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

[numberthirty]

Yeah, that makes plenty of sense. Still, the specter of Slick Willie is probably on the minds of Dems I suspect. In any event, if they want to steer clear of the mess with Trump and Daniels and focus on issues, hey, more power to them.

Oh, I don't doubt for a minute that Bill looms large in quite few of the "Why I Should Stay Out Of This..." calculations.

That said, I tend to agree with that putting the focus on other issues probably makes the most sense.

[worstblogever]

The official White House YouTube channel just put out this video called Violence in Video Games.



Let's see here... I see Wolfenstein (The game about killing Nazi scumbags), Sniper Elite (fighting Nazis), Dead by Daylight (Friday the 13th game before it was release), Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (you know the infamous scene, the one where you can skip it and that ironically enough ends with you being killed by the bad guys anyways), Fallout 4 (they tried real hard to find something that makes it look like you're attacking a "normal" person), and The Evil Within (a game where you're stuck inside your own mind and fighting off dangerous monsters).


...okay then. I be more impressed if Hatred was actually shown, but you know, it won't. Also, a lot of these are axe and knife kills. Either way, propaganda video.

So Trump is gonna spend weeks of conferences about fucking video games and do jack fucking shit about actual guns. Also his conference had no actual scientists , studies or anything present. Keep sucking that NRA c---k , Trump.

Kotaku noted three things about this video that show Trump administration folks are incompetent:

1. They left the comments on for the video, and it's thousands of people slagging on Cheeto Mussolini for having his head up his ***.
2. It's going to be pulled down because the lazy ***holes sampled videos from the channels of live streamers, and didn't even bother to remove their watermarks.
3. It has an utterly remarkable 96% Dislike rating.

[worstblogever]

In 2015, in 2016, and in 2017, “Crazy Stupid Republican of the Day” published profiles of Ritch Workman, from the Florida House of Representatives, who was once featured on The Colbert Report because of his dedication to try and get the Sunshine State’s ban on dwarf-tossing lifted. He also complained that Florida’s history school textbooks featured a “pro-Islam bias” because it had 36 pages dedicated to Muslim civilizations around the world, and “sugar-coated” atrocities he feels practitioners of the religion committed that were omitted. Workman’s “smaller government” principles also have seen him vote to drug test welfare recipients and ban same sex marriage. He also would like to say he’s pro-life, which would be reflected by his extreme stance on abortion, but it’s a bit of a double standard as “pro-life” when he also supports the death penalty. Workman was busy trying to protect "family values" in 2016, by trying to prevent same-sex couples from adopting children, but his hypocrisy was exposed when he was revealed in a hack of Ashley Madison's adultery website to himself have had an account there. Mercifully, Ritch Workman came up against term limits in 2016 and is no longer in office. Rick Scott tried to appoint him to a position within the state, but then Workman was forced to withdraw because of sexual harassment accusations. We will retire his CSGOPOTD profile at this time and go ahead and take a look at a different kooky Republican today instead. (Current crazy/stupid scoreboard, is now 657-25, since this was established in July 2014.)


Paul Sanford
Welcome to the 657th original “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profile, where today we’ll be discussing Alabama State Senator Paul Sanford, who was first elected to District 7 in a special election back in 2009 on his incredible resume of running a barbecue restaurant, has twice been re-elected to his seat, most recently in 2014 after a controversial primary victory, and then in the general his original Democratic opponent, Michael Howie, had to pull out of the race when his wife became unexpectedly pregnant and Democrats scrambled to put Bryan Bennett on the ballot instead.
https://ballotpedia.org/Paul_Sanford

Sanford, in recent years, has made quite a name for himself as an anti-choice crusader, most famously in February of 2016 when he drafted legislation to make it illegal for any abortion clinic to operate within 500 feet of a school. Critics pointed out that Republicans could thus shut down any of its five remaining abortion clinics by offering to fund a school (or more likely in the GOP’s agenda, a charter school) on the same block to force its closure, and Sanford didn’t exactly change course or tone down his rhetoric, defending the move by pointing out that the 500 foot limit is the same distance that sex offenders must remain from schools:

“We can put a restriction on whether a liquor store opens up across the street and make sure pedophiles stay away from schools. I just think having an abortion clinic that close to elementary-age school children that actually have to walk on the sidewalk past it is not the best thing.”

Paul Sanford’s a special kind of troll on fiscal matters as well, as in 2015, when the Alabama GOP controlling the legislature passed a budget with huge tax breaks for wealthy citizens that created a budget deficit of $300 million, he mockingly created a GoFundMe page for citizens to help balance the state budget. His overall voting record outside of those moments is lockstep with most of the most fringe extremists of Alabama:

• June 9th, 2011: Paul Sanford votes for HB 18, an attempt by Alabama Republicans to see abortion banned at 20 weeks, ignoring the Roe v. Wade ruling.
• June 9th, 2011: Sanford votes for HB 19, a voter suppression bill disguised as a Voter ID bill that combats the statistically non-existent problem of in-person voter fraud.
• February 5th, 2013: Paul Sanford sponsors SB 93, an attempt to nullify federal firearms regulations.
• April 23rd, 2013: Sanford co-sponsors and votes for SB 191, another one of those bills to drug test welfare recipients that always fail to find drug use among people on government assistance, lose money on the cost of drug testing, and then lose even more money for a state when they are overturned by the courts as violations of the Fourth Amendment.
• April 16th, 2015: Paul Sanford co-sponsors SJR 34, to call for a stop to the Medicaid Expansion in Alabama.
• January 25th, 2018: Sanford sponsors and votes for SB 92, to cut the number of days a person can call upon unemployment benefits.

Paul Sanford was kicking around a run for governor, but has decided to just run for re-election to his State Senate in 2018. It’s our hope that he’s made enough of a name for himself in the past few years in Alabama politics that the Blue Wave momentum sees voters jettison him from the State Senate while they have the chance.

[Tami]

If Trump meets with the Korean President, Kim Jung Un will convinced Trump to end military exercises with South Korea in supposed exchange for de-nuking. Kim will then take advantage of this to make an aggressive act towards South Korea. Or try, anyway.

My theory.

[mojotastic]

If Trump meets with the Korean President, Kim Jung Un will convinced Trump to end military exercises with South Korea in supposed exchange for de-nuking. Kim will then take advantage of this to make an aggressive act towards South Korea. Or try, anyway.

My theory.

That theory implies that Un is as smart as his people think he is.

[KOSLOX]

I saw jokes on network TV for 20 years about crackheads and crack babies. Miss me with concern about the "Opioid Crisis", no one actively funneled that garbage into those communities with the intent to destabilize them.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

That theory implies that Un is as smart as his people think he is.

He doesn't have to be. What if that idea comes from Putin and Un merely relays it to Dolt45?

[Tami]

That theory implies that Un is as smart as his people think he is.

Or Trump is as dumb as his people this he is.

[KOSLOX]

Kotaku noted three things about this video that show Trump administration folks are incompetent:

1. They left the comments on for the video, and it's thousands of people slagging on Cheeto Mussolini for having his head up his ***.
2. It's going to be pulled down because the lazy ***holes sampled videos from the channels of live streamers, and didn't even bother to remove their watermarks.
3. It has an utterly remarkable 96% Dislike rating.

I think the most obvious solution here is that we need to start flooding the market with good violent videogames to counteract all the bad ones.

[aja_christopher]

I'm thinking this is more of a threat than Russia. Not saying Russia didn't help. But I don't think Americans are incapable of making up their minds based on some foreign sources.

Regardless of our differing opinions on how much this effected the election -- and we can't be completely sure they didn't alter voting numbers in certain areas because the government most likely wouldn't even tell us if they did -- there's a reason this kind of thing is illegal.

Not only has it undermined the world's faith in our democracy, it has also enhanced the divisions between American citizens as a whole.

Certainly, Americans can make up their own minds, but if those minds are filled with biased and misleading propaganda from outside sources -- sources who don't have Americas best interests at heart and are actively seeking to disrupt our democracy and position of world leadership -- then the decisions that result will be equally biased as well.

[TheInvisibleMan]

Russia is doing all of this so Putin can "expand" Russias borders without any reprisal

political or otherwise

thats all this is, all its ever been

[aja_christopher]

Russia is doing all of this so Putin can "expand" Russias borders without any reprisal

political or otherwise

thats all this is, all its ever been

Meanwhile, the US is starting trade wars with Germany, the EU and our NATO allies, which without a doubt pleases Putin to no end.

And still no Russian sanctions for interference -- or solid effort to stop it from happening again -- from our (Republican) White House leadership.

-----
"Germany and EU hit back at Donald Trump's trade war threat"

"Germany's political leadership has reacted sharply to President Donald Trump's tweets threatening "a tax" on European cars that "freely pour into the US," and a declaration, made last Thursday before industry executives, that the US would impose a 25-percent tariff on steel imports and a 10-percent tariff on aluminum.

The EU has said it is planning to forge a coalition of countries to agree a unified reaction to Trump's move. According to the European news portal Euractiv, European Commission officials are in contact with other affected countries, including Canada, Brazil, South Korea, Japan, Australia and Turkey.

But the EU is reportedly also prepared to react alone, and is preparing to approve a package of measures on Wednesday that will seek, among other things, to settle the dispute with the US and agree upon retaliatory measures."

http://www.dw.com/en/germany-and-eu-...eat/a-42846571

[kidfresh512]

When it comes to that, I don't know that "The Actual Reason We Are Steering Clear Of This" is anywhere near as important as just making sure to stay out of it.

I don't know that there is any version of them getting involved that doesn't have "Gopher Rodeo" written all over it. Probably better to just keep their distance, and let it make like a tire fire all on it's own.

Honestly I feel like the biggest reason for Democrats not to get dragged too far into Stormy Daniels is that GOP and the trump base don't care. And Democrats and independents already knew trump was sleazy. We all saw the Access Hollywood Tape. We heard the accounts of the Miss universe pageant dressing room perving etc. He was married and cheated on his wives we knew that. He supported an accused pedophile for god sake in Alabama. All of that would have utterly destroyed anyone else. If Obama had been married more than once or had credible affair rumors he wouldnt have even been elected. That stuff bounces off trump. It's news worthy, it goes to defining his duplicity, and character faults but that's it.

So its better to focus on his instability, on rolling back all the regulations on banks, environment. Giving tax cuts to 1% and corporations that are supposed to "trickle down" to the regular people. Democrats have to talk about what they will do differently. Bashing trump only won't work everywhere.

[mojotastic]

Or Trump is as dumb as his people this he is.

If both are dumb then the real winners/losers are going to be china and south korea, it depends on the results of the talk

[JBatmanFan05]

And still no Russian sanctions for interference -- or solid effort to stop it from happening again -- from our (Republican) White House leadership.

More sanctions coming:

The Trump administration could impose new sanctions on Russian entities as soon as next week, a senior administration official told CNN. Among the entities being considered for sanctions is the Internet Research Agency, a Kremlin-linked Russian troll group, the official said.

The Internet Research Agency was at the heart of a federal indictment aimed at 13 Russian individuals announced last month by the Justice Department. Of the 13 indicted, 12 worked for the Internet Research Agency, setting up bogus social media accounts aimed at sowing discord in the 2016 American election, US officials alleged.

As for the timing of the sanctions, the official said the measures are expected to be announced as early as next week. That timetable could slide, the official cautioned, as the administration is working to coordinate the measures through the State and Treasury departments.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/06/polit...ing/index.html