# Stupid Republican idea of the day **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 26, 2009, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897 "2009-03-26T18:48:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2155
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2019, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/43089 "2019-12-15T05:30:38Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > I’m going to make the prediction that not only won’t there be any charges filed, there _can’t_ be any charges filed. Is there anything legally preventing someone from buying a pardon from a governor? There might be, if their family had paid money to Bevins personally. But they paid money to his campaign committee, not him. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2019, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/43090 "2019-12-15T06:27:06Z")
Meet New Jersey congressman Jeff Van Drew. He was elected last year as a Democrat, beating a Republican incumbent. [Now he’s changing parties because his incessant defenses of Loser Donald have sent his approval ratings below 25% and he doesn’t want to be primaried.](https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/12/14/politics/jeff-van-drew-democrat-switch-parties-republican-trump-impeachment/index.html) ---
**Author:** ![margin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/65b543/32.png) [@margin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/margin)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2019, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/43091 "2019-12-15T17:14:05Z")
> [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](#): > > There might be, if their family had paid money to Bevins personally. But they paid money to his campaign committee, not him. Great way to avoid those pesky bribery charges, but you have to suspect Repubs use those funds like Trump used his “charity” ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2019, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/43092 "2019-12-15T19:16:21Z")
Several things today: 12/13/19 Retired Navy SEAL running against an incumbent Democratic Congressman in Texas 1-Showed up to his first rally in uniform, in violation of military regs 2-Held his rally outside of the district he’s running in. > **[Navy SEAL Kicks Off Campaign in Prohibited Uniform in the Wrong District](https://www.newsweek.com/navy-seal-running-congress-violates-rules-showing-uniform-launches-campaign-wrong-district-1477248)** > > Retired Navy SEAL and Texas Republican candidate for Congress Floyd McLendon held a fundraising kickoff for his campaign in the wrong congressional district wearing a uniform Navy rules forbade him to wear. * * * DEC 12, 2019 Ohio state legislator who wrote the bill requiring pediatricians to implant ectopic pregnancies into the uterus says he didn’t know it wasn’t possible when he wrote the bill. No indication that he’s going to withdraw the bill, though. [https://radio.wosu.org/post/lawmaker-says-he-didnt-research-ectopic-pregnancy-procedure-adding-bill](https://radio.wosu.org/post/lawmaker-says-he-didnt-research-ectopic-pregnancy-procedure-adding-bill)? * * * Dec. 14, 2019 The military is investigating Army Cadets and Navy Midshipmen seen flashing white power signs during the Army-Navy game. > **[Military investigating possible white power signs flashed by students during...](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1102366)** > > "West Point is looking into it and we do not know the intent of the cadets," a spokesman said. ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2019, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/43093 "2019-12-15T19:26:14Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Meet New Jersey congressman Jeff Van Drew. He was elected last year as a Democrat, beating a Republican incumbent. > > [Now he’s changing parties because his incessant defenses of Loser Donald have sent his approval ratings below 25% and he doesn’t want to be primaried.](https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/12/14/politics/jeff-van-drew-democrat-switch-parties-republican-trump-impeachment/index.html) Interesting take. That’s not how Chuck Todd interpreted it. Chuck made it out like the Democrats wouldn’t have him if he was opposed to impeachment. Chuck is amazingly wrong more than I’m comfortable with. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2019, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/43094 "2019-12-15T19:32:03Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Meet New Jersey congressman Jeff Van Drew. He was elected last year as a Democrat, beating a Republican incumbent. > > [Now he’s changing parties because his incessant defenses of Loser Donald have sent his approval ratings below 25% and he doesn’t want to be primaried.](https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/12/14/politics/jeff-van-drew-democrat-switch-parties-republican-trump-impeachment/index.html) But he isn’t going to change parties till after he votes no on impeachment so the Republicans can claim bipartisan opposition. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2019, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/43095 "2019-12-15T23:08:49Z")
Not stupid, again, but Evil. This belongs in the Vote-Suppression thread, but I can’t get that one to come up > [@](#): > > **Judge Orders Wisconsin To Purge Nearly 234,000 Voters From The Voter Rolls** > > … > > A Wisconsin judge ordered the removal of nearly 234,000 people from the state’s voter rolls on Friday because they may have moved, a controversial court decision that could influence the 2020 election in a state Donald Trump narrowly won in 2016. > In October, the Wisconsin Elections Commission sent a letter warning nearly a quarter-million voters they’d need to reregister their addresses to remain on the voter rolls because the commission believed they had moved. > > “If you move, even to an apartment in the same building, you must update your voter record by reregistering,” Wisconsin’s chief elections official, Meagan Wolfe, said at the time. > The letter didn’t give people a deadline to reregister and an October press release from the elections commission said anyone who received the letter would remain on the list of eligible voters until 2021. But a lawsuit filed in October by the conservative group Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty said the elections commission is required by law to purge anyone who received the letter from the voter rolls if they do not reregister within 30 days of receipt. > > On Friday, Ozaukee County Circuit Judge Paul Malloy agreed wholeheartedly. Whereas the conservative group simply sought an injunction from the court requiring the commission to purge the voters ahead of its 2021 date, Malloy ordered the commission to do so within 30 days. > “I don’t want to see someone deactivated, but I don’t write the law,” said Malloy, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “There’s no basis for saying 12 to 24 months is a good time frame. It’s not that difficult to do it sooner.” > Malloy was appointed to the bench in 2002 by Republican Gov. Scott McCallum. > Reporting on the lawsuit for HuffPost in October, Sam Levine noted a 2017 effort by election officials in Wisconsin to purge voters with inconsistent addresses misidentified thousands of people as having moved and deactivated their registration. > “Some people had registered vehicles at an address other than where they voted,” Levine wrote. “To the state, it looked like they had moved. Ultimately, more than 18,000 people deactivated from the voter rolls were subsequently reactivated in 2018.” > The Journal Sentinel reported Democratic-leaning areas would be hit harder by the voter purge than Republican ones. On Friday, Wisconsin’s Democratic Gov. Tony Evers denounced the purge as a voter suppression effort. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2019, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/43096 "2019-12-15T23:17:38Z")
Although it is entirely possible that some of the “suspect” voters have actually moved, and should be removed from the rolls at their former addresses, does anyone think what I think that the republicans (WILL is a conservative group that brought the suit) did an analysis, and found out that the majority of these voters voted democrat? ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2019, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/43097 "2019-12-15T23:44:35Z")
I’m too tired to provide links but they’re doing something even more egregious in Florida, where the voters passed a constitutional amendment to reenfrancise some felons, but the republican-controlled legislature put an addendum on that saying “sure, you can re-register to vote, but first you have to provide monetary restitution to your victims if that was mandated in your sentence, otherwise you still can’t vote.” I’m not aware that the Florida voters voted to amend the state Constitution to reenfrancise people only if they pay thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars first. If they did, maybe someone could inform me of my mistaken assumptions. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2019, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/43098 "2019-12-15T23:45:32Z")
> [@](#): > > …and found out that the majority of these voters voted democrat? Republican voters don’t move about willy-nilly like Dem voters do. A clear sign of irresponsibility. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2019, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/43099 "2019-12-16T11:45:26Z")
> [@](#): > > “I don’t want to see someone deactivated, but I don’t write the law,” said Malloy, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “There’s no basis for saying 12 to 24 months is a good time frame. It’s not that difficult to do it sooner.” So “I don’t write the law but I can be completely arbitrary in how it’s implemented”, basically. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2019, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/43100 "2019-12-16T17:57:03Z")
It’s good to know what Republican leaders are thinking, and what they stand for. > [@](#): > > Former Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina said she thinks it is “vital” that President Donald Trump be impeached, but stopped short of calling for his removal from office and did not rule out voting for him again in 2020. [https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/16/politics/carly-fiorina-vital-trump-impeach/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/16/politics/carly-fiorina-vital-trump-impeach/index.html) ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2019, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/43101 "2019-12-16T18:33:22Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > It’s good to know what Republican leaders are thinking, and what they stand for. OBJECTION ! Assumes facts not in evidence. Twice. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2019, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/43102 "2019-12-16T19:11:22Z")
Van Drew’s staff is leaving. [Staff exodus in Van Drew office after party switch - POLITICO](https://www.politico.com/news/2019/12/15/jeff-van-drew-staff-exodus-085945)? ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Miskatonic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.miskatonic/32/310_2.png) [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2019, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/43103 "2019-12-16T19:53:19Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > Van Drew’s staff is leaving. > [https://www.politico.com/news/2019/12/15/jeff-van-drew-staff-exodus-085945](https://www.politico.com/news/2019/12/15/jeff-van-drew-staff-exodus-085945)? Drew is fleeing to the pubbies because he’s scared he’ll get primaried out. I will laugh if he gets driven out in the GOP primaries, he’s got some competition there. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2019, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/43104 "2019-12-16T20:02:07Z")
> [@Mr.Miskatonic](#): > > Drew is fleeing to the pubbies because he’s scared he’ll get primaried out. > > I will laugh if he gets driven out in the GOP primaries, he’s got some competition there. He has a 100% voting with Pelosi record, and he endorsed Corey Booker. D’oh!! ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2019, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/43105 "2019-12-16T20:07:58Z")
> [@Mr.Miskatonic](#): > > Drew is fleeing to the pubbies because he’s scared he’ll get primaried out. > > I will laugh if he gets driven out in the GOP primaries, he’s got some competition there. He should have just resigned. He won’t be re-elected by either party. Now he’ll just go down in history as an idiot. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2019, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/43106 "2019-12-16T20:16:56Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > He should have just resigned. He won’t be re-elected by either party. > Now he’ll just go down in history as an idiot. But now, Trump is going to trot him out at rallies as the bi-partisan opposition to impeachment, so no one else will run against him in the Republican primary. They can’t win! ---
**Author:** ![Morgyn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morgyn/32/3041_2.png) [@Morgyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgyn)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2019, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/43107 "2019-12-16T20:44:29Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > But now, Trump is going to trot him out at rallies as the bi-partisan opposition to impeachment, so no one else will run against him in the Republican primary. They can’t win! If they wanted bi-partisan, he would have stayed a Democrat. Although I think there is one other Democratic representative who is planning to vote ‘no’. I wonder how they feel about becoming unique in that respect? ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2019, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/43108 "2019-12-17T00:12:28Z")
Virginia state Senator changed her profile pic to show the image from the Virginia state seal (as a woman of color) holding a baby and trampling the dead body of Governor Northam, with a Klan hood. > [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897.md?page=2154) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897.md?page=2156)