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

[TheInvisibleMan]

yes. I want people with a platform to use that platform to raise awareness

especially today

and a party that is fine with Kim Davis protesting at work, but not players kneeling before a game are nothing but hypocrites

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

And as we drown under this scandalous administration, you'd rather moralize about "both sides" instead of working on that inner tube to help save the country.

I’d rather maintain principle then fall off path and also drown under scandal because winning was more important than principles

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

You and Knight of the Lake should get a room already.

We aren’t going to let you watch that masterpiece

[Kevinroc]

I’d rather maintain principle then fall off path and also drown under scandal because winning was more important than principles

There are real world consequences to this kind of thinking. We know almost 1500 kids fell through the cracks (and that's the kids we KNOW about). If your "principles" mean more than actual real world human suffering, that says a lot about you.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

There are real world consequences to this kind of thinking. We know almost 1500 kids fell through the cracks (and that's the kids we KNOW about). If your "principles" mean more than actual real world human suffering, that says a lot about you.

Good let’s be thankful one party maintained principles and didn’t completely lose their way yet so the situation isn’t hopeless.

It says a lot about you that your principles are negotionable. It leads to Democrat Trump

[Kevinroc]

Good let’s be thankful one party maintained principles and didn’t completely lose their way yet so the situation isn’t hopeless.

It says a lot about you that your principles are negotionable. It leads to Democrat Trump

The "Both Sides" is strong in this one.

Also, Democrats rejected their Trump. And Bernie supporters are still whining about that to this day.

[Malvolio]

The people here going on and on about how bad Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton and other establishment Democrats are, sound like someone trying to get an acquaintance to lose weight by screaming at them, "Just stop eating so much, you fat piece of crap!"

That strategy rarely, if ever, works. That's why I used the word "acquaintance," rather than "friend." A friend encourages by offering healthier food choices, in smaller portions, and offering physical exercise. The political equivalent would be talking up candidates like Cynthia Nixon and Tammy Duckworth and why they're so great, rather than whining on and on about the old guard.

[PaulBullion]

The "Both Sides" is strong in this one.

Also, Democrats rejected their Trump. And Bernie supporters are still whining about that to this day.

[PaulBullion]

The people here going on and on about how bad Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton and other establishment Democrats are, sound like someone trying to get an acquaintance to lose weight by screaming at them, "Just stop eating so much, you fat piece of crap!"

That strategy rarely, if ever, works. That's why I used the word "acquaintance," rather than "friend." A friend encourages by offering healthier food choices, in smaller portions, and offering physical exercise. The political equivalent would be talking up candidates like Cynthia Nixon and Tammy Duckworth and why they're so great, rather than whining on and on about the old guard.

It's a bit like Trump is really not a deal maker, but a deal breaker. The only supposed "accomplishments" he has had are destroying things others, usually Obama, worked hard to achieve. Building a sand castle takes work. Kicking one over just takes spite.

[Kevinroc]

It's a bit like Trump is really not a deal maker, but a deal breaker. The only supposed "accomplishments" he has had are destroying things others, usually Obama, worked hard to achieve. Building a sand castle takes work. Kicking one over just takes spite.

Would that the next Democratic President was an Anti-Trump who could just build everything back up with a snap of their fingers. But as we saw with Obama running on an Anti-Bush platform, that kind of thing takes a lot of work.

(A lot of little things will definitely be done by executive order, which is a pretty decent equivalent to a snap of their fingers.)

[PaulBullion]

Would that the next Democratic President was an Anti-Trump who could just build everything back up with a snap of their fingers. But as we saw with Obama running on an Anti-Bush platform, that kind of thing takes a lot of work.

(A lot of little things will definitely be done by executive order, which is a pretty decent equivalent to a snap of their fingers.)

Yeah, I am pretty sure that if we manage to stop Putin and Trump is a one termer, there will be a Red Wave in 2022 because President, say, Duckworth didn't just snap her fingers and undo all the damage done by the GOP and Trump to world peace, families, the environment, the economy etc etc.

[worstblogever]

Three years ago, we profiled Tom Goolsby, a former North Carolina State Senator and comb over enthusiast who in his time in office, supported massive cuts to education, a state constitutional ban on same sex marriage, voter ID laws that disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of voters, voted for a law to prevent climatologists from North Carolina from being able to discuss climate change, was the sponsor of the repeal of the Racial Justice Act, and was the man who snuck an amendment onto a motorcycle safety bill to turn it into one of the most radical pieces of anti-abortion legislation in the country. When his legislative agenda began to create weekly protests at the state capitol, known as Moral Mondays, for being led by the Reverend William Barber, Goolsby took the very adult approach to take out an opinion editorial in the local paper to call them “Moron Mondays”, in which he lied about there being no members of the legislature among the group’s numbers. Goolsby lasted less than two terms in office, resigning in August 2014 shortly after being sued by the rest of the law firm where he worked for financial fraud, which makes him even harder to elect.


In both 2016, as well as 2017, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” presented its original profile of the sitting U.S. House Representative for Colorado’s 6th Congressional District, Mike Coffman, who is now serving in his fifth term in office in Washington after a lengthy tenure in Colorado state politics that strings all the way back to 1989. The main thing Coffman has had going for himself to not seem that crazy, is the fact that Colorado’s 6th District was previously held by Tom Tancredo, Back in 2012, Mike Coffman was at a campaign fundraiser when he volunteered his opinion about the Birther conspiracy, saying, “I don’t know whether Barack Obama was born in the United States of America. I don’t know that. But I do know this, that in his heart, he’s not an American. He’s just not an American.” Well, word of this disgusting moment leaked to the public, and Coffman was forced to apologize. Mind you, robotically repeating that apology to local news reporters in Colorado who chased him down for comment might not have been the best way to make it seem genuine. He apparently doesn't like the negative publicity about it, since he was caught having his Congressional staff trying to edit the fact that it ever happened from his Wikipedia page, earning him top honors in a Buzzfeed article about members of Congress wasting taxpayer dollars to have paid staff scrub their Wiki pages. But in terms of policy, Mike Coffman isn't any less of an extremist. Say, for example, his repeated support for Congress trying to make fetal Personhood a thing, and make life start at conception. Coffman voted to do so as a state legislator in 2008, and again after hitting Washington, D.C. in 2010. In 2011, he also sponsored legislation that tried to redefine the legal definition of rape, specifying whether it was “forcible rape” or not. As you might expect, Coffman's also is a climate change denier, believing scientists' research cannot be trusted, and there's financial pressure on the scientists to cut their funding unless they produce studies that say it DOES exist. And THAT is a decidedly different paranoid conspiracy theory, right there. But it's far from his only one. In October of 2012, Coffman told reporters he believed President Obama would engage in a last minute military engagement to cement his bid on winning the presidency.

Coffman’s voting record this term shows all the usual signs of partisan hackery:

• February 16th, 2017: Coffman 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: Mike Coffman 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: Coffman 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), postpartum depression, or prior sexual assault. Oh, and a provision in the bill would make sure that Coffman 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: Mike Coffman 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.
• October 3rd, 2017: Coffman 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: Mike Coffman 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: Coffman 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.

Believe it or not, in spite of Mike Coffman having a history of voting for conservative interests, Colorado's 6th Congressional District has a +1 Democratic lean the Cook Partisan Index and in 2016, Coffman faced off against Former Colorado State Senate Minority Leader Morgan Carroll, who was term-limited in the Colorado legislature. Coffman barely managed to win re-election with 51% of the vote, so you can’t help but wonder how his prospects look for 2018… oh, gee, it seems his constituents are rushing to his town halls to boo the bejeezus out of him, especially in the wake of the mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, which hits home for a Denver district that remembers Columbine all too well. Please note, the same thing happened to Coffman last April, after his vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act, as well. Coffman is considered to be one of the most vulnerable Congressmen in the country going into November, and he’ll be facing off against Democrat Jason Crow, who is polling five points ahead of Coffman, as of early March. We’d like to see him booted from office by his constituents here in about six months, and like the way Congressman Crow sounds, honestly.

[PaulBullion]

But WBE, didn't you pay attention? Knight of the Lake and Donald Trump agree that Democrats are just as bad, or would potentially be, if not for, I don't know, Bernie or something.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

But WBE, didn't you pay attention? Knight of the Lake and Donald Trump agree that Democrats are just as bad, or would potentially be, if not for, I don't know, Bernie or something.

Didn't say they were just as bad. Said when you compromise principles for winning, you end up just like the Republicans who did that years ago.

[PaulBullion]

but wbe, didn't you pay attention? Knight of the lake and donald trump agree that democrats are just as bad, or would potentially be, if not for, i don't know, bernie or something.

didn't say they were just as bad. Said when you compromise principles for winning, you end up just like the republicans who did that years ago.

qed


................