[News] Post a Political News Story

Ongoing discussion of the political news of the day. This thread is for 'smaller' stories that don't call for their own thread. If a story blows up, please start a new thread for it.

hbi2k wrote:

Does it really matter what Republicans "believe"? I don't care whether they vote the way they do because they believe in it or McConnell told them to or if it was the Great Gazoo whispering in their ear. At the end of the day what matters is what they do, not what they feel in their tender little hearts.

I suppose that there's a glimmer of hope for the future if they don't really believe it because that might mean there's a bridge to far for some of them.

If they truly believe this then we're kinda at the stockpiling guns and ammo stage because there's no limit to what they'll do to protect the completely fictionalized version of America they think is reality.

If insurrection was not a bridge too far, then the actual bridge is located far away in some country we really don't want to visit...

For the average person, stockpiling weapons and ammo is about as useful as buying an Olympic class bicycle and expected to win races. You will just die tired when the pros get around to you.

https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/p...

Glenn Youngkin Inaugurated as Virginia Governor, Signs 11 Executive Actions

Executive Order Number One: “Delivers on his Day One promise to restore excellence in education by ending the use of divisive concepts, including Critical Race Theory, in public education," the Youngkin team said.

Executive Order Number Two: Ends the statewide school mask mandate.

Executive Order Number Three: Aims to “restore integrity and confidence in the Parole Board of the Commonwealth of Virginia," the Youngkin team said.

Executive Order Number Four: Sparks an investigation into “wrongdoing” in Loudoun County. Youngkin has called for an investigation into the Loudoun County School Board over their handling of a sexual assault case that impacted two schools.

Executive Order Number Five: Creates a Commonwealth Chief Transformation Officer, aimed at government reform.

Executive Order Number Six: Declares Virginia open for business, the Youngkin team said.

Executive Order Number Seven: Aims to combat and prevent human trafficking and support survivors, the Youngkin team said.

Executive Order Number Eight: Establishes an anti-Semitism commission.

Executive Order Number Nine: Removes Virginia from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. RGGI says it is a market-based effort to cap and reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

Youngkin also said he signed two executive directives: one to slash regulations on businesses, and another to rescind the vaccine mandate for state employees.

I gotta get the f*ck off this planet.

I thought I also saw something about changing the red flag laws to take away guns from dangerous people? He's undoing everything that Virginia accomplished recently.

A good warning for what will happen nationally if people f*ck up 2022 midterms and 2024 presidential election.

The new AG also fired the entire Conviction Integrity Unit that was just put together last year. The CIU's purpose was to overturn wrongful convictions.

Can't have wrongful convictions if no one is looking for them.

The State is never wrong, comrade.

Executive Order Number Six: Declares Virginia open for business

That's conservatives' way of declaring a fire sale on government assets.

Executive Order Number Eight: Establishes an anti-Semitism commission.

Well, that should be a slam dunk.

H.P. Lovesauce wrote:
Executive Order Number Eight: Establishes an anti-Semitism commission.

Well, that should be a slam dunk.

You should wait until it’s clear whether the commission is for or against anti-Semitism.

Man I did a lot of hard work on Virginia Medicaid. This guy is gonna ruin it all.

Can’t wait to see what happens at school this week. Both my kids caught covid at school last week when masks were required, now that asshole canceled the school mandate.

And he's the *reasonable* Republican... Right...

My daughter's pre-school is thumbing their nose at it.

We have reviewed these orders and are not able, at this time, to conclude that they apply to CommuniKids. As such, our policies and protocols remain unchanged.
Mixolyde wrote:

My daughter's pre-school is thumbing their nose at it.

We have reviewed these orders and are not able, at this time, to conclude that they apply to CommuniKids. As such, our policies and protocols remain unchanged.

I mean, it's an Executive Order too, right? Sometimes they are just messaging pieces, and usually don't hold up in literal court. If the Commonwealth wants to sue a Pre-K, go right ahead, but the defense of "we've had an outbreak of cases at our school and we want to protect the kids going forward, so damn your 'muh freedoms' initiative" would probably hold up.

Yeah, but it's still nice to see.

Yesterday was a bad day for TFG.

First the January 6th Committee subpoenaed the four people that are the pride and joy of the American Bar Association and at the center of Trump's effort to overturn the 2020 election: America's Mayor Flopsweat McFarty; a "constitutional law attorney" who's never argued a federal case or lawsuit; the Queen of Crazy; and a super sus Russian who was in charge of Sinclair Broadcast Group's mandatory Two Minutes Hate segment before doing comms for the not-President Elect.

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Then the January 6th Committee also announced that it subpoenaed the phone records of Eric Trump and Kimberly Guilfoyle (Trump Jr.'s girlfriend and fellow cocaine enthusiast) because of their prominent role in Stop The Steal rally and everything that happened that day.

And so Donnie Jr. and Ivanka didn't feel left out, New York Attorney General Letitia James announced that her office is taking action to compel testimony from the kids (and daddy) as part of the state's civil investigation of the Trump Organization. James said that there "significant evidence" that the Trump Organization used "fraudulent or misleading asset valuations to obtain a host of economic benefits, including loans, insurance coverage, and tax deductions" and that the every member of the Trump family "was directly involved in one or more transactions under review."

Another fine day for TFG.

Supreme Court won't block release of Trump documents to Jan 6 committee

NBC News wrote:

The Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected former President Donald Trump's effort to stop the National Archives from giving the House Jan. 6 committee hundreds of pages of documents from his time in the White House.

The court's action clears the way for the National Archives to hand the material over now, while the Supreme Court in the meantime decides whether to hear Trump’s broader appeal of lower court rulings that said he could not stop the material from being produced by asserting executive privilege.

White supremacists Nick Fuentes and Patrick Casey of Gophers and America First fame were also subpoenaed by the January 6th Committee today. Of special interest was the several hundred thousand worth of bitcoin they received from a French citizen.

NBC News wrote:

Only Justice Clarence Thomas said the court should have granted the Trump motion to block the National Archives from handing the material over while the case is under review.

Don't you think you're glossing over something, NBC?

Rat Boy wrote:
NBC News wrote:

Only Justice Clarence Thomas said the court should have granted the Trump motion to block the National Archives from handing the material over while the case is under review.

Don't you think you're glossing over something, NBC?

Could it possibly be that those documents might mention his wife?

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What the actual f*cking f*ck….

A Kansas district attorney announced he will be filing no charges in connection with the death of Cedric Lofton, a Black teenager who died in law enforcement custody, citing the state's robust "stand your ground" law.

Lofton, 17, died in September after being handcuffed and restrained in the prone position, meaning lying face-down, during a struggle with staff and corrections employees at a juvenile facility.

Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennett said at a Tuesday news conference that the employees involved acted in self-defense under the "stand your ground" law because the teen resisted and struggled with corrections staff and they, therefore, are immune from prosecution.

Doesn't that mean anyone can kill someone in a fight or after they have subdued someone, and go free? How does that not mean that?

What about dueling? Is that now legal by default?

As always, depends on who's white.

"Duty of care? Never heard of it" - the state of Kansas

JC wrote:

What the actual f*cking f*ck….

A Kansas district attorney announced he will be filing no charges in connection with the death of Cedric Lofton, a Black teenager who died in law enforcement custody, citing the state's robust "stand your ground" law.

Lofton, 17, died in September after being handcuffed and restrained in the prone position, meaning lying face-down, during a struggle with staff and corrections employees at a juvenile facility.

Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennett said at a Tuesday news conference that the employees involved acted in self-defense under the "stand your ground" law because the teen resisted and struggled with corrections staff and they, therefore, are immune from prosecution.

Dennis Lynn Rader's wondering why he didn't use that defense.

Motherf*cker had an EO in the chamber to steal the election...

Everyone involved in its creation--or who hid its existence--really needs to be considered enemies of the state and treated accordingly.

Read the never-issued Trump order that would have seized voting machines

Politico wrote:

Among the records that Donald Trump’s lawyers tried to shield from Jan. 6 investigators are a draft executive order that would have directed the defense secretary to seize voting machines and a document titled “Remarks on National Healing.”

POLITICO has reviewed both documents. The text of the draft executive order is published here for the first time.

The executive order — which also would have appointed a special counsel to probe the 2020 election — was never issued, and the remarks were never delivered. Together, the two documents point to the wildly divergent perspectives of White House advisers and allies during Trump’s frenetic final weeks in office.

It’s not clear who wrote either document. But the draft executive order is dated Dec. 16, 2020, and is consistent with proposals that lawyer Sidney Powell made to the then-president. On Dec. 18, 2020, Powell, former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn, former Trump administration lawyer Emily Newman, and former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne met with Trump in the Oval Office.

In that meeting, Powell urged Trump to seize voting machines and to appointher as a special counsel to investigate the election, according to Axios.

A spokesperson for the House’s Jan. 6 select committee confirmed earlier Friday that the panel had received the last of the documents that Trump’s lawyers tried to keep under wraps and later declined to comment for this story on these two documents.

The draft executive order
The draft executive order shows that the weeks between Election Day and the Capitol attack could have been even more chaotic than they were. It credulously cites conspiracy theories about election fraud in Georgia and Michigan, as well as debunked notions about Dominion voting machines.

The order empowers the defense secretary to “seize, collect, retain and analyze all machines, equipment, electronically stored information, and material records required for retention under” a U.S. law that relates to preservation of election records. It also cites a lawsuit filed in 2017 against Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

Additionally, the draft order would have given the defense secretary 60 days to write an assessment of the 2020 election. That suggests it could have been a gambit to keep Trump in power until at least mid-February of 2021.

The draft order also greenlit “the appointment of a Special Counsel to oversee this operation and institute all criminal and civil proceedings as appropriate based on the evidence collected and provided all resources necessary to carry out her duties consistent with federal laws and the Constitution.”

To bolster its provisions, the draft order cites “the forensic report of the Antrim County, Michigan voting machines.” That report was produced by Russ Ramsland, who confused precincts in Minnesota for those in Michigan, according to the Washington Post. Michigan’s secretary of state, meanwhile, released an exhaustive report rebutting election conspiracy theories and concluding that none of the “known anomalies” in Antrim County’s November 2020 election were the result of any security breach.

What the f*ck

Hey Mitch. Know how I know you’re a racist?

On Wednesday, at his weekly policy news conference at the US Capitol, McConnell was asked whether voters of color would be hurt if Democrats' election legislation did not pass, and he replied: "The concern is misplaced, because if you look at the statistics, African American voters are voting in just as high a percentage as Americans."
He again misspoke on Friday and incorrectly stated what the omitted word had been and had to come back to the mics to clean it up again. At first he said he had meant to say the word "almost" before Americans in his comment. At the end of his news conference, he returned to the mics after consulting with an aide, who seemed to tell him he had misstated it again, clarifying he had meant to say the omitted word was "all."

Acknowledging Blacks as Americans is so hard for him that he has to have an aide feed him the words to do it...

Mitch hasn't changed

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