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

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

Arpaio would be impressed.




Also, the Trump Administration is looking to strip people of their citizenship.




But yeah, keep telling me the Democrats are awful and the worst.

I mean Trump was a Democrat.....

[numberthirty]

Also totally serious Bernie supporter: "The Russian money used to spend against Hillary had no effect on her performance at the polls whatsoever! She is just a loser whore bitch!"

First off, those are your words. Not mine. Let's make that very clear. Those words have no place in the discussion. You make sure the problem stays the problem every time you use them.

I was using symbolic words, summarizing what your years of hateful postings about Hillary reveal about your feelings towards her. Call me a mind reader.

One last time on this one...

Those words need to be a thing of the past.

"This is an instance where I can convince myself that my using them is justifiable..." logic?

It's garbage. There's no place where they are justifiable.

[numberthirty]

Since I get the feeling this one will not make the national news...

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/l...612-story.html

Former Chicago detective takes the Fifth more than 200 times in wrongful conviction trial

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

One last time on this one...

Those words need to be a thing of the past.

"This is an instance where I can convince myself that my using them is justifiable..." logic?

It's garbage. There's no place where they are justifiable.

I don't get why you are even bothering to engage in strawman bs. It's clear he wanted to use that as an opportunity to paint people who had issues with Hillary as misogynists because it's easier to say "oh they all just didn't like her because she's a woman" as opposed to really considering why some people didn't want to vote for her.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Democrats Score Special Election Upset In Wisconsin District Trump Won Big

A court had to order Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) to call the special election because he tried to block it. Blue wave, yo!

**********

Fox News Changes Its Tune On North Korea To Echo Trump’s Summit Talk

Just over 10 months ago, Fox News host Sean Hannity told his audience that North Korea was led by an evil regime that should not be appeased since it would break any agreement with the U.S. On Tuesday, following the Singapore meeting between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Hannity praised Trump’s efforts to negotiate with the dictator and said it exceeded White House officials’ expectations.

It was a stark reversal ― one that dominated much of Fox News’ programming on Tuesday. As Trump has softened his stance toward North Korea in the past several months, dropping his “rocket man” insults and threats of military action, Fox News pundits have followed suit.

More proof of how Faux News bends over backwards to slurp Caramel Caligula for doing the very things they would've relentlessly slammed Barack Obama if he cozied up to Kim. Case in point:

Watch Hannity Praise Trump And Slam Obama For Pretty Much The Same Thing

**********

Trump Administration Hands Democrats A Political Gift On Health Care

The Trump administration’s intervention in an Obamacare lawsuit this week has handed Democrats a political gift, putting Republican candidates on the defensive about whether they, too, want to get rid of some of the law’s most popular provisions.

On Thursday the Justice Department threw its support behind a lawsuit arguing that Obamacare’s protections for people with pre-existing conditions are unconstitutional. The suit, brought by 20 states led by Republicans, argue that those protections were supposed to work in tandem with the mandate that individuals have health insurance. Because Congress is no longer enforcing the mandate, they say, insurers no longer have to sell policies to everyone regardless of medical status.

While this policy isn’t new for the administration, the suit puts it front and center just as this year’s midterm elections are heating up. And it means that Republican candidates, some in states that Donald Trump won in 2016, will have to make a decision: Do they back the president and say they don’t believe insurers should have to cover people with pre-existing conditions, or do they publicly distance themselves from him?

**********

Some Democrats Are Sticking Up For Diplomacy, Even When The Diplomat Is Trump

Support for negotiating with North Korea should not be partisan, these lawmakers argue. Well now, that's interesting.

**********

MSNBC Host Can’t Stop Laughing At Trump’s North Korea Real Estate Pitch

Nicolle Wallace’s panel falls apart as it analyzes the president’s summit with Kim Jong Un.

[worstblogever]

This is why Republicans are Dangerous. The real Political Correctness is this right here.

GOP lawmaker wants Michigan teens to learn the KKK is anti-Republican — not anti-black

My existing profile on Patrick Colbeck:
https://republicinsanity.tumblr.com/...ck-2018-update

Mark Sanford, hiking the Appalachian Trail, will not be finishing first in his primary for 1st Congressional District of South Carolina. Instead, Trump pick, Katie Arrington, will be taking over as the GOP nomination.'

Meanwhile, Corey Stewart wins the GOP nomination for the Senate in Virigina. Who is Stewart? If you missed WBE's profiles...



He's challenging Tim Kaine for his seat and I know some of you have problems with Kaine... BUT, do you really want Stewart? Do you want the racist?

My profiles on Mark Sanford:
https://republicinsanity.tumblr.com/...rd-2017-update

and Corey Stewart.
https://republicinsanity.tumblr.com/...rt-2018-update

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2015, 2016, as well as 2017, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" published profiles of Arkansas Lieutenant Governor Tim Griffin, who in 2004, as accused of attempting a voter registration scheme in Jacksonville, Florida, and then after laying low for a few years, was one of the beneficiaries of the Bush Administration’s culling of U.S. Attorneys. After it was revealed that his predecessor was fired on Karl Rove’s orders to make a job opening for Griffin, he resigned six months into the job, citing “spending time with his family” for bailing. He resurfaced in 2010 to run for the U.S. House of Representatives in Arkansas’ 2nd Congressional District, and won in spite of being named one of CREW’s “Most Crooked Candidates of 2010”. His most noteworthy moment in office came in October of 2013, when during a point when the capitol was on lockdown after a woman ran a barricade at the White House and began a high speed chase that ended with her being fired upon by the Secret Service, Griffin, while hiding in his office, took to social media to blame the event on President Obama’s “violent rhetoric” while the situation was still active, and before any details were known. Halfway through his second term in office, Griffin again resigned to “spend time with his family”, only to turn around and six months later register as a candidate for Arkansas Lieutenant Governor, making people wonder if his family tell him to go away after a couple months of him bothering them. He currently is serving as lieutenant governor while bizarrely cashing in big by working for a consulting firm through an obscure legal loophole, as well. In May of 2016. He, along with Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson and Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge all surfaced around the same time to respond to President Obama’s directive about transgendered bathroom use, with Griffin himself taking to social media to call it “misguided”.

Over the past two years, Griffin has been remain content with sitting in Arkansas, giving a thumbs up to the spree of executions that Gov. Asa Hutchinson went on in April 2017, while also hiring a guy who worked for the Koch brothers on a SuperPAC to serve as his own deputy chief of staff and communications director, because that’s not shady at all.

In any event, Tim Griffin ‘s term in office is up in 2018, and he has confirmed he’ll be running for re-election. His challenger in November is Anthony Bland, an ordained minister and political neophyte who shifted from the race for Secretary of State of Arkansas to take a crack at Griffin for the Lieutenant Governor seat. With as red of a state as Arkansas is these days, Bland has an uphill battle ahead of him, to be sure. Y’know, Assuming Griffin doesn’t need to “spend time with his family” suddenly when a scandal involving him inevitably surfaces.

[worstblogever]

Since we were already noting some of the more odious individuals who won GOP Primaries on Tuesday night... I'll also add that the winner of the GOP Primary for a Nevada Assembly seat is literally a pimp.

Party of family values... pretty sure the Democrats have the claim on that now.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Is there dissention in the GOP ranks?

Pat Toomey pushes back against Trump administration tariffs

U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey is among a bipartisan group of 10 senators who introduced long-shot legislation Wednesday that would require Congress to sign off on tariffs imposed in the name of national security, defying President Donald Trump on a bedrock issue that once defined the GOP.

“Tariffs are taxes on American consumers,” Toomey, R-Pa., said in a statement Wednesday. “They hurt American workers, families, and employers. Imposing them under the false pretense of ‘national security’ weakens our economy, our credibility with other nations, and invites retaliation.”

Congressional Republicans are mostly at odds with what they view as Trump's protectionist instincts on trade. Despite much hand-wringing, prospects for any bill to challenge him remain uncertain. Many Republicans are hesitant to confront Trump in a legislative showdown that could end badly for them. Doing so could court a veto and bruise their standing with Trump voters they need in midterm elections.

**********

Corker disavows Trump’s trade tariffs: ‘An abuse of authority’

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) on Thursday blasted President Trump for moving to slap stiff tariffs on Mexico, Canada and the European Union, calling it “an abuse of authority intended only for national security purposes."

Corker, calling the tariffs the “wrong approach on trade,” said Trump should work with the United States' “most important trading partners” instead of taking action against them, The Chattanooga Times Free Press reported.

“If we truly want to level the playing field for American companies, we should be working with our friends and allies to target those actually responsible for tipping markets in their favor,” said Corker, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

GOP congressional candidate Grossman calls diversity 'a bunch of crap' in video

Republican congressional nominee Seth Grossman on Monday defended comments he made in a video that surfaced in which he called diversity in the Republican Party “a bunch of crap and un-American.”

The video, provided to The Press of Atlantic City by Democratic Super-PAC American Bridge to the 21st Century, was taken at a primary debate April 21 in Pittsgrove Township, Salem County.

Grossman told The Press of Atlantic City the point he was trying to make was that race or gender should not be a consideration when applying for a job or for college, and that applicants instead should be judged based on “character, merit and work.”

“It is my view that the best way to bring diversity to the Republican Party is for Republicans to openly say that the whole idea of diversity is a bunch of crap and un-American,” Grossman said in the video. “Diversity has become an excuse by Democrats, Communists and socialists to say that we’re all not created equal. … Somebody who is lesser-qualified will get a job anyway or they’ll get into college anyway because of the tribe that they’re with, what group, what box they fit into.”

Grossman also criticized former Lt. Gov. and Republican gubernatorial candidate Kim Guadagno, saying she was less qualified than her primary opponent, Jack Ciattarelli, but was nominated by the party because she was a woman and “checked the box.”

“I think Republicans make a big mistake when we nominate lesser-qualified candidates because they fit into that box,” he said.

More of that wonderful Trump mindset in action. And since Tami hails from the Garden State, she should know about this knuckledragger.

[Ragged Maw]

GOP congressional candidate Grossman calls diversity 'a bunch of crap' in video




More of that wonderful Trump mindset in action. And since Tami hails from the Garden State, she should know about this knuckledragger.

I think he’s trying to say that these institutions shouldn’t be required to choose based on superficial physical characteristics. Though he also seems to be assuming a “zero-sum” game across the board.

[KOSLOX]

I think he’s trying to say that these institutions shouldn’t be required to choose based on superficial physical characteristics. Though he also seems to be assuming a “zero-sum” game across the board.

Then perhaps he should articulate that better. Or leave speaking to someone more qualified.

[aja_christopher]

I think he’s trying to say that these institutions shouldn’t be required to choose based on superficial physical characteristics. Though he also seems to be assuming a “zero-sum” game across the board.

It's a nonsense argument anyway -- just more racist dog-whistle politics in action.

Equating "diversity" with "less-qualified" is always a dead giveaway -- the assumption that a "diverse" candidate is somehow inherently less-qualified than a "non-diverse" (i.e. "straight white male") candidate speaks volumes about said perspective.

[Tami]

GOP congressional candidate Grossman calls diversity 'a bunch of crap' in video




More of that wonderful Trump mindset in action. And since Tami hails from the Garden State, she should know about this knuckledragger.

Wrong end the state from where I am, but the Dems in NJ are going on overdrive to get/keep people like him out of office.

[Mister Mets]

Arpaio would be impressed.




Also, the Trump Administration is looking to strip people of their citizenship.




But yeah, keep telling me the Democrats are awful and the worst.

So, why shouldn't people who lied on documentation used to obtain citizenship be stripped of their citizenship?