Gas Bandit's Political Thread V: The Vampire Likes Bats

GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
1/ A North Dakota judge struck down the state’s abortion ban, saying the state constitution creates a “fundamental right” to access abortion before a fetus is viable and restrictions on that right is “a violation on medical freedom.” Judge Bruce Romanick ruled that the abortion ban – one of the strictest in the U.S. – was “unconstitutionally void for vagueness.” The law, enacted by the legislature last year, made the procedure illegal in all cases except rape or incest but only when the woman has been pregnant for less than six weeks, or to “prevent the death or health risk to the pregnant female.” It’s the second time in two years that Romanick has overturned the state’s ban on abortion. (Washington Post / NBC News / New York Times / Axios)


2/ An Atlanta-area judge dismissed two charges against Trump in the Georgia election subversion case. A third charge against several of Trump’s co-defendants was also dismissed int the election interference case accusing them of criminally conspiring to try to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia. Trump now faces eight charges – down from 13 in the original indictment – and all the remaining defendants still stand accused of engaging in a racketeering conspiracy. Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee dismissed the three charges – filing false documents, attempting to file false documents, and criminally conspiring to file false documents – under the supremacy clause, which prohibits state prosecutions of activities that fall under federal jurisdiction. (Washington Post / CNN / NBC News)


3/ The New York Court of Appeals rejected Trump’s efforts to overturn the gag order in his New York criminal case, which he was convicted on 34 counts of orchestrating an illegal conspiracy to influence the 2016 presidential election by falsifying business records. The court dismissed Trump’s appeal because “no substantial constitutional question is directly involved.” Trump’s gag order, which bars him from making statements outside of court about witnesses, court and Manhattan DA staffers, jurors, prosecutors, and their relatives, will be lifted after he’s sentenced Nov. 26. (NPR / Axios / NBC News)


4/ Trump ruled another debate with Kamala Harris – two days after he visibly struggled and repeatedly careened between angry rants and bizarre claims about eating pets in their lone showdown. “THERE WILL BE NO THIRD DEBATE!,” Trump posted on his personal social media platform, falsely claiming victory in the debate he did not win. “When a prizefighter loses a fight, the first words out of his mouth are, ‘I WANT A REMATCH.’” Multiple post-debate polls, however, reliably show that audiences believe Harris won. (CNBC / Bloomberg)
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
GasBandit said:
4/ Trump ruled another debate with Kamala Harris – two days after he visibly struggled and repeatedly careened between angry rants and bizarre claims about eating pets in their lone showdown. “THERE WILL BE NO THIRD DEBATE!,” Trump posted on his personal social media platform, falsely claiming victory in the debate he did not win. “When a prizefighter loses a fight, the first words out of his mouth are, ‘I WANT A REMATCH.’” Multiple post-debate polls, however, reliably show that audiences believe Harris won. (CNBC / Bloomberg)
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Dave

Dave

Staff member
Loomer has been traveling with the Trump campaign, sleeping at Mar-a-Lago, and has been seen repeatedly hugging Trump or standing by him while he puts his arm around her and massages her back. Meanwhile Melania is nowhere to be seen. Hope Baron's eyes are more open than Don Jr. or the other one.

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Piotyr

Piotyr

Dave said:
Loomer has been traveling with the Trump campaign, sleeping at Mar-a-Lago, and has been seen repeatedly hugging Trump or standing by him while he puts his arm around her and massages her back. Meanwhile Melania is nowhere to be seen. Hope Baron's eyes are more open than Don Jr. or the other one.

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So then is MTG lashing out because Loomer beat her to the punch?
 
figmentPez

figmentPez

Staff member
For the second day in a row, Springfield schools have been shut down because of Trump's propaganda.

Springfield mayor seeks ‘help not hate’ as more bomb threats close schools, offices

"The Springfield City School District closed Roosevelt Middle School and evacuated Perrin Woods and Snowhill Elementary schools Friday morning after the city received two bomb threats via email, according to a city release. Cliff Park High School, a charter school outside the Springfield district, was also evacuated. "
....
"On Thursday, several city, county and school buildings around Springfield were closed because of a bomb threat to multiple facilities throughout the city.
"This included City Hall, the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, the Springfield Driver’s Exam Station, Ohio License Bureau on the south side, Springfield Academy of Excellence and Fulton Elementary School. They were all cleared using explosive-detecting canines. "
 
ScytheRexx

ScytheRexx

On the immigrants eating pets thing.

What really gets me is that it's not even just pets, one of the pictures they keep spreading around is a dude carrying a goose. They act like it's terrible that they are supposedly grabbing ducks and geese to eat.

I would bet you a substantial amount of money that at some time in the last decade these people talking about this would have called "duck dynasty" as one of their favorite reality shows. You know the one about a family of redneck duck hunters who sell duck calls so that other hunters can blast and sometimes eat hundreds of ducks and geese?

Their mantra is always "When we do it, it's good, when other people do it, it's bad!".

(This of course is ignoring the fact that the image in question was just a dude in Columbus picking up some roadkill. Whether he would decide to eat it or not, nobody knows, but I'm sure if it was RFK Jr that goose would be in a pot pretty quick.)
 
IronBrig4

IronBrig4

At the HBC I teach at, I'd say that probably 10% of my students are first or second-generation immigrants. They tend to be from Nigeria, Ghana, Jamaica, and Haiti. I like having them in my classes because their parents are super pushy about education. They're always among my best students. I wouldn't mind importing more Haitian immigrants and kicking out an equal number of Trump's trash.

The sad thing is this country has been here many times before. Wherever minority groups prosper, resentful white people push back. That often results in explosions of violence in places like Tulsa and Rosewood. What's different is that most of Springfield's population is okay with having the Haitians around. Instead the conspiracy theories are being spread by whites who aren't even from the area.
 
figmentPez

figmentPez

Staff member
“If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people then that's what I'm going to do” - JD Vance
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
1/ A man waited with a rifle for 12 hours at Trump’s golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida before a Secret Service agent spotted him and opened fire. Trump, who was golfing at the club at the time, was unharmed. The FBI said it “appear[ed] to be an attempted assassination.” Ryan Wesley Routh did not have Trump in his sightline and did not fire his semiautomatic rifle. After the Secret Service spotted the muzzle of a gun protruding from the bushes several hundred yards away, Routh fled the scene and left behind his phone, a loaded rifle with a scope, some food, and a digital camera. Routh was pulled over and arrested around 2:14 p.m. after a license-plate reader system reported his vehicle on I-95 – about 45 miles north of Trump International Golf Club. Routh’s cellphone records also show he was near the perimeter of the golf course from about 2 a.m. until 1:31 p.m. He was charged with two gun-related offenses: possession of a firearm as a convicted felon, and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number. Routh’s past history of criminal convictions – including possession of a weapon “of mass death and destruction” – barred him from owning a gun. Routh was not accused him of trying to kill Trump, but he did self-publish a 2023 book in which he appears to tell readers that they were “free to assassinate Trump.” (Associated Press / New York Times / Washington Post / NPR / Politico / Axios / ABC News / CNN / NBC News / Wall Street Journal / CNBC)

2/ Elon Musk deleted his post wondering why “no one is even trying to assassinate” Biden and Kamala Harris. Following intense backlash, Musk eventually deleted the post and tried to claim it was a “joke” that was “WAY less funny if people don’t know the context and the delivery is plain text.” The White House condemned Musk’s post, saying “violence should only be condemned, never encouraged or joked about. This rhetoric is irresponsible.” Meanwhile, Trump blamed the polarized political environment he helped create on Biden and Harris, citing their “rhetoric.” (New York Times / CNN / Bloomberg / ABC News / NBC News)

3/ JD Vance admitted that he has to “create stories” – like the debunked claim that Haitians in Ohio are killing and eating pets – to media attention. “If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do,” Vance said of his baseless claim that Haitian migrants were eating pets in Springfield, Ohio. The state’s Republican governor called Vance’s claim that migrants were eating pets “a piece of garbage that was simply not true.” The Ohio town, however, has been forced to close schools and government, and cancel its annual celebration of culture and diversity following bomb threats. (The Guardian / New York Times / Associated Press / NPR / NBC News / Axios / Rolling Stone)

Notables.
  1. How Roberts Shaped Trump’s Supreme Court Winning Streak “Behind the scenes, the chief justice molded three momentous Jan. 6 and election cases that helped determine the former president’s fate.” (New York Times)
  2. Laura Loomer, Trump’s new favorite conspiracy theorist, explained. “Trump’s increasingly close ties to the ‘proud Islamophobe’ expose some ugly truths his allies would rather keep hidden.” (Vox)
  3. Trump Defends Associating With 9/11 Truther Laura Loomer “Loomer, a conservative commentator, attended an anniversary ceremony with Trump at Ground Zero and posted about a 9/11 conspiracy theory days later.” (HuffPost)
  4. J.D. Vance Just Sold Out His Family to Defend Trump and Laura Loomer. “J.D. Vance brushed off Laura Loomer’s racist comments, despite being married to an Indian American woman.” (The New Republic)
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
1/ Senate Republicans blocked legislation to federally protect access to in vitro fertilization. The package, called the Right to IVF Act, would establish a nationwide right “to receive fertility treatment from a health care provider, in accordance with widely accepted and evidence-based medical standards of care,” in addition to ensuring insurance coverage for such treatments. It’s the second time that Republicans, despite Trump’s statements supporting the fertility treatment, have filibustered the Democratic legislation. Kamala Harris said Republicans “have once again made clear that they will not protect access to the fertility treatments many couples need [and] their opposition to a woman’s freedom to make decisions about her own body is extreme, dangerous, and wrong.” (CBS News / CNN / Politico)

2/ A sheriff in Ohio urged residents to “write down” the addresses of Harris supporters for future reference. Portage County Sheriff Bruce Zuchowski suggested he’d use the list to send undocumented immigrants, who he called “human locust,” to those homes. Zuchowski is seeking reelection. It’s against federal law to intimidate voters into not casting their vote of their choice. (NBC News / Washington Post)

3/ Nearly 100,000 people in Arizona may not be eligible to vote after officials discovered an error that incorrectly marked these voters with having provided documented proof of citizenship when it’s unclear whether they have. After more than two decades, officials discovered that about 98,000 of the state’s 4.1 million registered voters – more registered as Republicans than as Democrats – had been marked as eligible to receive full ballots even though there is no record of them ever providing citizenship documents. Arizona requires proof of U.S. citizenship to vote in state and local elections. If voters do not provide proof of citizenship, they’re registered as what Arizona calls “federal only” voters, who can only vote for president and Congress. Meaning, the issue will not affect the upcoming vote for president or Arizona’s U.S. Senate seat. (Washington Post / Arizona Mirror)

4/ Florida law enforcement officials will conduct their own criminal investigation into the man with a rifle at Trump’s golf course. Gov. Ron DeSantis said Florida prosecutors will pursue the most serious charges available under state law, including attempted murder. DeSantis also believes the state’s case should take precedence over the federal prosecution, saying “In my judgment it’s not in the best interest of our state or our nation to have the same federal agencies that are seeking to prosecute Donald Trump leading this investigation, especially when the most serious straight-forward offense constitutes a violation of state law, but not federal law.” (NPR / Associated Press)

5/ Speaker Mike Johnson set up a vote on a six-month stopgap government funding plan that is expected to fail, because it’s linked to legislation requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote. A vote on the same package was abruptly delayed last week after Republicans vowed to tank the measure. While the measure has picked up little, if any support since Johnson pulled it last week, the House will vote on the bill Wednesday anyway. The move will allow Johnson to move on to a plan B, even though it’s unclear what that will be. Democrats and the White House want a clean, three-month stopgap bill, while Trump continues to demand that Republicans shut down the government if they “don’t get absolute assurances on Election Security,” even though noncitizen voting is already illegal. Congress is facing an Oct. 1 deadline to avoid a government shutdown. (Politico / Axios / NBC News / CNN)

poll/ Harris leads Trump by a record-high 6 percentage points among likely voters, 51% to 45%. Before the debate, Harris led Trump by 3 points. (Morning Consult)

poll/ 49% of registered voters say they’ll support Harris in November, compared to 44% who say they’ll support Trump. 48% say they will not vote for Harris, while 53% say they will not vote for Trump. (Monmouth University Poll)

poll/ 32% of Americans ages 18-34 feel nervous and scared about the upcoming election, 22% report feeling hopeful and optimistic, while 25% feel either dissatisfied and disappointed or bored and disinterested. (American University’s Sine Institute)
 
Dave

Dave

Staff member
GasBandit said:
Psst, the "Venezuelan Gang Takeover" is yet another thing the Republican Party manufactured out of thin air

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He admits it’s bullshit. He admits it’s all made up. He admits Trump is doing incalculable damage to his city and the people who live there.

He said he’s voting for Trump anyway.
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
1/ The Springfield City School District has received 36 shooting and bomb threats since Trump and JD Vance falsely claimed that Haitian immigrants were eating pets, forcing local schools to move classes online and cancel on-campus events. Despite no verifiable evidence or credible reports support the claims, Vance, nevertheless, defended his baseless comments, saying that “the media has a responsibility to fact-check” stories – not him. (The Guardian / Politico / Wall Street Journal / Axios)

2/ At least 111 former Republican national security officials endorsed Kamala Harris, calling Trump “unfit to serve again as president.” In a letter to the public, the Republicans conclude that Trump cannot be trusted “to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic […] and bear true faith and allegiance to the same. They add that Trump “promoted daily chaos in government, praised our enemies and undermined our allies, politicized the military and disparaged our veterans, prioritized his personal interest above American interests and betrayed our values, democracy and this country’s founding documents.” Together, they condemned Trump’s “dangerous qualities,” including his “unusual affinity” for dictators like Putin and “contempt for the norms of decent, ethical and lawful behavior.” (New York Times)

3/ The Georgia Election Integrity Coalition – a group of officials and election deniers – is reportedly planning to call the results of November’s election into question before a single vote is cast. Emails obtained as a result of a public records request sent to David Hancock, an election denier and member of the Gwinnett county board of elections, reveal the behind-the-scenes effort to enact denier-based policies and portray the coming election as beset with fraud. Separately, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger sent a letter to the State Election Board, criticizing “the absurdity of the board’s actions” to vote on more than a dozen new election rules and procedures so late in the process. The proposed package of election rules require that a polling place’s manager and two witnesses hand-count the paper ballots in every ballot box, hand counting of absentee ballots, requiring the public posting of all registered voters, and expanding access for poll watchers. Last month, the board approved a new rule requiring a “reasonable inquiry” before certifying state elections. The measure allows local officials to refuse or delay certification of a county’s election results. (The Guardian / New York Times / NPR / Rolling Stone)

4/ The FBI is investigating suspicious packages containing “an unknown substance” sent to elections officials in more than 16 states. None of the mail has been deemed hazardous – and in one case, the substance was flour – but the scare forced evacuations in some locations. (ABC News / Associated Press)

5/ The Teamsters won’t endorse a presidential candidate for the first time since 1996 following an internal, electronic poll found that 59.6% of members supported a Trump endorsement, while 34% supported a Harris endorsement. The union endorsed Biden in 2020, who became the first sitting president in history to walk a picket line, in addition to awarding $36 billion in federal funds to save the pensions of more than 350,000 Teamster truck drivers – the largest rescue package for a pension plan in U.S. history. (New York Times / Politico / NPR / Washington Post / ABC News / Axios / CNBC)

6/ The Federal Reserve cut interest rates by half a percentage point and projected two more cuts before the end of the year. It’s the first rate cut in four years, and brings the Fed’s benchmark rate to a range between 4.75%-5% from between 5.25 and 5.5%. The Fed said the decision reflected “greater confidence that inflation is moving sustainably toward 2%” and that the central bank “judges that the risks to achieving its employment and inflation goals are roughly in balance.” (Wall Street Journal / Bloomberg / CNBC / Politico / New York Times / Washington Post / NBC News)

7/ The U.S. will face a shortage of six million workers by 2032 due, in part, to mismatches between workers and jobs, and the decline in workforce participation among men. According to the study, without increased immigration, working-age people will start to disappear from the labor force, leaving the U.S. unable to sustain its workforce with U.S.-born workers. (Bloomberg)

poll/ 54% of Americans said they support the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants, including 86% of Republicans, 58% of independents, and 25% of Democrats. (Scripps News)
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
1/ House Republicans rejected their own funding bill after Trump demanded that the government be shut down if legislation requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote isn’t passed. Noncitizen voting, however, is already illegal in federal elections, and voter fraud committed by noncitizens is rare and practically nonexistent. The claim that non-citizen voting is a widespread problem has been repeatedly debunked. Lawmakers have until Sept. 30 to extend government funding. “I’m disappointed,” Speaker Mike Johnson said after the vote, which he lost by a vote of 220-202. “We ran the play. It was the best play. It was the right one. And so now we go back to the playbook. We’ll draw up another play and we’ll come up with a solution.” (Washington Post / NBC News / Axios / Rolling Stone)

2/ Trump criticized the Federal Reserve’s decision to lower interest rates for the first time in four years during a campaign stop at a Bitcoin-themed bar. He suggested that the central bank was “playing politics” and that the economy must be “very bad.” Earlier in the day, the Fed cut rates from 5.25 to 5.50% to a range between 4.75 and 5% in response to the Committee gaining “greater confidence that inflation is moving sustainably toward 2%,” and that the “risks to achieving its employment and inflation goals are roughly in balance.” (The Hill / CNN / Daily Beast)

poll/ 48% of registered voters in Pennsylvania support Harris, while 47% support Trump. Among likely voters, Harris and Trump are both tied at 48%. (Washington Post)

poll/ If the 2024 presidential election were held today, 50% of voters in Pennsylvania say they’d vote for Harris, while 46% say they’d support Trump. Nationally, the two are tied at 47%. (New York times)
 
Celt Z

Celt Z

Everything I have learned about Mark Robinson in the last 24 hours, I wish I could unlearn. Not because I ever thought we was a good person, but because I don't want to know that shit about anybody. And somehow, this morning, it managed to get worse. I want to scrub my brain for a week.
 
Bubble181

Bubble181

Celt Z said:
Everything I have learned about Mark Robinson in the last 24 hours, I wish I could unlearn. Not because I ever thought we was a good person, but because I don't want to know that shit about anybody. And somehow, this morning, it managed to get worse. I want to scrub my brain for a week.
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The Black Nazi guy?

Yeah, Trump wasn't surrounded by the cream of the crop during his first run, but this time his entourage is really....Unique. "Willing to serve unquestioningly" really seems to be the only requirement.
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

Bubble181 said:
"Willing to serve unquestioningly" really seems to be the only requirement.
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"Voluntarily surrender one's self to the will of another" is the kind of thing that should only be reserved for intimate companions and/or Faith, and I don't know which one he thinks it is and I don't want to because both of them are wrongity wrong WRONG.

--Patrick
 
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