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

[worstblogever]

Being serious you could blame this on an elected Democratic official like I could blame it on a Republican one who runs from prison. No one would serious list some nutcase that is running from prison. I believe the real sad fact is my home state showed how silly and dumb it is by nominating this dude. So if your gonna mock anyone , mock the silliness of people in my home state for this one.

I agree with SUPER-E. He is the best very silly person from West Virginia.

[worstblogever]

Also on the Sunday morning shows... Bobby Jindal was being interviewed by ABC News' Martha Raddatz, and boasted about how he had a plan to defeat ISIS that the Obama administration haven't tried... NO FLY ZONES. Martha Raddatz politely had to remind Gov. Jindal that it's actually a stupid plan, because ISIS doesn't have any Air Force, whatsoever. They have no aircraft to keep on the ground.

And of course, at any moment, one can find entertainment in the always terrifyingly deranged Texas Rep. Louis Gohmert. During a hearing about Planned Parenthood... he apparently forgot what he was supposed to be outraged about, and started to shout and complain about Benghazi two minutes in, and started to make insinuations about what President Obama was doing during the attack. The syphilis is taking him, albeit very slowly.

[Paradox]

Malvolio nails it with wondering:

I often wonder if the Tea Party just doesn't get that you have to compromise at least a little bit to get anything done in government, or if their primary goal is actually to make sure nothing gets done.

Of course they don't. NO COMPROMISE EVER! might as well be their campaign slogan.

Hrm.

[JCAll]

His predecessor Chris Dodd briefly moved to Iowa during a doomed presidential campaign that got him one of the state's 2,500 delegates, and opted not to run for reelection after a few financial scandals. He's now the MPAA Chairman, and can be blamed for their bad policies.

Wow, it's amazing how little information I needed to learn about this man to utterly despise him.

[worstblogever]

It's our latest reminder of what a crock the statement "Nuh uh. Both parties are just as bad," actually is...
One year ago on this date, we looked at Jon Hubbard, a former member of the Arkansas House of Representatives who was elected to office in 2012, and didn’t last too long in office after the Arkansas times started thumbing through a book he wrote called “Letters to the Editor: Confessions of a Frustrated Conservative” where he discussed how the institution of slavery was not “an abomination upon black people” so much as a “blessing in disguise” that gave them the opportunity to have “lives as Americans likely much better than they would have enjoyed living in sub-Saharan Africa”. He also predicted that immigration as an issue in America would lead to “planned wars or extermination” and assured us that while that thought might seem “barbaric and uncivilized”, and some point it would “become as necessary as eating or breathing”. When all these revelations came to light, Jon Hubbard didn’t apologize, of course, he defended them to the hilt, and the Koch Brothers kept funding his campaign and sending out mailers to try to keep him in office. Since being voted out , Hubbard has shifted the blame for his fall from grace on, who else? President Obama. He compares the president to Hitler and he’s started calling the IRS the Gestapo while claiming that Planned Parenthood have been blessed by Obama’s god (lower case G, so it’s clear it’s not the Judeo-Christian one). Yes, Jon Hubbard was very, very racist, and gets exponentially more unelectable as time goes by, so we'll retire his profile at this time and move on to another member of the GOP asylum ... (Current crazy/stupid scoreboard, is now 397-12, since this was established in July 2014.)


Garry Smith

CSGOPOTD hasn’t checked in with a politician at the state level in a few weeks, so Garry Smith, of the South Carolina House of Representatives would probably be a nice step back to remind us of the sorts of folks the Republican Party has at the state level. He has held office since arriving in 2003 in the midst of a special election, and has managed to run unopposed save for one easily overcome Libertarian challenger since 2008. That’s right, nobody has even thought to take a run at this guy from his own party, or the Democratic one going on four election cycles now, five if he doesn’t face opposition in 2016.

But Garry Smith’s not going to keep flying under the radar forever. Especially when he received some attention nationally when he was hired by Scott Walker’s (now-defunct) presidential campaign to get things rolling in South Carolina. And the microscope found some interesting stories about Garry Smith the past two years. Like how in December 2014, he actually tried filing a bill to create a “2nd Amendment Education Day” to be celebrated annually on December 15th, which would be the day after the anniversary of the Newtown Massacre, by coincidence (sure it is). Where Smith really got attention, though, was to strip money away from South Carolina universities for having reading programs that included LGBTQ literature. In totals that just so happened to be their entire reading budgets. He went on CNN to defend this decision in March 2014, and gave the response you’d expect from another poor “victim” of the gay agenda:

”Their stance is, ‘Even if you don’t want to read it, we’ll shove it down your throat.’ It’s not academic freedom, it’s academic totalitarianism.”

At this time, I’m going to give a tip to social conservatives… try and find a better way to push back against the gays than that they’re “shoving things down your throat”. The innuendo there is uninentionally hilarious.

Anyway, outside of Garry Smith having these two fine moments of extremism in 2014, his voting record has some more noteworthy calls:

• May 25th, 2006: Smith votes for S 1084, a bill to create “penalties for harming an unborn child/fetus”, a classic Republican end-around on trying to find a loophole to sidestep the Roe v. Wade decision and criminalize abortion as one of those ways you can “harm an unborn fetus”, even though it’s a constitutional right.
• May 31st, 2006: Garry Smith votes for S 1267, which would assign the death penalty to repeat sex offenders. Now, I’m all for harsh punishments for these sorts of people, but maybe that’s a bridge too far.
• January 25th, 2007: Smith votes for an amendment to be added to the South Carolina state constitution that defines marriage as only between one man and one woman.
• March 21st, 2007: Garry Smith co-sponsors and votes to force women seeking abortions to first receive a medically unnecessary ultrasound.
• February 26th, 2009, Smith sponsors and votes for H 3245, a bill to create a 24-Hour waiting period for abortions.
• April 26th, 2011: Garry Smith votes for H 3003, a bill to create stricter Voter ID laws in South Carolina to protect against the phantom menace that is “voter fraud” that occurs less often than people being struck by lightning, at the risk of disenfranchising tens of thousands of voters around his state.
• June 26th, 2012: Garry Smith votes against increasing education about, and how to gain access to the HPV Vaccine.
• December 11th, 2012: Smith sponsors H 3101, an attempt to nullify the implementation of the Affordable Care Act in South Carolina. Considering what state he’s from, you’d think he’d know his history about nullification.
• May 23rd, 2013: Garry Smith sponsors H 4223, a ban on abortion in South Carolina at 20 weeks. Which per Roe v. Wade, is unconstitutional. He does the same thing again about 18 months later.
• January 23rd, 2014: Smith votes for SB 308, to allow the concealed carry of firearms in businesses that serve alcohol. Because alcohol does so much to help a person maintain good judgment, self-control, and aim.

Garry Smith grows bolder and more radical with each passing year. The fact that he’s forging alliances with national candidates is a sure sign that he’s also getting a bit ambitious, and it wouldn’t be shocking if he tried making a jump outside of state level politics to try to get into Congress before too much longer. In any event, though, it will be interesting to see how long he’s allowed to linger around Columbia, South Carolina, before someone takes a run at him in an election.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Also on the Sunday morning shows... Bobby Jindal was being interviewed by ABC News' Martha Raddatz, and boasted about how he had a plan to defeat ISIS that the Obama administration haven't tried... NO FLY ZONES. Martha Raddatz politely had to remind Gov. Jindal that it's actually a stupid plan, because ISIS doesn't have any Air Force, whatsoever. They have no aircraft to keep on the ground.

And of course, at any moment, one can find entertainment in the always terrifyingly deranged Texas Rep. Louis Gohmert. During a hearing about Planned Parenthood... he apparently forgot what he was supposed to be outraged about, and started to shout and complain about Benghazi two minutes in, and started to make insinuations about what President Obama was doing during the attack. The syphilis is taking him, albeit very slowly.

So, we've got Bobby Jindal showing the country why he's dumber than the proverbial box of rocks and should give up his doomed run for the White House. Then there's good old Louis G, batshit insane as ever. If anything, I appreciate his consistency. How long before he blames Obama for Pearl Harbor? But, hey, to hear some folks here tell it, the Democrats are every bit as bad as these Republican madmen.

[Tendrin]

MRFF has been listed as an Anti-Christian Bigotry Group by the American Family Association as of March 2015 for "[filing] lawsuits and [using] intimidation to silence any reference to Christianity from the public square."[36]

More 'Wah, you won't let us do everything we want!' being called bigotry.

[heretic]

Make sure nothing gets done. Show that government is ineffective by getting into government and being ineffective. It's what those voting for them want, and it's what those funding them want (though for different reasons).

In short: The Worse The Better.

Sort of like using densely populated residential areas as firebases and claiming return fire is a War Crime.

[heretic]

Except when they need the government for themselves. Look at Haley and Graham after the recent floods.
The Rs in SC opposed Sandy relief, now it's please, please,please.

"But we're different! It's not our fault and of course we will not waste the money!"

[heretic]

You're being kind, wbe. Compared to the unconsciable bigots, misogynists, homophobes, xenophobes and mouth foaming, holy roller madmen you've profiled, the examples Mets provided were woefully lacking. Hell, it was like comparing jaywalkers to serial killers.

Yes, crooks and flakes are indeed bad. However compared to the people WBE has been trotting out this is small time and his queue would be far longer if the likes of Rangel were the threshold.

[worstblogever]

More 'Wah, you won't let us do everything we want!' being called bigotry.

The irony of the American Family Association throwing around the "bigot" label, too. What's next, the KKK use the "I'm rubber, you're glue..." defense against the Southern Poverty Law Center?

[Arvandor]

Texas Students carry dildos to school instead of guns in protest.

Texas students are planning to hang sex toys from their bags in protest at a law allowing people to carry concealed weapons on university campuses.

"You're carrying a gun to class? Yeah well I'm carrying a HUGE DILDO," Jessica Jin, organiser of Campus (DILDO) Carry, wrote on Facebook.

About 3,000 people have signed up for the protest, which is planned for next year when the law takes effect.

Gun rights supporters have criticised the rally on the group's Facebook page.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott enacted the campus carry law in June. Under the law, university presidents are permitted to create so-called "gun-free zones".

"The State of Texas has decided that it is not at all obnoxious to allow deadly concealed weapons in classrooms, however it DOES have strict rules about free sexual expression, to protect your innocence," wrote Ms Jin, a student at the University of Texas at Austin.

"You would receive a citation for taking a DILDO to class before you would get in trouble for taking a gun to class. Heaven forbid the penis," she added.

Some students at the Austin university have appealed to University President Gregory Fenves to impose limits on the new law.

Daniel Hamermesh, an economics professor at the university, said last week he was resigning over concerns about his personal safety.

Supporters of gun rights have argued that mass gunmen target "gun-free zones" such as university campuses and cinemas so they do not meet resistance when they commit their crimes.

Others say encouraging armed civilians to engage an attacker could lead to more chaos and deaths.

A student was armed during a recent college shooting in Roseburg, Oregon, but he did not use his weapon.

He was not in the building where the shootings occurred, and he also said he feared police could have mistaken him for the gunman, putting his life in danger.

Gun rights supporters have flooded the protest's Facebook page, mocking the organisers.

"A grand example of the decline of value in American University education," read one of the responses.

"As a parent I feel more comfortable with my children having a weapon on campus rather than a dildo," read another.

[SUPERECWFAN1]

Also on the Sunday morning shows... Bobby Jindal was being interviewed by ABC News' Martha Raddatz, and boasted about how he had a plan to defeat ISIS that the Obama administration haven't tried... NO FLY ZONES. Martha Raddatz politely had to remind Gov. Jindal that it's actually a stupid plan, because ISIS doesn't have any Air Force, whatsoever. They have no aircraft to keep on the ground.

In other news Jindal refuses to apologize for blaming the father of the Oregon shooter. Its best to be a clueless dumb fuck I suppose.

[TheInvisibleMan]

Texas Students carry dildos to school instead of guns in protest.

and I totally support this

and the reaction from the opposition solidifies it

we are more comfortable with instruments of death than instruments of pleasure

[Mister Mets]

Well if you read this he has ran every year since 1996 as he's been in jail. His 1st time he registered as a democrat was 2008.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Russell_Judd

So he was a crazy ass Republican first who ran ! Yeaaahhh Republicans equal crazy as fuck still.


Being serious you could blame this on an elected Democratic official like I could blame it on a Republican one who runs from prison. No one would serious list some nutcase that is running from prison. I believe the real sad fact is my home state showed how silly and dumb it is by nominating this dude. So if your gonna mock anyone , mock the silliness of people in my home state for this one.

Going by WBE's five year rule, Judd counts as a Democrat.

I can agree that a weirdo who gets on the ballot and doesn't get any votes shouldn't count as a representative of their party. I don't believe WBE makes that distinction, but I'm okay with it.

However, Judd did get 40 percent of the vote in the state primary in West Virginia. West Virginia has a closed primary, meaning 73,318 Democrats went to the polling booth to support him.

I believe we said that "crazy" should not be a one-off, and two examples on any individual should be named. And frankly, almost none of those examples hold a candle to the grand majority of people I've profiled. Considering some of your "crazy" assessments are as wild as being "unsuccessful".

We also aren't supposed to drop so many politicians at once that fact checking becomes nigh-impossible. I believe you threw the term "gish gallop" out. Well, when you throw 30 names up at once on the same day, rather than spread 'em out... that's a lot closer to the phenomenon, I'd think. Especially by your definition.

But hey, you're halfway there, Mets! Thanks for finally making some effort.

4saken1 did ask me to name dozens of people. If someone asks me to go with a gish gallop, I'm capable of doing it, even it I'll note its shortcomings as an argumentative technique.