Politics-What's on your mind?

[nhplowboi]

If the idiot had left the stickers on, the arena would have looked far more fuller.

Originally Posted by homoe

Donald Trump’s campaign removed thousands of stickers on arena seats encouraging social distancing before the president’s rally last week in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Billboard and The Washington Post reported.

The “Do Not Sit Here Please!” stickers were intended to help stem the spread of COVID-19 cases, which were spiking in the city at the time of the June 20 event — and continue to climb in Tulsa and throughout Oklahoma.

Campaign officials informed an executive of venue manager ASM Global to stop labeling the seats hours before the rally, ASM Executive Vice President Doug Thornton told Billboard.

“They also told us that they didn’t want any signs posted saying we should social distance in the venue,” he added. “The campaign went through and removed the stickers.”

By the time the Trump campaign interfered, arena workers had already affixed some 12,000 stickers on nearly every other seat, a person familiar with the event told the Post.

Both Billboard and the Post also viewed video showing Trump campaign staffers peeling off stickers from the seats.

[C0LLETTE]

Wow, who knew that campaign staffers had to do that kinda stuff!

[Kätzchen]

Katherine Johnson, who passed at the age of 101 years old, this past February?

It is because of Katherine Johnson and other members (Afro-American women) of their cadre's exceptional and superior mathematical calculations, that made it possible for male astronauts to orbit earth and land on the moon, 51 years ago.

I wish American Culture would evolve and liberate itself from the toxic stranglehold of patriarchal and racist constructs.

It would be so nice to see women get the credit and social recognition they deserve for their amazing achievements, in timely ways.

[Cin]

Interesting podcast. I didn't have the stomach to finish the whole thing yet, but I plan to. It's kind of disturbing.

Democracy isn't dying in the dark, it's dying in broad daylight.

https://megaphone.link/TRUO4922592667

[homoe]

Republican Sen. Susan Collins' bid for a fifth term could be in jeopardy, according to recent polls.

A survey of 500 registered Maine voters released Tuesday by the Bangor Daily News found the incumbent trailing her opponent Sara Gideon, the state's Democratic House speaker, 35%-43%. Gideon's lead shrunk to five percentage points among likely voters.


Another poll released Tuesday, which was conducted by RMG Group, also found Collins trailing Gideon by 7 points among registered voters, 41%-48%.

And a Quinnipiac University poll released Aug. 6 found Gideon leading Collins 47%-43% among registered Maine voters.

Collins is one of the last moderate Republicans from New England remaining in Congress. A majority of Maine voters have not gone for a Republican presidential candidate since 1988, but several Republicans have won statewide elections since then, including Collins and former Gov. Paul LePage. Maine's other U.S. senator, Angus King, is an independent who caucuses with the Democrats.



Liar Liar Pants On Fire..

[homoe]

[homoe]

[homoe]

[homoe]

Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) told CBS News that she believes President Donald Trump has learned his lesson following his impeachment.




Sidebar: She made these comments Feb 5th 2020. I wonder if she still believes them now in Aug 2020.



https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/...sot-nd-vpx.cnn

[Wrang1er]

I worry because I see Trump signs EVERYWHERE. That's how it was last time when they said he was behind in the polls.

If Trump wins I am going to propose to Collette. Hopefully she accepts and I can move to Canada.

[~ocean]

I'm watching the DNC and Andrew Cuomo just brought tears to my eyes with his statement ~ he's such an honorable man. I know not everyone agrees with this statement but this is how I see him .

[homoe]

Ted Cruz's Attempt At Slamming Joe Biden Backfires Spectacularly!!!

Critics of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) say he finally ― and quite accidentally ― had a good idea. On Tuesday night, Cruz attempted to slam Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. “If these guys win, we’re gonna wake up in January with Elizabeth Warren as treasury secretary,” Cruz said on Fox News, referring to the Democratic senator from Massachusetts.

But many Twitter users didn’t see that as the threat Cruz intended, given her support of consumer protections and regulations on big banks. Warren is also the sixth most popular Democrat in the nation, according to YouGov, and is even more popular within the party, with 66 percent saying they have either a somewhat or very favorable opinion of her in the organization’s most recent survey.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ted-c...b68352360380be

[Orema]

Arkansas Governor and Lawmakers Unveil Proposed Hate Crime Legislation


Photo: Alex Wong (Getty Images)

Arkansas is one of three states that has no laws regarding hate crimes on its books, but a new bill recently introduced by the state’s legislature will hopefully change that.

ABC News reports that Arkansas’ Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson was joined by the state’s attorney general and over two dozen legislators in revealing a proposed bill that would add harsher penalties to crimes committed due to a person’s race, gender or sexuality. Such crimes would result in the perpetrator receiving a 20 percent increase in jail time and/or fines. “We need to say clearly that Arkansas will not tolerate violence against anyone because of their race, their religion or who they are,” Hutchinson said at a news conference at the state Capitol.

During the conference there were signs behind Hutchinson displaying the logos of businesses who back the legislation. Multiple business owners expressed that the bill was necessary to make the state appealing towards a more diverse group of workers.

“Arkansas needs to be open for business and growth and that includes protecting the individuals who need it the most,” Randy Zook, president of the Arkansas Chamber of Commerce, told ABC News.

Arkansas currently joins South Carolina and Wyoming as the only three states in the nation without hate crime legislation. Earlier this month, Georgia became the latest state to finally pass a hate crime bill.

Previous efforts to pass a hate crime bill in the state had faltered due to push back over the inclusion of sexual orientation which, sadly, is Republican af. Notably, this bill has the full backing of both parties in the Republican-led state legislature. Last year, Hutchinson indicated he was open towards passing a hate crime following a mass shooting at a Texas Walmart that is being tried as a hate crime.

https://www.theroot.com/arkansas-gov...-cr-1844779889
Joe Jurado, Jr Staff Writer @TheRoot
____________________
Here’s a link to the draft - https://senate.arkansas.gov/media/27...-8-19-2020.pdf

[C0LLETTE]

Originally Posted by Wrang1er

I worry because I see Trump signs EVERYWHERE. That's how it was last time when they said he was behind in the polls.

If Trump wins I am going to propose to Collette. Hopefully she accepts and I can move to Canada.

I can think of worse things, however I might move to Australia so hold off and you might be able to go directly there . lol

[Wrang1er]

Originally Posted by C0LLETTE

I can think of worse things, however I might move to Australia so hold off and you might be able to go directly there . lol

This sounds promising. However, if we tie the knot, I think I should do the cooking. That way there will be more than frozen chicken legs in the freezer.

[C0LLETTE]

Originally Posted by Wrang1er

This sounds promising. However, if we tie the knot, I think I should do the cooking. That way there will be more than frozen chicken legs in the freezer.

You know, chicken legs can taste just like frog legs if you use the right sauce.

[homoe]

The claim is the president’s latest effort to undermine the November election.

President Donald Trump said he planned to send law enforcement and U.S. attorneys to polling places around the country to protect against his unfounded claims there will be mass voter fraud during the November election.

Trump made the comments on Fox News on Thursday night, his latest efforts to sow doubt ahead of an unprecedented election as millions of Americans plan to vote by mail due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Poll-watching is a standard part of elections, but Democrats have expressed concern about the scale at which the GOP plans to do so.

“We’re going to have everything,” the president told host Sean Hannity during the final night of the Democratic National Convention, just before Joe Biden accepted his party’s nomination. “We’re going to have sheriffs, and we’re going to have law enforcement and we’re going to have hopefully U.S. attorneys and we’re going to have everybody, and attorney generals.”

The president does not have the authority to send law enforcement to polling locations, CNN notes.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump...b6305f3255d1dd

[homoe]

Fox News host Laura Ingraham turned Donald Trump Jr.’s smile into a frown with her middling praise for Joe Biden, saying the Democratic nominee gave a “fairly well-delivered speech” on the final night of the Democratic National Convention.

Ingraham, who earlier accused Biden of using “personal tragedy for political ends,” complained to guest Trump Jr. that Biden failed to enact any meaningful change during his two terms as vice president. Then she surprisingly switched gears, conceding that Biden’s nomination acceptance speech “did beat expectations.”

“People were expecting him to flub every line and have a senior moment,” Ingraham said, adding that Biden’s speech “was devoid of any policy other than universal masking, but he delivered a good speech and for what he was doing, very emotional.”

Trump Jr. ― who wore a grin as he listened to Ingraham dismiss Biden’s record as vice president ― immediately turned serious and went on the defensive. He argued that Biden was incapable of being tough on China, attacked Hunter Biden’s alleged connections to Ukraine, and argued that Joe Biden ― a “50-year swamp creature” ― had failed to do anything worthy in his political career.

[FireSignFemme]

Originally Posted by Wrang1er

This sounds promising. However, if we tie the knot, I think I should do the cooking. That way there will be more than frozen chicken legs in the freezer.

Wait a minute. I heard she hoards Top Ramen, and knows lots of ways to fix it. So you shouldn't have to do all the cooking to stave off a constant, steady diet of chicken legs. She's got talents too.

[Orema]

The Prosecution Rests

Without Kamala Harris, Senate Democrats struggle to pin down Trump’s postmaster.


U.S. Postal Service Postmaster General Louis DeJoy is sworn in for a virtual Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing on Friday in D.C. Photo by U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee via Getty Images

Nothing less than the survival of our democracy will be on the ballot in November, the country’s most high-profile Democrats warned the public in four days of stirring messages at this week’s Democratic National Convention. And unprecedented numbers of those ballots will be cast by mail, meaning the main threat to the integrity of the upcoming election may be the sudden widespread slowdown of the postal system, backed by President Donald Trump’s promise to deny post office funding in order to hamper mail-in voting.

Yet on Friday, as the Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee questioned Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, Sen. Kamala Harris—the newly chosen Democratic nominee for vice president—was absent. And without her focused, prosecutorial style on their side, the committee Democrats struggled to make DeJoy explain why he’s launched a disruptive overhaul of postal operations just as voting by mail is about to begin, and whether he plans to do anything to restore normal delivery.

There was historical precedent for Harris to skip the hearing. It’s normal for a vice presidential nominee to put aside some of their congressional duties to campaign. In 2004, Sen. John Edwards stopped appearing at hearings after he was selected to be John Kerry’s running mate. The same was true of then-Sen. Joe Biden after he was selected as Barack Obama’s running mate in 2008.

But in those past years, those candidates had to choose between actual physical campaigning and attending the hearings in person. Under the current coronavirus pandemic conditions, campaign events and hearings alike are being held by videoconferencing. And few of those hearings in the past were as important as Friday’s showdown with a former top Trump donor and now postmaster general who in his first few months in office has slowed mail service to a crawl while his boss has directly promised to starve the post office to harm the election.

Harris—a former prosecutor and attorney general who is often lauded as perhaps the best cross-examiner in the Senate—is just one of six Democratic members of the committee. Left to grill the witness on their own, the five remaining Democrats mostly watched as the members of the Republican majority used their time to literally praise DeJoy for his disastrous changes to the USPS. Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, the committee chairman, told DeJoy, “I think you should be commended for this type of initiative, not condemned.”

Sen. Jacky Rosen of Nevada did a good job of pushing back on DeJoy’s complete refusal to explain the data—if any—behind his decisions to curtail overtime, remove high-powered mail sorting machines, and start leaving mail behind on the workroom floor. Democrats for the most part, though, failed to elucidate what was behind those moves. This allowed the GOP members of the committee to attempt to portray the postmaster as a humble public servant being wrongfully targeted by a smear campaign, eliding the mail disruptions over the past month that have resulted in lengthy delays for prescription drugs for veterans, delayed arrivals of bills and paychecks, and even the deaths of baby chicks intended to be sent to small rural farms.

Harris submitted to DeJoy a five-page list of questions she wanted answered. Her Democratic colleagues did ask some of the questions Harris had put forward, such as whether he would continue to curtail overtime during the election season and whether he would treat election mail with expedited priority service as in years past. The problem was that DeJoy did not give direct answers to critical questions, for instance falsely denying that USPS has curtailed overtime. And there’s nothing to stop his written responses from being even more evasive.

Here’s where Harris’ skill as a follow-up questioner would have helped Democrats on the committee pin down DeJoy directly on what changes he intended to keep in place and what continued impact they are going to have on mail service headed into the election season. Instead, they got the postmaster general’s vague and mealy-mouthed responses that allow for potential continued disruptions of mail service.

So, what explains Harris’ absence? It seems as though the Biden-Harris ticket is very much planning to continue the campaign strategy that seemed to work so well for the Biden campaign throughout the summer: staying as out of sight as possible and letting President Donald Trump self-destruct amid the worst dual crises in recent American history.

Biden’s acceptance speech on Thursday received wide acclaim, even from normally critical Fox News. So it is understandable, perhaps, that the campaign wouldn’t want the No. 2 person on the ticket stepping on that positive buzz one morning later, even with her own positive buzz. There’s also the likelihood that if Harris were to have taken a starring role in Friday’s hearing, she would have been criticized no matter how well she performed. It seems likely that conservative media would have cast such an appearance as outside of normal precedent and chastised her for using her position in the Senate to advance her campaign.

Given, though, that this is literally the accusation against Donald Trump and Dejoy—that they are using the power of their offices not just to advance Trump’s campaign but to diminish the post office and threaten the vote that is the very core to our democracy—Harris would have been more than justified doing her important job of congressional oversight.

By JEREMY STAHL
AUG 21, 2020
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/...r-hearing.html