All purpose news and politics thread part v: The quickening

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Senate Reaches Deal On Massive Coronavirus Relief Bill

Democrats succeeded in attaching more money for hospitals and health care workers, as well as some restrictions on a fund to help big business.

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Why Governors Want Trump To Take Charge Of Medical Supplies ― And Why He Hasn’t

The debate focuses on a 1950 law, but it’s also about whether and when the president should take charge in a pandemic. Frankly speaking, I wouldn't want Trump in charge of a box of bandages, never mind a pandemic. Meanwhile....

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America’s Governors Reject Trump’s Coronavirus Timeline

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican, accused the White House of running on a schedule made of some “imaginary clock.” In other words, boys and girls....we're on our own!

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India’s Prime Minister Decrees 21-Day Lockdown

It’s the world’s most extensive stay-at-home order yet in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.

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‘I’d Rather Die’: Glenn Beck Urges Older Americans To Work Despite Coronavirus

“Even if we all get sick, I’d rather die than kill the country,” the TV personality said. You go right ahead and croak, homie. At 61, I prefer to go on living, thankyouverymuch. Then, there's this:

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Trump’s Priorities Inspire New Hashtag: #NotDying4WallStreet

One Twitter user correctly noted that “not one single human being deserves to die for somebody else’s stock portfolio.”

[ed2962]

Natalie Wynn ( popular Youtuber Contrapoints) on Hear the Bern talking about healthcare and reaching out to people you might not agree with in order to build coalitions.

https://www.contrapoints.com/media/03242020

[jetengine]

Natalie Wynn ( popular Youtuber Contrapoints) on Hear the Bern talking about healthcare and reaching out to people you might not agree with in order to build coalitions.

https://www.contrapoints.com/media/03242020

Any site that pushes the myth of cancel culture isn't worth the time of day.

[XPac]

It's becoming clear that there won't be a stimulus.

The issue was never that anyone on either side didn't want it or feel it was needed... it was purely BOTH sides wanting to sneak other political junk in there which slowed it down.

It's inevitable... it just took some time to get there because politics.

[ed2962]

Any site that pushes the myth of cancel culture isn't worth the time of day.

While I'd agree that "Cancel Culture" isn't the thing that some people pretend it is, the behavior of people doing the alleged "cancelling" isn't a myth and I'd argue that Wynn actually has a nuanced take on it.

[Kirby101]

The issue was never that anyone on either side didn't want it or feel it was needed... it was purely BOTH sides wanting to sneak other political junk in there which slowed it down.

It's inevitable... it just took some time to get there because politics.

The original Senate bill had a $500 billion slush fund for corporations and almost no help for low paid workers. Do you call the Dems opposition to that "political junk". Or was that junk money for hospitals and health care workers? It took the Dems in the House one weekend to pass the first bill. This isn't "both sides". Seeing what each side demanded tells you all you need to know.

[XPac]

The original Senate bill had a $500 billion slush fund for corporations and almost no help for low paid workers. Do you call the Dems opposition to that "political junk". Or was that junk money for hospitals and health care workers? It took the Dems in the House one weekend to pass the first bill. This isn't "both sides". Seeing what each side demanded tells you all you need to know.

There's always a million little things both sides are trying put in there... tax credits for clean energy, medicaid funding for non-profits like planned parenthood, etc. All those things were being hammered out, and that will slow down the process considerably.

I shouldn't call it "political junk" though... that was probably uncharitable of me. You can argue that stuff is important too. It slows things down... but that's just a part of the process. And it does seem like they're making headway in getting this done, which is the important thing.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

The original Senate bill had a $500 billion slush fund for corporations and almost no help for low paid workers. Do you call the Dems opposition to that "political junk". Or was that junk money for hospitals and health care workers? It took the Dems in the House one weekend to pass the first bill. This isn't "both sides". Seeing what each side demanded tells you all you need to know.

The Democrat tried to add in environmental regulations to the bill. I’m all for the Green New Deal. But this isn’t the time to try to have a fight over it for a very necessary bill. The additions the Republicans are making are worse, but you lose a framing battle when you can’t control yourself enough to just offer a bill that is too the point.

This should be a very direct bill and any fights should be about the nature of the relief, not added provisions

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

Yeah, and naturally, that's spreading throughoiut the GOP through Fox News. Brite Hume called it a 'reasonable opinion' earlier, Glenn Beck saying he'd die for the economy and so on.

They're completely insane.

Good. They can go first making this sacrifice. Hopefully when they get sick they are willing to have some dignity and honor their sacrifice by not taking healthcare resources that those who aren’t willing to die will need

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

Every adult will get a one time means tested check for around 1.2k. Businesses will get a free windfall of cash with no strings attached. So basically we got held hostage for a check that won’t matter in a month so business like Boeing, who despite saying they wouldn’t take government help if it included equity but still had a special provision in the bill just for turn, can get a free for all.

Funny, nobody asking how we pay for this right now.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, as well as 2019, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day posted profiles of the current U.S. House Representative for Colorado’s 4th District, Ken Buck, who in his original profile, we noted was forced to resign in disgrace from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Colorado in 2001, and in 2005, while working at the Weld, Colorado District Attorney’s office, he would seize the tax information of five thousand people in a raid on a tax service, getting the office sued by the public for violating their constitutional rights by seizing their personal information. Buck is also noted for being terribly misogynist, not just because he supports Personhood legislation or thinks rape and incest victims should be forced to carry any fetus they might end up pregnant with to term… in a 2010 failed campaign for U.S. Senate he stated his superiority because he didn’t “wear high heels”, and because in 2005, while a prosecutor, he refused to charge a rapist who confessed to forcing himself on his victim while drunk with rape because, as he put it, it was simply “buyer's remorse” from the victim. Adding to that disgusting moment, Buck also is a Birther conspiracy theorist, a climate change denier, and has compared homosexuality to alcoholism (the latter of which is of course classified as a disease), as well as comparing pregnancy to cancer. Buck has also argued against the United States housing Syrian refugees because, no lie, "BENGHAZI". Which is remarkable that he's blaming something that happened in Libya four years ago on people fleeing a country hundreds of miles away for their lives.

Since we last covered Ken Buck, he’s been defending the highly controversial AR-15 assault rifle, justifying its use for killing small animals like “raccoons and foxes” in March of 2018, only days after one was used to commit mass-murder at Parkland High School in Florida. He also literally trying normalizing scenes of carnage like this, saying they “happen all the time”. Classy. He also has recently claimed that he sees “not a shred of evidence” that the Trump campaign colluded with Russians during the 2016 election, which doesn’t exactly jive with what Robert Mueller has revealed, or the indictments that have stemmed from that investigation.

Colorado’s 4th District has a +13 Republican lean, and in most years, that would keep Ken Buck plenty safe. But considering he has faced down constituents at volatile town halls where he’s been raucously booed and heckled, that he actually penned an editorial in July of 2017 where he wrote “The Republican Party is dead” because Donald Trump is president, and dodges scheduled interviews with the press, we’re surprised he has yet to consider retirement like so many of his colleagues did. Instead, he ran for a fourth term, had a constituent arrested for leaving him a message critical of Buck for doing nothing about the Trump administration’s “family separation” policy outside his office in sidewalk chalk, (So much for respecting the First Amendment) and went on to win in November of 2018 with 60% of the vote.

And thus, he’s returned to DC, to be a partisan hack:

• January 23rd, 2019: Rep. Buck passes on voting for HR 648, completely uninterested in ending the longest government shutdown in history.
• February 15th, 2019: Buck votes against HJR 46, deciding that Donald Trump’s “national emergency” on the U.S. Mexico border is a legitimate threat to the United States, even though border crossings are at their lowest point in decades.
• February 28th, 2019: Ken Buck votes against HR 1112, a bill which would have required universal background checks on all firearm purchases, and close the gun show loophole.
• March 14th, 2019: Rep. Buck votes against HJR 46, which sane members of Congress voted for to reject Donald Trump’s “national emergency” regarding the U.S. border and his attempts to reallocate funds for a border wall without Congressional approval.
• April 4th, 2019: Ken Buck is one of 158 Republicans who choose to vote against the re-authorization of the Violence Against Women Act, likely because they feel the 2nd Amendment remaining absolute is more important than preventing people with a history of domestic abuse from owning a firearm (which statistics show, makes them more likely to use those firearms against women in their lives).
• May 17th, 2019: Buck votes against The Equality Act, which would have prevented discrimination towards Americans based on their gender identity or sexual orientation.
• June 4th, 2019: Rep. Buck can’t be arsed to vote for the Dreamers Act, because he’s too xenophobic and partisan to care about immigration reform.
• July 12th, 2019: Buck is one of 12 Republicans who vote against the re-authorization of the Zadroga Act to provide healthcare to 9/11 First Responders.
• July 16th, 2019: Ken Buck votes against a resolution to condemn Donald Trump for his racist statements that four people of color in Congress should “go back where they came from”.
• October 17th, 2019: Buck is one of 60 Republicans who vote against HJ Res 77, which opposed Donald Trump’s disastrous decision to abandon Syrian Kurdish forces in Northeast Syria to the mercies of a Turkish invasion.
• October 23rd, 2019: Buck is one of 41 Republicans who, while staring down the possibility of Donald Trump being impeached, stage a ridiculous publicity stunt in response by crashing a classified impeachment inquiry hearing for a “protest”. He was supposedly upset that he didn’t get to participate in the hearings, which is a lie, because Buck just chose to not show up for them.
• December 18th, 2019: Rep. Buck ignores his Congressional duty to hold a president who has been proven to commit high crimes and misdemeanors accountable and votes against the impeachment of Donald Trump.

Bizarrely, Buck, a man who only three years ago declared the GOP “dead” has decided to run to be the chairman of the Colorado Republican Party. Maybe rather than covet some new power, Buck should have been more focused on his home life, as his wife filed for a divorce.


Well, that was in 2019. As 2020 approaches, Ken Buck seems to have calculated that his best take for winning re-election to another term was to make a veiled death threat at Joe Biden and Beto O’Rourke for believing that gun control might actually work. We know his district in Colorado trends more conservative, but we can't help but wonder if this isn't a winning strategy in 2020.

[worstblogever]

Just curious...

How can a party claim to be "pro-life" but insist that the elderly should risk dying for the good of Wall Street?

To say nothing about how they care about gun violence, or favor the death penalty... it's almost like Republicans are completely full of s***.

[TheDarman]

Just curious...

How can a party claim to be "pro-life" but insist that the elderly should risk dying for the good of Wall Street?

To say nothing about how they care about gun violence, or favor the death penalty... it's almost like Republicans are completely full of s***.

Trevor Noah was right when he said that the “pro-life” crowd are like collectors of common collectibles: they only see value in it while it is still in the package.

[babyblob]

So I have a question. I have looked for the answer but am not finding anything. You guys are more informed so I thought I would ask here.

Does this one time 1,200 dollar stimulus package payment include people who are on social security?

[Kirby101]

So I have a question. I have looked for the answer but am not finding anything. You guys are more informed so I thought I would ask here.

Does this one time 1,200 dollar stimulus package payment include people who are on social security?

Last I heard, no.