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

[Tami]

Democrat Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick wins House seat in Florida special election

Democrat Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick won Tuesday’s election to fill Florida’s vacant 20th Congressional District, returning her party to the 222-seat majority it held after the 2020 elections.

Cherfilus-McCormick, a 42-year old health-care company CEO, easily defeated Republican nominee Jason Mariner in a seat drawn to be safe for Democrats. She will replace the late Rep. Alcee L. Hastings (D), whom she had challenged in the 2018 and 2020 primaries.

Hastings died last April after a bout of pancreatic cancer. Local Democrats have been frustrated over the 280-day gap between his passing and the special election called by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) — timing that left the House majority one seat down most of the year.

[JackDaw]

Starting? Johnson has acted like Trump from the beginning. But his Brexit fiasco (thank you Putin) will hurt Britain far longer than what Trump did, though God knows Trump tried to permanently damage the Country.

Not sure what proportion of blame Boris should take for “Brexit fiasco”. There were a lot of fingers in that pie, and he wasn’t PM at time of vote.

In general I think in/ out was a closer issue (in terms of pros and cons) than most people on this thread accept.

I was super interested in UK politics at time of vote (since been cured of this illness) and only reason I voted to stay in was that I believed coming out would present great difficulties….wished we had never entered EU in first place. Certainly I think anyone who believes EU is a overwhelmingly positive entity ignores a lot of their activity.

Damage since coming out? Certainly a lot less impact than impact COVID has had on economy…which has loaded fantastic amounts onto national debt, which will affect economy for decades to come.

So I think it’s 50/50 in contest between the Donald and Boris for who caused their country most damage. The Donald has biased the Supreme Court for decades to come, and handled COVID as poorly as Boris. But obviously too early to know really…the Donald might come back for a second go, and Boris is still PM, with plenty of potential to do other crap things.

[Catlady in training]

Boris Johnson is starting to look like Trump-lite….maybe a bit more amusing speaker than the Donald, but probably an even bigger liar, and I think has an even bigger contempt for public opinion.

Looking on the bright side, once he loses an election he will be finished in frontline UK politics…the U.K. system is far more brutal in the way it deals with election losers than in US, lose one and you’re finished.

I even think there is a chance the Conservative Party will jettison Boris as leader before the next election…his leadership is patently toxic to their chances of winning next election.

Is the current negative public opinion aimed specifically at Boris? I was under the impression that it's the Conservative Party as a whole. He wasn't the only one who attended their smug party last year for example.

[JackDaw]

Is the current negative public opinion aimed specifically at Boris? I was under the impression that it's the Conservative Party as a whole. He wasn't the only one who attended their smug party last year for example.

A chunk of the current negative opinion centres on Boris himself…I think it’s got to point where a lot of his own party would like to jettison him because they believe Conservative Party popularity ratings would go up.

[Tami]

Fauci: There are threats against my life 'because people are lying about me'

Dr. Anthony Fauci responded to accusations made by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and told members of the Senate that he and his family have received threats "because people are lying about me." He also accused the senator of fundraising off of "completely untrue" assumptions against him.

[CSTowle]

In fairness, he did take attention away from the orange clown-show for silly reasons like having knowledge and expertise in the middle of a serious pandemic. Sins like that are unforgiveable, and so knowledge and expertise are to be challenged and ridiculed at every turn in favor of "critical thinking" and "doing our own research". Besides, the real newsmen of Project Veritas have already proven Fauci cooked this up in a lab with commie scientists for "gain of function" and population control reasons. He's going to be tried in the Hague and sent to Guantanamo along with Hillary and the rest any day now.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2015, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” ran a profile of the former U.S. Senator from Arizona, Jon Kyl, whose quarter century career in Congress finished rather distastefully, as during the GOP’s 2011 efforts to defund Planned Parenthood, he took to the floor to smear the organization, saying “abortions are 90% of what Planned Parenthood does”. When fact-checkers informed the Senator he was off by about, oh… 30 times what their annual budget is spent on (and none of the money they spend on abortion is government funded), Kyl offered no apologies and said that portion of his speech was “not intended to be a factual statement”. Kyl also justified the passage of SB 1070 by Arizona Republicans by saying illegal immigration had led to Phoenix becoming “the kidnapping capitol of the United States”, which was also false. He also tried claiming eliminating the Bush era tax cuts would not help close the annual budget deficit of the U.S., so it really was a bit of a habit. He was always terribly partisan, including his vote to impeach Bill Clinton during that administration as a member of the House, and in the Senate during the Obama administration, he compared the president’s remarks about the attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi to “a judge telling a woman she deserved to be raped for how she was dressed”. Which is shocking, but also doesn’t make a lick of sense. Jon Kyl retired, only to come out of retirement to be appointed to the Senate again for a few months for the privilege of voting for Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court, only to skulk back to Arizona and into retirement again. Thus, his blatant lies are no longer a part of the Senate (the rest of the Republicans in it are more than making up for what dishonesty void he left).



In both 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, as well as in 2021, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” published its profiles of Tom Morrison, an incredibly homophobic member of the Illinois House of Representatives, who first entered the fray in politics back in the Tea Party Wave of 2010. Back in March of 2013, where he began responding to e-mails from several constituents inquiring about forthcoming legislation that would legalize same sex marriage, and he felt the need to make a “slippery slope” argument beyond the pale. In one, Morrison suggested that legal gay marriage would open the door to also legalize bisexual polygamy. But that apparently wasn’t enough homophobic fear-mongering for Morrison, as a month later, he sent another response to a constituent that not only included the polygamy comparison, but also mentioned that legalizing same sex marriage could lead to marriages between a man and “a consenting 9-year-old girl”. After taking a beating when the public found out about it, Morrison apologized and claimed his e-mail was written “in haste” and he doesn’t actually equate gay marriage to statutory rape, even though it was pretty plain that’s exactly what he was doing. If supporting bans on same sex marriage weren't enough, Tom Morrison has also voted against bans on the practice of gay conversion therapy, so there's that, as well. Morrison didn’t back off of his anti-LGBTQ stances going into 2016, as he added transphobia to his resume, submitting HB 4474 back in January of 2016 to try and institute bathroom regulations on the transgendered to use the bathroom of the gender they were born as. It mercifully failed to pass without incident.

Morrison’s voting record continues to show his disdain for those in the LGBTQ community in 2017, as he voted against HB 1785, a bill that allowed transgendered citizens in Illinois the right to change their gender on their birth certificate records.

Of course, that wasn’t the only ridiculous vote he participated in, as he also voted against an increase in the minimum wage in Illinois (during the greatest period of income inequality in our nation’s history), and when a bill turned up to ban “bump” stocks that can turn a semi-automatic weapon into a fully automatic one after the greatest mass shooting in American history occurred in Las Vegas, he voted against that as well.

This intolerant twit got to run for re-election in 2016 unopposed in either the GOP Primary or the general election to allow for another two years of him continuing his narrow-minded crusade against the LGBTQ community. In 2018, we regret to inform you that he held onto his seat in the Illinois state legislature by a whopping 43 votes, out of almost 43,000 cast. This was in spite of Morrison being identified as a supporter of a pastor in Arizona convicted in court for physically abusing children. That’s right, the holier-than-thou Republican who’s convinced letting gay people get married would lead to them having sex with children is actually perfectly fine with the abuse of children, so long as you do it while preaching the gospel.

And so, with another term in office, Morrison continued his transphobic crusade, sponsoring legislation in March of 2020 to punish doctors who treat transgendered youth with hormone treatments.

Sadly, Tom Morrison won re-election in 2020 with only 52% of the vote. He will remain in office to continue to target the LGBTQ community for at least another two years, at the behest of his overlords over at ALEC. Of course he’s the state chair of that pack of extremist nutters. Of course.
 

[Kirby101]

Not sure what proportion of blame Boris should take for “Brexit fiasco”. There were a lot of fingers in that pie, and he wasn’t PM at time of vote.

Wasn't Johnson the main mover in the Brexit movement. (outside of Putin)

[skyvolt2000]

Yeah, this is obvious and a bit hypocritical. If it was voter fraud and Trump didn't really lose the election, then why are the people claiming that passing laws that make it harder for certain groups to vote? It's practically admitting that these legitimate voters are what won Biden the election.

It's more of a case by case situation for each city and county and state.

Because in some cases districts got redrawn and certain areas lost seats or representatives.

Or in some case actual places to vote. Which has happened to some places. 5 in my area and 20 near my school in white area of the city.

Lets talk IDS-DMVs-how many do some places have? And not all are the same. I am in an area where there is only ONE and that has to serve 7 cities. While the white parts of my city has 2-3.

Voting times changed. For me it's not an issue due to my job. That can be for some folks due to jobs.

And some want lower voter turnout to stay in office-Dallas has among the WORST voting outside of Presidential elections. 10%

[GindyPosts]

Trey Hollingsworth won't seek re-election in Indiana's 9th Congressional District in 2022

This is good news for Indiana, considering Trey was a carpetbagger from Tennessee that let Hoosiers vote for him simply because he was a Republican. But I got a bad feeling he's angling for the governor's office and while I'd rather have him than Todd "Science Ain't Real" Rokita, that's like asking to be shot in the foot than the chest.

[JackDaw]

Wasn't Johnson the main mover in the Brexit movement. (outside of Putin)

My gut reaction is “nowhere near”.

Nigel Farage played a much larger part, for example. And…of course..David Cameron was instrumental in bringing about the vote in the first place, a more competent guy could have avoided it entirely. And once referendum process started, Cameron could have been more effective in spelling out reasons to stay in.

Bear in mind most people at the time didn’t see Boris as that major figure at the time…he was widely regarded as an okay London Mayor and entertaining journalist. He only came out in favour of “out” very late in the day. Did he sway many votes by that late decision to favour “out”? Personally, I don’t think he did…but he’s a talented self publicist…and will always claim he did!

In the first couple of years after the vote Theresa May shaped the initial exit approach. Then Boris did gradually over years become more influential in steering the direction the exit actually took….but I don’t think he was a major player in deciding the way the referendum vote itself turned out. (At very least a long way behind Farage there.) And he had zero influence in bringing about referendum in first place.

[Tami]

The Coming Coup: How Republicans Are Laying the Groundwork to Steal Future Elections

Trump looks to reshape the Senate in anticipation of his second act as president

If Dems Don’t Save Democracy Now They Won’t Get Another Shot

Trump loyalists form alliance in bid to take over election process in key states

[WestPhillyPunisher]

The Coming Coup: How Republicans Are Laying the Groundwork to Steal Future Elections

Trump looks to reshape the Senate in anticipation of his second act as president

If Dems Don’t Save Democracy Now They Won’t Get Another Shot

Trump loyalists form alliance in bid to take over election process in key states

That was some scary ****, and that’s an understatement. Biden and the Dems need to stop screwing around, grow a pair and start fighting if they want to stop this madness. There most definitely is a real and present danger to democracy in this country, and it’s the Qpublican Party. Anyone who thinks differently is either in denial, or rooting for the crazies to win.

[Kirby101]

My gut reaction is “nowhere near”.

Nigel Farage played a much larger part, for example. And…of course..David Cameron was instrumental in bringing about the vote in the first place, a more competent guy could have avoided it entirely. And once referendum process started, Cameron could have been more effective in spelling out reasons to stay in.

Bear in mind most people at the time didn’t see Boris as that major figure at the time…he was widely regarded as an okay London Mayor and entertaining journalist. He only came out in favour of “out” very late in the day. Did he sway many votes by that late decision to favour “out”? Personally, I don’t think he did…but he’s a talented self publicist…and will always claim he did!

In the first couple of years after the vote Theresa May shaped the initial exit approach. Then Boris did gradually over years become more influential in steering the direction the exit actually took….but I don’t think he was a major player in deciding the way the referendum vote itself turned out. (At very least a long way behind Farage there.) And he had zero influence in bringing about referendum in first place.

Thanks Jack. Good recap. I didn't recall all the ins and outs.

[Zauriel]

If Dems Don’t Save Democracy Now They Won’t Get Another Shot
L]

Democrats took even more money from Wall Street in 2020 than the GOP.

They rig their primaries against the most progressive candidates.

They sue to kick third parties off ballots & suppress voter choice.

So no they are not “saving democracy.” They are preserving the oligarchy.