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

[PaulBullion]

Let's not ignore other realities that factor into that to try to come up with some sort of a "Better" or "Best" case for HRC. Trying to make that into anything like a fact creates another "Fact" that is utterly laughable.

The fact is that every time you post about Hillary Clinton, facts go into a subspace between dimensions where facts end up whatever you would have between your ears in interdimensional subspaces of hatred and ignorance.

[PaulBullion]

Bolling's 19 year old son just killed himself yesterday, might want to lay off a bit for awhile

The only source that claimed it was a suicide (TMZ) has now corrected the report to change it to an overdose of drugs. It is not clear yet if it was accidental or not. Eric Bolling himself said that the circumstances are not clear.

But that is not stopping the rabid right wingers from blaming the journalist who exposed Bolling's sexual harassment.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2014, 2015, as well as 2016, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" published profiles of Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin, a Christian theocrat who has somehow, in her mad quest to allow religion to be allowed in state schools and government buildings (including having a pastor brought in to anoint furniture in the state legislature with holy oil), inadvertently opened a loophole that allowed a Satanic Temple to build a statue of Baphomet, just to prove a point to her about the separation of church and state. Fallin also oversaw a botched double-execution from the comforts of an Oklahoma City Thunder game, not wanting to answer her cell phone while a man died in agony on her watch. Her administration’s oversight, or more specifically its lack thereof on the oil and gas industries in Oklahoma has been so lax that a state whose only concern for natural disasters used to be tornadoes has allowed unregulated fracking so that they now are getting more frequently hit with earthquakes. That’s not hyperbole, either, at one point in August 2017, Oklahoma had 7 earthquakes within a 28 hour span and the strength of the quakes are intensifying, now reaching up into the high 5s on the Richter scale. That’s what happens after seven years of Fallin leadership. And taxing the wealthy and those energy companies? Ha! Oklahoma last year reported a $1.3 billion (yes, BILLION) budget shortfall. She’s also infamous for trying to shut down all the abortion clinics in her state, signing a ban on minimum wage increases during our greatest time of economic inequality in almost a century, and trying to do away with the entire state Supreme Court for not granting her absolute domain to do as she pleases (like not allowing her to put monuments of the Ten Commandments up on government property). Not that she understands the role of the courts as one of the three branches of government, of course, because she failed to be able to correctly list all three during a 2015 speech. In the meantime, Fallin continues to make Sarah Palin seem perhaps less like white trash by allowing her 28-year-old daughter to live on the grounds of the governor’s mansion in her very own trailer, rent-free and siphoning utilities. Mary Fallin is so utterly clueless that she went on CNN in July of 2016 and actually made the ludicrous claim that Donald Trump was “trying to campaign as a racial healer”. Yeah, the guy whose campaign began by saying Mexicans are murderers and rapists, and soon called for a ban on Muslims was trying to unify people of all colors and backgrounds, sure Mary. Only eight days later, she went back on CNN after the release of the 2016 Republican Party Platform, which people on both sides of the aisle recognized as the most anti-LGBT platform the GOP have ever produced (Republicans boasted of this like it was a good thing), but Fallin thought that simply just couldn’t be the case because, “there was a gay person on the committee”. She neglected to mention that the one person on that committee was vocally opposed to every one of those anti-gay measures, and was ignored by the majority. Because of course, that’s just a nagging little detail.

Well, less than a month after we had our last check-in on Gov. Fallin, in October 2016 she actually declared a “Oilfield Prayer Day”, where she no-s***, called for people in her state to ask God for his protection over the oil industry. She then quickly had to correct herself that the prayer was open to people of all faiths, because apparently she didn’t want Satanists to assert their dominance over Oklahoma’s oil and gas industry.

Now in full lame duck status as she winds down the last 15 months of her stint as Oklahoma Governor and facing term limits, Mary Fallin cannot even get her own party, that holds a wide, wide majority in the state legislature, to agree on a budget, admitting that to be “embarrassing”. Her disapproval ratings place her as the sixth worst governor in the country, behind such luminaries as Sam Brownback, Rick Snyder, and Chris Christie, who lowered the bar by bankrupting their state, poisoning their own citizens’ water supply and trying to cover that up, and being an utterly corrupt, unflinching ***hole, respectively. It’s only thanks to them being such gentlemen and lowering the bar for her that she’s not relatively the worst in her citizens’ eyes.

 

[worstblogever]

The only source that claimed it was a suicide (TMZ) has now corrected the report to change it to an overdose of drugs. It is not clear yet if it was accidental or not. Eric Bolling himself said that the circumstances are not clear.

But that is not stopping the rabid right wingers from blaming the journalist who exposed Bolling's sexual harassment.

Man, if it was an accidental overdose because he went and wanted to get REAL high to get over his dad's firing... damn.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

No, because based on everything I've seen on Fox News... people who work there get stuck in a loop when soul-searching, because they can never actually find theirs.

That presupposes people who work at Faux News have souls to search for to begin with.

[worstblogever]

That presupposes people who work at Faux News have souls to search for to begin with.

Shep Smith, I think, if anyone. Maybe Chris Wallace. Those are about the only two that I'd give credit to, off the top of my head.

[PaulBullion]

Man, if it was an accidental overdose because he went and wanted to get REAL high to get over his dad's death... damn.

1. His dad didn't die, just his career.
2. I find such speculation tasteless when a family, no matter what family, lost a child. You're better than this.

[numberthirty]

The fact is that every time you post about Hillary Clinton, facts go into a subspace between dimensions where facts end up whatever you would have between your ears in interdimensional subspaces of hatred and ignorance.

Let's go ahead, and look at some actual numbers.

- Barrack Obama: 65,915,795/69,498,516
- HRC: 65,853,516
- Donald Trump: 62,984,825
- George W. Bush: 62,040,610/50,456,002
- Mitt Romney: 60,933,504
- John McCain: 59,948,323
- John Kerry: 59,028,444
- Al Gore: 50,999,897
- Bill Clinton: 47,401,185

If you try to create some reality outside of context where the mere number of the votes HRC got actually makes her "Best"/"Top Of The Heap"/"Whatever", you are also saying that you openly acknowledge the reality that Donald Trump and George W. Bush are the third and fourth best people ever to run for President in the entire history of the nation.

Each of those assertions are pretty goofy.

[PaulBullion]

Let's go ahead, and look at some actual numbers.

- Barrack Obama: 65,915,795/69,498,516
- HRC: 65,853,516
- Donald Trump: 62,984,825
- George W. Bush: 62,040,610/50,456,002
- Mitt Romney: 60,933,504
- John McCain: 59,948,323
- John Kerry: 59,028,444
- Al Gore: 50,999,897
- Bill Clinton: 47,401,185

If you try to create some reality outside of context where the mere number of the votes HRC got actually makes her "Best"/"Top Of The Heap"/"Whatever", you are also saying that you openly acknowledge the reality that Donald Trump and George W. Bush are the third and fourth best people ever to run for President in the entire history of the nation.

Each of those assertions are pretty goofy.

You're countering a point nobody made.

Congratulations, you wasted your time and ours.

[SquirrelMan]

I would have guessed "slow news day."

Except it really, really wasn't.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Shep Smith, I think, if anyone. Maybe Chris Wallace. Those are about the only two that I'd give credit to, off the top of my head.

Good choices. From what little I watch of Faux News (mainly at the gym while on the treadmill), Neil Cavuto seems to have his moments of rationality.

[Dalak]

While I may have missed it being mentioned, I think all the Hurricane news of the past few days has hushed up something important IMO.

US pulls back surveillance on ISIS convoy at Russian request

The convoy showdown began last month, when ISIS struck a deal with the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah — a chief ally of the Syrian government — for safe passage from an area near the Syrian border with Lebanon to ISIS-held territory in eastern Syria bordering Iraq. To get there, the original 17-bus convoy planned to travel through Syrian government-controlled territory.

The U.S.-led coalition, intent on making sure the convoy did not make it to the Iraqi border and link up with other ISIS fighters, cratered the road and destroyed a bridge with airstrikes. That forced six buses to turn back to Palmyra, a Syrian government-controlled city, and stranded the remaining 11.

A U.S. spokesman for the coalition told reporters Thursday that it has been striking ISIS fighters walking away from the convoy or trying to link up with the group, estimating that 85 ISIS fighters have been struck since the start of the standoff.

---------

“From the start of this situation on Aug. 29, we have placed responsibility for the buses and passengers on the Syrian regime, who in conjunction with Lebanese Hezbollah brokered a deal with ISIS to move its terrorists into Iraq,” Brig. Gen. Jon Braga, director of operations for the coalition, said in a statement. “The regime’s advance past the convoy underlines continued Syrian responsibility for the buses and terrorists. As always, we will do our utmost to ensure that the ISIS terrorists do not move toward the border of our Iraqi partners.”

It seems to me that the US is stopping Assad from getting rid of some ISIS, and so he got the Russians on board to get the US to back off. Since without surveillance it's damn hard to target attacks, and that's just what we've lost.

[Mister Mets]

The fact is that every time you post about Hillary Clinton, facts go into a subspace between dimensions where facts end up whatever you would have between your ears in interdimensional subspaces of hatred and ignorance.

The main explanations for Hillary getting more votes than anyone but Obama is that the population of the United States is steadily increasing (so we have about 45 million more voters than in 1988), and that Obama is the closest we've gotten a landslide in the popular vote in a generation (George W Bush lost the popular vote once and won by 2.4% another time; Bill Clinton never got a majority of the popular vote partly due to a strong third party opponent.)

Hillary's numbers aren't that impressive in that context. The focus on the popular vote also ignores the way in which the election is determined, and rewards the Clinton campaign for ineffective strategies (spending time and effort to increase turnout in Louisiana and New York when that has no effect whatsoever on the electoral vote.)

[Tami]

Thank Dalak, I had a feeling that there was other Russia related things going on in the news hidden behind the Hurricane.

[PaulBullion]

The main explanations for Hillary getting more votes than anyone but Obama is that the population of the United States is steadily increasing (so we have about 45 million more voters than in 1988), and that Obama is the closest we've gotten a landslide in the popular vote in a generation (George W Bush lost the popular vote once and won by 2.4% another time; Bill Clinton never got a majority of the popular vote partly due to a strong third party opponent.)

Hillary's numbers aren't that impressive in that context. The focus on the popular vote also ignores the way in which the election is determined, and rewards the Clinton campaign for ineffective strategies (spending time and effort to increase turnout in Louisiana and New York when that has no effect whatsoever on the electoral vote.)

If you look at it as percentage of eligible voters, it's still pretty damn impressive (considering it was an unusual race with two spoiler candidates).