All purpose news and politics thread part VII: News & Politics Total Landscaping

[numberthirty]

Is it about cutting unemployment in half? Curbing inflation? Wage growth the highest in a decade.

But I am sure the media can always find those who are unhappy to interview.

There was also the highest inflation in decades.

Past that, there is that someone needs about a dollar and twenty cents to by what a dollar bought before the pandemic.

It's not like there isn't any good news here, but there is also downside that is not going to go anywhere any time soon.

[Kirby101]

Bide helped pass the Inflation Reduction Act, which brought Inflation down more than most G20 countries.
Inflqtion was Global and in no way due to Biden.
But like you, the media wants to put everything on Biden and nothing on Trump.

[numberthirty]

Bide helped pass the Inflation Reduction Act, which brought Inflation down more than most G20 countries.
Inflqtion was Global and in no way due to Biden.
But like you, the media wants to put everything on Biden and nothing on Trump.

The fact that he did not have to create it with his own two hands for it to hurt most Americans is "First Day..."/"Kindergarten..." stuff.

Past that, bringing the number down more than most does nothing to change the hard fact that an American needs a dollar twenty to day to buy what a dollar bought them before the pandemic.

For all of the talk about "You Cannot Argue With The Data..." lately in this thread, it is odd that folks seem incapable of internalizing that bit of data.

[numberthirty]

While there are a lot of other things going on, it is worth taking note of that this is underway...

https://coloradonewsline.com/2024/01...iving-centers/

U.S. Senate panel examines quality, costs of assisted living centers

Bipartisan U.S. senators are sounding the alarm on cost, workforce shortages and dangerous incidents at assisted living facilities across the country as the needs of aging Americans are forecast to sharply increase.

Sen. Bob Casey, chair of the Senate Committee on Aging, led a hearing Thursday to highlight the panel’s fact finding mission. Unlike nursing homes, assisted living care is largely unregulated at the federal level.

“It is long past time for Congress to re-examine this model and ensure that it’s meeting our nation’s needs,” the Pennsylvania Democrat said in his opening remarks.

Citing a recent survey that found 80% of adults would not be able to afford four years in an assisted living facility, Casey appealed directly to the public to share their experiences.

“I want to hear from you about the true cost of assisted living,” Casey said, holding a sign that urged people to submit stories to aging.senate.gov/assistedlivingbills.

“I think it’s very important that we hear from people — hear from people about their own experience as family members, as people who are paying the bill and also expecting the promises that are made when someone becomes a resident of an assisted living facility,” Casey said.

“It is only by hearing those stories, only by hearing about those experiences, can we bring the needed change that I know we all agree has to come.”

[Deathstroke]

Republicans only believe in laws for others.

Gawd I wish they'd arrest his ass.

[aja_christopher]

The fact that he did not have to create it with his own two hands for it to hurt most Americans is "First Day..."/"Kindergarten..." stuff.

Past that, bringing the number down more than most does nothing to change the hard fact that an American needs a dollar twenty to day to buy what a dollar bought them before the pandemic.

For all of the talk about "You Cannot Argue With The Data..." lately in this thread, it is odd that folks seem incapable of internalizing that bit of data.

Inflation has already been discussed repeatedly.

The one who seems incapable of internalizing all relevant data is the one who chooses to focus solely on negative data regarding Democrats and who routinely avoids data on topics such as white nationalism when discussing Republicans.

Don’t falsely accuse others of not understanding the issues at hand just because you choose to ignore data you feel is irrelevant — especially when “minority” and women voters are key to Democratic victories.

Again — if most Americans agreed with your views, Democrats would not be winning elections.

[CaptainEurope]

Hey, the news looks good for Biden, so how we just cherry pick a few negatives so we don't have to stop slagging the current administration, and enable Trump to win a second term by ignoring factual evidence.

On brand.

Some people need to find a hint of dark cloud on every silver lining.

[CaptainEurope]

Or...

There was a discussion about if only Tesla stock took a double digit hit in the last couple of days.
.

No, there was not. It's silly to assume that there isn't some individual stock that does worse. The discussion was about a "future technology" brand not doing well in favorable context of a growing stock market.

[worstblogever]

In 2015, in 2016, and in 2017, “Crazy Stupid Republican of the Day” published profiles of Gary Kiehne, a candidate for Congress hoping to represent Arizona’s 1st Congressional District in 2014 and 2016. Kiehne is a local rancher and Tea Party wild card who lost in 2014 to State Senator Andy Tobin by a mere 407 votes. It is remarkable that the race was that close, considering Kiehne supported the cause of Cliven Bundy to the extent that he wanted the Bureau of Land Management to lose their control over protected government lands, referred to Arizona law enforcement as "Nazi and SS Officers" during a 2011 wildfire evacuation, and during a primary debate when the conversation turned towards gun control, made the outlandish claim that 99% of all mass shootings are perpetrated by Democrats. Well, Gary Kiehne took another crack at politics in 2016, and again Kiehne managed to lose again, this time finishing second in the GOP Primary by a much wider margin of about five thousand votes. To whom, you might ask? Paul Babeu. Yes THAT Paul Babeu, the anti-immigrant sheriff who got outed as gay when he was threatening to deport his illegal immigrant boyfriend, and who once was the headmaster of a private school where the staff were systematically abusing children there. Kiehne has, at least for now, given up on his dreams of becoming a Congressman.

It was on this date in 2018 that “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” profiled Dan Kirby, a former four-term member of the Oklahoma House of Representatives for a decade first elected back in 2008. During his eight years in office, he was frequently absent during votes, but when he was present, supported Republican Voter Suppression tactics via stricter Voter ID laws and opposed minimum wage increases during the greatest period of income inequality in perhaps our nation’s history. Kirby made headlines right at the end of 2016, prior to the new session of the Oklahoma State Legislature though, after news surfaced that the 58 year old Kirby not only sexually harassed a legislative aide three decades his junior, not only responded to her reporting him by firing her (which would be a violation of whistleblower protections), but that he settled her lawsuit against him by using $16,000 of legislative funds meant to be used on cleaning supplies to keep the Oklahoma House of Representatives all spotless and lemon-scented. While that scandal would easily be enough to force a lawmaker’s resignation, Kirby actually tried reversing his resignation a few days after making it, but he finally relented and went off into the sunset in shame.

On this date in 2019, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” profiled Steven McLaughlin, a former member of the New York Assembly representing District 107 who rose to office as part of, what else, the 2010 Tea Party Wave. His voting record saw him trying to prevent some of the rather reasonable progressive ideas New York has had over the past few years, like his votes against minimum wage increases, pay equality for women, protecting “marriage equality”, or a vote against a ban on gay conversion therapy on minors. And, during his seven years in office, McLaughlin was certainly not a shrinking violet, as in 2013, while New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo was pushing for gun control legislation, McLaughlin decided to compare Cuomo to just… y’know, Hitler. And Vladmir Putin. McLaughlin, over the years, also began to embrace what the Republican Party has been coming under Donald Trump, such as when he was running to be the Rensselaer County Executive, and he referred to the Times Union Leader as “fake news” and a “worthless rag” because he didn’t like their reporting about him, like say wehen they covered his sexist harassment of one of his aides, in which the audio had him telling her, “You’re still fat. You are. Not attractive — and you’re a (expletive) awful human being.” cLaughlin resigned from the New York State Assembly after that aide successfully filed sexual harassment charges against him He is finishing a four-year term as Resselaer County Executive and seems unlikely to win any other political office when his term is up in 2021.

[worstblogever]

On this date in both 2020, 2021, 2022, as well as 2023, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” first profiled Florida State Senator Dennis Baxley, a man who is referred to as “The Steve King of Florida”, because holy s***, is he vomiting out some white nationalist talking points. Baxley was first elected to the Florida House of Representatives from 2001-2006, before returning in the 2010 Tea Party Wave (of course he came with the Tea Party), and after winning two more elections unopposed and serving for six non-consecutive terms in the lower chamber, he moved up to the Florida State Senate in 2016, narrowly winning the GOP Primary for that seat by a few hundred votes.

So for a time, nobody was paying Baxley too much mind in Tallahassee, but maybe they should have. In 2007, he raised a stink when the state of Florida voted to change the state’s song so that it no longer used the term “Darkeys” in its lyrics.

As years went by, Baxley continued to make public comments supporting the legacy of Confederates, and thumbed his nose at acknowledging any other non-white group in Florida’s state history. In 2014, he fought against adding a memorial to fallen Union soldiers to the same patch of land inside the Olustee Battlefield Historic State Park that held three monuments honoring Confederate soldiers, saying, "My biggest concern is that this is revisionist history and that these decisions are being made by park officials and not an elected body." A year later, in 2015, Baxley hailed a decision by Marion County commissioners to fly the Confederate flag at their government complex and would also oppose a bill in the House that would ban the display of Confederate flags on state and local government property.

By 2017, Dennis Baxley wasn’t even being subtle about how racist he was. Or

“I don’t want to celebrate defeat. I would rather celebrate overcoming the heartbreak of slavery. I wouldn’t want to build a memorial to child abuse; I wouldn’t want to build a memorial to sexual abuse. I have a discomfort about memorializing slavery. ... I would like to take it in a more positive direction than a memorial to slavery.”

And… we’re just going to point out that if this stooge didn’t want to “celebrate defeat” then maybe he shouldn’t be championing the Confederacy so much, since they were, y’know, defeated.

Only a few weeks later, people already keeping a close eye on Baxley noted that he went to a pro-Confederate event only two weeks after the events at Charlottesville, Virginia, which was a fundraiser being held by “Save Southern Heritage Florida”, a group that claimed “leftists and Antifa” were responsible for the violence in Charlottesville (online conversations show the white nationalists were planning violence for weeks ahead of time, incidentally). Baxley lied and claimed he was attending to “condemn racism, bigotry, and violence” at the closed door event.

We’ll pause from discussing Baxley’s racism to point out that in 2005, he sponsored Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law that resulted in the death of Trayvon Martin at the hands of George Zimmerman. He scoffs at the idea that he might have any blood on his hands, because of course he does. But that isn’t his only foray into idiotic extremism when it comes to guns. In 2018, when asked about gun control in the wake of the shooting at Parkland, he said that we shouldn’t ban guns to stop gun violence, because “Spoons are used to eat stuff to kill yourself with obesity, but we're not picking up spoons to get rid of obesity."

We’re not even touching the surface of how low this guy will stoop. In the wake of Hurricane Irma in October of 2017, Dennis Baxley tried claiming that 14 deaths in one Florida nursing home where staff failed to avoid deaths from exposure after the air conditioning system failed that there was no negligence, saying, "Look at the population. You're dealing with the 90-somethings. Some of these deaths would naturally occur, storm or no storm."

In 2019, it hasn’t just been frustrating to see Baxley trying to allow for “alternative science” to be taught in schools, and giving “opposing views” to things like climate change or evolution… Go figure that most of his sources during debate on such a measure in the Florida State Senate was supplied by a hate group that says LGBTQ people are guilty of “deviant behavior” and has a decidedly Islamophobic agenda for public schools.

No, we’re more freaked out about how Baxley started making calls recently for stricter anti-choice legislation, but it was the reasons he gave that turned some heads, as he began adopting white nationalist talking points again, and lamented that Western Europeans were “disappearing” because supposedly enough abortions were happening that the Western Europeans were “being replaced by folks that come behind them and immigrant, don’t wish to assimilate into that society, and they do believe in having children. So you see that there are long range impacts to your society when the answer is to exterminate.”

Baxley spent 2020 addressing the threat of Covid-19… HAHAHAH of course he didn’t, this fascist tried getting legislation passed to ban gender reassignment treatments for transgender youth, and sponsored two separate bills to try to find an end-around to get prayer in schools by claiming he wanted a “moment of silence” in classrooms. And what was Baxley’s first priority at the start of 2021? Voter suppression, as he sponsored a bill to make it more difficult to vote by mail, because that’s what a record number of Democrats did in 2020. CAN’T HAVE THAT.

In 2022, he was the sponsor of Florida’s idiotic “Don’t Say Gay” Bill, and after widespread pushback against this bigoted, homophobic piece of legislative trash, which he outright admits is to keep LGBTQ youth in the closet, still soldiered ahead by lying and claiming that even Disney supported the bill, because what even is reality to Republicans obsessed with going back to the “good old days” when you could treat gay people like they’re abominations.

Dennis Baxley won re-election to the Florida State Senate in 2022 with 62% of the vote. Mercifully, he is term-limited in 2024, and this time next year, he’ll be a political afterthought and be able to ironing his white robes with all the extra time he’ll have.

[CaptainEurope]

If you are wondering how damaging the leaked meeting between far right AfD politicians and German neo nazis might be for the party: French far right figure Marine LePen has threatened to kick them out of the EU Parliament nazi club.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, as well as 2023, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day”posted profiles of Josh Miller, a member of the Arkansas House of Representatives and one of the biggest hypocrites you're ever going to find on the issues of government-assistance in regards to healthcare. You see, Miller managed to get himself in a drunk driving accident at the age of 22 where a pickup truck when tumbling off into a ravine that left his good friend dead, and himself paraplegic. Now, the bill for his recovery exceeded $1 million, but he got by because luckily the social safety net like Medicaid was there to catch him. And that's why it was baffling in February of 2014 to see Miller vote to block the Medicaid expansion in Arkansas, and deny tens of thousands of people the same hope that he once needed. If that wasn't enough to convince you Miller may have bonked his head tumbling down that ravine, he also is so pro-life that he supported a measure that would have required a criminal investigation whenever a mother had a miscarriage, voted for TRAP laws to attempt to close all the abortion clinics in Arkansas by deliberately enacting impossible-to-meet restrictions upon them, and is so hung up on guns that he voted to allow firearms on college campuses and inside churches (because Jesus wants people packing heat while they pray). Not to mention, Miller supports stricter Voter ID measures to combat the statistically non-existent problem of "voter fraud" that disenfranchises tens of thousands of voters, and used his paralysis as his justification, saying if he can get registered to vote, why can't naysayers?

And after trying to deny money to sick people in need by denying the Medicaid Expansion, perhaps it should be noted that Miller moved to amend Arkansas State Law so he could still keep his own government aid, even though he accepts rental payments (in other words, he still wants government assistance, even though he’s financially well off between his salary as a legislator, and what he earns renting properties). But if there was any chance that we were about to forget Josh Miller’s hypocrisy, that went out the window when he shared this delightful rant on Facebook regarding his vote against the Medicaid Expansion in April of 2016:

”AR Works is the title of the new law and this is what it consists of.
1. Continuing the Private Option. (A disaster of a program that has made a few insurance companies millions at the expense of future taxpayers.) The Private Option has also made it more difficult for our most vulnerable population (the recipients of traditional Medicaid) to find a doctor because more and more medical providers have stopped taking new Medicaid patients. They have opted to accept the state funded private insurance recipients because the insurance companies pay a little more than Medicaid. Doesn't sound too bad unless you're disabled and have to travel many miles away from home to find a doctor who will see you.
2. Sending "Work Referrals" to able bodied individuals who make 0 income. This sounds like a novel idea until you hear more about it. This will consist of a pamphlet (no doubt mailed to those folks at the expense of the taxpayers) that will tell this population (over 100,000) where to go to get training on how to get a job. I'm sure this training will include instructions like these...
A. Set your alarm
B. Get out of bed
C. Get dressed
D. Go look for a job
E. If offered a job, take it
F. Do your best to do your job
G. Repeat steps A, B, C, and F every day of your employment.
I am not kidding about this. My feeling is that these adults (who are able bodied and healthy but are earning $000.00) don't want a job. Many of them have it figured out that they can stay unemployed and have their needs met by those who do believe in the principles of hard work. I'm sure that their lifestyle isn't what they might want it to be but, hey - they don't have to work 40+ hours a week to make ends meet like the taxpayers do. I honestly don't mind helping people who are trying to help themselves but I have a hard time giving the fruits of hard labor to those who CHOOSE to sit at home and do nothing.”

In the past few year, Miller has missed more votes than the average legislator in Arkansas, by far, and when he has shown up, he’s voted against legislation as extreme as a ban on abortion at 18 weekshelped the spread of Covid-19 by voting for legislation to block both vaccine mandates as well as mask mandates, and, of course, supported a bill to try to make sure teachers couldn’t teach Critical Race Theory even though they weren’t teaching it.

There are no limits to this guy’s hypocrisy or lack of self-awareness, based on his own history. Josh Miller was re-elected in 2016, 2018, and 2020 based on the benefit that he ran unopposed. In 2022, he only had to defeat a libertarian challenger, paving the way to his sixth term in office. We are thrilled to report that Josh Miller has decided to not wait to be term-limited in 2026, and has opted to not run for re-election in 2024. This should be the last time we have to profile him, and we’ll wish him our heartiest GOOD RIDDANCE salutes at this time.

[Malvolio]

I do like Phil Murphy, just can't understand why hbe would support or encourage this behavior.

You know what they say. Politics makes strange bedfellows.

[CaptainEurope]

German authorities have uncovered a bot net on Xitter targeting the German government in general, and Ukraine policies specifically. About 50,000 fake accounts created around one million (!!) xeets that often linked to counterfeit news sites, looking like respected news media like Der Spiegel but spreading propaganda.

Kind of puts in perspective that Olaf Scholz is the least popular chancellor in history in the polls.

[Tendrin]

Cruelty is the point

States across the country are taking new steps to stop transgender adults and minors from being legally recognized in public life. Proposed legislation would prevent trans people from being able to update driver’s licenses, hold public office, use public restrooms, or take shelter from domestic violence unless they do so according to their sex assigned at birth.

If passed, these laws would require trans people to be misgendered in order to participate in day-to-day life — which increases the risk that they face violence and harassment, or are simply excluded from basic services, advocates say. Such laws are likely to be challenged in court; a route that has repeatedly halted anti-trans laws from going into effect.

At least 10 states want to implement laws that redefine sex to exclude transgender and nonbinary people from accessing public services and to deny them equal legal protection. Arizona, Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah, Virginia, Wyoming are all considering these bills, alongside Indiana and Florida, which have brought forth uniquely far-reaching legislation.

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/...174126429.html

Utah is literally about to pass a 'show me your genitals' bill.