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” posted profiles about Christine Jones, a former member of the Arizona State Legislature, a candidate for Arizona Governor in 2014, and a failed Congressional candidate for Arizona’s 5th District in the U.S. House of Representatives. She ran in spite of the fact that she was previously arrested for DUI, and that she was a former GoDaddy.com executive who tried dodge criticism for the company’s exploitive ads by saying “she didn’t like them”, even though was actually IN one of them alongside Danica Patrick. She also was caught lying badly about super racist Sheriff Joe Arpaio, trying to claim he was just misunderstood, and a nice guy who puts barrels of water out near the border for illegal immigrants to survive on while he’s catching them (completely untrue), and talked about how immigrants were crossing the Rio Grande and into Arizona, which is amazing because that river does not geographically exist anywhere within the state. Her immigration plan was completely moronic, trying to use the National Guard as extra border patrol agents, but not realizing that doing so wouldn’t be free, and would cost her state $110 million annually. Finally, Jones tried winning over gun enthusiasts by giving an interview where she bragged about her skill with firearms, claiming she enjoyed squeezing off rounds with one arm, or even her eyes closed, which would make her a better shooter in low visibility, or so she said. Jones not only failed to win office in the past two elections, but said enough dumb things to spook even normally deep red Arizona Republicans away from her.

On this date in both 2016, as well as 2017, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” posted profiles about Frank Guinta, who served two non-consecutive terms in Congress, winning office in 2010 and 2014. Not long after he returned to the capitol, however, a report broke that Guinta, way back in his first run for Congress back in 2010, received illegal campaign funding donations… from his parents. That’s right, it seems Guinta lied for years about where $355,000 in contributions came from, and after trying to fib about it for forever and a day, finally got pinned to the wall, admitted it, and was fined by the Federal Election Commission. The scandal tarnished Guinta enough that Sen. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire called on him to resign, and harmed his overall future in politics. Supposedly, Frank Guinta is considered by some to be a Republican moderate, but I find that hard to believe, considering he’s a climate change denier, his stance on abortion is hard to the right, with “Life begins at conception”, indicating that he’s opposed to birth control (with votes that back that up), and is a major hard-liner on immigration, back in 2010, calling for immigration enforcement that was beyond harsh… it was his suggestion that we just ignore the 14th Amendment and deport the children of undocumented immigrants with their parents (which is, y’know, unconstitutional and all). The rest of his voting record is hardly a sign that Guinta’s anywhere near the middle of the spectrum on the issues, including two separate votes to defund Planned Parenthood, votes against raising the Debt Ceiling limit, and a vote for an amendment to be added to the Constitution to ban same sex marriage. Frank Guinta was sent packing from Washington, D.C. yet again by U.S. House Rep. Carol Shea-Porter in 2016, who topped him by just about 5,000 votes for the highly-contested seat in New Hampshire’s 2nd. With a multitude of scandals and his latest loss going into a Blue Wave year in 2018, Frank Guinta opted to not run for re-election in 2018.

On this date in 2018, 2019, 2020, as well as 2021, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” published its original profile of Anthony Kern, a member of the Arizona House of Representatives from District 20 who was first elected to office in 2014, usually by running second behind fellow GOP legislator Paul Boyer in that district. It wasn’t until Kern was into his second term in office that he managed to earn our notice here at FRED, and that’s because only a few weeks after he was sworn in, he decided to go to a Trump rally in Phoenix to speak, and where he brought out the “LOCK HER UP!” rhetoric against Hillary Clinton four months after the election not just as a colorful chant, but something he actually suggested needed to be revisited as an actual policy. More interesting was that this rally featured several members of the anti-government militia group, the Oathkeepers, and people baying out other great opinions, like beginning “liberal genocide” and the deportation of either all Muslims or all Jews from America. Y’know, nothing that would seem at all like the sort of thing Neo-Nazis would be yelling out loud, unprompted. That wasn’t the first time Kern faced some sort of controversy, though. Back in his first few weeks in office in 2015, co-sponsored Arizona’s HR 1445, a law meant to conceal the name of whatever police officer should kill a suspect in the line of duty from the public for at least 90 days. Now, that law in and of itself seems pretty fascist and extreme, given the wide swath of police killings in the past few years. But it’s not the bill that stirred up controversy. It was the fact that Kern lied during debate on the bill and claimed to be a “certified peace officer”. Shocker, the media did some checking, and could not find a record of Kern being a police officer, let alone having any sort of certification to be one. There’s also the fact that he chose to give Donald Trump a tongue bath a few months after getting on our radar, celebrating Trump’s executive order to reverse every executive order Barack Obama made to combat climate change, and whining about how the coal industry had “suffered”, which is an odd choice of energy to support in a state that’s famous for getting SUN all the time, y’know? Over a three years, Anthony Kern’s voting record included his co-sponsorship of HB 1445, the bill to conceal the names of police officers who murder suspects for at least 90 days, his vote for HB 2173, a lunatic bill written to legalize gold and silver as legal tender in Arizona, a votes for HB 2643, an attempt by Arizona Republicans to nullify the Affordable Care Act, a vote for SB 1367, an insane anti-choice bill aimed at forcing abortion providers to have to attempt to revive a “viable fetus” after an abortion, which ignores the fact that the way the law is already written, no fetus viable outside the womb can be aborted, voting to allow private businesses to go ahead and build parts of a wall along the U.S./Mexico border, and voting to ban transgender girls from participating in high school sports designated for females. In 2019, he sponsored legislation that would allow law enforcement to have their name removed from “The Brady List”, which is a database of law enforcement officials kept who are suspected of repeated dishonesty. Now, while we’ve already established that Kern, a former peace officer, seems to like the idea of Arizona being a fascist state where the police can do whatever they want, and that he’s a liar… lo and behold it turned out he had a selfish reason for wanting to have names taken off the Brady list… HE WAS ON IT. Not only did Kern sexually harass a co-worker back in 2010, he once lied to law enforcement officials that he had already worked to pay them back for a department laptop he “lost”. Now, he was trying to revise history so that none of that would ever be reported on…In December of 2019, he faced calls to be stripped of his leadership of committees in the legislature for making homophobic statements, and referring to sex education as “pornography”, saying, ”Do you want LGBTQ Rights to take over? You want your kids being taught sex education — that you pull up a computer right now —I can pull up, you know, Pornhub.com ... I could pull it up and show you anything on that porn site is what is going to be taught to your kids, your little kindergartners.” The controversies were apparently enough to see Anthony Kern bounced out of office in 2020 by about 2,000 votes. His road to returning to office might even be more difficult than that, as he is currently the subject of investigation by the FBI because he was present at the U.S. Capitol on 1/6/21 for Trump supporters’ violent coup attempt. At this time, Kern has not cooperated with public records requests to release his text messages in the build-up to the attack, which are considered the public record as long as they still serve as legislators (and he still did at the time). At this time, we would like to wish this fascist our finest “good riddance” salutes and hold out some glimmer of hope that if he was a participant on 1/6, he’ll be carted off to jail.. We are setting aside his profile to cover another wacky Republican today instead. (Current crazy/stupid scoreboard, is now 1095-55, since this was established in July 2014.

[worstblogever]

Debbie Lesko

Welcome to what is the 1095th original profile here at “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day”, where we’ll be discussing Debbie Lesko, the current U.S. House of Representatives for Arizona’s 8th Congressional District, who was first elected to that office in a 2018 special election, in spite of having a personal history that includes bankruptcies, an arrest warrant and multiple lawsuits for unpaid bills, using multiple aliases (which she blames on an abusive ex-husband who's now serving time), denying the existence of climate change during the debate prior to that election, and that she was vehemently opposed to raising the minimum wage during the greatest period of income inequality in our nation’s history. Winning allowed her to slide in to replace the absolutely creepy anti-choice fanatic/sexual harasser/wannabe breeding stud Trent Franks. She’s only possibly the third most seditious member of the Arizona House GOP Caucus, but that’s because she’s got colleagues in it like Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar to compete with for that title.

Throughout her time in office, Debbie Lesko served as a complete toady to Donald Trump, not just digging in her heels to claim there was “no proof” that he withheld Congressionally approved military aid to Ukraine during his first impeachment, even though there were witnesses and a literal transcript that would be said spoken proof. But her fanatical dedication to that autocratic twit goes to lengths that literally would place her health and life in jeopardy, like when she went maskless in Trump’s June 2020 Tulsa, Oklahoma rally in the heart of the Covid-19 pandemic (the rally that killed Herman Cain), and her very white-nationalist opinion that “Americans and not Hispanics need the vaccine first” once it was developed… which shows that she doesn’t consider Hispanic Americans actually American.

[worstblogever]

And then... there's her voting record:

• January 23rd, 2019: Rep. Lesko voted against HR 648, because he was gleefully enjoying the longest government shutdown in history.
• January 27th, 2019: Debbie Lesko votes against HJR 30, which was meant to express disapproval of Donald Trump not acting against Russian Federation for attack Lesko our democracy. You see, she’s fine with our nation being sublet to Vladimir Putin.
• February 28th, 2019: Lesko votes against HR 1112, a bill which would have required universal background checks on all firearm purchases, and close the gun show loophole.
• March 14th, 2019: Rep. Lesko votes against HJR 46, which sane members of Congress voted for to reject Donald Trump’s “national emergency” regarding the U.S. border and his attempts to reallocate funds for a border wall without Congressional approval.
• May 17th, 2019: Lesko votes against The Equality Act, which would have prevented discrimination towards Americans based on their gender identity or sexual orientation. This was after debate on the bill, when she tried to get it renamed the “Forfeiting Women’s Rights Act”, because that’s what she thinks of LGBTQ people getting their rights recognized.
• June 4th, 2019: Rep. Lesko votes against the Dreamers Act, because he’s too xenophobic and partisan to care about immigration reform.
• July 16th, 2019: Debbie Lesko votes against a resolution to condemn Donald Trump for his racist statements that four people of color in Congress should “go back where they came from”.
• October 17th, 2019: Lesko is one of 60 Republicans who vote against HJ Res 77, which opposed Donald Trump’s disastrous decision to abandon Syrian Kurdish forces in Northeast Syria to the mercies of a Turkish invasion.
• October 23rd, 2019: Lesko is one of 41 Republicans who, while staring down the possibility of Donald Trump being impeached, stage a ridiculous publicity stunt in response by crashing a classified impeachment inquiry hearing for a “protest”.
• December 18th, 2019: Rep. Lesko ignores her Congressional duty to hold a president who has been proven to commit high crimes and misdemeanors accountable and votes against the first impeachment of Donald Trump.
• May 15th, 2020: Lesko votes against the HEROES Act, to further support the healthcare industry and citizens affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
• December 10th, 2020: Lesko signs her name to an amicus brief to the Supreme Court, begging them to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The same election that she won re-election in.
• January 6th, 2021: Debbie Lesko 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. Lesko 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: Debbie Lesko 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: Lesko votes against HR 5, the latest version of the Equality Act, that would provide workplace protections for LGBTQ Americans.
• March 3rd, 2021: Rep. Lesko 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: Debbie Lesko votes against the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2021.
• March 10th, 2021: Lesko votes against the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, because she feels people deserve to die in poverty during a pandemic.
• March 17th, 2021: Rep. Lesko is one of 172 Republicans who choose to vote 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. Lesko votes against HR 3233, the creation of a commission to investigate the Capitol Attack.
• November 5th, 2021: Debbie Lesko votes against HR 3684, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
• March 31st, 2022: Lesko joins with most of her party to vote against HR 6833, the Affordable Insulin Now Act, which would limit the cost that drug companies could list insulin at to $35 and make sure no diabetic was priced out of surviving their condition. Debbie Lesko would rather they be gouged by pharmaceutical giants and/or die.

Debbie Lesko is currently being mocked on all sides for taking anti-immigrant propaganda, and getting possessed by Dr. Evil to proclaim ONE BILLION people had been caught in the past six months while trying to cross the U.S. Mexico border. Yes, Border Patrol and ICE were simply superhuman, it seems, while apprehending the population of China trying to sneak into the United States within half a year.

There’s a level of stupid that should be demonstrated that would end someone’s political career, but Republican voters seem content to keep electing the worst people, like say, Debbie Lesko, just to spite the left.

[Tendrin]

When compared with cisgender youth (those whose gender matches their biological sex), transgender and gender-questioning youth have increased risk factors and worse outcomes in five areas of health. To complete the study, researchers used data from the 2017 and 2019 Youth Risk Behavior surveys.

They wanted to look at risk factors and health outcomes when it came to gender minority adolescents. They looked at bullying, sexual and dating violence, mental health and suicidal thoughts, sexual risk behaviors, and substance use.

In the study, they had more than 4,000 transgender individuals, more than 3,500 gender-questioning individuals, and more than 180,000 cisgendered individuals. They found that those who were transgender or gender-questioning had an increased risk of suffering in any of the categories listed above. Any of these health risks could carry long-term health impacts, and they need to be taken seriously.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/med...2db929ca377a18

Republicans will take this as a license to say, "Can't question your gender if you don't know you can question your gender."

Like their campaign against 'critical race theory', the idea is to strip away the ability to learn a language of social justice in the first place.

Of course, it's just more proof that critical support is required for transgender and gender non-conforming kids.

[Tendrin]

Christopher Rufo plans more explicit targetting of 'trans ideology'. He's going to have lots of blood on his hands but when has that ever stopped Republicans? Blood on their hands is often the entire point.

State Sen. Shevrin D. Jones of Florida, a Democrat who opposed the state’s classroom law, called Republicans “the party of buzzwords — they use words like ‘groomers’ to rally up their base.”

In January, Rufo urged people to leak him “documents, PDFs, audio-video and training materials related to gender, grooming and trans ideology in schools.”

Three months later, as Rufo works on several projects including a book, his classroom series is still in its early stages. On Thursday, he published his first article.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/fuels-rig...143050102.html

[Tendrin]

Good news out of Slovenia.

Against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine, and as French voters gave President Emmanuel Macron a new term, former executive Robert Golob and his Freedom Movement are positioned to create a new left-leaning government. He aims to reverse policies introduced by Jansa he says undermine the rule of law.

Freedom Movement won about 34.5% of the vote, versus 23.5% for Jansa’s Slovenian Democratic Party, according to official results with almost 99.7% of ballots counted on Monday. The tally resembled an exit poll published when voting ended that showed five parties had won seats in the 90-member parliament, the fewest ever. Freedom Movement will have 41 lawmakers according to partial results.

“People really want change,” Golob said, declaring victory on Sunday from home where he was isolating after testing positive for Covid-19. “Today people are dancing, but tomorrow a new day begins. Tomorrow we’ll start working hard.”

The outcome provides validation to Slovenians who mounted almost two years of weekly protests against Jansa. It also further isolates EU rebel Viktor Orban, the prime minister of Hungary and a close ally of the Slovenian leader.

“Jansa’s defeat shows that Slovenians had enough of his policies and didn’t like how he was leading the country in the direction of Hungary,” said Andraz Zorko, a political analyst. “It’s positive for the EU.”

Anything that isolates Orban is a good thing.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world...547b7d61118684

[Zelena]

Good news out of Slovenia.



Anything that isolates Orban is a good thing.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world...547b7d61118684

Good news, indeed…

A proof that you come back from nationalist governments, once they have shown they don’t solve your problems…

[Catlady in training]

Good news out of Slovenia.



Anything that isolates Orban is a good thing.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world...547b7d61118684

The one thing I knew about their prime minister, apart from being a supporter of Orban, was that he prematurely congratulated Trump for winning the 2020 election.
Good riddance, I think.

[Tendrin]

The one thing I knew about their prime minister, apart from being a supporter of Orban, was that he prematurely congratulated Trump for winning the 2020 election.
Good riddance, I think.

He was a Trump and Orban fan, yeah, so good riddance indeed.

[Dalak]

The question isn't whether a week of activities for kindergarteners to respect LGBT individuals is something that must be opposed by anyone, but about whether it is so obviously correct that no one should oppose it.

If reasonable people can oppose it, that changes the policy questions. It becomes possible for elected officials to say this is something that shouldn't be done in their jurisdiction.

What is unreasonable about teaching children to respect those different than them? I had He-Man doing it when I was 3 and Mr Rogers doing it until he died (not to mention Sesame Street and hundreds of other Childrens shows). The only reason I can see to oppose this is highly unreasonable: A desire to prevent children from knowing about the existence of LGBT in a misguided attempt to prevent them from coming out as such. Ordinarily reasonable people can hold many unreasonable beliefs and stances, as has been shown in many households in arguments about Trump over the past several years.

I've brought up stupid stuff done by Trump and Republicans. As most of the regulars on this thread are to the left, if Trump or another Republican says or does something dumb, it'll usually be brought up. But because of your media diets, things that can make Democrats look bad tend to not come up.

As a personal thing, many of my posts are when I'm trying to figure things out. With the Pelosi comments, I remain legitimately curious about the lack of reaction to something that I think should be seen as a bad thing, like a member of congressional leadership disparaging people with legitimate concerns.

Considering how often members of the GoP congressional leadership has disparaged people with legitimate concerns and received no consequences from voters or colleagues, I do not understand your curiosity here. It's a case of Dog Bites Man at this point.

Controversy is more likely to result in multiple posts than agreement is likely to result in a lot of posts.

If something is so vile that everyone is in agreement that it was bad, there will be limited posts on the topic because there isn't much to say about it.

But if reasonable people can disagree, there may be an argument where some people make multiple posts on a topic.

I can agree with this, but considering the above I think I might disagree with your definition of reasonable from time to time.

I completely sympathize with the difficulty of using proper pronouns in a discussion about people transitioning.

However my reference to "the number of students brought up as girls identifying as transgender" did not misgender anyone.

I haven't said that young females transition at a rate FAR more than young males. They might but I really haven't looked at the specific numbers. There is a significant and well-documented increase in the percentage of females who seek these services.

https://www.researchgate.net/publica...e_UK_2009-2016

If you want more evidence, I'll be glad to provide it.

If anyone has contrary information, I'd love to see it.

What you said:

It is actually relevant that there is a significant increase in females identifying as trans, rather than males. It's a widely known feature, and explains the subtitle and emphasis of Abigail Shrier's book.

I think it's fair to call that FAR more. If you haven't looked at the numbers I wouldn't call it a widely known feature when being asked for proof. I would also appreciate a study about US youth as that's what we've been discussing like the study brought up earlier as opposed to this one from the UK which has nothing to do with US Society or any policy we have or 'fads' students might have here. I would prefer the ACHA study which you've been quoting for a while now if possible, but I understand the difficulty in finding it as I have had some issue myself.

On the proof question with CRT, I agreed with the specific goalpost that it influences decisions in most schools, although I also thought it was a low bar, the equivalent of saying that a Hollywood director is a fascist because he's been influenced by DW Griffith or Leni Riefenstahl. Most directors will be influenced by them in some way (including by experiencing work by people who were directly influenced) but it doesn't mean they're bad.

You might be trying to get at a different question on CRT. We do seem to have different understandings of it.

You might personally clarify it as such, but when asked you brought up this specific goalpost so it is not something you had to agree with. I also don't think many people with the power to enact policy clarify it similarly when told that influences the decisions in most schools, do you?

While I believe in evolution, my impression is that most Democrats agree that in most cases, it shouldn't affect someone's degree. They would believe that someone should still be able to get a high school diploma even if they think God created literally created the world in six days. The main exception may be individuals trying to get specific college degrees in order to get credentials to advocate for evolution, although that's a narrow situation.

There are multiple conservative views on all sorts of issues, just as how progressives don't all agree with one another on some contentious question.

While I may agree that not believing in evolution shouldn't prevent one from graduating, I do believe that such a thing shows that their faith would interfere with the ability to govern without forcing their beliefs on others. The evidence of that is shown every time Evolution comes up in the legislature to say nothing of Abortion or LGBT issues. Separation of Church and State exists to ensure that the first amendment gives freedom to all religions as opposed to those which are most popular.

[Dalak]

Good news, indeed…

A proof that you come back from nationalist governments, once they have shown they don’t solve your problems…

Only if the people can comprehend that the fascists can't and won't solve their problems, we're behind the times regarding that here in the US.

[JB]

Well, looks like Elon Musk might be owning Twitter soon.

Twitter reportedly nearing deal to sell itself to Elon Musk
https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/25/tech/...ent/index.html

Twitter is said to be nearing a deal to sell itself to Elon Musk, according to The New York Times and other outlets, 11 days after the Tesla and SpaceX CEO shocked the industry by offering to buy the company in a deal valuing it at more than $41 billion.

A deal could be finalized as soon as Monday, according to the Wall Street Journal. Twitter declined to comment on the reports.

Reports that a deal is imminent come after Musk revealed last week he had lined up $46.5 billion in financing to acquire the company. Twitter's board met Sunday to evaluate Musk's offer to buy all the shares of the company he does not currently own for $54.20 a piece, a source familiar with the deal confirmed to CNN. The source said that discussions about Musk's bid have turned serious.

[Catlady in training]

Only if the people can comprehend that the fascists can't and won't solve their problems, we're behind the times regarding that here in the US.

As long as the fascists or other wannabe authoritarians will play their well-established methods, like whataboutism, cheap populism and pointing their fingers at some "others" who are responsible for all their voters' misfortunes, they will have their base. The question is only how big and if others will be willing to vote against them, even if for "lesser evil".

[JB]

Some reports coming in stating Musk and Twitter have reached a deal. Waiting on mainstream confirmation.

[Dalak]

As long as the fascists or other wannabe authoritarians will play their well-established methods, like whataboutism, cheap populism and pointing their fingers at some "others" who are responsible for all their voters' misfortunes, they will have their base. The question is only how big and if others will be willing to vote against them, even if for "lesser evil".

While this is a big issue, here in the US we have one side now packing the heretofore little known and generally apolitical committees and various other positions that oversee elections as well as changing what election laws they can to disenfranchise voters as much as possible and close as many voting locations that they can if they are in the wrong (Read: Liberal) areas. Getting back to your point is the trouble in overcoming the apathy of the general person here in the country (Half don't register to vote) on top of convincing registered voters to vote as if it's something they have to be bribed into in many cases. It's a civic duty but we have people denying that just to excuse their inaction, but then there's the flip side of coming down too hard against that as shaming people into voting causes them to dig in their heels more and refuse to vote either for that side or at all in the future if they don't feel adequately rewarded for it by their chosen political priorities being made priorities of those they voted for - I've seen all of this happen both in personal relationships and on this thread.

Then I look back at 2020 and see how hard it was to get people to vote against THAT while people were dying amidst a plague he was actively making worse . . .