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

[worstblogever]

The most frightening thing about Gohmert is his former profession.

I looked it up on wikipedia because I was curious about what he was doing before he got elected to Congress.

He was a judge.

Heck, Roy Moore keeps getting to be a judge on Alabama's Supreme Court.

...

Note to self: Add Roy Moore to the queue, he ran for Alabama governor within the past 5 years.

[md62]

That's the kind of thinking that leads to silly "Send socks to Tsunami victims" campaigns instead of just writing a check to the Red Cross or Doctors Without Borders who know what they are doing.

Do repairs on a neighbor's house that can't afford to do it themselves. Sacrifice your Christmas to give a family whose parent is in jail a decent Christmas. Help repair a playground that the community has neglected.

Do something physically. Give your time. Sometimes time is more precious than money.

Did you even read my follow up post? I only support causes where I know the money is going...

[the4thpip]

Did you even read my follow up post? I only support causes where I know the money is going...

Some of the most urgent needs in the world will always be somewhere were you cannot personally supervise the use of your money.

[Tendrin]

Some of the most urgent needs in the world will always be somewhere were you cannot personally supervise the use of your money.

Private charity is often an exercise in control for the giver anyways. Having been on the receiving end of such instances of 'private charity', I can say it sucks ass.

I mean, ****. Look at all the moral panic in this country over any time that someone using food stamps might buy something 'luxury', that is to say, 'in some way we don't approve of'.

[o1pickleboy]

I wonder if Michael Brown murder will fire up voters and swing elections.

[worstblogever]

I wonder if Michael Brown murder will fire up voters and swing elections.

With some of the politicians involved in Missouri, at least.

[worstblogever]

It's our latest reminder of what a crock the statement "Nuh uh. Both parties are just as bad," actually is...

It’s Your Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day!

(And please, for those who those who really felt the "Both Parties are Just as Bad" statement is defensible, remember, I'm still challenging you to write your own essays each day, to keep pace with me, if it's actually "just as bad". Keep in mind, you have to pick someone from politics who has either ran for, held office within the past 5 years, and have multiple verifiable news sources to any quotes/beliefs they might have to build a solid, established track record of stupid that clearly isn't a fluke. Hell, we'll even accept people who help write party platforms within that time frame. Current crazy/stupid scoreboard, is now 45-0, since this was established on 7-18-14)


Lindsey Graham

The Senior Senator from South Carolina, Lindsey Graham is someone that somehow flies under the kooky radar, through just being inconsistently and unpredictably crazy. He most often draws laughs for sounding like one of the less desirable of Scarlett’s suitors from Gone With the Wind. One minute, he’ll intelligently explain that the Tea Party won’t be sustainable for a long term because the movement has no unified vision for our government, or mention that there’s really no weight behind the charges of supposed targeting of Tea Party groups by the IRS, then talk about immigration reform as something possible…. And the next minute, he’s delving into conspiracy theories about Benghazi, or predicting imminent terrorist attacks (that don’t ever happen). It’s the warmongering, really, that seems to be his thing.

Lindsey Graham graduated from law school with a J.D. in 1981, and then served in the United States Air Force from 1982-1988 as a judge advocate, sent to Europe to work as a military prosecutor. He was an Air Force Reservist and during the Gulf War, called up to active duty to debrief Operation Desert Storm pilots in the laws of war. He would later be engaged in controversy over this, when it was noted in 1998 that his website had him listed as a “Operation: Desert Storm Veteran”, in spite of the fact that he never left South Carolina during the conflict. Graham explained it away, saying, “I never said I was a combatant.”

Graham was elected to the U.S. House in 1995, holding South Carolina’s 3rd District seat until 2003. At that time, the late great pro-segregation advocate Strom Thurmond had announced he was retiring from the Senate at the ripe old age of 100, and Graham zoomed in to move into the upper chamber, where he quickly allied himself with Senators John McCain, and Joe Lieberman, forming the “Three Amigos” of the Senate, as they were nicknamed. The trio together proved themselves to be some of the biggest hawks during the “War on Terror”, appearing practically weekly on one of the Sunday morning news shows, almost in a rotation from network to network in a cycle. And that, is where the real adventures of Lindsey Graham being a bit scary begin.

[worstblogever]

• In 2007, 2010, 2012, and 2013, intelligence reports were given that Iran was NOT developing nuclear weapons. Each time, Sen. Graham refused to believe the report, and advocated going to war. Several of those times, coolers heads pointed out that perhaps diplomatic sanctions would be a better first step (also because they learned how foolish it was to ignore intelligence reports and invade a country whose name starts in “Ira” and ends in a single consonant back in 2003, when we did it with Iraq. But Lindsey Graham apparently learned nothing from that.)
• In 2009, Graham advocated for permanent detainment of Guantanamo Bay detainees without a trial, justifying it by referencing the model set by the United States previously when it had internment camps for the Japanese during World War II. (Nothing like using a disgraceful page from our nation’s history as a reference to justify something else shady.)
• In June of 2010, Lindsey Graham, previously a rare Republican who was willing to work towards legislation on climate change, reversed course and became a climate change denier, going so far as to oppose a climate change bill that he himself had authored.
• In July 2012, Graham defended presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s use of off-shore bank accounts to dodge paying more taxes by saying, “It’s more American to avoid paying taxes, legally.”
• August 2012, Lindsey Graham is one of many high profile Republicans to participate in “Chik-Fil-A Day”, supporting the fast food franchise for their anti-LGBT stance by having lunch from there, and posting a picture of himself with it on Facebook.
• In December 2012, Senator Graham decided to discuss the marriage equality debate, wondering out loud if it would then lead to polygamy. And, he continued on, deciding to compare this debate to another great debate on equality… when the slaves were set free at the end of the Civil War.
  

  Can — can I suggest this? Slavery was outlawed by a Constitutional amendment. Go watch “Lincoln,” a great movie. The people decided. The question for us is who should decide these things? Should it be a handful of judges or should it be the people themselves? And I come out on the side of the people themselves. Different people will look at it differently. But slavery was outlawed by a Constitutional amendment. If you want to propose a Constitutional amendment legalizing same-sex marriage and it passes, that’s the law of the land.

• On January 29th, 2013, Lindsey Graham went on Fox News Sunday to discuss Benghazi and had the opinion that based on her testimony, “Hilary Clinton got away with murder.” (Nevermind that the Pentagon acknowledged that the less than airtight security was due to Congress cutting funding to the base, and requests for more security never saw the Secretary of State’s desk.)
• In February 2013, Graham was challenged by Congressional Witness and Milwaukee police chief Edward Flynn, after Graham tried claiming that they didn’t serve any purpose.
• On March 6th, 2013, Graham spoke at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, and claimed the citizenry of the United States need to be able to easily acquire assault rifles to combat “roaming gangs” that would be running amok after say, a state of emergency like a hurricane. Thankfully, Holder pointed out that the already chaotic environment of say, Hurricane Katrina would not have been improved with people running around with automatic weapons while looting was going on.
• In September 2013, Sen. Graham was back in ultimate “war hawk” mode, now claiming that the Assad regime was trying to develop a nuclear weapon, and fearing that if troops weren’t sent into the middle of the Syrian Civil War, that terrorists could get a nuke, Charleston, South Carolina could be targeted.
• Throughout much of 2013, Sen. Graham was one of many members of the GOP blocking all Obama administration nominees for Cabinet posts as part of a campaign to “get to the bottom of what happened in Benghazi”. By November of that year, it was revealed the “on the ground witness in Benghazi” interviewed by CBS News was actually a complete liar. In spite of that, Graham still refused to relent on blocking a new head of the Dept. of Homeland Security and Federal Reserve chair.
• Graham went far enough as to defend comments by Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade that Syrian rebels chanting “Allahu Akbar” was a “war chant”.
• On January 29th, 2014, right after President Obama’s State of the Union address, Graham told the press that in spite of the president’s assertion that the State of the Union was strong, that instead, "The world is literally about to blow up and our president did not really paint a fair picture of the threats we face."
• In March 2014, Sen. Graham criticized President Obama for not intervening in Ukraine, taking to Twitter to complain about it and compare it to what else? BENGHAZI.
  

  It started with Benghazi. When you kill Americans and nobody pays a price, you invite this kind of aggression.

• In May 2014, Sen. Graham went as far as to call the White House staff “scumbags” and claim they lied about Benghazi.
• Also in May 2014, Graham pushed for a bill that would create a ban on abortion after 20 weeks, moving back the date set by 4 weeks. He justified it by claiming “I know twins who were born at 20 weeks.” That would be a lie, of course, because medical experts say a fetus is not viable until about 22-24 weeks of pregnancy, and the most premature birth ever recorded was born at 21 weeks and 6 days, in 2007. The odds of TWO babies being born that premature, and both surviving, would be astronomical, and definitely newsworthy.
• In June 2014, Graham reversed course, this time on foreign policy, advocating that the United States should go back into Iraq to combat ISIS/ISIL militants, but for the first time, suggested a military alliance between the United States and Iran to do so, comparing it to the way the U.S. allied with Stalin during World War II.
• A month later, and the United States had not started a war in Syria, Iraq, Iran, or the Ukraine, and it led Graham to call Secretary of State John Kerry “delusional”, and President Obama the “King of Indecision”.
• In spite of the fact that there were already air strikes under way against ISIS/ISIL, Sen. Graham said that if the “United States doesn’t go on offense, the terrorists are coming here,” in a moment of complete paranoid warmongering.

And of course, in my conclusion to this list, I have to go ahead and point out the depressing fact that in spite of Lindsey Graham being anti-LGBT rights, very pro-choice, having reverse course and being against climate change research, etc. etc…. South Carolina Republicans censured him in 2014 for not being conservative enough. They couldn’t manage to unseat him in the GOP Primary, though. It might have had something to do with one of his opponents being a reality show star who’s also an ex-convict (for cocaine possession with the intent to sell, no less!) and another, a former Spartanburg Police Officer Dave Feliciano saying that the people of South Carolina should be tired of their “ambiguously gay senator”.

No word on whether he would be Ace or Gary.

[o1pickleboy]

With some of the politicians involved in Missouri, at least.

I think that is almost guaranteed, I was wonder more about the red states with high minority populations.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

You just gotta love crazy ass chickenhawks like Graham who's hot to have the U.S. go to war somewhere, ANYWHERE. Problem is, bombing any country or regime nutsacks like him don't like back to the Stone Age doesn't solve anything, but only makes the situation worse, especially in the Middle East which has been a clusterfuck ever since the Last Supper and will most likely STILL be a mess when James T. Kirk is boldly going where no man has gone before. Getting more involved in that unholy quagmire than we already are now is a no-win proposition, but fools like Graham don't seem to understand that.

[Tendrin]

You just gotta love crazy ass chickenhawks like Graham who's hot to have the U.S. go to war somewhere, ANYWHERE. Problem is, bombing any country or regime nutsacks like him don't like back to the Stone Age doesn't solve anything, but only makes the situation worse, especially in the Middle East which has been a clusterfuck ever since the Last Supper and will most likely STILL be a mess when James T. Kirk is boldly going where no man has gone before. Getting more involved in that unholy quagmire than we already are now is a no-win proposition, but fools like Graham don't seem to understand that.

"Someone said, 'we can't just bomb,'" he said, speaking about an ABC panel he was on. "You know, why don't we just [bomb?] We know where ISIS is. What’s the harm of bombing them at least for a few weeks and seeing what happens? I don’t think there’s much in the way of unanticipated side effects that are going to be bad there. We could kill a lot of very bad guys!"

Bill Kristol on our foreign policy.

Also, WBE, Jesus Christ that giant Lindsey Graham photo needs some kind of spoiler tag or something because oh god my eyes.

[7thangel]

graham is definitely a chickenhawk, but i feel that some of it is an attempt show how much of a 'man' he is to fight off the subtle and not-so-subtle suggestions that he's gay from both sides of the ideological aisle

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Bill Kristol on our foreign policy.

Another brain dead moron who just doesn't get it. For every ISIS bad guy we kill, a dozen more would take his place, and nothing gets solved. That's the problem with a "Rolling Thunder" strategy in the Middle East, it'd be nothing more than a recruiting tool and an incubator for legions of crazed fanatics willing to kill and die for their twisted beliefs. THAT is the sort of "side effect" we'd have to deal with, and, chances are, it WOULD be bad.

[Michael P]

How about we just all agree that when someone magically pops up in this thread making a claim while refusing to post evidence to support it we just ignore that person?

I like the way Snrub thinks.

[worstblogever]

Bill Kristol on our foreign policy.

Also, WBE, Jesus Christ that giant Lindsey Graham photo needs some kind of spoiler tag or something because oh god my eyes.

Bill Kristol is someone I absoletely would profile... if he ever was allowed to run for office. I have no idea why the hell anyone in the GOP ever listens to him. Like... maybe once, I could get... but he's so impressive about being consistently wrong about decisions that cost thousands of American lives, hundreds of thousands of lives in other countries, and billions of dollars. He's a complete f*** up, yet remains an "expert".