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

[hyped78]

Please use the multiquote function.

You're up early!

[Tendrin]

A West Virginia Republican state senator is under fire after arguing on the Senate floor that children who have been raped “romanticize” their sexual abusers, saying the children are involved in “relationships” with their abusers, and see them as a “boyfriend.”

State Senator Robert Karnes made his remarks during debate on a highly controversial abortion bill that passed 21-10, but failed to be reconciled with a House version, and does not currently appear to be moving forward.

“You know the dynamic in these relationships quite often is that the child has a very romanticized view of what’s happening,” Sen. Karnes said Friday, in the video below. “They think that this is their boyfriend.”

He then asks Democratic state Senator Stephen Baldwin, the Minority Leader, “Would you agree with that?”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/we...830158f0ecaefd

[hyped78]

Not sure if anyone has already commented but this is quite a big deal:
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/08/01/p...ism/index.html

Al-Zahawiri had "disappeared" for so many years, he finally got what he deserved. Obviously scores points for Biden on the anti-terrorism front.

Taliban are accusing the US of violating the terms of the Doha agreement - what a joke!

[babyblob]

Not sure if anyone has already commented but this is quite a big deal:
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/08/01/p...ism/index.html

Al-Zahawiri had "disappeared" for so many years, he finally got what he deserved. Obviously scores points for Biden on the anti-terrorism front.

Taliban are accusing the US of violating the terms of the Doha agreement - what a joke!

There were a few posts on this yes. And I am glad he is gone.

[Malvolio]

Too old to run in two years. The same for Trump.

The Democrats should be preparing a clear front runner and I'm not convinced Kamala has raised her status enough at this point. Wouldn't mind seeing Hillary run again.

So Biden and Trump are too old, but you wouldn't mind seeing HILLARY run again? And you also say that age limits are discriminatory? Make up your mind.

[hyped78]

There were a few posts on this yes. And I am glad he is gone.

It's incredible how he managed to disappear/ stay alive for so many years. But better late than never, so kudos to US intelligence, this administration for deciding to pull the trigger and the military for executing it.

I guess the question is how much did the Taliban know about his presence and how much were they protecting him?

[hyped78]

So Biden and Trump are too old, but you wouldn't mind seeing HILLARY run again? And you also say that age limits are discriminatory? Make up your mind.

Let me take a step back.

I don't think anyone should be restricted from running for office on the basis of age, I don't agree with any sort of mandatory age limits.

When I say that Biden and Trump are/ will be too old in 2024 that's my personal opinion that they're too old to run. I think they should be able to run if they want to, but I personally think they're too old. Biden will be 82, Trump will be 78.

Now, I have to confess I thought Hillary Clinton was younger. She will be 77 in 2024 so let me move her to the "too old column". I just thought she was younger than Biden and Trump, for some reason?

[CaptainEurope]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/we...830158f0ecaefd

Yikes. Why does that sound like the abuser's perspective, and why does he know the abuser's perspective so well?

[Kirby101]

The nomination process for President is democratic, small "d". The voters decide who will run from their Party. Biden was the nominee because more voters in more States voted for him, full stop. The old days of smoked fill rooms and Party big wigs picking the candidate are long gone. So when people say the Party should decide who is running now, that just isn't how it works.
Who the nominee in 2024 is will depend on who is running and who the registered Democrats vote for.

[hyped78]

The nomination process for President is democratic, small "d". The voters decide who will run from their Party. Biden was the nominee because more voters in more States voted for him, full stop. The old days of smoked fill rooms and Party big wigs picking the candidate are long gone. So when people say the Party should decide who is running now, that just isn't how it works.
Who the nominee in 2024 is will depend on who is running and who the registered Democrats vote for.

Of course. But the party establishment - and registered Democrats - have an interest in fielding the best possible candidate to defeat whoever is the Republican nominee (and vice-versa!).

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2014, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” published a profile on Stephen Broden, an old pal of Texas Gov. Rick Perry who accuses Planned Parenthood of committing "black genocide", that President Obama deliberately orchestrated the economic crash of 2007 (which would be amazing for him to have done from the Senate), and calling for armed revolution if he was not elected to office. He continues to speak publicly with radical views (including support for "religious freedom" to discriminate against the LGBTQ community).

On this date in 2015, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” profiled Scott Renfroe, a former Colorado State Senator and Personhood supporter who went on to declare during a debate in the state legislature about providing benefits for same-sex partners of state employees, started to volunteer his opinion that homosexual behavior was an “abomination” and began comparing homosexuality to straight up MURDER, after quoting the Book of Leviticus from the Bible. Which is amazing, because even Old Testament fans know murder is one of the Ten Commandments from the Book of Exodus, so Renfroe maybe needed some more Bible study on top of being given some sensitivity training to help him be just a functional human being. Still, Renfroe was re-elected during the 2010 Tea Party Wave, and went on to call for the National Guard to be tasked with sorting through protesters in the state capitol calling for the legalization of marijuana to find the ones with legalized medical marijuana cards, and confiscate them for their actions (note: the National Guard did not come). Renfroe also complained that cutting back on the number of hours of education in physics would somehow lead to the “feminization” of the boys. As you would expect, Renfroe’s voting record was awful, including a vote against a bill to provide emergency contraception for sexual assault survivors, votes against allowing Medicaid to pay for family planning, and a vote to avoid Colorado from adopting the United Nations Convention Against the Discrimination of Women. Renfroe made a bid for Congress in 2014, losing out to Ken Buck while running for the seat to represent Colorado’s 4th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives. He is only 50 years old at the time of this post, so we’re expecting he’ll resurface and run for office somewhere, at some point.

On this date in 2017, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” published a profile of Pete Nielsen, a former member of the Idaho House of Representatives from 2002-2016 who was enough of an extremist that the Idaho Republican Party still thought he was unfit to be trusted to do much of anything, and in the fourteen years he served in the state legislature, Nielsen was never appointed to oversee a legislative committee nor won a legislative leadership position. What brought Pete Nielsen to our attention was that in February 2016, he was engaged in debate over a bill that would require mandatory intra-vaginal ultrasound bill for women seeking abortions, without exceptions for rape or incest, and Nielsen decided to state his belief that you can’t get pregnant from rape, and later clarifying to the media, "I'm convinced because of the trauma it would not be like it was with consensual sex." Sounds like yet another Republican who went to the Todd Akin school of f***ed up science facts, eh? A few days later, likely after Republican Party leaders cornered Nielsen and shook the holy f*** out of him for repeating one of the same mistakes that doomed them only four years earlier in the 2012 elections, he changed his tune, saying that he had once read medical journals that made him believe what he was saying was true, but that upon reviewing the facts, he was wrong, and a woman can get pregnant if she is raped. However, he wasn’t about to allow for the exception in the bill for rape or incest victims, in spite of his new revelation. Nielsen’s voting record also included GOP voter suppression efforts with Voter ID bill, a vote to attempt at nullify the Affordable Care Act, a vote for HJM 4, a resolution to seek the impeachment of any member of the judiciary who rules in favor of same sex marriage, a vote to try to have the Bible taught in public schools, and a vote against raising the minimum wage during one of the worst eras for economic inequity in our country in a century. Now, we would like to say that Nielsen didn’t run for re-election in 2016 because of that gaffe, but he was 78, so maybe he just felt it was time to call it a career. Or maybe, he felt he would have also been marred by his January 2016 arrest on the charges of illegally poaching an elk. The important thing is he’s out of office.

On this date in 2016, 2018, as well as in 2019, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” published a profile about Michael Folk, a member of the West Virginia House of Delegates who on July 15th, 2016, decided to get on Twitter to share his thoughts about former Secretary of State, First Lady, and current Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, posting “@HillaryClinton You should be tried for treason, murder, and crimes against the US Constitution… then hung on the Mall in Washington, DC”. After receiving widespread criticism, Folk tried justifying his mindset, sending out a second message that read, “Sorry, I don’t mince words… read this story & watch this video & maybe you’ll understand. Hillary supporters coming out of the woodwork this morning…” The video he linked to was about Hillary Clinton’s e-mails. Which was not, and is apparently not worthy of prosecution per then FBI Director James Comey or anyone in that role since, but if you ask Michael Folk, amateur judge, jury, and executioner, someone should be prepping a noose for a public hanging. Anyway, United Airlines suspended Michael Folk while they investigated the matter, and he also was obviously given an audience with the Secret Service. As for what sort of legislator Michael Folk is… a quick glance at his voting record showed he’s a fan of stricter Voter ID laws to combat statistically non-existent in-person voter fraud at the cost of disenfranchising tens of thousands of voters, his vote for concealed carry of firearms without a permit, that he supported one of those conservative “religious freedom” laws that’s an end-around attempt to side-step the Supreme Court’s ruling on same-sex marriage, a ban on abortion at 20 weeks, and a not at all inflammatory piece of legislation to ban a “dismemberment abortion”, which we can only assume is based on the sort of information someone would get from a fraudulent organization like the Center for Medical Progress. Michael Folk did win re-election in 2016, and in spite of his troubling comments, he actually thought he was worthy of a promotion onto the West Virginia State Senate, planning a challenge to incumbent Democrat John Unger and facing no opposition to doing so in the GOP Primary. Meanwhile, he was also trying to raise his profile by circulating a petition to try and impeach West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice because… he doesn’t live inside the state capitol? Yeah… feeling like you have to do a little better than that, Mike. Some people actually commit treason with Russia and folks aren’t hustling to impeach them… also, those same people don’t get you calling on them to be tried and executed, so there’s that. Anyway, Michael Folk failed to get elected to the West Virginia State Senate, losing by just over 1500 votes. He declared himself as a gubernatorial candidate to challenge Gov. Jim Justice in 2020, continuing to refer to him as “Traitor Jim”. He ended up losing by about 50 points, getting only 12.4% while finishing third in the GOP primary out of seven possible candidates

[worstblogever]

On this date in both 2020, as well as 2021, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” published its first profile of the U.S. House Representative from Indiana’s 3rd Congressional District, Jim Banks, who was first elected back in 2016, when we entered the darkest timeline. Prior to that, he entered the political arena in the Tea Party Wave back in 2010, served six years in the Indiana State Senate, and in his time in Hoosier State politics, he voted against the Medicaid Expansion, co-sponsored a bill to drug test welfare recipients, another bill to defund Planned Parenthood in Indiana, and helped pass an anti-choice bill extreme enough that it required women to bury or cremate fetal remains that was quickly overturned by the courts. He is also a tool of ALEC, having been their errand boy to bring forth right-to-work legislation.

Indiana’s 3rd Congressional District has a +18 Republican lean in the Cook Partisan Voting Index, tied for the most conservative district in what is a decidedly red state. That helped Jim Banks coast to victory in the 2020 elections with 68% of the vote. He has continued to prove himself an extremist in votes for the past two years:

• December 18th, 2019: Banks 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.
• January 10th, 2020: Shortly after Congresswoman Ilhan Omar mentions in an interview that she still has PTSD from her time as a child refugee from Somalia… Jim Banks comes along to minimize her suffering, and try to pretend that she’s not being honest about her condition, and that her remarks were “offensive to our nation’s veterans”.
• May 15th, 2020: Banks votes against the HEROES Act, to further support the healthcare industry and citizens affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
• December 10th, 2020: Banks 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: Jim Banks 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. signs his name to an amicus brief to the Supreme Court, begging them to overturn the results of the 2020 election[/URL]. The same election that he won re-election in.
• January 13th, 2021: Rep. Banks 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: Jim Banks 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: Banks votes against HR 5, the latest version of the Equality Act, that would provide workplace protections for LGBTQ Americans.
• March 3rd, 2021: Rep. Banks 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: Jim Banks votes against the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2021.
• March 10th, 2021: Banks 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. Banks 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: Jim Banks votes against HR 3233, the creation of a commission to investigate the Capitol Attack.
• May 20th, 2021: Banks is one of 63 Republicans who vote against the Covid-19 Hate Crimes Act.
• November 5th, 2021: Jim Banks votes against HR 3684, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
• March 31st, 2022: Banks 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. Jim Banks would rather they be gouged by pharmaceutical giants and/or die.
• May 18th, 2022: Jim Banks is one of 192 Republicans who vote against HR 7790, to create supplemental funding for infant formula (while claiming to be pro- life).
• May 18th, 2022: Rep. Banks 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: Banks votes against HR 7688, a bill which would help prevent gas companies from gouging customers on prices.
• June 22nd, 2022: Rep. Banks is one of 67 Republicans who co-sponsor HR 1167, a bill to try to begin consideration on the Life at Contraception Act, which would, y’know, ban both abortion and birth control federally if passed if say… Roe v. Wade weren’t around to overturn it.
• July 15th, 2022: Jim Banks 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. Banks 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: Banks 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.

X

[worstblogever]

As late as May 9th, Jim Banks was still on Fox News and questioning whether or not Joe Biden legitimately won the 2020 election (BIDEN F***ING DID) and defending his decision to vote against certifying the election results. That probably had a lot to do with why House Minority Leader and craven s***heel Kevin McCarthy appointed Banks to be on the commission to investigate the January 6th attack on the Capitol in a move equivalent to naming the Riddler to be on a select panel to investigate rising crime rates in Gotham City. Banks was summarily rejected by Nancy Pelosi like Giannis Antetokounmpo swatting away a layup into the crowd at a Bucks game.

Jim Banks is still licking his wounds over that, and will likely be fundraising on his “victimhood” that he’s not allowed so sabotage any investigation into 1/6 from within as he goes on conservative media venues to try and claim that somehow, the lack of security on 1/6/21 was Pelosi’s fault (even through the Capitol Police are not under her command).

Banks vociferous defense of Trump and every bit of failed obfuscation he’s attempted in the press disgusted folks enough back in his district that a legal challenge was filed against him being on the ballot because his words and actions were arguably enough to qualify as proof that he had violated his oath to the Constitution, and was supporting the failed insurrection/coup attempt, thus he shouldn’t be eligible to run for office for having violated the 14th Amendment. Sadly, such challenges to Republicans like Banks are getting dismissed in court.

Did Jim Banks take this as a warning to maybe dial back the seditious talk? NOPE. He’s been “leading the Jan. 6th response” for the Republican Party, and based on public reaction, he’s not exactly convincing anyone. But, as Indiana’s 3rd Congressional District has a +18 Republican lean, regardless of Banks’ dedication to those carrying out a coup attempt, it could be a tough hill to climb for his Democratic opponent, Gary Snyder, to unseat him.

Which is the real travesty in this, that most Republicans won’t come to their senses about those who perpetrated the attack, or those who defend the attackers.

[Tendrin]

Yikes. Why does that sound like the abuser's perspective, and why does he know the abuser's perspective so well?

....yeah, I wasn't gonna say it but I can't say the thouht didn't cross my mind given 'the list' and all.

[CTTT]

Donald Trump was IMO a great commander in chief and hope he runs in 2024.