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

[The no face guy]

In 2015, 2016, 2017, as well as 2018, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” presented profiles of North Carolina State Senator Wyatt “Tommy” Tucker, who was first elected to office back in 2010, in the Tea Party Wave. Tucker, as seen in his profile picture, gained notoriety in April of 2013, when he suggested print reporters should be banned from the legislature, and that its business should only be reported on the internet. After much arguing from the actual reporters in the chamber, Tucker advanced the legislation out of committee by a verbal vote, that Democrats argued was not the actual 6-5 win Tucker claimed it was. He refused to conduct a simple hand count vote, and tried to leave the chamber, telling a reporter, "I am the Senator. You are a citizen. You need to be quiet." As shocking of an attempt to restrict the freedom of the press as this was, Tucker also tried arguing against paying victims of North Carolina's eugenics program that was conducted from 1933 to 1974, trying to pass of the settlements onto individual counties, and not the state. He has voted for North Carolina's attempt to amend their constitution to ban same sex marriage, to ban climatologists from studying rising sea levels along the state coasts, for stricter Voter ID measures to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of citizens from their right to vote, supported North Carolina Republicans efforts to block the Medicaid Expansion in the state, voted for the "motorcycle safety law" in the state that through amendments by Republicans, became one of the most restrictive anti-abortion laws around the country, and of course, he voted for the disastrous anti-gay law HB 2, that saw North Carolina face a boycott from several industries, musicians performing concerts, and sports league events that amounted to almost a billion dollars of lost revenue. Tucker drew some heat in North Carolina in the summer of 2016, as well, for sponsoring a bill in the North Carolina State Senate that would lead to 7 acres of land from the city of Marvin to be placed under the jurisdiction of the county… specifically so a developer could buy it up for his own purposes, and much to the chagrin of the people of Marvin, as well as commentators who feared the practice could become commonplace. Rather than face the Blue Wave in 2018, Tommy Tucker has decided to call it quits and leave office after four terms doing his part to make the Tar Heel State a national embarrassment.


Karl Oliver
On this date one year ago, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled Karl Oliver, a member of the Mississippi House of Representatives from District 46 who was elected to his first term in office back in 2015. Oliver made national news in March of 2017 when he got his knickers in a twist as the city of New Orleands tore down several of its Confederate monuments, and compared people who wanted iconography that honors a rebellion against the federal government fought over slavery to Nazis, before calling for those who remove the Confederae monuments to be, “LYNCHED”:



Make no mistake, this is beyond f***ed up if it was said anywhere, but particularly in Money, Mississippi, which Karl Oliver represents, because it’s the same place where Emmett Till was lynched for whistling at a white woman (who admitted on her deathbed he actually didn’t) in 1955. Calls for Oliver to resign came from within the legislature, and without, and even sparked an FBI investigation.

We’ll add as well that Karl Oliver is quite the extremist, supporting some of the most hardline conservative bills in the Mississippi state legislaure, including one to bring back the electric chair and firing squads as a means of execution (go figure he guy who called for people to be lynched likes all sorts of barbaric execution methods), anti-choice fetal heartbeat legislation that would ban abortion as early as six weeks, effectively (before many women realize they are even pregnant), is so “pro-life” that he’s also trying to widen the amount of exceptions available for vaccinations, voted for legislation to ignore federal firearms laws, as well as to legalize the carrying of firearms in churches.

Alas, Karl Oliver ignored all calls to resign, and we are sad to report that nobody filed to run against him by the deadline of March 1st, 2019. Thus, Oliver will remain in office until 2023 with an outlook on race relations that we should have left back in 1865, if not earlier. And don’t think the rest of the Mississippi GOP are holding him accountable… they actually elevated him to be the chairman of the Mississippi state House’s Appropriations Committee.

Wow! It sounds like Karl Oliver wears a white coned hood during his off time. Come to think about it, I swear I saw him standing in a circle with other coneheads in the movie Mississippi Burning.

[PaulBullion]

They glorify the heritage shown in 'Gone With The Wind', not the actual reality.

Haven't seen that one in decades, but doesn't everything burn down in that movie?

[worstblogever]

Haven't seen that one in decades, but doesn't everything burn down in that movie?

Leading man commits sexual assault not long before that, too. And the female lead falls for her rapist.

Like, even putting the Antebellum south aside, it's a f***ed up tale.

[PaulBullion]

Luke Skywalker endorses Joe Biden.

[PaulBullion]

Heh. Man, you had me there for a second.
Silly me. I should know better by now.

reports.PNG

The last two from that list got suspended. The rest is still up.

[PaulBullion]

CN: Racial slurs


There is a lot to unwrap with this twitter account. 24 hours and @twitter has not felt a need to do anything about it.

racisttwi.jpg

Please feel free to report it, if you have a twitter account.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2015, 2016, 2017, as well as 2018, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” presented profiles of Arizona State Senator Judy Burges, who we noted in her early career, was a key defender of fellow Arizona state legislator Barbara Blewster, whose litany of racist, homophobic, and ignorant comments were dismissed by Burges who assured everyone Blewster had “impeccable moral character, integrity and honesty”. Once Barack Obama got elected president back in 2008, though, Burges went off the deep end, telling local newspapers her belief that the president was secretly a Muslim, and submitting a bill to try and force him to release his long form birth certificate from Hawaii (which he did anyway). Burgess was also a co-sponsor of Arizona’s controversial law SB 1070, which allowed law enforcement to racially profile Hispanic citizens as potential illegal immigrants, as well as sponsoring several nullification bills in the past few years. Those sorts of legislative ideas made her a chief ally of the super-racist Maricopa County Sheriff, Joe Arpaio, as well as the co-founder of the Minutemen Civil Defense Corps militia group, Chris Simcox, who she endorsed as a challenger to Sen. John McCain in the 2010 elections (apparently unaware that Simcox was a child molester, but aware that he was a racist anti-government pyschopath). When Cliven Bundy and his militia buddies in the Oath Keepers were having an armed standoff with the Bureau of Land Management, Burges was one of several Arizona state legislators to caravan up to Nevada to meet the “hero” Bundy, and she even went on to endorse Oath Keepers co-founder Richard Mack in his bid to become sheriff of Navajo County, Arizona (in spite of Mack talking about using women at the standoff as human shields). Burges has also campaigned hard against the implementation of the United Nations’ Agenda 21 Environmental Treaty, insisting that it’s a secret communist plot to set up a new world order. Rounding out her legislative priorities, she has submitted bills to require gold and silver be accepted as legal tender in Arizona, teach creationism or argue against climate change in Arizona schools, voted to drug test welfare recipients, and voted against expanding Medicaid in Arizona. Burges also supported SB 1468, a bill Arizona Republicans made in impotent rage after not being able to block Syrian refugees from being resettled in Arizona. So what does the bill do? Well, it targeted the charities that help resettle refugees, threatening to fine them $1,000 for each refugee they helped. You read that right… Judy Burges and the Republican Party, the supposed party of “Christian values” wanted to fine charities (citing a Catholic one in particular) for helping refugees. Her quote from February 2017: Lastly, we have to report on Judy Burges’ loony e-mail exchange with an 82-year old Scottsdale woman, a widow who worked on political campaigns, and was opposed to HB 2404, a bill that would have changed the pay scale for those who gather signatures for political campaigns… rather than be paid by the hour, they would only be paid by the signature. Burges responses began earnestly enough, but quickly devolved into accusing her constituent of working for Bill and Hillary Clinton, before just flat out name calling and saying she must be a “paid troll”. During a teacher’s strike in 2018 in Arizona, she sent insulting messages to teachers who contacted her, and daring them to vote her out of office in the fall. Which they probably would have, had Judy Burges faced term limits in 2018.

On this date in 2019, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled former Arizona State Senator Don Shooter, who was first elected to office back in… of course, the 2010 Tea Party Wave. During his time in office, he had his fingerprints on some of the most insane legislation the Arizona GOP could cook up, from unconstitutional bills to try and make English the official language of Arizona, to Arizona’s “Birther Bill”, a bill calling for states to be able to nullify federal law (for the Affordable Care Act, naturally), for welfare drug testing, support for to allow employers to reject the birth control coverage on the health insurance plans of their employees, a bill to legalize gold and silver as legal tender in Arizona, and even an anti-choice bill aimed at forcing abortion providers to have to attempt to revive a “viable fetus” after an abortion. Don Shooter served three terms in the Arizona State Senate before taking a step into the lower chamber in 2016 to the Arizona House of Representatives, but then… well… things got a wee bit complicated. Because over his career working in the state capitol, Don Shooter sexually harassed no less than nine women, including fellow Republican legislator Michelle Ugenti-Rita. He handled the charges by claiming that his criminal conduct was that he simply just was being a sex pest in order to make sure he was “annoying liberals”. He then tried to accuse Ugenti-Rita of having an extramarital affair, as if that would negate her claims, during his “apology” before the legislature. Yeah, Don Shooter did all that. And that’s why the Arizona House of Representatives voted 59-3 to expel him from the legislature. He still didn’t just skulk away, mounting a lawsuit over his expulsion, demanding that the “whole investigation” the legislature had into his conduct be made public (as if that would exonerate him), and he tried to run again for a seat in the Arizona State Senate in 2018, even though he didn’t actually live in Yuma, which he was supposed to be representing. His campaign strategy? To call upon Republicans to vote for him, a serial sexual harasser, because that would “make liberals heads explode”. Spoiler alert: He still finished third. Sadly, he still got 20% of the vote, because one in five Republican voters in Yuma are either poorly informed, just straight up that awful in their opinions of how women should be respected, or some combination of the two. Anyway, as he is out of office and his career is likely over, we will retire his profile at this time and take a look at another kooky Republican today instead. (Current crazy/stupid scoreboard, is now 867-45, since this was established in July 2014.)

[worstblogever]

Brandon Martin

Welcome to what is the 866th original profile here at “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day”, where we’ll be discussing Brandon Martin, who attempted unsuccessfully to run for the U.S. House of Representatives in Arizona’s 2nd Congressional District in 2018, losing in the GOP Primary for that seat by about 4,000 votes. Martin is unflinchingly heartless in his fiscal conservative rhetoric, outright saying he wants to end Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid (those latter two, in particular, should be great issue stances for a winning political strategy to have in the middle of a pandemic, right?)

What’s more, what’s little that is known about his other issue positions includes the fact that he’s a Personhood supporter, and he supports Donald Trump’s brainless idea for a border wall on the U.S./Mexico border.

But if there’s one issue that brought Brandon Martin to our attention, it’s his stance on guns. Not just that he’s opposed to gun control completely, but it’s how he fundraises on that topic. In October of 2019, he sent out a fundraising e-mail loaded with as many gun metaphors as you could stack into a paragraph:

”"Ann Kirkpatrick sits on the Appropriations Committee. ($$ Big money donations $$) She's going to have a war chest in November 2020. I need 'ammunition' to remove her from office. Will you load me up with a donation of $5, $10, $25 or more so I can train my sights” on Ann Kirkpatrick and remove her from office in 2020?" ”

Keep in mind, the Congressional District that Martin wants to win office in is Arizona’s 2nd Congressional District, also known as “Gabby Giffords district”, where that Congresswoman was shot along with 17 people, 6 of whom died in the attack, and it happened after Sarah Palin was running ads that but a sniper’s target over it on a map online back in 2010.

Brandon Martin has, of course, gaslighted Rep. Kirkpatrick after she called him out on his attempts at getting cash (and/or a stochastic terrorist to carry out an assassination on his behalf), and tried pretending like everyone was reading into things too much. Yes, he’s that much of a craven ***hole, who’s trying to play coy when he knows exactly what he’s doing. So if you want to donate some money to Ann Patrick’s campaign to assure he doesn’t go to Washington, D.C., that would be a great idea.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

CN: Racial slurs


There is a lot to unwrap with this twitter account. 24 hours and @twitter has not felt a need to do anything about it.

racisttwi.jpg

Please feel free to report it, if you have a twitter account.

It's been suspended.

====================

Anthony Fauci Enters ‘Modified Quarantine’ After ‘Low Risk’ COVID-19 Contact

Fauci told CNN that he would be working remotely for two weeks, while being tested daily for the coronavirus. Say a prayer.

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Is The Coronavirus Mutating And Becoming More Contagious?

Here's what you should know about a study that claims a new dominant strain of the virus could spread faster than the original.

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Disaster Expert Nails What Trump, Pence Just Aren’t Grasping Amid The Pandemic

“I don’t think they grasp the impact of what they do and what they say on the American public,” warned Dr. Irwin Redlener. It's not like Drano Don and Mopey Mike don't grasp the impact, more like they don't give a fuck.

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U.S. Turned Down Offer To Manufacture Millions Of N95 Masks As Coronavirus Spread

After the first COVID-19 case was detected in January, a company offered to make millions of N95 masks. A federal agency said no.

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Ousted Vaccine Official, In First Interview, Says U.S. Wasting Time In COVID-19 Fight

“I am not disgruntled,” whistleblower Rick Bright said. “I am frustrated at a lack of leadership.”

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Critics Rip Penn. House Speaker After Questionable COVID-19 Post

Rep. Mike Turzai’s chief of staff says he was simply pointing out the vulnerabilities of Pennsylvanians to the disease. Of course, Turzai is a Republican.

[PaulBullion]

It's been suspended.

They literally must have suspended it 3 minutes after sending me one of those offensive e-mails that they looked very, very carefully but could find nothing wrong with the account, hence did nothing.

They could do a lot for blood pressure levels around the globe if they changed their algorithm to wait 15 minutes before sending those out and waiting for other reports.

[Tami]

Money for Welfare Instead Funded Concerts, Lobbyists and Football Games, Audit Finds

ATLANTA — The state of Mississippi allowed tens of millions of dollars in federal anti-poverty funds to be used in ways that did little or nothing to help the poor, with two nonprofit groups instead using the money on lobbyists, football tickets, religious concerts and fitness programs for state lawmakers, according to a scathing audit released on Monday.

According to the report, released by the state auditor’s office, the money also enriched celebrities with Mississippi ties, among them Brett Favre, a former N.F.L. quarterback whose Favre Enterprises was paid $1.1 million by a nonprofit group that received the welfare funds. The payments were for speaking engagements that Mr. Favre did not attend, the auditors said.

Other large sums went to a family of pro wrestlers whose flamboyant patriarch, Ted DiBiase, earned national fame performing as the “Million Dollar Man.” In a news conference on Monday, Shad White, the state auditor, said it was possible that many recipients of the money did not know it had come from the federal welfare program.

Mr. Favre could not be reached for comment Monday. Mr. DiBiase declined to comment.

Mr. White called the findings “the most egregious misspending my staff have seen in their careers.” The audit found that more than $98 million from the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, or TANF, was funneled to the two Mississippi-based nonprofit groups over three years. About $94 million of that was “questioned” by state auditors, meaning the money was in all likelihood misspent or the auditors could not verify that it had been spent legally, Mr. White said.

[Tami]

72 got COVID-19 after being at large event

MADISON, Wis. — More than 70 people who tested positive for the coronavirus since an April 24 rally at the Wisconsin state Capitol indicated they had attended a large gathering, but the state Department of Health Services cant’ say if they were at the rally because it is not tracking specific events.

Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Goodsitt said Friday that when someone tests positive for COVID-19 they are asked if they attended any large gatherings. But the department did not add the April 24 rally, which attracted about 1,500 people, to the list of specific questions.

PHOTOS: 1,500 gather at Madison Capitol in planned, permitless protest to Safer at Home extension

The department did add a question after the April 7 election to determine if people had been at the polls. As of Thursday, 67 people who were tested positive for COVID-19 had also reported being at the polls. But because many of them had other exposures, health officials have not been able to conclusively determine where they caught the virus.

[Tami]

100 days later: How did Britain fail so badly in dealing with Covid-19?

It is 100 days since the first coronavirus case was confirmed in the UK on 31 January. The official death toll so far from the epidemic has topped 33,000 and is still rising fast. The actual total could be far higher, many analysts say – leaving Britain among the countries hit hardest by Covid-19.

The government has struggled to get on top of the crisis, facing growing criticism for its lack of early preparation to tackle the virus, its abrupt shifts in strategy, its failure to provide adequate protective equipment for its medical staff and other key workers, and its inability to organise testing on the scale that many say is vital.

And its communications have been widely described as evasive and shambolic – with many left confused last week as the Cabinet battled to provide a coherent account of its plans to lift the lockdown.

Those plans have been complicated by the fact that our infection rate remains stubbornly high and, as a result, any measures announced by Boris Johnson on Sunday are expected to be modest. While some other countries are embarking tentatively on a return to normality, Britain is struggling to meet its criteria for doing so.

Amid a growing perception that the government’s record in confronting the crisis is amongst the worst in the world, the Labour leader Keir Starmer confronted Boris Johnson this week in their first prime minister’s questions meeting with the stark question: “How on earth did it come to this?”

[Tami]

He Had Never Sold a Ventilator. N.Y. Gave Him an $86 Million Deal.

Federal officials passed on the vendor’s information to senior officials in New York and, within days, the state struck a deal to buy 1,450 ventilators from Mr. Oren-Pines for $86 million, one of the largest contracts for medical supplies since the outbreak.

The deal, however, began to unravel as quickly as it had come together.

Federal officials, in fact, also referred Mr. Oren-Pines to New Jersey. But officials in that state said they were troubled by a series of warning signs, and declined to procure equipment from Mr. Oren-Pines, according to a person familiar with the matter.

New Jersey officials saw Mr. Oren-Pines’s insistence for upfront payment as problematic, and they balked at the price of the ventilators and how long it would take for them to be delivered, according to the person.

But in New York, officials decided to take a chance.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

100 days later: How did Britain fail so badly in dealing with Covid-19?

Swap out Great Britain for United States and Boris Johnson for Donald Trump and you’d be hard pressed to tell the difference. In both cases, you have superpower nations run by utter buffoons who, intentionally or unintentionally, let the situation with coronavirus go completely to shit before they took it seriously and took action. Pathetic!