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

[Kirby101]

I don't understand this part. How are they going to do that? Travelling to another state is legal as far as I know and getting healthcare in said state that is legal there should also be legal, right? So, where is the breaking of law?

It's breaking the law because Indiana says so. Unless the anti abortion Supreme Court says it's not, they can do what they please.
Now many Americans will ask why Congress doesn't protect people, and then these same stupid Americans will vote for more GOP politicians and never figure out why Congress isn't doing anything about it.

[useridgoeshere]

I am not sure at all. Or how they would know if a woman did do this. But a few states either have that or want to put it in their abortion laws. I know Kentucky did this and it is being challenged in court. So I figure this one will as well.

Maybe they’ll use the Texas model and get people to rat on them for a $10k bounty.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Indiana has passed their Anti Abortion bill.

it bans abortion from the time of conception. It does have a clause for rape an incest but the victims would have to fill out a notarized form not just stating they are a victim but what happened and who did it.

Also no clause for a woman's health. So if the woman's life is at risk too bad. Still cant get it. It would also punish those who travel to another state that does not have these standards.

The part I boldfaced I found particularly worrisome. I can actually see Qpublicans, right wingers and bible thumpers rationalizing a woman who dies from complications during childbirth like this:

“While one life is lost, another is born, so everything balances out in the end. I’m sure the mother would’ve been more than happy to sacrifice her life to bring her child into the world.”

It’s not a question of IF a scenario like that takes place, but WHEN.

[babyblob]

The part I boldfaced I found particularly worrisome. I can actually see Qpublicans, right wingers and bible thumpers rationalizing a woman who dies from complications during childbirth like this:

“While one life is lost, another is born, so everything balances out in the end. I’m sure the mother would’ve been more than happy to sacrifice her life to bring her child into the world.”

It’s not a question of IF a scenario like that takes place, but WHEN.

The GOP in the state are patting themselves on the back and as one put it "High fiving with Jesus!" Right now. And there are some that are mad they left the rape and incest in. But the legal notarized document that forces a woman to go into detail of her traumatic rape or case of incest I guess made them happy enough to shut up.

[4saken1]

They did seem to bury it, which is evident in how people have become familiar with the story but not with that important facet. Someone on this board thought the fact that the previous town manager was white supremacist propaganda. If people are that confident and mistaken, the story was communicated poorly.

The headline leaves the impression it's about race. "An entire North Carolina police department resigned after a Black woman town manager was hired." And it's not until the middle of the second section of the article that they explain that the previous town manager was black.

Yes, without any further explanation for the headline, it does seem like a pretty blatant case of biased reporting. If there were some reason why the supposedly racist police tolerated the former city manager, like maybe he was a doormat and/or didn't believe the police should be held accountable to the public, the story should have printed evidence of such. Honestly, I am quite disappointed. They should try to do better than the type of slanted reporting we constantly see from right wing sources.

[Tendrin]

Good lord, this article on Samuel Alito.

But to focus on Alito trolling American women, reproductive justice advocates, his liberal colleagues on the bench, and his international critics is to take his feeble bait. Alito is quite transparent about the fact that he delights in disapproval. He invites it! He welcomes it! His “comedy” is actually just a distraction from his gleeful effort to decimate whatever remaining legitimacy the Supreme Court still possesses in the eyes of the secular, liberal world order. Focus on that fact and there is really nothing hilarious to report from Rome at all.

For starters, there is the breathtaking conflict of interest at work when a justice gives faith-based speeches at faith-based events sponsored by faith-based parties who file briefs before the court. We only found out about this speech a week later when Notre Dame released the video, because the justices have no obligation to publicize or record their public speeches. The Rome event’s sponsor, Notre Dame Law School’s Religious Liberty Initiative, was founded about four months before Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the Supreme Court in 2020. As Gabe Roth of Fix the Court, a nonprofit that promotes judicial ethics reforms, noted in an email Thursday, RLI and its affiliated professors “have filed amicus briefs in several SCOTUS cases, and they have a near-perfect record.” (Naturally, these professors filed a brief in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization urging the reversal of Roe.) As Roth further pointed out, we won’t know if RLI financed the trip until mid-June 2023, when it must be disclosed under current law. For now, the image of a tuxedo-clad Alito chumming it up with the same conservative lawyers who are involved in cases before the court creates the unseemly impression of judicial indifference toward basic judicial ethics rules.

He should never have been raised to the Supreme Court.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/...alflow_twitter

[JackDaw]

The part I boldfaced I found particularly worrisome. I can actually see Qpublicans, right wingers and bible thumpers rationalizing a woman who dies from complications during childbirth like this:

“While one life is lost, another is born, so everything balances out in the end. I’m sure the mother would’ve been more than happy to sacrifice her life to bring her child into the world.”

It’s not a question of IF a scenario like that takes place, but WHEN.

But…do the eccentric thing of looking at it from the woman’s view and in this case (with her life endangered) she has effectively been deprived of at least two constitutional rights (life and liberty).

In theory it’s hard to see how if a specific case with those precise characteristics (a woman who needs to travel to abortion site to save her own life) was brought before the Supreme Court that the Court could fail to protect her right to travel.

But in practice, I don’t see how a case like that could be brought…by the time the case could be brought to court the woman would be dead.

But perhaps a punitive case could be brought against the State Authorities that stopped her travelling?

[scourge]

The part I boldfaced I found particularly worrisome. I can actually see Qpublicans, right wingers and bible thumpers rationalizing a woman who dies from complications during childbirth like this:

“While one life is lost, another is born, so everything balances out in the end. I’m sure the mother would’ve been more than happy to sacrifice her life to bring her child into the world.”

It’s not a question of IF a scenario like that takes place, but WHEN.

Or worse. Outright demonizing the woman and saying she deserved it.

They are indeed that sick and twisted.

[Tendrin]

Or worse. Outright demonizing the woman and saying she deserved it.

They are indeed that sick and twisted.

Well, you know what the say.

When god closes a door, he opens a widow.

[CaptainEurope]

Bernie's idea of chaos is a European-style Social Democratic safety net, less defense spending (which even the Pentagon agrees with), crafting laws to protect the most vulnerable populations, and trying to equalize the balance in power between the labor force and the investing class. Just f##king awful.

I guess if your definition of chaos is, "not lining up to tow the conservative centrist Party line".

No, you misread my post. I did not say Bernie was a chaos agent. Read it again, please.

[CaptainEurope]

Well, some audio has been uncovered by the Washington Post in a Danish filmmaker's documentary following the Trump campaign from Waaaaaay Back in 2019...

It's Roger Stone fretting that he's going to be found guilty and go to prison for his crimes uncovered during the Mueller investigation, and disgraced Congressman Matt Gaetz assuring him he'd hit up Trump to pardon him so he'd never serve a day in jail.

Which happened. There doesn't seem to be much to indicate either think he's innocent of the crimes he's accused of, either.

I'm careful to believe everything I read on "legal twitter", but that conversation seems to include several crimes. Including (though a little more problematic, because it is not Trump himself making the statement), obstruction of justice by the Donald. But it's pretty clearly obstruction by Gaetz.

[CaptainEurope]

I don't understand this part. How are they going to do that? Travelling to another state is legal as far as I know and getting healthcare in said state that is legal there should also be legal, right? So, where is the breaking of law?

It's basically a three step process:
1. The law is clearly unconstitutional.
2. The Trump/Bush judges on SCOTUS will say it is not unconstitutional, women returning from out of state will be stopped at the border and forced to undergo cruel and unnecessary medical procedures to show if they had an abortion.
3. But her e-mails.

[worstblogever]

Back in 2014, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” ran a profile of Rich Iott, a 2010 Tea Party Congressional candidate from Ohio, who had the fun hobby of participating in World War II reenactments, always for whatever reason, dressing up as an officer of the Nazi SS in them, which is the sort of extra-curricular activity that shouldn’t win you any elections.

In 2015, we published a “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” profile of Tom Smith, the owner of a coal mine who ran for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania in 2012, who was not undone by his stances on same sex marriage, climate change, or privatizing Social Security, as he was his flub during the "War on Women". That being, he was asked if he agreed with Todd Akin about "legitimate rape", and he compared it to a family member who had chosen life in a similar circumstance. That circumstance that was as bad as rape? Having a child out of wedlock. And that... really finished off Tom Smith's chances.

In both 2016, and in 2017, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” presented profiles of the former Nevada Congressman Joe Heck, who came to Washington, D.C. back in the 2010 Tea Party Wave as the U.S. House Representative for Nevada’s 3rd Congressional District, and whose career went sideways after he made an ill-advised attempt at winning a U.S. Senate seat and lost to Catherine Cortez-Masto in the 2016 elections. Now, in spite of the fact that the skunk-haired Heck is a doctor who went to medical school for eight years, he has plenty of moments where you wonder how the hell he could survive in higher education that long. Perhaps the most glaring example of Joe Heck being clueless came in May of 2016, where he agreed with a crowd of constituents that a majority of Muslims wanted to pass Sharia Law in the United States, volunteering that it had already happened in Michigan (not just false, but easily proven false). Joe Heck is also a climate change denier, who claims that “CO2 is a natural, biological process”, and that “We’ve Seen Changes In Our Climate Both Ways, And I Think Throughout The Future Millennia We Will Continue To See Climate Change That Goes Both Ways.” The retirees counting on Social Security checks in Nevada, were probably also dismayed that Joe Heck thinks “Social Security is a pyramid scheme” and would like to get rid of it. Heck’s voting record in Congress includes support for hardline anti-choice legislation across the board, including two attempts at defunding Planned Parenthood, votes against disaster relief for victims of Hurricane Sandy, a vote for the 2013 Government Shutdown, and virtually every attempt at repealing the Affordable Care Act. There’s also the matter of Rep. Heck’s son, Joey. Apparently, a parental intervention was needed back in June 2013 after people started to notice the younger Heck had a habit of posting racist, sexist, and homophobic slurs on Twitter, including Joey’s summary during the presidential debate on October 3rd, 2012, between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, where the teen said Romney “raped” Obama in the debate and made him his “slave” before later in the conversation saying the president had achievements “yeah like spear chucking and rock skipping. The sports they do in his home country…” Heck apologized and assured the public he had NO IDEA where all his son’s attitudes came from, but it sure wasn’t anything HE taught him. Joe Heck had one moment of decency towards the end of his career, when he withdrew his support of Donald Trump in 2016 after the Access Hollywood tape emerged. Unfortunately, after he lost to Catherine Cortez-Masto in the Senate race, that only made the rest of Republicans blame his loss on not defending Trump, and dig in to defend any grotesque statements he made going forward.

On this date in 2018, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” profiled the former State Treasurer of Ohio, Josh Mandel, who twice lost in elections to U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown for his seat in Washington, D.C. Mandel, as a state legislator, voted against a law to make cockfighting in Ohio a felony, and never gave a valid reason why. In August of 2012, Mandel embarrassed himself even further when he placed himself firmly in the category of climate change deniers, originally just whining about the mythical “war on coal”, and going as far as to say scientific research into climate change “is inconclusive and riddled with fraud.” His main strategy in trying to win office was to tell utterly outrageous lies and get blasted for it by fact-checkers. It would be one thing to say Sherrod Brown had voted for the Affordable Care Act, but that just wasn’t enough of a barb for Mandel, who decided to push the story to the fact that Brown was “the deciding vote”. Mandel even got a “Pants on Fire” rating from Politifact when he tried claiming that somehow, Sherrod Brown was responsible for half a million jobs in Ohio being outsourced to China, which wasn’t even remotely true. After that first loss in 2012, Mandel got nailed for campaign finance fraud charge that he tried to keep a vehicle bought using campaign money, and actually tried saying that it was a positive, and proved he was a “fiscal conservative”. In 2014, Mandel won a second term as state treasurer, and was biding his time for six years to try for a bit of political revenge. Still looking like he was 39 going on 13, in 2017, he managed to hustle his way into a promotional ad with Ohio State Buckeyes football coach Urban Meyer, touting a plan to aid disabled Ohioans. Taxpayers found out that they were the ones who paid $1.84 million to see Mandel hanging out with Meyer to promote the program, and ask where the hell most of the money really went. By mid 2017, it was official, Mandel was challenging Sen. Brown again. His 2018 efforts were somehow even worse than those he had six years prior. Because, in November of 2017, for whatever reason, after a report from the Anti-Defamation League, a proud Jewish organization dedicated to fighting back against bigotry and anti-Semitism spoke out against both Mike Cernovich and Jack Pobosiec for fomenting the “Pizzagate conspiracy” (the delusional myth that Hillary Clinton and other high-ranking Democrats were running a child sex ring out of the basement of a pizzeria that did not, in fact, even have a basement, let alone a child sex ring operating out of it)… for whatever stupid reason, Josh Mandel chose to post a defense of the Pizzagate masterminds on Twitter, and call the ADL a “partisan witchhunt group”. If that isn’t sad enough to see, it’s sadder than you think. Josh Mandel is the grandson of survivors of the Holocaust. And he chastised the ADL for holding White Nationalist conspiracy theorists accountable for their lies. And he also had the hypocrisy of defending individuals blatantly making up accusations of pedophilia by a political candidate while simultaneously also being unable to muster the courage to condemn Roy Moore when he was accused of doing the same thing by multiple women when they were teens decades prior (and not just right-wing loons making things up out of whole cloth). Early polling showed that Josh Mandel was likely to fare even worse in his rematch with Sherrod Brown, between a Democratic Blue Wave and his latest rounds of stupidity. The loss was likely to be by double digits. A month before the candidate deadline to file for office, Mandel dropped out of the Senate race, to spend time with his wife while she was recovering from an unspecified health issue. She must have recovered, as he’s a 2022 GOP Primary candidate for U.S. Senate in Ohio, but is still unlikable enough that he lost to Trump sycophant J.D. Vance in the primary.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2019, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” profiled Javier Manjarres, a 2018 candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives for Florida’s 22nd Congressional District. Let us say now that this guy has the political acumen of someone who climbs into a shark tank after rolling around in a vat of chum first. Manjarres is a Trump supporter and Colombian immigrant who even supports the construction of the stupid-ass border wall. In 2016, he was actually charged with ATTEMPTED MURDER after he attacked his sister’s boyfriend, punching him five times in the face as he went to exit his vehicle, and then reaching for his gun. As the boyfriend drove away, Manjarres fired three shots that struck the truck. Somehow… charges were dropped, and this guy thought, “Well, now I’m Congressional material!” Which is amazing that a guy who attempted to murder someone with a gun would run for office there. You see, Florida’s 22nd Congressional District is the home of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and was not far removed from its student body being victimized by a mass shooting. When it occurred, the Congressman for that district, Democrat Ted Deutch immediately left the capitol, telling staffers “I’m going home.” He then comforted the survivors, and the families of the victims, and called again on smarter gun control laws in our country. Javier Manjarres wasted no time attacking Rep. Deutch, claiming that his statement, “I’m going home” was a lie, and claiming that Deutch didn’t actually live in his district. He then accused him of being a “shameful extremist” who was “exploiting victims of the shooting for political expediency and gain”. If you’re thinking that makes Manjarres an ***hole, you better strap in, because this actually gets worse. One of the victims at Parkland was Jaime Guttenberg, and her father, Fred, already had battled against the NRA and its spokeswoman, Dana Loesch, on Twitter. Only five months removed from Jaime’s death, Javier Manjarres managed to get into a Twitter war with Fred Guttenberg, one of his prospective constituents, and accused HIM of “exploiting his daughter’s death in the name of some political agenda”. Needless to say, that utter lack of humanity and the attempted murder were likely the reasons why Javier Manjarres failed to advance out of the GOP Primary for the seat to represent Florida’s 22nd Congressional District, only earning 34% of the vote in that race.



On this date in both 2020, as well as 2021, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” first profiled the U.S. House Representative from Alabama’s 6th Congressional District, Gary Palmer, who was first elected to office back in 2014, with a previous career of being the president of the Alabama Policy Institute, a conservative think tank. Palmer’s focus on being a social conservative for a quarter century straight was evident through his first term in office, as he was raging about the Supreme Court’s ruling on same sex marriage, throwing tantrums about transgendered Americans using the bathroom of their sexual orientation and not of their birth, and his sponsorship of a bill to defund Planned Parenthood based on outrage over the fraudulent video sponsored by the Center for Medical Progress. He actually had the nerve to complain that Planned Parenthood frequently donates to Democratic candidates, which surprise, this motherf***er takes money from Koch Industries and Trinity broadcasting network, just to name a few.

What truly shows us that Palmer is a true extremist, was how back in October, he was one of 41 Republicans willing to crash a classified hearing regarding Donald Trump and Ukraine that would lead to Trump’s first impeachment, a meeting that he and his party actively chose not to participate in. Anyone willing to follow Matt Gaetz’s lead is huffing paint, frankly.

As far as how he’s handled himself during the Covid-19 pandemic, Gary Palmer was calling for the economy to be opened as early as April 22nd (i.e. WAY TOO SOON and part of the reason we saw Americans die in the thousands daily) and besides that, Palmer is stupid enough to actually argue against the House voting for rule changes to allow for proxy voting and remote work to preserve his life, and that of any other members of Congress in the “at risk” group.

BUT HE'S PRO-LIFE, Y'ALL! So get out there and start dying for the economy!

[worstblogever]

Palmer was gifted a fourth term in office, as no one bothered to register to run against him. His recent voting record… well, it’s pretty clear he’s an Alabama Republican:

• October 17th, 2019: Palmer 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: Palmer 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 3rd, 2019: Rep. Palmer is one of 71 Republicans who votes against a resolution to disallow Russia from re-entering the G7 and makes it the G8 until it leaves Ukraine.
• December 18th, 2019: Palmer ignores his 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: Palmer votes against the HEROES Act, to further support the healthcare industry and citizens affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
• December 10th, 2020: Palmer signs his name to an amicus brief to the Supreme Court, begging them to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The same election that he won re-election in.
• January 6th, 2021: Gary Palmer 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. Palmer 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: Gary Palmer 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: Palmer votes against HR 5, the latest version of the Equality Act, that would provide workplace protections for LGBTQ Americans.
• March 3rd, 2021: Rep. Palmer 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: Gary Palmer votes against the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2021.
• March 10th, 2021: Palmer votes against the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, because he feels people deserve to die in poverty during a pandemic.
• March 17th, 2021: Rep. Palmer votes 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: Gary Palmer votes against HR 3233, the creation of a commission to investigate the Capitol Attack.
• May 20th, 2021: Palmer is one of 63 Republicans who vote against the Covid-19 Hate Crimes Act.
• November 5th, 2021: Gary Palmer votes against HR 3684, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
• March 31st, 2022: Palmer votes 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. Gary Palmer would rather they be gouged by pharmaceutical giants and/or die.
• May 18th, 2022: Gary Palmer is one of 192 Republicans who vote against HR 7790, to create supplemental funding for infant formula (while still claiming to be pro- life).
• May 18th, 2022: Rep. Palmer votes against HR 350, the Domestic Violence Prevention Act, because these days, a plank of the Republican Party is ostensibly domestic terror.
• May 19th, 2022: Palmer votes against HR 7688, a bill which would help prevent gas companies from gouging customers on prices.
• July 15th, 2022: Gary Palmer votes against House Amendment 262, which would require the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, and Secretary of Defense to publish a report on the infiltration of American law enforcment by Neo-Nazis and white supremacists, offer measures to be taken to remove them from their ranks, and prevent further infiltration by others.
• July 19th, 2022: Rep. Palmer is one of 157 Republicans who vote against the “Respect for Marriage Act”, which would codify same sex marriage into law nationally.
• July 21st, 2022: Palmer is one of 195 Republicans who vote against the Right to Contraception Act, which codified the right of Americans to have access to birth control.

We will finish our update with two more anecdotes. On January 7th, 2021, without any investigation into it, he declared that he “held the president responsible” for the Capitol Attack carried out by Trump supporters, but specifically said he would not support impeaching Donald Trump over it. Which… is a complete disconnect.

Much like the people of Alabama’s 6th should disconnect themselves from this brainless hypocrite of a representative.

But, while some have their doubts of whether or not if Republicans take back the House after the mid-terms, as to whether or not they would try to pass a federal ban on abortion… we can show the following video of Gary Palmer attempting to violate the rules of the House to show a photo in a hearing of what he claims is “a fetus reaching out to grasp the hand of the doctor” during an in vitro surgical procedure to prove a 21 month old fetus is aware of its surroundings.

WELL, GUESS WHAT, HE’S EITHER DUMB ENOUGH TO FALL FOR A HOAX, OR HE KNOWS IT’S A HOAX AND HE’S TRYING TO SPREAD IT ANYWAY.

The doctor that performed that procedure on fetus with spina bifida has already repeatedly tried to correct the record, but the anti-choice crowd just can’t handle facts to defend their argument… so they go with lies. This chucklef*** has twice sponsored bills to defund Planned Parenthood, so he’s chomping at the bit with Roe v. Wade blown up to start making the Handmaid’s Tale a reality.

He only has a Libertarian challenger, so he’ll definitely be around in 2023. Regrettably.