All-purpose news and politics thread: Two Steps Beyond!

[mojotastic]

Well if it is a domestic dispute gone bad(like CNN are suggesting it was) then that makes the NRA tweet pretty much irrelevant since the shooting would have notting to do with them

There is this.

https://twitter.com/bri_sacks/status/981369030110949377

Her website

https://twitter.com/Uncle_Jimbo/stat...64053288288257

[mojotastic]

On other news, 3 ecuatorian journalists were kidnapped in Colombia by one of the terror groups in the region (the goverment is not sure if it was done by the ELN or some members of the FARC that didnt give up their arms) and they are asking for Ecuador to stop helping Colombia with the fight against terrorism.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.7b861467d72e

Three journalists are kidnapped in Ecuador, signaling the violence spilling over from Colombia

QUITO, Ecuador — Every night since March 26, when three Ecuadoran journalists were kidnapped near their country’s border with Colombia, their colleagues have gathered to demand their rescue.

“We’re missing three! We want them back alive!” they have shouted while protesting in front of the presidential palace in the capital, Quito.

The kidnappings of Javier Ortega, Paul Rivas and Efrain Segarra have hit the local journalism community particularly hard, but they are also the latest signs of the growing wave of violence spilling over the border from Colombia and threatening the security of the entire country.

That surge began after Colombia’s government signed a peace deal with the Marxist guerrilla group FARC in 2016. As FARC demobilized, other armed groups moved in and began fighting for control of the abandoned territory.

“It was a border that didn't have presence of the state. It was the FARC that territoriality controlled and administered it,” Napoleon Saltos, a professor of political and constitutional studies at the Central University in Quito, told The Washington Post. “The moment that the FARC left to negotiate [the peace deal], it was like a state that stopped acting.”

Over the past year, fighting has increased in several states across Colombia, including the state of Narino, which borders Ecuador. Almost 3,000 people have been forced to flee their homes in 2018 alone, according to the Norwegian Refugee Council.

Now the conflict is moving south across the border. In the Ecuadoran province of Esmeraldas, where the kidnapped journalists were reporting on the rise in violence, the situation has been deteriorating since January, when a bomb exploded at police headquarters in the city of San Lorenzo and injured two officers. Since then, five other attacks have occurred in the province, mainly targeting police and military headquarters, killing three men and injuring several others.

Ortega, Rivas and Segarra were reporting on that violence when they were kidnapped. On Tuesday, the three men appeared in chains in a proof-of-life video obtained by RCN, a Colombian television network. They listed their kidnappers' demands that Ecuador's government "release three unidentified combatants and end anti-narcotics cooperation with Colombia in exchange for their freedom," according to the Associated Press. “President Lenin Moreno, our life is in your hands,” Ortega said.

Authorities say both the kidnappings and the violence have been the work of FARC dissident groups, led by a former guerrilla known as “El Guacho.” But FARC dissidents are not the only ones operating in the area.

Local media recently reported there are up to 12 armed groups in Colombia’s southern state of Narino, on the border with Esmeraldas, where violence has also increased since FARC laid down its weapons. According to Saltos, these include violent paramilitary groups and even Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel.

Even before Colombia’s peace process, armed groups used Ecuador as a transit hub, trafficking narcotics and gold, weapons and people. This has been especially true in Esmeraldas, where there is direct access to the Pacific Ocean and little government presence.

Esmeraldas, whose population is over 50 percent Afro-Ecuadoran, has long been one of the country’s poorest provinces. It has few roads, little infrastructure, lacks schools and hospitals, and has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country. According to Saltos, this has made it easier for traffickers to both recruit and remain undetected.

[Tendrin]

There is this.

https://twitter.com/bri_sacks/status/981369030110949377

Don't read the replies. Never read the replies.

[mojotastic]

Don't read the replies. Never read the replies.

I will just say that i mentioned that youtube was doing a shitty job with their plataform like 2 o 3 weeks ago but i never expected that someone would take things this far, what comes next might change youtube in the long term in my opinion.

[InformationGeek]

Oh dear oh my, Scott Walker has responded to the election results and he's spooked. Good.

The link is to a thread and it ends with him pleading to donate to his campaign. WBE, this is sad and hilarious. Please remember this for his future update this year.

Tonight’s results show we are at risk of a #BlueWave in WI. The Far Left is driven by anger & hatred -- we must counter it with optimism & organization. Let’s share our positive story with voters & win in November.

[aja_christopher]

If you're referring to that vid you put up what three or four weeks ago? You're right, I'm not going to dig through your old posts to find it. The video was disingenuous in the first place, and bringing it up in this context just misses the point.

Now, grab your sweater...the store's not far from here, we can even walk. When we come back we can drink some wine, sing along to Madonna's Greatests Hits vol2. It'll be fun!

[Tazirai]

Oh dear oh my, Scott Walker has responded to the election results and he's spooked. Good.

The link is to a thread and it ends with him pleading to donate to his campaign. WBE, this is sad and hilarious. Please remember this for his future update this year.

Pretty sure Scott thinks this is the Twilight Zone right now. In his mind he's doing the "RIGHT" thing. But only his donors and fat cats get the benefit. Don't worry after he loses his job, he'll find on one of the three Pundit Networks.

[numberthirty]

While the John/Jane Public of the country might be aware of who Jon Burge is/was, it looks like a related chapter might be about to take place...

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/l...401-story.html

Lawyers call for independent probe into ex-Chicago police Detective Reynaldo Guevara

[Malvolio]

Pretty sure Scott thinks this is the Twilight Zone right now. In his mind he's doing the "RIGHT" thing. But only his donors and fat cats get the benefit. Don't worry after he loses his job, he'll find on one of the three Pundit Networks.

I would love to hear the "positive story" that Scott Walker wants to tell us. Fictional stories are often entertaining, after all.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Pretty sure Scott thinks this is the Twilight Zone right now. In his mind he's doing the "RIGHT" thing. But only his donors and fat cats get the benefit. Don't worry after he loses his job, he'll find on one of the three Pundit Networks.

Speaking of guys named Scott....

2 Florida Republicans Now Joining Calls For Scott Pruitt To Resign

Reps. Carlos Curbelo and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen say Pruitt should leave the agency amid growing controversy over his spending and ties to lobbyists.

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

Mueller Reportedly Is Making A List Of All The Stuff Trump Has Done In Office

The special counsel has also told the president’s lawyers that Trump is not a criminal target at this point. Tick-tock, Donnie. Tick-tock.

**********

Shep Smith Fact-Checks Trump’s Latest Amazon Claim: ‘None Of That Was True’

The president has been firing off a series of attacks on the online retailer. Of course it's not true, this is all about Trump's vendetta against Amazon owner Jeff Bezos and nothing else. I can't help but wonder how Smith keeps his job when he contradicts the relentless ass kissing of Orange Foolius by everyone else on Faux News.

**********

British Muslims Were Vigilant And Defiant On ‘Punish A Muslim’ Day

In the U.K. and U.S., people worked to turn a day of fear into a day of solidarity.

**********

Sinclair Journalists Worry They’re Being Watched: ‘There’s A Lot Held Over Us’

The Sinclair Broadcast Group handbook warns employees to have no expectation of privacy in their communications. In a word....disturbing. This sort of nonsense shouldn't happen in America.

**********

Americans Don’t Really Care About Trump’s ‘Great Wall’ ― But His Base Sure Does

The president has been lashing out about his pet project since he failed to get both Mexico and Congress to pay for it. If Cheeto Jesus wants his wall so damn bad, he should fund it himself.

[Darkspellmaster]

So apparently now we have a bit more on the shooter. She apparently had been missing for several days, and when the police found her in a different area in California, Mountain View. She was sleeping in the car and the family was informed. They apparently told the police earlier that she hated Youtube and may be going there. My question is, when they found her, why did they not take her in for some form of questioning.

She apparently thought they were censoring her vids, because they were about animal rights and veganism. Sounds very much like she was a bit paranoid or something like it.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/mbvd/this-i...1q#.afp2qYg4KJ

[WestPhillyPunisher]

From the Chattanooga Times Free Press cartoonist Clay Bennett:

[Trey Strain]

Animal rights activist shoots random people at YouTube. Why are the news media not screaming, "Terrorism!"

[worstblogever]

Oh dear oh my, Scott Walker has responded to the election results and he's spooked. Good.

The link is to a thread and it ends with him pleading to donate to his campaign. WBE, this is sad and hilarious. Please remember this for his future update this year.

Pretty sure Scott thinks this is the Twilight Zone right now. In his mind he's doing the "RIGHT" thing. But only his donors and fat cats get the benefit. Don't worry after he loses his job, he'll find on one of the three Pundit Networks.

A reminder, Scott Walker was narrowly elected 8 years ago on the back of the Tea Party, which was, to use his own words... "driven by anger & hatred". The Wisconsin GOP gained a majority in the legislature, set to work to suppress the vote and gerrymander their own state districts to try to grant themselves a permanent stranglehold on the state. Now he's running for cover even more than he tries to cover his bald spot.

[worstblogever]

In 2015, in 2016, and in 2017, “Crazy Stupid Republican of the Day” published profiles of Virgil Peck, a former member of the Kansas House of Representatives, whose most despicable moment, by far, came in 2011, when he discussed combating the problem of illegal immigration by shooting undocumented migrants from helicopters with sniper rifles, comparing them to “feral hogs”. That prompted tens of thousands of people to petition for his resignation, and among the voices calling for him to do so was Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback. Eventually, but only after all the outcry, Peck offered a meager apology for his remarks. Among the more radical legislation Peck supports include votes for a Personhood bill, stricter Voter ID laws to combat the statistically non-existent problem of “in-person voter fraud”, his vote to nullify federal gun laws, and a “religious freedom” law to allow for the discrimination of LGBT citizens. In the past two years alone, Peck has sponsored legislation to prohibit university professors from citing their titles or credentials in opinion editorials to prevent them from criticizing Kansas’ decidedly insane state legislature, voted to authorize the concealed carry of firearms without a license, voted to outlaw D&E abortions (which is obviously unconstitutional via Roe v Wade) and he also wet himself after the terror attack in Paris, sponsoring legislation to prohibit the relocation of refugees from Syria into Kansas. In August of 2016, the Kansas GOP finally got around to giving Peck a primary challenger in Dan Goddard, and successfully gave him the boot from office by a total of 171 votes. We will retire his CSGOPOTD profile at this time and go ahead and take a look at a different wacky Republican today instead. (Current crazy/stupid scoreboard, is now 665-30, since this was established in July 2014.)


Mike Rogers

Welcome to the 665th original “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profile, where today we’ll be discussing the sitting U.S. House Representative from Alabama’s 3rd Congressional District, Mike Rogers , who was first elected to office back in 2002 after serving for 8 years in the Alabama state legislature. Roger is now serving in his eighth term in office, which he kicked off in delightfully insane fashion by hastily submitting a bill to remove the United States from the United Nations on January 3rd, the first day of that term, because he doesn’t understand how things like diplomacy work. Back during the furor over the fraudulent videos created by the Center for Medical Progress, Rep. Rogers actually co-sponsored two different bills to attack the funding of Planned Parenthood, because apparently for him, irrational anti-choice legislation is like potato chips, he can’t just have one.

But really, Rogers has bigger, weirder aspirations for our country. Remember last month how Donald Trump started to wistfully talk about a “Space Force”, a branch of the military that would defend America from threats from… space? Well, while Trump is clearly demented, but a lot of times, his ideas aren’t his own. They’re his rambling interpretations of crazy s*** other people whisper in his ear. And, that’s why it seems clear that Congressman Rogers’ repeated calls for a “Space Corps”, in effect a militarized version of NASA (to defend against… intergalactic armies that don’t exist) are the origin of Trump’s nutty suggestion.

Of course, Rep. Rogers also has had a habit over the past few years of putting his foot in his mouth, including in a 2014 speech where he made a homophobic joke, and how in the past year, he’s opined about how NFL players protesting police violence by kneeling during the national anthem as “Un-American”. Never mind that there’s nothing more American than having the freedom of speech to make such a statement… Rogers has racist GOP voters in Alabama to appeal to.