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

[worstblogever]

It was on this date in both 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, as well as 2021, that “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” first profiled Glenn Gruenhagen, a member of the Minnesota House of Representatives who first came onto the scene back in, you guessed it, the 2010 Tea Party Wave with but 51% of the vote. He since has somehow gathered a following among GOP voters, winning with at least 60% of the vote in 2012, 2014, and 2016. Perhaps his charm with his party lies in his radical social conservative views, like that he is “pro life from conception to natural death” and thinks that abortion somehow has “economic consequences” or that he claims the Affordable Care Act will lead to “healthcare rationing”, a frequently debunked myth the right likes to spread about the ACA that has been widely known to be a bogus talking point for around… oh, eight or nine years now.

Gruenhagen’s signature issue, however, is LGBTQ rights, or why we should not have them. Going back to his earliest days serving on a school council, Gruenhagen has been fervently anti-gay, often interrupting school board meetings to, non sequitur, rant about the evils of sodomy. In 2005, his own colleagues noted:

. . .With regularity Mr. Gruenhagen inserts his own biases into school board meetings with not the least provocation. Abortion, homosexuality, safe sex, evolution and countless other topics that do not appear on the school board’s agenda are brought to the fore, repeatedly, and forced onto unsuspecting school board members, administrators and individuals in the viewing audience. To do so is rude, a violation of school board decorum, a waste of attendees’ time and a disruption in the flow of otherwise quality public meetings. He ignores the expert advice of the superintendent of schools, two architectural firms, a construction management firm ... Incredible!

Back in 2007, Gruenhagen also wrote an op-ed in his local paper, where he wanted to discuss Christmas… The topic he veered off for a moment to show how aghast he was at Congressman Keith Ellison being sworn in on a copy of the Koran and how it was a plot to have it someday take the place of the Bible, and somehow, he went even further off course from talking about celebrating the birth of Jesus and instead onto the dread topic of sodomy:

”When newly elected U.S. Congressman Keith Ellison insisted on using the Koran (Qur’an) at his oath of office, many citizens raised concerns about the symbolism of that event. . . . . I believe we see the disturbing and subtle influence of using the Koran to replace the Bible as our source of “civil and religious liberties.”
. . .Many have great concern for our country as we have drifted from the Judeo-Christian principles which gave us our liberties and freedoms, into the religion of atheism, such as the belief in abortion, pornography, sodomy as an orientation, evolution, etc. The corruption of atheistic values in our schools and government institutions leaves open the door for a foreign religious value system to influence our country’s culture. [emphasis added] Many patriotic Americans are concerned that our freedoms and liberties will be lost with the censorship and removal of our Creator who authored our liberty and freedoms. Is it important for publicly elected officials to place their hand on the Bible during their oath of office in spite of the American Civil Liberties Union? I’ll let you decide.”

At another point in 2013, Gruenhagen wrote a column online that linked any constituent who read it to an anti-gay hate group from Massachusetts that conveniently still reports sodomy is a crime (which, no, not after the Lawrence v. Texas ruling in 2003). The gist of all his rants is, by being allowed to exist, and marry people, and have any gay sex, the gay community are “coming after Christians with their gay agenda” and that homosexuality is just a form of “sexual addiction” based on an “unscientific lie”. And he will, at any point, reflexively start telling lies about homosexuals.

The “secret gay agenda” is hardly the only bizarre conspiracy theory Gruenhagen believes in, as he is also a climate change denier wielding a particularly abhorrent lack of logic, insisting that talk of it is “a United Nations fraud”, while making the idiotic accusation that those who do acknowledge evidence of climate change “believe that exhaling is causing global warning”, citing “facts he learned at CPAC”.

And honestly, when the most sane idea you’ve pitched in government is to castrate sex offenders because “it worked on the farm”, maybe you shouldn’t be a legislator.

Glenn Gruenhagen was elected to a sixth term in office in 2020, where we’re sure he’ll continue to try and block any Democratic bills that cross his path, even something as simple as a ballot initiative to amend the state constitution to include an equal rights amendment or to sponsor bills that would defund any public library that dares to host a Drag Queen Story Hour.

We’ll end today’s profile by noting that on January 6th, 2021, while the U.S. Capitol was being overrun by white nationalists, neo-Nazis, and domestic terrorists trying to prevent the counting the electoral college votes that would lead to Joe Biden being sworn in as president after being incited by Donald Trump, Glenn Gruenhagen was one of six Minnesota state legislators who were having their own little sedition-fest back in St. Paul, where several speakers called for violence, including one who flat-out wanted to start up a civil war. Gruenhagen, of course, painted himself the victim when criticism emerged, saying, ““It seems like it is political theater to try and intimidate and silence a constitutionally protected peaceful rally at the St. Paul Capitol in support of Trump.”

Glenn Gruenhagen opted to run for the Minnesota State Senate in 2022, seeking the very red seat in District 17 held by the retiring Scott Newman, and jumped to the upper chamber getting 70% of the vote. Hopefully any damage he continues to try to do in Minnesota state government will be mitigated.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Gee. I'm sure we're all surprised.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/cr...2bf50d577b40a1

I’m not. Come January, the only crime crisis the GQP will be concerned with is Hunter’s laptop.

[babyblob]

Biden's comments yesterday about wanting to ban assault riffles have the GOP crowd and the talking heads going nuts on the "Taking Muh Guns." Rants.

The tough on crowd GOP wont even entertain taking powerful Assault Riffles off our streets even though they are the weapon of choice for the Mass Shooting crowd.


Like I said in a post a couple days ago. The GOP doesnt know where to go on gun violence. They want to ignore it with Mass shootings and down play those. But then make gun violence a huge issue when talking talking about crime in Democrat cities.

[Tami]

Biden's comments yesterday about wanting to ban assault riffles have the GOP crowd and the talking heads going nuts on the "Taking Muh Guns." Rants.

The tough on crowd GOP wont even entertain taking powerful Assault Riffles off our streets even though they are the weapon of choice for the Mass Shooting crowd.


Like I said in a post a couple days ago. The GOP doesnt know where to go on gun violence. They want to ignore it with Mass shootings and down play those. But then make gun violence a huge issue when talking talking about crime in Democrat cities.

With a lot of crime that involves guns, involve weapons that come into the Blue Cities and States from outside, from those states with lax or non-existent gun laws.

[nose norton]

The Associated Press on Monday fired a national security reporter who had provided erroneous information about a missile strike in Poland (link to The Washington Post, archived article).

Must be the first reporter fired for saying Russia did something bad. Tough luck or a shot across the bow?

[4saken1]

Like I said in a post a couple days ago. The GOP doesnt know where to go on gun violence. They want to ignore it with Mass shootings and down play those. But then make gun violence a huge issue when talking talking about crime in Democrat cities.

Whenever I hear this argument, I like to point out that red states have cities, too, and that the highest incidence of gun violence is in red states. Compare the 10 states with the highest firearm deaths:

Alaska 
Mississippi 
New Mexico 
Wyoming 
Alabama 
Louisiana 
Missouri 
South Carolina 
Arkansas 
Montana 

With those with the lowest:

Vermont 
Iowa 
Minnesota 
California 
Connecticut 
Rhode Island 
Hawaii 
New Jersey 
New York 
Massachusetts 

Now compare that to states with the highest gun ownership:

Montana
Wyoming
Alaska
Idaho
West Virginia
Arkansas
Mississippi
Alabama
South Dakota
North Dakota

To those with the lowest:

Delaware
Maryland
California
Illinois
Connecticut
New York
Hawaii
Rhode Island
Massachusetts
New Jersey

Notice that not only do the gun ownership and gun violence statistics look remarkably similar, but also that none of the states with the lowest gun ownership are on the list of those with the highest gun violence and vice versa. Throw in the fact that in red states, an average of 65% of the population lives in cities, compared to blue states, where 85% live in cities, and it becomes blatantly obvious that gun ownership is likely largest contributors to gun violence.

[Mister Mets]

With a lot of crime that involves guns, involve weapons that come into the Blue Cities and States from outside, from those states with lax or non-existent gun laws.

There is an additional problem of a lack of enforcement of existing gun laws within the blue cities.

There are multiple stories of people arrested on gun charges, let back on the streets, and then arrested again.

https://nypost.com/2022/04/24/suspec...nti-gun-teams/

The Federal government rarely investigates when a prohibited person is flagged for attempting to purchase a firearm through a licensed firearms dealer, which would be an easy law to investigate.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/...-already-have/

Straw purchases are illegal, but these are not enforced often enough. One problem is that the buyers are more likely to be sympathetic, and they're also disproportionately likely to be women of color. So these are rarely proseucted.
https://www.thetrace.org/2015/09/ope...traw-purchase/
https://www.npr.org/2015/12/09/45905...t-away-with-it

[babyblob]

The problem is it is too easy for anyone to get a gun.

I am a felon and have a well documented metal health disorder. I know of 3 way I can have a gun with in a couple hours and one of those places is a legit gun shop.

Until we make it harder for people to get ahold of guns then violence will always be a problem. I am all for more gun laws. But The ones on the books are easy to get around now.

Can put all the gun laws on the books but until they do a better job of enforcement and a better job of getting guns that are out now off the streets then it wont matter.

[skyvolt2000]

Reliable source or not, that wouldn't surprise me in the least as West has gone so far off the rails, it isn't funny.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...D=ansmsnnews11

On Thursday night, just as most of the U.S. was settling into a much-deserved tryptophan coma, Kanye West was taking advantage of being allowed back on Twitter, officially announcing his 2024 run for president. Scattered among clips of floating orbs with the words “YE 24” were more substantial videos, however, hinting at disagreements and unhappiness within the Trump-Kanye camp — as well as more details about who may have attended the infamous Mar-a-Lago dinner earlier this month.

“Trump was most perturbed about me asking him to be my vice president,” West begins, with Yiannopoulos looking on. “I think that was lower on the list of things that caught him off-guard.”

West goes on to describe the conversation the two had at the former president’s Floridian resort. “Trump is really impressed with Nick Fuentes,” West said, describing the white-nationalist Unite the Right protester as a “loyalist.”

West then gets into criticisms he says he launched at Trump: “My question would be, why, when you had the chance, did you not free the January sixers? I said, go and get Corey [Lewandowski] back, go and get these people that the media tried to cancel” — images of Lewandowski, Karen Giorno, Roger Stone, and Alex Jones flash on the screen — “and told you to step away from.”

[AnakinFlair]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...D=ansmsnnews11

I'm honestly still stuck on Kanye asking Trump to be his VICE PRESIDENT. If you needed any more proof that he was bat-shit crazy, that should do it.

[Malvolio]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...D=ansmsnnews11

Trump didn't have that chance. None of the 1/6ers were arrested or charged until after Trump left office. And as much as Trump would like to do so, a FORMER President can't pardon anybody. But go try explaining these things to Kanye West.

[Zauriel]

The problem is it is too easy for anyone to get a gun.

I am a felon and have a well documented metal health disorder. I know of 3 way I can have a gun with in a couple hours and one of those places is a legit gun shop.

Until we make it harder for people to get ahold of guns then violence will always be a problem. I am all for more gun laws. But The ones on the books are easy to get around now.

Can put all the gun laws on the books but until they do a better job of enforcement and a better job of getting guns that are out now off the streets then it wont matter.

There is a solution for lack of enforcement, although it may be a hypothesis. Repeal the second amendment. I hope it is a feasible solution.

[Kirby101]

It's not, it takes 3/4 of the States to ratify.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...D=ansmsnnews11

Oh, sure, Trump would’ve jumped at the chance to be vice president to a BLACK man in a New York minute. Give. Me. A. Break.

[Tami]

The circle of crazy

Trump -- West -- Walker ---Taylor Green -- Boebert --- Johnson --- Gaetz --- Lake --- Abbott -- DeSantis --- Trump