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

[Tami]

Sally Yates: Protect the Justice Department from President Trump

The spectacle of President Trump’s now daily efforts to humiliate the attorney general into resigning has transfixed the country. But while we are busy staring at the wreckage of Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ relationship with the man he supported for the presidency, there is something more insidious happening.

The president is attempting to dismantle the rule of law, destroy the time-honored independence of the Justice Department, and undermine the career men and women who are devoted to seeking justice day in and day out, regardless of which political party is in power.

If we are not careful, when we wake up from the Trump presidency, our justice system may be broken beyond recognition.

[skyvolt2000]

In my uninformed opinion, the only thing keeping Republicans in line when it comes to Trump is plain old fear, fear of his legions of brain dead lemmings who, as I've said in this thread more than once, are devoted more to him, not the GOP. And if Republicans want to retain the White House in 2020, they're going to need his base, and that's why those mealy mouthed bastards have been doing the "See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" routine when it comes to the Velveeta Tyrant and his seemingly endless antics. But, like you said, sooner or later, even his most stalwart supporters in the House will growl "ENOUGH!" As Iron Maiden speculated, perhaps the appointment of the vulgar Tony Pinocchio might well be the tipping point.

No the fear is they all have to go back to their respective states and face the folks who voted for them.

All those folks who use Obamacare, public schools, legal gun owners, section 8 users and everything else-they have to face them come election time.

It's easy to trash programs when you don't use them or see the faces of who REALLY use them.

It's easy to showcase a certain demo as poster children of section 8 and police whatever-while ignoring who uses them or are the main targets of cop bullets.

Those folks are trying to stay in office and riding and die with Trump is not going to help them. Because smart folks are going to educate voters to no longer vote straight ticket sooner than later.
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[Tami]

No the fear is they all have to go back to their respective states and face the folks who voted for them.

All those folks who use Obamacare, public schools, legal gun owners, section 8 users and everything else-they have to face them come election time.

It's easy to trash programs when you don't use them or see the faces of who REALLY use them.

It's easy to showcase a certain demo as poster children of section 8 and police whatever-while ignoring who uses them or are the main targets of cop bullets.

Those folks are trying to stay in office and riding and die with Trump is not going to help them. Because smart folks are going to educate voters to no longer vote straight ticket sooner than later.
.

I think that the Republicans are doing a heck of a job of that all on their own. Every time they chicken out on a Town Hall or vote for a bill that is unpopular with just about everyone or fail to accomplish anything [like taxes, infrastructure or jobs] because they are too busy trying to keep Trump happy.....who they should be keeping happy is their constituents. Which they are failing miserably at.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

And Trump is still firing blanks as far as Foreign Policy is concerned.

Not sure if any other country has the ability and the will to take on North Korea, China has the power but I don't think they have the will or desire.

Taking on North Korea would be highly problematical because a cornered and desperate Kim Jong Un would retaliate by launching missiles, possibly nukes at Seoul and Tokyo, along with whoever was attacking him. Hell, he might even try his luck at landing one on the U.S. west coast, bottom line, no government wants that kind of unimaginable slaughter on it's hands, never mind that would almost certainly begin World War III. Regarding China, they have shown little to zero desire to curb Un and will pretty much let the trollish little shitstain do whatever he wants, within reason. Why? Because if Un is deposed/overthrown/taken out, and Korea unified, the country would most likely adopt a Western style democracy, and the dead LAST thing Beijing wants is a U.S. friendly satellite on it's back forty. People talk about how the Middle East has been a clusterfuck when it comes to political turbulence and the lack of anything even remotely resembling truly lasting peace, but the Korea situation is just as messy.

Now that Trumpcare has failed, it’s time to drop all the lies



That is what it has always been about, well 4 things: 1. Trump's ego/adoration of the crowd, 2. Money, 3. Destroying Obama, 4. Self Protection.

Pretty good. However, I would rate your list this way: 1) Destroying Obama, 2) Trump's ego/adoration of the crowd, 3) Money, 4) Self Protection

Depending on who you talk to, and I believe this theory, Trump's obsession with destroying Obama's legacy can be traced back to Barack making fun of him at the White House Correspondents Dinner back in 2011. Considering how petty, thin-skinned and vindictive Trump has shown himself as being, that was enough for him to launch a vendetta against his predecessor, one he's not going to give up on until everything Obama created is ashes at his feet. Remember, Trump nursed a grudge against a beauty pageant contestant who dissed him TWENTY YEARS ago and never forgot, having brought it up unbidden during the campaign, so a mere six years since that fateful dinner is nothing to Pissy POTUS when it comes to remembering a slight against him. That's the kind of deranged mentality we have in the Oval Office.

[Tami]

Reminder that McCain isn't the only hero in this saga

What McCain did was hard. What Murkowski and Collins did was much harder.

To be sure, McCain's vote against the bill was dramatic and decisive. He flew back to Washington from Arizona less than two weeks after he was diagnosed with brain cancer, after having surgery to remove a blood clot from above his eye. He made a sweeping speech about returning Senate procedure to a time of bipartisan, transparent cooperation. Then he proceeded to briefly horrify ACA proponents by voting yes on a motion to proceed vote, and yes again on the Republican Better Care Reconciliation Act.

So when McCain cast a performative last-minute vote against “skinny repeal,” it immediately overshadowed the two women Republican senators who did far more to halt Republicans' reckless efforts to repeal Obamacare. Sens. Lisa Murkowski (AK) and Susan Collins (ME) repeatedly stood their ground against the three health bills their colleagues tried to ram through the Senate.

Murkowski and Collins were the only Republicans to vote against a motion to proceed with the health care bill debate. Both women cast votes against the Better Care Reconciliation Act, which could have led to 22 million more uninsured Americans. They both also voted against the Obamacare Reconciliation Act — repeal and delay — which could have led to 32 million more uninsured Americans.

Both senators said they could not support bills that would leave millions of people without health insurance. They also opposed provisions to defund planned parenthood. When skinny repeal — seemingly the last shot for the GOP — came down, they stood their ground and voted no again.

[worstblogever]

Three years ago on this date, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” published a profile on Herman Cain, the former Godfather’s Pizza CEO who ran for president in 2012, taking his “AWWW… SHUCKY-DUCKY” attitude and tax plan of “NINE, NINE, NINE” onto the campaign trail to try to upset the big favorite for the Republican nomination, Mitt Romney. Cain inexplicably DID become the front runner ahead of Romney for a few weeks, in spite of an old video circulating of him singing a parody of John Lennon’s “Imagine” about pizza, his frequency to give an inspirational quote that was actually the lyrics to the theme song of the Pokemon 2000 movie, his belief that there may be a country called “Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan”, and his promise to put up a 20 foot border wall… with an electrified fence… and a moat… with alligators in it. Cain also said African-Americans had been “brainwashed” for not having a conservative point of view, froze up when asked about intervention in Libya, asked how to say “Delicious” in “Cuban” (which isn’t a language), talked about how the country needed a “leader and not a reader”, promised not to sign any bill more than three pages in length, and created some of the most bizarre campaign ads, including one that closed with him smiling in super-slow motion, and another that ended with his own campaign manager taking a dramatic drag off of a cigarette. And, in spite of all that, he still had wide support as a presidential candidate… until women started to come forth in droves to report that Herman Cain had sexually harassed them while working for him. The day Cain announced he was leaving the presidential race, he pulled up in a bus, and then, passionately and from his heart… he read… the lyrics to “The Power of One” from Pokemon 2000. For two minutes straight. We almost miss him, given the state of Republican presidential candidates only four years later.

It was two years ago that we published our original "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" profile of Todd Courser, a fanatical zealot from the Michigan House of Representatives who entered politics because “Jesus wanted him to run to save the party”. He nearly won the role of being the Chairman of the Michigan Republican Party, but settled instead for a set in the Michigan House of Representatives, and was 100% pro-life, which did include no exceptions for rape, incest, or risk to the mother’s life. He also believed in no exceptions to the 2nd Amendment, and supported “state’s rights”. But Courser’s favorite conservative battle was over “the sanctity of marriage”, where he not only opposed gay marriage, but even gay adoption. His credibility on trying to protect marriage took an amazing hit, though, when he was about to be caught having an affair with fellow anti-gay legislator Cindy Gamrat. Courser’s solution to covering up the affair when it hit the news cycle? He tried talking one of his aides into helping him stage a false separate scandal that would “bury the lead”, that he was paying for sex with male prostitutes. Fortunately, that aide recorded their conversation, and realizing how insane Courser really was, he went to the media with the WHOLE story. Courser and Gamrat were both kicked out of the Michigan state legislature, and have gone on instead, into what else? A career as conservative AM talk radio hosts. Last we heard, Courser was trying to win election as a county prosecutor, but even that seems unlikely. We still say he looks like Marvel Comics villain, the Hulk nemesis known as The Leader, if he were green.

On this date one year ago, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” published a profile about David Jolly, a one term Congressman who was once a lobbyist for The Church of Scientology. That… is not a traditional Republican affiliation, by any stretch. But wouldn’t you know it, his district has a higher-than-normal amount of big Scientology donors who contributed to his campaign, and he had the benefit of running for office in a special election, then was completely unopposed in the primary, and still only faced a Libertarian challenger, Alex Sink, in the general election. While Jolly was flying in under the radar in spite of his peculiar background, it became harder to hide as he decided, for whatever reason, to further elevate his profile and threw his hat into the ring to try and replace Sen. Marco Rubio for Florida’s U.S. Senate seat in the 2016 election. While up until this point, Rep. Jolly had no problem with folks knowing about his ties to Scientology, suddenly, he was caught trying to scrub that fact from his Wikipedia page by the press (as well as his previous support for same sex marriage that would hurt his chances in the GOP Primary). During his brief time in Congress, Jolly co-sponsored and voted for HR 36, a 20 week abortion ban, voted with most House Republicans to defund Planned Parenthood, voted for the Islamophobic American Security Against Foreign Enemies Act meant to try and stop aiding Syrian refugees fleeing the civil war there, and generally whatever terrible legislation the GOP vomited forth along partisan lines. Jolly’s ambition at running for U.S. Senate blew up in his face when Marco Rubio broke a promise to not run for re-election to the Senate and coasted past him easily in the GOP Primary, so Jolly has been relegated to cable news these days, where he has been a moderate Republican voice who admits he is embarrassed at what his party has become with Donald Trump as their flag-bearer, and would likely have zero chance to get elected as a member of the GOP anywhere as he’s started coming out in support of the Affordable Care Act (after having voted to repeal it while in Congress). Since Jolly’s out of office and we’ve not heard word of him trying to sneak his way into any 2018 race, we'll retire his CSGOPOTD profile at this time and go ahead and take a look at a different wackyRepublican today instead. (Current crazy/stupid scoreboard, is now 595-25, since this was established in July 2014.)



Welcome to the 595th original “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profile, where we’re going to be talking about Jon Keyser, a former member of the Colorado House of Representatives, and a guy who was enough of a rising star in the Colorado GOP that he was the favorite to win their nomination in the 2016 Primary to challenge sitting Democratic U.S. Senator Michael Bennet. There was just one wee little problem with this huge upward leap that Keyser was trying to make… he got caught forging the signatures of people on petitions to have his name added to the ballot, in a completely stupid move.

That’s not just a way to get disqualified from qualifying for office, but a crime, and it got Keyser 14 days in jail. It’s also the reason why Darryl Glenn became the nominee for U.S. Senate, inspired a prior CSGOPOTD profile by talking about how children conceived via rape are “a gift from God”, and let Michael Bennet coast to victory into what would have otherwise been a very tight race.

Anyway, like we were saying, Jon Keyser only served a little more than a year in office in the Colorado State legislature, and in that time, there are a few other legislative priorities he had that gave us concern. Like his support of HB 1288, to try and allow racial profiling by police departments, his vote against HB 1265, which would have allowed transgendered individuals to change their listed gender from their birth certificate, but most troubling on his record on LGBT rights was his vote against HB 1175, which would have created a ban on the barbaric practice of gay conversion therapy being performed on minors.

After his disastrous forgery scandal, Jon Keyser has moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to work as a corporate lawyer for Harley-Davidson Motorcycles. Whether or not he finds a way to stage a political comeback there or not remains to be seen. If he does, we’d like to assume he makes sure that all his supporters sign on the dotted line properly on any petitions.

[Tami]

The Daily 202: Trump’s hardball tactics backfire as ‘skinny repeal’ goes down

May all Trump's bully tactics be equally ineffective.

[Tami]

#2020Vision: Rep. Delaney enters 2020 race; Warren's fingerprints on the Democratic agenda

Let's be honest here: More than anything, this reflects the reality that just about every elected Democrat thinks a couple big things: 1) They can beat Trump, and 2) The best-known Democratic prospects -- former Vice President Joe Biden, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren -- all have good reasons they might not run, which could mean a truly wide-open race. After all, another Maryland Democrat, former Gov. Martin O'Malley, also looks likely to run.

Why do even Delaney's allies admit he is an extreme longshot? Beyond his lack of a national profile, Delaney is well to the right of the Democratic primary electorate. He has opposed a $15 minimum wage and supported the Trans-Pacific Partnership. He has proposed allowing businesses to repatriate money earned overseas without paying taxes in exchange for buying infrastructure bonds.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

I just heard that Reince of Darkness has been given the boot.

[Kusanagi]

I just heard that Reince of Darkness has been given the boot.

confirmed https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...reince-priebus

[JCAll]

I just heard that Reince of Darkness has been given the boot.

Well this should be fun. I know nothing about the guy replacing him, but I suspect within a week I'll know more than I've ever wanted to.

[BeastieRunner]

I just heard that Reince of Darkness has been given the boot.

confirmed https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...reince-priebus

Summon the oompa loompas!

[Tami]

confirmed https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...reince-priebus

The RNC/Republicans are not going to be too pleased about this. Priebus, like Sessions, is one of theirs.

[Tami]

Huckabee calls for repeal of 17th Amendment after healthcare failure

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) on Friday called for the repeal of the 17th Amendment and the return to senators selected by state legislatures after the Senate GOP's effort to repeal and replace ObamaCare died in a late-night vote.

The 17th Amendment was ratified in 1913 and established the popular election of senators. Previously, senators were elected by state legislatures.

I can hear him singing, "If I could turn back time..." Revoking the 17th would be a complete disaster.

[SquirrelMan]

Mooch's wife just filed for divorce.