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

[worstblogever]

Knowing Marjorie's delusional thinking she may have cheated and will claim God told her to do it.

Various outlets are reporting about her having affairs with a trainer at her gym, and self-help guru who's into tantric sex who goes to the same. At least two men known, so far. Daily Mail, which is admittedly a tabloid, ran that story back in February of 2021. But now every other media outlet is also reporting it when reporting on her divorce.

Note: This has been a footnote about her because of all the other revolting things she says and does. The "Bed of Nails" theory of terrible media figures. When there's so many things like that, that you can lose one, especially if it's from a dubious source.


Mind you, if someone on the left cheats on their wife, Fox News, the GOP's propaganda arm will cover it 24/7 until you resign, and play the morality police even though they had Roger Ailes sexually harassing/assaulting his female employees for years.

[babyblob]

We also have gossip:
Marjorie Taylor Greene’s husband files for divorce: marriage is “irretrievably broken”.

Cant wait for his tell all book!

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2014, 2015, as well as 2018, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” profiled Bishop E.W. Jackson, a particularly insane clergyman who ended up on the ballot in the 2013 elections for Governor of Virginia because the Virginia GOP decided to nominate candidates for office at their convention rather in a primary vote to ensure that their gubernatorial candidate, Ken Cuccinelli, would not be damaged in a primary election. The drawback was, the party hard-liners picked Jackson, a complete kook, to run as his lieutenant governor. Thus both were stuck discussing not just Cuccinelli’s radical party stances, but the fact that E.W. Jackson had given thoughts on the LGBTQ community as nuanced as “IKKY!” and “YUK!”, promised there would be divine retribution if same sex marriage was legalized (still waiting),gone on social media to saythat President Obama is a secret Muslim manchurian candidate, a closet homosexual, or the Anti-Christ himself in different posts, and written books that had passages about how Planned Parenthood is as bad as the KKK, that Democrats are the new “slave masters” in America, and that people who take yoga were on a “path to Satan” (really).After Dylann Roof assassinated nine African-Americans in a hate crime in the historic Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, Jackson broke a particular one of the Ten Commandments by claiming the shooter was actually motivated because he was a “left-wing socialist”. E.W. had only been dragged out onto the occasional segment on conservative news channels since 2013, and we were shocked to learn that he actually entered the three-candidate race for the nomination to be a U.S. Senator in Virginia in 2018. During the course of the campaign, he continued to make outlandish and magnificently insane statements, including but not limited to his claim that “America was never a racist country because Arab Muslims began African slavery”, that not being able to carry a firearm anywhere due to modest gun control laws makes him feel “naked and vulnerable”, and that “Democrats want to persecute the followers of Jesus Christ into silence and submission.”Jackson finished a distant third, well behind the winner… white nationalist ***hole Corey Stewart. We hope this time… this time is the last time he runs for public office.

[Kirby101]

From writer David Brin on Facebook

This article misses the real reason McCarthy etc had to politically execute Cawthorn. He publicly revealed the sex rings that are rife in the GOP, primarily as a means to reinforce the web of blackmail. Though yes, it is a party also rife with predatory perverts. Bet $$$ on whether I can prove the rate of KNOWN pedophilia in the GOP is at least 3x that among dems (actually more like 20x.)
Before you wager your house, start with the fellow who was TOP Republican across the last 6 years of the 20th Century. Look up "Dennis Hastert." And on from there.

[worstblogever]

In both 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, as well as 2021, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” published profiles of U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, an octogenarian who has served in Congress since 1975, and been a U.S. Senator since 1981. We shared the hilarity of Grassley's Twitter feed, with brilliant examples of wordsmithing like, ”N”, ”Work on farm Fri. Burning piles of brush WindyFire got out of control. Thank God for good naber He help get undr control PantsBurnLegWound”, ”Fred and I hit a deer on hiway 136 south of Dyersville. After I pulled fender rubbing on tire we continued to farm. Assume deer dead”, and "Windsor Heights Dairy Queen is good place for u kno what”. Oh, and the time on Twitter he compared President Obama's foreign policy to Poland's foreign policy that led to Hitler invading in 1939. Our main beef with Sen. Grassley was that as Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and therefore gets to decide on confirmation of judges and Supreme Court nominees, and goddamn has been partisan and obstructive in that role. Merrick Garland was nominated to the Supreme Court by President Obama but Grassley, more than anyone in the Republican Senate, is responsible for shirking their Constitutional duty to appoint a successor to the late Antonin Scalia and admitted the logic was purely political.

The rest of his voting record includes opposition to the Brady Handgun Bill to create background checks for firearm purchases, against universal background checks after Sandy Hook, support for the Defense of Marriage Act, voting for the impeachment of President Bill Clinton for lying about having an affair with Monica Lewinsky, and voting for the Gramm-Leach-Billey Act, which repealed key parts of the Glass-Steagall Financial Regulation Act, and opened the door for big banks to create the 2007 Sub-Prime Mortgage Housing Crisis. Grassley also voted for the Iraq War Resolution, voted against the Equal Pay Bill and the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, the Zadroga Bill, disaster relief for victims of Hurricane Sandy, the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and against raising the debt ceiling in 2011. Oh, and Sen. Grassley is on record as a denier that climate change exists, claiming he does not have enough evidence to make a conclusion or to vote on the matter. Grassley was also a big supporter of the Graham/Cassidy Healthcare Act, a last-ditch effort to repeal the ACA which Sen. Grassley admits to being extremely flawed and will harm Americans... but hey, he promised he would get rid of Obamacare, so no matter what the actual details or how bad they're going to hurt real people, damn it, he's gonna do it. HE ADMITTED THAT. Sen. Grassley also voted for the BRCA, which would have repealed the Affordable Care Act and left 23 million people without health insurance, and coldly voted against disaster relief funding, this time for victims of Hurricane Harvey in Texas.

Oh, and Grassley not only voted for the GOP’s tax plan/tax scam in December of 2017, he shrugged off complaints that it would only offer tax breaks to people who owned stock by saying that working class people might have the money to buy some if they didn’t “booze or women or movies”.

We also took issue with Sen. Grassley’s behavior regarding the Trump/Russia investigation, as on multiple occasions over the past year and a half, Grassley has gone out of his way to either cast doubt on the mounting evidence, such as when he tried insinuating that the Steele Dossier was the REAL fake news planted by the Russians, or even when he released a statement to blame the FBI for not telling the Trump campaign that Paul Manafort was leaking information from the Trump campaign to Russian oligarchs (which ignores how they probably should have been aware when one of them sent agents to Trump Tower to meet with Manafort, Jared Kushner, and Donald Trump, Jr.). His allegiance to Trump has become so cancerous that Sen. Grassley flat out refuses to conduct Senate hearings on political appointees if he thinks that they in some way participated in, or are loyal to people conducting the Mueller investigation. Grassley did more to aid the Trump administration in a coverup than preventing future Russian interference, but hey, what do you expect from a senile, partisan old hack?

But right here, right now, if there were any doubt anyone still had about how utterly partisan Chuck Grassley was at the ripe old age of 84… and looking to name a replacement for Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, an uber-conservative son-of-a-bitch who won’t think twice about overturning Roe v. Wade. And so it was that Brett Kavanaugh, who made his career investigating the Clintons during Whitewater and trying to foment conspiracy theories about Hillary Clinton murdering Vince Foster… a guy who perjured himself in his confirmation to be a federal judge multiple times…. THAT was the pick. And Sen. Grassley knows… KNOWS all the dirt that’s out there on Kavanaugh. It’s why he and the Trump White House refused to make documents about Kavanaugh’s work unavailable to the Senators who would vote on them, and why he literally opened the hearings shouting over the reasonable requests by Democrats to release those documents and allow Kavanaugh’s record to be legitimately reviewed.

So it looked like the final vote on Kavanaugh would go through strictly along partisan lines, 51-49… until a woman emerged to accuse Kavanaugh of attempting to drunkenly rape her when she was 15 and he was 17. Now, you’re really seeing how single-minded and gutless Chuck Grassley is, as he wanted to “investigate” the matter by not letting the FBI look into it, and conducting a sham hearing where only two witnesses will be called, Kavanaugh, and his accuser, and Senate Republicans can harass a woman already traumatized decades ago by her sexual assault. And that upon learning of a second accuser, Grassley and his colleagues actually tried to force the vote FASTER, and blocked the second accuser, Deborah Ramirez from testifying or having the FBI investigate her claims. After trying to open the hearing with 15 minutes of grandstanding, Sen. Grassley forgot to introduce and thank the witness, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, for coming forward, and after his time to speak was up and he ceded to Sen. Diane Feinstein… he interrupted her after SHE introduced Ford to insist he didn’t forget.

But through all that, do you know who Chuck Grassley thinks the victim in all this is? CHUCK GRASSLEY. Yes, in an interview during all of this, Grassley whined about how he didn’t like when it’s mentioned that he’s so old, and feels, we s*** you not… that he is being DISCRIMINATED AGAINST. You were 84 at the time, Chuck. You’d think you’d have developed a good calloused hide by now.

[worstblogever]

His voting record, just since 2020:

• January 31st, 2020: Chuck Grassley votes against witnesses being allowed in the first impeachment trial of Donald Trump, effectively making it a “trial”.
• February 5th, 2020: Sen. Grassley 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: Grassley 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: Chuck Grassley 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. Grassley 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.
• December 14th, 2021: Grassley votes against raising the debt ceiling, jeopardizing the United States’ credit rating.
• February 28th, 2022: Sen. Grassley 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: Grassley votes against putting the extremely qualified nominee, Judge Kentanji Brown-Jackson, onto the Supreme Court.
• July 27th, 2022: Chuck Grassley 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 seening 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”.

No deer that Chuck Grassley posted about killing on Twitter has had one of their family members come to avenge them, so now, in the year 2022, Grassley is running for election at 89 years old, and while we’d like to know how much Sen. Grassley knew about the coup attempt Donald Trump attempted on January 6th, 2021, especially given the post he made about stepping in when Mike Pence “does not show up” to certify the vote on Jan 5th… he’s likely to get re-elected considering his Democratic challenger just got accused of sexually assaulting a staffer, it seems to be a safe bet that he’s getting yet another term in office, while his grandson Pat bides his time to slide into his grandpa's seat in Washington, D.C. whenever his dad does shuffle off the mortal coil through name recognition alone.

We’re already at forty years of having a Grassley in the Senate from Iowa, and it’s looking like Pat is going to try to extend that streak even further when the time comes.

[Mister Mets]

Forgetting someone is dead, when it was basically a one day news cycle over a month ago when you're looking at the laundry list of things that have happened between then and now isn't an unpardonable sin.

Unfortunately, due to conservatives overplaying the 'dEmEnTiA JOE' card while defending the guy who looked directly into an eclipse, it winds up being hard to have a frank conversation about what cognitive decline looks like and what separates it from, say, Alzheimers.

"Like many men pushing eighty, the President is unaware which of his colleagues is alive, and which of them are dead. He's just old." is not a comforting explanation.

People sometimes have flubs, regardless of age. Major politicians are on camera all the time, whereas when we do something stupid (IE- buy a ticket to the wrong movie, forget about construction on a route leading to predictable delays, call a coworker by the wrong name), we're not under that level of scrutiny. The big question is whether this is a one-off like Obama talking about 57 states. That'll be fine. We can laugh at it a bit, and not worry that it has major implications on the president's ability to make the right decision.

[Catlady in training]

When will Europe learn to defend itself?

https://www.politico.eu/article/emma...y-ukraine-war/

Faced with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s genocidal onslaught against the biggest country entirely within Europe, France and Germany spent seven months relying militarily on Washington, and to a lesser extent on Britain, to guarantee democracy and freedom in a close EU ally.

According to the Kiel Institute for World Economy, the U.S. has pledged €25 billion in military support to Ukraine and the U.K. pledged €4 billion. By contrast, Germany has promised €1.2 billion, behind Poland on € 1.8 billion, while France’s military support for Kyiv barely registers, at €233 million, lagging Estonia in the league table. Britain has trained 5,000 Ukrainian troops, while France has trained 100.

These discrepancies are a question of political will, not cash. The EU has an annual gross domestic product of €14 trillion, and a combined defense budget of €230 billion. France, however, has stressed that it does not want to be a “co-belligerent” in the war or “humiliate” Russia, while German Chancellor Olaf Scholz stresses the dangers of being sucked into the conflict.

The differences in spending between the U.S. and the Western Europeans raise excruciating questions for the EU leaders about what would have happened to Kyiv if the U.S. president had been less open to large-scale intervention than Joe Biden.

In a keynote speech this month, German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht acknowledged that the situation was untenable.

“Germany and the Europeans depend on a peace order that they cannot guarantee on their own,” Lambrecht said, adding that this was particularly problematic as America is increasingly turning “its main attention” to the Pacific.

At times, it has seemed like the severity of the Ukraine war could finally force a meeting of minds between France and Germany.

Last month, Scholz outlined his vision of “a stronger, more sovereign, geopolitical European Union.” In Paris, Scholz’s statement was read as a belated answer to Macron’s 2017 call for “strategic autonomy.” Macron had hoped to re-energize Europe’s defense policy and spoke of the need to build “a common intervention force, a common defense budget and common doctrine to act.”

But beyond the diplomatic niceties, neither Scholz nor Macron have been able to take the lead in the war. France and Germany have fallen in the wake of Poland and Nordic and Baltic nations in trying to steer the European agenda.

Several French officials have said that the publicly available numbers on military donations were unreflective as France has not disclosed all its donations. If so, it’s a decision that has backfired according to Philippe Maze-Sencier, a public affairs expert at the Institut Montaigne and global chair of public affairs at Hill+Knowlton Strategies.

“We decided not to play the communications game, but it means France is in seventh position in international rankings, on a par with Norway. But we don’t play in the same league as Norway. No wonder we are not legitimate when it comes to spearheading the Europe of defense,” Maze-Sencier said.

Macron’s past attempts at casting himself as a mediator in the conflict, promoting France as “a balancing power” on Ukraine, have also sparked suspicions over his long-term objectives. His decision to keep lines of communication open with the Kremlin and past calls “not to humiliate Russia” were derided in many parts of the EU, according to Maze-Sencier.

“[France] has lost credibility because of our position on Ukraine. Put crudely, our friends in Nordic countries, the Baltic states and in Eastern Europe feel let down and even compare it to [the lack of solidarity] in WWII,” said Maze-Sencier.

“They say give us U.S. protection any day,” he added.

[Username taken]

The UK is finding out the very, very hard way that right-wing populism and modern economic reality are diametrically opposed.

If the pound and the usd end becoming par, the UK is staring at a major economic crisis.

[kidfresh512]

We followed one of Abbott's migrant buses from Texas to Chicago. Here's what we learned.

Rumors had been floating around the Eagle Pass migrant shelter for days that a free bus would take people to Chicago, but so far, none of the hundreds of visitors at Mission: Border Hope had any idea of when. Many had stayed in the windowless warehouse overnight, eating ham-and-cheese sandwiches, calling their families and sleeping on mats on the floor.

At least a dozen people approached us for answers.

“Perdóname, pero no sabemos,” we told them. “Queremos saber lo mismo que ustedes.” (Sorry, but we don’t know. We’re trying to figure out the same thing.)

As journalists for the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News, we’d set out to follow one of Gov. Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star buses offering asylum seekers rides to liberal northern cities. The aim was to get a sense of what the experience is like for the thousands of people who have found themselves at the center of a national debate.

Commenting about his hosts, the man on the bus wrote in Spanish, “If you’re going to offer us help, then help us, but please remember that we're human beings and not animals.”

“In Venezuela, it’s $20 for a week of work. Here, it’s $20 for an hour, and that’s a big difference. I have four kids, and my motive for coming was so I could work and send them money, and in the future bring them here because this is the land of opportunity,” he said in a mix of English and Spanish.

I would take some hard working, industrious, people trying to feed their families as neighbors over some of these hateful MAGA citizens who want to overthrow the government and make sure the "black and brown"" people know their places" any day.

Making them out to be some "invaders", who just want to live on welfare you see on right wing newscasts. Or political props to drop off in the middle of the street without notice in front of the VP's residence. And they don't even care about the politics. If the GOP actually wanted to reach these people with a path to citizenship they literally could. That's the crazy thing. They absolutely could expand their base if they got rid of the lowest common denominator MAGA racists and tried actual policies instead of basing all policies on Hate and who's rights they could trample on next.

[CaptainEurope]

Jareh Sebastian Dalke, former NSA employee, charged with trying to send classified documents to Russia

Dalke sent classified documents to an "FBI Online Covert Employee" in exchange for money. Dalke believed that FBI employee was a foreign government representative.

He's accused of attempting to send classified documents to the Russian SVR, or Foreign Intelligence Service.


The FBI says Dalke was a volunteer with the Colorado Rangers, a reserve law enforcement agency, and a former employee of the U.S. National Security Agency. Dalke, in his resume, described himself as a lieutenant and commander of the digital crimes unit of the Colorado Rangers. according to court documents.

In his communications with the FBI's undercover employee, Dalke allegedly reached out to what he thought was a Russian agent, saying he, "recently learned that my heritage ties back to your country, which is part of why I have come to you."

[AnakinFlair]

Pulling this from a Twitter thread. You can see the whole thread, which includes the order, here.

BREAKING: Judge Cannon rules Trump does not have to comply with deadlines stipulated by the DOJ or the Special Master and does not have to submit a declaration about whether FBI “planted evidence” at MAL. This woman is the biggest disgrace in the history of the federal judiciary.

She also gives:
—Deadline extension for SM review (12/16)
—Trump & DOJ til 10/5 to finalize a vendor
—DOJ til 10/13 to give copies of seized materials
—Til 10/14 for notice of completion
—Trump 25 days after to submit privilege claims
—Both parties 10 days to submit disagreements

The DOJ is appealing. This woman is a disgrace to the judiciary and needs to be removed.

[kidfresh512]

DeSantis, Once a ‘No’ on Storm Aid, Petitions a President He’s Bashed

As a freshman congressman in 2013, Ron DeSantis was unambiguous: A federal bailout for the New York region after Hurricane Sandy was an irresponsible boondoggle, a symbol of the “put it on the credit card mentality” he had come to Washington to oppose.

“I sympathize with the victims,” he said. But his answer was no.

Nearly a decade later, as his state confronts the devastation and costly destruction wrought by Hurricane Ian, Mr. DeSantis is appealing to the nation’s better angels — and betting on its short memory.

“As you say, Tucker, we live in a very politicized time,” Mr. DeSantis, now Florida’s governor, told Tucker Carlson on Wednesday night, outlining his request for full federal reimbursement up front for 60 days and urging the Biden administration to do the right thing. “But you know, when people are fighting for their lives, when their whole livelihood is at stake, when they’ve lost everything — if you can’t put politics aside for that, then you’re just not going to be able to.”

The tonal whiplash for Mr. DeSantis reflects a different job and a different moment — a Tea Party-era House Republican now steering a perennially storm-battered state dependent once more on federal assistance to rebuild. Yet even in the context of his term as governor, the hurricane has required Mr. DeSantis to test another gear.

The present circumstances have inspired a less swaggering posture toward a leader whom Mr. DeSantis has long called “Brandon” as a recurring troll, aimed at the man he might like to succeed. “Dear Mr. President,” the governor’s request for a major disaster declaration and federal assistance began on Wednesday.

“Ironically,” said David Jolly, a former Republican congressman from Florida, “there’s nobody in America that Ron DeSantis needs more than Joe Biden.”

The president and the governor have each made a point of saying publicly that they and their teams are in touch. “He complimented me. He thanked me for the immediate response we had,” Mr. Biden said on Thursday, suggesting that any political conflicts with Mr. DeSantis were irrelevant in these times. “This is about saving people’s lives, homes and businesses.” (In February, Mr. DeSantis baselessly said Mr. Biden “stiffs” storm victims for political reasons, insisting that the president “hates Florida.”)

Pulling this from a Twitter thread. You can see the whole thread, which includes the order, here.



The DOJ is appealing. This woman is a disgrace to the judiciary and needs to be removed.

Reading the article about it on Law and Crime.

Judge Cannon’s latest order is likely not reversible, but it is a complete abdication of her role as a neutral arbiter. By this order, she delays the entire process, reverses her own prior order that FPOTUS provide a rolling production of privilege objections, makes it extraordinarily difficult for the Special Master to comprehend the ambit of FPOTUS’s executive privilege objections, and virtually guarantees that this process will bleed over into 2023.

[scourge]

Pulling this from a Twitter thread. You can see the whole thread, which includes the order, here.



The DOJ is appealing. This woman is a disgrace to the judiciary and needs to be removed.

At this point, this "judge" should be removed from the bench.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Pulling this from a Twitter thread. You can see the whole thread, which includes the order, here.



The DOJ is appealing. This woman is a disgrace to the judiciary and needs to be removed.

Judge Loose Cannon has fully sold out to protect Trump and isn’t hiding it. With the Special Master angle having failed, the new scheme is to delay the investigation until after the midterms in the hopes Qpublicans win back the House and Senate and kill the committee altogether.