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

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” published profiles of U.S. Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa, the woman whose original campaign for office in 2014 was built around running ads where she shot up copies of the Affordable Care Act with a gun (which she offered as a 2nd Amendment alternative to the government not operating as we like three weeks prior to the election), and promised to go to Washington, D.C. to use her experience growing up on a farm castrating hogs to make veteran politicians "squeal". Since being elected, Sen. Ernst has continued to be a vacuous never-ending stream of moronic, pandering statements. A few examples include her State of the Union rebuttal where she talked about walking home from school wearing bread bags on her feet on wet or snowy days during "tough times" (which she grew up during the Reagan administration, so...), the time she said Hillary Clinton "wasn't doing enough on women's issues" (ignoring like, her entire quarter century record on them), and claiming President Obama ordered flags lowered to half mast after a mass shooting in Chatanooga because "he wanted to distract from the Iran deal". She also voted against funding the Department of Homeland Security, as well as voted to defund Planned Parenthood in her first nine months in office. And the GOP is hell bent on making Joni Ernst one of their "rising stars" of the party. Giving her the rebuttal of the 2015 State of the Union wasn't enough for them, and they wanted to make sure she got a prime-time slot at the 2016 Republican National Convention to cement herself nationally as a figure in the Republican Party. There was just one problem... the 2016 RNC was, of course, being overseen by the wisdom of Donald J. Trump. As such, the long line of Trump-backed speakers coming out to fearmonger pushed Ernst's remarks further and further back into the night, as well as The Donald's own WWE-styled entrance on Night 1 of the convention just to introduce his own wife, Melania, so she could plagiarize Michelle Obama at length took precedence. By the time Joni Ernst got on stage to bad-mouth Hillary Clinton (which everyone else had already spent the whole night doing), over half the delegates and attendees had already left that night, probably closer to nine tenths (check the photo from correspondent Alan Rappeport). Those who remained had already been in their seats for over four hours, and barely seemed to even notice a U.S. Senator was pandering to them, and Ernst reported found speaking to an empty arena "excruciating". We find that to be true of her voting record, where she has twice voted to defend the Second Amendment rights of suspected terrorists, and feels that anyone on the “no fly list” should still have a firearm. And even though she claims she’s “pro-life” to her core, Ernst voted against funding for the prevention of the spread of Zika Virus, which causes birth defects in the unborn.

In 2017, Joni Ernst voted for the Senate GOP’s attempt to repeal Obamacare that crashed and burned on a 51-49 vote, voted to place Neil Gorsuch onto the Supreme Court, and voted to confirm every single member of Donald Trump’s “Cabinet of Horrors”. That’s part of the reason her constituents wanted to make the supposed pig farmer “squeal” herself when she returned to Iowa for her own halls in July of 2017, where people who depend on affordable healthcare to survive kept her scrambling, and the only real applause she got through the whole night was when she agreed with them that Donald Trump should release his tax returns.

Six months later, it didn’t get much better. In January of 2018, Ernst hosted another town hall, and her own constituents laughed in her face when she defended their criticism that Donald Trump’s talk of white supremacy wasn’t doing anything to help our standing with countries around the world, and Ernst was asked what countries Trump’s rhetoric helped, and she meekly responded, “Norway”. As in, Norway, a country that is 83% Norwegian, and predominantly white. The crowd of Iowans also audibly groaned when Sen. Ernst defended Trump from charges of being racist, saying he wasn’t racist “deep inside”.

That town hall didn’t have the only folks back home who were disenchanted with Joni Ernst, as not long thereafter, her husband filed for divorce. Joni Ernst had 11 months left left on her freshman term as a senator before her first defense of her seat... She had yet to castrate anything in Washington, D.C., that we know of, has yet to produce any legislation of note, and seems to be a running joke for the GOP. Her re-election campaign kicked off in June, and what was Ernst’s rallying cry? “THE RADICAL LEFT WANT SOCIALISM FROM COAST TO COAST!!!” Keep in mind, she’s stupid enough to try to deride government assistance at a time when Iowa farmers are desperate to get more of it because of Donald Trump’s stupid trade war with China and all the tariffs getting thrown around crippling her state’s farm industry. She’s also claiming that “Medicare for All means Healthcare for None”, because she hasn’t developed a better lie to attack it like better people at messaging did during the Tea Party Wave to lie about the Affordable Care Act. And her constituents noticed, heckling her at town halls throughout the state, and mocking her openly when she does things like try to convince people that active shooter drills were something that used to take place in schools when she was a child (again, she grew up during the Reagan administration, so she’s full of s*** about that).

She’s also a goddamned hypocrite when it comes to the Supreme Court, as she sat and watched Mitch McConnell hold up a seat on the court in the year before the 2016 election that should have gone to Judge Merrick Garland, but now that it’s 2020, and there’s only months before this one, she was ready and waiting for Ruth Bader Ginsburg to keel over so she and the GOP can hot-shot Amy Coney Barrett onto the SCOTUS. She sees no double standard on that.

A lot has happened since our last update on Joni Ernst, and the biggest narrative that she’s botched politically while running for re-election is how she’s responded to the Covid-19 pandemic. She’s tried to simultaneously criticize President Obama’s handling of an Ebola outbreak that she campaigned on six years ago where only two people died, while claiming Donald Trump’s handling of Covid-19, where 150,000 people died in four months was “stepping forward”. As the Covid-19 pandemic worsened in the fall of 2020, Sen. Ernst began promoting a completely originally conspiracy theory… that Covid-19 numbers aren’t as bad as the media is reporting, and greedy doctors are only reporting more positive tests so they can bilk more money out of health insurance companies. Does that sound bats*** crazy and incredibly hard to prove? Because it is.

[worstblogever]

Here’s what she’s been up to the past few years or so:

• January 31st, 2020: Joni Ernst votes against witnesses being allowed in the first impeachment trial of Donald Trump, effectively making it a “trial”.
• February 5th, 2020: Sen. Ernst votes against the first impeachment of Donald Trump, in spite of the mountain of evidence showing that he solicited foreign assistance in the 2020 elections.
• February 25th, 2020: Ernst votes for the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, an insane piece of anti-choice legislation that would ask abortion providers to try to admit aborted fetuses to a hospital if they were “alive” after the procedure, which is medically impossible given the age that abortions can be performed at.
• February 13th, 2021: Joni Ernst votes to acquit Donald Trump in his second impeachment trial, feeling that he deserves no punishment for inciting an attack on the Capitol and jeopardizing the lives of the legislative branch of our government.
• March 6th, 2021: Sen. Ernst votes against the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, because he can’t be bothered to care if people need financial assistance during a pandemic.
• September 3rd, 2021: Ernst claimed that “not once” has President Biden thanked overseas veterans in the past 20 years, a ludicrous statement about a man who has REPEATEDLY thanked them, and literally will pass out hot dogs to them himself to show his gratitude. When reality doesn’t fit her partisan narrative, expect Ernst to try and rewrite it.
• September 10th, 2021: The day before the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Joni Ernst goes on Fox News to claim Joe Biden was only attempting to create vaccine mandates to “distract from 9/11”. Critics were baffled as to what in the hell the point she was trying to make was.
• December 14th, 2021: Ernst votes against raising the debt ceiling, jeopardizing the United States’ credit rating.
• February 28th, 2022: Sen. Ernst votes against the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would have established a right to physicians to perform abortions to save their patients’ lives.
• March 30th, 2022: Ernst votes against putting the extremely qualified nominee, Judge Kentanji Brown-Jackson, onto the Supreme Court.
• May 26th, 2022: Sen. Ernst votes against the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act of 2022, because at this point, domestic terror is a policy plank of authoritarian Republicans.
• July 27th, 2022: Joni Ernst votes against the PACT Act, blocking additional funding towards veterans exposed to “burn pits” while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, in a vote conducted out of spite that Democrats passed the Act the prior day. Several Republicans are seen shaking hands and fist bumping to celebrate screwing over the vets, while releasing a series of photos of the Senate GOP Caucus filling USO boxes and claiming they “support the military”.
• August 29th, 2022: Ernst comes to the defense of Donald Trump, as he’s in extreme legal jeopardy for violating the Presidential Records Act, or perhaps even the Espionage Act, but she chalks it up to a conspiracy theory that it’s just a ploy by the Biden administration to distract from falling gas prices. Which… why they would want to distract from what’s a GOOD thing… (Ernst is a moron.)

Joni Ernst is not up for re-election until 2026, and until then, she will remain the Senate’s seminal prop comic.

[Tami]

Do you understand how hypothetical situations work?
That Charles COULD try and move Camilla from Queen Consort to be Queen?
Similar to the discussion had yesterday that came up regarding King Edward VIII trying to make Wallis Simpson queen against all who opposed it?
So it's a hypothetical that has historically had a similar moment?
And that I literally just now linked to an article that Charles isn't satisfied that she's Queen Consort?

Seems like I've got a lot of facts here, "O Citizen of London".

I agree with hyped78, this is going way off into conspiracy theory island. There is no benefit for Charles to mess around with the line of succession, even if he could. His eldest son will be next in line after him. No wife of his would ever take the throne, not even Diana if she had lived and if they hadn't separated. Charles knows this is how it works, as do his sons and everyone else in the royal family.

[worstblogever]

I agree with hyped78, this is going way off into conspiracy theory island. There is no benefit for Charles to mess around with the line of succession, even if he could. His eldest son will be next in line after him. No wife of his would ever take the throne, not even Diana if she had lived and if they hadn't separated. Charles knows this is how it works, as do his sons and everyone else in the royal family.

It might not be a thing that comes to pass, but all of history tells me out of touch kings will try to do whatever they want, and dare people to stop them.

So if he tries, he'll fail, sure. But I would not rule out that he might not try it. I mean, he was stupid enough to cheat on Diana in the first place, and has insisted on dragging Camilla around for decades.

Also, this will put the new Queen Consort more in the spotlight than she's been, and I don't think that's going to be a fun experience for her with the British tabloids.

[hyped78]

I agree with hyped78, this is going way off into conspiracy theory island. There is no benefit for Charles to mess around with the line of succession, even if he could. His eldest son will be next in line after him. No wife of his would ever take the throne, not even Diana if she had lived and if they hadn't separated. Charles knows this is how it works, as do his sons and everyone else in the royal family.

worstblogever rails against the GOP and their conspiracy theories (and he should! I agree with him on that) but then turns around and produces some conspiracy theories of his own regarding the Queen's death and Charles. He's also somehow comparing the UK in 2022 to historic situations that have zero bearing into what is happening now/ what has already been announced by the Palace

[Tendrin]

worstblogever rails against the GOP and their conspiracy theories (and he should! I agree with him on that) but then turns around and produces some conspiracy theories of his own regarding the Queen's death and Charles. He's also somehow comparing the UK in 2022 to historic situations that have zero bearing into what is happening now/ what has already been announced by the Palace

Good lord. If you can't see the difference between 'the democrats are a pedophile cult operating out of a pizza basement' or '9/11 was an inside job!' from someone speculating, 'Maybe Charles is gonna do something stupid for which there is past precedent, it won't work, and also maybe not', I don't know what to tell you. I know you really want to find excuses to take runs at WBE, but dude.

[Dalak]

I agree with hyped78, this is going way off into conspiracy theory island. There is no benefit for Charles to mess around with the line of succession, even if he could. His eldest son will be next in line after him. No wife of his would ever take the throne, not even Diana if she had lived and if they hadn't separated. Charles knows this is how it works, as do his sons and everyone else in the royal family.

Seeing as this started thanks to my question about the succession and the initial hypothetical was posted before anything other than "The Queen is Dead" was known here, I don't think it is so crazy as to warrant the continued personal attacks from hyped.

Good lord. If you can't see the difference between 'the democrats are a pedophile cult operating out of a pizza basement' or '9/11 was an inside job!' from someone speculating, 'Maybe Charles is gonna do something stupid for which there is past precedent, it won't work, and also maybe not', I don't know what to tell you. I know you really want to find excuses to take runs at WBE, but dude.

Indeed, this is not the behavior of someone just looking for reasonable debate.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

I get that, but I still think it's wrong to say that the jury is out on whether Macron is a UK friend or foe. That's too much, in my view.



Yeah, but Biden won in Georgia (super small margin but it's still a win) and Warnock and Ossoff won both their Senate races - so, coming from that baseline only two years ago, I would've expected a clearly bad/ unprepared candidate like Herschel Walker to be soundly defeated by Warnock (obviously these are just polls...).

Walker:
“The Green New Deal, you know climate change,” Walker said. “I’m going to help you with that real quickly. … We, in America, have some of the cleanest air and cleanest water of anywhere in the world. So what we do is, we gonna put, from the Green New Deal, millions and billions of dollars cleaning our good air up.” Walker then argued that “because we don’t control the air,” America’s “good air decided” to “float over to China’s bad air.” China’s “bad air” will then “move over to our good air space,” which would force America to “clean that back up.”

Errr.... ok

Yes, I know Walker is the living example of that old adage, “It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt”, and he certainly sounds dangerously incompetent. Problem is: Republican voters DON’T CARE. The only thing that matters to them is owning the libs and beating a godless Democrat, regardless of who their candidate is. If Osama bin Laden were still alive and ran in that senate race as a Republican, right wingers would vote for him over Warnock, and that’s NOT hyperbole.

As for the issue with Charles and Camilla, what I know about the monarchy wouldn’t fill a shot glass in regard to how all that stuff works, but I wouldn’t put it past Chuck to make Camila the Queen without the Consort. He cheated on Diana and made zero bones about it, hell, maybe he never loved her and only saw the poor girl as incubator for a future King, after all these years, you think he gives a damn what the world thinks if he makes Camilla Queen?

[hyped78]

Good lord. If you can't see the difference between 'the democrats are a pedophile cult operating out of a pizza basement' or '9/11 was an inside job!' from someone speculating, 'Maybe Charles is gonna do something stupid for which there is past precedent, it won't work, and also maybe not', I don't know what to tell you. I know you really want to find excuses to take runs at WBE, but dude.

Not all right-wing/ GOP conspiracy theories are about pizzagate or 9/11, you should know that. Conspiracy theories come in all shapes and sizes, but the base methodology is the same.

Seeing as this started thanks to my question about the succession and the initial hypothetical was posted before anything other than "The Queen is Dead" was known here, I don't think it is so crazy as to warrant the continued personal attacks from hyped.

Indeed, this is not the behavior of someone just looking for reasonable debate.

The Palace has announced it... and this was known already half a year ago.

"not the behavior of someone just looking for reasonable debate" - neither is calling someone a "troll" but yet that's what you do

Yes, I know Walker is the living example of that old adage, “It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt”, and he certainly sounds dangerously incompetent. Problem is: Republican voters DON’T CARE. The only thing that matters to them is owning the libs and beating a godless Democrat, regardless of who their candidate is. If Osama bin Laden were still alive and ran in that senate race as a Republican, right wingers would vote for him over Warnock, and that’s NOT hyperbole.

As for the issue with Charles and Camilla, what I know about the monarchy wouldn’t fill a shot glass and how all that stuff works, but I wouldn’t put it past Chuck to make Camila the Queen without the Consort. He cheated on Diana and made zero bones about it, hell, maybe he never loved her and only saw the poor girl as incubator for a future King, after all these years, you think he gives a damn what the world thinks if he makes Camilla Queen?

She is already Queen Consort.

What WBE fails to understand is that she can't be (just) "Queen" (because she isn't "Queen" by blood but rather by marriage), but also that the difference between "Queen" and "Queen Consort" is basically non-existent, as she will be referred to by "Queen Consort" but also, colloquially, as "Queen".

In other words:

What's the difference between the Queen and the Queen Consort?
The reigning monarch's wife is traditionally known as the Queen Consort, while the Queen (technically the “Queen Regnant”) refers to a woman who has ascended the throne through the pre-established familial line of succession and has sovereign power. Because Queen Elizabeth II ascended when her father, King George VI died in 1952, she is a Queen, whereas Camilla is becoming Queen Consort by marriage.

What is Camilla's new title?
She has now been established as the Queen Consort, but colloquially, Camilla will likely be referred to as just Queen Camilla. After King George's death, his wife, Elizabeth, became known as The Queen Mother, mostly to avoid the confusion of dueling Queen Elizabeths.


https://www.elle.com/culture/celebri...queen-consort/


What WBE also doesn't understand - and was explained in the article he himself linked/ posted - is that Charles fought for many years for the right to call Camilla Queen (Consort), instead of Princess (Consort) or any other title - or no title. Well, not only has that already materialized yesterday but it had already been announced half a year ago during the Queen's Jubilee:

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-60274816

So what is he even talking about when he's saying that Charles is going to try this or that? It's not even a conspiracy theory because there's nothing to be done.

[worstblogever]

Good lord. If you can't see the difference between 'the democrats are a pedophile cult operating out of a pizza basement' or '9/11 was an inside job!' from someone speculating, 'Maybe Charles is gonna do something stupid for which there is past precedent, it won't work, and also maybe not', I don't know what to tell you. I know you really want to find excuses to take runs at WBE, but dude.

But hey, "BOTH SIDES DO CONSPIRACY THEORIES!"

Gonna throw their back out trying to reach for a comparison like that. Doin' me a concern, really.

[Kirby101]

Yeah, but Biden won in Georgia (super small margin but it's still a win) and Warnock and Ossoff won both their Senate races - so, coming from that baseline only two years ago, I would've expected a clearly bad/ unprepared candidate like Herschel Walker to be soundly defeated by Warnock (obviously these are just polls...).

Because they didn't prevent enough POC, especially in Fulton County from voting in 2020. The way Kemp did when he won. They won't make the same mistake. Make it hard to vote in Democratic districts, limit mail in voting, challenge people's registration, and those small margins turn for the Republican. It's the GOP way.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...ch-a-big-deal/

Now, Georgia’s democratic stand in 2020 looks more like a temporary victory in a broader fight over American democracy that remains very much contested. On Thursday, Kemp signed a major election law pushed through by Georgia Republicans. Among other things, the law strips some of the power to run Georgia elections from the secretary of state and local counties and transfers it to a state board that is likely to be dominated by conservative Republicans. It includes a ban on providing food and water to people waiting in line to vote. And Kemp justified the new law by suggesting that there were unresolved questions about whether the election in Georgia was conducted fairly.

[hyped78]

But hey, "BOTH SIDES DO CONSPIRACY THEORIES!"

Conspiracy theories, fake numbers, misinformation, whatever you wanna call it... yep, you've been proving just that. In this case, I don't even care about "both sides", I am looking at your comments specifically.

Because they didn't prevent enough POC, especially in Fulton County from voting in 2020. The way Kemp did when he won. They won't make the same mistake. Make it hard to vote in Democratic districts, limit mail in voting, challenge people's registration, and those small margins turn for the Republican. It's the GOP way.

I understand that, unfortunately that's happening in many GOP led states, especially in the wake of the 2020 election. But when polls are made, sampling and field work - they don't take into account voter suppression. They take into account likely voters/ intent to vote, so while there is a difference between between saying "I want to vote/ I will vote" and actually being able to vote (if you're, say, from a disadvantaged area), the polls don't necessarily reflect that difference. What I'm trying to say is that I don't understand how Walker is so well positioned, so competitive, in the polls, even if he will get a "suppression boost" in terms of real votes/ inability to vote.

And I understand he's a football legend, some people in Georgia idolize him, etc. - but being such a weak/ clueless candidate (Walker) why would he beat Warnock in the polls (just talking about polls), two years after Warnock won his election there?

EDIT: I am reading your Five Thirty Eight link, the widespread effort to suppress (minority) votes is very clear

[Ragged Maw]

Conspiracy theories, fake numbers, misinformation... yep, you've been proving just that.

I have a hard time believing the Democrats’ track record in regards to backing conspiracy theories is as bloated as the GOP’s.

[hyped78]

I have a hard time believing the Democrats’ track record in regards to backing conspiracy theories is as bloated as the GOP’s.

It's not. At least in the US, the amount of left-wing conspiracy theories is far smaller (I don't have data but...) and much more benign/ harmless than Qanon and MAGA crap.

Also, I didn't say that Democrats and Republicans, or left and right, have the same number and level of conspiracy theories. Some folks might have interpreted that way on purpose but that's not what I said.

[worstblogever]

Conspiracy theories, fake numbers, misinformation... yep, you've been proving just that.

It's all projection with you right-wing folks in desperate attempts to avoid facts you don't like, though. Predictably.

But hey, I thought "our conversation had concluded." I had hope that it was the case, and yet, here I am disappointed.

Seriously, just put me on ignore. I know you don't seem in the mood to do me that courtesy, but it is an option. If people don't quote folks I do/have done the same to, I wouldn't have to pause to respond to... whatever all these replies have been.