Political Randomness

[Isgrimnur]

https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1134458586841698304

Poster child for partisanship. Got it.

[Pyperkub]

For example, do you think of Ted Cruz as less of a partisan because he is co-sponsoring this legislation with AOC?

Yes. That said, this moves the needle a little bit but it still points so hard to "partisan" that it is pretty insignificant.

For anyone to really move the needle would take them openly looking at the other side's position and finding a compromise with their own. Give a little to get a little.

While Ted Cruz here gets a checkmark in the "Pro" column for non-partisanship, his willingness to abandon everything else for Trump-ism has led to a gajillion checks in the "Con" column.

AOC as best I can tell, hasn't sold out the things she campaigned on to just go along with the party line, where ever that goes. When she does go party line against her campaign items, it's because the party line she follow is also doing something regarding her campaign items - e.g. reopening the gov't with ICE funding.

[El Guapo]

https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1134458586841698304

Poster child for partisanship. Got it.

It's funny, but my takeaway from that chart is more "god, progressives who sat out in 2016 are self-centered ignorant assholes".

That aside, I suspect (given the super thin margins) that you could make a similar chart on voters who voted Obama in 2012 but voted Trump in 2016, who are as a rule not a super progressive group.

[Isgrimnur]

Yeah, but it's not her chart.

[LordMortis]

If I am guilty of not providing context: Partisanism isn't Rah Rah "Us" Partisanism is the expression of "Us because Them" Something I've recently and reluctantly joined. AOC has rode in a wave Democrats because Old White Men of the GOP and she has embraced this. She is the posterchild for empowerment against Old White Men of the GOP. That said, I don't mind it, but then I have to check myself because I would also see the GOP dismantled. I take a sort of schadenfreude at how much the GOP seems to be absolutely terrified of her. I also am a fan of her stance campaign contributions and her straight forward approach and how in touch she is with the America I am in touch with.

But none of that changes


https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1081761714096476160

You’re the GOP Minority Whip. How do you not know how marginal tax rates work?

Oh that’s right, almost forgot: GOP works for the corporate CEOs showering themselves in multi-millionbonuses; not the actual working people whose wages + healthcare they’re ripping off for profit.

[GreenGoo]

Poster child for partisanship. Got it.

I agree with Remus's post re: AOC partisanship, but in this case, talk is cheap. There have been several GOP who have expressed "grave concerns" and then voted party lines anyway. Hell, McCain is one of them. AOC may or may not be partisan, but tweets are irrelevant.

[GreenGoo]

It's funny, but my takeaway from that chart is more "god, progressives who sat out in 2016 are self-centered ignorant assholes".

That aside, I suspect (given the super thin margins) that you could make a similar chart on voters who voted Obama in 2012 but voted Trump in 2016, who are as a rule not a super progressive group.

Similarly, my thought was "how many centrist votes will it cost to bring in those progressives?"

[LawBeefaroni]

Woah.

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/05/ ... ng-1348434

Sen. Ted Cruz and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez set aside their Twitter bickering Thursday to strike an unusual bargain: an agreement to work together on a bill to ban former members of Congress from lobbying for life.

The Texas Republican and the New York Democrat made the pact on Twitter after Ocasio-Cortez tweeted a report by the watchdog group Public Citizen on the number of former lawmakers who’ve headed to K Street this year.

I do wonder whether lobbying bans would raise constitutional issues. Don't former Congresspeople have a first amendment right to "petition the Government for a redress of grievances"? Generally the grievances of oil companies and the like, but still. Seems like less of a leap than Citizens United.

The First Amendment does seem like the biggest obstacle for something like this. I imagine the bill would be drafted to say that they could still lobby, but they can't actually be paid for it. That would preserve their 1A right while removing the financial incentive.

With plenty of loopholes big enough to drive a campaign bus through. As always.

[Defiant]

Want a date with Ted Cruz? Here's how to win meal alone with the senator

The menu consists of liver, fava beans and a nice chianti.

[Holman]

Want a date with Ted Cruz? Here's how to win meal alone with the senator

The menu consists of liver, fava beans and a nice chianti.

https://twitter.com/darth/status/1134633975635271680

[Defiant]

Want a date with Ted Cruz? Here's how to win meal alone with the senator

The menu consists of liver, fava beans and a nice chianti.

https://twitter.com/darth/status/1134633975635271680

I feel sorry for the 365th place winner, who has to eat every dinner with Cruz for a year.

[Kraken]

Entered as "GreenGoo".

[Jaymann]

It might be worth it to slip him a Mickey. Also ask him why his daughters cringe away from his embrace.

[GreenGoo]

Entered as "GreenGoo".

On the other hand, if it was to a nice restaurant, it's been awhile since I've had a nice meal. I could probably sit politely and wolf down some prime rib or something.

[Defiant]

Jeremy Corbyn was plunged into a new crisis last night after it emerged that his office had blocked the suspension of a senior aide accused of sexual harassment by a female Labour MP.

Leaked emails reveal that Corbyn’s team surprised the party’s governance chiefs by rejecting a formal request to suspend the Labour membership of David Prescott, 49, the leader’s trusted aide and son of former deputy prime minister John Prescott.

The disclosures will reignite claims that Corbyn’s inner circle delays or waters down investigations into his allies on issues such as anti-semitism and harassment.

link

[Smoove_B]

I knew Mitch McConnell was a total piece of crap, but I didn't realize just how much of his political financial support came from China via his wife's family:

In 1989, shortly after their first date (at the Saudi ambassador’s home near Washington), Mr. McConnell was preparing for a re-election campaign. Greetings from Ms. Chao came in classic Washington fashion: a string of campaign donations, totaling $10,000, from Ms. Chao, her father, her mother, her sister May and May’s husband, Jeffrey Hwang, according to Federal Election Commission records.

Over the next 30 years, the extended Chao family would be an important source of political cash for Mr. McConnell, himself one of the most formidable Republican fund-raisers in American politics.

The extended Chao family is among the top donors to the Republican Party of Kentucky, giving a combined $525,000 over two decades.

One of Ms. Chao’s sisters, Christine, the general counsel at Foremost, was the second-biggest contributor to the super PAC Kentuckians for Strong Leadership in 2014. She gave $400,000 to the organization, which identified Mr. McConnell’s re-election as its highest priority that year.

In all, from 1989 through 2018, 13 members of the extended Chao family gave a combined $1.66 million to Republican candidates and committees, including $1.1 million to Mr. McConnell and political action committees tied to him, according to F.E.C. records.

“I’m proud to have had the support of my family over the years,” Mr. McConnell said in a statement.

And then just for him:

The family’s wealth has also benefited Mr. McConnell personally. In 2008, Ms. Chao’s father gave the couple a gift valued between $5 million and $25 million, according to federal disclosures. Mr. McConnell, never a wealthy man, vaulted up the moneyed rankings in the Senate; as of 2018 he was the 10th wealthiest senator, according to Roll Call, the Capitol Hill newspaper. David Popp, a spokesman for Mr. McConnell, said the gift from Mr. Chao was in honor of Elaine Chao’s mother.

[LordMortis]

https://qz.com/1632565/italy-to-evict-s ... ng-academy

I have no knowledge if Quartz is a reliable source.

he Italian government has delivered a potentially fatal blow to Steve Bannon’s plans to transform a medieval monastery near Rome into a training academy for the far-right.

Italy’s cultural heritage ministry announced on Friday (May 31) that it would revoke a lease granted to Bannon after reports of fraud in the competitive tender process. The former Breitbart chief and aide to US president Donald Trump was reportedly paying €100,000 ($110,000) per year to rent the 13th Century Carthusian monastery, but now will have to search for another spot.

The Italian state allowed the conservative Catholic organization Dignitatis Humanae Institute (DHI) to use the building early last year. Bannon happens to be a trustee of the institute, and planned to convert the space into a “gladiator school for cultural warriors,” where students would learn philosophy, theology, history, and economics, and receive political training from the former Trump aide himself.

[hepcat]

Day One: Issued white cat and speed suit.

Day Two: Picked up an elective in Evil Laugh 101 but had to drop How to Avoid Accidentally Divulging Master Plan to Hero During Gloat Session.

Day Three: Caught my roommate trying to poison me with bio weapon he bought in school bookstore. He said he had the antidote at the ready, but I don't trust him.

[Max Peck]

Pro-tip: If you don't have a clue how Twitter works, you might want to stay off Twitter.

A teacher asked Trump to round up ‘illegal students’ — in tweets she says she thought were private

Georgia Clark, a veteran high school English teacher in Fort Worth, had an urgent request for President Trump: She needed help pulling undocumented immigrants from her school.

“Mr. President, Fort Worth Independent School District is loaded with illegal students from Mexico,” Clark wrote May 17 on her now-deleted Twitter account, @Rebecca1939. “Anything you can do to remove the illegals from Fort Worth would be greatly appreciated,” she wrote in another tweet.

Clark was careful in her approach, she believed, and told the president she needed guarantees her identity would be protected when action was taken. “Texas will not protect whistle blowers. The Mexicans refuse to honor our flag,” she wrote.

[El Guapo]

Rebecca1939, eh? 1939 was quite a year.

[hepcat]

Wait a minute...so everything I've been writing on this forum for the past decade and a half HAS NOT been a private message to Lord Mortis!?!?

How the hell does this effing internet work, man!? Is it always on? Is there a number I can call about it?

[LordMortis]

I'm pretty certain this entire message board is one of my hallucinations, so yes, everything is a private message to me.

[Remus West]

I'm not. I am totally a product of a different trip entirely. Sorry.

[hepcat]

Of all the headlines of articles dealing with Kushner's recent televised interview on HBO's Axios,

4 Beauty Experts Explain How Jared Kushner Can Look Less Like a Murderous Waxen Doll

may very well be my favorite.

[Sepiche]

Of all the headlines of articles dealing with Kushner's recent televised interview on HBO's Axios,

4 Beauty Experts Explain How Jared Kushner Can Look Less Like a Murderous Waxen Doll

may very well be my favorite.

[Isgrimnur]

Pro-tip: If you don't have a clue how Twitter works, you might want to stay off Twitter.

A teacher asked Trump to round up ‘illegal students’ — in tweets she says she thought were private

The Hill

A Texas school board on Tuesday unanimously voted to terminate a teacher who used social media to ask President Trump to deport allegedly undocumented students.

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported the Independent School District board voted 8-0 to terminate high school teacher Georgia Clark. The teacher had been put on paid administrative leave last week after being tied to a string of tweets asking Trump to remove the "illegals from Fort Worth."
...
The Star-Telegram reports that after the vote Superintendent Kent P. Scribner said other allegations came to light after the tweets.
...
More than a dozen immigrant allies attended the meeting, with 15 people speaking in support of Clark's termination and none in support of Clark, according to the Star-Telegram.

Clark has 15 days to seek an appeal with the state, according to the Star-Telegram.

If Clark chooses to appeal, her case moves to an appeal phase with the Texas Education Agency and she may request a due process hearing. After a hearing officer listens to both sides, the school board would again vote based on the recommendation of the hearing officer, the Star-Telegram reports.

[LawBeefaroni]

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, pursuing the progressive agenda of ending solitary confinement in prisons, chose an unlikely symbol for the cause Wednesday: President Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort.

Manafort, now serving a federal prison sentence in Pennsylvania for various financial crimes, is scheduled to be transferred to New York City’s notorious jail complex on Rikers Island to await trial on state charges related to his past financial dealings. The New York Times reported Tuesday that he would likely be segregated from the general jail population and held in isolation.

Reacting to the news on Twitter Wednesday, Ocasio-Cortez, whose district includes the island in the East River, where the complex of jails is located, called solitary confinement “torture” and said Manafort “should be released, along with all people being held in solitary.”

Link.

Seems incredibly naive. He's there for his own protection. Putting him in gen pop in Riker's would be...bad.

And there are plenty other inmates in solitary for their own safety. Or the safety of others.


Is this all part of the "prison abolition" movement? Because if solitary is torture, gen pop is just a different (lesser?) form of the same torture.

[Defiant]

From a year and two ago:

Another group gets removed from the gay pride parade:

Gay Pride Marchers Carrying Star of David Flags Kicked Out of Chicago Parade

Gay Jews need not apply.

Now in DC:

JEWISH, LGBTQ, FEMINISTS NGOS CONDEMN DC DYKE MARCH FOR JEWISH STAR BAN

[Paingod]

... if solitary is torture, gen pop is just a different (lesser?) form of the same torture.

I've seen and read many things about the damaging psychological effects of solitary, and it really does seem to be tantamount to torture. Often inmates in solitary have only themselves in a small room for 23+ hours a day with almost no contact with others, even guards. As an administrative punishment, it's typically combined with deprivation of privileges - so you're in a small room, by yourself, with no one to talk to and nothing to do. Often for weeks or months on end. I'm sure it sounds like heaven to some people, but I'd think that even for those people it wears off quickly.

Being in solitary for your own protection may be different, though. I doubt they'd strip away books, TV, radio, commissary, etc - unless these things weren't allowed by default due to policy for solitary inmates... but you're still alone with no human connection.

The US prison system is a gross mess, though. We've largely proven that it does nothing to fix problems with people and often makes them worse by breaking them further. Do I think Manafort should be in the general population? No. Do I think he should be in solitary? No. What do I think? He's pretty well screwed because he's in a system that should have been fixed around the time we stopped thinking lobotomies were awesome; there's no good answer for him.

[AWS260]

The birthday of Jefferson Davis is a state holiday in Alabama. To mark the occasion, the state's largest newspaper published the oral testimony of former slaves.

Today the state of Alabama marks the birthday of Jefferson Davis, who served as president of the Confederate States of America from 1861 to 1865. A state holiday, state offices are closed throughout Alabama. Davis, who at one point owned more than 100 slaves, led a government resting on the principle of white supremacy. The Confederate Constitution contained a provision explicitly prohibiting any law "impairing the right of property in negro slaves," and his vice president, Alexander Stephens, said the "cornerstone" of the new government "rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery — subordination to the superior race — is his natural and normal condition."

Davis was a racist. In a speech to the U.S. Senate in 1860, the then-senator from Mississippi said slavery was "a form of civil government for those who by their nature are not fit to govern themselves," adding "We recognize the fact of the inferiority stamped upon that race by the Creator, and from cradle to grave, our government, as a civil institution, marks that inferiority." After his inauguration as president of the Confederacy, Davis said "We recognized the negro as God and God's Book and God's laws, in nature, tell us to recognize him. Our inferior, fitted expressly for servitude."

I recollect Mammy said to old Julie, ‘Take care my baby child (that was me), and if I never see her no more raise her for God.’ Then she fell off the wagon where us was all sitting and roll over on the ground just a-crying. But us was eatin’ candy what they done give us for to keep us quiet, and I didn’t have sense enough for to know what ailed Mammy, but I know now and I never seed her no more in this life. When I heard from her after surrender she done dead and buried. Her name was Rachel Powell.
-- Laura Clark

He was the meanest overseer us ever had. He took my oldest brother and had him stretched out just like you see Christ on the cross; had him chained, and I sat on the ground by him and cried all night like Mary and them done. That overseer was the first one that ever put me in the field, and he whupped me with the cat of nine tails when I was stark naked.

--Amy Chapman

More at the link, and well worth the time to read through.

An appropriate birthday celebration.

[LawBeefaroni]

I have probably posted this before, but Monumental Lies is a good look at he bullshit Davis defenders spout at the museum at his family home (at taxpayer expense, no less). He was a "benevolent slaveholder". That slaves liked their lot in life. That the Antebellum South was a haven for them.

This crap is still taught today.

[LordMortis]

stuff

Thank you for reminding me not to hold opinions of contempt for entire state's of people. I sometimes (probably way too often) need that reminder. It's hard to remember when I look at so many elected officials doing what they do with so many in our nation supporting them. I end up being unfair to those not electing and supporting those elected officials. I've been finding myself specifically on a "Fuck Kentucky, Fuck Alabama, and Fuck Georgia" bender lately and that just what I need for my one reality check.

[Holman]

stuff

Thank you for reminding me not to hold opinions of contempt for entire state's of people. I sometimes (probably way too often) need that reminder. It's hard to remember when I look at so many elected officials doing what they do with so many in our nation supporting them. I end up being unfair to those not electing and supporting those elected officials. I've been finding myself specifically on a "Fuck Kentucky, Fuck Alabama, and Fuck Georgia" bender lately and that just what I need for my one reality check.

Yeah. Even the deep Red states are somewhat diverse.

Georgia might even be a swing state in a cycle or two.

Kentucky should be razed and salted because of Mitch McConnell, though.

[El Guapo]

stuff

Thank you for reminding me not to hold opinions of contempt for entire state's of people. I sometimes (probably way too often) need that reminder. It's hard to remember when I look at so many elected officials doing what they do with so many in our nation supporting them. I end up being unfair to those not electing and supporting those elected officials. I've been finding myself specifically on a "Fuck Kentucky, Fuck Alabama, and Fuck Georgia" bender lately and that just what I need for my one reality check.

Yeah. Even the deep Red states are somewhat diverse.

Georgia might even be a swing state in a cycle or two.

Kentucky should be razed and salted because of Mitch McConnell, though.

Kentucky was the only one of those three states who didn't secede during the Civil War, though, so it seems unfair to raze them first.

[Pyperkub]

stuff

Thank you for reminding me not to hold opinions of contempt for entire state's of people. I sometimes (probably way too often) need that reminder. It's hard to remember when I look at so many elected officials doing what they do with so many in our nation supporting them. I end up being unfair to those not electing and supporting those elected officials. I've been finding myself specifically on a "Fuck Kentucky, Fuck Alabama, and Fuck Georgia" bender lately and that just what I need for my one reality check.

Yeah. Even the deep Red states are somewhat diverse.

Georgia might even be a swing state in a cycle or two.

Kentucky should be razed and salted because of Mitch McConnell, though.

Kentucky was the only one of those three states who didn't secede during the Civil War, though, so it seems unfair to raze them first.

Again. Mitch McConnell

[Max Peck]

Even the deep Red states are somewhat diverse.

True. If they weren't, there would be no need for the gerrymandering.

[Holman]

Even the deep Red states are somewhat diverse.

True. If they weren't, there would be no need for the gerrymandering.

Mississippi is almost 40% African-American.

A system that encouraged and enabled every citizen to vote without obstruction would make it a Blue state easily.

[pr0ner]

Ilhan Omar is in the news again, this time for tax issues. It appears she was filing joint income tax returns her current husband, before they were legally married, while she was legally married to someone else. Plus there are some campaign finance irregularities in there to boot.

[Isgrimnur]

WaPo

The Justice Department is throwing its support to three families suing Maine’s education commissioner, alleging he discriminated against them by not allowing public funds to be used for their children’s tuition at religious schools.

It was the Trump administration’s latest move in an effort to overturn state laws that prevent public money from being used for religious schooling, a stated goal of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. Most states have similar laws, which are increasingly coming under legal attack in part because of President Trump’s 2017 executive order promoting “Free Speech and Religious Liberty.”

The case in Maine is Carson v. Makin, which was filed last year and takes aim at a 1981 state law restricting the use of public funds. That law was challenged more than a decade ago and was ruled constitutional by a federal court. But the Supreme Court has made recent moves suggesting it might strike down constitutional restraints on the use of public money for religious schools when such a case comes before it.

In Maine, some districts do not have a public high school for residents to attend. The state’s Town Tuitioning Program allows public money to be spent so those children can attend neighboring public or private secular schools.

The three families sued Maine Education Commissioner Robert Hasson, saying they had been discriminated against because of their exclusion from the program and that their constitutional rights invoked in the First and 14th Amendments — including rights to free speech and due process — had been violated.

[GreenGoo]

For the record, we have entire religious school boards financed with public money. I believe this is limited to Catholicism, but I am not aware whether public money is made available to other schools of a religious nature. They certainly don't have their own school boards, whatever the public money situation.

I don't actually know how this situation is acceptable, but here we are.