[News] Post a Political News Story

Ongoing discussion of the political news of the day. This thread is for 'smaller' stories that don't call for their own thread. If a story blows up, please start a new thread for it.

Emails of top NRCC officials stolen in April, not drip-fed to the public through the primaries, and revealed the week the Mueller investigation is expected to heat up. Hmm.

I'm probably being cynical and paranoid, to be fair.

Dem false flag because something something pizzagate.

My favorite bit of that story is where they 'hired' indicted Russian collaborators to try to keep the breach quiet

thrawn82 wrote:

My favorite bit of that story is where they 'hired' indicted Russian collaborators to try to keep the breach quiet

Wait, what? What I am missing here? Is this a reference to Crowdstrike? Or to Covington and Burling or Mercury Public Affairs? There are a couple Russians involved in those but I saw nothing about indicted Russian collaborators...

Jolly Bill wrote:
thrawn82 wrote:

My favorite bit of that story is where they 'hired' indicted Russian collaborators to try to keep the breach quiet

Wait, what? What I am missing here? Is this a reference to Crowdstrike? Or to Covington and Burling or Mercury Public Affairs? There are a couple Russians involved in those but I saw nothing about indicted Russian collaborators...

Mercury Public Affairs. I thought the Russians involved with them were on the list of Russian nationals Mueller issued indicts for (the ones no one expects to be able to enforce because they are in Russia.) I might be conflating two separate events

NBC: Lame-duck Wisconsin Republicans vote to weaken incoming Democratic governor, attorney general
The GOP state Senate passed the measures 17-16 with all Republicans except one in support.

MADISON, Wis. — The Wisconsin Senate voted just before sunrise Wednesday following an all-night session to pass a sweeping bill in a lame-duck session designed to empower the GOP-controlled Legislature and weaken the Democrat replacing Republican Gov. Scott Walker.

Republicans pushed on through protests, internal disagreement and Democratic opposition to the measures designed to reduce the powers of incoming Democratic Gov.-elect Tony Evers and Democratic Attorney General-elect Josh Kaul. Both Evers and Kaul urged Republicans not to do it, warning that lawsuits would bring more gridlock to Wisconsin when the new administration, and the first divided government in 10 years, takes over.

But Republicans forged ahead regardless, passing it 17-16 with all Republicans except one in support. All Democrats voted against it. The Assembly was expected to pass the bill later Wednesday, sending it on to Walker for his consideration. Walker has signaled support.

"This is a heck of a way to run a railroad," Democratic Senate Minority Leader Jennifer Shilling said as debate resumed at 5 a.m. "This is embarrassing we're even here."

Meanwhile, this is ridiculous:
BuzzFeed: Inside The North Carolina Republican Vote Machine: Cash, Pills — And Ballots
McCrae Dowless and his family worked with “wads of cash” — and workers illegally handled absentee ballots, a woman who worked for him says.

BLADENBORO, North Carolina — The allegations that Republicans tampered with absentee ballots in a close North Carolina election represent the most serious federal election tampering case in years, one that allegedly stole votes from elderly black voters in the state’s rural south.

Now two women intimately involved with the McCrae Dowless’s absentee ballot machine have revealed to BuzzFeed News its grim and chaotic workings, in which Dowless tracked votes on yellow paper and paid his workers, including family members, from stacks of cash, which some used to keep themselves high on opioids while they worked.

The accounts of the women, Jessica Karen Dowless and Lisa Britt, add significant new details to those that have come out from investigators and other news reports, as the state election board considers whether it should order a new election between Republican Mark Harris and Democrat Dan McCready. The women, both related to McCrae Dowless, paint a picture of American political chicanery at its lowest levels — though with sweeping consequences both for voters allegedly denied the franchise, and for the outcome of a pivotal national election, which Republican Mark Harris won by 905 votes.

Jessica Dowless described the scene in the small office at the intersection of two highways in Bethel, North Carolina, where she worked on Harris’s behalf for the last two months as chaotic. One worker, she said, “was so f*cking high the other day she passed out at the f*cking computer.” One of the workers who collected absentee ballots from residents was a “pill head,” she said.

Jessica Dowless, whose husband is distantly related to McCrae Dowless, described herself as a “housewife [who] needed a part time job” said she was one of about six employees. She often worked six days a week tallying the number of Democrats and Republicans who had recently voted. However, she explained, there were times when she did not quite understand what she was doing or what the grand purpose was.

She did, though, say that campaign workers delivered sealed absentee ballots from the homes of people who requested them to McCrae Dowless’s office — though North Carolina law forbids third parties from handling those ballots.

She said she spent her time tracking the number of ballots sent in to the county board of elections — and then tally up the number that were collected by employees of McCrae Dowless, who The Washington Post reported would keep the Harris campaign updated on the latest figures.

Jessica Dowless said she would also note voters’ race and party affiliation.

It's interesting that the thing Republicans seem to fear the most--the US turning into a less-than-developed country--is exactly what their actions are bringing about. What the Republicans are doing in Wisconsin and North Carolina are things you'd expect from the regime of a corrupt, developing-world dictatorship.

The fall of America isn't happening because of a flood of immigrants and non-whites. It's happening because of the naked attempts of Republicans to hold onto political power the people don't want them to have anymore.

Sounds like a case of Not All Less-Than-Developed Countries. Only the left wing ones. Republicans want to do to America what they've done to other countries. They want to make America a colony in its own empire.

The thing I worry about is that most of our politicians seem to have forgotten that democracy only works when the safety valves are functional. If enough people feel like the democracy no longer represents them, we don't get some one-party-future, we get societal breakdown.

This is, unfortunately, irregardless of how legitimate the complaint is, which is one reason why I worry about the otherwise ridiculous sovereign citizens. But a lot of times the pressure of political and economic disenfranchisement leads to outbreaks of violence which are responded to (or anticipated by) authoritarian crackdowns as the unpopular politicians try to suppress the discontent disenfranchised.

We're running our country with broken safety valves. It's already gotten us one unpopular authoritarian president, but the group of people who get put in charge of things seems oblivious to the cause.

The Wisconsin stuff is utterly flabbergasting. The main way that the people were supposed to be able to have a say in government. If one party is willing to actively undermine that using whatever means necessary to maintain power, what's left to do? Wisconsin tried to vote them out. Actually did vote them out. They just changed the rules to keep power in the face of it. Now what?

The thing is they wouldn't even be in power if they didn't gerrymander things to hell and back. The GoP has already broken the rules in every state they could back in 2010 just to keep the sliver of power they had.

The next step would be to challenge the new legislative actions in court, although the Wisconsin court is rigged to hell and back. You'd need to build a federal case against what they've done, I think, but I'm not an expert by any means.

So the legislature is heavily gerrymandered to keep the GOP in power. The state courts are tilted in favor of the GOP. The Senate and Trump are working on rigging the Federal court system as quickly as humanly possible. This doesn't seem like how you keep a democracy functioning.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

The next step would be to challenge the new legislative actions in court, although the Wisconsin court is rigged to hell and back. You'd need to build a federal case against what they've done, I think, but I'm not an expert by any means.

The problem with a federal case is that it eventually just goes up to the Roberts Kavanauh Gorsuch court, if it doesn't get derailed by a Federalist society lower court judge. System is bad broke, and i dunno what we can do to fix it.

Does the state or federal constitution not have anything to say about this gross abuse of power? If not why not? Amend that sheit! (Oh the body that's abusing the power decides what that document says? Ok nevermind. Hows Canada looking these days?)

Thought for the Wisconsin Democratic Party:

What if you just ignored these laws?

Chaz wrote:

The Wisconsin stuff is utterly flabbergasting. The main way that the people were supposed to be able to have a say in government. If one party is willing to actively undermine that using whatever means necessary to maintain power, what's left to do? Wisconsin tried to vote them out. Actually did vote them out. They just changed the rules to keep power in the face of it. Now what?

I'm not sure why it's "flabbergasting" given the Republicans in North Carolina pulled this same stunt about two years ago. This is just the modus operandi of the modern Republican mafia.

My grand hope is that Mueller uncovers enough dirt to disband the GOP and the NRA under RICO statutes for the way they've conspired to break election laws.

Economists have teased out the long-term impact of food stamps thanks to the fact that the program was rolled out county by county from 1962 to 1975.

Bloomberg wrote:

The economists focus on people born between 1956 and 1981, who were young children when the program was expanding, and who grew up in families with a parent with less than a high school education. They find that access to the program as a young child significantly improved economic outcomes and health status as an adult.

In particular, food stamp access as a child was associated with much lower risk of metabolic syndrome as an adult and, especially for women, higher levels of educational attainment and income along with lower participation on means-tested benefit programs. For example, food stamp access during childhood is linked to a 5 percentage point reduction in heart disease and an 18 percentage point increase in high school completion rates, compared to those who lacked access.

...

The authors also highlight that access seems to matter most in utero and up until age 5. Gaining access to food stamps after age 5, by contrast, didn’t improve health outcomes as an adult, perhaps because the person had already been put on a particular health trajectory by that age.

Goddamn leeches using social programs to give their children a healthy life.

And education...
I would hope that these economists would put an estimated dollar amount on the savings from a 5% reduction in heart disease and taxes generated due to an 18% increase in high school graduation. (which in effect trickles upward since that benefit gets passed to future generations)
A 5% reduction in heart disease alone has to cover the cost of the food stamps program.

Gremlin wrote:

Weird news:

CBS: U.S. Navy admiral Scott Stearney found dead in apparent suicide

Vice Adm. Scott Stearney, who oversaw U.S. naval forces in the Middle East, was found dead Saturday in his residence in Bahrain, officials said. Defense officials told CBS News they are calling it an "apparent suicide."

Stearney was the commander of the U.S. Navy's Bahrain-based 5th Fleet. Rear Adm. Paul Schlise, the deputy commander of the 5th Fleet, has assumed command, the Navy said in a statement.

I bet $100 someone's already blamed it on "Killary".

Giuliani can’t figure out how URLs work, blames Twitter for liberal bias.

Rudy Giuliani, who briefly advised Donald Trump on cybersecurity before taking a role as his personal attorney, doesn't understand how domain names work. And that lack of understanding led him to invent a ludicrous conspiracy theory about Twitter.
firesloth wrote:
Chaz wrote:

The Wisconsin stuff is utterly flabbergasting. The main way that the people were supposed to be able to have a say in government. If one party is willing to actively undermine that using whatever means necessary to maintain power, what's left to do? Wisconsin tried to vote them out. Actually did vote them out. They just changed the rules to keep power in the face of it. Now what?

I'm not sure why it's "flabbergasting" given the Republicans in North Carolina pulled this same stunt about two years ago. This is just the modus operandi of the modern Republican mafia.

My grand hope is that Mueller uncovers enough dirt to disband the GOP and the NRA under RICO statutes for the way they've conspired to break election laws.

You're right, but if we're already at "well, obviously the GOP is going to abuse their power to undermine election results, that's just how it is, so what?" then I don't know why we're bothering even pretending this is a democracy.

Hoping the courts correct this as it sounds like an obvious abuse of power. At this point the onion is more real than not with the headline WI legislature votes to dissolve government rather cecceed power to Democrats.

For f*cks sake.

The lame duck NC legislature is restructuring the elections board to give the GOP control on election years Oh and also allow them to certify the district 9 election and dismiss the investigation come january.

Chaz wrote:

You're right, but if we're already at "well, obviously the GOP is going to abuse their power to undermine election results, that's just how it is, so what?" then I don't know why we're bothering even pretending this is a democracy.

I wasn't saying "that's just how it is, so what?" I was saying we should come to expect that will happen, but not that we should avoid fighting against it as hard as we can.

thrawn82 wrote:

The lame duck NC legislature is restructuring the elections board to give the GOP control on election years Oh and also allow them to certify the district 9 election and dismiss the investigation come january.

Oh, for f's sake...these people have no shame. That election, in particular, was so completely dirty, and they want to just say "Eh?"

The thing I can't get out of my head is that all of this is happening in the context of climate change that will require unprecedented coordination across the planet on policy to solve. If we can't even figure out how to properly run a state-level democracy, what hope do we have of coordinating a climate change response across the entire planet?

It depresses me so much. Conservatives are going to drive the entire planet into a ditch.