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

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Maybe because we are in the grip of a new 9/11 with all that is going on this year, but this 9/11 is hitting me a bit harder than it has over the last 10 years or so. I didn't know anyone lost back then, but I knew the Twin Towers. I went there many times before 2001, as a visitor from the other side of the Hudson, to shop or to see the world from the top of the building, or just passing through on my way to other places.

I knew people who were in Manhatten at the time, though not in the downtown area. I remember seeing it on the news, at first thinking it couldn't be real, then quickly realizing that it was.

2020 is kind of like that. Not everyone knows someone who died from COVID-19, but here in the NE most know someone who had it. It's a different kind of terror, yet somewhat similar.

On 9/11 there were those who were on the ground floor or close enough to it to make a run for it. Then there were those who were trapped above the floors where the planes crashed, who knew they couldn't survive.

With COVID-19, you can see the threat, you can take precautions, but once you get it you are either on the ground floor or near the top.

Living here in the US, it's like the whole country is the Twin Towers. While Trump sits back and crows about how tall his buildings are, instead of stopping the planes from crashing.

Well said, Tami.

[GindyPosts]

Quoted for truth.

I actually wanted to mention this earlier.

It's not that they believe or don't believe every allegation against Trump but they firmly believe in the "idea of Trump".

And that's what has finally dawned on me this past year; it doesn't matter to them what Trump does or says. It's the concept of what Trump can bring forth to them.

The mystique of Trump is greater than the reality of Trump. If you see any Ben Garrison drawing of Trump, it is a good window into the fantasy world in which these people live in.

[Iron Maiden]

Maybe because we are in the grip of a new 9/11 with all that is going on this year, but this 9/11 is hitting me a bit harder than it has over the last 10 years or so. I didn't know anyone lost back then, but I knew the Twin Towers. I went there many times before 2001, as a visitor from the other side of the Hudson, to shop or to see the world from the top of the building, or just passing through on my way to other places.

I knew people who were in Manhatten at the time, though not in the downtown area. I remember seeing it on the news, at first thinking it couldn't be real, then quickly realizing that it was.

2020 is kind of like that. Not everyone knows someone who died from COVID-19, but here in the NE most know someone who had it. It's a different kind of terror, yet somewhat similar.

On 9/11 there were those who were on the ground floor or close enough to it to make a run for it. Then there were those who were trapped above the floors where the planes crashed, who knew they couldn't survive.

With COVID-19, you can see the threat, you can take precautions, but once you get it you are either on the ground floor or near the top.

Living here in the US, it's like the whole country is the Twin Towers. While Trump sits back and crows about how tall his buildings are, instead of stopping the planes from crashing.

That is a very apt way of putting it. We are all the victims this time, whether some of Trump's supporters release it or not. With all the horror and tragedy of it all, the terrorist attacks of 9/11 - I don't want to forget those passengers of Flight 93 who made a gallant effort to thwart the hijacker - unified us. But over the years it has chipped away and now we seem to be on the edge of a precipice that if we're not careful will send us into an age of darkness. Many families, including my own, are sharply divided these days.

[AnakinFlair]

I keep telling people, you need to completely write off Missouri as a lost cause.

As someone who lives in Missouri, I should be offended.... but I can't be.

Why couldn’t the antagonists just be Xiongnu like in the O.G. animated version? Weirdly enough, that’s CLOSER to actual history than the live-action one.

Because they wanted to play in the Chinese market.

[Tami]

How Conspiracy Theories Are Shaping the 2020 Election—and Shaking the Foundation of American Democracy

Kelly Ferro is a busy mom on her way to the post office: leather mini-backpack, brunet topknot, turquoise pedicure with a matching ombré manicure. A hairdresser from Kenosha, Wis., Ferro didn’t vote in 2016 but has since become a strong supporter of Donald Trump. “Why does the news hate the President so much?” she says. “I went down the rabbit hole. I started doing a lot of research.”

When I ask what she means by research, something shifts. Her voice has the same honey tone as before, and her face is as friendly as ever. But there’s an uncanny flash as she says, “This is where I don’t know what I can say, because what’s integrated into our system, it stems deep. And it has to do with really corrupt, evil, dark things that have been hidden from the public. Child sex trafficking is one of them.”

Ferro may not have even realized it, but she was parroting elements of the QAnon conspiracy theory, a pro-Trump viral delusion that began in 2017 and has spread widely over recent months, migrating from far-right corners of the Internet to infect ordinary voters in the suburbs. Its followers believe President Trump is a hero safeguarding the world from a “deep state” cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles, Democratic politicians and Hollywood celebrities who run a global sex-trafficking ring, harvesting the blood of children for life-sustaining chemicals.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" published profiles of the U.S. House Representative from Texas’ 6th District, Joe Barton, a man most renowned for taking climate change denial to a degree that’s noteworthy even for the modern GOP, claiming that we should not invest in wind turbines because “wind is a finite resource” and that The Great Flood from the Bible was proof against humans having a role in climate change. He’s clearly in the pockets of big oil, and if there was any doubt of that, keep in mind we’re talking about a guy who when the CEO of British Petroleum was called to testify before Congress after the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill… Rep. Barton had the gall to APOLOGIZE TO HIM for the “White House shakedown” of his company, that a sane person would realize was an surprisingly low fine for causing the greatest ecological disaster of our generation. Meanwhile, Barton has also talked openly about abolishing the minimum wage. In March of 2018, Joe Barton may have given any political opponents against him ammunition when he actually attended a town hall, but while a constituent began asking him about various votes he made against legislation that would prevent violence towards women, Barton received jeers from the crowd, and pointed to the man and told him to shut up. The crowd then erupted, and began shouting “You work for us” at him. So, not long after Barton confirmed that he would be running for re-election in 2018, a graphic nude photo of him began circulating online, which he claimed was taken not long after he was separated from his second wife (uh huh… this may have been why they separated). Turns out, Barton is dumb enough to think women on Facebook get turned on by seeing nudes of wrinkled-ass old Congressmen (PRO-TIP: They don’t.) And then, … Joe Barton announced he would retire, after all.

[worstblogever]

On this date one year ago, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” published our first profile of the U.S. House Representative from Texas’ 21st Congressional District, Chip Roy, who just was elected to office for the first time in 2018, and whose prior political experience was working as a staffer for the loathsome Sen. Ted Cruz until he saw a plum GOP-leaning seat left behind by retiring Congressman Lamar Smith. And boy oh boy, is Chip Roy showing us that he’s just as much of an ***hole as his former boss.

In May of 2019, a bill cleared the Senate to approve $19.1 billion in disaster relief funding for victims of wildfires and hurricanes, which included areas of Texas damaged by Hurricane Harvey. On May 24th, 2019, it was expected to pass the House with a simple voice vote, and most of the GOP content to let it pass by a simple voice vote, provided no objections were presented by Republicans. GOP House leadership had no intention of doing so… BUT CHIP ROY is just that much of a seaworthy douche-canoe, and he decided to hold up the needed disaster relief bill because Nancy Pelosi thought a voice vote would suffice. Remember, though, this was a bill that got fired through Mitch McConnell’s Senate, and BOTH Texas Senators voted for. But Chip Roy wasn’t gonna let Pelosi get away with… whatever she was doing that all his fellow Texas Republicans wanted.

That isn’t a one-off for how obsessive Rep. Roy is, as he’s kept members of Congress up until 4AM to try and secure money for Trump’s novelty project and all around stupid idea, the border wall… and it wasn’t just that he did that to just be a jerk to Democrats, who obviously have the majority and were gonna shoot that down… but it was that Roy ditched his own wife on their 15th wedding anniversary to do so. What a lucky gal she must be.

Meanwhile, in House Oversight Committee hearings, Roy has turned up to play defense as much as he can for the Donald Trump and his clusterf*** of an administration, including trying to insinuate during the Michael Cohen hearings that Cohen had only turned on Trump because he was bitter he didn’t get hired to work in the White House. He's been far worse during hearings questioning the actions of ICE for locking children in cages, where he claimed to have been to the border many times and never saw a child in a cage (in spite of photos showing this leaking to the public), he went on to say Democrats don’t actually care about the kids and are just attempting to “score political points”.

Motherf***er, this isn’t a game. THOSE ARE CHILDREN IN CAGES. NOBODY IS PLAYIN’ WITH THAT.

His voting record is, as you’d expect, one of the most rabidly conservative in all of the Republican Caucus:

• January 22nd, 2019: Roy votes against HR 676, which would prevent Donald Trump from doing the unthinkable and walking away from our allies in NATO to appease the Russians.
• January 23rd, 2019: Rep. Roy voted against HR 648, because he was gleeully enjoying the longest government shutdown in history.
• February 28th, 2019: Chip Roy votes against HR 1112, a bill which would have required universal background checks on all firearm purchases, and close the gun show loophole.
• March 7th, 2019: Roy votes against HR 183, a resolution to condemn anti-Semitism as a hateful extension of intolerance.
• March 14th, 2019: Rep. Roy votes against HJR 46, which sane members of Congress voted for to reject Donald Trump’s “national emergency” regarding the U.S. border and his attempts to reallocate funds for a border wall without Congressional approval.
• April 4th, 2019: Chip Roy is one of 158 Republicans who choose to vote against the re-authorization of the Violence Against Women Act, likely because they feel the 2nd Amendment remaining absolute is more important than preventing people with a history of domestic abuse from owning a firearm (which statistics show, makes them more likely to use those firearms against women in their lives).
• May 17th, 2019: Roy votes against The Equality Act, which would have prevented discrimination towards Americans based on their gender identity or sexual orientation.
• June 4th, 2019: Rep. Roy votes against the Dreamers Act, because he’s too xenophobic and partisan to care about immigration reform.
• July 16th, 2019: Chip Roy is one of 187 Republicans who vote against a resolution to condemn Donald Trump for his racist statements that four people of color in Congress should “go back where they came from”.
• October 17th, 2019: Roy bravely votes “PRESENT” on HJ Res 77, which opposed Donald Trump’s disastrous decision to abandon Syrian Kurdish forces in Northeast Syria to the mercies of a Turkish invasion.
• December 18th, 2019: Roy ignores his Congressional duty to hold a president who has been proven to commit high crimes and misdemeanors accountable and votes against the impeachment of Donald Trump.
• May 15th, 2020: Roy votes against the HEROES Act, to further support the healthcare industry and citizens affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Here’s the thing… all of the political analysis coming out of Texas is that its partisan lean, which has been traditionally Republican for years, is swinging hard left, and that it will be a swing state in 2018. Chip Roy only won office in 2018 with 50.2% of the vote, and it’s entirely possible that if the trend of voter registration among women, Hispanics, and youths registering to vote as Democrats in Texas combined with the fact that the district only has a +10 Republican lean with that he’s just deranged enough to block disaster funding to HIS OWN STATE that could make Chip Roy a one-term Congressman.

What should concern him even more is he will apparently have one of the most high profile challengers in that prospective race, as former Texas State Senator and women’s rights champion Wendy Davis is going to run against him, the first time she’s run for office since her 2014 loss to Gov. Greg Abbott, and its in a district that contains Austin, which has always been the blueberry in the middle of the red Texas cherry pie (but that blueberry is getting bigger).

And there is no way that having Wendy Davis in place instead of a partisan hack like Chip Roy would not be better for the people of Texas’ 21st, as well as the rest of the country. He literally has argued that Texas was “moving in the right direction” in the fight against Covid-19 as the state jumped to one of the top three in the country in infection rates (which indicates he’s either clueless, or considers the spread of the disease as a positive). A week later, he went full-on conspiracy theorist and claimed that the entire Covid-19 pandemic was a “hoax” invented to hurt the GOP. Which is insane.

His career needs to be brought to an immediate halt before he wedges himself in place to be a partisan ass-clown for the next three decades, like his predecessor, and Wendy Davis seems like a great replacement.

[babyblob]

Fox news latest attempt to make a mountain out of an ant hill and force the Joementia theory down everyone's throats. Every hour they focused on the interview with the Biden campaign worker who would not sat if Biden used a teleprompter or not. I mean they are really running with this.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Fox news latest attempt to make a mountain out of an ant hill and force the Joementia theory down everyone's throats. Every hour they focused on the interview with the Biden campaign worker who would not sat if Biden used a teleprompter or not. I mean they are really running with this.

No surprise there. Focus on Biden’s so-called deficiencies while turning a blind eye, if not ignoring Trump’s own mental decline. I wouldn’t give this nonsense any credence since it’ll only resonate with right wing loons, conspiracy nuts and the low hanging fruit that watches Faux News. Everyone else outside that vile orbit won’t pay it any mind.

[The Cool Thatguy]

No surprise there. Focus on Biden’s so-called deficiencies while turning a blind eye, if not ignoring Trump’s own mental decline. I wouldn’t give this nonsense any credence since it’ll only resonate with right wing loons, conspiracy nuts and the low hanging fruit that watches Faux News. Everyone else outside that vile orbit won’t pay it any mind.

We've gone so far to ignore Trump's mental shortcomings that 'War Fighter' has found its way into our lexicon.

[Tami]

I read all those Trump tell-alls. Here's what I learned

But taken together, what do you get?
'I need loyalty. I expect loyalty'

Whatever the author's final verdict of Trump is, there is a major recurring theme.

"Donald Trump has a fierce code of loyalty," writes Spicer. "Nothing hurts him deeper than when someone he trusts is disloyal," says Lewandowski and Bossie. "Loyalty was the key factor" in appointments, Bolton says.

Cohen, in Disloyal, and Comey, in A Higher Loyalty, build their titles around this concept.

Comey's book - part memoir, part leadership study, part expose - hints at the moment Trump reportedly told him "I need loyalty. I expect loyalty," when Comey was FBI director. Comey says he refused. He did not last much longer in his job.

But for most loyalty in Trump's world is a one-way street. As Sims notes in the final chapter of his book: "I had let my personal relationship to the president blind me to the one unfailing truth that applied to anyone with whom he didn't share a last name: we were all disposable."

A demand for loyalty is partly why several authors compare Trump to a mob boss. At least when Comey and McCabe do it they have some authority, having spent their careers in law enforcement.

He got off lightly with that particular comparison. To Anonymous, Trump is like a "12-year-old in an air traffic control tower". Comey says his leadership is a "forest fire". Omarosa, whose book even by Trump memoir standards takes few prisoners, calls him "a racist, a bigot and a misogynist".

In his corner Trump can count on Christie, who says he was "everything I was - but on jet fuel". Most memorably of all, Spicer says Trump is "a unicorn, riding a unicorn over a rainbow".

[skyvolt2000]

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/austin-...illboard-i-35/

The Texas Municipal Police Association (TMPA) has put up two billboards along Interstate 35 entering Austin after the city council voted last month to cut the Austin police budget. One of them reads: "Warning! Austin defunded police. Enter at your own risk!"


The second says, "Limited support next 20 miles," according to the association.

TMPA, the largest law enforcement association in Texas, said on Facebook it released the billboards – which include the hashtag #BacktheBlue – "to raise public awareness that Austin is a defunded city."

Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick backed the campaign, calling them "great new billboards" in a tweet on Wednesday, while Texas Governor Greg Abbott tweeted about them with the hashtag #TexasBacksTheBlue.

Abbott has called on every Texan and candidate for public office to sign a pledge against defunding the state's police departments and post it on social media Thursday afternoon to show support for law enforcement.

"Defunding our police departments would invite crime into our communities and put people in danger," reads the pledge. "That is why I pledge to support any measure that discourages or stops efforts to defund police departments in Texas."

[shooshoomanjoe]

Michael Cohen's Daughter Reveals How She Was Sexualized by Donald Trump as a Teen

And yet Cohen still did business with trump after that. WTF

As Cohen details in the book, it was a hot summer day in 2012 when he was standing with Trump outside the pool area at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, discussing “some pressing business matter, like the size of the breasts of a woman sunbathing on a lounge chair.” Cohen writes that he remembers Trump whistling and looking over at the tennis courts: “Look at that piece of a**,” Trump said. “I’d love some of that.” Little did Trump know, he was talking about Cohen’s then 15-year-old daughter. Cohen turned to Trump and said, “That’s my daughter.” Cohen’s book continues to recount the uncomfortable anecdote: “That’s your daughter? When did she get so hot?” Trump said. Cohen writes that he didn’t respond but remembered thinking, “Who talks about a man’s daughter in that way?” And when Samantha approached her father and gave him a kiss on the cheek, Trump apparently asked for one too — to which the teen “complied with a tiny peck.” Cohen writes that Trump then offered him a “bro-like bumped fist” after questioning Samantha about her looks. “When did you get such a beautiful figure?” Trump said. “You better watch out because in a few years I’ll be dating one of your friends.”

Cohen shares this disturbing experience while also acknowledging that he didn’t know how to protect his daughter — and admitted it wasn’t the first or last time it happened. “As usual, not knowing how to extricate myself from the situation and spare my sweet daughter any more of this unwanted and inappropriate attention.”

[Robotman]

No surprise there. Focus on Biden’s so-called deficiencies while turning a blind eye, if not ignoring Trump’s own mental decline. I wouldn’t give this nonsense any credence since it’ll only resonate with right wing loons, conspiracy nuts and the low hanging fruit that watches Faux News. Everyone else outside that vile orbit won’t pay it any mind.

I’m really concerned about the debates. There is going to be so much focus on Biden and his ability to answer questions on the spot. Trump can be his usual dementia addled self and no one will bat and eye. The Republican/Fox News strategy basically hinges on Biden’s performance. You can guarantee that Trump is going to do everything in his power to fluster and trip him up.

[Tendrin]

So this is bad.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/m...-out-unopposed

Marjorie Greene, the QAnon-supporting Republican nominee for Georgia’s 14th congressional district, is now running unopposed this November.

Her opponent, Democrat Kevin Van Ausdal, dropped out on Friday citing life changes taking him out of the state.

I suspect WBE is already reaching for the booze. Not that an R+27 district wasn't sending her *anyway*.