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

[worstblogever]

It was three years ago we shared our original "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" profile of Troy Mader, a former member of the Wyoming House of Representatives who after being appointed to his position, garnered the attention of the media after he complained too much about “dangerous” animals on the endangered species list, and they found essays he wrote online where he compared environmentalists to Hitler wanting to commit genocide. A few other reporters noted that his own country and music CD featured a rant in the insert where most give thanks to their bandmates featured complaints about how society has too much tolerance nowadays, and before long, reporters dug up a copy of a book Mader wrote back in 1987 where he reported false information about the spread of HIV and AIDS, and claimed that homosexuals willfully spread the HIV virus and want to have sex with children. Not surprisingly, in his first primary campaign to win office, Mader was defeated, and rebuffed by the voters of his district.


In both 2016, as well as 2017, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” presented its original profile of the current U.S. House Representative from Missouri’s 3rd Congressional District, Blaine Luetkemeyer, who has sponsored legislation to try and deregulate community banks altogether, and to enable the payday loan industry to undertake some of the most predatory practices outside of the mafia, in terms of radical loan interest rates. Hell, he introduced legislation back in 2014 that would have made it easier for payday lenders to launder money (Gee, call me crazy, but I don’t think the average voter in his district wanted him to put effort towards something like that). And for most of his four terms in office, Rep. Luetkemeyer kept his mouth shut, his head down, and didn’t make much in the way of headlines. He broke that streak in a big way, though, in March 2016, when he chimed in about Senator Elizabeth Warren, a notorious thorn in the side of Wall Street executives, in less-than-flattering, terms that show he has trouble using simile and metaphor. You see, he referred to Sen. Warren as “the Darth Vader of the financial services world”, and added that Wall Street should “find a way to neuter her”. All right, first off, someone who stands up to big banks is hardly a Darth Vader, as he was all about crushing a rebellion, not the empire. Second, she’s a lady, and ladies don’t get neutered, look it up if you’re having trouble with female anatomy, Blaine. Third, I don’t need to defend Elizabeth Warren, because she responded and sufficiently handed Luetkemeyer his own ass on a plate, with her kindest remark being that the former bank regulator (who didn’t regulate banks so well) was “a Wall Street Yes-man”. Elizabeth Warren is not the only female lawmaker who Luetkemeyer has ever taken issue with, though, as he was frequently seen campaigning with “Fire Pelosi” signs during the Tea Party Wave in 2010. (It’s almost like he has a problem with women in authority, or something.)

So other than Blaine Luetkemeyer having a huge hard-on for big money interests and seems turned off by the idea of women having equal rights. But his whole voting record is pretty much garbage, including votes against the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, for bans on abortion at 20 weeks (including ones without exceptions for rape or incest), two votes to defund Planned Parenthood, votes against Dodd-Frank or regulations upon the oil industry after the Deepwater Horizon spill, votes against raising the debt ceiling (which would have collapsed the global economy), voting for not just the 2013 Government Shutdown, but voted to keep it closed rather than reopen it, votes against LGBT rights such as hate crime protections or anti-discrimination protections, and oh yeah… a vote for every attempt to repeal the successful Affordable Care Act.

For whatever reason, Luetkemeyer does not seem to ever develop a reputation as a stooge for the 1%, and his district re-elected him in the 2016 elections with 68% of the vote over Democrat Keith Miller. That’s probably because in the Cook Partisan Voting Index, Missouri’s 3rd District has a +13 Republican lean, but we are, however, not as sad as we might have been, had Luetkemeyer lost to the highly insane former Missouri state legislator, Cynthia Davis, in the GOP Primary for this seat. Back in Washington for a fourth term, Luetkemeyer has jumped right back on the leash his corporate banking supporters keep him on:

• February 16th, 2017: Luetkemeyer votes for HJR 69, to make it legal for hunters on wildlife reserves to kill several species of hibernating bears or wolves while they’re sleeping. Because… well, the logic really isn’t there as to why, it’s just awful.
• March 16th, 2017: Blaine Luetkemeyer votes for HR 1181, which would allow veterans deemed mentally incompetent to continue to own firearms, and not have them taken away without a judge's written order. We feel safer already.
• May 4th, 2017: Luetkemeyer votes for the House GOP's healthcare plan, that would kick roughly 24 million people off their health insurance plans, allow up to 28,000 more people to die a year, give $50,000 in tax breaks to millionaires, and would eliminate coverage for pre-existing conditions which would include such medical conditions as pregnancy (current or past), post-partum depression, or prior sexual assault. Oh, and a provision in the bill would make sure that Luetkemeyer would be allowed to keep his healthcare plan as it exists under the ACA, which would be repealed for the rest of the country. He and his Republican compatriots threw themselves a beer bash to celebrate taking away healthcare from millions and then gloated about it with Donald Trump at a White House press conference, as well.
• June 8th, 2017: Blaine Luetkemeyer votes for HR 10, the GOP’s attempt to repeal Dodd-Frank financial reform, because what the country really needs is to allow the big banks to make the same mistakes that imploded the economy only a decade earlier.
• September 8th, 2017: Rep. Luetkemeyer chooses to be one of 90 Republicans in Congress who votes against disaster relief for Hurricane Harvey.
• October 3rd, 2017: Luetkemeyer votes for HR 36, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, that would try to create an unconstitutional ban abortion at 20 weeks (even though medical science tells us fetuses do not have the capability to feel pain until 29 weeks).
• December 19th, 2017: Blaine Luetkemeyer votes for HR 1, the GOP’s $1.7 trillion tax cut to benefit the wealthiest Americans and corporations permanently that coincidentally also removes the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate and kicks 13 million people off their health insurance.
• February 18th, 2018: Luetkemeyer and his fellow Republicans decide that poor big businesses are suffering too much at the hands of the Americans with Disabilities Act too much, and vote for HR 620, which would strip most of the civil rights protections guaranteed by it.

Luetkemeyer’s return to Washington is not guaranteed even with that +13 gerrymandered lean he has working in his favor, as in August, he faces off against Chadwick Bicknell in the GOP Primary, and then in the general election in November, he will go toe to toe with Democrat Katy Geppert, a chemist whose background in environmental testing as well as health and nutrition industries could prove interesting if there are any debate questions between the two candidates regarding science. Hopefully, Luetkemeyer doesn’t start complaining about his inability to neuter her, and need medical anatomy explained to him again, in any event.

[JCAll]

I'm an adult man who was once a very young boy who saw Optimus Prime die in theaters. Sure he was fictional but that **** mattered to little-me and we are all our past selves with life experience built on like so many lego bricks, so I don't object to their being upset about it happening. I was on Don Murphy's forums long ago when Bay was announced as director and I definitely made my displeasure known and have continued to rip into Bay's disasterpieces since. However the extent their rage has taken in Thundercats' case is far beyond what I can excuse, as these guys don't even have the feeble excuse of childhood trauma to fall back on.

In short: The Anger can be understandable, the tantrums cannot.

It must have been more than a decade ago, while talking with one of the other regulars in Rumbles, that the subject of ThunderCats comics came up. I looked up scans on one of the less savory parts of the internet and hated it so much that I quietly wrote off the entire ThunderCats franchise. I don't even remember what I hated so much, but I never went back . So this whole childish tantrum that's going around the internet has completely passed me by.

[InformationGeek]

Bottom-line: Trump made specific commitments to end military exercises with #SouthKorea & eventually withdraw US forces from peninsula. #NorthKorea made NO specific commitments on timing or verification of denuclearization, also did not give accounting of its nuclear arsenal.

Ponder that. Don't forget it.


Also...

Trump, who tells ABC News that he 'trusts' Kim Jong Un, says this about the dictator who starves his people: "His country does love him. His people, you see the fervor. They have a great fervor."

[ZombieHavoc]

This stuff with NK would be good if I had any faith in the person facilitating it.

[Skedatz]

I'm going to add to this saying as an adult woman who as a little girl grew up wanting to be as good of a leader as prime, when the movie came out smartly my mother actually asked me first if I wanted to go see the movie and warned me about Optimus's death.

All I could think of to this was, "F'ing SPOILER ALERT, MOM!!!"

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Ponder that. Don't forget it.

If Obama made promises like that, conservatives, right wingers, and maybe even more than a few Democrats and left wingers would be screaming bloody murder 24/7 and calling for his immediate impeachment, if not imprisonment for treason. I'm dying to find out how Republicans will react to Trump basically giving away the candy store in the Pacific with little promise of getting anything substantial back in return. By the by, speaking of that arrangement, a co-worker who hates Trump even more than I do responded to the news thusly:

"It's all bullshit, man! Putin either paid Kim off or told him to play nice with Trump! That Russian ************ wants Trump to look good so he'll get re-elected and keep on screwing us over!"

Now, friends, I enjoy a good conspiracy theory just as much as the next tinfoil hat wearing loon, but that was too farfetched even for me to fully accept. Note I said "fully", the notion of a egomaniacal carnival barker like Donald Trump as president already stretches credibility to the breaking point, so who knows if what my friend said wasn't half-baked nonsense. One thing's for certain, I'd be shocked if no one else is thinking along those same lines.

[Kal-El Summers]

Oh yeah, this is *definitely* something the Leader of the Free World should be saying, right?

[Skedatz]

Ponder that. Don't forget it.


Also...

Holy geeze.

[Jim Kelly]

I guess it's time for Canada to restart its nuclear weapons program so it can get a fair deal from the United States.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Oh yeah, this is *definitely* something the Leader of the Free World should be saying, right?

Jesus H. Christ. Just when you thought Trump couldn't sink any lower, he finds new depths to plumb.

[Malvolio]

Oh yeah, this is *definitely* something the Leader of the Free World should be saying, right?

This should surprise no one. It's as it has always been: Follow the money.

[worstblogever]

Trump had staffers make a fake movie trailer portraying himself and Kim Jong Un as heroes. And is already planning on leveraging this not into disarmament for world peace... but to get North Korean real estate condos.

I keep saying it, but Trump is both a moron AND mentally ill.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Trump had staffers make a fake movie trailer portraying himself and Kim Jong Un as heroes. And is already planning on leveraging this not into disarmament for world peace... but to get North Korean real estate condos.

I keep saying it, but Trump is both a moron AND mentally ill.

I'm surprised Dimbulb D'Scumbag didn't cobble that ridiculous piece of **** together. But hey, her emails....!

[JCAll]

Trump had staffers make a fake movie trailer portraying himself and Kim Jong Un as heroes. And is already planning on leveraging this not into disarmament for world peace... but to get North Korean real estate condos.

I keep saying it, but Trump is both a moron AND mentally ill.

Okay, serious question. Even if North Korea denuclearizes who is going to vacation there?

[PaulBullion]

First off, those are your words. Not mine. Let's make that very clear. Those words have no place in the discussion. You make sure the problem stays the problem every time you use them.
.

I was using symbolic words, summarizing what your years of hateful postings about Hillary reveal about your feelings towards her. Call me a mind reader.