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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM

M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#241001: May 3rd 2018 at 9:43:47 PM

Perfectly good money was actually spent to make this ad. I mean it's not the worst waste of money I've ever seen...but it's probably in the top ten.

[up] I don't know if it's a grammar thing or a racism thing. Maybe both.

edited 3rd May '18 9:44:29 PM by M84

Disgusted, but not surprised
LSBK Since: Sep, 2014
#241002: May 3rd 2018 at 9:44:20 PM

[up][up][up][up]Because Mc Connell is the establishment which I is bad, I assume.

edited 3rd May '18 9:44:49 PM by LSBK

M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#241003: May 3rd 2018 at 9:45:42 PM

Let's not forget that Mc Connell's wife Elaine Chao is Chinese.

Disgusted, but not surprised
RainehDaze Nero Fangirl (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
Nero Fangirl
#241004: May 3rd 2018 at 9:46:34 PM

It is depressing that advertising standards are allowed to be so low.

LSBK Since: Sep, 2014
#241005: May 3rd 2018 at 9:46:50 PM

Yeah, it was a part of an attack on Mc Connell's family that also happened to include racism for good measure.

Edit: Page-topper.

edited 3rd May '18 9:47:03 PM by LSBK

megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#241006: May 3rd 2018 at 9:46:51 PM

He's legitimately evil.

Federal prison. He made $17.3M cutting pay & benefits for miners, was sentenced to 6 yrs 1 day for violating federal mine safety standards which cost 29 miners' lives when a blast occurred, but he only served 1 yr & is on parole while running for senate. Backed by some big bucks.

M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#241007: May 3rd 2018 at 9:47:43 PM

It takes someone being a real asshole to make me feel bad for Mc Connell, but this guy definitely wins the "prize". Granted, the fact that I'm of Han descent makes me just a little more irritated by Yellow Peril bigotry.

edited 3rd May '18 9:48:46 PM by M84

Disgusted, but not surprised
kkhohoho (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#241008: May 3rd 2018 at 9:48:38 PM

Honestly, with just how disjointed some of his statements are and his complete and total lack of charisma, I'd almost believe he was drunk. Though chances are, a bit of booze might actually make him coherent.tongue

M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#241009: May 3rd 2018 at 9:49:27 PM

The ad would have been less offensive if it was just him passed out in a puddle of his own vomit.

Disgusted, but not surprised
megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#241010: May 3rd 2018 at 9:52:30 PM

Here's the federal Indictment for the guy

The Republicans are terified of him winning the Republican primary.

The ex-con coal executive the GOP fears could be their nominee in West Virginia Senate race

(CNN) Watching Republican Senate candidate Don Blankenship on the campaign trail, he does not immediately come across as someone his party leaders would be concerned about.

He is soft spoken and lacks the charisma of even the most remotely formidable political figures. Yet beneath this low-key exterior is a candidate with a controversial history in West Virginia.

Blankenship, a coal baron, was just released from prison last May after serving a year sentence following his misdemeanor conviction for his involvement in the deadliest US mine explosion in four decades.

On the campaign trail, he has compared Senate Majority Leader Mitch Mc Connell to the Russians and accused Mc Connell of being soft on China because his father-in-law is a "wealthy China person."

A recent poll shows that Blankenship — who is campaigning on the same themes President Donald Trump did in 2016 when he won the state by 42 points — is trailing two other candidates in a three-way primary race.

All of this has national Republicans who are clinging to their narrow Senate majority terrified that Blankenship will win the GOP primary here because that could mean losing an opportunity in November's midterms to unseat Sen. Joe Manchin, one of the Senate's most vulnerable Democrats.

"They don't really believe that," Blankenship said of GOP warnings that having him as their nominee would blow their chances of winning the Senate seat here.

"That's what they're telling you so you'll tell the public that. What they believe is I'm gonna win. They don't want me to be there because they know I'm a extreme Trump supporter and that we have to make a change, and that they don't want that change to be made because they're personally benefiting from it," Blankenship told CNN.

He may not be the showman that Trump is, but Blankenship is a wealthy businessman whose message is Trump 2016 on steroids.

"You cannot continue to give American jobs to illegal immigrants. You cannot continue to drive all of the manufacturing jobs out of this country to Asia and pollute the world much more if those jobs and manufacturing facilities had stayed here," he argues.

The president is still very popular here, and it's why all six candidates vying for the GOP Senate nomination are tripping over themselves to align themselves with his agenda.

During a debate in Wheeling this week, the moderator began to ask whether there is anything they disagree with the President about, and one candidate, Jack Newbrough, screamed "no" before the question was even fully asked.

But if Blankenship sounds the most well-versed in Trumpism, it's because he has been espousing a more populist GOP approach for years. He even took out his phone and showed us a video he had made in 2012 in order to try to convince the Koch brothers to sign onto a more isolationist approach for the GOP.

He chuckled about the fact that the Koch's wouldn't go for it, but then Trump won the presidency with the same message.

Disdain for Republican leaders

Another similarity between Blankenship and the President is his disdainful rhetoric about GOP leaders in Washington. But while Trump's rhetoric sometimes sounds like he's whacking the so-called establishment because it played to his base, Blankenship really seems to mean it.

This week, Blankenship lobbed a racially charged accusation at Mc Connell, saying he's soft on China because his wife, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, was born in China and has family business ties there through her father.

"I have an issue when the father-in-law is a wealthy Chinaperson. There's a lot of connections to some of the brass, if you will, in China," Blankenship told West Virginia radio host Dimitri Vassilaros.

Mc Connell shot back by saying he has no comment on "ridiculous observations like that."

"My father-in-law is an American who lives in New York." Mc Connell told Fox News.

Longtime Mc Connell political aide Josh Holmes was less restrained, taking to Twitter to call Blankenship "as contemptible a human being as you will find."

Blankenship released a statement calling Holmes one of "D.C. Swamp Captain Mc Connell's lieutenants"

"When someone is about to drain the swamp, all sides of the establishment unify to keep the District of Corruption in place," said Blankenship.

Blankenship's heavy baggage

Senate Republicans' biggest concern with Blankenship isn't so much the way he rails on them personally and calls them corrupt, but that he recently got out of prison.

Blankenship was CEO of Massey Energy when the Upper Big Branch Mine exploded in 2010, killing 29 people.

In 2015, he was convicted conspiracy to violate mine health and safety standards — a misdemeanor — and was later sentenced to a year in prison before being released in May of 2017.

What does he say to voters who believe he has blood on his hands from the mining tragedy?

"The thing I would say to 'em is, Upper Big Branch deadly explosion is one of the biggest reasons they should vote for me if they're, have family members or are involved in the coal industry. Unlike any other person that I know of, I stood up against the establishment when they falsely claimed that the explosion was caused by the coal miners," he argued.

Blankenship insists the mine exploded because of federal regulators.

"These miners have had 400 years of experience and they were forced to change the ventilation by a guy that was hardly old enough to shave, and by God, that has got to stop," he said.

He also argues that he was not given a fair shake in court — set up by Democratic-backed judges and politicians like the Democratic Senator he wants to unseat, Joe Manchin.

Blankenship even wrote a short book while in jail, which he and aides hand out at campaign events, called "An American Political Prisoner."

"I prepared and distributed this booklet in order to reveal that our justice system is broken and how our government has not told the truth about the West Virginia coal mine explosion that it may have caused," he wrote in the introduction.

Flipping through the book, we asked if this was his manifesto.

"I don't know if manifesto has a negative tone or not. It sounds like it does since some of the really bad guys had manifestos," Blankenship responded.

"I would describe it as a common sense explanation that I was a political prisoner," he added.

Sen. Manchin's wife, who attended a Chamber of Commerce candidate breakfast here, calls that laughable.

"Don Blankenship is not a victim," Gayle Manchin told us flatly.

edited 3rd May '18 9:57:32 PM by megaeliz

ElSquibbonator Since: Oct, 2014
#241011: May 3rd 2018 at 9:58:24 PM

Trump's approval rating is still going up, and the Stormy Daniels affair doesn't seem to have stopped it. What do you think could possibly cause it to go back down?

RainehDaze Nero Fangirl (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
Nero Fangirl
#241012: May 3rd 2018 at 10:14:24 PM

The GOP doing anything.

It only goes up because things are happening and Trump/the Republicans are NOT actively pissing off the weird group that almost but doesn't quite like them.

M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#241013: May 3rd 2018 at 10:19:06 PM

I wouldn't sweat the approval rating too much. When Democratic candidates start losing elections they should have had a decent chance of winning (keyword: decent), then it might be time to be concerned.

Disgusted, but not surprised
Raptorslash Since: Oct, 2010
#241014: May 3rd 2018 at 10:26:47 PM

The stuff around North Korea is probably contributing to it. Trump can spin it as good press, and North Korea disarming their nukes is a positive thing (although they're doing it because they don't have much choice).

megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#241015: May 3rd 2018 at 11:19:46 PM

I think I figured out what the "Department of Justice will not be extorted" comment was about. note 

Officials at the department believe that the conservatives have now gone too far with document requests related to continuing investigations that the lawmakers clearly do not support, including the inquiry led by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, into Russia’s election interference. A former federal law enforcement official familiar with the department’s views said that Mr. Rosenstein and top F.B.I. officials have come to suspect that some lawmakers were using their oversight authority to gain intelligence about that investigation so that it could be shared with the White House.

Mr. Trump’s threat on Wednesday to intervene bolstered those voices and could undermine the Justice Department’s ability to protect some of its most closely held secrets. Lawmakers conducting oversight are usually given summaries of the information, but not the intelligence collected directly from wiretaps and sensitive sources.

Similar standoffs between law enforcement officials and Congress have resulted in compromise dating back decades, but in those cases, the Justice Department had the support of the president. Without Mr. Trump’s support, Congress is gaining the advantage.

Republican lawmakers, for their part, argue that Mr. Rosenstein’s department has slow-walked important requests and withheld crucial details from documents they do turn over — material they say is necessary to doing their jobs. And their threats are hardly veiled.

“Despite his repeated promises to cooperate, Mr. Rosenstein’s supervision of the Department of Justice has been sorely inadequate,” said Representative Mark Meadows, Republican of North Carolina and one of Mr. Rosenstein’s most outspoken antagonists. “Valid investigative requests from Congress have been slow-walked, stonewalled and impeded at each step of the way under his watch.”

He added, “If Mr. Rosenstein’s hesitance to produce documents and information to Congress represented an effort to save the Department of Justice from embarrassment, it is too late.”

Mr. Rosenstein, aware of the threats against him, has taken unusual steps to try to meet the demands, adding employees to review the requested files and sharing unredacted documents normally off limits to Congress — including memos drafted by the former F.B.I. director James B. Comey about his interactions with Mr. Trump. The department has even set up office space at its headquarters for congressional staff members and lawmakers to review hundreds of thousands of documents already studied by the department’s inspector general, according to a department official.

Those efforts have placated powerful Republican committee chairmen.

After Representative Devin Nunes of California, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, threatened last month to hold Mr. Rosenstein in contempt of Congress or proceed with impeachment, Mr. Rosenstein gave him access to an almost completely unredacted F.B.I. memo on the opening of the Russia investigation and won his thanks.

He reached an agreement last week with the two Republicans who run the committees that conduct oversight of the Justice Department, Representatives Robert W. Goodlatte of Virginia and Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, to satisfy the last of their demands for documents related to the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails and other decisions related to the Russia case.

But those compromises may have only emboldened Mr. Trump’s fiercest allies, including Mr. Meadows, the chairman of the hard-line House Freedom Caucus, and Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, a former chairman of the caucus. In an unusual show of defiance, both men have insisted that the agreement with the chairmen of the House Judiciary and House Oversight committees is not good enough and that they need access to an unredacted version of an August 2017 memo outlining the scope of Mr. Mueller’s investigation.

Democrats fear that the Republican requests — many of which call on the department to ignore longstanding policy about what it shares with Congress — are meant as a trap. Either Mr. Rosenstein can turn over information that could be used to undermine the special counsel’s inquiry, or he could refuse, giving Mr. Trump cover, or even cause, to fire the deputy attorney general.

Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said the latest Republican efforts were “clearly trying to sabotage” Mr. Mueller’s investigation and court a confrontation with Mr. Rosenstein.

“All of this noise is aimed at undermining the special counsel’s work as the investigation closes in on the president,” Mr. Nadler said in a statement. “The president’s attacks on the Department of Justice grow more paranoid by the day. The case for obstruction of justice — and the complicity of these House Republicans — grows day by day as well.”

Mr. Rosenstein, who has already given the Republican lawmakers access to hundreds of thousands of pages of documents, has made clear in recent days that he does not intend to go further.

On Monday, the Justice Department wrote to Mr. Meadows and Mr. Jordan to deny them access to the document about the scope of the Russia inquiry, citing department policy against sharing information on a continuing investigation.

“The department recognizes the keen interest that Congress has in the special counsel’s investigation, but, respectfully, we must adhere to the longstanding position of the department that congressional inquiries pertaining to ongoing criminal investigations threaten the integrity of those investigations,” Stephen E. Boyd, an assistant attorney general, wrote in the letter, a copy of which was provided to The New York Times.

“We hope you can respect our position,” he added.

And on Tuesday, Mr. Rosenstein, reacting to reports that Mr. Meadows had drafted articles of impeachment to use against him if needed, pushed back hard.

“If we were to just open our doors to allow Congress to come and rummage through the files, that would be a serious infringement on the separation of powers,” Mr. Rosenstein said at an event in Washington. “It might resolve a dispute today, but it would have negative repercussions in the long run, and we have a responsibility to defend the institution.”

edited 3rd May '18 11:21:21 PM by megaeliz

speedyboris Since: Feb, 2010
#241016: May 4th 2018 at 4:39:38 AM

So the Russian trolls were pushing the Jade Helm conspiracy theory too? Good God.

CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#241017: May 4th 2018 at 4:43:00 AM

Paul Ryan warns that if the Democrats win....THE COVER UPS WILL END.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/05/paul-ryan-if-the-gop-loses-house-trump-cover-ups-will-end.html

I wrote a conspiracy thriller urban fantasy called Esoterrorism about how the United States was actually directed by a bunch of mages who were constantly in-fighting. I may have to do a book, now where they've been replaced by really really stupid goblins.

FYI - I live like 5 miles from West Virginia and used to live there. As bad as Kentucky is, this guy would make WV worse.

edited 4th May '18 4:44:19 AM by CharlesPhipps

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Ultimatum Disasturbator from the Amiga Forest (Old as dirt) Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Disasturbator
#241018: May 4th 2018 at 4:44:12 AM

> So the Russian trolls were pushing the Jade Helm conspiracy theory too? Good God.

I think almost every conspiracy can be traced back to them ,anything to undermine the US,

edited 4th May '18 4:45:33 AM by Ultimatum

have a listen and have a link to my discord server
CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#241019: May 4th 2018 at 4:44:39 AM

And It Worked.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Ultimatum Disasturbator from the Amiga Forest (Old as dirt) Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Disasturbator
#241020: May 4th 2018 at 4:46:21 AM

I wonder if the armed militia in Oregon wasn't somehow their doing too

have a listen and have a link to my discord server
megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#241021: May 4th 2018 at 5:34:45 AM

[up][up][up] While I wouldn't underestimate the power tof American Conspiracy theorists, there are actually a suprising amount of famous conspiracy theories that, at least partially, can be traced back to Soviet Dezinfomatsiya campaigns, such conspiracies on who killed JFK, and that AIDS was a biological weapon created by the CIA.

AngelusNox Warder of the damned from The guard of the gates of oblivion Since: Dec, 2014 Relationship Status: Married to the job
Warder of the damned
#241022: May 4th 2018 at 5:43:40 AM

That is the problem with Agitprop, it works.

edited 4th May '18 5:43:59 AM by AngelusNox

Inter arma enim silent leges
Wildcard Since: Jun, 2012
#241023: May 4th 2018 at 5:58:17 AM

It's sad but I think after Korea, I think their are enough Trump loyalists and very dumb uninvolved people in the midwest and southern states who will drag the electoral college to voting for Trump again.

America's electoral system is dumb enough to undermine what the country actually wants. Next good pres, (anybody not a republican, lets face it, any republican would be almost as bad as Trump) needs to focus on election reform so this doesn't happen again.

M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#241024: May 4th 2018 at 6:05:04 AM

Welp, got my early ballot for California primaries in the mail. Looking at the ballot reminded me of how fitting “jungle primary” is.

Disgusted, but not surprised
kkhohoho (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#241025: May 4th 2018 at 6:23:03 AM

[up][up]Please. One feather in his cap isn't going to erase all the dung sitting right next to it. "God bless Donald Trump! He finally took care of those pesky Koreans! Other than that, he's a total piece of shit, but still."


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