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

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Which is why "targeted jokes" and all this rhetoric about "indoctrination" and legislation banning mention of LGBT like its insidious and "catching" just exacerbates the hate. The hateful legislation is one thing, but the additive effect of demonizing people and making them even more targets is sick.

Its hard enough in society for marginalized groups like this. Dealing with all the normal negative crap we have to deal with on top of this new hateful push ramping up trying to force us backwards as a society is just saddening, and maddening on many levels.

Well, right wingers, conservatives and MAGA maggots need someone to hate so they’ll feel better about themselves. First it was blacks, then Latinos, then Muslims, now it’s gays and transgenders. Some things never change, save for the name of the marginalized group.

[Ozymandias]

I can understand any distrust of the US coming from Latin America, since my country has been a crappy neighbor for a century or so. Still, anyone who looks at what Putin has done to his neighbors should be able to put the blame for Russia's actions solely on Russia's shoulders. The reason former satellite states and breakaway republics of the former USSR can't wait to get into NATO should be apparent to anyone who has cracked open a history book.

It's not distrust, it's a series of well documented events that leave no doubt as to US involvement.

Russia's neighbors include Poland, the Baltic States, Norway, Finland, Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan Mongolia and China. Before 2008's NATO summit in Bucharest, Russia didn't have armed conflicts with any of them, then Bush invited Georgia and Ukraine to join, and soon after, Russia was at war with Georgia. Ukraine is history in the making. So please tell me, on what history book does it explain why "former satellite states and breakaway republics of the former USSR can't wait to get into NATO", because it seems to me, the only way for them to get into real trouble, is saying they plan on joining when Russia previously said "no".

[Ozymandias]

Putin made the decision to invade another country. If anyone has difficulty ascertaining his ideology, it doesn't help that the Russian media is making ridiculous lies about Russia just wanting to deNazify Ukraine.

What does help?

BTW, lies?:

[TheKryptonMan]

Sir, or Miss. Straight up...There is no reason to be nice about this. If you are voting for a party that wants to take away the rights of many people and make it so that a vast majority of this nation loses their rights, then yes the "go **** yourself" is the right word. If you're worrying about being nice then you are in a place of privilege where things won't affect you.

Consider this after abortion you will see:

LGBTQ+ rights and gay marriage being pulled
Civil rights being pulled
Interracial marriage being pulled
Freedom of Religion being pulled
Right to vote for Women, POCs and who knows what else being pulled
Education being screwed over
Hell they can dismantle the the Bill of rights if they so want.

So yes...if you are voting for Republicans then please go and **** yourself. Because you clearly don't care about this nation at all.

I'm a white man , and I agree with you 100% .
There's no good reason to vote GOP / Conservative at all !!!!
They don't offer any solutions for America to move forward.
It's all about going back 70-80 years or more.
While the rest of the Free World moves forward in Healthcare human rights and everything that's important.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, as well as 2019, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” published profiles of Christy Perry, a Republican member of the Idaho House of Representatives who we called out for blocking a bill that would reform state laws regarding “faith healing” as a practice used in households as opposed to, y’know, medicine after a disproportionately high number of children had died in her district due to easily preventable diseases. Perry then tried reframing the arguments to curtail faith healing as a justification for letting children die, and not calling it negligence or child abuse as “attacks on religion”, adding, “They are comforted by the fact that they know their child is in heaven. If I want to let my child be with God, why is that wrong?” Perry’s interest in matters of faith has also led her to vote for resolutions in the Idaho state legislature to petition Congress to allow businesses to refuse to cover contraceptives in insurance plans of their employees based on their “personal faith”, trying to pass measures to allow the Bible to be taught in schools, and a call for Congress to impeach any Supreme Court Justice who would dare vote in favor of same sex marriage. Christy Perry is also a gun shop owner, which you better believe that she votes for every pro-gun bill that crosses her path, since she has a personal interest to keep lining her pockets by doing so, including an attempt to nullify federal firearm laws. We've already established Christy Perry's fanatical and twisted view of "Christian values", so brace yourselves... she was caught having an affair with GOP State Senator Jim Guthrie in the fall of 2016, admitting it on November 1st. And because this was revealed only a week before the election... Christy Perry was still easily re-elected, even though both her and Guthrie were still in the process of being investigated for ethics violations for charging their stays in Boise hotel rooms to bump uglies to Idaho taxpayers. After Perry endured multiple scandals, including an affair, and the ethics charges that stemmed from it… she’s still, in the end, a self-important fanatic. And that’s likely why she filed to run for United States Congress in 2018, to try and replace Raul Labrador as the U.S. House Representative from Idaho’s 1st Congressional District. Compared to the other candidates in the field, Perry was by far the most deranged, and finished a distant fourth in the GOP Primary behind Russ Fulcher.

On this date in 2020, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day”profiled Monica Youngblood, a former member of the New Mexico House of Representatives from District 68 from 2013-2018. After winning office in 2012, Youngblood was re-elected in 2014 and 2016 on the benefit of running unopposed. It isn’t her voting record that we’re giving her a mention for, but we’ll note she did support a ban on abortion at 20 weeks, and she opposed minimum wage increases and a ban on animal fighting so that people could continue to have the “freedom” to kill a coyote in front of an audience. However, Youngblood’s streak of getting to run for re-election unopposed changed in 2018, however, and she was bounced from office. That might have had something to do with the fact that she was convicted of aggravated DWI only weeks before the election. Also, the dashcam video was obtained by the media, and on it, a slurring Youngblood tries to convince the arresting officer to let her go because she claimed as a legislator, she had pushed for legislation to assist law enforcement… which isn’t how the law is supposed to apply. She insisted she wasn’t drinking, which would have been proven if, y’know, she had agreed to submit to a breathalyzer test. She refused to resign, insisted she hadn’t had any alcohol, and tried to get re-elected… and got booted from office. Given how entitled she felt her position made her, it’s probably best if she didn’t have it.

On this date in 2021, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” profiled Dan Severson, a 2020 Republican candidate for Florida’s 19th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives, resurfacing in American politics for the first time since 2014. After serving for 8 years in the Minnesota state legislature after first winning office in the 2002 elections, Severson managed to somehow buck the trend of the GOP storming into office in the 2010 Tea Party Wave while Republicans won that year up and down the ballot. He lost his attempt that year to be elected Minnesota Secretary of State, completely floundered in a bid for U.S. Senate in 2012, and lost again in 2014 in his second attempt to be elected Minnesota Secretary of State. He gave up on winning office in the Land of 10,000 Lakes, instead working as a member of the Trump 2016 campaign team in Ohio before, traveling thousands of miles further south to Florida in 2017 and hoping he could restart a career in politics in 2020, completely rebranding himself in Trump’s xenophobic brand, whether it be calling for his stupid border wall to be built along the U.S./Mexico border, grousing about “bird-killing wind turbines”, and blaming the woes of the country on “ANTIFA”. More importantly, Severson was but the latest in our far-too-long line of Republicans who were trying to ride the Qanon conspiracy theory to a win in a Congressional race in 2020, linking posts on Twitter with the Qanon hashtag as late as March of 2020. Not that it helped him much. Dan Severson’s campaign would see him spend six figure sums of his own money trying to succeed Congressman Francis Rooney for his seat in FL-19, but he finished 7th out of a possible nine candidates in the GOP Primary for the seat. As he seems to have shown a comeback is not in the works for him, we will set aside his profile at this time to cover another wacky Republican today instead. (Current crazy/stupid scoreboard, is now 1098-55, since this was established in July 2014.


J.R. Majewski

Welcome to what is the 1098th original profile here at “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day”, where we’ll be discussing J.R. Majewski, the Republican nominee in the 2022 elections for Ohio’s 9th Congressional District looking to successfully challenge Democratic Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur for the House seat she’s held since 1982. His main qualification for office seems to be that he altered his front lawn to paint a giant mural of Donald Trump on it, which is appropriate only because it is typical to put some kind of manure on one’s lawn as fertilizer.

If that level of pandering to the Mad King weren’t enough, J.R. Majewski has been a devout disciple of the Qanon movement, including frequenting the “Red Pill” website and straight-up going on Fox News for interviews while wearing a Qanon T-Shirt. Majewski is on record claiming that “Qanon conspiracy theory has as much credibility as Media Matters”. These days, he denies having supported it in spite of the above facts about things he's said and done, facts which he is allergic to.

Majewski was present in Washington, D.C. for the coup attempt plotted by Donald Trump and his supporters, spreads “The Big Lie” about the 2020 election being “stolen” from Trump, and even has tried giving credence to the conspiracy theory that all the violence that day was orchestrated by actors within the FBI.

We’d also like to point out that he also thinks of actual killer Kyle Rittenhouse as a hero, and an American ideal, as evidenced by the time he posted an a photo-shopped image on Twitter of Rittenhouse as Captain America. So… that’s fun.

There’s also video of Majewski in a music video by Trump supporters called “Let’s Go Brandon” where he… “raps” is a word that would be generous… but he performs a verse where he expresses anger towards having to wear a mask during the Covid-19 pandemic.

A fervent loyalty to Donald Trump and all the crazy-ass things his cult of supporters say and do is enough to win a GOP nomination for Congress, and hopefully that means Kaptur’s seat will be safe in the general.. but Ohio’s 9th was just gerrymandered to go from being a +9 Democratic lean to a slight Republican one, greasing the wheels for his hairball. The last thing DC needs is a new Congresscritter to pal around with Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz.

[Username taken]

https://us.yahoo.com/news/kansas-sen...160626456.html

A lawmaker from Kansas wants to set up a rating system for kids' shows that have LGBTIQ programs.

The war on LGBTIQ people is in full swing in the US.

[Jack Dracula]

It's not distrust, it's a series of well documented events that leave no doubt as to US involvement.

Russia's neighbors include Poland, the Baltic States, Norway, Finland, Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan Mongolia and China. Before 2008's NATO summit in Bucharest, Russia didn't have armed conflicts with any of them, then Bush invited Georgia and Ukraine to join, and soon after, Russia was at war with Georgia. Ukraine is history in the making. So please tell me, on what history book does it explain why "former satellite states and breakaway republics of the former USSR can't wait to get into NATO", because it seems to me, the only way for them to get into real trouble, is saying they plan on joining when Russia previously said "no".

So, how is it Putins right to dictate to another sovereign nation whether they may join NATO?
And let’s be clear. This is Putin, not Russia.

[Mister Mets]

Will the Supreme Court have any reason to exist if each individual state will soon decide legal cases themselves?

That's not quite the situation.

States do have some flexibility to make their own laws. This has always been a feature of the American government.

There is also some national legislation. Several constitutional amendments explicitly allow for it, as does the commerce clause. Roe V Wade was not a response to national legislation, so that's not applicable here.

[Mister Mets]

What does help?

BTW, lies?:

Russia not invading another country would have helped.

Even Russia being honest about what they're doing and why would help, because at least then they'll be making their own argument, rather than leaving it up to apologists to try to guess at their real views.

As for the point on lies, the goalpost was quite specific, as I said that "the Russian media is making ridiculous lies about Russia just wanting to deNazify Ukraine."

There are three possibilities for pushing back on that.

One is that you were careless and didn't realize what you were saying. If this is the case, it happens.

The second is that you legitimately believe that a major goal of Russia's is to deNazify Ukraine and that this is a significant reason for their willingness to invade another country and kill civilians. If this is the case, I strongly disagree with you, but you can do your best to make that case.

The final possibility is that you recognize that it's not a serious argument. If this is the case, you're lying on behalf of war criminals.

[numberthirty]

Again...

This man is actually doing a better job at smacking Republicans around than any Democrat at the "Federal..." level. Dems not backing this guy up, and getting his face in front of the press next to any "Federal..." level Dems' at every possible turn?

It is a straight up lost opportunity...

[numberthirty]

Meanwhile?

The folks who actually are taking the time to sit down with the organizers in question?

It ain't much of a surprise...

[Mister Mets]

Surely you realize that people who believe in teachers grooming kids to be LGBT, pizzagate, The Steal, and so many other conspiracies would believe it regardless of how often they were told it's a joke? How often did Trump claim he was joking or not serious when he was clearly not and they knew what he meant just as well as everyone else.

This is not something to downlplay, niether Covid or Anti-Trans bigotry are things to be making light of right now.

That is a change in goalposts from whether Dave Chapelle said something he knew to be untrue, or that was not meant to be taken as a joke.

There is a different question about whether comedians should be careful about their jokes because of the existence of people who are breathtakingly stupid. I'm not sure what the policy would be.

We simply don't know enough about this potentially mass-disabling event and the long term risks of it to be this careless, but hey, no need to wear masks or anything. It's just a cold.

*sigh*

If people want to wear masks, that's fine. The N95 and KN95 masks (as well as the international equivalents) are pretty good at allowing people to protect themselves.

This remains a different question from whether the media should cover celebrities catching Covid.

The thing that blows my mind about CRT, is that it's an elective college course. The GOP has misrepresented it to the public so badly, that reactionary parents actually believed it was being taught in middle-school and High School. It's such an obvious lie too and can be proven with a three second google search, but some of these guys are building a career off of it. It's nuts.

The argument isn't that kids are taught college-level material, but that these approaches have informed modern educators. That's relatively easy to demonstrate.

There are plenty of books about CRT in education.

Maybe both, maybe something else. The answer, if there is one, might not be found here on a comic book forum. Not unless we all work together to figure it out, and when I say all I mean every one who stills believes in Democracy and is willing to pout the effort in to try and preserve it. People like me, people like you, all of us.

I sadly agree that we won't be able to solve everything.

The best we can do is hone our own thinking.

[Panfoot]

Surely you realize that people who believe in teachers grooming kids to be LGBT, pizzagate, The Steal, and so many other conspiracies would believe it regardless of how often they were told it's a joke? How often did Trump claim he was joking or not serious when he was clearly not and they knew what he meant just as well as everyone else.

This is not something to downlplay, niether Covid or Anti-Trans bigotry are things to be making light of right now.

Your arguing with a bigot, it's pointless.

[Catlady in training]

It's not distrust, it's a series of well documented events that leave no doubt as to US involvement.

Russia's neighbors include Poland, the Baltic States, Norway, Finland, Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan Mongolia and China. Before 2008's NATO summit in Bucharest, Russia didn't have armed conflicts with any of them, then Bush invited Georgia and Ukraine to join, and soon after, Russia was at war with Georgia. Ukraine is history in the making. So please tell me, on what history book does it explain why "former satellite states and breakaway republics of the former USSR can't wait to get into NATO", because it seems to me, the only way for them to get into real trouble, is saying they plan on joining when Russia previously said "no".

List of wars involving Russia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...volving_Russia

[Catlady in training]

It's not distrust, it's a series of well documented events that leave no doubt as to US involvement.

Russia's neighbors include Poland, the Baltic States, Norway, Finland, Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan Mongolia and China. Before 2008's NATO summit in Bucharest, Russia didn't have armed conflicts with any of them, then Bush invited Georgia and Ukraine to join, and soon after, Russia was at war with Georgia. Ukraine is history in the making. So please tell me, on what history book does it explain why "former satellite states and breakaway republics of the former USSR can't wait to get into NATO", because it seems to me, the only way for them to get into real trouble, is saying they plan on joining when Russia previously said "no".

- Russia has no business saying whether any country joins NATO or any other group.
- If I was russia and was interested in some safe reflection (big joke, I know), I would ask myself, why is it that every country that has experience with me wants to join a defensive group made mostly by western countries? Why is it that every country that has experience with me doesn't want to, to paraphrase "be friends with me anymore"? Why people who want to live better flee this country and did flee every country that I had under my grasp in the past, even when it took to risk their lives, while no one seems to flee USA or other western countries?