Random Political Posts

[indy]

Some are attempting to avoid jail as snitches and some are actually in jail or close to it.

[Deleted]

Insurrectionists attempting to subvert the constitution violently are patriots. Those who have donned national colors, represented team USA with distinction for many years, won many medals and trophies are traitors.

[Rue Bella]

I was just reading (don't remember where) that an art gallery was going to be selling some of Hunter Biden's artworks for as much as $500,000.  

I had heard he painted, but that seems a steep price for someone without much of an art track record, so I went to google images to look at some. Yikes. I'm not an appraiser or knowledgeable art critic, and while mildly interesting, the work shown is not as good as most stuff I've seen done in art classes, or even YouTube. I know the kid seems a bit troubled and probably needs some money, but this has an unpleasant smell to it. It's not as bad as what the Trump kids did, but it's still early in daddy's administration. 

[goldenvalley]

Aug 13, 2021 21:21:32 GMT Rue Bella said:

I was just reading (don't remember where) that an art gallery was going to be selling some of Hunter Biden's artworks for as much as $500,000.  

I had heard he painted, but that seems a steep price for someone without much of an art track record, so I went to google images to look at some. Yikes. I'm not an appraiser or knowledgeable art critic, and while mildly interesting, the work shown is not as good as most stuff I've seen done in art classes, or even YouTube. I know the kid seems a bit troubled and probably needs some money, but this has an unpleasant smell to it. It's not as bad as what the Trump kids did, but it's still early in daddy's administration. 

People will buy anything.  I just read that a hunk of Prince Charles and Lady Dianna's wedding cake was sold at auction for about $2500 USD.  

[andydp]

Aug 13, 2021 21:31:03 GMT goldenvalley said:

Aug 13, 2021 21:21:32 GMT Rue Bella said:

I was just reading (don't remember where) that an art gallery was going to be selling some of Hunter Biden's artworks for as much as $500,000.  

I had heard he painted, but that seems a steep price for someone without much of an art track record, so I went to google images to look at some. Yikes. I'm not an appraiser or knowledgeable art critic, and while mildly interesting, the work shown is not as good as most stuff I've seen done in art classes, or even YouTube. I know the kid seems a bit troubled and probably needs some money, but this has an unpleasant smell to it. It's not as bad as what the Trump kids did, but it's still early in daddy's administration. 

People will buy anything.  I just read that a hunk of Prince Charles and Lady Dianna's wedding cake was sold at auction for about $2500 USD.  

I also heard there is a track record of using art to funnel “funny” money .

[LFC]

Interesting, especially coming out of a fairly red state.

Arizona’s conservative state Supreme Court took a surprising step last week that could lead to juries in that state being more racially diverse, and thus less likely to treat racial minorities more harshly.

It announced that it will eliminate “peremptory challenges” in Arizona — a practice that allows trial lawyers to remove jurors from a case, often for arbitrary or ill-defined reasons.

Although criminal justice reformers, including some who sit on the Supreme Court of the United States, have warned for decades that peremptory challenges are often used to exclude jurors because of their race, the practice remains widespread in the United States. Arizona will be the first state to eliminate peremptory challenges entirely; the state’s new rules will take effect in January.

People of color are less likely to serve on juries for a wide range of reasons — racial minorities are less likely than white people, for example, to appear on voter registration lists and vehicle registration lists, which many jurisdictions use to develop a pool of potential jurors. But multiple studies suggest that peremptory strikes play a major role in producing juries that are whiter than the population as a whole.

[goldenvalley]

There is a lot of ink being spilled on the California governor recall election. 

The roots of direct democracy run deep. The recall goes back to ancient Rome. The initiative and referendum were in use in the early United States and in 19th century Switzerland. California adopted them in 1911.

For the record, the pro-business, conservative Los Angeles Times was no friend to such reforms at the time. That led Johnson to attack its owner, Harrison Gray Otis. “He sits there in senile dementia,” the governor said, “with gangrene heart and rotting brain, grimacing at every reform, chattering impotently at all things that are decent, frothing, fuming, violently gibbering, going down to his grave in snarling infamy.”

So much for the idea that politics used to be civil.

[Traveler]

But at least they were inventive with their invective.

[LFC]

Meet the left-wing James O'Keefe except without the lies, bogus video cuts, or pimp hat.

Glenn Youngkin thought he was talking to two fellow Republicans at a campaign stop last June when he laid out what he really wanted to do about abortion. Convinced he was talking to anti-abortion voters, the Republican pick for Virginia governor started laying out ideas that he said he couldn’t campaign on for fear of alienating independent voters.

As two anti-abortion voters at the event pressed him on why his campaign wasn’t taking a stronger stance against abortion, Youngkin praised their ideas for anti-abortion measures like a heartbeat bill and defunding Planned Parenthood as “on the right track.”

“Can we take it to the abortionists, though?” an unidentified man asked Youngkin.

“Yeah, I’m gonna be really honest with you, the short answer is in this campaign, I can’t,” Youngkin said. “When I’m governor and I have a majority in the House, we can start going on offense.”

But the man and Youngkin’s interlocutor weren’t really Republicans, a subterfuge that became clear a few weeks later when hidden camera footage of his remarks aired on MSNBC. Youngkin’s Democratic opponent, former Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe, quickly hammered Youngkin over the video, claiming his views on abortion were out of step with voters in the purple state.

The Youngkin video and many others like it was the creation of Democratic operative Lauren Windsor, who has emerged over the past year as a lurking menace to Republican officials who think they’re just chatting with their ideological compatriots. By posing at public events as fervent conservative activists, Windsor and her compatriots at her YouTube channel, “The Undercurrent,” have recorded a number of Republican politicians in unguarded moments.

Windsor has caught Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) admitting there was “nothing obviously skewed” about the 2020 election in his home state, and Republican state legislators in Texas conceding their voting bills were intended to cement Republican power.

Windsor’s videos represent a new use on the left of hidden-camera footage, long the domain of right-wing activists. Windsor stepped up her use of hidden cameras after a run-in with the right’s most prominent undercover sting artist: James O’Keefe.

[Traveler]

Good deal!

[LFC]

I'm going to drop this here but I suspect that the impacts will show up in multiple TRS threads.

Members of the hacker collective Anonymous claim to have leaked a large cache of data belonging to the Republican Party of Texas. The leak, the size of which is unclear, is said to include the “private documents” of the organization.

According to the hackers, those documents are part of the trove of data that was recently stolen from Epik, the controversial web registrar that has often been criticized for its hosting of far-right groups and individuals.

This latest, GOP-related leak was announced in a recent “press release” posted on 4chan: “Bet you thought it was over, didn’t you? HA! HA!” the statement reads. In the release, the group claims that the Republicans’ data cache contains “private documents, database, draft articles that didn’t make the narrative cut, dank memes (?), and only Raptor Jesus knows what else.”

[goldenvalley]

"Raptor Jesus"

[LFC]

More on DeJoy. He's as corrupt as they get. Biden needs to do everything in his power to get rid of him before he completely destroys the USPS in an effort to reduce competition for his own business interests.

U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy faced over a dozen conflicts of interest during his tenure due to his refusal to divest family stakes in companies tied to the policies of his own agency.

According to documents newly obtained by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) via a Freedom of Information Act, Dejoy reportedly recused himself from agency decisions that might have affected the performance of his former freight transportation company XPO Logistics. However, the postmaster general opted out of divesting from the firm altogether, opening him up to a blatant conflict of interest.

Back in August, CNN reported that, despite his role in heading the USPS, DeJoy's stake in XPO fell between $30 million and $75 million – an apparent conflict that came as a complete "shock" to many outside experts.

"If you have a $30 million interest in a company, of course it's going to impact you," Stuart Gilman, a former assistant director at the Office of Government Ethics, said. "I would assume that there is a problem here. It certainly doesn't pass the smell test."

XPO routinely carries out contracts with both the USPS and other government agencies, like the Defense Department. During the first two months of his tenure last year, XPO signed onto at least two new contracts with the USPS.

[goldenvalley]

It's become increasingly quiet here on TRS. Is this because we are all busy or because the news has become so repetitive. Voting rights bills on hold, media reporting every centimeter of the infrastructure bills' negotiation, 1/6 prosecutions, abortion rights under fire, covid,... I know huge problems aren't quickly dealt with but I'm feeling exhausted by trying to follow it all only to realize that the same old s*&t is happening repeatedly. Media is on a treadmill with these stories and so are we.

[Bact PhD]

Nov 8, 2021 19:37:18 GMT goldenvalley said:

It's become increasingly quiet here on TRS. Is this because we are all busy or because the news has become so repetitive. Voting rights bills on hold, media reporting every centimeter of the infrastructure bills' negotiation, 1/6 prosecutions, abortion rights under fire, covid,... I know huge problems aren't quickly dealt with but I'm feeling exhausted by trying to follow it all only to realize that the same old s*&t is happening repeatedly. Media is on a treadmill with these stories and so are we.

I think you’ve nailed it to a large degree.

Now that the dust has pretty well settled on the 2021 races and the Big Infrastructure Bill is awaiting a signature, there’s a sense of SSDD for the most part (the fate of the Big Social Spending Bill notwithstanding). Worse, there are just enough rumblings out there that there’s a sense of “What shoe will drop next?” It’s become exhausting, especially here in Flori-DUH.

[jackd]

Re:DeJoy, I got a reply to a letter I signed onto to Biden asking him to get rid of DeJoy (basically) and the response I got was something to the effect that they're glad I care about stuff. For whatever reason, I don't think they're going to get rid of DeJoy. I can't imagine why not. He must have something really damaging on them.

[LFC]

Nov 8, 2021 19:37:18 GMT goldenvalley said:

It's become increasingly quiet here on TRS. Is this because we are all busy or because the news has become so repetitive.

Both for me. I'm in the midst of a seriously major renovation, I've been banding hawks with a friend, and it's sea bass / tautog season so I've been fishing. In the meantime there's less crazy news because there's so much less crazy in the White House.

[LFC]

Google seems to drop the "do no harm" mantra completely ... unless they mean do no harm to their bottom line.

Google is quietly enlisting the help of small businesses to protect the nearly $2 trillion company from antitrust regulations. In response to congressional bills like the "Ending Platform Monopolies Act," which would ban platform owners from favoring their own services over the competition, Google is telling small business owners that these bills would hurt their ability to find customers online and that they should contact their congressperson about the issue.

We've seen Google do political action before, usually in the form of headline-grabbing blog posts from CEO Sundar Pichai defending the latest product-bundling scheme. The strategy here seems new, though; rather than writing a public blog post, Google is quietly targeting users who have registered business listings on Google Maps. These users report receiving unsolicited emails and an "action item" in the Google Business Profile UI that both link to Google's new anti-antitrust site.

Both the email and Google Business action item beg for a click, saying, "New laws may impact businesses. Proposed legislation could make it harder to find your business online." Both items link to this site, which is full of scary language imploring users to "stay up-to-date on proposed legislation that could impact your business." The site recommends concerned users sign up for Google's new political action mailing list, with the sign-up form saying, "By clicking this button, I consent that Google can contact me about legislative and regulatory issues, events, and advocacy opportunities related to my business."

The site never mentions bills like the "Ending Platform Monopolies Act" by name, and as a result, the arguments can be pretty hard to follow for normal people. The site talks around nondescript "legislation" that will hurt businesses and repeatedly refers to "these bills" without ever naming which bills it's talking about. It's only after clicking through some "more information" links at the bottom that you'll finally discover the subject of the page by reading through the linked press releases talking about the specific bits of proposed laws for search engines, ad platforms, and app stores.

After offering the usual platitudes about the importance of small businesses during the pandemic, Google's site frames its resistance to antitrust legislation as a grassroots movement, saying, "Some of you have also expressed concerns about proposed regulations in Congress that would have unintended consequences for your business and could disrupt many of the digital tools you rely on every day."

[pnwguy]

This is probably as good a place as any to post this link

www.thebulwark.com/fragging-and-the-united-states-of-rage/

[goldenvalley]

Nov 24, 2021 14:44:14 GMT pnwguy said:

This is probably as good a place as any to post this link

www.thebulwark.com/fragging-and-the-united-states-of-rage/

Well that was a cheery read.  I hope he's wrong.

Thanks for bringing up The Bulwark.  I wasn't aware of the site.  It's good to read stuff from more sane people than those at TAC.

ETA: I just realized I was aware of the site. I didn't pay attention to the site name. DrDre has an article up on it...front page so to speak.  Someone linked to another one of his several months ago.

[LFC]

Nov 24, 2021 16:39:55 GMT goldenvalley said:

Thanks for bringing up The Bulwark.  I wasn't aware of the site.  It's good to read stuff from more sane people than those at TAC.

Ditto. I don't have it on my regular rotation of sites to scan but I should.

BTW they have a piece up about J.D. Vance. He's apparently descending into the swirling cesspool of right-wing crazy ... big time. This is the text but there are a LOT of links in the original including to his Twitter feed.

As much as he tries, J.D. Vance cannot out-crazy Josh Mandel. But try he has. Bizarre video rants about Kyle Rittenhouse; attacking detractors for having a picture of an animal in their profile picture; a defense of Trump hatchet man Johnny McEntee, who comes across as a psychopath—and this is all within just the last three days. There’s so much more.

Even while J.D. continues to try to compete with Josh on the Ohio Right-Wing Scoville Scale of Spicy Craziness, he is doing something that suggests that his Peter Thiel-supported candidacy is imploding.

Vance has chickened out and refused to debate other candidates twice recently, citing prior commitments. But reporting from the Daily Beast contradicts that excuse. Vance apparently has an event in Westerville, Ohio, home of John Kasich, that can’t be skipped? Suuuure. Which reminds me of when, in 2019, Mark Sanford—yes, that Mark Sanford—decided to spend a week in Iowa to make PR stops at restaurants instead of debating his opponents in his longshot attempt to primary Donald Trump.

Mark Sanford wanted to enjoy Arby’s, but it’s not clear why Vance thought a meet and greet in Westerville, a Columbus suburb, was more important than a debate in Dublin, a mere 18 minutes away. Especially since Mandel is running away with the race in polls. You’d think that Vance would want an opportunity to offer an alternative version of right-wing crazy to GOP voters in the Buckeye State. An R.C. Cola to Josh Mandel’s Cotton Club.

[LFC]

Josh Marshall with an interesting piece called Thiel, Silicon Valley and the Rise of Tech Neo-Reaction. It's about people who are more than a few degrees off plumb but have lots and lots of money. The final paragraph sums it up well.

My point for the moment is just to note that far from the assumptions of a decade or two ago – which were thin even then – Big Tech isn’t ‘liberal’, despite its still playing that part in the carnival world of the Trumpite nationalist GOP. It’s actually one of the biggest centers of neo-reactionary thought in the United States today. And most importantly: they’ve got the money. Their ideas don’t have to be right or sensible or even coherent. They’ve got the money. And money doesn’t talk it swears.

[pg]

Nov 24, 2021 20:52:40 GMT LFC said:

Josh Marshall with an interesting piece called Thiel, Silicon Valley and the Rise of Tech Neo-Reaction. It's about people who are more than a few degrees off plumb but have lots and lots of money. The final paragraph sums it up well.

 And most importantly: they’ve got the money. Their ideas don’t have to be right or sensible or even coherent. They’ve got the money. And money doesn’t talk it swears.

Yep.  Nothing to do with me, but I have several friends and a couple of family members (age range 40-58) who have been involved with Thiel in a business sense. They say the same thing. And don't care, themselves, as long as the $$$ flows. 

[LFC]

This makes me want to vomit. I thought my ability to be shocked was pretty much dead but I was wrong. Welcome to the future of America under Republican "governance" and "freedom."

Ten South Dakota teachers participated in a promotion run by a minor league hockey team over the weekend which required them to scramble around on their knees picking up $1 bills to benefit their students.

In what amounts to a horrifying commentary on the state of education funding, the Sioux Falls Stampede ran a promotion they called Dash for Cash at their game on Saturday night. During the contest’s first intermission, the teachers were brought out to center ice and positioned on a carpet with five-thousand dollar bills spread across. When given the go signal, the teachers began scrounging for the dough — stuffing as much as they could down their shirts as quickly as possible.

Annie Todd of the Argus Leader in Sioux Falls captured footage of the spectacle:

[LFC]

Rand Paul is a hypocritical dick. That is all.