All Purpose News and Politics Thread Part IV: The Center Cannot Hold

[numberthirty]

Yes even in his complete embarrassing idiocy. Someone gave him one decent thing to order that could do good.

If you are looking at those two things and you are focused on what is in blue, it might be worth rethinking things.

[Malvolio]

Gotta love "democrats" that use far right verbiage.

Joe Manchin is more of a real Democrat than that guy.

[Tami]

Dangerous liaisons: Fox News teams up with Russian agents to undermine democracy

With the revelation this week that Fox News helped Russian intelligence agents spread the vulgar conspiracy theory about Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich’s murder in 2016, we have entered a dark and dangerous place. We're at the point where a major American cable news channel teamed up with forces from a foreign adversary in order to damage a major political party in this country. What do we even call this? Treason? The fifth column inside the United States? We are so far beyond Fox News being a useful platform for Republicans to spread bits of partisan misinformation. We're talking about a huge, powerful media entity that essentially aligns itself with foreign agents to undermine American democracy from within. And no, that's not hyperbole. Those are the established facts, per a Yahoo News investigation.

"In the summer of 2016, Russian intelligence agents secretly planted a fake report claiming that Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich was gunned down by a squad of assassins working for Hillary Clinton, giving rise to a notorious conspiracy theory that captivated conservative activists and was later promoted from inside President Trump’s White House," Yahoo's Michael Isikoff writes.

[kidfresh512]

If you are looking at those two things and you are focused on what is in blue, it might be worth rethinking things.

I'm good thanks

[Tendrin]

https://twitter.com/CBSNews/status/1148956415018590209

During an interview with The New Yorker Radio Hour's David Remnick, Ocasio-Cortez appeared to blame the Bush administration for initially forming the agency back in 2002 in the wake of the terrorist attacks on September 11th.
"I feel like we are, at a very, it's a very qualified and supported position, at least in terms of evidence, and in terms of being able to make the argument that we never should've created DHS in the early 2000s," said Ocasio-Cortez. She went on to say that she supported abolishing ICE, a common rallying cry among House Democrats.

Love AOC. She's such a villainous actress for wanting to not put children in cages and keep them from being sexually abused.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

https://twitter.com/CBSNews/status/1148956415018590209




Love AOC. She's such a villainous actress for wanting to not put children in cages and keep them from being sexually abused.

Shame on AOC, denying Republicans their cruelty. What an evil, wicked woman!

[Tendrin]

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/...ed-gender.html

OH WBE-EEeeeeee…

A Republican running to be governor of Mississippi declined to allow a reporter to accompany him on a campaign trip just because she is a woman, the reporter said Tuesday night.
According to Mississippi Today reporter Larrison Campbell, she and her colleagues reached out to three Republican gubernatorial candidates to ask for ride-alongs with the candidates. The two others agreed, but when Campbell reached out to state Rep. Robert Foster in late June, Foster’s campaign director replied days later offering to let her accompany Foster on an upcoming 15-hour campaign trip—as long as a male colleague accompanied her.

[numberthirty]

Sanders laying out "Basics 101" stuff for folks...

- https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...=.80b504ba45ff

Bernie Sanders: The straightest path to racial equality is through the one percent

The unfortunate truth is that politicians who take checks from millionaires and billionaires owe their corporate constituents first, and everyday Americans last. The black-white wealth gap could be closed by targeting the extreme wealth at the very top. Instead, politicians beholden to the one percent ask the black middle class and the white middle class to fight over scraps. I’m proud that our campaign is fueled by more small-dollar donations than any other — more of our donors work at Walmart than any other company. Our willingness to take on powerful special interests as we fight for universal health care and a living wage — instead of the private prison industry and tax breaks for the rich — is a direct consequence of my campaign’s financial independence.

The straightest path to racial equality is through the one percent. A system where we don’t address both racial and economic disparity is a system in which some people, especially African Americans, are going to be left behind. We should not be swayed by those who would try to force us to choose one over the other.

[worstblogever]

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/...ed-gender.html

OH WBE-EEeeeeee…

Clocked that in the queue yesterday...

[worstblogever]

https://twitter.com/CBSNews/status/1148956415018590209


Love AOC. She's such a villainous actress for wanting to not put children in cages and keep them from being sexually abused.

On the DHS... I was watching an old Lewis Black comedy special yesterday, and he made mention of Tom Ridge, the first DHS director creating a color system for terror threat warnings that was useless because every time they changed the threat level, they wouldn't just say a color, they had to explain what that color means in detail. Which defeats the entire purpose of having a color system to designate threat level, just explain what the threat level is and leave the rainbow out of it. He then reminded the audience that this entire department's "intelligence" could do things like send Ridge to a podium to warn people of the risk of a chemical weapons attack (that never came), and told them that the best ways to protect themselves were duct tape and water.

Black: "The only way duct tape is gonna save you from a chemical weapons attack is if you wrap your self in it and suffocate yourself first instead."

Seriously, when folks like Ron Paul grouse about government bureaucracy and agencies they want to do away with, they always talk about the Department of Education (which is super important for shaping our future), but they never seem to think that maybe the DHS is redundant with an NSA already in existence.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Republicans Have No Plan If Obamacare Is Struck Down. Some Don’t Think It’s Even Possible.

“It’s my hope and belief that the Supreme Court won’t strike the law down,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said. I've always said that it would've been easier for Republicans to reach across the aisle and help Democrats make the ACA work for everyone, but all they've cared about from day one was killing the law because they HATE the black man who put it on the books, so it HAS to die. And nothing has changed today.

**********

Pelosi Stands By Her Dismissal Of Freshman Democrats: ‘Regrets Is Not What I Do’

The House speaker defended her earlier comments that downplayed the power of four high-profile women of color in the House, escalating intra-party tensions. By dismissing those women, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Pelosi is dismissing the voters they represent, and that could bite her in the ass down the road. Now THAT would be something to regret.

**********

Concentration Camp Survivor George Takei Talks Family Separation At U.S. Border

The “Star Trek” actor told GQ about how his experience in concentration camps for Japanese Americans during World War II compares to migrant detention today. A classic example of "Take it from someone who knows".

**********

Trump Doesn’t Seem To Know Where The Kidneys Are Or What They Do

Twitter users offer the president a free biology lesson after his latest bizarre gaffe. You just can't make up crazy **** like this.

**********

D.C. Mayor Asks Trump For Reimbursement After Costly July 4 Bash

Mayor Muriel Bowser said Trump’s “Salute to America” expenses will further deplete a fund that was never repaid for costs of the president’s inauguration. Yo, Mayor Bowser, don't hold your breath waiting for that money, chances are it AIN'T coming!

[WestPhillyPunisher]

New York Daily News Twists Trump’s MAGA Slogan For Epic Soccer Cover

The tabloid honored the World Cup-winning U.S. women’s national soccer team on its front page. Trump and his lemmings WON'T like this:

[numberthirty]

**********

Pelosi Stands By Her Dismissal Of Freshman Democrats: ‘Regrets Is Not What I Do’

The House speaker defended her earlier comments that downplayed the power of four high-profile women of color in the House, escalating intra-party tensions. By dismissing those women, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Pelosi is dismissing the voters they represent, and that could bite her in the ass down the road. Now THAT would be something to regret.

**********

From that article. It's worth pointing out that it was a part of it.

Pressley told the Post that the speaker’s comments were “demoralizing.”

“Thank God my mother gave me broad shoulders and a strong back. I can handle it. I’m not worried about me,” the Massachusetts Democrat said. “I am worried about the signal that it sends to people I speak to and for, who sent me here with a mandate, and how it affects them.”

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2015, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" posted a profile of former perennial Presidential candidate Jack Fellure, a man who has run for president in eight consecutive elections, and when asked for his party platform in 2012 when he ran as the Prohibition Party candidate (who still want to outlaw liquor), he submitted the King James Bible, because he believes America is a Christian nation. Fellure not only wants to outlaw booze, but blames all of society's evils upon “atheists, Marxists, liberals, queers, liars, draft dodgers, flag burners, dope addicts, sex perverts and anti-Christians”. While running for president in 1996, where he received one write-in vote in Ohio, he raged at the man who defeated him in 1992, saying President George H.W. Bush was “responsible for inestimable damage toward the destruction of this sovereign democratic constitutional republic [who] continued to water the seeds of international, Satanic Marxism to the exclusion of our national sovereignty" before assessing that President Bill Clinton, “merely shifted into overdrive the socialistic, Marxist New World Order agenda.” Fellure has been on the GOP ballot every year except 2012 in every presidential election since 1988, and after losing yet again in 2016 with zero total delegates at the age of 84, he has not a chance in hell of ever being any more than a joke candidate before he shuffles off the mortal coil.

In both 2016, 2017, as well as 2018, that “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” presented profiles of former Missouri Governor Eric Greitens, who much to our surprise, in spite of having no government experience, managed to get himself elected in the 2016 elections, based almost solely on the impact of his campaign ads where he had a narrator claim Obama wouldn’t “steal another Missouri election” (nice paranoid lunacy there, Eric) as he fired off a .50 caliber machine gun. Greitens’ entire justification for office was that he had a former career as a Navy SEAL where he may or may not have been on the mission to kill Osama bin Laden (per other SEALs who have responded to his claims, Greitens was not even involved in direct combat operations on any missions they can recall). Greitens also raised campaign cash by selling "ISIS Hunting permits" to constituents in Missouri, without a care for the possibility that could be the sort of rhetoric that obviously could easily lead to the harassment or an attack on someone who’s Muslim but totally isn't ISIS, and in fact gleefully commenting on the choice by saying, "Liberals will go crazy when they see these, but remember, this isn’t an official government issued hunting tag.” Once Greitens has inexplicably become governor, he’s making the exact same kinds of mistakes that drove Kansas, but one state over, into a ditch six years ago under the hair-brained leadership of Gov. Sam Brownback. Just for starters, there was the new state budget that cut $251 million dollars out of it, with such humble needs to trim the fat like taking away the medical care of over 8,000 elderly and disabled people, prescription drug co-pays from 60,000 people, and taking $15 million away from school transportation (have fun walking to school, kids). Like Donald Trump’s tendency to make all his staff members sign non-disclosure agreements, Greitens did the same with his own transition team in Missouri, a direct rejection on the issue of transparency that he ran on, and more extreme than his predecessors, by far. But really, when people are going to remember Eric Greitens, who you may have noted we mentioned was already a FORMER governor, is that he sexually assaulted, and blackmailed a mistress to remain silent about his affair with her. Saying the details were lurid would be an understatement, as Greitens duct taped the woman to gym equipment in his basement, blindfolded her, stripped her nude, and then took a photo of her without her consent, saying he would release it to the public if she ever spoke about their relationship. He would then assault her throughout the affair, sometimes shoving her to the floor or hitting her during intercourse. The affair happened in 2015, just as he was running for office, and he was charged in February of 2018 with a crime. For those Republicans who might hand wave away one of their own being a sexual predator, as is the current tradition, Greitens was also being investigated and charged for fraud by his personal charity in April of 2018 for giving the charity’s donor list to his campaign… so that was a whole other criminal investigation occurring simultaneously to the sexual assault investigation. Greitens finally resigned on June 1st, 2018 after a legion of Missouri Republicans were calling for the move to save their own skins in the 2018 elections because they didn’t want to impeach him, and yet didn’t want to defend him. The fact that they couldn’t do the former should tell you everything you need to know about GOP courage. At this point, it looks like Greitens was lucky enough to avoid jail time for all the crimes he’s accused of, but let’s hope that he doesn’t try pretending he’s the victim in all this and making a political comeback in a few years. We certainly hope not.



On this date in 2014, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” published a profile on Carl Paladino, the former candidate for Governor of New York, who campaigned by mailing garbage-scented fliers out to voters, took to the podium to make veiled threats with a baseball bat to try to make people think of him as a capable leader, like say Al Capone in the Untouchables. Paladino would also e-mail beastiality jokes (with photos) to colleagues while previously working in state government, who said the Affordable Care Act would be worse than 9-11, and who threatened members of the media with being “taken out”. Ah, how we miss the days when that sort of behavior would actually stop someone from being elected. He settled on running for New York Board of Education, but got booted from that after he sent everyone e-mails claiming that Muslims were responsible for riots in Paris (that they weren’t) and lamenting that there were “too few white people in France”.

Our very brief update on Carl Paladino was that he very briefly announced himself as a candidate for Congress for U.S. House of Representatives in 2018, specifically for New York’s 27th Congressional District… which he did not live in. This was during the brief time when Republican Congressman Chris Collins had announced he would be suspending his campaign after his indictment for securities fraud.

Alas, Collins reversed course and remained in office, and Paladino shrunk away, back to whatever rock he crawled out from and continues to send e-mails to colleagues of an Islamophobic nature, including one right after the mass shooting at Christchurch in New Zealand. Suffice to say, we’re really doubting he’ll ever be elected again.

[Malvolio]

https://twitter.com/CBSNews/status/1148956415018590209




Love AOC. She's such a villainous actress for wanting to not put children in cages and keep them from being sexually abused.

The right wing and their mouthpieces on radio and FOX News are trying so hard to build a case against AOC the way they did against Hillary Clinton. They know that she will run for higher office some day and are hoping they can get even people on the left to hate her without really knowing why, the same way they did with HRC. Fortunately, AOC is having none of it and is fighting back every step of the way.