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

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, as well as 2021, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” posted profiles of Vito Barbieri, of the Idaho House of Representatives, who has voted to nullify federal firearms laws and the entirety of the Affordable Care Act. But Barbieri is far more interesting for all of the ways he wants to regulate a woman's reproductive system, such as allow an employer to deny birth control coverage to an employee on their health insurance plan, or to require medically unnecessary ultrasounds prior to a woman having an abortion. His campaign website denies the existence of a separation between church and state, calls public schools a "godless institution", tries to remedy that by passing unconstitutional legislation to have the Bible authorized to be used as a textbook in schools, and he expresses paranoid concerns about the United Nations' Agenda 21 environmental treaty. In the middle of the state legislature about the latter issue, Barbieri showed how ignorant he is on the issue by asking the doctor giving testimony if a gynecological exam could be performed by having a woman orally swallow the camera, and have it reach the vagina for photos. (We wish that was a joke.) Vito Barbieri also managed to vote for an attempt by Idaho Republicans to pass a ban on judges making rulings based on “foreign laws”, which you might recognize as another coded attempt at banning Sharia Law, which is absolutely not a thing that judges are referencing in this country. To make him even more suspicious of a lawmaker, Barbieri also sponsored legislation that would make his texts and e-mails as a legislator confidential and to keep them secret from the public (please note that this would not exclude communication between lawmakers and lobbyists). Maybe the fact that Barbieri seemed to have confirmed he has things to hide, and wants that to be legal should be enough to convince voters to not vote for him in 2018 when his seat was up again...

His legislative priorities will still likely center around him understanding nothing about science, and shielding himself into public inquiries into political corruption that he’s likely to be taking part in. But in 2020 Vito Barbieri was quoted as calling abortion “murder”, lying about the number of abortions performed in 2019, and wondering out loud why no one had “nuked Planned Parenthood” in his state.

”To quote someone down there ... I don’t know why Planned Parenthood hasn’t been nuked off of State Street. I don’t know why America has not been judged — if you can say that we’re not being judged now — for the ... 42 million babies worldwide murdered this year — or last year. Judgment is coming. That’s not my job. We know whose job that is..”

The good news is that this lunatic did face a primary challenger in 2020. The bad news is he still trounced him with three quarters of the vote in his favor and then didn’t face an opponent in the general election. Thus, Barbieri can indefinitely hang around until he’s successful in inspiring someone to commit stochastic terror against a Planned Parenthood clinic, while he passes the time trying to pass legislation to ban all state officials from being able to mandate any sort of public health measure to prevent the spread of disease if it’s as complicated as wearing a piece of cloth on one’s face.

[CaptainEurope]

Cheers, when I thought about bit more guessed it would be something like that.

Of course, the cynic in me then wonders how that process is verified!

In Germany, we have an organisation check those kinds of things, the Technischer Überwachungs-Verein. They also do the annual checkups of elevators and cars.



I actually had a client who went to jail for forging the TÜV-sticker on his license plate. Doing so commits fraud on several levels, including insurance fraud and forgery of documents.

[thwhtGuardian]

As mentioned in the Times writeup, Rand Paul's concern was addressed once the bill was revised so that situations that didn't result in death or serious bodily injuries counted as lynching.



Senator Paul explained this in more detail for the Courier-Journal.

https://www.courier-journal.com/stor...ht/9344973002/

Which doesn't make him look any better...unless one thinks that there are a lot of lynchings taking place that don't result in death or serious injuries that deserve to be protected. What lynchings are you comfortable with Mets?

[achilles]

Actually, we also need palladium, platinum, gold and nickel from Russia…

And wheat. Together with the country they're currently attacking, they account for about one third of the world's wheat supply, which is a staple through much of the world. In select countries, they account for nearly their entire wheat supplies.

[Tami]

Businesses are fleeing Russia. McDonald’s and Pizza Hut are sticking around.

Economic sanctions from the United States and its allies have cut Russia off from the levers of international finance, crucial webs of global supply chains, passenger air travel and even some oil companies.

But consumers can still get a Big Mac in Moscow. Or a Starbucks coffee. Or KFC’s chicken and Papa John’s pizza.

As Western corporate titans flee their Russian connections — citing moral and economic imperatives — others, especially in food service and natural-resource-based industries, say they are stuck. McDonald’s, Starbucks, Papa John’s and Yum Brands — the conglomerate behind KFC and Pizza Hut — have all stayed mum on their plans for business in Russia after its invasion of Ukraine, as they come under growing pressure on social media and from large investors to quit Russia.

A Yale professor’s list of companies staying in Russia has put the business world on notice

Among executives, board members, analysts and others in the business world in recent days, a “who’s who” list has been floating around, showing which companies have pulled out of Russia amid its attack on Ukraine — and which ones have stayed put.

The spreadsheet, compiled by Yale professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and his research team, has become a naughty-or-nice list of sorts, with CEOs trying their best to avoid being placed on the roster of “Companies That Remain in Russia With Significant Exposure.”

Sonnenfeld, who founded the nonprofit Chief Executive Leadership Institute, said he has fielded calls from CEOs asking “why we didn’t have them on the right list, and what they needed to do to either clarify or actually take a more strong stance.”

Over 200 Companies Have Withdrawn from Russia - But Some Remain

Since Putin's devastating invasion of Ukraine began, 250 companies have announced their withdrawal from Russia in protest.

Nevertheless, some western companies have continued to operate in Russia undeterred; we identify several dozen companies with particularly significant exposure to Russian markets. In the days since we initially published our list, many of the "remain" companies have responded to public backlash and decided to withdraw, and we are continuously revising our list to reflect these decisions as they are made.

[achilles]

On a somewhat lighter but still somber note, spare a thought for the South Seas apartment complex and its tenants as it was badly damaged in a fire last night. It is actually in the city of Reseda, BTW. Why would you care, apart from the injuries and the now homeless people? Simple, you've seen this one before, more than likely, especially since you're on THIS board.

Yep, it's Daniel LaRussa's old apartment from the Karate Kid, which he and Johnny went back to in Cobra Kai. A nice mid-century modern local landmark. It doesn't appear to have been leveled though, so perhaps it can be mended. I can tell you, it's weird living in a place where every other corner almost is a famous movie or TV location. Hell, my local mall was an Arnold movie location, (Kindergarten Cop). When I saw it, I went and retraced his steps. Fun, but weird.

[CaptainEurope]

And wheat. Together with the country they're currently attacking, they account for about one third of the world's wheat supply, which is a staple through much of the world. In select countries, they account for nearly their entire wheat supplies.

That problem is easier to fix, though. I'm pretty sure the EU is still paying subsidies to farmers for NOT farming on their land to avoid an abundance of wheat. Within one year, one could probably crank up wheat production from France, Germany, Poland etc enough to offset the loss. And most countries have national wheat reserves for just that kind of situation.

It's not as easy to grow oil or gold somewhere else.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2015, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” ran its profile of Jean Schmidt, who on the floor of the House in 2005, called House Rep. John Murtha, a 38 year career veteran of the Marine Corps a coward for calling for troops to be removed from Iraq, getting Democrats riled up enough to drown her out with boos. While she claimed she was just quoting a Marine who she spoke to at Arlington National Cemetery about Murtha, the Marine she named denied ever making such a statement. Among her other charming moments include denying that the Armenian genocide occurred, agreeing with constituents who were Birthers, and going to an elementary school where she went ahead and took it upon herself to teach a room full of six-year olds about the word abortion. Schmidt also voted against the Lilly Ledbetter Act, voted against the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", voted against the Zadroga Act, falsely claimed "32 of 33 women who go to Planned Parenthood get an abortion", and when she misheard the Supreme Court's ruling on the Affordable Care Act and thought it was overturned, gleefully squealed in delight on the steps of the court. She truly earned her sobriquet. Since Schmidt's career fell apart in 2012 after voters in her district finally realized she was utterly heartless.

It was in both 2016, and in 2017, that “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” posted profiles about Janet Porter, a longtime anti-gay, anti-choice activist from Ohio who is an old pal of Michelle Bachmann who has written articles for the madhouse that is WorldNetDaily, (including the time where she discussed the Birther controversy surrounding President Obama). In the 2016 elections, Janet Porter decided to take a crack at running for the Ohio State Senate, to challenge incumbent GOP State Senator Larry Obhof because he refused to sponsor a fetal heartbeat abortion ban bill (because it's highly unconstitutional and the courts would overturn it anyway) and lost in the primary after only garnering 35% of the vote. Her qualifications for the job were few, she was a former conservative media personality who would present insane conspiracy theories (like the one where she warned of President Obama using FEMA to “stifle dissent” or that there will be a criminal ban placed on Christianity, focusing in particular on finding ways to do so to protect gay rights, which she relates to being a “Pedophile Protection Act”. That last bit of paranoia also led her to work to create the documentary “Light Wins”, featuring several sitting Republican members of Congress. While Porter had a lot more sway back in say, 2007, her media profile diminished in 2010 after she became an obsessive Dominionist who would pray for God to take control of America’s media. That got her show cancelled on mainstream radio, so instead, she organizes wacky rallies and stunts like calling upon fetuses to testify in the Ohio House to try to get legislation as levelheaded as a fetal heartbeat bills passed, or work towards defunding Planned Parenthood, when she’s not also advocating for gay conversion therapy to be more widely utilized. Within the past FEW years, has compared the current “plight” of Christians in the United States to that of the Jews in Nazi Germany, likened gay marriage to slavery, compared fighting ISIS to trying to have abortion outlawed, claimed the End Times were upon us and the Great Flood was caused by God being angry about gay marriage a couple thousand years ago, and suggested that anti-gay Kentucky clerk Kim Davis should be considered as TIME Magazine’s “Person of the Year” In August in 2016, told her fellow Christians that "God would hold them accountable" if they did not vote for Donald Trump for president and predictably declared the candidate who lost the popular vote by 3 million votes but won the electoral college was due to "the mercy of God", and "a door of opportunity" to fulfill her dream of ending abortion. She then set back to work pissing off Ohio Republicans with her unconstitutional fetal heartbeat bill, saying she hoped it would pass so it would "outlaw abortion before the mother even knows she's pregnant". Because that doesn't sound like a fanatical or inherently manipulative of a motivation, at all. If there were any doubt Janet Porter was more of a hindrance than a help to the GOP, we’ll note that she served as the spokeswoman for noted theocratic fanatic and pedophile Roy Moore in his quest to get elected to the U.S. Senate. She continues to stump for Republican candidates, but has temporarily ceased her own efforts at getting elected to office.



On this date in 2018, 2019, 2020, as well as 2021, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” profiled South Dakota State Senator Wayne Steinhauer, the physical embodiment of Mr. Kotter upon reaching retirement, and a member of the South Dakota House of Representatives to represent District 9 who was first appointed to that position by Governor Dennis Daugaard in 2015, before winning re-election for the first time in 2016. In 2018, he managed to jump to the South Dakota State Senate with 56% of the vote. Steinhauer replaced Steve Hickey, the FRED alumni who made himself infamous as an anti-LGBTQ bigot who had to resign in disgrace after being accused of forging signatures to get his name on the ballot in the first place. For as homophobic as Hickey was, Steinhauer is apparently just as much of a misogynist.

This became apparent in early 2017, when during discussions in the South Dakota state legislature about workplace protections for pregnant women that Steinhauer was one of eight Republican men who voted to block it and opined:

"It’s not prison. You can quit. You’ve got a choice every day. You make a choice whether you come to work,” he went on. “And I’m here to tell you, if a person’s not allowing you to breastfeed at work or making appropriate accommodations at work, we can pass this law, but you don’t want to work for that guy. Get the heck out of there."

Why, if we didn’t know any better, we might think that Steinhauer and his GOP pals are disingenuous and utterly full of s*** when they tout their opposition to abortion as proof that they are concerned about the unborn. And wouldn’t you know it, South Dakota Right to Life gives him a 100% rating, partially because he also co-sponsored a ban on abortion at 19 weeks that is unlikely to hold up in courts. Gotta love the hypocrisy there.

Steinhauer also has consistently shown himself to be contemptuous of workers’ rights, regardless of if that worker is pregnant or not, like when he co-sponsored legislation to prevent collective bargaining at public universities in South Dakota. His ”smaller government” principles also have shown him wanting to make the state hands-off enough to co-sponsor transphobic bathroom legislation for the state’s schools. This in spite of there being zero reports nationwide of men impersonating women or transgender citizens attacking women in restrooms.

Wayne Steinhauer was re-elected in 2020 with 58% of the vote. He has made it a point to focus on the Covid-19 pand- HAHAHA just kidding, this ***hole sponsored legislation to redefine abortion as the intentional termination of any fetus or zygote from FERTILIZATION. Yup, that’s right, straight up Personhood insanity that would outlaw birth control, because overturning Roe v. Wade isn’t even the beginning of to how far he would go. What has he gotten done so far in 2022? Just transphobic legislation aimed at high school athletes, because that kind of bigotry is the closest thing they have to actual policy these days.

[JackDaw]

In Germany, we have an organisation check those kinds of things, the Technischer Überwachungs-Verein. They also do the annual checkups of elevators and cars.



I actually had a client who went to jail for forging the TÜV-sticker on his license plate. Doing so commits fraud on several levels, including insurance fraud and forgery of documents.

One of several ways your country is better organised than mine (UK).

[achilles]

That problem is easier to fix, though. I'm pretty sure the EU is still paying subsidies to farmers for NOT farming on their land to avoid an abundance of wheat. Within one year, one could probably crank up wheat production from France, Germany, Poland etc enough to offset the loss. And most countries have national wheat reserves for just that kind of situation.

It's not as easy to grow oil or gold somewhere else.

Well, you're quite right about what the EU is considering doing, ending those subsidies and allowing farmers to plant the fallow land. But that's not really going to cut it, and wheat stores are...very perishable. Also, the planting season is over or something, but the gist is that even if the war ended today, that food supply will still be messed up for a year or two. That idiot is really messing up the world.

[babyblob]

Biden is doing what a lot of people wanted. He is banning Russian Oil, natural Gas and Coal Imports.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...ts/9422798002/

he is going to speak in a bit and announce this.

[JB]

There's Brazil as well, I don't think Russia is going to feel very isolated if some of the countries with the world's biggest population and economies are still trading with them.

Correct. Russia positioned itself to supply energy to three of the most populated nations in the world including the top 2. All part of the plan as they knew exports to the US and Europe would be on the line.

And with that...

U.S. expected to announce ban on Russian oil as soon as today
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/08/us-e...s-reports.html

The U.S. is expected to announce as early as Tuesday that it will ban imports of Russian oil, a move that would cut about 8% of America’s annual imports.

The news of the upcoming announcement, confirmed to CNBC by a person familiar with the matter, sent oil markets soaring.

WTI crude oil jumped 4.5% to session highs of above $124 a barrel following reports of the forthcoming ban. Brent crude oil, the international benchmark, jumped nearly 5% to near $129 a barrel.

U.K. to Phase Out Russian Oil Imports in Latest Sanctions Move
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/enviro...sanctions-move

EU to cut dependence on Russian gas by 80 percent this year: report
https://thehill.com/policy/internati...cent-this-year

Understandably the UK and EU can't just ban imports right away. It definitely has to be in phases as they secure replacements.
And we just broke the record here in the US.

Gas prices are now the most expensive in US history, breaking record from 2008
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money...ry/9404939002/

Here's a chart of the prices across the nation as of today. I'm currently paying just over $4, how much is it where you all are?
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FNVF3grX...jpg&name=large

[achilles]

Biden is doing what a lot of people wanted. He is banning Russian Oil, natural Gas and Coal Imports.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...ts/9422798002/

he is going to speak in a bit and announce this.

Mostly symbolic; we buy very little of their oil. Most major oil companies have been quietly pulling out of the Russian market entirely for some time now. Royal Dutch Shell for example just announced they're done totally with Russia. Far as helping, I think he'd be better off supplying the Ukrainians with any weapons they need, especially things like anti tank weapons and Stinger type missiles or just plain ammo, guns, and radios. That'd be classic Cold War strategy, avoid WW3 by not ever engaging them directly. Bleed them, (and the Ukrainians certainly are, their snipers just got their second general), by proxy. And the big financial stuff will seriously hurt them. Kudos to the credit card companies, BTW. THEY really hurt Russia.

[Tendrin]

Texas continues to traumitize trans children.\

https://twitter.com/ErinInTheMorn/st...282496/photo/1

[Malvolio]

Correct. Russia positioned itself to supply energy to three of the most populated nations in the world including the top 2. All part of the plan as they knew exports to the US and Europe would be on the line.

And with that...

U.S. expected to announce ban on Russian oil as soon as today
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/08/us-e...s-reports.html



U.K. to Phase Out Russian Oil Imports in Latest Sanctions Move
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/enviro...sanctions-move

EU to cut dependence on Russian gas by 80 percent this year: report
https://thehill.com/policy/internati...cent-this-year

Understandably the UK and EU can't just ban imports right away. It definitely has to be in phases as they secure replacements.
And we just broke the record here in the US.

Gas prices are now the most expensive in US history, breaking record from 2008
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money...ry/9404939002/

Here's a chart of the prices across the nation as of today. I'm currently paying just over $4, how much is it where you all are?
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FNVF3grX...jpg&name=large

It's $4.19 a gallon in most places here in upstate NY. Interesting how they raise the prices so quickly, even when the reason for the increase isn't really supposed to take effect for them for a few weeks.