[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.

I have loved ones in Texas who are suffering. I don't give a sh*t what "the people" of Texas voted for. I care that the very specific people in Texas who I know and love stay safe. Whatever corporation has to take a bath to make that happen, that's fine with me.

hbi2k wrote:

I have loved ones in Texas who are suffering. I don't give a sh*t what "the people" of Texas voted for. I care that the very specific people in Texas who I know and love stay safe. Whatever corporation has to take a bath to make that happen, that's fine with me.

So their employees should suffer. They should get laid off, they should lose their homes, etc.

Really when handing out the bathwater it isn't a corporation that will suffer - they are not people (no matter what the stupidest Supreme Court decision in my lifetime may say)

hbi2k wrote:

Should we examine the voting record and only hose those who actually DID vote for deregulation? Exactly how granular should we get when dealing out karmic retribution to people? How about children whose parents voted for deregulation? Will your schadenfreude keep them warm?

It is actually an interesting question. In a democracy how granular should we get? Should I have to pay for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq - even though I protested against them. My representatives in Congress okay-ed them so am I off the hook for the costs? Am I absolved of guilt for the destroyed countries?
Where does the line get drawn?

I think maybe the question is going the wrong direction. It shouldn't be "do we help? They chose this." Of course we should help, but we should also do so in a way that fixes the underlying problem so it doesn't happen again.

Making the aid contingent on them fixing their sh*t seems reasonable to me. There's talk of using Federal money to pay people's electric bills, which would be okay once, but by God it should never happen again. In effect, that's just handing a ton of money from the Feds to the worst players in this whole affair, so demanding systemic change seems more than reasonable.

Gremlin wrote:

I'll point out that Texas is heavily gerrymandered and a lot of people in Texas would like nothing better than to vote out the GOP.

And it became gerrymandered because a lot of Texans voted for Republicans and didn't care if those Republicans systematically eroded everyone's voting rights. I'm sure there were quite a few who *wanted* Republicans to deny the vote to people they didn't like.

At the end of the day it's always the fault of voters for electing the terrible politicians that go on to do horrible things.

Texas Electric Bills Were $28 Billion Higher Under Deregulation

Wall Street Journal wrote:

Texas’s deregulated electricity market, which was supposed to provide reliable power at a lower price, left millions in the dark last week. For two decades, its customers have paid more for electricity than state residents who are served by traditional utilities, a Wall Street Journal analysis has found.

Nearly 20 years ago, Texas shifted from using full-service regulated utilities to generate power and deliver it to consumers. The state deregulated power generation, creating the system that failed last week. And it required nearly 60% of consumers to buy their electricity from one of many retail power companies, rather than a local utility.

Those deregulated Texas residential consumers paid $28 billion more for their power since 2004 than they would have paid at the rates charged to the customers of the state’s traditional utilities, according to the Journal’s analysis of data from the federal Energy Information Administration.

The crisis last week was driven by the power producers. Now that power has largely been restored, attention has turned to retail electric companies, a few of which are hitting consumers with steep bills. Power prices surged to the market price cap of $9,000 a megawatt hour for several days during the crisis, a feature of the state’s system designed to incentivize power plants to supply more juice. Some consumers who chose variable rate power plans from retail power companies are seeing the big bills.

None of this was supposed to happen under deregulation. Backers of competition in the electricity-supply business promised it would lower prices for consumers who could shop around for the best deals, just as they do for cellphone service. The system would be an improvement over monopoly utilities, which have little incentive to innovate and provide better service to customers, supporters of deregulation said.

“If all consumers don’t benefit from this, we will have wasted our time and failed our constituency,” then-state Sen. David Sibley, a key author of the bill to deregulate the market, said when the switch was first unveiled in 1999. “Competition in the electric industry will benefit Texans by reducing monthly rates,” then-Gov. George W. Bush said later that year.

The EIA data shows how much electricity each utility or retail provider sold to residents in a given year and how much customers paid for it. The Journal calculated separate annual statewide rates for utilities and retailers by adding up all of the revenue each type of provider received and dividing it by the kilowatt-hours of electricity it sold.

From 2004 through 2019, the annual rate for electricity from Texas’s traditional utilities was 8% lower, on average, than the nationwide average rate, while the rates of retail providers averaged 13% higher than the nationwide rate, according to the Journal’s analysis.

The Texas Coalition for Affordable Power, a group that buys electricity for local government use, produced similar findings in a study of the state’s power markets and concluded that high statewide prices relative to the national average “must be attributed to the deregulated sector of Texas.”

Of course they did. Less, or no, regulations only helps one group: corporations.

We all have every right to be angry with Texas generally and with Texans individually since Biden is paying those bills for them in the form of disaster relief. I’m not against socialized losses but they have to be balanced with socialized gains and the Texas people have stolen and privatized those gains for their 1%. Everyone, including the Texas people, has a right to be angry about that.

Edit - I almost admire the integrity it takes for the Lt Governor to blame his constituents for their own power bills while being utterly dumbstruck that a winter storm could happen more than once in ten years. It takes a lot of integrity to admit your constituents are the cows you have always intended to sacrifice at the altar of capitalism. Anyone here taking bets this stance will stop a Republican governor from being elected next time? loool.

In local Iowa news

Hinson issues statement opposing the Equality Act

Iowa 1st District Congresswoman Ashley Hinson issued a statement on Thursday condemning bigotry, hate, and discrimination while declaring that she would not support the Equality Act hours before the bill passed.
Hinson released the following statement: “There is absolutely no place in our society for bigotry or hate, and no one should face discrimination of any kind. There are already existing legal protections for those who have experienced discrimination under federal law. The Equality Act undermines the First Amendment and threatens religious liberty, and I will oppose it.”

The Equality Act "amends existing civil rights law to explicitly include sexual orientation and gender identification as protected characteristics"

If your religious liberty needs to be able to discriminate against these groups your religion is vile. How can *not* being allowed to discriminate even be controversial? I guess it can't really unless being able to discriminate is integral to the religion.

Or it's integral to the person, and the religion functions as a convenient legal justification.

Career Texas politician, unrenowned college basketball player, and author of Texas's deregulation policy that failed Texas this month, has written an article about the disaster. Hilariously, he entitled it IT'S NOT MY FAULT YA'LL PLEASE BELIEVE ME:

a simp for capitalism wrote:

I hear accusations that Texas’ deregulated market was the culprit in this disaster. Not true. As co-author of that deregulation legislation (which easily passed with a bipartisan vote), I’m proud of what it has accomplished since the deregulated market was established in 2001.

Texans have since saved billions of dollars in electric costs and now pay some of the lowest rates in the country. New generation has been built, with fewer regulatory roadblocks, helping power our state’s booming population and economic growth over the past decade. Without that additional capacity, last week could truly have been catastrophic and impacted even more Texans.

Improving the reliability of generating plants does not require abandoning our free market.

He goes on to criticize reactionaries who try to blame renewables for the disaster, but that's just shooting fish in a barrel. Everyone knows blaming renewables is a red herring, even the people doing it. He -- predictably -- suggests that the solution to deregulation is regulation....all while attempting to deny that deregulation was the problem.

US carries out air strikes in Syria targeting Iranian backed militias

"Up to a handful" of militants were killed in the strikes, a US official told CNN.

Wait. Was that a metric handful or are we talking imperial handful?

Prederick wrote:

To be fair, he understands that the best thing for him to do here is changing the narrative, and Hannity will be 100% sympathetic and helpful with that.

Cruz doesn't care about his constituents, he has no real principles or allegiance, and he’s entirely empty aside from the endless maw of ambition inside him. Thus, that is the correct decision.

Apparently Cruz made a gag about how the weather at CPAC isn't as nice as the weather in Cancun.

The party has no animating principles beyond veneration of the God King Trump and Triggering The Libs. Thassit.

Prederick wrote:

The party has no animating principles beyond veneration of the God King Trump and Triggering The Libs. Thassit.

Disagree. Their primary animating principle is the transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich.

And they're good at that.

U.S. Finally Admits It: Saudi Crown Prince Responsible For Jamal Khashoggi’s Murder

U.S. officials released an intelligence assessment on Friday saying Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman approved the horrifying murder and dismemberment of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018 ― foiling a yearslong effort by the kingdom, the Trump administration and global power players to dodge accountability for one of the biggest international scandals in recent memory.

“We assess that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman approved an operation in Istanbul, Turkey to capture or kill Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi,” reads the report, which was led by the CIA.

President Joe Biden and his director of national intelligence, Avril Haines, repeatedly promised to release the findings. The intelligence community had concluded within weeks of Khashoggi’s assassination that the prince was responsible, but then-President Donald Trump defied a law saying he must make that conclusion public and instead defended the prince.

“I saved his ass,” Trump told journalist Bob Woodward in 2019. Trump repeatedly spread the prince’s lie that he was not responsible, including in a shocking White House statement that smeared Khashoggi.

“It could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event – maybe he did and maybe he didn’t!” Trump said as the attack, which was partly carried out with a bone saw, dominated headlines worldwide.

The then-president used his veto power to block congressional efforts to punish the Saudis by cutting off weapons sales and U.S. support for the kingdom’s vicious military campaign in Yemen, instead offering Riyadh additional arms worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

This will be the Tiananmen Square for Saudia Arabia*

*meaning we won't do sh*t about it other than lip service about how wrong it was

Senators don’t want to raise the minimum wage because it was enough when things were way cheaper

For us Iowans -
Sen. Joni Ernst
Ernst turned 18 in 1988, when the minimum wage was $3.35.
That had the equivalent spending power in 2021 dollars as:
$7.57 overall, or $0.32 more than under the current minimum wage
$9.17 for rent, or $1.92 more than under the current minimum wage
$7.40 for food, or $0.15 more than under the current minimum wage
$8.74 for gasoline, or $1.49 more than under the current minimum wage
$13.00 for medical care, or $5.75 more than under the current minimum wage
$3.56 for apparel, or $3.69 less than under the current minimum wage
Ernst graduated from Iowa State, a public school, in 1992.
The average tuition for a four-year public university in 1992 was $2,117. It would have taken 498 hours of work at the minimum wage that year ($4.25) to pay for tuition. By contrast, the average public tuition in 2017 was $8,804, requiring 1,214 hours of minimum wage work, an increase of 144 percent. If the minimum wage were $15, it would take only 587 hours to pay that tuition.
That's just tuition. The average overall costs for a public, four-year university that year were $5,693. That would have taken 1,340 hours of work at the minimum wage at that point, compared to 2,688 hours in 2017 to pay the average costs of $19,488. Were the minimum wage $15 in 2017, paying those costs would take 1,299 hours.
Sen. Charles Grassley
Grassley turned 18 in 1951, when the minimum wage was $0.75.
That had the equivalent spending power in 2021 dollars as:
$7.75 overall, or $0.50 more than under the current minimum wage
$8.56 for rent, or $1.31 more than under the current minimum wage
$6.39 for food, or $0.86 less than under the current minimum wage
$25.41 for medical care, or $18.16 more than under the current minimum wage
$2.12 for apparel, or $5.13 less than under the current minimum wage
Grassley graduated from University of Northern Iowa, a public school, in 1955.
The average tuition for a four-year public university in 1964 (the closest year for which data are available) was $243. It would have taken 195 hours of work at the minimum wage that year ($1.25) to pay for tuition. By contrast, the average public tuition in 2017 was $8,804, requiring 1,214 hours of minimum wage work, an increase of 523 percent. If the minimum wage were $15, it would take only 587 hours to pay that tuition.
That's just tuition. The average overall costs for a public, four-year university that year were $929. That would have taken 743 hours of work at the minimum wage at that point, compared to 2,688 hours in 2017 to pay the average costs of $19,488. Were the minimum wage $15 in 2017, paying those costs would take 1,299 hours.

And reminder that the full time, 8x5, 40 hour per week schedule is 2080 hours per year.

So that 2688 number is astounding. You can't physically work that many hours and go to classes, do homework, etc. No way.

Democrats Have A Choice: They Can Enact Their Agenda Or Keep The Filibuster

Senate Democrats faced a setback Thursday evening when the chamber parliamentarian ruled they cannot include a $15 minimum wage in their COVID-19 relief bill. But there’s another way Democrats could raise the minimum wage and enact other popular parts of their agenda: They can get rid of the filibuster.

If Democrats can’t — or won’t — overrule the parliamentarian in order to pass the $15 minimum wage provision through reconciliation, a budgetary process that allows legislation to pass with a simple majority, they would need the support of 10 Republicans to break the filibuster’s 60-vote threshold and approve it as a separate bill.

That is unlikely to happen, given that Republicans almost universally oppose minimum wage increases, despite broad public support for them. And any number of other Democratic priorities will almost certainly suffer a similar fate if filibuster rules remain intact. Bills to protect and expand voting rights, prohibit discrimination against LGBTQ people, enact immigration reforms, improve health care access, implement new environmental regulations or advance many other key parts of President Joe Biden’s agenda will die in the Senate, even if a majority of Americans and a majority of senators support them.

Why is this even a problem? Let the it die. Has it ever been used for "good"?

Or at least make the bastards actually stand up there and read until they pass out.

I heard someone point out that a minor change could perhaps mitigate the damage of the filibuster.

Right now it takes 60 votes for cloture. However, if they change it so that 40+ votes are required to avoid cloture once that is envoked, that would at least require 40+ Republicans to be present on the floor when that's done. As it is, they just have to stay away from the vote in order to keep the chamber from cloture.

Maybe but I don't see the point of it at all. The only reason for it is to make it so a minority of America can prevent what the majority wants. The times I have read about it being used are purely to prevent things the majority support.

Is there a case where it was really used to prevent something that was later seen to be detrimental to the country?

farley3k wrote:

Democrats Have A Choice: They Can Enact Their Agenda Or Keep The Filibuster

Senate Democrats faced a setback Thursday evening when the chamber parliamentarian ruled they cannot include a $15 minimum wage in their COVID-19 relief bill. But there’s another way Democrats could raise the minimum wage and enact other popular parts of their agenda: They can get rid of the filibuster.

Still wouldn't happen. Manchin opposes the $15 minimum wage, and so does Kyrsten Sinema (of Arizona). No Republican senator's going to vote for anything Biden wants, so even if the Dems ditch the filibuster they still only have 48 votes for it. I have a feeling this is going to happen with a lot of Biden's agenda - the "centrists" (read as: right-wing Democrats) can basically kill any legislation unless they get exactly what they want. The Dems, unable to enact what they really want, get forced to decide between passing watered-down half-measures or leaving everything the way it is now. Then they lose the midterms because their supporters are angry that they had control for two years and didn't manage to pass anything substantial.

Can we hurry up and make DC and PR states already?

Keldar wrote:

Still wouldn't happen. Manchin opposes the $15 minimum wage, and so does Kyrsten Sinema (of Arizona). No Republican senator's going to vote for anything Biden wants, so even if the Dems ditch the filibuster they still only have 48 votes for it. I have a feeling this is going to happen with a lot of Biden's agenda - the "centrists" (read as: right-wing Democrats) can basically kill any legislation unless they get exactly what they want. The Dems, unable to enact what they really want, get forced to decide between passing watered-down half-measures or leaving everything the way it is now. Then they lose the midterms because their supporters are angry that they had control for two years and didn't manage to pass anything substantial.

Can we hurry up and make DC and PR states already?

Centrism rocks. I know I was hard on centrists during the primary, but I take it all back. There's nothing wrong with this system.

Let’s just fast track to the revolution part where hopefully Canada comes in to Annex the Blue States to form the New Canada America’s.

I hear March 4th is suppose to be wild.

"Danger Warning": Women say Madison Cawthorn Harassed Them in College

BuzzFeed News wrote:

Madison Cawthorn arrived at Patrick Henry College’s small Christian campus in northern Virginia in fall 2016 blazing with charm, bravado, and a flashing white smile. His former classmates said the future member of Congress would whip his white Dodge Challenger into the parking lot and regale his classmates with the story of how he survived a harrowing car crash as a teen, which left him paralyzed from the waist down and in a wheelchair for life. After his intensive recovery, he was older than most students — 21 — and didn’t fit the mold of the Christian and largely sheltered first-year students who chose the conservative school in Purcellville because of its commitment to God and rigorous academics. And, former Patrick Henry students said, it didn’t take long for women on campus to start warning one another: You don’t want to be alone with him, especially in his car.

BuzzFeed News spoke with more than three dozen people, including more than two dozen former students, their friends, and their relatives, who described or corroborated instances of sexual harassment and misconduct on campus, in Cawthorn’s car, and at his house near campus. Four women told BuzzFeed News that Cawthorn, now a rising Republican star, was aggressive, misogynistic, or predatory toward them. Their allegations include calling them derogatory names in public in front of their peers, including calling one woman “slutty,” asking them inappropriate questions about their sex lives, grabbing their thighs, forcing them to sit in his lap, and kissing and touching them without their consent. One of these women now works as an intern for another Republican member of Congress and passes Cawthorn in the corridors of the Capitol. According to more than a dozen people — including three women who had firsthand experience and seven people who heard about these incidents from them at the time — Cawthorn often used his car as a way to entrap and harass his women classmates, taking them on what he could call “fun drives'' off campus. Two said he would drive recklessly and ask them about their virginity and sexual experiences while they were locked in the moving vehicle.

“I realized he was taking me out to the middle of nowhere, Virginia,” said Caitlin Coulter, a former classmate who went for a drive with him during her senior year. “We were on these small, like, one- [or] two-lane back roads, and I just felt so uncomfortable and nervous and not even something I think at the time I could put a finger on, but just, like, danger warning.”

BuzzFeed News sent Cawthorn a detailed list of allegations in this story. His communications director, Micah Bock, did not respond to the specific allegations but instead referred BuzzFeed News to remarks the young Republican had made during a campaign debate in September: “I have never done anything sexually inappropriate in my life,” Cawthorn said.

...

Long before Cawthorn’s persona as a poster child for the new right gained national traction, people who went to school with him at Patrick Henry College said they were stunned as they watched him ascend in the North Carolina race. They told BuzzFeed News they remember him as one of the only Trump supporters on their small conservative campus, where he developed a reputation for mistreating women at the school, according to more than two dozen former students.

Trump, meanwhile, was making his name in politics with relentless gendered attacks on Hillary Clinton, then–Fox News host Megyn Kelly, and Sen. Ted Cruz’s wife, Heidi. The Access Hollywood tape in which Trump described “grabbing [women] by the p*ssy” was released a few months after Cawthorn started at Patrick Henry.

As Cawthorn’s own political career took off, his former classmates expressed shock and dismay in private Facebook groups and text messages seen by BuzzFeed News; they said he had been “chauvinistic” on campus just a few years before and discussed female students’ sexual misconduct allegations against him.

Some came forward during his campaign to share their experiences with Cawthorn on social media and in private. Last August, World magazine published the accounts of three women who said the young conservative sexually harassed and verbally assaulted them. One of these women was among those who spoke to BuzzFeed News for this story. Cawthorn has unequivocally denied the accusations, telling the Daily Caller the story was a “mix of half-truths, untruths and potentially fabricated allegations.”

Then, in October, more than 160 members of the Patrick Henry community signed an open letter detailing “gross misconduct towards our female peers, public misrepresentation of his past, disorderly conduct that was against the school’s student honor code, and self-admitted academic failings,” including that Cawthorn “established a reputation of predatory behavior.” After the letter was published, Cawthorn told ABC 13 that it was based on rumors, and his campaign wrote in a Facebook post that he had the endorsement of a “significant number of PHC alumni and former students who knew him well.” The post was signed by just six people. Two worked for the campaign and a third was one of their relatives.

Patrick Henry officials, including the school’s president, ignored repeated emails and calls from BuzzFeed News regarding Cawthorn’s alleged sexual misconduct and behavioral problems. The only official to respond was Paul Yancey, the campus security chief, who declined to comment on questions about the alleged misbehavior.

While Cawthorn has painted women’s accounts of sexual misconduct and predatory behavior as politically motivated lies, this new investigation into his time at Patrick Henry College provides an in-depth examination of the allegations against the North Carolina representative and uncovers previously unreported details. More than 20 former Patrick Henry students told BuzzFeed News that Cawthorn harassed his women classmates. The students either said they experienced his sexually inappropriate behavior firsthand, comforted friends after a traumatizing incident, or were warned about his conduct by their dorm leaders. Although Cawthorn was only at the school for just over one semester, students said he quickly developed a reputation as someone who took advantage of and mistreated women.

Unsurprisingly, he is absolute trash.

The Nation wrote:

Cawthorn has used his disability to tell a story of overcoming: Despite great adversity, he claims to have achieved excellence through grit and physical strength. Many of his campaign ads featured images of Cawthorn intubated and hospitalized alongside videos of him lifting weights and hurtling forward in a racing wheelchair. But his claims of sporting success—like his accounts of education and business acumen—have often been misleading.

Cawthorn became disabled after a 2014 car crash left him paralyzed from the waist down. By Cawthorn’s own telling, he was a successful business owner headed to the Naval Academy before his injury tragically reordered his life. As it turns out, neither claim is true. The Asheville Watchdog reported that Cawthorn had already been rejected from the Naval Academy before his accident. And Cawthorn’s real-estate investment firm, SPQR Holdings LLC, which he only formed in August 2019, reported no income on its tax documents, and Cawthorn was the sole employee.

But he has not only styled himself as Naval Academy material with a head for real estate. Multiple outlets reported that before he ran for office, Cawthorn was training for the 2020 Paralympic Games. There is little detail, but according to Micah Bock, Cawthorn’s campaign communications director, he intended to compete in the 400-meter dash at the 2020 Paralympic Games in Tokyo. It would have been an incredible footnote in a politician’s biography: Paralympians are celebrated and accomplished athletes. But his hopes for the Paralympic Games, now slated for summer 2021, were allegedly dashed by his worsening disability.

Cawthorn frequently said on social media that he was “training” for the Paralympic Games. Technically, such a statement could be true—but only in the sense that I could be training for the Olympic Games. “It’s like a kid saying they want to play in the NBA when they’re on their fourth-grade basketball team,” said Amanda McGrory, a three-time Paralympian who has earned seven medals in track and field. Cawthorn stated on the Christian inspirational podcast The Heal, “I had an opportunity for the Paralympics for track and field.” He did not have that opportunity, nor does it appear he took any meaningful steps that would have led him there.

Paralympians are the best at what they do. Qualifying is a long, complicated process. In addition to being a Paralympian, McGrory is the archivist and collections curator for the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee. She told me: “You have to be involved in a team, usually your college or a local club. And then from there, you establish times at qualifying races, and then from there you get scouted.” Patrick Henry College, which Cawthorn attended for a semester before dropping out, doesn’t have a disabled sports program.

In addition to not being on a team, Cawthorn does not appear to have competed in any qualifying races. Robert Kozarek, a former elite wheelchair marathoner, said he would have met Cawthorn at some point if he had been serious competition. Kozarek himself never qualified for the Paralympic Games. “The community itself is small. There’s probably 50 [elite wheelchair racers] in the entire country, and we see each other four, five, six times a year, at least.”

In addition to being on a team and establishing times at qualifying races, prospective Paralympians need to be internationally classified. “The International Paralympic Committee, the IPC, they have a registry of athletes. You have to be on it to even compete internationally,” McGrory explained. People on the list are evaluated for severity of disability and sorted accordingly, in an attempt to make athletic competitions between people with different disabilities fairer. The list is publicly available, and contains over 4,000 athletes from around the world. Cawthorn isn’t on it.

As if the GOP will do anything about him.

Dezlen wrote:

As if the GOP will do anything about him.

They'll happily use him as a minority body shield and say that anyone who criticizes him is bigoted against people with disabilities while they call everyone the r-word and support gutting the programs that most benefit those people.

IMAGE(https://mapi.associatedpress.com/v1/items/a1ebda9e4f514942ba3552fa90c547c3/preview/21057745975324.jpg?wm=api&tag=app_id=1,user_id=798904,org_id=51024)

Perfection.

Trumpankhamen?