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

[PaulBullion]

Establishment Dems love this stuff. They love to make little power plays that piss off part of their base, then play victim and try to guilt trip everyone when their are consequences. It’s called trying to have your cake and eat it too

Are Independents part of the Democrat's base?

[PaulBullion]

Trump won because of Russian interference, voter supression and Comey. Not to mention an anarchaic election system that doesn't give victory to a woman that got 3 million more votes.

She outperformed every single white male presidential candidate in history, yet she somehow underperformed because she didn't do as well as Obama, who was possibly the best speaker any party ever ran and one of the best campaigners. The Hillary hatred is ridiculous.

[PaulBullion]

Yes, that is why I doubt Trump would be able to run for re-election even if he wanted to, especially with his lousy diet and terrible lifestyle. He didn't exercise except when in golf

Trump believes - and this is a true story - that the human body has a limited amount of energy, and when you exercise, you use up that energy faster. The man is an idiot. We should focus all our energies to keep reminding people that he is an idiot, that he is Putin's puppet, that he is a racist, that he is using the presidency to enrich himself and his cronies, that he is a violent sexual predator, that his policies make the planet less safe and less healthy. That he perverts American ideals.

[PaulBullion]

But those two have a D next to their name, so that's all that matters...

Did Heitkamp and Manchin vote with Republicans to repeal the ACA?

To me, having a pre-existing condition (I had Asthma as a kid but it disappeared 25 years ago), THAT is all that matters.

[PaulBullion]

Meanwhile, the Democrats have gained something like 48 or so seats now. We're doing better than people would have us believe.

And a lot more of those winners were backed by Establishment Democrats™ like Kamala Harris than by Our Revolution®.

[PaulBullion]

Of course, all those talks about Trump's re-election chances while he might go to jail before that:

Judge Denies Trump’s Secrecy Claim in Review of Cohen Documents

A group of news organizations, including The New York Times, had written in support of the government’s position, claiming that the “public has a right to know” what categories of files Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen were trying to keep secret, if not precisely what was in them.

[Trey Strain]

The media are mocking Trump's actions at the G-7 conference, but it will play well domestically. American workers despise these trade agreements, which have devastated their lives. He could win re-election by campaigning against them and doing nothing else.

[PaulBullion]

The media are mocking Trump's actions at the G-7 conference, but it will play well domestically. American workers despise these trade agreements, which have devastated their lives. He could win re-election by campaigning against them and doing nothing else.

Trump looked weak. the optics were horrible for him. His alpha male image is tarnished with his base now.



The base is also not happy about him pardoning black people, he took a dive in the polls soon as he did that.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

G7 conference stuff:

John McCain Tells Allies: Americans Stand With You Even If Trump Doesn’t

Justin Trudeau To Trump: Canada ‘Will Not Be Pushed Around’

Trump Threatens To End Trade With United States’ Closest Allies

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Trump: I’ll Know In 1 Minute If North Korean Talks Are Going Well By ‘My Touch, My Feel’

“That’s what I do,” he tells reporters when asked how he’ll size up Kim Jong Un. What the fuck is this shit? Is Trump going to grope Kim to figure out how the talks are going? Seriously?

**********

Trump’s Intel Chief Warns Of Upcoming Kremlin Election Interference

While president stumps for Russia on G7. Things that make you go HMMMMMMMMMMM!

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The Trump Administration Would Rather Release A Man It Says Is A Terrorist Than Defend His Imprisonment

The government appears eager to avoid a court battle over whether a 2001 military force authorization applies to ISIS. That whole thing sounds fishy.

**********

ICE Deserves Every Bit Of Our Contempt

At a recent event hosted by the Center for Immigration Studies ― an anti-immigrant hate group founded by a eugenicist and white nationalist ― Thomas Homan, the outgoing acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (and Donald Trump’s chief family destroyer), told a crowded room that the men and women of ICE are not racist and that they deserve thanks from this country.

Really?

Does a federal agent ― a person sworn to serve and protect this nation and its citizens, deserve thanks for harassing U.S. citizens outside courthouses because they look like an immigrant the agency aggressively targets? Perhaps U.S. children should write you personal thank-you notes for deporting their parents. Surely, this is the kind of acknowledgment and recognition that your agents crave so they can refuel their inhumane and destructive practices.

They say that truth hurts, but here’s the truth about the 20,000 “patriots” who work for ICE and why they are not the heroes Trump and Homan always paint them to be.

Just a couple of days ago, ICE helicopters hovered over a plant nursery in rural Ohio, where agents pointed automatic weapons at dozens of migrant workers at the site. The media is calling this the largest workplace raid under the Trump administration ― and with good reason, as the volume and ferocity used by ICE in this particular operation is unprecedented in recent history. I mean, it took an undercover ICE agent to lure migrant workers with doughnuts to a central office so the operation could proceed.

[Tendrin]

The media are mocking Trump's actions at the G-7 conference, but it will play well domestically. American workers despise these trade agreements, which have devastated their lives. He could win re-election by campaigning against them and doing nothing else.

Iiiii don't think it's going to play that well domestically when the pain of his economic policies actually sets in.

[PaulBullion]

More devastating optics from the G7:

Trump's hand left with thumbprint after Macron handshake at G7 summit

[worstblogever]

It was one year ago we shared our original "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" profile of former Montana House of Representatives member Jerry O’Neil, a man who prior to entering politics, was being investigated for practicing law without a license, but soldiered on by outspending the entire $2000 budget of the Montana Supreme Court’s Commission on the Unauthorized Practice of Law. Eventually, though, O’Neil would (What else?) begin a political career is a Montana state legislator, where he stood out by trying to draft bills that would allow for people sentenced to prison to commute their sentences by instead agreeing to corporal punishment, such as large quantities of canings or spankings (really) and his demand that his legislative salary should be paid in gold, like the Constitution intended (there’s no mention of state legislators being paid in gold). O’Neil ended up being beaten in the 2014 elections by Democrat Zac Perry, and has apparently decided to call it a career, at least for now.


On this date in 2016, as well as 2017, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day posted profiles of the current U.S. House Representative for Wisconsin’s 7th District, Sean Duffy, a former contestant on MTV’s reality show “The Real World” (shown here gyrating in his underwear for his housemates). Duffy was yet another beneficiary of the Tea Party Wave, storming into office to replace twenty-one term Congressman Dave Obey back in 2010, and if you ask Sean Duffy, it’s a real struggle to survive on the measly $174,000 salary he gets as a member of Congress, to which some might advise him that he should have stopped having kids sometime before his eighth. Hypocritically, while refusing a pay cut on his own six figure salary, Duffy advises other public workers should accept pay cuts. Of course, with 8 children, it comes as little surprise that Sean Duffy is also a die-hard pro-life supporter. In January of 2016, however, he caused an uproar on the floor of the U.S. House after he decided to express that anti-abortion fervor during a discussion about the BlackLivesMatter Movement by presenting inaccurate statistics to chastise the Congressional Black Caucus for not supporting black lives because they allow higher abortion rates racially than whites. That’s not only stastistically incorrect but totally racist. Congresswoman Gwen Moore perhaps responded best that, “It’s painfully obvious that Representative Duffy’s concern for life ends as soon as the umbilical cord is cut.” But Duffy doesn’t always act like he knows it all, like the time he was asked at a town hall about his position on transvaginal ultrasounds, and he dodged the question by saying, “Well, I haven’t had one.” Of course, either quote could have been a worse statement… like the time Sean Duffy’s wife, and fellow “Real World” alumni Rachel Campos-Duffy compared abortion to slavery and the Holocaust, as Republicans are frequently in the habit of doing.

The more bizarre thing is that Wisconsin’s 7th District has only a +2 Republican lean according to the Cook Partisan Voting Index, yet Duffy won a fourth term in office IN 2016 with 62% of the vote in spite of repeatedly changing his endorsements as candidates dropped out of the race before settling on Donald Trump, saying that the racist billionaire demagogue “fit the template of the conservative movement” with his border wall and financial background. After the election, Duffy embraced authoritarian fascism in full, encouraging Donald Trump use his Twitter account to “push back against the media” regarding negative stories about his transition team (which considering they were all talking to Russians, it’s a good thing it didn’t work).

Within two weeks, Duffy was on CNN, where in an interview with CNN he was being asked why Donald Trump took WEEKS to condemn Neo-Nazis who began a spree of hate crime assaults, vandalism, and threats against minorities to “celebrate” Trump’s election, Duffy tried changing the topic by claiming that the Neo-Nazis were similar to the Black Lives Matter movement. Host Jim Sciutto was having none of that s*** on his network, and shut Duffy down, and fast. Only a few weeks after that in December of 2016, Duffy was being interviewed by Tucker Carlson, when he claimed that the city of Madison, Wisconsin, one of the few liberal bastions in the state what with the University of Wisconsin there, was “communist”.
After he was widely criticized for this stupid, stupid remark, Duffy played the victim by getting on Twitter to post:

”The PC crowd is humorless. For those offended by my ‘communist’ comment, I'll send a therapy dog to your ‘safe place’ of choice in Madison.”

Ah yes. The sensible political strategy of embracing your inner ***hole. It’s no wonder Rep. Duffy was on the Trump transition team (no word on if they trusted him to talk to Russians, yet. YET.) But the real shock from Sean Duffy came in February of 2017, when he began arguing that the media was deliberately not reporting Islamic terror attacks (ones that they actually HAD reported on), Duffy started trying to claim that white terrorism didn’t exist, and even if it does, it wasn’t the same thing as Islamic terrorism because it has a “bright side”. He did this while arguing in defense of Donald Trump’s attempted Muslim ban in a CNN interview with Alisyn Camerota:

CAMEROTA: “How about Charleston, congressman? He was an extremist. He was a white extremist?”

DUFFY: “Yes, he was. OK?”

CAMEROTA: "How about that? That doesn’t matter?”

DUFFY: "No, it does matter. It does matter. Look at the good things that came from it. [Then-South Carolina Gov.] Nikki Haley took down the Confederate flag, that was great. But you want to say I can give you a couple of examples. There’s no constant threat that goes through these attacks. And you have radical Islamic terrorists and ISIS that are driving the attacks, and if you want to compare those two, maybe you can throw another one ― “

CAMEROTA: “You can.”

DUFFY: “Look at Gabby Giffords. The Marxist, who took her life, a leftist guy, and now you see violence and terror in the streets all across America, burning and beating people with Donald Trump hats. The violence you have to look in, you’re trying to use examples on the right.”

We can’t even begin with how ignorant that whole conversation is regarding the differences between White Nationalist terrorism and Muslim terrorism, but we’ll add that the man who shot Gabby Giffords was also not a Marxist. But hey, Duffy is an idiot, so what do facts matter?

[worstblogever]

Duffy returned to Washington for his fourth term in office, and continued being a total wanker:

• February 16th, 2017: Duffy 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: Sean Duffy 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: Duffy 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 Duffy 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: Sean Duffy 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.
• September 8th, 2017: Rep. Duffy chooses to be one of 90 Republicans in Congress who votes against disaster relief for Hurricane Harvey.
• October 3rd, 2017: Duffy 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: Sean Duffy 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: Duffy 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.

Now, as we pointed out, Wisconsin’s 7th actually is supposed to have a +2 Democratic lean. In a year with so much Democratic momentum, this is one of the most likely seats to flip in all of Congress. That’s why it should come as no surprise that no less than five Democrats battling it out to take on Sean Duffy in November. We’re hoping whoever emerges puts an end to Duffy’s tenure at four terms, and he can f*** off back to Wisconsin to watch all eight of his children. Odds are, Fox News will hire him as a propagandist, to help him pay his bills.

[worstblogever]

More devastating optics from the G7:

Trump's hand left with thumbprint after Macron handshake at G7 summit

I hope it bruises.

[PaulBullion]

Iiiii don't think it's going to play that well domestically when the pain of his economic policies actually sets in.

He'll probably try to blame Obama for it.

Trade Partnership estimates that ratio of jobs lost to jobs gained from Trump’s metal tariffs will be about 16 to 1: 26,280 steel and aluminum jobs gained, compared with 432,747 jobs eliminated throughout rest of the economy

https://twitter.com/crampell/status/1005498290413228033