All purpose news and politics thread part VI: This Is Not The Time For Posing

[Tendrin]

I mean... psychology does seem to create a basis for it, doesn't it?

We've seen what happens to cops who try to be good.

[worstblogever]

We've seen what happens to cops who try to be good.

Serpico isn't a fictional character, after all.

[worstblogever]

It was on this date in 2015 that “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” posted a profile of Jack Whitley, the former Chairman of the Big Stone County Republican Party in Minnesota whose bigotry went into overload in November 2014 and compelled him to post on Facebook to say Islam is a form of witchcraft, all Muslims must accept Jesus or leave the United States, that the First Amendment in regards to Freedom of Religion does not apply to them, that practitioners of Islam are "parasites" and Satan has infiltrated most “supposedly religious” industries like Christian music, and the church needs to get more militantly anti-gay and anti-abortion to prove to him they’re serious about it. That got his Facebook account deleted, and since he was fired not just from his position as Big Stone County Chairman of the GOP, but even the hardware store where he worked

On this date in 2016, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” posted a profile of Eric Turner, a man who served twelve terms in office over three decades in the Indiana House of Representatives until he resigned in November of 2014 for killing legislation that would have halted new nursing home construction in Indiana and could have potentially harmed his family's nursing home development business. Other than this major ethical lapse, we also noted that Turner kept trying to add amendments to Indiana's state constitution to define marriage as between one man and one woman, voted to drug test welfare recipients (but voted to block a bill that would have forced state legislators to do the same) and defund Indiana Planned Parenthood clinics. Turner didn't just resign in disgrace and retire from politics, he left the state of Indiana altogether.

On this date in both 2017, as well as 2018, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” posted a profile of former Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, who after taking office, had the Republican-controlled state legislature abuse the procedure of "immediate effect" votes to repeatedly pass legislation by a voice vote determined as "won/lost" by the Republican acting as Speaker of the House at the time to grant Snyder a rubber-stamp to do things like cut funding from public school classrooms to pay for retirement funds for school employees when a much more prudent use of taxpayer money to solve that crisis would not have been to give $1.7 billion in corporate tax breaks while also raising taxes on lower class families. Snyder also made Michigan a right-to-work state, with false promises of job creation that never arrived and the only real result was to reduce membership in unions. He also repeatedly attempted to get legislation passed to start drug-testing welfare recipients, only to watch predictably as the program cost a fortune and drug testing and found statistically no significant drug use. As in, NONE. Perhaps the most controversial of the legislation signed by Gov. Snyder was Michigan's new emergency manager laws, which would allow a city's local officials to place a lone individual in charge after an "emergency", which in Detroit, was meant to be the city declaring bankruptcy. This was despite the measure being placed on the ballot in November of 2012 and rejected, so a new version was hastily thrown together by the Michigan GOP. And, it's that emergency manager law that allowed Governor Snyder to place Michael Brown as Emergency Manager of Flint, Michigan on November 29th, 2011. Dennis Rick Snyder's chief of staff then began insisting the city's water supply be provided by the Flint River, known for being particularly corrosive, because hey, let's save a couple hundred dollars a year on cheaper ideas. Well, the switch came in spite of repeated warnings from, y'know, smart water engineers, and in April of 2014, and the lake water began corroding the old lead pipes leading into the city... meaning those lead particles were actually in people's drinking water, and poisoning them. Children were drinking the water, which slows their development, as well. Six months later, General Motors stopped using the water in their Flint plants, as it was too corrosive to touch engine parts. As the contamination began to be bad enough that residents could actually visibly SEE the iron and lead in water that was clearly brown over several months... the Snyder administration lied and told people the water was still safe. Internal e-mails however, show they KNEW they had a major city drinking poisoned water for months, and their attempts at a coverup meant people were still drinking it. The Snyder administration actually tried arguing with the findings of the scientists who were trying to survey the damage that was done. The damage to the pipes would take YEARS to fix. Gov. Snyder's response to the crisis (that he helped create) was tepid, and in the meantime, an outbreak of Legionairre's disease occurred from the river water, leading to at least nine attributed deaths. His promise to bring in an independent investigator in to investigate how bad his administration botched things was also quickly broken when Snyder's own campaign donor became the "independent investigator". The only reason Snyder was not impeached for his incompetence is that Michigan, has a nearly impossible process for removing a governor from office. What really pisses us off here at FRED, though, is because of Rick Snyder's incompetence... Flint, Michigan went almost six years without clean drinking water. Snyder was charged with a crime, but those charges were dropped by the Michigan Supreme Court.

On this date in 2019 “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” profiled Allen Quist, a former Minnesota state legislator who served four terms there back in the 1980s, twice ran for Governor of Minnesota in both 1994 and 1998, made two runs for Congress to serve Minnesota’s 1st Congressional District in 2010 and 2012, and tried to get back into the Minnesota state legislature unsuccessfully in a special election in 2013. Now, we want to point out that Allen Quist is a political mentor to another FRED alumni here, Michelle Bachmann, and if you know anything about politics, you know you had best buckle up for a lot of crazy. Some of the more insane things Allen Quist has said, done, and believes:

• As a Minnesota State Senator, Allen Quist “went undercover” at a gay bookstore to see if people were having gay sex there in the bathroom. Quist denied this in 2012, but finally admitted it after the interview where he confessed to it in the 1990s was unearthed by reporters.
• In 1986, when Quist’s first wife was tragically killed in a car accident while six months pregnant, he had her fetus placed in her arms at her open casket funeral. (Quist has been quoted as saying that he believes abortion should be classified as a first degree homicide.)
• In 1988, Quist argued against having a gay counseling center at the University of Minnesota-Mankato, comparing it to building a center to support the Ku Klux Klan.
• In 1993, while campaigning for Governor of Minnesota, Quist called for mandatory AIDS testing to be done on anyone seeking a marriage license.
• In a 1994 interview, Allen Quist argued that men have a “genetic predisposition to lead the family”. He repeatedly denied making this statement during his 2012 campaign, until audio emerged.
• In 2010, Quist cited his desire to go to Congress because he considered defeating liberals to be a more important battle than defeating terrorism:
• Allen Quist argued that “human beings lived alongside stegosaurs” citing an artist’s image from a 12th Century Cambodian temple as proof.

Quist is now into his late seventies, and unlikely to ever win political office.

On this date in 2020, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” profiled former Colorado State Senator Kent Lambert, who served in office from 2011-2018 and 2007-2010 in the Colorado House of Representatives. He earned himself a profile because of his twelve year career of homophobia, including how during the 2007 session when he filed a formal ethics complaint against the Colorado Education Association for sending emails making claims Lambert disagreed with (it was dismissed by the Colorado Legislative Council’s Executive Committee) and his attempt to ban adoption by same-sex couples. In 2010, he went “all in” to by badmouthing Matthew Shephard, the victim of a hate crime, when the foundation named for him was to be centered in Denver, saying ”What Hickenlooper did was compare people in rural Colorado to terrorists and murderers because of the homosexual up in Wyoming that was assaulted.” By 2013, as the Obergefell v. Hodges ruling approached, Lambert grew incensed enough with state governments around the country, including his own, trying to legalize gay marriage that Lambert referred to just civil unions for gay and lesbian couples as “mind control”. In 2010, Lambert also sponsored anti-immigrant legislation based on Arizona’s SB 1070 to Colorado, sponsored a bill to attempt to change the meaning of a “person” in the legal definition of murder to include fetuses to outlaw abortion, and sponsored legislation to remove background checks on firearm transfers. After coming up against term limits in the Colorado state legislature in 2018, Kent Lambert was forced to retire.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

In an age where video cameras and other recording devices are everywhere, you'd think most people would think twice about doing something violent and crazy....then again, maybe it's the crazy ones who don't really care if they are caught.

Or perhaps they don't care because they think they can get away with it. Given how police unions defend their brethren to the hilt, even after atrocities like what happened to Tyre Nichols, that's usually the case. And no, I haven't watched the video, nor will I watch it, I don't have the stomach for it.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2021, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” profiled Cindy Pugh, a former member of the Minnesota House of Representatives from 2012-2018. She was a Tea Party organizer prior to 2012 who became a disciple of Michelle Bachmann and upset Steve Smith in the GOP primary for 33B when he was, at the time, the longest-tenured member of the Minnesota GOP. In the six years she was in office, she had several extreme decisions in her voting record, including but not limited to her vote against legalizing same sex marriage, her support of transphobic public bathroom legislation, her sponsorship of a bill to create unnecessary regulations upon abortion clinics in the hope of having them all shut down in the state, her vote against equal pay legislation, and her vote against raising the minimum wage in Minnesota during the greatest period of income inequality in our nation in a century. And yet, NONE OF THAT is why we’re profiling Pugh. In January of 2018, Pugh decided to go on Facebook and lob Islamophobic conspiracy theories. She claimed “a friend” (never named) went to a caucus training held at a local mosque, where he alleged he witnessed Muslim-Americans being taught to “penetrate” and “infiltrate” American politics to enact a Muslim political agenda. It was bigoted enough that the Minnesota GOP almost unanimously condemned her remarks. Pugh tried to pass off her post as an attempt to create interest in the caucus process for Minnesotans, but nobody was buying her lies.When the Blue Wave hit in 2018, Pugh was defeated by Democrat Kelly Morrison and was bounced out of the state legislature. She was last seen trying to moderate sex education classes in public schools, and filing a baseless lawsuit against Democratic Congressman Dean Phillips for supposedly violating the Stock Act.


Since we're already talking today about terrible cops...


On this date in 2022, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” first profiled Loren Culp, a law enforcement officer who was celebrated by Republicans for refusing to do his job and enforce gun laws, who wrote a book about his experiences that compared gun control to the Holocaust and features a lot of alternate history and quotes from the Founding Fathers that they never actually said. Culp parlayed that into a bid to as the 2020 Republican candidate for Governor of Washington and in 2022, and then a run for U.S. House of Representatives in Washington’s 4th Congressional District, looking to challenge three term GOP Congressman Dan Newhouse for his seat for having the audacity for voting to impeach Donald Trump for staging a failed coup attempt on Jan. 6th, 2021. Culp’s take on that “betrayal” is framed as so:

”Newhouse voted with the socialists to impeach one of the greatest presidents of my lifetime.”

Sure he was. Sure. But keep in mind, Loren Culp is also consistently out of touch with reality. He lost the Governor’s race in 2020 by over 545,000 votes, and responded by mimicking Donald Trump’s false allegations of election irregularities and fraud, featuring Culp also peppering in some anti-Semitism by blaming George Soros, and later, seeing him file a lawsuit against the Washington Secretary of State, Kim Wyman. Mind you, he tucked his tail, and turned and fled from his own lawsuit when his realized, unlike Trump’s “Kraken” law team, that filing lawsuits based on flagrant lies can lead to legal sanctions against you as a lawyer.

But alas, Loren Culp is not limited to just one conspiracy theory, as in the build-up to the gubernatorial lection, in September of 2020, Culp began spreading conspiracy theories that wildfires in his state were actually coordinated arson, and right-wing conspiracy nuts took the ball and ran with it, adding to Culp’s theory to say it was being carried out by “Antifa”. Which, of course, there was never any proof of, and Culp never helped authorities by admitting he was talking out of his ass.

But Loren Culp always has deep-seated, irrational fears. His reason for running for governor in the first place was that he was so afraid when Gov. Jay Inslee took measures to stop the spread of Covid-19 that he began comparing the governor to famous communist leaders.

”The problem with Democracy — you can look at quotes from famous Chinese leaders like Mao, Gorbachev — they loved Democracy because Democracy is a step toward socialism, which is a step towards communism.”

We are glad to report that this fascist piece of garbage lost in the primary in WA-3 in his efforts to serve as Donald Trump’s revenge proxy, and failed to go to Congress, finishing third with just 21% of the vote in the first round of voting. We can only hope this will be his last attempt at reaching political office, because he has bad intentions of what he would do with power if he ever got any.
 

[Spike-X]

We've seen what happens to cops who try to be good.

And for anyone who wants to argue that "It's just a few blah blah blah," ask yourself, who do cops hate more; shitty cops, or the cops who investigate the shitty cops?

[Spike-X]

”The problem with Democracy — you can look at quotes from famous Chinese leaders like Mao, Gorbachev — they loved Democracy because Democracy is a step toward socialism, which is a step towards communism.”

Oh yeah, them commies just looooove themselves some democracy.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

And here I was thinking churches were all about inclusion, about warmly accepting one and all. Silly me.

Florida church vows to kick out members who refuse to sign 'anti-gay pledge'

[The Cool Thatguy]

And here I was thinking churches were all about inclusion, about warmly accepting one and all. Silly me.

Florida church vows to kick out members who refuse to sign 'anti-gay pledge'

'Love thy neighbor' is for hippies, apparently

[Tami]

And here I was thinking churches were all about inclusion, about warmly accepting one and all. Silly me.

Florida church vows to kick out members who refuse to sign 'anti-gay pledge'

Well, it is a White Baptist church. No surprise there.

Baptist churches are very diverse, except for some core beliefs. But most of the more radical of these churches tend to be Primarily White and extremely conservative.

[skyvolt2000]

In an age where video cameras and other recording devices are everywhere, you'd think most people would think twice about doing something violent and crazy....then again, maybe it's the crazy ones who don't really care if they are caught.

How many folks like this have become famous or made money off it?

We have had how many folks caught on camera and nothing happens to them or as we see with Jan 6 crew-slap on the wrist punishments (unless you are black).

And for anyone who wants to argue that "It's just a few blah blah blah," ask yourself, who do cops hate more; shitty cops, or the cops who investigate the shitty cops?

Cops hate the shitty cops way more. Because they are the ones who bring in the investigators that end up opening more rabbit holes to look down.

Along with the fact any cop that tries to do right gets a higher chance at being retaliated against.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime...0ea32#comments

Appearing on Tucker Carlson Tonight shortly after the video was released, Whitlock blamed the mere identity of the Memphis police chief for the incident:

There is a racial element. And this is a story about young Black men and their inability to treat each other in a humane way. Everybody involved in this on the street level was either 24 to 32 years old. Everybody. It was a group of young Black men, five-on-one. Looked like gang violence to me.

It looked like what young Black men do when they’re supervised by a single Black woman. And that’s what they got going on in the Memphis Police Department. They’ve elected some, or put some Black woman in charge of the police force, and we are getting the same kind of chaos and disunity and violence that we see in a lot of these cities run by single mothers.

If we want to discuss the breakdown of family that leads to disrespect for authority that causes you to resist the police and run from the police and not comply with the police, because you resist authority at all times, because there was no male authority in your home, let’s have that discussion.

So the MARRIED police chief is to blame???

[shooshoomanjoe]

I've met several great cops and you can see them on social media too. I don't care what anyone says, the bad cops are few, they just make for better news.

[Panfoot]

If those "great cops" help cover up or turn a blind eye to the bad cops, which we've seen time and time again that they do, they are also bad cops.

[Catlady in training]

Speaking of assault footage, police have released video of the police assault on Tyre Nichols, and it's as horrifying as you might expect.

It shows the cops repeatedly beating, kicking, and maceing Nichols, who was crying out for his mother (apparently they were a very short distance away from her home when this happened). It also shows them standing around and not rendering aid for quite some time.

The five main officers in the assault have already been fired and charged with 2nd degree murder; 2 deputies have also been relived of duty, pending an investigation into their conduct.

Jesus Christ! I hope they at least end up with harsh sentences, as an example.

I keep telling people I know who get involved with security and law enforcement...

Read about the Stanford Prison Experiment, and the psychology of what happens when you're given power. Then, actively resist what your brain is wired to do, no fault of your own. Understand the psychology of how power corrupts, as terrifying as that reality is.

I've been thanked for it. One person quit their security job, realizing he was becoming a worse person, and went into roofing instead.

Good point.

[Catlady in training]

It’s an interesting election and I plan to follow the situation as it progresses.
Americans have a tendency to label populists in Europe or elsewhere as being like Trump, but actually Orban was Trump before Trump was Trump if that makes any sense. It’s interesting to see how other countries manage their elections with a populist or ultranationalist on the ticket.

Sanity prevailed and Pavel won 58,3% - 41,7% (popular vote wins). One more score against populism.
Not that I expected to root for an ex-military in political office, but here we go.