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

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2014, 2015, as well as 2016, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" published profiles of Kansas Governor Sam Brownback, a man whose dedication to smaller government and lowered taxes has left his state with billion dollar budget deficits (annually), forced early school closures due to the state education budget running out of money before the scheduled end of the school year, and an overall dedication to Fundamentalist philosophies against abortion and LGBT rights that have forced the Kansas Supreme Court to step in, repeatedly. After repeatedly blocking the expansion of Medicaid in Kansas, Brownback released a statement that his opposition to the Medicaid expansion was that it would be “morally reprehensible” because it would help “able-bodied adults … who choose not to work” and would send money to “big city hospitals.” And Brownback chafes at any check or balance upon his power, particularly from the judiciary who he’s threatened to defund, as his leadership continues to abuse the poor and destitute, while allowing the wealthiest citizens to reach even greater heights of prosperity. Brownback still insists that it’s fine for him to conduct government business from his own private e-mail that is exempt from transparency laws, and only won re-election in 2014 with 49.8% of the vote, while other members of the GOP dominated at the polls, his approval ratings hover in the 30s, and several Kansas Republicans have turned to endorsing Democratic candidates rather than let his loyalists run roughshod over the greater good for Kansas. Kansas has had such a rough time of finding the money to run their own state that they were forced to auction off $163,000 of sex toys confiscated by law enforcement in 2015 to meet budget shortfalls. And when people actually report on how bad the plight of bad governance in Kansas actually is and how he’s been an abject failure as the state’s chief executive, Gov. Brownback claims everything’s fine, and it’s all just a “liberal conspiracy” to smear how good of a job he’s doing.

It’s such a conspiracy that Sam Brownback’s approval rating currently sits at 27%, which is second worst in the country for any sitting Governor, behind only New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who’s more noteworthy for his vulgar abuses of power and being a d*** about it. Already in lame-duck status going into 2018, Republican officials convinced Donald Trump to nominate Sam Brownback to be his religious freedom ambassador, one of the few appointments he has made to the State Department, and a job that requires Brownback to do little to nothing that would force him to resign as Governor, sadly. Here’s the fun part… The mostly ceremonial ambassadorship was only created in 1998 by House Republicans, and Sam Brownback was one of the Congressman at the time who voted for it to be formed.

As it stands, the coalition of Democrats and moderate Kansas Republicans has begun trying to undo the dangerous tax policies of Brownback, but Kansas still has a long way to go to come back from the damage he has done to the state. Hopefully, 2018 is the end of his time in elected office, and he doesn’t pop up on the presidential ticket in 2020 to try and make his perverted idea of conservative utopia a nationwide event.

[SquirrelMan]

What's this about Nazis in the German parliament I hear?

[BeastieRunner]

What's this about Nazis in the German parliament I hear?

Just because you're on the right does not make you a Nazi.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Yep. That just happened. It includes Chad, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen.

Why Chad of all places?!

Window dressing, ditto for North Korea and Venezuela. Trump isn't fooling anyone, save for his lemmings. This is STILL a Muslim ban.

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NFL Players Protest Trump And Racism In Games Across The Country

Football players have been galvanized by criticism from the president. Meanwhile....

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Trump Says His Criticism Of NFL Has ‘Nothing’ To Do With Race

“I’ve never said anything about race.” Oh, bullshit! Considering most, if not all the players who protest are black, that means it has EVERYTHING to do with race, especially when those players are called "sons of bitches"! Meanwhile....

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Astronaut Puts Trump On Blast: ‘If You Can’t Do The Job Then Please Step Down’

Leland Melvin calls out the president over his harsh criticism of NFL protests.

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Clinton Says Angela Merkel Is The Most Important Leader In The Free World

“I have the highest level of personal regard for her.” Dolt45 won't like hearing he's not important.

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A New Obamacare Repeal Draft Is Out And It Attacks Pre-Existing Protections More Severely

It “opens the door to very bare-bones coverage.” No surprise there. And Republicans bitched about so-called "death panels" when the ACA came out. Well, folks, THIS is the real thing!

[mojotastic]

Wpp The ban to NK and Venezuela seems to be to their goverment officials.

[TheInvisibleMan]

Just because your on the right does not make you a Nazi.

right now it either makes you a Nazi or a collaborator

[Tami]

'Same Name' issues cause problems for a lot of people

David Meade death threats in end-of-world trolling

Having the same name as a man who predicted the world would end on Saturday - last Saturday - has caused County Down psychic David Meade no end of grief - even five death threats.

American conspiracy theorist David Meade claimed that Planet Nibru would collide with Earth on 23 September.

David Meade, from Rathfriland, County Down, has been forced to dissociate himself from the claims.

Newspapers have incorrectly linked the claim to him on social media.

How do you food shop for the end of the world?
How to survive the end of the world
Does CNN really have a video ready for the apocalypse?

His picture has also been used in relation to the story.

Mr Meade, who now lives in Banbridge with his wife Elaine and their family, said: "About six or seven months ago we started getting the odd tweet here and there and I thought it was hilarious.

"I think part of the source of the confusion, first of all, is that it is a pretty unusual way to spell Meade, with an 'e' at the end.

"But then also, when people were arriving on my site they were seeing things like 'mentalist', 'mind reader'.

"That probably sounds like the sort of person that would predict the end of the world," he confessed.

"The last two weeks have been extraordinary and actually it's verging on worrying this morning."

The father-of-two is both a lecturer in international business and an entertainer who "caught the bug" for mind-reading as a teenager.

His website has been so inundated with traffic that it has crashed three times, something he said was a concern, as he has five employees.

"Sixty percent of my work is in the United States, it is deeply worrying to think that this nonsense could be there online and could affect my business," he said.

He has now received five death threats but said that he is not taking the threats seriously.

[worstblogever]

A New Obamacare Repeal Draft Is Out And It Attacks Pre-Existing Protections More Severely

It “opens the door to very bare-bones coverage.” No surprise there. And Republicans bitched about so-called "death panels" when the ACA came out. Well, folks, THIS is the real thing!

The look on the vote is that it's gonna fail. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, not counting any chickens until at least Sunday at 12:01 AM when the vote threshold on ACA repeals goes from 50 to 60 votes, and it'll be safe for at least the next 18 months. Estimates are this repeal attempt would cause around 32,000 deaths a year.

[JBatmanFan05]

Sadly, I think the GOP will fail this week on Obamacare.

[Tami]

A Divider, Not a Uniter, Trump Widens the Breach

WASHINGTON — Over the course of just 17 hours this weekend, President Trump assailed John McCain, Chuck Schumer, Stephen Curry, the National Football League, Roger Goodell, Iran and Kim Jong-un — the “Little Rocket Man.” And that was on his day off.

While football players knelt, locked arms or stayed in their locker rooms during the national anthem in protest on Sunday, any notion that Mr. Trump may soften his edge, even under the discipline of a new chief of staff, seemed fanciful. While he has restrained himself for brief stretches, his penchant for punching eventually reasserts itself.

Never in modern times has an occupant of the Oval Office seemed to reject so thoroughly the nostrum that a president’s duty is to bring the country together. Relentlessly pugnacious, energized by a fight, unwilling to let any slight go unanswered, Mr. Trump has made himself America’s apostle of anger, its deacon of divisiveness.

In his brief career as president and a candidate for president, Mr. Trump has attacked virtually every major institution in American life: Congress, the courts, Democrats, Republicans, the news media, the Justice Department, Hollywood, the military, NATO, the intelligence agencies, the cast of “Hamilton,” the cast of “Saturday Night Live,” the pope and now professional sports. He has attacked the Trump administration itself, or at least selected parts of it (see Sessions, Jeff), and even the United States of America (“you think our country’s so innocent?”).

Garry Wills, a historian who has studied other presidents, said, “No one else fires off omnidirectional personal insults in such fire-wheel fashion.” The exceptions seem to be President Vladimir V. Putin in Russia and white supremacists in Charlottesville, Va.

“I don’t think his intention is to be divisive,” said Christopher Ruddy, the chief executive of Newsmax Media and a friend of Mr. Trump’s. “He wants to be viewed as strong but also someone who speaks the truth as he sees it and not afraid what the establishment says about it. He enjoys a fight and a challenge, so that may play into some of this.

“My own view,” he added, “is that he should adapt Floyd Mayweather’s boxing style — hold most of his punches for big opportunities, and tire out your opponents for a win in later rounds.”

Intentional or not, many of his most divisive comments charge directly into one of the most delicate issues in American life, race, whether it be his attacks on illegal immigrants, his “both sides” equivocation after the racial violence in Charlottesville or now his blasts at African-American football and basketball stars like Mr. Curry, the Golden State Warriors player who said he did not want to visit the White House for a traditional champions ceremony.

[Tami]

LISTEN: Trump says he likes to grope Melania in public — and admits he may have psychological problems

Donald Trump thinks Ivanka “looks down on me,” concedes he groped Melania in public and knows his compulsive hand-washing “could be a psychological problem,” according to a new archive of all the conversations he had on air with the Howard Stern Show.

Those comments, along with various eyebrow-raising but predictable vulgarities, can be found in a new, online archive of Trump’s 15 hours of radio banter with the shock jock. In them, he discusses the relative hotness of his wives (and almost every other female celebrity of the moment) and his feelings about his daughter Ivanka, while chortling with Stern’s crew as they joked about who was more “gay,” and whether getting vomited on was more gross than eating food that had been on someone’s anus.

In one September 2004 call, he and Stern were bantering about how Ivana was dating a “blueblood” from Bedminster, New Jersey, and joking about how their kids were more blue blooded than they were. “I think my daughter looks down on me,” Trump admitted. “She said, 'oh my god—”

The two then turned to how much money Trump was going to leave his growing brood (Barron was not yet born). “I’m going to give them Trump Online University,” he said. “And charity gets a lot.”

[TheInvisibleMan]

Sadly, I think the GOP will fail this week on Obamacare.

sadly?

so you were looking forward to 15+ million Americans losing medical coverage?

[Kirby101]

Sadly, I think the GOP will fail this week on Obamacare.

Why sadly? You actually think Graham/Cassidy is a good bill that will help people?

[WestPhillyPunisher]

The look on the vote is that it's gonna fail. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, not counting any chickens until at least Sunday at 12:01 AM when the vote threshold on ACA repeals goes from 50 to 60 votes, and it'll be safe for at least the next 18 months. Estimates are this repeal attempt would cause around 32,000 deaths a year.

So, John McCain and Rand Paul are solid no votes while it sounds like Turtle Boy is trying to bribe Reps. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski with money coming to their states in return for yes votes. I'm hoping those ladies won't be conned by that blatant scheme from McConnell and waver from their positions.

A Divider, Not a Uniter, Trump Widens the Breach

The more Trump says and does stupid shit, the more I'm convinced he NEVER wanted to be a uniter, that he's in it only to satisfy his swollen ego and fatten his bankroll at the expense of the American people.

LISTEN: Trump says he likes to grope Melania in public — and admits he may have psychological problems

MAY have psychological problems? That's like Scrooge McDuck saying he MAY be a little greedy!

[Kirby101]

sadly?

so you were looking forward to 15+ million Americans losing medical coverage?

More like 20 million, and slowly become unaffordable to tens of millions more. And it ends Medicaid, so screw the poors.