All purpose news and politics thread part v: The quickening

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, as well as 2018, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day posted profiles of Cathrynn Brown, a former a board member of the anti-abortion association Right to Life of Carlsbad who first found her way into the New Mexico House of Representatives in the 2010 Tea Party Wave who in January 2013, submitted a bill that would punish any rape victim seeking an abortion with jail time on that they would be “tampering with evidence” from the crime. This, but only a few months after the downfall of Congressman Todd Akin, and RNC Chairman Reince Priebus pleading with his party members to please stop talking about rape. Brown tried chalking up the whole thing to a “misunderstanding” (yeah, a former board member of an anti-abortion group just ACCIDENTALLY did that) and then shelved her bill, scrubbing most of her social media profile and hoping everyone would forget she did such a thing when the 2014 elections rolled around, and she’d be able to be re-elected. It worked, and since, Brown has continued voting for abortion restrictions, sponsored stricter voter ID laws to combat the statistically non-existent problem of “voter fraud”, tried passing legislation to deny foreign nationals the ability to get drivers’ licenses, and even voted against minimum wage increases. In 2017, Brown showed she’s also terrible on LGBT rights, as she voted against a bill that banned gay conversion therapy in New Mexico.

She most recently has voted against expanding background checks on firearm purchases, and a bill that would require insurance companies to provide coverage that included paying for contraceptives for women.

Cathrynn Brown was re-elected to a fifth term in 2018 by the benefit of getting to run unopposed. We’ll just have to keep hoping someone eventually challenges her and sends her off to a farm upstate for dim-witted conservatives in 2020, when she’ll have completed a whole decade in the state legislature.


 

[Mister Mets]

Nadler sent everyone home to get some sleep, thatteh vote would be at 10 AM. Republicans are angry. Fighting with Democrats over this for 14 hours straight isn't enough.

Like a little kid who cries that he doesn't want to go to bed.

It seems congressional Republicans were pissed that they had to come home on a weekend.

I think Nadler was correct on the decision. It seems congressional Republicans used procedural motions to delay the vote, and there was a potential optics problem if the vote occurred in "the dead of night."

wh-wh-whaaaaat????

https://www.kentucky.com/news/politi...238320918.html

I'm really curious about why Bevin issued hundreds of pardons.

Was he doing it to be obnoxious, or is he concerned about overpolicing? What's interesting in the response is that you've got outrage from many of the same corners where people are calling for a lot more pardons.

The only way to remove a federal judge is by impeachment, The president cannot make an executive order to remove and/or replace them. A replacement for any judgeship that has on open office (retired, resigned or impeached) will have to be approved by the Senate. The president only has the power to place a candidate for the position to go before the Senate. It is set up that so that judges do not serve at the pleasure of the president. Judge G Thomas was the last federal judge to get impeached 2010, on charges of accepting bribes and making false statements under penalty of perjury.

Yeah, you're not going to be able to remove any judges by executive order.

That would be a unanimous supreme court decision.

We can complain about how Presidents use executive orders, but even those still have limits (IE- You can't have an executive order changing the constitution.)

Did he forget the GOP spent about six to eight years calling for Obama's impeachment from 2009-2016? They just, y'know, didn't have evidence of a crime? ANY crime, let alone a high crime mentioned in the Constitution like bribery?

I forgot about how Republicans tried to impeach Obama during the six years they had the House. The mainstream media has been remarkably quiet on this.

That party line vote must have occurred without any media coverage whatsoever.

[Mister Mets]

Not that he "Won't Push Hard Enough..."

That I don't really buy into him having a plan to push to start with. I tend to believe that he has a "Get Into Office"/"Tread 'Business As Usual..." Water", and that is as far as the plan goes.

Pick whatever you believe Sanders' faults are. You will never make an even remotely serious case for lacking a plan of action being one of those faults.

There are quite a few serious arguments.

The main argument is that he doesn't know how to use executive power or to work with Congress to get his agenda passed. These are necessary items to a plan of action.

If that's the case, let's just get Warren and Sanders out of the race.

Heck, just cut out the middleman and vote for Trump.

Say what you will about Warren, she seems to have an understanding of how to use Congress and the federal bureaucracy to get things done.

If Biden was President they would not have gotten the ACA through. It's still likely a Dem wins and they don't get the Senate. Historically the next midterm is a defeat for the President's party. Biden might just speed it up so that a Republican who is slighltly charasmatic and not as scary Trump takes him out in one term after he gets nothing done. Think a Rubio type.

An interesting problem with Biden, Sanders, and Bloomberg I suppose is that they probably won't run for a second term, so there's more likely to be an open election in 2024, which Democrats are historically more likely to lose (on the other hand, if Democrats win that one they might be more likely to stay in the White House in 2028 as an incumbent runs for reelection.)

Let's put this into reasonably simple terms...

If someone had looked at Mike Tyson's boxing record leading up to his fight with Buster Douglas(roughly how you seem to be judging things), they would have picked Tyson as a guy who could easily accomplish beating Douglas.

The problem with that approach is that it would tell you nothing about the guy who turned up on the night of that fight. It would only tell you about his record.

Biden, right now, is essentially Mike Tyson walking into the ring on that night. I don't care what folks want to believe about his record up until then. The reality of what is going on right now says a whole lot more than one could glean from said record.

How do you know in advance that Sanders is Tyson and not the ten boxers Buster Douglas beat the holy hell out of before he fought Tyson?

Let's put it this way...

Here is Biden from very, very recently...

https://www.politico.com/news/2019/1...lection-084359

But that is a big part of what happened.

A nation with an electorate that is similar to the US, but more progressive, went for a flawed conservative over the elderly socialist.

[Tami]

Judge orders state to purge more than 200,000 Wisconsin voters from the rolls

PORT WASHINGTON - An Ozaukee County judge on Friday ordered the state to remove hundreds of thousands of people from Wisconsin's voter rolls because they may have moved.

The case is being closely watched because of the state's critical role in next year's presidential race. Circuit Judge Paul Malloy also denied the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin's petition to intervene.

Lawyers for the League and for the Wisconsin Elections Commission indicated they will appeal and asked Malloy to stay his ruling pending those appeals, but he declined.

Before Friday's hearing, Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul said in an interview that quickly removing voters from the rolls would cause "clear harm to Wisconsin voters." That's because some people who haven't moved would likely lose their ability to vote, at least for the time being.

"Any time people have to go through extra steps to vote, and certainly re-registering is a significant additional step, the result is that fewer people end up voting," he said. "Fewer people will be registered. A number of people will have to re-register."

Democratic Gov. Tony Evers on Twitter railed against the ruling.

"I won the race for governor by less than 30,000 votes," he wrote. "This move pushed by Republicans to remove 200,000 Wisconsinites from the voter rolls is just another attempt at overriding the will of the people and stifling the democratic process."

Voters who are removed from the voter rolls, whether correctly or mistakenly, can regain the ability to cast ballots by re-registering online, at their clerk's office or at the polls on election day.

Of the 234,000 letters that were sent, about 60,000 were returned as undeliverable as of Dec. 5, according to the Elections Commission. As of then, about 2,300 recipients of the letters said they continued to live at their address and about 16,500 had registered to vote at new addresses.

Wisconsin is perhaps the most heavily targeted state in the 2020 presidential election. Donald Trump narrowly won the state in 2016 after it went to Democrats in presidential elections for decades.

The letters went to about 7% of Wisconsin's registered voters, but were concentrated more heavily in some parts of the state than others.

[Tendrin]

I don't profile these folks just because, as some would have you believe, they're a Republican.

These people have to stand out as the most fanatical kooks of a party of extremists and white nationalists.

And yeah, Becker's anti-choice dogma definitely qualifies.

Just think of that 2020 update where you get to write about him citing one hundred year old medical journals for 'proof', WBE!

[Tendrin]

I think Nadler was correct on the decision. It seems congressional Republicans used procedural motions to delay the vote, and there was a potential optics problem if the vote occurred in "the dead of night."

I'm really curious about why Bevin issued hundreds of pardons.

Was he doing it to be obnoxious, or is he concerned about overpolicing? What's interesting in the response is that you've got outrage from many of the same corners where people are calling for a lot more pardons.

It's not that he's issuing a lot of pardons. It's that he's issuing pardons for people who have child porn on their phones, or BEHEADED SOMEONE.

[Mister Mets]

It's not that he's issuing a lot of pardons. It's that he's issuing pardons for people who have child porn on their phones, or BEHEADED SOMEONE.

They're mentioning the number of pardons as a big point of what he did wrong, as in the Huffington Post piece.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/gop-k...b047e8889cff4d

Part of the implication is that there are so many released criminals we can't even determine how many are beyond the pale.

[Iron Maiden]

Judge orders state to purge more than 200,000 Wisconsin voters from the rolls

I hope people in Wisconsin take this seriously. I don't know about everyone else, but here in Indiana I make sure to vote in every election, most importantly the primaries. I figure if something comes up with my status in the primary, it can be taken care of by the time of the general election. Trouble is the primaries can get overlooked because they don't get much coverage in Indiana....and they occur in May when most every state is done by then.

[Malvolio]

It's not that he's issuing a lot of pardons. It's that he's issuing pardons for people who have child porn on their phones, or BEHEADED SOMEONE.

It also appears that he pardoned people whose families donated to his campaign war chest. As always, follow the money.

[Tami]

I hope people in Wisconsin take this seriously. I don't know about everyone else, but here in Indiana I make sure to vote in every election, most importantly the primaries. I figure if something comes up with my status in the primary, it can be taken care of by the time of the general election. Trouble is the primaries can get overlooked because they don't get much coverage in Indiana....and they occur in May when most every state is done by then.

It's getting to the point where every voter needs to check, however they can, that they are still registered to vote well before each election. Also, do so for family members and friends who may not know how or are unable to do so themselves.

Relying on State Govts to keep you on the rolls is naive.

[Gray Lensman]

It also appears that he pardoned people whose families donated to his campaign war chest. As always, follow the money.

My first thought was to remember the Houston judge who let every defendant go after losing the election to a reformer, insisting that it must be what the voters wanted. Now I think it could be both, follow the money hidden in an act of spite.

[Tami]

Rep. Jeff Van Drew, anti-impeachment Democrat, expected to switch parties after Trump meeting

Officials said Saturday that Rep. Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey, a vocally anti-impeachment Democrat, will join the Republican Party in the coming days following a Friday meeting with President Trump — a move that would put a political chill on the Democrats’ expected vote to impeach Trump next week.

Two Democratic officials familiar with Van Drew’s discussions in recent days said they believe he has decided to switch parties. The White House meeting was confirmed by a Trump administration official and one of the Democratic officials.

Van Drew, his chief of staff and communications director did not respond to requests for comment Saturday.

Van Drew, who won a previously Republican seat in 2018, has been a critical voice opposing impeachment inside the Democratic ranks, saying that the process is too divisive and comes too close to the 2020 presidential election. A member of the centrist Blue Dog Coalition, Van Drew has positioned himself at the rightmost flank of his party.

Oh boy, that's not going to go over well in NJ.

More info

Van Drew party switch imminent

Over preceding weeks, support for Van Drew among local Democrats has ebbed away, the retreat fueled by his opposition to impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump.

Atlantic County Democratic Chairman Michael Suleiman recently told Van Drew he could not guarantee the congressman a primary victory unless he moved on the issue.

Brigid Harrison, a well-known political science professor who lives in Atlantic County, was considering challenging Van Drew from the left next year.

Some of the state’s top Democrats, including Gov. Phil Murphy, Senate President Steve Sweeney and U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, have declined to endorse Van Drew’s re-election over the past week, with Murphy and Sweeney citing impeachment and Menendez deferring to the second congressional district’s Democratic County chairs.

Support for a switch was mixed on the Republican side.

Many local Republicans who have fought Van Drew in the decades before he ascended to Congress, including Cape May County Republican Chairman Marcus Karavan, have said he should remain in the Democratic Party.

State Sen. Michael Testa, the Cumberland County GOP chairman, on Thursday declined to say whether Van Drew should be welcomed into the fold.

Testa is an honorary chairman of Trump’s New Jersey re-election campaign.

State Sen. Joe Pennacchio, who is also an honorary chair of the president’s state re-election campaign, said his party should welcome Van Drew.

White House sources have told the New Jersey Globe that the president wants Van Drew to switch, and The Washington Post on Saturday reported Trump made a personal plea to Van Drew pushing the congressman’s defection this week.

[Celgress]

Please delete this post

[Tami]

Kurt Bardella House Republicans' Trump impeachment strategy is simple: Distract, deceive and yell

If there’s one thing we’ve seen consistently from Republicans during the past few weeks of congressional impeachment hearings, it’s yelling.

The articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump have been drafted and the process is now moving steadily towards a vote in the House. But GOP lawmakers, especially GOP men, aren't going down quietly. Perhaps Democratic Coalition’s Jon Cooper put it best when he tweeted Monday, “Why is Doug Collins always yelling?” CNBC’s Christina Wilkie pointed out a similar phenomenon, noting that Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz was "yelling about whether the rules of the hearing are, in fact, the rules of the hearing.”

[WestPhillyPunisher]

It's getting to the point where every voter needs to check, however they can, that they are still registered to vote well before each election. Also, do so for family members and friends who may not know how or are unable to do so themselves.

Relying on State Govts to keep you on the rolls is naive.

I’ve found this to be the best way to check your voting status:

Vote.org

I used it myself, it’s quick and easy and it positively confirmed my status. Everyone needs to check their status, then get their relatives and friends to check as well. Take NOTHING for granted.