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

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2015, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” ran a profile of Lori Klein, who served one term after sweeping into office as part of the Tea Party Wave, and quickly established herself to be one of the more racist and insane members of the Arizona state legislature. And THAT is saying something. Where to begin? She once approached a crowd of people protesting Arizona's SB1070 and told them to "go back to Mexico", and when they pointed out they were of Mexican descent, but American citizens, she instead chose to call them "thugs" and demanded to know "who was paying them" to be there. She also read a racist letter on the floor of the Arizona State Senate, purportedly from a constituent who said they were a teacher, and that the "black and Hispanic children refuse to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance because America is stealing Mexican land, and they refuse to speak English because they want to be gang members." If you're not already mortified by Klein's rhetoric, there's also her defense of Herman Cain's sexual harassment allegations, where she said he never hit on her and she is "not an unattractive woman". Finally, we'll throw in the flap that occurred when she tried to walk into a speech with Governor Jan Brewer while carrying her pink Ruger revolver, and tried throwing a 2nd Amendment tantrum when the governor's security detail stopped her trying to do so. She was outraged enough to do an interview with a reporter for some public sympathy afterwards, but that backfired when she pointed the gun directly at the reporter in the interview to explain why it was a "harmless" gun. A gun without a safety. While it was loaded. Lori Klein lost in the 2014 GOP Primary just trying to get by in the Arizona House of Representatives and has yet to resurface politically.

On this date in 2016, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” posted a profile of former Maryland Congressman Roscoe Bartlett, a 7th Day Adventist who supported every anti-gay and pro-life piece of legislation he ever saw cross his path in the House. Bartlett started to make people think he’d gone senile toward the end of his career, like how in September 2012, Bartlett told a crowd that federal student loans were unconstitutional, and could lead down a slippery slope to the Holocaust, warned people to “not live in cities” in a documentary about a potential smallpox outbreak, and fought to have hearings held on the United States' readiness for an attack from an outside entity using an electromagnetic pulse (which is not a viable technology right now outside of any sci-fi movie). Bartlett was so convinced that this threat was imminent that since retiring from politics, he has moved himself and his wife into a cabin "off the grid" without telephone service in the middle of the mountains of West Virginia with his wife.

On this date in 2017, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” profiled Charlie Janssen, a former Nebraska State Senator who made a run at the governor’s mansion in Lincoln back in 2014. Janssen was first elected to the Nebraska State Senate back in 2009, and his career has shown him with a tendency to vote against LGBTQ protections, and for things like 20 week abortion bans. After six years of establishing a bright red streak of conservative votes, Janssen felt he was ready to take a crack at becoming Governor. Like a lot of politicians during the 2014 mid-term elections, Janssen was looking to ride a surge in anti-immigrant paranoia into office. While most Republicans were content to ignorantly fear-monger about people bringing Ebola virus across the U.S./Mexico border (amazing because it was coming from Africa, like it always does)… Charlie Janssen decided to take a different tack in stirring up fears about immigrants. He once submitted a bill inspired by Arizona’s SB 1070 to try to let law enforcement racially profile people, and likes to talk at length about how he feels that immigrants are “a drain on public resources”. So, when Janssen began trying to exploit the rape and murder of a 93-year-old woman by a drunk 19-year old, which he blamed on our illegal immigration system. Most criticized Janssen for this, because illegal immigrants actually commit fewer crimes, especially violent crimes statistically far less than other citizens. Shortly after facing criticism for being such a xenophobic bigot, Janssen non-coincidentally dropped out of the governor’s race, saying that he “didn’t see a path to victory”. He’s still on the younger side at only 45 years old, so it bears watching if he makes a run at an officer higher than State Auditor, which he settled on (and barely won office for in 2014). It’s not uncommon for Nebraska State Auditors to try to make that jump, either. This guy is unlikely to stay quiet.

[worstblogever]

It was on this date in 2018, 2019, 2020, as well as 2021, that “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day”profiled Utah State Senator Todd Weiler, who first took office in 2012 when his predecessor, Dan Liljequist resigned his seat to try to unseat the methuselah who represents Utah in the U.S. Senate, Orrin Hatch. While Weiler got through his first years as a legislator without stirring up too much drama in Utah, it was in his second term that Weiler declared pornography a public health crisis and tried writing a bill that would let porn addicts sue internet pornography companies. Now, the obvious counter-argument to Weiler’s bill would be that it’s a violation of the First Amendment to the Constitution. Well, he’d like to let all his critics know that online pornography actually violates HIS First Amendment rights, saying, “Someone may have the First Amendment right, according to the U.S. Supreme Court, to view pornography,” Weiler told Tony Perkins, host of “Washington Watch” radio show. “But what about my First Amendment right not to view it?” Of course, the “research” Weiler did on any of this was also not based in reality and as level-headed as Claude Frollo’s research into the Romani. And when you have to release a statement later to try to mitigate the damage where you compare porn to tobacco (Since it causes cancer, right?) and claim “I’m not trying to ban masturbation”, maybe you know you’ve taken your quest way too far. Guess what sorts of impropriety Todd Weiler doesn’t have a problem with? BIGAMY. Yeah, when Utah put a bill out to make bigamy a third degree felony in 2017, and he voted against it. Among the other things that Weiler doesn’t consider a public health crisis include bringing back public executions by firing squad, sex education being taught in public school.

When we last checked in with Todd Weiler… he’s been accused of extortion by a wealthy GOP donor, who even provided audio of the suggestion to offer her $1 million to make a false accusation against him. We tend to believe accusers here at FRED, but we’re just noting in this story that it seems Weiler has made an enemy of a top political donor in the state. More than one, in fact, because the Koch Brothers were also targeting him to be defeated in the GOP primary in 2020, sending out fliers deriding him well in advance. Meanwhile, Weiler has been pretty active, and pretty much gaslighting on Twitter, where he’s made half-assed defenses of Brett Kavanaugh and trying to show some sort of double standard that the media supposedly applies to him and other perpetrators of sexual assault, as well as misrepresenting the facts about investigations into Donald Trump not being biased upon review.

Todd Weiler got to practically skip the primary process for his re-election by the Utah GOP, being awarded the win without a public vote over his challenger, Marci Green Campbell. While she did resolve herself to start a write-in campaign for the November election, she struggled to even get on mail-in ballots. Thus, Weiler was all but guaranteed victory in November, and won with 94% of the vote.

So what has Weiler been up to in the past year? Well, there was his sponsorship of SB 107, which would strip funding from public schools if they held virtual and not in-person learning (a great extortion tactic to send kids to school to get Covid-19 and risk their lives without reason).

But what has been noted in Utah politics is that Todd Weiler seems to have truly embraced Donald Trump’s “be an ***hole on Twitter” strategy in politics, whining about being told be constituents how they would like him to vote on bills, or just last week, when he decided to throw a tantrum because he received an Amber Alert, and derided the service, saying “it should not be used for custody disputes”. He doubled down after being criticized, in spite of commenters noting it meant he was indifferent towards kidnapping, and insisted he got “over 100 likes” for his post, ignoring that he was still ratio’ed and 80% of people are still in favor of Amber Alerts being used in that instance.

It’s almost like as a hyper-conservative, he has an absence of empathy, and shouldn’t be in office, or something.

[4saken1]

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

That is a shame. From what I read in the story, the Burlington Police Department was actually the type of police force that we want more of in this country.

I'm glad that Burlington authorized the department to hire social workers to help them deal with situations that the officers aren't trained in. It's too bad that there was a delay between the implementation of this and the exodus of officers, however. I feel that this story could possibly fall into one about growing pains and failure to successfully implement something for which there wasn't previously much of a blueprint for. I hope they report on this again in a year or two, assuming the city of Burlington has the patience to see if this will bear fruit.

[Tami]

Trump appointee resigns as FDIC chairman following clash with Democratic colleagues

One of the nation’s top banking regulators, the chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC), resigned late Friday after a partisan clash with Democrats that she had described as a “hostile takeover.”

Jelena McWilliams was appointed by President Donald Trump in 2018 to serve a five-year term as chairman of the independent regulatory agency. But following repeated disagreements with her Democratic colleagues over potential banking reforms, she issued a statement on New Year’s Eve saying she would leave her post on Feb. 4.

The move is likely to give the Biden administration more control over the agency, and more leeway to aggressively police bank mergers and push the industry to prepare for the risks of climate change. Democrats hold a majority on the board, and Martin J. Gruenberg, an appointee of President Barack Obama, will serve as chairman temporarily, his third stint in the post.

Democratic members of the board had chafed at McWilliams’s leadership in recent weeks, accusing her of using procedural tactics to stonewall their efforts to review the board’s bank merger approval process. In a lengthy December statement, board member Rohit Chopra, who also serves as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, accused the board’s leadership — without naming McWilliams — of “unsafe and unsound governance” for its unwillingness to consider proposed changes offered by a majority of board members.

“While members of the Board may differ on what, if any, new policies should be enacted, we should quickly solicit input from the public to identify potential policy options,” Chopra wrote.

McWilliams, the board’s only Republican, disagreed, blocking a review. Chopra called this “an attack on the rule of law.”

[Kirby101]

We need a purge of every official Trump appointed.

[worstblogever]

We need a purge of every official Trump appointed.

*nudges in the direction of the Supreme Court and Randy DeJoy*

[Xheight]

We need a purge of every official Trump appointed.

Yes, by all means give them a reason to do the same when they come to power.

Happy 2022, y’all, and welcome to the election year.
The question on everyone’s mind right now is this: How bad will it be for Democrats? Will the GOP simply recapture the House, as the minority party typically does in the first cycle following one-party rule of Washington? Or will this be a beefed-up version of 2010/2014, with a massive Tea Party-like wave sweeping Republicans into power and flipping both chambers of Congress?

Politico 1/1/2022

[worstblogever]

Yes, by all means give them a reason to do the same when they come to power.

Politico 1/1/2022

Most of us with memories longer than a goldfish remember the Trump administration ALREADY DID THAT. They recalled ambassadors, fired U.S. attorneys, placed cronies into positions of power to manipulate the 2020 election, then also started firing people if they weren't sufficiently corrupt throughout the four years of their Russia-enabling, authoritarian kleptocracy.

In other words, you are forgetful, and the threat is empty, because a second Trump administration would absolutely do this AGAIN.

[Xheight]

Oops.

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.

really not such a big difference - tweaking numbers in select states with a handful of corrupt election officials dovetails with the special circumstances that made the steal possible. Without the mail-in ballot and registration databases the targeted battleground states would have required the Massive fraud that people poopoo as "conspiracy thinking" as a way to ease their conscience that democracy took a bullet to head off four more years of Trump. Desperate people do desperate things like steal elections.

As to rigging the College with some law making, ignoring its just a possibility but a needed take back if Republicans take the midterm

[Xheight]

Most of us with memories longer than a goldfish remember the Trump administration ALREADY DID THAT. They recalled ambassadors, fired U.S. attorneys, placed cronies into positions of power to manipulate the 2020 election, then also started firing people if they weren't sufficiently corrupt throughout the four years of their Russia-enabling, authoritarian kleptocracy.

In other words, you are forgetful, and the threat is empty, because a second Trump administration would absolutely do this AGAIN.

The attempts to clean house are well remembered as Deep State fight back - what if anything was the first impeachment about if not punishing a president for not the following the same program and personnel that has taken the country where it wants rather than by the will of the people. If Trump comes back one could only hope the purge goes deeper and the apparatchik class feels it like some of the State Dept. did in just up and quitting.

[Tami]

We need a purge of every official Trump appointed.

Lesson: All Democrats and those who side with Democrats in wanting to protect the country, be sure to be their most annoyingly-idealistically-Factually- Scientifically-Rationally-Snarkily Sweet Selves to anyone who leans towards Maga/Trumpism.

They will run away screaming in shear terror.

[Xheight]

How do you see that working? How do we protect abortion rights without the government guaranteeing the right? What power would you give the individual to ensure a woman's right to chose that doesn't involve the government upholding it.
You give an example that has nothing to do with the things we are talking about. The failure of 9-11 and the wars was government over reach. But individuals alone will not stop Climate Change, this can only happening with governmental cooperation. How would individual freedom and power stop terrorist attacks?
Another example that is needed. Universal Healthcare, we currently have a system that gives the individual "freedom and power" it is a disaster and the worst system in the industrialized world.

federal or state - such laws are an infringement on the choices of the individuals, which is the only Right that any one has regardless of gender. If people can travel to parts of country to find jobs then the same is true for access to medical procedures of any kind. And before you dismiss this as Libertarian consider it more properly a radical individualism that left anarchism once embraced. 9/11 are its wars are about the role of a superpower, the need for a superpower and its enemies.
Are you saying there can be NO cooperation among peoples and organizations that aren't governments and their security apparatus? balderdash. The necessity of a insurance system of any kind is dependent on the fixed income of medical providers which have been removed from market forces of any kind. You refuse to fundamentally question some of the givens that institutions have foisted on regular free people.

[Xheight]

Lesson: All Democrats and those who side with Democrats in wanting to protect the country, be sure to be their most annoyingly-idealistically-Factually- Scientifically-Rationally-Snarkily Sweet Selves to anyone who leans towards Maga/Trumpism.

They will run away screaming in shear terror.

"protect the country" plz . The Biden dumpster fire shows us that the only protection they are interested in is of the mobster kind.

[Kirby101]

If you wish to understand, go back and see the post from Jonathan I was responding to, and then the clarification to the question and of original post.
None of what you wrote has any bearing on what was discussed.

[Malvolio]

"protect the country" plz . The Biden dumpster fire shows us that the only protection they are interested in is of the mobster kind.

This game of tit-for-tat is so typical of today's conservatives and Republicans. We called GW Bush dumb, so they called Obama dumb. We called the Trump administration a dumpster fire so they call Biden a dumpster fire. Do they have no originality at all? I mean, there are certainly legitimate criticisms of Biden that I've seen some on the left make. But all we get from the right is our own criticisms of Trump with Biden's name inserted wherever Trump's was. How childish.