lot of red meat, maybe drank as well.

Taft was a temperate man in all ways but one. He did not use alcohol. He did not smoke. He did not stay up late and sacrifice sleep.

Trump also neither drinks alcohol nor smokes, from what I have heard.


Well before his two stints in the White House, Cleveland overindulged in the cheap beer and rich food served in the smoke-filled saloons of Buffalo, New York. During his first campaign, a run for district attorney, Cleveland cut back his sudsy consumption—to a gallon of beer per night.

No wonder he didn't live past 71 years.

[Kirby101]

There were obese people before fast food. It shouldn't be a surprise to find a few obese Presidents. Fast food has made obesity an epidemic, more than doubling in the last 50 years. Today a third of adults are obese. Donald Trump is one of them.

[Zauriel]

There were obese people before fast food. It shouldn't be a surprise to find a few obese Presidents. Fast food has made obesity an epidemic, more than doubling in the last 50 years. Today a third of adults are obese. Donald Trump is one of them.

True. Taft's favorite food was steak and potatoes. No wonder he was the heaviest POTUS. He weighed over 330 lbs. While he is not a heavy drinker, he drank champagne on some occasions.


Chester Arthur was more obese than most presidents but ranked below Trump. Reason? arthur loved to eat steak and drink alcohol.

[Kirby101]

Trump lied about his weight, he said he was 240 lbs. But from several photos of him, especially on the golf course, you can see he is pushing 300 ils. He als was not as tall as he said it was.

Taft


Trump

[shooshoomanjoe]

Fast food diet and lack of exercise should make Donald Trump the fattest president. But it is not the case. Only two presidents are heavier than him. They are William Howard Taft and Grover Cleveland. Does swinging your arms during golf help you burn calories and lose weight?

Fast food didn't exist in the Cleveland or Taft's days, so how are they fatter than Trump?

https://www.potus.com/presidential-f...ential-weight/

You don't have to eat fast food to get fat.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Trump lied about his weight, he said he was 240 lbs. But from several photos of him, especially on the golf course, you can see he is pushing 300 ils. He als was not as tall as he said it was.

Trump

I was 243 when I started slimming down four plus years ago but looked NOWHERE near as bulbous as Trump. But then, I’m also six foot two, Donnie Doughboy is probably a good two or three inches shorter, making him even more like a butterball.