Staff Abandon GOPer Over Old Comments Not as Bad as His New Ones

Robinson's staff fled his campaign out of shame over a secret past nowhere near as terrible as his public record

Sept. 24: Robinson says his campaign will be OKKK … U.S. beefs up Mideast troops … Trump loses bid for Nebraska Electoral College vote … House GOPer put his girlfriend on his staff wait let me rephrase that …

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Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson (R-NC), as he appeared in a campaign ad on his website this morning while the site had not yet been taken down. (Screengrab / safe-for-work Robinson video.)

The vast majority of top staffers on the gubernatorial campaign of Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson (R-NC) have quit abruptly after a devastating CNN report revealed a slew of secret online posts from years ago that are almost as bad as things he has said and done in public recently.

Yesterday, Sen. Bill Lee (R-TN) announced that the Republican Governors Association (RGA), which Lee chairs, will no longer support Robinson’s campaign in light of Robinson’s unearthed comments that are so wildly offensive and shocking that they almost rival things Robinson proudly stood behind while the RGA proudly stood behind him.

Former Pres. Donald Trump did not include Robinson in his North Carolina rally this weekend or coming up tomorrow. Trump, of course, won the 2016 election after voters heard him on tape discussing the ideal conditions for sexually assaulting women, and Republican’s nominated him for president this summer after a jury concluded that he raped a woman not in an online post but in a Manhattan dressing room.

Trump has said and done things far worse than anything Robinson is accused of secretly posting years ago, and even worse than things Robinson did publicly as a sworn public official.

As your diligent Fucking News reported aggregated last week, Robinson allegedly — he denies it, showing evidence of sanity — posted on a pornographic website various slurs against LGBTQ+ people, women, and humans.

The news came as a shock to virtually everyone who hadn’t read anything about him during his first campaign for office in 2020. That’s when we read things like, “Black people, Hollywood, women and LGBT people are all targets for first-time candidate Mark Robinson.”

Before North Carolina’s voters chose him as their lieutenant governor, Robinson called abortion “killing the child because you weren't responsible enough to keep your skirt down or your pants up.” And routinely used antisemitic slurs and tropes.

In a June 2021 speech, he referred to “transgenderism” and “homosexuality” as “filth.” He also has called for unseparating church and state, a wildly offensive goal to millions of Americans including the dead ones who died to separate them.

The newest round of posts that we’re still supposed to consider shocking were published under a pseudonym when Robinson held no public office or trust and wasn’t running for anything except apparently sex.

By contrast, while serving in the office of lieutenant governor, Robinson has said and done far more shocking things in public, on his office stationary, and with his face on TV.

Point being, it’s exponentially worse to attack vulnerable, persecuted people in campaign rhetoric and with actual policies that will fuck up their lives than it is to shitpost stupid shit in anonymous posts when you hold no public trust.

Nevertheless, for his campaign staff, the shame of his past, private comments was too much for them to continue helping him try to do much worse as governor.

Things like dispatching thought police to the state’s schools, an obscene violation of social norms and gravely offensive to LGBTQ+ people, women, and brain-dependent humans.

Before Republicans nominated him to run for governor, Robinson openly planned ending science and social studies classes for elementary school kids. 

Perhaps most offensive — because they could contribute to the death of LGBTQ+ people, Jews, women, and breathers — are Robionson’s past remarks denying the reality of climate change, which is real.

Robinson’s official campaign website is home to outrageous statements such as endorsing guns, which kill people in North Carolina at a far higher rate than fucked-up posts on porno websites.

And studies show that privately embracing Nazi ideologies, or even Black Nazi ideologies, has far less destructive impact on society than, for instance, allowing semiautomatic rifles on the streets.

In fact, some of those online comments are fairly mainstream, historically speaking. Robinson, for instance, expressed a dislike for the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., which was the majority sentiment of America before it killed him. Similarly, Robinson expressed an interest in joining the KKK, an extracurricular activity members of both parties once participated in openly.

Nevertheless, Robinson’s remarks were considered so almost-as-bad as his public actions that staffers with the campaign of former Pres. Donald Trump reportedly pushed for Robinson to drop out. The staffers then returned to crafting Trump’s message that Pres. Joe Biden was the victim of a coup.

Not participating in the Robinson coup is Sen. JD Vance (R-OH), who yesterday declined to call on Robinson to step aside. Terminating Robinson’s campaign is the only area so far in which Vance is known to be pro-choice.

He said that decision lies with the voters of North Carolina, who elected Robinson as lieutenant governor despite because of his record of saying outrageous things like the leader of their party did does.

Robinson said yesterday that he’s going to rebuild his staff. Which was not a euphemism.

He’s expected to post help-wanted ads online just as soon as he gets the wording of the posts exactly right.

U.S. Escalates Escalation of Israel’s De-Escalation Escalation

Less than a week after rolling out the latest terrorist innovation in Lebanon, Syria, and who knows where else, Israel went old school yesterday, dropping mad bombs.

Israeli officials said the airstrikes targeted Hezbollah terrorists, pushing them back into Lebanon away from Israel’s northern border. The death toll this morning stood at almost 500 no-longer standing Hezbollah terrorists, including more than 90 Hezbollah women and children terrorists. It was the worst single-day death toll in almost 20 years of that always-simmering conflict.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged Lebanese civilians to evacuate, saying, “Once our operation is [never] finished, you can [maybe] come back safely [ha!] to [what’s left of] your homes.”

That pledge came from Netanyahu in a recorded message which, in a new twist, was not delivered via booby-trapped pagers and walkie-talkies. It wasn’t immediately clear why Israel needed to ask civilians to leave, since its airstrikes are surgically targeted to kill convicted terrorists.

In fairness, Hezbollah has been bombing the crap out of Israel, or at least trying to. Israeli officials say that, since the Oct. 7 attack, Hezbollah has launched more than 9,000 drones and rockets at Israel.

Israeli jets yesterday struck what Israeli said were 1,600 Hezbollah sites, claiming the destruction of rockets, cruise missiles, and drones. Some of the weapons were allegedly hidden in private homes.

Hezbollah and Hamas both hide among and use the civilian population as human shields, because that’s supposed to deter military attacks.

But since providing U.S. arms to Israel has weirdly failed to stop those civilian deaths, the U.S. yesterday decided to try something new: More!

The Pentagon said yesterday it’s sending U.S. troops to the region, not to fight, but to imply that they could. The number of troops reportedly was in the dozens, on top of some 40,000 already in the region to preserve the stability their presence has yet to cause.

Beginning a previously scheduled deployment, the U.S.S. Harry S Truman departed Norfolk, VA, for the Mediterranean. Because nothing calms the waters like an aircraft carrier named after the only human in human history to kill humans with nuclear weapons.

Israel’s strategy of de-escalating the multilateral conflict by escalating it has come under intense criticism. However, history shows there are precedents. For instance, the U.S. escalation in Vietnam ultimately led to that war’s end and Vietnamese peace and capitalism.

Nebraska Republican Hands Harris One (1) Electoral College Vote

Nebraska is one of just two states that doesn’t give all of its Electoral College votes to whichever presidential candidate wins the majority of the state’s popular vote. Instead, Nebraska’s Electoral College votes are divvied up by congressional district.

So, the one (1) Electoral College vote tied to Democratic Omaha, NE, usually goes to the Democratic presidential candidate, while the rest of Nebraska’s Electoral College votes go to whoever the Republican presidential candidate is, no matter how Donald Trump they might be. Because Nebraska.

But with Vice Pres. Kamala Harris surging in polls and enthusiasm, Republicans were starting to smell both their own fear and whatever horrible thing just happened in their shorts. So they were trying — again — to change to a winner-takes-all system and hand Omaha’s one (1) Electoral College over to Trump, because when you’re a Trump they just let you do it.

Those Republican dreams came crashing to an end yesterday.

They needed a two-thirds majority in the state legislature to grab Nebraska by the Omaha. And they have exactly a two-thirds majority. Which meant they needed every single Republican to go along.

But the one Republican they still needed to agree yesterday said no. Historically, of course, saying “no,” isn’t necessarilly an impediment to Trump and his ilk (make no mistake, he has an ilk). But in this case there’s no way to force state Sen. Mike McDonnell (R-Omaha), a former Democrat, to let them do it. 

Like a savvy negotiator, Trump responded by calling McDonnell “Grandstander!” and posting that McDonnell “decided, for no reason whatsoever, to get in the way of a great Republican, common sense, victory.”

No reason whatsoever? Really, politically savvy former President Trump?

Is McDonnell crazy? Stubborn? Resistant to change?

Turns out, McDonnell is term-limited. He’s out no matter what. And, reportedly, McDonnell wants to run for mayor. Of Omaha.

Biden to Address United Nations about His Ununited Nation

Still-President Joe Biden today is addressing the United Nations, at a time when the world is even more riven by war than its usual level of war-riven-ness, and the only thing uniting the world’s nations is a shared commitment to ignore the clock ticking on Earth’s climate.

The subtext of Biden’s speech, of course, is that the world’s nations are right now forced to plan not just for the chaos and instability America normally exports, but also for Donald Trump’s unique brand.

Trump has questioned the U.S. role as the primary anchor of NATO, and vowed to undo Biden’s accomplishments moving the nation toward sustainable energy ()although not so much away from fossil fuels, which America is now producing at a greater rate in history, including the brief period when we didn’t know it would kill the planet).

It’s not clear, however, how much Trump could actually undo if he wins office. Or is it…?

Biden Aide Says It’s Pretty Clear How Much Shit Trump Can Unshit

Ali Zaidi, the national climate advisor to Pres. Joe Biden, tells Politico that even if former Pres. Donald Trump becomes represident, there’s not a whole lot Trump can do about Biden’s energy achievements. (Other than not continue achieving them, obvi.)

Zaidi says the administration is scrambling to lock in the last of the hundreds of billions of dollars in green energy spending that Biden and Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) snuck through Congress by walking out backwards past Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV).

Of course, those green investments don’t do anything directly to prevent future emissions, which could be accomplished overnight with, for instance, life in prison for every Big Oil C-suiter. What the Biden spending is doing is supercharging green energy to make it competitive, so that customers will willingly turn away from carbon-based energy sources that should’ve been outlawed decades ago.

Still, Zaidi is discomfortingly reliant on political impediments preventing a Trumpian clawback. Politico backs him up with evidence from House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) of a Republican reluctance to shitcan green energy spending in their shitholes.

But Trump changes everything. And there’s no question that Republicans would jump to obey if a rePresident Trump demanded that all those bulldozers and earth-movers redeploy from West Virginia to wall-building on America’s border with China.

Crime Watch

ILLEGAL VISA The Justice Department is preparing a lawsuit against Visa, because when rich people use corporations to commit crimes, we’re apparently not allowed to send them to jail.

The New York Times reports that Visa ran a protection racket beating the shit out of financially punishing customers who used credit-card payment-processing services that weren’t tied to the mob owned by Visa. Nice rival credit-card processing service ya got there…shame if something happened to your financial-services agreements with Visa.

Reportedly, federal prosecutors have investigated hundreds of victims. The victims they could find, anyway. The victims who weren’t, as the underworld euphemism goes, given a visa to the bottom of the East River.

Visa has a record of trying to bump off, tap, or swipe the competition. In 2020, for instance, Visa’s attempt to take over a rival mob financial tech company was so blatant that the Trump Justice Department sued. The Trump Justice Department!

In that case, Visa wanted to buy the company for $5.3 before it got big and successful enough that the only way Visa could compete was by ripping us off less with lower vig.

As the Times notes, the lawsuit — coming as soon as today — is just the latest salvo in a crusade by the Biden Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission. The two agencies have made a point of opposing Big Tech, monopolistic practices, and “middlemen” companies for which the entire business model is to serve as a scapegoat for other companies to raise their prices.

You know: Hire us as your “supply chain negotiator” and we’ll throw in an excuse for you to rob your insulin customers blind. Or at least amputated.

Campaign Watch

Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (R-NY) is one of the few Republican members of Congress who’s a believer in Big Government and job creation. In fact, he’s such a believer that he made the government bigger by creating jobs to benefit people that his member was having sexual congress with.

The New York Times reports — in a story that D’Esposito read before completing Wordle™ in six guesses — that he gave jobs to his girlfriend and to the daughter of his fiancée. Just for the record, those are three separate people:

• Girlfriend (who’s not his fiancée)

• Fiancée (who’s not his girlfriend)

• Fiancée’s daughter (who’s hopefully not also his girlfriend).

Of course, because the House polices itself, none of this is against the rules. House rules do prohibit hiring relatives, and even though D’Esposito wasn’t married — either to his fiancée or to his girlfriend — scholars of congressional ethics told the Times D’Espositio has violated the spirit of those rules, not to mention the spirit of his engagement.

The payments to the two women stopped last year, but the bill could come due in November. 

Because his staff aren’t the only people D’Esposito’s uncomfortably close with, or who were uncomfortably close to his staff. He’s also uncomfortably close with his rival, former Hempstead Town Supervisor Laura Gillen … in the polls, motherfuckers!

Now yesterday, a demanding Newsfucker upbraided me for not including links to campaign websites and I gave some mealy-mouthed, defensive rationale which was true but also mealy-mouthed and defensive.

So, here’s D’Esposito’s campaign website if anyone’s looking to volunteer…as his next girlfriend, since D’Esposito’s probably now D’estranged from his fiancée.

And here’s Gillen’s website if anyone’s looking to volunteer to help give D’Esposito more free time.

TCB

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