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

[Mister Mets]

In nicer news, the veteran who celebrated his 100th birthday by raising millions for the NHS in a modified walkathon has been knighted.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...hood-by-queen/

LONDON — Capt. Tom Moore, the beloved British war veteran who walked the length of his garden 100 times to raise money ahead of his 100th birthday in April, has received a knighthood for his fundraising initiative, which brought in about $40 million for Britain’s National Health Service charities.

Last month, more than half a million people signed a petition asking for Moore to be knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for his efforts. Now, it appears their wish has been granted.

Reacting to news he was to be knighted on Wednesday, Moore, who served in India during World War II, told BBC Breakfast it was an “outstanding honor” and said he was “delighted.” On social media, many used the hashtag #SirCaptainTomMoore to celebrate his new title and achievement.

Widely hailed as a “legend,” Moore has become a national and international treasure in recent weeks, with many branding him Britain’s light amid the darkness of the deadly coronavirus pandemic that has so far claimed at least 35,000 lives in the United Kingdom.

On Wednesday, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said of Moore: “You have inspired us all with your fantastic fundraising efforts. On behalf of the whole country, I want to say a huge thank you.”

Moore’s rise to fame began in April, when he set out to raise £1,000 (nearly $1,250) for the health service and its staff during the health crisis by walking the 82-foot length of his garden back and forth 100 times, using his walker for support. He sought to complete the laps ahead of his birthday on April 30.

But just 24 hours after Moore started, he had shattered his target, raising the equivalent of $8,750. From then on, donations poured in from all corners of the world, even causing his online fundraising page to crash repeatedly. Moore continued to increase his goal and vowed to keep walking.

Moore completed his final lap two weeks ahead of schedule, as the figure hit $15 million. On April 30, his fundraising page closed, with the final total at a staggering £32,796,510 ($40 million) pledged from more than 1 million donors worldwide.

For all the talk about Joe Biden being moderate, there is much to the argument that he would be the most left-wing President ever, partly due to societal needs during and after COVID-19, but largely because the Democratic party has moved more to the left.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...ar-will-he-go/

Biden is a centrist in a certain way — he has historically positioned himself in the center of the Democratic Party, between the party’s most liberal and most conservative members. (And he does that positioning generally on foreign policy, economics and social issues.) The center of the party is a moving target of course.

“The best way to understand Biden is as a reflection or reaction to the party’s main planks throughout the last 40 years, rather than leading or shaping it,” said Lily Geismer, a history professor at Claremont McKenna College who has written extensively about the Democratic Party and liberalism. “I don’t see Biden as embodying any of the ideological terms or positions of centrist or liberal, certainly not center-left and not really neoliberal either. Instead I see his ideology as first and foremost a Democrat. He has throughout his career toed the party line rather than an ideological one.”

Serving in the Senate from 1973-2009, Biden was always more liberal than at least 44 percent of his Democratic colleagues but always less liberal than at least 43 percent of his colleagues, according to DW-Nominate scores of his Senate votes. Put another way, he ranged between the 44th and 57th percentile in terms of liberalism among Democratic senators in his Senate years — smack dab in the middle of the party.2
Liberal Democrats have been sharply critical of some of Biden’s votes in the Senate, mostly notably his support for the 1994 anti-crime bill that increased penalties for some offenses and the 2002 resolution to authorize war with Iraq. But on both issues, Biden was within the Democratic Party consensus at the time. Nearly all Senate Democrats (54 of 56) backed the crime bill, as did 188 of the 252 House Democrats who voted on the measure, which was signed into law by a Democratic president (Bill Clinton). A majority of House Democrats (126 of 207) opposed the Iraq War resolution, but the majority of Biden’s Senate Democratic colleagues were in favor of it (28 of 49).

Biden’s tenure as vice president also suggests that he would govern from the middle of the Democratic Party. There is not a clear record — akin to Senate roll call votes — of the positions Biden took in internal policy debates within the Obama administration. And the role of a vice president essentially requires him to publicly praise whatever decision the president ultimately makes. But Biden has described himself as an “Obama Democrat” and strongly defended the administration’s record. And while Obama himself and the Obama administration are somewhat hard to categorize ideologically, the former president and his team generally took approaches that did not satisfy the most liberal elements of the party but were fairly liberal.

When Biden did publicly separate himself from the Obama administration, it was to stake out a position that was within the Democratic mainstream. Take Biden’s announcement in 2012 that he supported same-sex marriages — though Obama had not yet come out publicly for legalizing same-sex unions, the majority of Democratic voters already held this position. And Biden also supported the Obama’s administration push for more lenient criminal justice policies, even as Sen. Biden had been a key figure in the Democrats’ tough on crime posture in the 1980s and 1990s.

That willingness to change with the times was also evident in Biden’s 2020 primary platform. Biden adopted fairly liberal policies — not as liberal as those of Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, but more liberal than his pre-campaign record suggested. The Democratic Party is more liberal now than it was when Bill Clinton took office, or even when Obama was inaugurated, and Biden’s platform reflects that shift. Some of Biden’s 2020 policy proposals are notably to the left of the Obama administration’s stances when it left office in early 2017, including Biden’s support for the abolition of the death penalty, halting nearly all deportations of undocumented immigrants in his first 100 days as president and free four-year college for Americans in households with incomes up to $125,000 a year.

[SquirrelMan]

For all the talk about Joe Biden being moderate, there is much to the argument that he would be the most left-wing President ever, partly due to societal needs during and after COVID-19, but largely because the Democratic party has moved more to the left.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...ar-will-he-go/

I hope you're gonna be ok.

<<<<<<<<hugs>>>>>>>>

[The Cool Thatguy]

George W. Bush was very popular after 9-11. It's natural for a president's popularity to go up during a national crisis, but what's telling is that Trump hasn't really seen much of an improvement which indicates how poorly he's handling the crisis.

I imagine most of his popularity is actually negative in the sense that the working class majority support he gets is a result of democrats not appealing to their interests. That's a bit of a result that the most prominent politicians keep Trump in the headlines with a focus on "we have to beat Trump" rather than "we have to prove to voters that we can help them."

If Trump had basic competence, he could have turned the COVID outbreak into an election win

[Tendrin]

George W. Bush was very popular after 9-11. It's natural for a president's popularity to go up during a national crisis, but what's telling is that Trump hasn't really seen much of an improvement which indicates how poorly he's handling the crisis.

I imagine most of his popularity is actually negative in the sense that the working class majority support he gets is a result of democrats not appealing to their interests. That's a bit of a result that the most prominent politicians keep Trump in the headlines with a focus on "we have to beat Trump" rather than "we have to prove to voters that we can help them."

Trump's base of support is not the working class.

[PaulBullion]

Trump's base of support is not the working class.

Why is that myth so hard to kill?

[ed2962]

Why is that myth so hard to kill?

Because these are the people who show up at his rallies.

[worstblogever]

If Trump had basic competence, he could have turned the COVID outbreak into an election win

Everybody would have rallied around him.

Speaking of, Trump would have probably liked to have boasted about how no terror attacks have occurred on his watch, by ignoring all the white supremacist ones...
Well, seems like that claim would be out the door, as of Al Qaeda being confirmed as having radicalized two mass shooters, one this week, and one a few years ago who we just learned was in contact with the group.

He is thoroughly incompetent. In every measurable.

[PaulBullion]

Because these are the people who show up at his rallies.

That's partly because they need the cash they get paid to stand behind him while black.

[PaulBullion]

If Trump had basic competence, he could have turned the COVID outbreak into an election win

The "rallying around the flag in an emergency" bounce he experienced has completely evaporated.

[worstblogever]

It was on this date in 2015 that “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” posted a profile of John Ludlow, the Clackamas County Chairman of the GOP who has literally asked the question, "Do you want a piece of me?" while bullying colleagues on county board, and without a vote, trying to throw people off it without a second thought. He also has a tendency to comment on the record when tragedies happen to blame them on a minority group, like when he declared the Boston Marathon bombing was the "work of an A-rab", or asking a police officer about a recent shooting and telling him it was his "bet they were Mexicans". Ludlow also makes inappropriate sexual comments, like when he volunteered his opinion about a female legislator receiving an appointment because "she shoves her perky titties in people's faces". Not surprisingly, Ludlow’s ascent into GOP politics was halted, the more his name made the papers.

On this date in 2016, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” posted a profile of Dennis Hedke, a former member of the Kansas House of Representatives who prior to taking office, was geophysicist who worked for oil and gas companies, and his main focus in Kansas politics was centered around climate change denial. Hedke doesn't just possess your regular brand of climate change denial, oh no, he takes it to a whole other level. Dennis Hedke wasn't content to be the only one questioning the science of climate change, but he wanted all public school teachers to do so as part of their curriculum, and filed legislation to try and make that happen. If we're not being plain enough... Hedke wanted to disseminate lies to young, impressionable minds, to agree with his own worldview. In February of 2013, Dennis Hedke led the charge in Kansas to produce a bill to prohibit the implementation of the United Nations' Agenda 21 environmental treaty. When it failed, he instead targeted environmental sustainability itself, submitting legislation to prohibit the use of public funds to promote sustainable development. When critics pointed out that his long-established ties to the oil and gas industry might be causing a conflict of interest for him, Hedke played dumb, and said "the possibility never crossed his mind". But we can't say that Dennis Hedke is just a kook based on his voting record and his will to ignore scientific evidence about the dangers of climate change. No, he's also delightfully Islamophobic as well, as was evidenced when he raised a stink about the Minneha Core Knowledge Magnet School having an educational display which included the Five Pillars of Islam. Nevermind the fact that the school also has displays to give the basic tenets of Christianity (including a painting of the Last Supper), Buddhism, Judaism, and Hinduism, because their history department liked to teach a history of those five religions and their impact on the world. Just the one for the Islamic faith seemed "appalling" in Dennis Hedke's mind. Hedke chose not to run for re-eleciton in 2016, and has faded from view.

It was on this date in 2017, as well as 2018, that “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day published profiles of Corey Stewart, a former Trump 2016 campaign staffer who ran for office to be the Governor of Virginia as a Republican here in 2017. That was honestly a pretty surprising development, though, considering Corey Stewart went off the reservation in his role with the Trump campaign, and posted some staggering race-baiting online to "support" his candidate that was beyond the pale. And yet, Stewart still wasn't held accountable for any of that, and got fired in October of 2016 from the Trump campaign after he took part in a protest by Trump voters outside the Republican National Party headquarters, angry at the perception that the GOP wasn't doing enough to prop up Donald Trump after the "Access Hollywood" tape surfaced. To give you an idea of how much acrimony Corey Stewart had/has for his own party, this was his explanation for joining that protest was “I called them establishment pukes because that’s how they make everybody feel." Thus, when long time Bush administration and former RNC head Ed Gillespie entered the campaign to be the next Governor of Virginia when the election would be held in 2017... Corey Stewart threw his hat into the ring to challenge the stalwart in the Republican primary. So how does one paint themselves as a true conservative when they're running agaist a former RNC Chairman? Well, in an AMA thread on Reddit that he was hosting, Corey Stewart decided to outright call Gillespie a "cuckservative" to win the Alt-Right, Pepe-Lovin' demographic, and "RINO" is apparently too nice of a thing to say. Stewart of course, panders to racists and xenophobes as much as possible, including not just on his staunch anti-immigration views, but in the key issue in his campaign to differentiate himself from Gillespie... he LOVES the Confederate flag. Bizarrely, Stewart, who grew up in Minnesota, has made Confederate heritage the cornerstone of his campaign. The strategy helped Stewart get the backing of White Nationalists and Neo-Confederates, as if that's supposed to be a good thing. And, that nearly was enough, as Stewart came within 5,000 votes of winning the GOP nomination for Governor of Virginia. We thought that Corey Stewart getting narrowly beaten would be the end of our profiles of him, and he’d quickly fade from view… however, he inexplicably turned around and filed for office again in 2018, this time hoping to knock of Senator Tim Kaine to be elected to U.S. Senate. What was Stewart’s strategy in that race? Well, for starters, he’s decided to revive the Birther Conspiracy about Barack Obama not actually having been a citizen of the United States and defending noted racist pedophile Roy Moore, claiming that the girls Moore was trying to prey on when he signed their high school yearbook while in his thirties and trying to date them was a forgery. In February 2018, Stewart rallied outside the Virginia State House of Delegates, outraged that the Virginia GOP worked with Democrats to pass the expansion of Medicaid in the state. Of course, Stewart could not voice his grievances tastefully, instead waving around a roll of toilet paper and attacking the virility of his fellow Republicans, calling them “garbage”, “flaccid”, and saying he “felt sorry for their wives”. Corey Stewart narrowly won the GOP nomination for U.S. Senate in 2018 by 5,000 votes, only to get trounced by Tim Kaine by half a million in November.

On this date in 2019, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled Bob Nonini, a candidate to be the Lieutenant Governor of Idaho in 2018 after he had served fourteen years in both the House and Senate of the Idaho state legislature. His voting record was hard to the right on anti-choice and pro-gun mentality, he also supported unconstitutional bills to try and nullify the Affordable Care Act, and to try and make English the official language of the state. That… is the tame part of his story. You see, what’s interesting was that Nonini pulled off a fourteen year career in spite of being arrested in 1983 for cocaine possession with intent to deliver. While Nonini tried claiming the arrest was because he was in a car with a friend with some marijuana under his seat, and not cocaine, further media research showed that Nonini had the charges dropped because he became an informant on, John Wayne Clark, the other man in the vehicle. However, the idea that Nonini was just caught up in someone else’s activities goes out of the window when an airplane he owned crashed due to pilot error… and that pilot was also known to be running cocaine into the country from Mexico. That… is a lot to unpack. (Not unlike a kilo, we would wager.) Bob Nonini somehow was the Tim Allen of Idaho politics. But it’s still not the only wild story we have about Bob Nonini in 2018. Because after the public learned of Nonini’s sordid past, he thought maybe he could survive being labled a coke dealer and still win office if he could win over the GOP electorate by declaring that women who have abortions should be punished, and when asked what that punishment should be, he offered up the mild sentence of ”the death penalty”. Bob Nonini’s anti-choice extremism proved to be a foolish gambit, as he finished a distant fourth in the GOP Primary with only 15% of the vote. As his career is likely over, we will retire his profile at this time and take a look at another wacky Republican today instead. (Current crazy/stupid scoreboard, is now 870-45, since this was established in July 2014.)

[TheManInBlack]

Why is that myth so hard to kill?

Because it's not a myth... literally everyone I know who's a big Trump fan is working class. Everyone I know who's a Biden fan is middle class and college/university educated in cushy white-collar jobs.

Because these are the people who show up at his rallies.

[Tendrin]

Because it's not a myth... literally everyone I know who's a big Trump fan is working class. Everyone I know who's a Biden fan is middle class and college/university educated in cushy white-collar jobs.

This is only true if you take working class to mean 'white male working class', which you plainly do.

The working class is not predominantly white, or male.

He lost actual working class voters.

To Hillary.

Trump voters weren’t majority working class in the general election, either.
What about the general election? A few weeks ago, the American National Election Study — the longest-running election survey in the United States — released its 2016 survey data. And it showed that in November 2016, the Trump coalition looked a lot like it did during the primaries.

Among people who said they voted for Trump in the general election, 35 percent had household incomes under $50,000 per year (the figure was also 35 percent among non-Hispanic whites), almost exactly the percentage in NBC’s March 2016 survey. Trump’s voters weren’t overwhelmingly poor. In the general election, like the primary, about two thirds of Trump supporters came from the better-off half of the economy.
But, again, what about education? Many analysts have argued that the partisan divide between more and less educated people is bigger than ever. During the general election, 69 percent of Trump voters in the election study didn’t have college degrees. Isn’t that evidence that the working class made up most of Trump’s base?

The truth is more complicated: many of the voters without college educations who supported Trump were relatively affluent. The graph below breaks down white non-Hispanic voters by income and education. Among people making under the median household income of $50,000, there was a 15 to 20 percentage-point difference in Trump support between those with a college degree and those without. But the same gap was present — and actually larger — among Americans making more than $50,000 and $100,000 annually.

[Steel Inquisitor]

He coached her brother, one of the corroborating 'witnesses', and tainted his recollection, just like the other 'corroborations' of her rape allegation are tainted.

That sounds illegal, and deleting the tweets might be too. I'm sure the authorities would be able to find someone being able to collect those tweets, so all he did was hurt himself further.

[worstblogever]

Andy Biggs

Welcome to what is the 870th original profile here at “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day”, where we’ll be discussing the sitting U.S. House Representative from Arizona’s 5th Congressional District, Andy Biggs, who was first elected to Congress back in 2016, after a 14 year career in the Arizona state legislature. He did so by winning a Republican primary against Christine Jones by all of 27 votes. Outside of office, Biggs is a reminder that good things always seem to happen to the worst people, as in 1993, he was the winner of the Publisher’s Clearinghouse Sweepstakes, to the tune of $10 million.

That financial windfall gave Biggs the nest egg to jump into politics a decade later, where he could pursue true Republican hobbies, like working alongside anti-gay hate groups like United Families International, trying to ban abortion without exceptions for rape or incest, and denying the existence of climate change by claiming scientists have “manipulated data” to make the case that it exists. On that last one, Biggs compares his anti-intellectual plight to that of Albert Einstein, which has led to him publicly being booed, and was one of the key forces in Washington, D.C., who encouraged Donald Trump to back out of the Paris Climate accords.

And, as the years go by, there’s no indication that Andy Biggs plans on veering from the path he’s been on, as he’s appeared publicly at speaking engagements with extremists from the right as radical as Laura Loomer (banned from Twitter, Uber, Lyft, etc.) and Christopher Farrell, (banned from Fox News for continuously spreading anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about George Soros).

Upon his return to office in 2019, Rep. Biggs also was enraged that after the longest government shutdown in history, that federal employees who had been furloughed would, y’know, be paid for all the days that they worked, and not have been doing so for free. No, really, he voted against back pay. He was also one of a dozen lawmakers to vote against compensation for 9-11 First Responders, and one of three Republican Congressman partisan enough to have called for the resignation of Robert Mueller for daring to investigate the 2016 Trump campaign for their blatant collusion with a foreign power to win the election.

This man is enough of a partisan ***hole that he even was one of two members of Congress who voted against the Covid-19 funding bill, because, and we’re not making this up… he objected that the bill regarded “couples” in households should include same sex ones. That’s right, he would rather let a plague spread across the nation than acknowledge that gay people could be in relationships.

[Tendrin]

That sounds illegal, and deleting the tweets might be too. I'm sure the authorities would be able to find someone being able to collect those tweets, so all he did was hurt himself further.

Neither of these things are illegal in the context they were performed.