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

[numberthirty]

I'll have to take your word for it.

So... what does it do then?

With a heads up(which everyone in Northern Illinois absolutely had here), I'd guess it bugs a few folks and some cops?

It's not like the Dan Ryan is a must for getting around in that city.

[Iron Maiden]

I'll have to take your word for it.

So... what does it do then?

I don't think it accomplishes much since the problem mostly involves gang activity and nobody in the neighborhood wants to talk to the police about who is doing the shooting. The tragedy is the victims are often an unintended target and a child will get killed. One shooting leads to another retaliatory shooting. It never seems to end.

[numberthirty]

Here's video. If you were headed Southbound, it wasn't even remotely your problem.

[numberthirty]

I don't think it accomplishes much since the problem mostly involves gang activity and nobody in the neighborhood wants to talk to the police about who is doing the shooting. The tragedy is the victims are often an unintended target and a child will get killed. One shooting leads to another retaliatory shooting. It never seems to end.

That is almost an entirely separate thread.

Even progress on the jobs front may not change a neighborhood where folks are staying mum for whatever reason.

Better jobs and a better income equality picture doesn't automatically create cooperation with the police.

[Tendrin]

Here's the actual reason the Dan Ryan was chosen which, as should surprise no one, has symbolic meaning to the communities involved.

“Today we got their attention,” Pfleger said afterward. He said the next step is accomplishing the actual goal — an “aggressive plan” to address the violence . Among the demands the protesters listed were more resources, jobs and better schools for their communities as well as stronger gun laws.

There’s a historical significance to marching along the Dan Ryan Expressway — a roadway some believe was built in the early 1960s to separate white communities and poor, black ones. To the west of the new interstate were Comiskey Park, home of the White Sox, and neighborhoods such as Bridgeport, home to then-Mayor Richard J. Daley and his clan. To the east rose the Robert Taylor Homes, a high-rise public housing complex that became notorious for its violence.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/a...hicago-freeway

[Darkspellmaster]

Here's the actual reason the Dan Ryan was chosen which, as should surprise no one, has symbolic meaning to the communities involved.



https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/a...hicago-freeway

Tendrin, Thank you!

There is a lot more to this than what Trey or Number 30 is explaining. What people don't understand is that there have been marches in neighborhoods where there was shootings, and in some cases people were shot at while doing memorials and the like. So they decided to take it to a place where it's not just going to get the attention of Chicago, we've been paying attention for a long time now, but on a national level, to maybe get people who are hiding this information to at least see that there are people tired of this.

Regarding the jobs thing. The issue is that there are some that can leave the area but most people can't. See there are a lot of single parents and in a lot of cases they have to take public transit. Now this wouldn't be a big deal if there was a way for the kids to be taken care of but because of not having daycare in the area or people to watch the kids, Moms and dad's can't go to work far so that they can be home for the kids. Then there are the gangs where they take out people's family if they talk. Just an example, there was a case a few years ago where a kid was killed in retaliation for a situation with another gang member. They killed a little kid as a payback for the father either getting into a fight or something with a rival gang. This is why people are scared to talk. They don't want to be killed.

Add to that you have issues with the cops, you have the whole split within the community, and the reason why people want the jobs there is to better the community. Closer jobs means parents can be closer to their kids. The kids have their parents, or an opportunity to work so they make money and don't feel the need to get involved in the gangs. There's a whole other level of stuff that I can't really explain because of the history, long and sordided that it is, is a lot to digest and I"m not the best person to go into the more cultural aspect of it.

So forgive me if I'm a bit pissed that I see people ragging on this. Do you know how nice it was that this went off without some sort of horrible incident.

[worstblogever]

In both 2015, as well as 2016, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" published profiles of Justin Harris, a member of the Arkansas House of Representatives who we covered not so much for his radically socially conservative record or that he was a theocrat who wanted Bible studies to be an actual elective course in Arkansas schools, but for the fact that he was involved in a scandal where he adopted two girls, then decided they were afflicted by demons, tried performing exorcisms on them, and then "rehomed" them with a former employee who he had fired who then started molesting the girls (all the while, collecting subsidies on his adopted children, who he no longer had in his home). Revoltingly, nobody registered on the ballot against Harris, and this story broke almost literally at the deadline to file for the 2014 elections... so he won another term in office unopposed. Because "rehoming" adopted children was legal at the time in Arkansas, he was not found to have committed a crime, but ignored calls to resign from office during the scandal. In fact, the self-righteous tool got on social media to quote scripture about being unfairly accused, and the Lord would "laugh at the wicked", showing us all that he felt HE was the real victim. Republicans and conservatives in Arkansas seem way too comfortable with his sordid history, as somehow, don't ask me how, he was given the “Power Of Courage” award by “The Family Council Action Committee” for how he “demonstrated courage by standing strong in faith when situations were tough at the State Capitol and they did so with grace" and was "consistently a model of Christian values in his home, community, and church.” Unless the FCAC was giving this award out ironically, I think they need their heads checked. Let's just be glad that Harris will no longer be a fixture in government, at least.

One year ago today, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" published its profile of Wendy Long, a two-time loser in attempts to be elected to the U.S. Senate in New York. In 2012, she allowed Sen. Kristen Gillibrand to win her Senate seat by the largest margin in New York history. In 2016… well, given how Sen. Chuck Schumer was one of the more popular senators in his home state, there weren’t a lot of GOP candidates looking to line up to take a crack at him… he was thought to be more formidable than even Gillibrand four years earlier. But, some New York pundits started trying to chip away at Schumer’s support with the Jewish community after the Obama administration and Democrats managed to approve a treaty to curb Iran’s nuclear program that they felt was too lenient. That opened the window that maybe someone could give Schumer a run or his money… and unfortunately for Republicans, the only candidate that came through that window was Wendy Long. After all, Wendy Long has been a friend to lunatic conservative filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza for a quarter century now, going all the way back to when both were in college together and while working on the school newspaper “accidentally” published an excerpt from Hitler’s Mein Kampf about how “warding off the Jews was doing the Lord’s work”, on Yom Kippur of all days. D’Souza actually managed to try and act like he was the victim after the two were forced to apologize for the actions of an “unnamed staffer”. Anyhow, D’Souza was convicted of election fraud, believed to have been in his attempts to get his old pal Wendy elected by making illegal straw donations to her campaign. Well, Long was already established as wanting to govern as a Catholic, outlawing abortion, gay marriage, and wanting to even push back against birth control. She eventually couldn’t pretend to be sane any longer herself, and got on Twitter to post about how a neighborhood had become crime infested after a “mosque displaced a church”, earning her the criticism of her own party. She was only warming up. Wendy Long started speaking in front of the Oath Keepers, the infamous anti-government militia group that will support anyone who lets them still have easy access to guns, and not be treated like the paranoid domestic terrorists that they are. Again, Wendy was keeping some interesting company. Finally, she hyperbolically referred to Chuck Schumer as an “enemy of the Constitution”, at an event that declared him one of the Oath Keepers’ “dirty dozen Marxist traitors in America”. Wendy Long only got 27% of the vote against Schumer. Considering she had yet to pay off over a quarter of a million dollars in debt from her FIRST attempt to be elected to office, she probably should have probably sat out her second one. But, y’know, she’ deranged and will be unlikely to even ever sniff a chance at a seat in the House, or the Senate, so we'll move on and start profiling a different wacky Republican on this date instead. (Current crazy/stupid scoreboard, is now 683-30, since this was established in July 2014.)


Gary Emineth

Welcome to the 683th original “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profile, where we’ll be discussing Gary Emineth, who was a 2018 candidate for U.S. Senate in North Dakota, and please do note the past tense we used in that introduction. Eminith is by no means a political outsider, though, having served several years as a member of the Republican National Committee and as the Chairman of the North Dakota GOP. He last ran for a seat in the North Dakota state legislature back in 1984, and 34 years later, he decided to take a crack at challenging Sen. Heidi Heitkamp.

The main problem with Emineth’s candidacy was that he apparently forgot all the horrible things he had posted on Facebook over the past several years that were collected by CNN’s K-File, and got reminded of them, one after another, in a live interview back home. Perhaps the most inflammatory post was Emineth submitting a poll question to his followers as to whether or not there should be a government ban on mosques. (For those who paid attention in basic civics courses, such a ban would be a violation of the First Amendment on the grounds of violating someone’s freedom of religion.) Anyway, a stammering Emineth could only come up with the following explanation:

"If you look at the context of some of these posts, I just retweeted it. I never made a comment on it, right? And so the bottom line is, a lot of the radicalization that's turned on in the country and around the world has come out of these mosques. So I just made a statement, I'm a Christian that believes we ought to propagate our Christian faith. So I see an article and I retweet, 'no more mosques in America,' you know, and like, and share. So I retweeted it. So yeah. So what? I believe in Christian — I believe in liberties, freedom, free speech, and Christian values is kind of my base. And so yeah, I posted it, so no big deal. I'm not that stressed out over it."

Of course, that’s not the only thing that was found on his Facebook page. There was also a post where Eminith complained about “a bunch of Arabs” during a protest by Palestinians against Israelis (hint: not Arabs) and another where he referred to President Obama as a “POS”, and he gave several explanations for what the abbreviation was supposed to mean, before settling on it being a typo and he meant to type “POTUS”. There was then a third post that compared people on welfare to wild animals that shouldn’t be fed, which Emineth didn’t deny that meaning of, and that defended, thinking he actually was making a valid point.

Needless to say, it wasn’t long thereafter that Emineth realized he wasn’t going to be able to beat Heidi Heitkamp, even if he managed to beat the rest of the candidates in the GOP Primary, making the most likely person to face off against her CSGOPOTD alumni Kevin Cramer. Emineth’s candidacy literally only lasted about a week and a half. Instead, Emineth submitted himself as a candidate for the North Dakota State Senate, choosing instead to challenge Democratic State Senator Erin Oban in District 35 of the State Senate. Perhaps further down ballot, no one will notice that Emineth is a poor-shaming Islamophobic bigot. We hope they still remember.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

North Korea Calls Talks ‘Regrettable’ After U.S. Says Progress Was Made

The two sides offered mixed messages on North Korean denuclearization. Hmm! I wonder what the "Dealmaker" thinks about that?

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Former GOP Leader Bill Frist Calls On Republican Senate To Protect Mueller

“When Trump talks about firing the special counsel or his power to pardon himself, he makes it seem as though he has something to hide,” Frist wrote. No ****, Sherlock!

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Trump Crammed A Remarkable Amount Of Misogyny Into Just 24 Hours

Even for him, this was astonishing. Hey, being a knuckledragging caveman when it comes to women is what Trump does best.

**********

Man Calls Skateboarding Teen ‘Mexican Piece Of S**t,’ Admits He’s Being Racist

“I’m a racist, at least I’m something!” the man rants in a video. More of the Trump effect of his overt racism at work.

**********

Defense Contractor Ousts Alleged White Supremacist After Uproar

The man held a government security clearance and was allegedly involved in last summer’s deadly Charlottesville rally. How in hell did something like THAT slip through the cracks?

[aja_christopher]

And on cue the Ghoul appears attempting to counteract Mueller's report on Trump's connections to Manafort.

Meanwhile, Manafort is trying to get his hearing moved out of Northern Virginia because it is "too liberal".

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“Nobody is going to consider impeachment if public opinion has concluded this is an unfair investigation, and that’s why public opinion is so important,” Giuliani told The Times."

http://thehill.com/homenews/administ...efore-agreeing

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Just one more Republican who is more concerned with putting party above country, regardless of the truth.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

And on cue the Ghoul appears attempting to counteract Mueller's report on Trump's connections to Manafort.

Meanwhile, Manafort is trying to get his hearing moved out of Northern Virginia because it is "too liberal".

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“Nobody is going to consider impeachment if public opinion has concluded this is an unfair investigation, and that’s why public opinion is so important,” Giuliani told The Times."

http://thehill.com/homenews/administ...efore-agreeing

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Just one more Republican who is more concerned with putting party above country, regardless of the truth.

It’s been awhile since the World last heard from Rantin’ Rudy. Guess he must’ve escaped from the psych ward again. Pity.

[aja_christopher]

It’s been awhile since the World last heard from Rantin’ Rudy. Guess he must’ve escaped from the psych ward again. Pity.

Like I said in a previous post this is all part of the Republican plan to protect Trump now that the heat is on with regards to his connections to Manafort and possibly even Manafort's recent evidence tampering -- Trump and his (Republican) accomplices are going to try to do everything possible to discredit the investigation, including using a "camera-ready" attorney like Guiliana to run defense in the media to try to sway "public opinion" regarding possible impeachment.

The fact that they are still using him after his numerous poor past appearances shows their desperation: the report on Manafort's connections to Trump was mentioned Friday and I don't doubt that Guiliani got something out there immediately -- the very same day -- specifically to shed doubt on said filing.

One of the Watergate prosecutors recently criticized Mueller for taking his time on this investigation -- claiming that he should at least file obstruction of justice charges at this point -- and given the fact that Trump is doing irreversible damage to both our domestic and international reputation as we speak, I can understand his concern.

It's possible that they are releasing info about Manafort's fraud trial being connected directly to Trump to remind the public that Trump is part of this investigation -- despite all of his repeated denials regarding "collusion" -- and that this will keep the heat on him with regards to his open (and treasonous) support of Putin's goals.

Regardless, unless they have solid evidence connecting Trump to Putin I doubt the Republicans in the Senate will impeach him even for blatant obstruction of justice -- that would require a level of integrity that we can no longer expect from them.

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"As Lacovara sees it, there’s already enough evidence to charge the president with obstructing justice, and Mueller should stop wasting his time trying to negotiate an interview with Trump.

“So, the question is, should the special counsel bring these matters to a head — at least with respect to President Trump — and do so without waiting for this never-ending saga of ‘maybe he will and maybe he won’t’ to continue playing out,” Lacovara said.

“My basic point is that Trump’s testimony is not necessary to either of those things — for the simple reason that whatever he says is not likely to be believable,” he added. “The president’s statements simply are irrelevant to the truth. Or putting it more pointedly, the truth is simply irrelevant to the president’s statements, and therefore one cannot rely on the president either to exonerate the innocent – the allegedly innocent – or to convict the allegedly guilty.”

https://www.yahoo.com/news/watergate...111754598.html

[ed2962]

I won't hold my breath waiting for you to elucidate.

Good. Cuz you know it didn't make sense when you wrote it.

Now, if you don't want to sing Abba with me, how about Black Sabbath? I like a lot of the Ozzy stuff and the first record with Ronnie James Dio. We're all comics fans right? The Jeff Lemire Black Hammer comic has a Deadman parody character named "Jack Sabbath" and a bartender named "Lonnie James".

Cry out legions of the brave...

[ed2962]

Instead of marching in the neighborhoods where these killings are occurring, they blocked a freeway, where almost nobody gets murdered. Blocking a freeway is not the way to win friends and influence people.

http://time.com/5332511/chicago-prot...an-expressway/

Thing is when folks do march in their own neighborhoods, but doesn't make national news.

[Tami]

Report: Defense contractor detained migrant children in vacant office building

As the Trump administration works to reunite 3,000 separated migrant children with their families, a new report from The Center for Investigative Reporting reveals a disturbing location where some of these youths have apparently been held. Joy Reid is joined by one of the reporters on the story, Aura Bogado.

• Kidnapping
• Human Trafficking
• Child Endangerment
• Child Abuse
• Extortion

These are just some of the criminal charges that could be levied against the Trump Administration, and I'm not even a Lawyer. Lawyers could probably come up with much more.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Like I said in a previous post this is all part of the Republican plan to protect Trump now that the heat is on with regards to his connections to Manafort and possibly even Manafort's recent evidence tampering -- Trump and his (Republican) accomplices are going to try to do everything possible to discredit the investigation, including using a "camera-ready" attorney like Guiliana to run defense in the media to try to sway "public opinion" regarding possible impeachment.

The fact that they are still using him after his numerous poor past appearances shows their desperation: the report on Manafort's connections to Trump was mentioned Friday and I don't doubt that Guiliani got something out there immediately -- the very same day -- specifically to shed doubt on said filing.

Okay, maybe I’m ignorant (god knows I’ve been called worse things), but I’ve never understood the GOP’s obsession with keeping Trump safe from harm. His numbers in the polls have never seen the high side of 40 percent since the day he was sworn in, so it’s not like there would be a revolt from the public if he’s removed from office, and if that were to happen, Pence would assume the duties of president, so Republicans would still control the Executive Branch. The only scenario where the GOP needs to keep Caramel Caligula around would be if they lose the midterms, Democrats reclaim either the House or Senate and he’d be the last line of defense against Dems obstructing them. Otherwise, Trump’s about as useful as **** on a warthog.