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

[Tami]

Trump abandons the pretense surrounding his voting ‘commission’

The bottom line, however, remains the same: far too much of this guy’s c.v. points to a strident opposition to voting rights. Rick Hasen, an election-law expert at UC Irvine, wrote that von Spakovsky’s appointment “is a big middle finger from the president to those who are serious about fixing problems with our elections.”

As we discussed this morning, there were already ample reasons to be highly skeptical of Trump’s ridiculous “voter integrity” commission, created in large part because of the absurd conspiracy theories the president embraced after losing the popular vote by nearly 3 million Americans.

But now the pretense of propriety is gone. If the White House panel existed for legitimate reasons, Trump wouldn’t have tasked Kansas’ Kris Kobach, a voter-suppression pioneer, to help lead this ridiculous exercise, and he certainly wouldn’t have invited Hans von Spakovsky to serve as a commissioner.

The panel now wants every state in the nation to turn over “their full voter-roll data, including the name, address, date of birth, party affiliation, last four Social Security number digits and voting history back to 2006 of potentially every voter in the state.” Why any state official would voluntarily choose to participate in such a farce is unclear.

Oh its' pretty clear, they want to use the data to find a way to deny voting rights to millions of Americans.

[ZombieHavoc]

Between sending the ATF out to combat gun crime to seeking out personal data to, I assume, catalog and analyze...seems like this administration is doing everything that a lot of Trump supporters have been concerned about for the past 2 to 3 decades.

[worstblogever]

Between sending the ATF out to combat gun crime to seeking out personal data to, I assume, catalog and analyze...seems like this administration is doing everything that a lot of Trump supporters have been concerned about for the past 2 to 3 decades.

I've seen a lot of tweets in the past week from Trump supporters ranting back in October to get him elected, who now are dumbfounded, DUMBFOUNDED that he's gonna kill Medicaid that they benefit from, and need to SURVIVE.

I mean, at least he's indiscriminately killing off his own support base, too. Maybe more of them, because they're older.

[worstblogever]

In both 2015, as well as 2016, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" published profiles of the U.S. Senator from Missouri, Roy Blunt, a man who somehow not only survived being caught up in the Abramoff scandal back when he was a member of the House, but went on to be elected to the Senate in spite of also doing favors for the tobacco industry while being caught dating Abigail Perlman (now Abigail Blunt), a lobbyist for Phillip Morris. Since, the Blunt family have still been repeated subjects of investigation of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, who have noted lobbying firms have a habit of hiring Blunt’s wife and two children and corresponding votes to reward this arrangement from Sen. Blunt. But Roy Blunt is most famous for his namesake, the Blunt Amendment, which was an attempt to strip women of having contraception covered by their insurance plans that led to the Congressional testimony of Sandra Fluke, the insults lobbed at her by legendary bloviating ***hole (and friend of Blunt’s) Rush Limbaugh, and the entire framing of the “War on Women” around the 2012 election. In 2013, Blunt also wrote what many critics described as the “Monsanto Protection Act” to allow the corporate agriculture company to plant seeds even if they were deemed genetically or biologically unsafe (and of course, Blunt has also received contributions from Monsanto). We also sifted through Blunt’s voting record, which included voting for the 2013 Government Shutdown while voting against LGBT rights at every opportunity, the renewal of the Violence Against Women Act, Disaster Relief for victims of Hurricane Sandy, all measures on pay equality and raising the minimum wage, and against Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform (coincidentally, in 1999, Blunt voted to deregulate Wall Street to have a hand in creating the 2008 financial meltdown). Sen. Blunt is the man who used the excuse, "I can barely schedule a call with my son's math teacher yesterday so probably no,” as to why he was opposed to Merrick Garland having a confirmation hearing for the Supreme Court. He’s too busy for this whole Senate thing. But let us not forget that Roy Blunt would like to lay the blame for our student debt crisis where it belongs… on the students. Yes, back in April of 2015, Blunt blamed high student debt on “higher living standards” that college students were enjoying these days. I’m sure it was news to all the kids in college out there living off ramen noodles that they’re splurging too much while they’re in school.


And somehow, don’t ask us how, Roy Blunt won re-election in 2016, but only garnered 49% of the vote to do so. That may have had a lot to do with Blunt stoking the fears of Islamophobia by blaming Muslim communities for not doing enough to inform the government about terror suspects that Blunt feels are lying among their ranks, or when he got on Twitter and posted that his opponent, Democrat Jason Kander, didn’t know enough about threats we face like “radical Islam”. (NOTE: Jason Kander is an Iraq War vet and actually fought against Islamic terrorists, so…) Thus, Roy Blunt went back to Washington in January and began signing off on every member of Trump’s Cabinet of Horrors. EVERY. SINGLE. ONE.

And while pausing on approving Betsy DeVos since she… you know, has never worked as an educator, that might have been the case for some moderate GOP Senators, Roy Blunt was ready to rubber stamp her from the start. After all, DeVos spent a fortune on trying to get Roy Blunt’s son Matt elected Governor of Missouri a couple years back, in the hopes that her bogus voucher schools would become widely used in education throughout the state. To say nothing of all of the money DeVos gave to Sen. Blunt himself.

This crooked piece of garbage will remain in office now, barring any ethics scandal destroying him, until 2022. (It should have been Jason Kander, it really should have been.)

[JBatmanFan05]

Interesting to see "Repeal, later Replace" getting back into the picture (?) some:

WASHINGTON — President Trump is now “fully” behind a plan to repeal Obamacare and then delay its implementation for a year while senators come up with a replacement, according to an aide for Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.

“Senator Rand Paul suggested this very idea to the president,” Paul’s spokesman Sergio Gor told Yahoo News Friday. “He fully agrees that we must immediately repeal Obamacare and then work on replacing it right away.”

The president tweeted his support for the “repeal and delay” plan Friday morning, just days after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., was forced to postpone his health care bill amid deep divisions between conservatives and moderates in his caucus.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/rand-paul...150704064.html

[ZombieHavoc]

Because I have zero idea:

What happens if they repeal it without a replacement?

[Judge Dredd]

So what are the odds of them actually doing this next year? They can kill it, but I cannot see them getting something new done in a year with all the in fighting over the bill. They have control over everything at this point, but still cannot come up with a plan that works. Got no faith in the people in office to get this done anytime soon.

[Adset]

Because I have zero idea:

What happens if they repeal it without a replacement?

a lot of people are going to die.

[ZombieHavoc]

a lot of people are going to die.

But, like, what happens? Is everything then put into the hands and will of the insurance companies over night?

[SquirrelMan]

Between sending the ATF out to combat gun crime to seeking out personal data to, I assume, catalog and analyze...seems like this administration is doing everything that a lot of Trump supporters have been concerned about for the past 2 to 3 decades.

Only Nixon could go to China, and only Trump can take away Americans' guns.

He could literally take somebody's gun away on 5th avenue and shoot him or her with it and Ms Huckabee would say "America knew it elected a killer, look at it as another promise kept!"

[Daryl]

Because I have zero idea:

What happens if they repeal it without a replacement?

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_a...obamacare.html

Well, ol' Rand-I-poo himself warned earlier this year that repeal without replacement would cause a big hit to the INSURANCE COMPANIES. I guess the money dries up pretty fast and a lot of people don't have the funds to continue their premium payments, so both sides lose. I guess the insurance companies could get a bailout but people probably won't. Then once it's gone, it's easier to just go longer, and longer, and longer with nothing.

[Len Ikari145]

Trump abandons the pretense surrounding his voting ‘commission’



Oh its' pretty clear, they want to use the data to find a way to deny voting rights to millions of Americans.

And it's failing miserably as 19 states and counting refuse to hand over voter data.

[worstblogever]

Other than a psychopath like Ted Cruz, virtually none of the Republican Senators are on board with "repeal now, replace later". All of them know it's political suicide, would spark a recession if not a depression, and would cause hundreds of thousands of deaths.

Trump is clueless and desperate to even float that like it's a "new" idea. It's the same pathetic way he kept trying to water down his idea for a border wall after Mexico wouldn't pay for it, and we wouldn't pay for it... then it was, "well, we'll put some money towards starting it. That's delivering on it, right?

He's full of shit. And totally out of his element. And unqualified for the office he holds. And quite mentally ill.

[GindyPosts]

So, NASA had to publicly announce they don't kidnap children & send to Mars to be sex slaves.

Because of Alex Jones.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-st...-a7816371.html






Seriously.

[numberthirty]

Added federal law enforcement to Chicago, task force against gun crime, 1760 shootings this year so far:
President Donald Trump’s ‘feds’ arrive in Chicago to fight gun crime

Twenty federal gun agents have been assigned to Chicago to join a newly formed task force aimed at cutting the flow of illegal guns into the city and cracking down on people repeatedly arrested on gun charges.

So...

Twenty Feds are going to join a task force that the city already was creating after passing the law that did so recently...

If this is Trump's fix, it is a joke.