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

[PaulBullion]

trump's brother died today. No mention of the cause of death.

The fact that the White House is holding Robert Trump's cause of death secret narrows it down to either Covid-19 or drug abuse.

[PaulBullion]

Tara Reade says she’s open to speaking at the Republican National Convention.

[Robotman]

Tara Reade says she’s open to speaking at the Republican National Convention.

She’ll fit right in with the other con-artists on stage.

[Tendrin]

Tara Reade says she’s open to speaking at the Republican National Convention.

Oh brother.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

The fact that the White House is holding Robert Trump's cause of death secret narrows it down to either Covid-19 or drug abuse.

At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy nut, yeah, that secrecy does make one wonder. I mean, it wasn't all that long ago, a month or two tops when Robert Trump failed in trying to block the release of niece Mary L's book about Donald and the family, so whatever laid him low hit damn fast, and we've all read horror stories about how quickly people can die from the virus. Also, at 71, Robert certainly was in the age group that's most vulnerable to COVID.

Tara Reade says she’s open to speaking at the Republican National Convention.

And here I was thinking that harridan exhausted her fifteen minutes of infamy. You can bet the mortgage and the kid's college fund Reade will mention Joe Biden's alleged (and proven wrong) incident of sexual abuse against her. If Democrats want to be petty, they could trot out some of Trump's accusers at their convention. Equal time, yo!

[worstblogever]

tara reade says she’s open to speaking at the republican national convention.

"I'll do it... FOR A MODEST FEE OF COURSE..."

Grifting the grifters.

[Starter Set]

The fact that the White House is holding Robert Trump's cause of death secret narrows it down to either Covid-19 or drug abuse.

He was killed by an hippo stamped in his pool. You heard it first lads.

[Kirby101]

Tara Reade says she’s open to speaking at the Republican National Convention.

[worstblogever]

Trump probably would let Reade speak at the convention, when you consider he dragged Bill Clinton's accusers to a debate against Hillary.

Hell, were it not for Covid-19, that was probably has plan with Reade in the 2020 debates.

Democrats respect social distancing guidelines too much to cram 20-odd Trump's accusers in one room, though.

[SUPERECWFAN1]

Trump probably would let Reade speak at the convention, when you consider he dragged Bill Clinton's accusers to a debate against Hillary.

Hell, were it not for Covid-19, that was probably has plan with Reade in the 2020 debates.

Democrats respect social distancing guidelines too much to cram 20-odd Trump's accusers in one room, though.

But they need to make it plan , "Yeah you wanna do that with Reade , well were gonna try to get as many of Trump's accusers there for that. So just try this stupid game."

[worstblogever]

On this date, in both 2014, as well as in 2015, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" profiled former New York Congressman Michael Grimm,
who was sentenced to eight months in prison for 20 separate charges of fraud in running the New York health food restaurant Healthalicious, which was a decidedly sore subject considering when asked about it by a reporter in Washington, at one point, Rep. Grimm threatened to throw the guy off a balcony and “break him like a boy”. With those two factors alone (not that there weren't others), Grimm's political career seemed like it was over. But alas, Michael Grimm decided upon being released from prison to try and reclaim his old Congressional seat from Daniel Donovan. Grimm went right back to his old tricks, being slapped with an ethics complaint for having a former Trump campaign staffer working on his election campaign for free (that’s a no-no), trying to claim Dan Donovan offered to speak to Donald Trump and get him a presidential pardon if he dropped out of the race, and that baseless desperation meant he would go on to lose to Donovan by about a 2 to 1 margin. We think (and hope) this time he’s really gone for good, but he seems to keep coming back like a bad case of herpes.

In both 2016, 2017, 2018, and in 2019, that “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” presented our original profile of the U.S. House Representative for New York’s 11th Congressional District, Dan Donovan, which is pretty remarkable considering Dan Donovan ditched out on the debates for the election in 2014, and was the district attorney who dragged his feet when tasked with bringing charges against the police officers who were caught on camera using a banned chokehold to attempt to subdue Eric Garner for the crime of selling loose cigarettes, and managed to choke him to death. In spite of digging in for police brutality, and going with the cowardly choice to let the death of Garner stand uncharged, Donovan earned the right to fulfill the role of being Staten Island's newest douchebag in Congress. Of course, looking the other way is something Donovan developed a bit of a reputation for, what with discussions as far back as 2010 in the Village Voice documented how he often failed to act against members of the Genovese crime family, when they operated illegal enterprises virtually right under his nose. And wouldn't you know it? Once he got to Washington, D.C., Donovan racked up a completely partisan record, spending two years doing things like trying to defund Planned Parenthood, pass 20-week abortion bans, restrict the relocation of refugees fleeing Syria, and a few attempts at repealing the Affordable Care Act. Then he had Michael Grimm, fresh out of prison, challenging him in the GOP Primary for his seat in the U.S. Congress in 2018, because he wasn’t “Trump enough” because he didn’t vote for the GOP’s final attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act.. Grimm went with a strategy you won’t see used in many political races, because people who went to prison usually don’t mount comebacks. Grimm started put by pointing out that Donovan got his domestic partner’s son out of going to jail on heroin charges, and then when that still didn’t help him enough in the polls, started trying to claim Dan Donovan offered to speak to Donald Trump and get him a presidential pardon if he dropped out of the race. That baseless desperation meant he would go on to lose to Donovan by about a 2 to 1 margin. However, any primary challenge still means that an incumbent has to spend effort, energy, and campaign cash in a primary… That softened Dan Donovan up enough that Max Rose, a veteran of Afghanistan who during his service earned a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart, upset him and flipped a Republican-leaning district blue in 2018, as Donovan only got 46.6% of the vote, and left office without accomplishing much of anything. As such, we’ll set aside his profile at this time, and take a look at another wacky Republican today instead. (Current crazy/stupid scoreboard, is now 902-45, since this was established in July 2014.


Antoine Tucker

Welcome to what is the 902nd original profile here at “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day”, where we’ll be discussing Antoine Tucker, a candidate running to be the next U.S. House Representative from New York’s 14th Congressional District, hoping he can be the guy to upset Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (he won’t be, you’ll understand in a moment).

Antoine Tucker is, by most accounts, a write-in candidate in NY-14 who promotes himself as “the first ex-felon that’s Black and Hispanic to run for Congress in the history of the nation”, which boasting that you’re a convicted crack dealer might not be the best pitch to voters. Let alone when you have an alias like Tony Montaga, which… we’re not sure if that’s the MAGA version of Tony Montana, and he’s just awful at wordplay.

Tucker generally seems to be doing this for publicity for… well, we don’t know his end game, just that Donald Trump Jr. has supported his run for office because they have a mutual love of conspiracy theories and an unreasonable hatred of Democrats not based in reality that would make something like the Qanon conspiracy theory sound plausible. His “politics” amount to promoting the Anon conspiray theory and swearing about Democrats and the media. But bizarrely campaigning on the same issues that party supports. Outside of Qanon, Tucker also posted videos on Instagram where he has claimed Covid-19 is a “hoax” perpetuated by Bill Gates. So at least he hasn’t put all his crazy eggs in the same basket.

Tucker also has already drawn the attention of the FEC for failing to submit a Q4 report, meaning he’s very likely going to be fined, and campaign finance experts have noted that his entire candidacy seems to be a money laundering scheme to direct money towards “Jeld Productions”, which lists itself as a “social media marketing” company. However, Jeld Productions has no social media presence, and its address is actually an apartment complex in New York City. The closest company that does exist to Jeld Productions that does exist is a “Jeld Electronics” listed on a DJ Directory. It seems… like he’s going to get fined by the FEC, which takes some level of brazen stupidity to actually have happen these days.

Anyway, Antoine Tucker won’t be winning s*** come November, and we wish his tattoo parlor the best of luck, because it will keep him out of politics where he will do no one any good, at any point.

[worstblogever]

But they need to make it plan , "Yeah you wanna do that with Reade , well were gonna try to get as many of Trump's accusers there for that. So just try this stupid game."

They don't want to play down to his level for fear of that becoming the new normal in American politics. Trump should be treated like the aberration he is.

[Jack Dracula]

As if we didn't have enough to worry about.
Trump may actually have the power to suspend the election and quell any resulting opposition through the PEAD system.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rewriti...ential-powers/

There are, it's true, some restraints on most presidential authority, but those might not apply to all the president's powers.

As Mr. Trump stated in March, "I have the right to do a lot of things that people don't even know about."

We can't know for sure, but what the president appears to have been referring to are his presidential emergency action documents, often referred to as PEADs.

"Even though I've had security clearances for the better part of 50 years and been in and out of national security matters during that half-century, I had never heard of these 'secret powers,'" said former Senator Gary Hart.

"Sunday Morning" special contributor Ted Koppel asked, "Do you know what they are, now that you've heard of them?"

"Only vaguely, due to research done at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School," Hart said. "What these secret powers are, apparently, based on the research, is suspension of the Constitution, basically. And that's what's worrying, particularly on the eve of a national election."

The Brennan Center research that Senator Hart referred to has been spearheaded by Elizabeth Goitein, the co-director of its national security program, and a contributing writer at The Atlantic.

"These are essentially presidential orders that are drafted in anticipation of a range of hypothetical, worst-case scenarios," Goitein said.

The alarming scope of the president's emergency powers ("The Atlantic)
Koppel asked, "Several times during his administration, President Trump has made allusions to secret powers that he has that we don't know about. Is he making that up?"

"Well, not exactly," Goitein replied. "And what's alarming about that is that no one really knows what the limits of those claimed authorities might be, because they are often developed and kept in secret."

Goitein says what little we do know about PEADs comes from references to them in other documents, some of which are now declassified.

"They originated in the Eisenhower administration as part of an effort to try to plan for a potential Soviet nuclear attack," Goitein said. "But since then, they've expanded to address other types of emergencies as well. No presidential emergency action document has even been released, or even leaked. Not even Congress has access to them, which is really pretty extraordinary when you consider that even the most highly-classified covert military and intelligence operations have to be reported to at least eight Members of Congress, the 'Gang of Eight.'"

"You're saying they are not consulting with Congress?" Koppel asked.

"Exactly," said Goitein. "Congress is not aware of these documents, and from public sources we know that at least in the past these documents have purported to do things that are not permitted by the Constitution – things like martial law and the suspension of habeas corpus and the roundup and detention of people not suspected of any crime."

[AnakinFlair]

Tara Reade says she’s open to speaking at the Republican National Convention.

I'll be honest- without clicking on the link, I thought you were talking about the actress. It's been so long since we've heard anything from this Tara, I had forgotten all about her.

[Darkspellmaster]

I'll be honest- without clicking on the link, I thought you were talking about the actress. It's been so long since we've heard anything from this Tara, I had forgotten all about her.

Same. Also are they gonna drag out the chair from the skit with Clint Eastwood for her to talk to.