Republicans: continued

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Re: Republicans: continued

Post by Brian Peacock » Tue Aug 13, 2019 11:25 pm

:funny:
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Re: Republicans: continued

Post by L'Emmerdeur » Wed Aug 14, 2019 5:43 pm

Regressive shitbag Republicans just can't help themselves.

'U.S. Rep. Steve King: If not for rape and incest, "would there be any population left?"'
U.S. Rep. Steve King told the Westside Conservative Club Wednesday that humanity might not exist if not for rape and incest throughout human history.

"What if we went back through all the family trees and just pulled out anyone who was a product of rape or incest? Would there be any population of the world left if we did that?" he said in Urbandale, Iowa. "Considering all the wars and all the rapes and pillages that happened throughout all these different nations, I know that I can't say that I was not a part of a product of that."

The Kiron Republican was discussing his defense of not allowing exceptions for rape and incest in the anti-abortion legislation he tried to pass in Congress. Republican leadership had prevented bills he sponsored on banning abortions from advancing through the House, despite GOP support for the measures, King said.

Just because a conception happened in bad circumstances doesn't mean the result isn't a person, King, who is Catholic, argued.

"It's not the baby's fault for the sin of the father, or of the mother," he said.
King is still complaining about how reporting of his own words led his disgrace, in the party that had previously been willing to overlook his wretched blathering, while noting that Trump didn't join in.
He also discussed the criticism he faced over a New York Times quote on white nationalism and white supremacy in January. He said he was told by political insiders that there was a plot to take him out of power.

He cited state Sen. Randy Feenstra's campaign announcement January 9, a day before the Times published an article quoting King saying “white nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization — how did that language become offensive?”

"People think it was an organic media feeding frenzy, but no, it was orchestrated from the beginning," he said. "They had told me, heads up before Christmas, they're going to try to drive you out of office and get you to resign. Within 24 hours, you had people saying 'resign, resign, resign.' Why? Because the New York Times misquoted me?"

King said there was a plan for President Donald Trump to criticize him as well, but he met with Trump and said there's "no signal from Donald Trump that he's anything other than supportive of me."
Of course he's also still claiming that it was a misquote. See earlier post.

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Re: Republicans: continued

Post by JimC » Wed Aug 14, 2019 8:54 pm

Scum definitely floats to the top in the GOP...
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Re: Republicans: continued

Post by Tero » Wed Aug 14, 2019 9:20 pm

But what kind of rape? legitimate rape?
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Re: Republicans: continued

Post by Joe » Thu Aug 15, 2019 3:05 pm

If Steve King speaks in the forest, and there's no one there to hear, is it still bollocks? :thinks:
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Re: Republicans: continued

Post by Seabass » Thu Aug 15, 2019 7:32 pm

They don't call him "Moscow Mitch" for nothing!
A Kremlin-Linked Firm Invested Millions in Kentucky. Were They After More Than Money?
https://time.com/5651345/rusal-investme ... -kentucky/

Last summer, it looked like things were finally about to change for Ashland, Ky. For two decades, the jobs that once supported this Appalachian outpost of 20,000 people on a bend in the Ohio River have been disappearing: 100 laid off from the freight-rail maintenance shop; dozens pink-slipped at the oil refinery; 1,100 axed at the steel mill that looms over the landscape. Then, on June 1, 2018, standing on a stage flanked by the state’s governor and business leaders, Craig Bouchard, the CEO of Braidy Industries, pointed across a vast green field and described a vision as though he could already see it.

In the little-used park just off I-64, Braidy would build the largest aluminum mill constructed in the U.S. in nearly four decades. The $1.7 billion plant would take aluminum slab and roll it into the material used in everything from cars and planes to soda cans. It would employ 600 full-time workers earning twice the average salary in the region, Bouchard said, and create 18,000 other jobs across the state. Gesturing at the empty space around him, the CEO described an employee health center, a technical lab, a day care and hundreds of employees walking around “carrying iPads.” More than just making aluminum, the plant would help “rebuild northeast Kentucky, and in fact all of Appalachia,” Bouchard told the crowd.

There was just one problem: Bouchard still needed a major investor to make the vision a reality. After months of searching, the only option was problematic. Rusal, the Russian aluminum giant, was tailor-made to join forces on the project. But it was under sanctions imposed by the U.S. Treasury Department. Its billionaire owner, Oleg Deripaska, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s, was being investigated by special counsel Robert Mueller for his potential involvement in the effort to swing the 2016 presidential election. The Treasury sanctions—punishment for the Kremlin’s “malign activities” around the world, including “attempting to subvert Western democracies”—made it illegal for Americans to do business with Rusal or its boss.

So Bouchard faced a dilemma. Keeping his promise to bring good new jobs—a project that had already been touted by the White House—would mean partnering with a firm that had deep ties to the Kremlin. Which mattered more, the economic needs of a depressed region, or the national-security concerns raised by the Mueller investigation? Hundreds of miles from the congressional hearings and think-tank debates over Russian influence in Washington, Braidy Industries and the surrounding community had to weigh whether Russia’s 2016 plot had caused enough damage to American security, or American pride, to spurn a chance at an economic miracle.

Bouchard concluded they had no choice. He knew it could be controversial, if not outright illegal, to work on a deal with Rusal while it was still fighting to free itself from U.S. sanctions, he told TIME in an interview. But after a long talk with his lawyers about the risks of even discussing such a partnership, he traveled to Zurich in January 2019 for what he calls a “meet and greet” with a Rusal sales executive. Over dinner at La Rôtisserie, a restaurant with a view of the city’s 12th century cathedral, the executive told Bouchard that the company was ready to do business. “They said, ‘If we get the sanctions off, let’s meet again,’” he recalls. “And I said, ‘Wow, that’s interesting.’”

By mid-April, an exuberant Bouchard was standing at the New York Stock Exchange, announcing that the Russian company had purchased a 40% stake in the Ashland plant for $200 million. Back in Kentucky, the news was met with celebration and relief. “People who were skeptical are seeing that it’s big time,” says Chris Jackson, a 42-year-old former steel-mill worker. When he enrolled in a training program for the Braidy plant, Jackson recalls, many in the community doubted the jobs would ever materialize. “The Rusal agreement just showed everybody this is legit.”

But to some observers, the story of how a Kremlin-linked aluminum giant offered an economic lifeline to Appalachia is an object lesson of the exact opposite. Critics of the deal, both Democrat and Republican, say it gives Moscow political influence that could undermine national security. Pointing to Moscow’s use of economic leverage to sway European politics, they warn the deal is a stalking horse for a new kind of Russian meddling in America, one that exploits the U.S. free-market system instead of its elections. “That’s just what the Russians do,” says veteran diplomat Daniel Fried, who shaped U.S. policy on Eastern Europe at the State Department from the late 1980s until 2017. “They insert themselves into a foreign economy and then start to influence its politics from the inside.”

What worries national-security experts is not that Rusal, Braidy or Deripaska broke any laws in the deal. It’s that they didn’t. A TIME investigation found that Rusal used a broad array of political and economic tools to fight the sanctions, establishing a foothold in U.S. politics in the process. “You cannot go against them in a policy decision, even though it’s in our national interest, when they have infiltrated you economically,” says Heather Conley, who served as a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State under President George W. Bush. “They use our laws, our rules, our banks, our lawyers, our lobbyists—it’s a strategy from within.”

To free itself from sanctions, Rusal fielded a team of high-paid lobbyists for an intense, months-long effort in Washington. One of the targets was Kentucky’s own Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, who helped thwart a bipartisan push to keep the sanctions in place. Since May, two of McConnell’s former staffers have lobbied Congress on behalf of Braidy, according to filings. Ahead of the 2018 midterm elections, one of Rusal’s longtime major shareholders, Len Blavatnik, contributed more than $1 million through his companies to a GOP campaign fund tied to McConnell.


full article: https://time.com/5651345/rusal-investme ... -kentucky/
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Re: Republicans: continued

Post by Sean Hayden » Thu Aug 15, 2019 7:47 pm

I can't believe they said that about Russia. These men are absurd. If Russia is doing this, and better than you, then you have only yourselves to blame.

In a different context they'll remind us of how backward and incapable Russia had proven to be at adapting to modern economies! :lol:

It's a joke.

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Re: Republicans: continued

Post by Seabass » Thu Aug 15, 2019 7:58 pm

How a McConnell-backed effort to lift Russian sanctions boosted a Kentucky project
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... story.html

In January, as the Senate debated whether to permit the Trump administration to lift sanctions on Russia’s largest aluminum producer, two men with millions of dollars riding on the outcome met for dinner at a restaurant in Zurich.

On one side of the table sat the head of sales for Rusal, the Russian aluminum producer that would benefit most immediately from a favorable Senate vote. The U.S. government had imposed sanctions on Rusal as part of a campaign to punish Russia for “malign activity around the globe,” including attempts to sway the 2016 presidential election.

On the other side sat Craig Bouchard, an American entrepreneur who had gained favor with officials in Kentucky, the home state of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Bouchard was trying to build the first new aluminum-rolling mill in the United States in nearly four decades, in a corner of northeastern Kentucky ravaged by job losses and the opioid epidemic — a project that stood to benefit enormously if Rusal were able to get involved.

The men did not discuss the Senate debate that night at dinner, Bouchard said in an interview, describing it as an amicable introductory chat.

But the timing of their meeting shows how much a major venture in McConnell’s home state had riding on the Democratic-backed effort in January to keep sanctions in place.

By the next day, McConnell had successfully blocked the bill, despite the defection of 11 Republicans.

Within weeks, the U.S. government had formally lifted sanctions on Rusal, citing a deal with the company that reduced the ownership interest of its Kremlin-linked founder, Oleg Deripaska. And three months later, Rusal announced plans for an extraordinary partnership with Bouchard’s company, providing $200 million in capital to buy a 40 percent stake in the new aluminum plant in Ashland, Ky. — a project Gov. Matt Bevin (R) boasted was “as significant as any economic deal ever made in the history of Kentucky.”

A spokesman for McConnell said the majority leader did not know that Bouchard had hopes of a deal with Rusal at the time McConnell led the Senate effort to end the sanctions, citing the recommendation of Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.

McConnell “was not aware of any potential Russian investor before the vote,” spokesman David Popp said.

Bouchard said no one from his company, Braidy Industries, told anyone in the U.S. government that lifting sanctions could help advance the project. Rusal’s parent company, EN+, said in a statement that the Kentucky project played no role in the company’s vigorous lobbying campaign to persuade U.S. officials to do away with sanctions.

But critics said the timing is disturbing.

“It is shocking how blatantly transactional this arrangement looks,” said Michael McFaul, who served as the U.S. ambassador to Russia during the Obama administration and now teaches at Stanford University.

Democratic senators have called for a government review of the deal, prompting a Rusal executive in Moscow last week to threaten to pull out of the investment.

The Rusal-backed project is one of several issues fueling broader scrutiny of McConnell’s posture toward Russia and its efforts to manipulate American voters.

In 2016, McConnell privately expressed skepticism about the intelligence reports on Russia’s activities in the election and resisted a push by the Obama administration to issue a bipartisan statement condemning the Kremlin. Last month, he blocked consideration of election security bills that have bipartisan support, despite warnings from the FBI and the intelligence community about the risks of foreign interference in the 2020 election.

Democrats have accused McConnell of being unwilling to stand up to Russian President Vladi­mir Putin, taunting him with the moniker “Moscow Mitch.” The critique has drawn an angry response from the usually understated majority leader.


full article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... story.html
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Re: Republicans: continued

Post by Sean Hayden » Thu Aug 15, 2019 10:35 pm

All I see is Russian money helping Americans. If you expect me to care about a supposed boost to their influence, well, it's a truly absurd expectation.

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Re: Republicans: continued

Post by Seabass » Thu Aug 15, 2019 10:56 pm

Did you actually read the articles? Russian oligarchs aren't interested in "helping Americans".
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Re: Republicans: continued

Post by Sean Hayden » Thu Aug 15, 2019 11:05 pm

Do you actually have no problem with calling out the rest of the world for acts your country and its allies mastered? When Russia was getting into oil and gas, they were also experiencing major political upheaval, and who do you think had all the influence, and what do you think they did with that influence? It wasn't to help the Russians.

Also, when did American money give a shit about helping Americans?

But you would have me ignore everything, for what, to have a go at Republicans?

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Re: Republicans: continued

Post by JimC » Fri Aug 16, 2019 12:16 am

I think that the real point is that it is a given that they will always act in their own self-interest, which may well be deleterious to US interests. Any political party or grouping in America that accepts help from Russia needs to be damn sure that the benefit they receive does not make them overlook the longterm problem of letting a competing nation state influence your political system...
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Re: Republicans: continued

Post by Sean Hayden » Fri Aug 16, 2019 12:23 am

We must all eventually influence each other.

--//--

But sticking to this, what's wrong with examining our own actions and seeing if we are not being hypocritical, or worse? This may be worse because it looks like an attempt to smear a Republican without regard to the potential impact on either the people being helped by the investment, or our relationship with Russia.

BTW, I don't think all American money is disinterested in helping Americans. But it's an easy enough accusation to throw around in today's climate, similar to something about Russian money.

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Re: Republicans: continued

Post by Scot Dutchy » Fri Aug 16, 2019 6:52 am

Portland prepares for city's largest far-right rally of the Trump era
Police are fearful of an outbreak of violence at the ‘End Domestic Terrorism’ rally, which is targeted at Portland’s antifascist groups

Portland is preparing for a large far-right rally on Saturday that may be the largest in a series of demonstrations that have descended on the city in the Trump era.

Police in the Oregon city are fearful of an outbreak of violence at the “End Domestic Terrorism” rally, which is targeted at Portland’s antifascist groups, who in recent years have clashed with rightwing activists in running street battles.

The protest has been promoted primarily by Floridian Joe Biggs, a member of the rightwing Proud Boys organization. Biggs is a combat veteran and a former employee of the conspiracy broadcaster Alex Jones’s Infowars network. He claims that up to 1,000 people from around the country will attend Saturday’s unpermitted event on the city’s waterfront.

In promoting the rally on social media, Biggs has brandished a Trump-themed baseball bat, appeared in videos wearing a T-shirt bearing the slogan “Training to Throw Communists Out of Helicopters” – a reference to the Chilean Pinochet regime’s methods for executing dissidents – and has taunted antifascists, saying “You’re not gonna feel safe when you go out in public” and “I’m gonna stomp your ass into the ground, Antifa”.

In more recent days, Biggs has urged supporters to tone down their rhetoric after notifying them on Facebook that he had received a visit from the FBI.
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Re: Republicans: continued

Post by Seabass » Fri Aug 16, 2019 8:08 am

JimC wrote:
Fri Aug 16, 2019 12:16 am
...needs to be damn sure that the benefit they receive does not make them overlook the longterm problem of letting a competing nation state influence your political system...
Well, it's too late for that. The influence has already happened.

Let's see: Mitch McConnell scuttles sanctions that are meant to punish Russia for attacking our elections... then, later we find out that Oleg Deripaska—one of Putin's inner circle—is investing 200 million in an aluminum factory in Mitch McConnell's state. AND, we also find out out that this Blavatnik guy dumped a bunch of money into a GOP campaign fund that McConnell runs. And let's not forget that McConnell has REFUSED to allow a vote on any legislation meant to safeguard our elections from future Russian attacks.

And yes, obviously, Deripaska and Putin now have leverage on several Kentucky lawmakers, including the Senate majority leader.

This is crazy. During any other presidency, this would have been a major scandal, but of course since this is the "Trump era" (christ, I still can't believe that's actually a thing) so everyone will probably forget about this shady shit after a day or two.


Oh yeah, there's also the matter of $200 million for a 40% stake in a plant worth... 1.7 billion?! What's up with that?? Either someone is really bad at math, or there's something else going on here... :think:
"Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." —Voltaire
"They want to take away your hamburgers. This is what Stalin dreamt about but never achieved." —Sebastian Gorka

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