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

[godisawesome]

If Central American immigrants and their children support the Republican party, this is not a repudiation of democracy.

The idea that supporting Republicans is the equivalent of voting against democracy is messaging reasonable people will disagree with.

Sadly, in the current political paradigm of Republican “leadership,” that “reasonable” measure must come with several caveats, including ones that completely disqualify any attempt to separate supporting Republicans from being against democracy.

GOP leadership is currently defined by being driven and fueled almost exclusively by histrionic fanatics consumed by anti-democracy conspiracy theories and goals, with a handful of cynical but naive old hands trying to ride rodeo on this mad batch and enabling the worst behavior because leadership isn’t their thing, and a small handful of generally doomed and impotent sane individuals who are targeted for removal by the fanatics.

Mitch McConnel is the closest the GOP has to a sane person with genuine leadership skills, and is fine and dandy trusting the fanatics, and almost payed for it on January 8th before backing down again and continuing to allow and even endorse anti-democratic facsist power plays. He’s either too weak to control the driving forces of his party (most likely, since he’s actually not about leadership or policy but instead short-sighted politics in its worst manner), or a willing accomplice.

Not to say that all GOP voters support setting up apparatuses to steal elections or demand that reality change to fit Trump’s POV… but right now, those more reasonable standards donkt matter and are anathema to the will of the party’s most powerful, driving bases.

We’re not dealing with theory here - this is reality.

Some local elections don’t suffer the issue (because they’re local, so they’re possible insanity on the national level doesn’t matter), and some state and a tiny handful of federal politicians have enough neccessary balls to tell the fanatics “no.” But even at the local level, anyone who rants about CRT is a member of the fanatics pushing a fascist fantasy on their neighbors and the next generation.

[Kirby101]

So the Republicans will now support anything that has a 80% poll backing it? Good to know.

[worstblogever]

The idea that supporting Republicans is the equivalent of voting against democracy is messaging reasonable people will disagree with.

"Reasonable people" by which you're referring to like-minded Republicans who excuse away all the things that their party actually is, like that they're currently embracing the concept of authoritarianism to the extent they've been regularly glorifying Orban, and excusing Putin.

You can't gaslight us when you're out of gas, Mets.

[Mister Mets]

No...81% of people polled. Not 81% of the public. And then there's the fact that the group behind the poll is a voter suppression organization connected to the Heritage Foundation...
On top of that, the majority of those polled want to give those IDs to people that need them for free.

The Republican losers crying that we need Voter ID so badly definitely wouldn't be offering those ID cards for free. Or making them in any way easy to get. Especially because they don't think a driver's license or state ID is enough and want people to get a whole extra card on top of that.

So no. Voter ID is not popular.

The distinction between 81 percent polled and 81 percent of the public matters if there's significant selection bias. This seems to be a standard poll with a margin of error of three points.

It does also match other polling. A Monmouth poll last year had 80 percent support for Photo IDs.

https://www.monmouth.edu/polling-ins...oll_us_062121/

Gallup had similar numbers a few years ago.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/194741/...ly-voting.aspx

The poll says 81% favor "some form of photo identification", and 74% said they'd support voter id laws only if allowed for free ids. That's much different than supporting the terrible laws in places like North Dakota, Texas, North Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia.

I have no problem with requirements that some form of free ID be available if Photo ID were required to vote.

It avoids a legal argument that poor voters would be subject to poll taxes.

"Reasonable people" by which you're referring to like-minded Republicans who excuse away all the things that their party actually is, like that they're currently embracing the concept of authoritarianism to the extent they've been regularly glorifying Orban, and excusing Putin.

You can't gaslight us when you're out of gas, Mets.

"Reasonable people" is a category that also includes some swing voters and Democrats.

[worstblogever]

The distinction between 81 percent polled and 81 percent of the public matters if there's significant selection bias. This seems to be a standard poll with a margin of error of three points.

It does also match other polling. A Monmouth poll last year had 80 percent support for Photo IDs.

https://www.monmouth.edu/polling-ins...oll_us_062121/

Gallup had similar numbers a few years ago.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/194741/...ly-voting.aspx

I have no problem with requirements that some form of free ID be available if Photo ID were required to vote.

It avoids a legal argument that poor voters would be subject to poll taxes.


"Reasonable people" is a category that also includes some swing voters and Democrats.

"BOTH SIDES!"

Name all the Democrats (Tulsi Gabbard isn't one, given she just guest-hosted for Tucker Carlson's White Power Power Hour) praising autocrats around the world right now.

You know the truth. Your party no longer supports democracy, supports authoritarian governments, and if there is any democracy they do support, it's only the ones where they win up and down the ballot, against the majority's opinion.

I don't know at this point if Republicans are trying harder to lie to all to us about that, or just lie to themselves to pretend everything's fine so they can still sleep at night.

[JackDaw]

"BOTH SIDES!"

Name all the Democrats (Tulsi Gabbard isn't one, given she just guest-hosted for Tucker Carlson's White Power Power Hour) praising autocrats around the world right now.

You know the truth. Your party no longer supports democracy, supports authoritarian governments, and if there is any democracy they do support, it's only the ones where they win up and down the ballot, against the majority's opinion.

I don't know at this point if Republicans are trying harder to lie to all to us about that, or just lie to themselves to pretend everything's fine so they can still sleep at night.

How has it got to this stage?

US wealth is enormous. US media output via films, books, some newspapers often champions humane ideals. Education (by most international standards) is good. US constitution and overall framework is an excellent Democratic model.

It all ought to add up to an unswerving commitment to democracy, with both main parties having fairly liberal values.

So why isn’t it like that?

[Tendrin]

How has it got to this stage?

US wealth is enormous. US media output via films, books, some newspapers often champions humane ideals. Education (by most international standards) is good. US constitution and overall framework is an excellent Democratic model.

It all ought to add up to an unswerving commitment to democracy, with both main parties having fairly liberal values.

So why isn’t it like that?

The only value the republican party has an unswerving commitment to is its own power at any cost.

[hyped78]

No...81% of people polled. Not 81% of the public. And then there's the fact that the group behind the poll is a voter suppression organization connected to the Heritage Foundation...
On top of that, the majority of those polled want to give those IDs to people that need them for free.

The Republican losers crying that we need Voter ID so badly definitely wouldn't be offering those ID cards for free. Or making them in any way easy to get. Especially because they don't think a driver's license or state ID is enough and want people to get a whole extra card on top of that.

So no. Voter ID is not popular.

If you say something like "Voter ID is not popular" and you don't back it up with any kind of data it just seems like an extremely weak argument.

Monmouth - 80% of Americans support voter ID rules, including 62% of democrats
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisond...h=547aa10b1e0b


A survey, conducted by NPR, PBS NewsHour and Marist in late June, backs up other research showing there is actually broad public support for such measures. Overall, the poll found that nearly eight in 10 Americans favor requiring government-issued photo ID to cast a ballot. This policy was most popular among Republicans (94 percent) and independents (83 percent), but a majority of Democrats (57 percent) also indicated support.
https://thefulcrum.us/voting/voter-id-laws

Gallup - Four in Five Americans Support Voter ID Laws, Early Voting
https://news.gallup.com/poll/194741/...ly-voting.aspx


EDIT - Mister Mets, I posted this before reading your latest post on this topic. Two of the three polls were already also in your post, the one that you didn't have is the NPR/PBS/Marist one

[hyped78]

So the Republicans will now support anything that has a 80% poll backing it? Good to know.

Isn't that Democratic? (see the numbers in my post just above this one) Do a referendum and see what most people want.

I personally don't understand why in some countries people can still vote without ID, without going into detail on what ID is acceptable etc.

[worstblogever]

How has it got to this stage?

US wealth is enormous. US media output via films, books, some newspapers often champions humane ideals. Education (by most international standards) is good. US constitution and overall framework is an excellent Democratic model.

It all ought to add up to an unswerving commitment to democracy, with both main parties having fairly liberal values.

So why isn’t it like that?

Because Republicans refuse to compromise their agenda on any issue...

Except the issue of supporting democracy.

[hyped78]

Iran blames Salman Rushdie and supporters for his stabbing

"Regarding the attack on Salman Rushdie, we do not consider anyone other than [Rushdie] and his supporters worth of blame and even condemnation," Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said in a televised news conference Monday, marking the country's first public reaction to the incident."

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/08/15/m...ntl/index.html

Ah, Iran, land of "peace", "freedom" and "democracy".

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2014, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” ran a profile of Tom Tancredo, a man who is so xenophobic in his anti-immigrant fervor that he was banned from the White House by the Bush Administration, has been tied to various white nationalist groups to deliver speeches to them, and has advocated a nuclear strike on Mecca as a tangible strategy for stopping Islamic terrorism. Tancredo has been mostly irrelevant of late, but he did make the news back during the earlier part of the 2016 presidential primary to suggest that even Donald Trump should tone down his divisive rhetoric towards illegal immigrants (which really says something about how out of control Trump is).

On this date in 2015, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” profiled Craig James, the former Southern Methodist University running back and and ESPN college football broadcaster who ran for U.S. Senate in Texas in 2012. The only real speech James had that found its way into the public eye prior to his entry into the race featured him denying the existence of climate change, and promising to do everything he could to make sure that not a single dollar went to the research into it, or what could be done to prevent it. At the GOP Primary debate, James asserted that being gay was a choice, and was overall such a spectacularly terrible campaigner that he only got 4% of the vote, including not even being able to get students of SMU to vote for him. ESPN chose not to have James back in the booth for his comments on homosexuality, and he tried unsuccessfully to sue the network for discrimination of his Christian beliefs. He was last seen playing up his supposed Christian victimhood to Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council on one of his programs, but it unlikely to ever be elected to political office.



In both 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, as well as 2021, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” presented our original profile of the U.S. House Representative for Florida’s 11th Congressional District, Daniel Webster, who first got swept into office in the 2010 Tea Party Wave after having previously served as the Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives and Florida Senate Majority Leader during a 28 year career as a Florida state legislator (and not as an extra working in the background of a morgue in a horror movie, like you’d expect). Webster is, at the moment, the preferred voice of Republican leadership of the recalcitrant House Freedom Caucus, and has finished second in the past three votes for Speaker of the House as a result.

Now, given how much of a group of extremists the House Freedom Caucus is, you can bet it’s more than Daniel Webster’s resume that impresses them. His record on issues show’s he’s clearly of like mind. Case in point… how “pro-life” is Daniel Webster? Well, while we can’t be sure of if he supports exceptions for rape and incest in his anti-abortion stance, because he refuses to answer the question when asked, we do know he’s voted for virtually every pro-life measure that’s ever crossed his path, including even when Jeb Bush was working overtime in Florida to make sure a feeding tube stayed inside of the long-since brain dead Terry Schiavo, and forcing her to keep on living against her wishes… the central figure in the Florida state legislature trying to write creative laws to drag out that situation even longer was Daniel Webster, while he was in the Florida State Senate.

And that’s hardly the only conservative social position Daniel Webster had. There was also his 1990 sponsorship of a bill to legalize covenant marriage. The draconian measure would have only allowed couples to divorce if only one partner cheated on the other (if both were unfaithful, they must remain married), and did not even offer exceptions for situations involving domestic abuse.

Now, you might wonder where these extreme conservative views Webster’s got are coming from… there is a quite plain answer.
Daniel Webster has close ties to Bill Gothard and Gothard’s ministry, the Institute of Basic Life Principles, repeatedly collaborating with the disgraced church leader who was revealed to have covered up scores of abuse claims from his flock, and has a disturbing habit of counseling female rape and sexual abuse victims to make them feel as though they’re to blame for what their attackers have done to them in an overall patriarchal agenda where women must submit to their husbands. One of the first legislative acts in Florida that Webster pushed for back in 1985 was to legalize homeschooling (which Gothard and his flock are big proponents of).

The amount of degrees of separation between Daniel Webster and the disgraced Duggar family are also shockingly few, but is Rep. Webster a total fanatic, though? Well, according to some, he’s spoken before Bill Gothard’s flock in a way that seems to indicate he views the gerrymandering of his district as “God being on his side and opposing his opponents”.

[thwhtGuardian]

The distinction between 81 percent polled and 81 percent of the public matters if there's significant selection bias. This seems to be a standard poll with a margin of error of three points.

It does also match other polling. A Monmouth poll last year had 80 percent support for Photo IDs.

https://www.monmouth.edu/polling-ins...oll_us_062121/

Gallup had similar numbers a few years ago.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/194741/...ly-voting.aspx

I have no problem with requirements that some form of free ID be available if Photo ID were required to vote.

It avoids a legal argument that poor voters would be subject to poll taxes.


"Reasonable people" is a category that also includes some swing voters and Democrats.

But the voter ID laws in place don't have that distinction, which is what people mean when they disagree with voter ID laws.

[worstblogever]

And that’s pretty nuts. As is the rest of his voting record:

• December 18th, 2019: Webster 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: Webster votes against the HEROES Act, to further support the healthcare industry and citizens affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
• December 10th, 2020: Webster 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: Daniel Webster 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. Webster is conveniently absent for 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: Daniel Webster 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: Webster votes against HR 5, the latest version of the Equality Act, that would provide workplace protections for LGBTQ Americans.
• March 3rd, 2021: Rep. Webster 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: Daniel Webster votes against the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2021.
• March 10th, 2021: Webster 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. Webster 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: Daniel Webster votes against HR 3233, the creation of a commission to investigate the Capitol Attack.
• November 5th, 2021: Daniel Webster votes against HR 3684, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
• March 31st, 2022: Webster 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. Daniel Webster would rather they be gouged by pharmaceutical giants and/or die.
• May 18th, 2022: Daniel Webster 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. Webster 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: Webster votes against HR 7688, a bill which would help prevent gas companies from gouging customers on prices.
• July 13th, 2022: Webster votes against the Honoring Our PACT Act, to provide healthcare to veterans affected by toxic burn pits while serving in the War on Terror that leave them more susceptible to forms of cancer.
• July 15th, 2022: Daniel Webster 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 enforcement 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. Webster 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: Webster 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.

Daniel Webster won a sixth term in office in 2020, getting 67% of the vote, mostly because of the big partisan disadvantage in Florida’s 11th, sitting at a +15 Republican lean and Webster’s evangelical support base also prop him up with donations. Webster has been mostly quiet since January 6th, putting out a press release on Trump’s second impeachment vote that he wouldn’t be attending due to a “family medical obligation”, that might be that his family were asking him to get treatment for his rectal-cranial inversion problem, remove his head from his arse, and impeach the motherf***er like he deserved to be.

And while you might think we would be rooting for a primary challenger to Daniel Webster to get him out of office ASAP, that isn’t the case in 2022, given that he's got someone running to his right… bats*** conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer. She’s too much of an idiot to have pulled that off, attacking Webster for his age when his district contains “The Villages”, the largest retirement community on the eastern seaboard, if not the country.

We aren’t sure who is going to win the Democratic primary next Tuesday, but whomever it is, we wish them the best of luck defeating Daniel Webster, or forbid the thought, Loomer, in November, in a big upset.

[worstblogever]

Y'know, this is the sort of stupid flex that will never work, but he's also about flexing stupid...

Trump put out a statement to the FBI demanding they give him HIS documents back.

You mean, the "planted evidence" you were braying about last week? Now they're YOUR documents?

They're not. They're the government's documents, you dips***.