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

[Jack Dracula]

It’s unbelievable Democrats aren’t taking this seriously, especially after what happened back on 1/6. Someone needs to drive home the point, forcefully if need be to Biden and Dems that Qpublicans are hellbent on destroying democracy in order to take back the presidency, and never let it go.

I've been searching online for some indication the Biden administration is aware and acting to counter some of this. I've had no luck so far.

Does anyone here believe that after all the political maneuvering and colossal commitment of time, energy, and money the GOP will ever allow a Democrat to again be elected President, or for that matter whether Trump won't simply set himself up the way Putin did 20+ years ago? An operation of this scale isn't just for another four-year term followed by a quiet retirement to paint bad pictures.

[worstblogever]

In both 2014, as well as 2015, “Crazy Stupid Republican of the Day” published profiles of Dean Young, a three-time failure as a Congressional candidate for U.S. House in Alabama’s 1st Congressional District who says that “homosexuality is a deviant and destructive lifestyle”, opposed gay marriage by saying, “I’m against homosexuals pretending they’re married”, and is a dedicated ally of Alabama Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore, as both work together to try and place as much Christian idolatry as possible in government buildings because “This isn’t a Muslim nation, this is a Christian nation.” Young has also called for the impeachment of President Obama without any justification, and during a completely separate interview, he stated his belief that Obama was born in Kenya. Young also believes that something sinister was done by the government during the Benghazi attacks, and that the IRS goes out of their way to target Christians, which is amazing considering the churches themselves get tax-exempt status. Young has yet again failed to unseat Congressman Bradley Byrne in 2016, and could resurface in 2018.

On this date in 2017, "Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day" profiled David Brumbaugh, a four term member of the Oklahoma House of Representatives who first arrived back on the scene when else… but in the 2010 Tea Party Wave. During his tenure, Brumbaugh stood out even among Oklahoma Republicans for his unabashed and irrational attempts to flat out criminalize abortion. In 2016, he sponsored legislation that would revoke the licenses of any doctor performing an abortion (which is still a legal, constitutionally protected medical procedure) And of course, he scoffed at the Roe v. Wade ruling being an obvious hindrance to his bill, if passed ever holding up against legal challenges. Even more bizarre? More reasonable conservatives pointing out that the state of Oklahoma is already in a budget crisis, and if it was sued for passing an obviously unconstitutional law, it would just end up creating more debt for taxpayers to have to pay off. Again, Brumbaugh shrugged, apparently content that any legal difficulties would just be taken care of by the Almighty himself, saying, “If we take care of the morality, God will take care of the economy. I’ve heard almost every argument today about judicial challenge to this legislation and after much prayer and study, I ask myself this question… Do we make laws because they’re moral and right, or do we make them based on what an unelected judicial occupant might question or overturn?” Brumbaugh also voted for bills to to protect Oklahomans from the threat of the dreaded United Nations Agenda 21 conspiracy theory, attempted to nullify the Affordable Care Act. Brumbaugh passed away suddenly from a heart attack in April of 2017.

On this date in 2018, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” profiled Ed Gillespie, the long time Chairman of Republican National Party, who unsuccessfully challenged Senator Mark Warner for his seat in 2014, and in 2017, ran for Governor of Virginia in a campaign that was a telling example of how quickly the modern Republican Party has sold out any respectability it might have had, and how they have become the Party of Trump. First, let’s talk about Ed Gillespie’s resume. He cut his teeth working as a Congressional aide for Congressman Dick Armey, helping draft the GOP’s “Contract with America” after the 1994 Red Wave Election. He then quickly rose to be the Communications Director of the RNC in 1996. He briefly worked for John Kasich’s failed presidential bid in 1999, before signing on to the campaign of Bush 43, and helping organize the 2000 RNC, as well as working for a frequent spokesman for the Bush campaign, even throughout the Florida recount that year. By 2003, he was the Chairman of the RNC from 2003-2004, and also served as a counselor to Bush himself in his White House after the departure of Karl Rove. Gillespie himself never really ran for office, content to pull strings away from podiums on several Republican campaigns, but getting filthy rich as a lobbyist throughout his entire career, until that 2014 run against Mark Warner. On display were many of the tropes you see from the GOP, including Gillespie’s long-term opposition to same sex marriage (including supporting a Constitutional amendment against it), as well as wanting to defund Planned Parenthood. In his 2017 gubernatorial bid, Gillespie was the mainstream candidate, meanwhile running in the primary against full-on white nationalist and CSGOPOTD alumni Corey Stewart. And, as has been atypical of GOP candidates who try to maintain dignity rather than cave in to racism, Ed Gillespie won that matchup, and advanced to face Ralph Northam in the general election. But, and we can’t emphasize this enough… after cementing that win, for whatever reason, Gillespie started diving hard to the right in the build-up to the 2017 election in Virginia, going out of his way to voice his opposition to removing Confederate statues (only two weeks after Neo-Nazis terrorized Charlottesville over them), starting running ads claiming that the immigrant gang MS-13 was sending criminals into the country, and after trying to keep Baron F***face von Clownstick at arm’s length throughout most of the campaign, caving and appearing on stage with him and listening as he spread lies and fear-mongered about immigrant gangs. Just to take it a step further, he also started stoking fears that felons were illegally voting, because why not attack the integrity of our elections, while you’re at it? In any event, Ed Gillespie was trounced as a part of that 2017 election.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2016, 2019, as well as 2020, "Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day" profiled Nancy Mace, a challenger in the 2014 U.S. Senate Primary in South Carolina to Senator Lindsey Graham for his seat in Washington, D.C, choosing to be the first candidate in that race to attack Lindsay Graham for admitting climate change exists, and tried claiming that a “recent freeze” disproves the phenomenon. Factor in also, that Nancy Mace’s background in South Carolina politics comes from being the co-owner of FITSNews, a “news” outlet in South Carolina best known perhaps for, while under Mace’s Leadership, leading a smear campaign in 2010 against gubernatorial candidate (and future South Carolina Governor) Nikki Haley, insisting that she had taken part in a series of extramarital affairs. Of course, that sort of tactic wouldn’t work against a lifetime bachelor like Lindsey Graham, so we were spared a repeat of that sort of seedy attack from Mace. No, instead she was one of a pair of primary candidates who decided to gay-bait Graham. While Mace reblogged a post from a supporter that called the Senator a “nancy boy”, at least she didn’t go as far as Dave Feliciano, who said that Graham is “ambigiously gay".

After a few years of laying low… Nancy Mace, and she opted to run for an office slightly less elevated than the U.S. Senate, winning a seat in the South Carolina House of Representatives in 2018, to represent District 99 in that body. In that year, the Blue Wave actually helped Democrat Joe Cunningham flip South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District in Congress, after he defeated Katie Arrington in the general election for the right to replace “the Love Gov” Mark Sanford. As such, SC-1 is one of the seats that Republicans were most determined to flip back red, what with its partisan lean supposedly being +10 Republican.

And, of course Nancy Mace wasn’t content to simply remain a state legislator and build up her credibility… she ran for that seat in the U.S. House instead, jumping into a GOP Primary field with 3 other Republicans for the chance at it. She was first in fundraising, thus was the front-runner. That allowed Mace to narrowly defeat Joe Cunningham with just 50.6% of the vote. She went to Washington, D.C., wielding her new title as the latest of the Republican “Young Guns” (they had some of those 10 years ago who all ended up resigning in disgrace or in jail, you’ll recall) to oppose any and all sane legislation in the House. Some of her low-lights:

• January 13th, 2021: Rep. Mace 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: Nancy Mace 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: Mace votes against HR 5, the latest version of the Equality Act, that would provide workplace protections for LGBTQ Americans.
• March 3rd, 2021: Rep. Mace 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: Nancy Mace votes against the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2021.
• March 10th, 2021: Mace 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. Mace 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. Mace votes against HR 3233, the creation of a commission to investigate the Capitol Attack.
• May 20th, 2021: Mace is one of 63 Republicans who vote against the Covid-19 Hate Crimes Act.
• November 5th, 2021: Nancy Mace votes against HR 3684, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

When the 2022 elections roll around, Nancy Mace will face off against either pediatrician Annie Andrews, or former Marine and current educator Tim Lewis for control of South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District, which after redistricting, may actually be less conservative than it was under the prior map. Whether or not Republicans stick with her will be something to watch, considering on some occasions, Nancy Mace takes the high road and stands up to the bully/loon/seditionist part of the GOP Caucus, taking swipes at Congresswoman Lauren Boebert and Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor-Greene.

Keep in mind, though, it’s getting obvious that Nancy Mace speaks out of both sides of her mouth, as evidenced in this video, where she speaks about the Covid-19 vaccine with confidence when she’s on CNN, and has negative things to say about it when she’s on Fox News.

Congress will be better off whenever they show her the door.

[Mister Mets]

I've been searching online for some indication the Biden administration is aware and acting to counter some of this. I've had no luck so far.

Does anyone here believe that after all the political maneuvering and colossal commitment of time, energy, and money the GOP will ever allow a Democrat to again be elected President, or for that matter whether Trump won't simply set himself up the way Putin did 20+ years ago? An operation of this scale isn't just for another four-year term followed by a quiet retirement to paint bad pictures.

This is starting to be the Democratic equivalent of the big lie.

Trump will be 78 in 2024, so should he win an election, there won't be much of a push to have him run again at 82 to have him finish another term at 86. I'm aware there's a realistic chance Biden may run for a second term at 82, but there are some differences including his overperformance of congressional Democrats in 2020 and the fact that you wouldn't need to change the rules to run again, because if Trump were to be allowed to run for a third term, it was obviously be illegal. The 22nd amendment is pretty clear about term limits, and there's no indication that the courts would help Trump in this case.

Using bullshit pretext to reject electors and send the decision back to state legislatures is on slightly better legal ground.

There is a solution which would be for Congress to sign a standalone bill clarifying these elements of election law. The legal scholar Rick Hasen suggests it should be an easy fix.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and...fair-elections

But, if you’re focussing solely on election subversion, then I think there are a few important things to do. No. 1, require every state to hold elections using some form of a paper ballot. That provision is actually in H.R. 1—it’s a small part of a very large bill. But that standing alone is not only something that could get bipartisan support—it’s absolutely essential. Just imagine if in Georgia, in the period after the election, when Secretary of State Raffensperger ordered a hand recount of all the ballots, with the ability for the public to observe—if Georgia was using voting machines that didn’t use a piece of paper, then the conspiracy theories of the flipped votes would have had much more resonance.

No. 2, fixing the 1887 Electoral Count Act. That’s this arcane federal law that explains how Congress is supposed to count the Electoral College votes from each state. One of the provisions in there says you only need an objection from one senator and one representative in order to go into separate trial sessions to negotiate over whether or not Electoral College votes should be accepted or rejected. There should be a much higher threshold, and there should be a substantive standard for rejecting those votes, so we would not see something like a hundred and forty-seven members of Congress that voted to object to state Electoral College votes on January 6th. There are other things that could be done as well, such as requiring that there be some kind of court review or independent review of the standards that are used for declaring winners in elections, as well as various transparency requirements in dealing with election administration, so that people can go to court if there is a problem with the fairness of how the election is conducted.

The bill the Democrats are trying to pass is based on earlier concerns. I'm not sure why they're not focusing on fixing this.

[worstblogever]

This is starting to be the Democratic equivalent of the big lie.

Why, it's a combination of "BOTH SIDES" and gaslighting in one sentence.

They're trying to subvert democracy and set up minority rule by declaring any votes for Democrats that put them in a winning scenario as "illegitimate". The media is reporting everywhere from NPR, to the NYT, to MSNBC, or any other news acronym you can imagine, and oh yeah, let's just say the Atlantic for one that's spelled out. Republicans are doing this in plain sight, for anyone who doesn't have their head clearly up their ass to believe their rhetoric to see.

If you're a Republican and call something "the big lie", as the party of the Big Lie who have embraced Trump's Big Lie about election fraud while running counter to the Democrats, are Republicans unable to realize that pointing out they're no longer supporting democracy in doing so... that's what you would call "THE TRUTH"?

Nah, that would be giving too much credit.

[Tami]

Bank accidentally deposits $176 million into people’s accounts on Christmas Day

LONDON — Thousands of people received a surprise gift on Christmas Day when European bank Santander accidentally deposited £130 million ($176 million) across 75,000 transactions.

The mistake happened when payments from 2,000 business accounts in the U.K. were processed twice, meaning some employees saw their wages double, while suppliers also got more than they were expecting.

The bank said the duplicate payments were caused by a “scheduling issue” that has now been rectified.

It is now trying to recuperate the mistaken payments, many of which have gone into bank accounts operated by rival banks.

“We’re sorry that due to a technical issue, some payments from our corporate clients were incorrectly duplicated on the recipients’ accounts,” a Santander spokesperson told CNBC.

[Malvolio]

This is starting to be the Democratic equivalent of the big lie.

Trump will be 78 in 2024, so should he win an election, there won't be much of a push to have him run again at 82 to have him finish another term at 86. I'm aware there's a realistic chance Biden may run for a second term at 82, but there are some differences including his overperformance of congressional Democrats in 2020 and the fact that you wouldn't need to change the rules to run again, because if Trump were to be allowed to run for a third term, it was obviously be illegal. The 22nd amendment is pretty clear about term limits, and there's no indication that the courts would help Trump in this case..

Obviously the 22nd Amendment is not that clear or you would know that it stipulates that a President cannot serve more than two full terms, whether they are consecutive or not. So even if Trump were to win in 2024, he would be barred from running in 2028 regardless of his age. And if the Republican Party were really concerned about age, they would not be supporting Trump right now.

[Malvolio]

Bank accidentally deposits $176 million into people’s accounts on Christmas Day

I wouldn't spend that money if it were deposited into my account. The bank will want it back sooner or later and if you've already spent it, they will not only take it back, but they will also charge you overdraft charges for each withdrawal or electronic payment.

[CaptainEurope]

This is starting to be the Democratic equivalent of the big lie.

.

Except for the part where any comparison of the two is utterly false and ridiculous.

[CaptainEurope]

The MAGA mole in the Capitol Police has resigned.

Riley has been on administrative leave since being indicted, while the Capitol Police Department conducted their own internal investigation.

[Tami]

'It’s an easy fast dollar': How organized retail theft rings in one Ohio town use Facebook Marketplace to sell stolen goods

PERRYSBURG TOWNSHIP, Ohio — He called himself Rick Nye, at least on Facebook Marketplace. His friendly profile picture featured a little girl giving him a hug. His page was filled with great deals — deeply discounted power tools still in the box.

Nye’s social media presence was unremarkable for a man from this suburb just south of Toledo. He looked like just another guy who had extra equipment to offload.

Someone wanted the Husqvarna chainsaw he had advertised for $250, nearly half off the sticker price at the nearby Lowe’s. Nye agreed to meet his customer at a parking lot near the Baymont Inn. The buyer got a new chainsaw, and Nye drove off in his Ford F-150 with a fresh wad of bills.

The next day Nye, 44, was behind bars; he was eventually charged with helping to lead an organized crime ring that spanned Michigan and Ohio. He is now in state prison serving a five-year sentence for his role in what police say is a growing illegal industry: massive, organized retail theft, in which internet-savvy criminals shoplift pricey items from the shelves of big-box retailers. They sell the loot on Facebook Marketplace and similar sites.

“It’s big money,” said Detective Sgt. Todd Curtis of the Perrysburg Township Police Department. Curtis was posing as a landscaper the day he bought the stolen chainsaw. “We’re not going to put up with it. We’re not going to tolerate it.”

[Tami]

Burlington decided to cut its police force 30 percent. Here’s what happened next.

BURLINGTON, Vt. — One evening in June 2020, a City Council budget meeting in this college town near the Canadian border stretched past midnight after hundreds of residents had logged on to Zoom to speak. Over nine hours, bleary-eyed councilors heard a message that had rippled across the country in the wake of George Floyd’s death.

“Enough performing,” one said. “Defund the Burlington Police Department.”

The council would ultimately pass a resolution that upended the way policing was done in the city.

Other cities with similar profiles — majority-white college towns — “defunded” their police. Norman, Oklahoma, diverted 4 percent of the police budget to community services. Northampton, Massachusetts, cut 10 percent from the police budget.

Burlington, however, decided to slash almost 30 percent of its police force by attrition. Since then, city leaders have been forced to reckon with the unintended consequences of that decision, including problems with public safety and quality of life, police and residents say.

Almost a year and a half later, no one, it seems, is happy. Not even the councilor who proposed the resolution.

“We’re in a situation that I think nobody wanted us to get to,” said Councilor Zoraya Hightower, a member of the locally dominant Progressive Party.

The mayor, who didn’t support cutting the force, agrees.

“There’s a lot of damage that has been done in the last 16 months,” said Mayor Miro Weinberger, a Democrat.

[Johnathan]

Except for the part where any comparison of the two is utterly false and ridiculous.

However, that is the essential nature of politics. Once the conservatives have control of congress and win in the White House, they will use the same arguments the Liberals used to stop any investigation into the fairness or falsehoods of the elections. Honestly, I can't really see that there will be any recourse to challenge election results in any case. I'm not really that sure the Federal government can do anything now to stop it either that wouldn't simply make it worse.

[Mister Mets]

Burlington decided to cut its police force 30 percent. Here’s what happened next.

Oops.

Obviously the 22nd Amendment is not that clear or you would know that it stipulates that a President cannot serve more than two full terms, whether they are consecutive or not. So even if Trump were to win in 2024, he would be barred from running in 2028 regardless of his age. And if the Republican Party were really concerned about age, they would not be supporting Trump right now.

I'm well aware of that of the limits of running for more than two full terms, consecutive or not.

This is why I said Trump winning in 2024 and running again in 2028 would "obviously be illegal. The 22nd amendment is pretty clear about term limits, and there's no indication that the courts would help Trump in this case."

Why, it's a combination of "BOTH SIDES" and gaslighting in one sentence.

They're trying to subvert democracy and set up minority rule by declaring any votes for Democrats that put them in a winning scenario as "illegitimate". The media is reporting everywhere from NPR, to the NYT, to MSNBC, or any other news acronym you can imagine, and oh yeah, let's just say the Atlantic for one that's spelled out. Republicans are doing this in plain sight, for anyone who doesn't have their head clearly up their ass to believe their rhetoric to see.

If you're a Republican and call something "the big lie", as the party of the Big Lie who have embraced Trump's Big Lie about election fraud while running counter to the Democrats, are Republicans unable to realize that pointing out they're no longer supporting democracy in doing so... that's what you would call "THE TRUTH"?

Nah, that would be giving too much credit.

I was responding to someone who thinks the GOP is planning to set up Trump as a Putin-like figure who will be President for many terms, until he is six feet in the ground. That is the goalpost. I'm not responding to the best articulated criticism of Republican strategy or denialism about 2020 election results.

I've noticed with defenders of the big lie a motte and bailey strategy where they'll switch from indefensible arguments (there was likely a coordinated conspiracy to manufacture enough votes to change results in swing states) to more defensible/ complicated ones (due to Covid regulations, there was an increase in absentee ballots which has implications for election security) without distinguishing the change. We get that here with similar shifts in different contexts, because some people view it as more important to be on the right side than to be correct on the specifics. Responding to a comment that the GOP is planning to make Trump into a new Putin is not a proxy for other arguments, even if in this specific, I am disagreeing with a critic of Trump.

The potential to exploit loopholes in the 1887 Electoral Count Act seems to be a known problem. It seems like something that could be fixed pretty easily, but Democrats who claim to be concerned about it, haven't proposed legislation about it.

[Jack Dracula]

This is starting to be the Democratic equivalent of the big lie.

Trump will be 78 in 2024, so should he win an election, there won't be much of a push to have him run again at 82 to have him finish another term at 86. I'm aware there's a realistic chance Biden may run for a second term at 82, but there are some differences including his overperformance of congressional Democrats in 2020 and the fact that you wouldn't need to change the rules to run again, because if Trump were to be allowed to run for a third term, it was obviously be illegal. The 22nd amendment is pretty clear about term limits, and there's no indication that the courts would help Trump in this case.

Using bullshit pretext to reject electors and send the decision back to state legislatures is on slightly better legal ground.

There is a solution which would be for Congress to sign a standalone bill clarifying these elements of election law. The legal scholar Rick Hasen suggests it should be an easy fix.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and...fair-elections



The bill the Democrats are trying to pass is based on earlier concerns. I'm not sure why they're not focusing on fixing this.

Yes, the 22nd amendment prohibits a 3rd term, but let's consider for a moment who his VP would be. He certainly won't make the mistake of teaming up with someone with a shred of integrity like Pence again. We're more likely to wind up with a toady like Kevin McCarthy or a sociopath like Stephen Miller, or possibly one of his children. Either way, Trump will run the show from the sidelines while continuing to chip away at political norms and the democratic election process.
Let's also consider what would happen if the same man who, without remorse or apology, has already sent a thousand plus mob of rioters to storm the Capitol in order to overturn an election decides to just stay in office permanently. Who's going to stop him? Half the country, (a heavily-armed half btw) given a semi-plausible reason, would welcome it.

In the article, Hansen touts the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and the HR 1 bill as being the two main things he hopes will counteract the voting restrictions pushed through individual Republican-controlled states. These two bills contain language strengthening voting rights and reestablishing some of the protections for southern minority-dominated districts which were undone in 2013 by the SCOTUS (because evidently racism no longer exists).
Now, bear in mind the article was published in June of 2021 and the interview itself was likely done in May or possibly April. Since then The John Lewis Voting Rights Act has died in the Senate and HR 1 has stalled on its way to a vote. Even if it gets to that stage, Manchin has stated he's not in favor of it and who the hell knows what Sinema will do.
Some things can be done at the state level, but time is a factor and it's now 2022 with the mid-terms just 10 short months away.