Octopus Overlords

El Guapo wrote: ↑Tue Dec 05, 2023 7:37 pm Is there footage that the House has that the DOJ doesn't?

hepcat wrote: ↑Wed Dec 06, 2023 1:11 am

El Guapo wrote: ↑Tue Dec 05, 2023 7:37 pm Is there footage that the House has that the DOJ doesn't?

Two words: pee tape

malchior wrote: ↑Thu Jun 10, 2021 10:54 am

Carpet_pissr wrote: ↑Thu Jun 10, 2021 10:48 am

YellowKing wrote: ↑Wed Jun 09, 2021 2:50 pm I found this to be the more chilling statistic:

In another key finding, 77 of all respondents said that they believe America’s democracy is being threatened, including 82 percent of Republicans and 77 percent of Democrats.

Not only do they not see how they're threatening democracy, they believe somehow they're actually *saving* it. This is religious fanaticism levels of crazy, and that's a very difficult thing to fight.

Yes, this. I've said it a few times, but it bears repeating that this is going to be the ultimate cause of the break/rift/civil war/next step.

If you truly believe you are on the side of right, AND stuck in a "ends justifies the means" mentality, that is a HUGE danger. Add in a mix of FB and right wing media frenzy and whipping up shit, and I really think Jan 6 was just a minor precursor to what is coming.

A good example is the Bundy klan out in Oregon/Idaho/Nevada. They have been fighting with the federal government for years, the federal government couldn't hang anything on them (some due to jury nullification), and 5-years later after the Oregon takeover a Bundy is intimately involved in the Idaho issues referenced up thread. This isn't new but it is finally becoming focused as their runway is running out to keep power without resorting to more extreme measures. And essentially hoping it gets better on its own is fantasy. It is almost certainly going to get worse either as they consolidate power or as it slips away.

Now, it’s not clear where Bundy is.

Bundy’s wife, Lisa Bundy, made statements on social media last month suggesting that her family was moving, and those following her wished her goodbye.

“Mr. Bundy and Mr. Rodriguez continue to defy orders, hide assets, and now they both are in hiding,” St. Luke’s attorney Erik Stidham told The Idaho Statesman in a message. “St. Luke’s and the individual plaintiffs will continue to pursue their rights to collect the jury verdict and enforce the Court’s injunction. Mr. Bundy’s fleeing and hiding will not deter collection and enforcement of the injunction.”

Bundy could have tried to fight the fraudulent conveyance claims in court, but failed to appear for hearings and filed case documents incorrectly — twice. The judge found him in default, meaning he essentially forfeited his case, and the sale was ruled fraudulent.

Bundy and Rodriguez began making defamatory statements about St. Luke’s, its CEO and some medical professionals after leading protests at hospitals in Meridian and Boise in March 2022 over a child welfare case involving Rodriguez’s 10-month-old grandchild.

The defendants were found to have posted multiple lies about why the baby was taken into custody. They posted videos and blogs saying the hospital was working with the Idaho government to take children away from Christian families to be sexually abused and given to gay couples, according to court documents.

El Guapo wrote: ↑Wed Dec 06, 2023 1:04 pm Not a surprise that he's not running for reelection, but surprised that he's leaving almost immediately. I guess a bit of an FU to fellow Republicans on his way out.

Either way, won't miss the guy.

Holman wrote: ↑Wed Dec 06, 2023 6:54 pm Welcome to the Resistance, Kevin!

On Wednesday, a dear friend emailed me a viral clip from the House hearing on campus antisemitism in which three elite university presidents refuse to say, under questioning by Representative Elise Stefanik, a New York Republican, that calling for the genocide of Jews violates school policies on bullying and harassment. “My God, have you seen this?” wrote my friend, a staunch liberal. “I can’t believe I find myself agreeing with Elise Stefanik on anything, but I do here.”

If I’d seen only that excerpt from the hearing, which has now led to denunciations of the college leaders by the White House and the Democratic governor of Pennsylvania, among many others, I might have felt the same way. All three presidents — Claudine Gay of Harvard, Sally Kornbluth of M.I.T. and Elizabeth Magill of the University of Pennsylvania — acquitted themselves poorly, appearing morally obtuse and coldly legalistic. It was a moment that seemed to confirm many people’s worst fears about the tolerance for Jew hatred in academia.

But while it might seem hard to believe that there’s any context that could make the responses of the college presidents OK, watching the whole hearing at least makes them more understandable. In the questioning before the now infamous exchange, you can see the trap Stefanik laid.

Gay responded that such language was “abhorrent.” Stefanik then badgered her to admit that students chanting about intifada were calling for genocide, and asked angrily whether that was against Harvard’s code of conduct. “Will admissions offers be rescinded or any disciplinary action be taken against students or applicants who say, ‘From the river to the sea’ or ‘intifada,’ advocating for the murder of Jews?” Gay repeated that such “hateful, reckless, offensive speech is personally abhorrent to me,” but said action would be taken only “when speech crosses into conduct.”

So later in the hearing, when Stefanik again started questioning Gay, Kornbluth and Magill about whether it was permissible for students to call for the genocide of the Jews, she was referring, it seemed clear, to common pro-Palestinian rhetoric and trying to get the university presidents to commit to disciplining those who use it. Doing so would be an egregious violation of free speech. After all, even if you’re disgusted by slogans like “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” their meaning is contested in a way that, say, “Gas the Jews” is not. Finding themselves in a no-win situation, the university presidents resorted to bloodless bureaucratic contortions, and walked into a public relations disaster.

The anguished and furious reaction of many Jews to that viral clip is understandable. Jewish people of many different political persuasions have been stunned by the rank antisemitism and contempt for Israeli lives that has exploded across campuses, where Jewish students have been threatened and, in some cases, assaulted. This week, when I wrote that the backlash to anti-Israel protests threatens free speech, I received many emails from people who felt I was refusing to grapple with an evident crisis. “You are worried about an overreaction when there hasn’t yet been a sufficient reaction to the antisemitism terrifying Jewish students on campus,” said one.

But it seems to me that it is precisely when people are legitimately scared and outraged that we’re most vulnerable to a repressive response leading to harmful unintended consequences. That’s a lesson of Sept. 11, but also of much of the last decade, when the policing of speech in academia escalated in ways that are now coming back to bite the left.

More than 70 U.S. lawmakers on Friday demanded the governing boards of three of the country's top universities remove their presidents, citing dissatisfaction with their testimony at a hearing about antisemitism on campuses, according to a letter seen by Reuters.

In the letter, Republican Representative Elise Stefanik and Democratic Representative Jared Moskowitz demanded that the board of governors at Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology oust their presidents or risk committing "an act of complicity in their antisemitic posture."
...
It was signed by 71 Republicans and three Democrats.

Isgrimnur wrote: ↑Fri Dec 08, 2023 5:38 pm U.S. lawmakers demand Harvard, MIT, Penn remove presidents after antisemitism hearing

More than 70 U.S. lawmakers on Friday demanded the governing boards of three of the country's top universities remove their presidents, citing dissatisfaction with their testimony at a hearing about antisemitism on campuses, according to a letter seen by Reuters.

In the letter, Republican Representative Elise Stefanik and Democratic Representative Jared Moskowitz demanded that the board of governors at Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology oust their presidents or risk committing "an act of complicity in their antisemitic posture."
...
It was signed by 71 Republicans and three Democrats.

Sounds like cancel culture to me.

This is an old, well-known problem. It’s called “censorship envy.” The concept is that once an institution gets in the business of punishing speech, people will inevitably say “if you’re punishing that speech those people don’t like, why aren’t you punishing this speech that I don’t like?” We saw it, for instance, in Europe, where Muslims not unreasonably asked “if you are willing to punish denying the Holocaust, why aren’t you willing to punish vilifying the Prophet?” I think the term should be broadened to “punishment envy” to encompass institutional condemnation as well as official censorship. Since October 7th we’ve seen instance after instance of students claiming that a university condemned Hamas atrocities more vigorously than it did atrocities against Palestinians, and vice-versa. The impulse is the same: you’ve decided to get into this fight, so why don’t you fight that hard for the things I care about?

Alefroth wrote: ↑Fri Dec 08, 2023 7:34 pm So now Republicans want colleges to be safe spaces? I can't keep up.

Stefanik and every politician our loudmouth who wants you to hate and distrust college education and Palestinians pounced on it. And many of you fell for it. You — and I say this with love — absolute fucking dupes.

If you think the question “is calling for the genocide of a group against your policy” is an easy question with a one-word answer, you’re wrong. I understand you want the answer to be easy, but that’s not the same thing as it being easy...

...And many people bought it, and now it’s being used as part of the culture war against higher education, and too many of you fucking fell for it.

You might say I am being more than usually uncharitable in this post. That’s because I think people falling for Stefanik’s gambit have been more than usually gullible. They’ve become useful idiots for evil. They’ve become the dupes of people who will wave the banner of “fight antisemitism” while pushing Great Replacement Theory. They’ve become the patsies of people who transparently want to use Jews as an instrument and excuse to suppress speech they don’t like. They’ve become the creatures of cynical, dishonest politicians who want to treat hard things like they are simple to rile up mobs.

Alefroth wrote: ↑Fri Dec 08, 2023 7:34 pm So now Republicans want colleges to be safe spaces? I can't keep up.

LordMortis wrote: ↑Sat Dec 09, 2023 6:58 am It's a bit scary to me how much no matter the shift in the GOP and in education in my lifetime, hating university pedagogy end public education is always at the forefront. Like it has roots in book burning. I *almost* understand public education because *my kids*, but the universities should nebulous to people who don't want their kids to get a university education. But then, I guess being nebulous might make for the easiest bogey man.

Isgrimnur wrote: ↑Fri Aug 04, 2023 12:09 pm

Blackhawk wrote: ↑Fri Aug 04, 2023 11:51 am It's almost like were in the midst of a wave of anti-intellectualism.

Isgrimnur wrote: ↑Fri Jan 27, 2023 2:55 pm Isaac Asimov, A Cult of Ignorance (1980)

Isgrimnur wrote: ↑Fri Dec 08, 2023 5:38 pm U.S. lawmakers demand Harvard, MIT, Penn remove presidents after antisemitism hearing

“It has been my privilege to serve as President of this remarkable institution," Magill wrote in a statement. "It has been an honor to work with our faculty, students, staff, alumni, and community members to advance Penn’s vital missions.”

...

The announcement comes amid unprecedented national scrutiny over Magill's remarks at a congressional hearing of the United States House Committee on Education and the Workforce and almost two months after several alumni and donors called for her resignation following the Palestine Writes Literature Festival and Hamas' attack on Israel.

...

Magill is the first president to resign from the Penn presidency for reasons other than a government appointment. Her tenure will become the shortest of any permanent University president in Penn's history, and she is the first Ivy League president to resign amid scandal since 2006, when Larry Summers resigned the Harvard presidency.

malchior wrote:The GOP is getting a taste for attacks on higher ed now. And they've achieved a significant victory here in the most cynical play we've seen in some time. There is a full on front assault on liberal institutions in the United States going on and people seem to as usual simply not see the danger.

GreenGoo wrote: ↑Sun Dec 10, 2023 11:14 am It's not like the GOP get to pick the replacements. I get that it was a successful attack on UPenn, but she'll (resigned president) just be replaced by another President the board finds acceptable. i.e. someone of similar qualifications and views.

So a successful attack, but to what end? Optics? I feel like everyone knows what kind of pieces of crap they all are by now. Additional advertising seems like a waste of resources and time.

Holman wrote: ↑Sun Dec 10, 2023 4:12 pmMcGill mishandled this crisis, sure, but also Wharton sucks.

malchior wrote: ↑Sun Dec 10, 2023 5:07 pm

Holman wrote: ↑Sun Dec 10, 2023 4:12 pmMcGill mishandled this crisis, sure, but also Wharton sucks.

It seems hard to see how could she have handled it better. I guess they shouldn't have gone to the House hearing but that would have led to different pressure. I think people miss that irrespective of the institutional dynamics, they still knew which institutions they wanted to pick on. They identified leaders with weaknesses they could target.

For example, while Harvard seemingly is standing behind Gay so far there has been a concerted racist effort by folks such as Bill Ackman to attack her credentials and describe her as a diversity hire. Social media is on fire attacking her in openly racist ways and it's frankly ugly.

In other words, we can talk about what McGill may or may not have done better but realistically there was some institutional weakness and it seems likely she was targeted to appear at the hearing because of it. The GOP wanted victories in their long-time attack on elite institutions and they've gotten 1 out of 3. We'll see if Harvard holds and we'll also see if there is another round of this.

Holman wrote: ↑Sun Dec 10, 2023 6:18 pmI'm speaking as a Philadelphian who has worked on Penn's campus and who knows people in its administration. On the national scale, I'm sure the issues and judgments look different.

Before becoming UPenn's president, McGill was head of an elite law school. My sense of her Congressional testimony is that she attended as a law professor rather than as a university president, and that was a mistake.

Smoove_B wrote: ↑Sun Dec 10, 2023 10:22 pm The GOP is going to start fund raising based off what they just did - watch and see.

malchior wrote: ↑Sat Dec 09, 2023 11:29 pm There is a full on front assault on liberal institutions in the United States going on and people seem to as usual simply not see the danger.

Carpet_pissr wrote: ↑Sun Dec 10, 2023 11:39 pm

malchior wrote: ↑Sat Dec 09, 2023 11:29 pm There is a full on front assault on liberal institutions in the United States going on and people seem to as usual simply not see the danger.

Define "people".

Are you sure they don't see it? Maybe it's just that they don't care (or care enough to...."Do Something"(TM).

malchior wrote: ↑Sun Dec 10, 2023 11:54 pm

Carpet_pissr wrote: ↑Sun Dec 10, 2023 11:39 pm

malchior wrote: ↑Sat Dec 09, 2023 11:29 pm There is a full on front assault on liberal institutions in the United States going on and people seem to as usual simply not see the danger.

Define "people".

Are you sure they don't see it? Maybe it's just that they don't care (or care enough to...."Do Something"(TM).

I'm pretty sure. If the people saw the danger, they'd be urging the people with actual power to take action. Instead, we mostly see them tracking the outrage of the day and picking sides without seeing the larger pattern playing out. It is why over and over we see genuine surprise from folks as the next wave of deterioration occurs.

Allies of Hungary’s far-right prime minister Viktor Orbán will hold a closed-door meeting with Republicans in Washington to push for an end to US military support for Ukraine, the Guardian has learned.

Members of the Hungarian Institute of International Affairs and staff from the Hungarian embassy in Washington will on Monday begin a two-day event hosted by the conservative Heritage Foundation thinktank.

...

Members of the Hungarian Institute of International Affairs and staff from the Hungarian embassy in Washington will on Monday begin a two-day event hosted by the conservative Heritage Foundation thinktank.

The first day includes panel speeches about the Ukraine war as well as topics such as Transatlantic Culture Wars. It is expected to feature guests including Magor Ernyei, the international director of the Centre for Fundamental Rights, the institute that organized CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) Hungary. Kelley Currie, a former ambassador under then president Donald Trump, said she was invited “but declined”.

According to a Republican source, some of the attendees, including Republican members of Congress, have been invited to join closed-door talks the next day.

The meeting will take place against a backdrop of tense debate in Washington over Ukraine’s future. Last week the White House warned that, without congressional action, money to buy more weapons and equipment for Kyiv will run out by the end of the year. On Wednesday Senate Republicans blocked an emergency spending bill to fund the war in Ukraine.

A diplomatic source close to the Hungarian embassy said: “Orbán is confident that the Ukraine aid will not pass in Congress. That is why he is trying to block assistance from the EU as well.”

Orbán is a frequent critic of aid to help Ukraine against the Russian invasion. Seen as Vladimir Putin’s closest ally inside the EU for the past few years, he was photographed smiling and shaking hands with the Russian president two months ago in Beijing.

...

The Heritage Foundation is leading Project 2025, a coalition preparing for the next conservative presidential administration, and has in recent months hosted speeches by leading British Conservative party members Liz Truss and Iain Duncan Smith.

The thinktank has also been a vocal opponent of US assistance to Ukraine. Last year Jessica Anderson, the executive director of its lobbying operation, released a statement under the headline: “Ukraine Aid Package Puts America Last.” In August, Victoria Coates, Heritage’s vice-president, posted on social media: “It’s time to end the blank, undated checks for Ukraine.”

When Heritage celebrated its 50th anniversary last April, Orbán’s political director, Balázs Orbán (no relation), was invited as a speaker for the event. Heritage’s president, Kevin Roberts, repeatedly praised the Hungarian leader on X: “One thing is clear from visiting Hungary and from being involved in current policy and cultural debates in America: the world needs a movement that fights for Truth, for tradition, for families, and for the average person.”

In recent years Orbán has championed a transatlantic far-right alliance with a hardline stance against immigration and “gender ideology”, staunch Christian nationalism and scorn for those who warn of a slide into authoritarianism.

Blackhawk wrote: ↑Sun Dec 10, 2023 11:42 pm What percentage of Americans see anything related to 'current events?'

The Atlantic, as our loyal readers know, is deliberately not a partisan magazine. “Of no party or clique” is our original 1857 motto, and it is true today. Our concern with Trump is not that he is a Republican, or that he embraces—when convenient—certain conservative ideas. We believe that a democracy needs, among other things, a strong liberal party and a strong conservative party in order to flourish. Our concern is that the Republican Party has mortgaged itself to an antidemocratic demagogue, one who is completely devoid of decency.

O’Keefe, the organization’s founder and Forbes 30 under 30 Hall of Shamer, announced his exit in February while the Justice Department investigated how Project Veritas came into possession of a diary belonging to President Biden’s daughter ahead of the 2020 election. Now his replacement, Hannah Giles, says she’s out too*, as reported by The Messenger.

"I am stepping down from all roles with Project Veritas and Project Veritas Action — effective immediately," Giles said in a statement. "Though I had hopes when I joined the organizations, I stepped into an unsalvageable mess — one wrought with strong evidence of past illegality and past financial improprieties."

malchior wrote: ↑Mon Dec 11, 2023 11:07 am If you don't have an Atlantic subscription I recommend you get one because it is one of the few publications actually taking this extreme crisis seriously.

They've put together a series of articles to describe all the issues we face. And it is excellent. Even the hard line - don't call it fascism folks (e.g. Tom Nichols) have thrown in the towel and admitted that it yes is fascism. It's real and if you don't believe me...even though like Hans Zarkov I've been right all these years - believe them.

The Atlantic, as our loyal readers know, is deliberately not a partisan magazine. “Of no party or clique” is our original 1857 motto, and it is true today. Our concern with Trump is not that he is a Republican, or that he embraces—when convenient—certain conservative ideas. We believe that a democracy needs, among other things, a strong liberal party and a strong conservative party in order to flourish. Our concern is that the Republican Party has mortgaged itself to an antidemocratic demagogue, one who is completely devoid of decency.