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

[Tami]

Voters in North Carolina have received absentee ballot request forms in the mail with Donald Trump's face on them

Voters in North Carolina have received absentee ballot request forms in the mail with Trump's face on them

(CNN)Given the crisis facing the United States Postal Service before a presidential election, the last thing John Herter expected to receive in the mail Saturday was an absentee ballot request form with President Donald Trump's face on it.

"Is this a joke?" Herter said his wife told him as she opened up the mailer to reveal a photo of Trump grinning underneath the words, "Are you going to let the Democrats silence you? Act now to stand with President Trump."

Herter, of Lincoln County is among a group of voters in North Carolina to receive the mailer over the past few days after Trump said that he opposed crucial USPS funding because he doesn't want to see it used for mail-in voting this November.

During an interview on Fox News last week, Trump said that if USPS does not receive the additional $25 billion funding request that Democrats included in the ongoing stimulus negotiations, then he believes the Post Office won't be able to handle the influx of mail-in ballots in the upcoming election.

Whomever is behind this is likely going to jail.

[Robotman]

You know what guys, I think this is all my fault. I stupidly said, “how could things get any worse?!?”. Totally my bad.

[Tami]

If there was ever an innuendo-laden headline ...

Mike Pence shows his worth by reaching the parts Trump cannot

[Tami]

Voters can replace a party that knows how to fight with one that knows how to govern

As America heads into its quadrennial circus of nominating conventions (this year’s even more surreal because of the pandemic), it’s important to understand the real difference between America’s two political parties at this point in history.

Instead of “left” versus “right”, think of two different core competences.

The Democratic party is basically a governing party, organized around developing and implementing public policies. The Republican party has become an attack party, organized around developing and implementing political vitriol. Democrats legislate. Republicans fulminate.

In theory, politics requires both capacities – to govern, but also to fight to attain and retain power. The dysfunction today is that Republicans can’t govern and Democrats can’t fight.

Donald Trump is the culmination of a half-century of Republican belligerence. Richard Nixon’s “dirty tricks” were followed by Republican operative Lee Atwater’s smear tactics, Newt Gingrich’s take-no-prisoners reign as House speaker, the “Swift-boating” of John Kerry, and the Republicans’ increasingly blatant uses of racism and xenophobia to build an overwhelmingly white, rural base.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Voters can replace a party that knows how to fight with one that knows how to govern

It can also be summed up like this: Democrats want to govern, Republicans want to rule.

[PwrdOn]

Voters can replace a party that knows how to fight with one that knows how to govern

The problem is that the party that supposedly knows how to govern has spent the last decade declaring every liberal reform program, whether that be health care, immigration, taxes, or whatever, to be too divisive, never mind issues like education, the environment, military expansionism, and police brutality that seem to be beyond the pale for a presidential candidate to even talk about. And so this is how the Democrats ended up nominating a pair of candidates that don't have a signature policy position between them, hoping that the American public will treat a 77 year old man who has been in national politics since the Nixon administration as if he is some kind of blank slate onto which they can project whatever fantasies they may have of a pre-Trump golden age of unity and bipartisanship. And that's if he manages to open his mouth without reminding everyone that he was the guy who was buddy buddy with Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms and vehemently opposed busing in his home state, something which his running mate blasted him for in the debates, which ended up being pretty much the only highlight of an otherwise lackluster campaign. And even THAT is only if we actually get to vote at all, given that we're speeding ever closer to Trump just outright cancelling the election, something I'm sure the Democrats will assure us they were utterly powerless to stop.

Forget what the polls say, the extent to which the Trump administration has failed in every conceivable dimension would have gotten him forcibly booted from office and seeking refuge abroad in any other country, even those third world dictatorships we love to ridicule so. That he is even running for re-election and has a reasonable shot to win means that the Democrats have utterly failed to capitalize on what should be a political slam dunk and are right on the precipice of completely blowing it if the situation even marginally improves by November. Now is the time to summon up whatever shred of courage and dignity the party has left and really show the American people that the Democrats have a ticket that has a vision for the future of this country that they're willing to fight for.

[Username taken]

Biden/Harris need to start getting out the message in very bold clear terms now.

As demented as Trump's strategy looks on the outside, it's getting traction because the polls are getting much tighter. The latest CNN poll has Biden up by only 4 points which is actually very close to the margin of error.

It's actually stunning that a strategy so crude, so dishonest and so ridiculous could be working in any conceivable way.

[Tendrin]

Biden/Harris need to start getting out the message in very bold clear terms now.

As demented as Trump's strategy looks on the outside, it's getting traction because the polls are getting much tighter. The latest CNN poll has Biden up by only 4 points which is actually very close to the margin of error.

It's actually stunning that a strategy so crude, so dishonest and so ridiculous could be working in any conceivable way.

That poll is, in fact, an outlier and thatq the other three polls recently have Biden up at least 8. That CNN poll has Trump getting 36% of non-white voters. There is no world in which that happens outside of vote-hacking.

Meanwhile, in enraging news:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/woman-had...155829474.html

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Mitt Romney Slams Trump Administration On COVID-19: There’s No Way To Spin Death Toll

“The health impact of COVID-19 on our country and our response to it was really very, very disappointing,” Romney said.

**********

Former FDA Chief Calls Out Jared Kushner For Comparing COVID-19 To Common Flu

The number of COVID-19 cases and deaths has remained “fairly persistent” over the last few weeks, the former FDA commissioner noted.

**********

Sharon Stone On Sister’s Coronavirus: ‘One Of You Non-Mask Wearers Did This’

Kelly Stone, who has a compromised immune system due to lupus, “is not doing well,” the actor said.

====================

In non-coronavirus news:

Donald Trump Is Rewriting History On Preexisting Conditions — Again

It’s a sign that health care has become political poison for the GOP. Democrats want to keep it that way.

**********

House Committee Calls On Postmaster General To Testify On USPS Changes

The changes have stoked fears they are aimed at holding up mail-in election ballots.

**********

Kamala Harris Responds To Racist Birther Attack, Says She’s Ready For A Fight

“I expect they will engage in dirty tactics and this is going to be a knock-down, drag-out and we’re ready,” she said.

[worstblogever]

On this date, in both 2014, as well as in 2015, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" profiled former Georgia Congressman Paul Broun, who became infamous for giving a speech in front of a backdrop of dozens of deer trophies where he claimed that evolution and the Big Bang Theory were "lies from the pit of Hell", which was really sad considering he was on the House Science Committee. He was also a big climate change denier, telling the John Birch Society that "global warming is a hoax" in 2010, advocating for racial profiling by the TSA to harass people that appeared to be Middle Eastern, and repeatedly calling the Obama administration socialist or comparing its policies to Nazi Germany. Broun’s affection for appearing around dead animals also didn’t serve him so well after the death of Zimbabwe's cherished Cecil the Lion in July of 2015, when Broun responded to the controversy by bragging about killing and eating a lion himself in Zimbabwe, displaying the taxidermied remains in his office. Broun tried running for Georgia's U.S. Senate seat in 2014, and lost in the primary to David Perdue. Because of Georgia election law, that left him unable to also run for his U.S. House seat, which he had to give up in January 2015, and he decided to try and weasel his way back into Congress in 2016 by challenging incumbent Republican Doug Collins for his seat to represent Georgia’s 9th District, instead of his old one back in Georgia’s 10th District, that is now occupied by Jody Hice. Broun got crushed in that race, only receiving 22% of the vote. In 2020, Broun again attempted to return to office in his old seat in Georgia’s 9th Congressional District and this time finished in third, not even qualifying for a runoff. He’s now in his seventies and we’re unsure if he’ll ever weasel his way back to Washington, D.C., but we’re watching, just in case.

[worstblogever]

In 2016, 2017, 2018, as well as 2019, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” presented our original profile of the one-term U.S. House Representative for Minnesota’s 2nd Congressional District, Jason Lewis, who did manage to win office in 2016 over Democrat Angie Craig by about 6,000 votes, to replaces former House Rep. John Kline in Congress. This is unfortunate, as we have discussed, Lewis was most famous for being a radically conservative radio talk show host in Minnesota, who famously quit live on air right after promoting his own Ayn Rand-inspired libertarian website that has interesting topics like “exposing the global warming hoax,” promoting a “Free Market Education,” and championing states’ rights. Lewis just up and walked off the job in about the most unprofessional manner possible.
http://www.forwardprogressives.com/c...-rand-website/
No matter how good the results have been for Governor Mark Dayton in Minnesota as the state has come to boom under Democrats’ policies, Lewis has refused to give an iota of credit to them for it, clinging to ideology before any reason. And that’s putting it mildly…

Let’s just recap some of the highlights from Jason Lewis’ time on air… in 2011, he brushed off sexual assault accusations against Republican presidential candidate, the late Herman Cain, because he hadn’t raped anyone:

”I don't want to be callous here, but how traumatizing was it? [...] How many women at some point in their life have a man come on to them, place their hand on their shoulder or maybe even their thigh, kiss them, and they would rather not have it happen, but is that really something that's going to be seared in your memory that you'll need therapy for? You'll never get over? It was the most traumatizing experience? Come on! She wasn't raped!”

On November 9th, 2012, he reacted to the election loss of Mitt Romney by looking at the racial demographics of it… and lamenting how white people were committing “cultural suicide” and “political suicide” with their failure to procreate at the same level as Hispanics. “I don’t want to make a racial thing out of this. I’m just stating a fact.” he said, beside himself about President Obama having won a second term. Two days later on November 11th, 2012, Lewis was still looking at demographics that the Republicans lost, this time female voters, and he had this rant:

”I never thought in my lifetime where’d you have so many single, or I should say, yeah, single women who would vote on the issue of somebody else buying their diaphragm. This is a country in crisis. Those women are ignorant in, I mean, the most generic way. I don’t mean that to be a pejorative. They are simply ignorant of the important issues in life. Somebody’s got to educate them. There's something about young, single women where they’re behaving like Stepford wives. They walk in lockstep—is that really the most important thing to a 25-year old unmarried woman—uh, getting me to pay for her pills? Seriously?! Is that what we’ve been reduced to? You can be bought off for that? You’ve got a vast majority of young single women who couldn’t explain to you what GDP means. You know what they care about? They care about abortion. They care about abortion and gay marriage. They care about The View. They are non-thinking.”

Silly idiot ladies casting a vote without even knowing what they’re thinking, except they can get birth control easier… am I right, fellas?

Yeah, Lewis is that terrible, and then some. How much of an ***hole does someone have to be to pitch-hit for Rush Limbaugh? Because Lewis got to do that back in in 2008, where he compared taxing the rich to “slavery”, and in 2009 he decided to start demonizing victims of Hurricane Katrina were “a bunch of whiners”. He’s used the Supreme Court’s previous rulings on slavery as well when discussing their rulings on same sex marriage, and even since leaving talk radio, has spoken about the income disparity between whites and African Americans in less than endearing ways, saying, “the median income for blacks in America would make them rich in most African nations.”

Of course, there are two phrases we’ve seen in discussing Jason Lewis’ opinions that seem to have a common thread. What do you think of when you think of when you see “states’ rights”, and “slavery”? It might be that you just thought of the Civil War, and guess what? Lewis has some opinions on that. He once suggested a Constitutional amendment to allow states the right to secede from the union, and also questions why the Civil War needed to be fought, arguing that it was fought over “states’ rights” and not slavery, at all (which is false). And we all know how important defending the Confederacy is to voters way north of the Mason-Dixon line in Minnesota, right?

Prior to Jason Lewis’ rematch in 2018 against Angie Craig, … even more audio recordings emerged of him from his days in talk radio, including even more thoughts on race, which amount to bigoted-ass falsehoods:

”There’s a cultural problem in the African-American community that is leading to this. The entitlement mentality. You’re a victim. It’s OK to hate women, beat up women. It’s OK to hate gays. All this, we’re just sort of feeding this to people who are very lost because of the breakdown of society to begin with.

What the welfare state has done to the black community, a hundred years of racism could not do. A hundred years of racism could not break it up, it could not destroy black families. Jim Crow could not do it.”

“You simply can’t say the same thing about other groups. But when there is a festival, a gathering, call it what you will — June ninth, Juneteenth or urban weekend in Miami Beach or Myrtle Beach and Indianapolis. When there is a predominantly black festival, there’s trouble.”

“The violent racial crime that’s going on, and most of it black on white, but the media choose to ignore that as well. Now, no one can discount the horrible legacy of slavery. No one can discount the sin of America’s past — but the chances today, and I want to be clear about this, I know it’s provocative, but I want to be clear — the chances today of a gang of KKK members beating up a black kid are remote compared to the opposite. A gang of black on white crime.”

But that’s not all, audio also was uncovered where Jason Lewis gave his thoughts about Rush Limbaugh’s sexist attacks on Sandra Fluke, and big surprise, he’s an ***hole who had Rush’s back, and went on an unprompted sexist tirade:

“Can we call anybody a slut? But it used to be that women were held to a little bit of a higher standard. We required modesty from women. Now, are we beyond those days where a woman can behave as a slut, but you can’t call her a slut?

Madonna dresses up in these sorts of prostitute-like outfits on stage, and she goes there and she sings and she shows half of her body. What did we call those people?”

And that had a lot to do with why Jason Lewis was bounced from office, only getting 47% of the vote against Angie Craig with the Blue Wave at her back. He’s responded to being rejected by voters in one Congressional District in Minnesota to in 2020 instead take a crack at unseating U.S. Senator Tina Smith, and give the entire state a chance to tell him to kindly f*** off at the polls. Let’s hope that they seize that opportunity.

[Tami]

State officials rush to shore up confidence in Nov. 3 election as voters express new fears about mail voting

In Virginia, hundreds of voters called the state elections office Friday trying to cancel their mail-ballot requests, according to Chris Piper, the top elections official in the state. Piper said there is no formal way to do so, but voters who want to vote in person should bring their mail ballot with them to the polls, allowing officials to void it.

Attorneys general from Virginia, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Washington and North Carolina, among others, have begun discussions on how to sue the administration to prevent operational changes or funding lapses that could affect the election. They expect to announce legal action early this week, according to several involved in the talks.

“This is not just terrible policy, but it may be illegal under federal law and other state laws as well,” said Virginia Attorney General Mark R. Herring (D). “A lot of work is being done literally as we speak over the weekend and at nights to try to figure out what Trump and DeJoy are doing, whether they have already violated or are likely to violate any laws and how we can take swift action to try to stop this assault on our democracy.”

Eric Holder, who served as U.S. attorney general under President Barack Obama and now leads the anti-gerrymandering group National Democratic Redistricting Committee, is also considering legal action, a spokesman said.

[Spidey5640]

It can also be summed up like this: Democrats want to govern, Republicans want to rule.

That's pretty funny since its Dems who want to run the entire health care system, regulate everything from light bulbs to cow farts, limit religious services but allow BLM protests and riots, force Catholic organizations to pay for employees abortions, eliminate the Second Amendment, and redistribute wealth from people who have earned it to people they deem "deserve it".

Governing at its best I guess...

[Kirby101]

Oh, I see why you are are Republican and hate Democrats now. Your delusional. That explains everything.

[Tendrin]

Oh, I see why you are are Republican and hate Democrats now. Your delusional. That explains everything.

His posts and reality are two things that shall never meet.