[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.

If they want to make adoption more attractive, then have a pregnant mother who agrees to give her child up for adoption get free health care during and post-pregnancy. Free financial and physical/mental/emotional/health care support during and post-pregnancy.

mudbunny wrote:

If they want to make adoption more attractive, then have a pregnant mother who agrees to give her child up for adoption get free health care during and post-pregnancy. Free financial and physical/mental/emotional/health care support during and post-pregnancy.

LOL! You mean be nice to those tramps who got knocked up? Hell now they must take responsibility for their mistakes.

Yes, Coney Barret's argument is yet another conservative hand-waving away of facts and truth in order to get what they want

IMAGE(https://artsy-media-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/_qTpV1j06Nqc2uDXVHytuQ%2Fcustom-Custom_Size___GettyImages-1125162215.jpg)

The Christian right certainly got what they paid for in trump. Unfortunately the price was millions of lives from covid, and many other ways the US is more like a banana republic but they got what they sold the country for.

farley3k wrote:

The Christian right certainly got what they paid for in trump. Unfortunately the price was millions of lives from covid, and many other ways the US is more like a banana republic but they got what they sold the country for.

Yes, but for most of them, it was people they don't care about.*

*People who they don't directly and personally know.

A tale of two thefts

In the United States, only certain types of theft are newsworthy.

For example, on June 14, 2021, a reporter for KGO-TV in San Francisco tweeted a cellphone video of a man in Walgreens filling a garbage bag with stolen items and riding his bicycle out of the store. According to San Francisco's crime database, the value of the merchandise stolen in the incident was between $200 and $950.

According to an analysis by FAIR, a media watchdog, this single incident generated 309 stories between June 14 and July 12. A search by Popular Information reveals that, since July 12, there have been dozens of additional stories mentioning the incident. The theft has been covered in a slew of major publications including the New York Times, USA Today and CNN.

Just a few months earlier, in November 2020, Walgreens paid a $4.5 million settlement to resolve a class-action lawsuit alleging that it stole wages from thousands of its employees in California between 2010 and 2017. The lawsuit alleged that Walgreens "rounded down employees' hours on their timecards, required employees to pass through security checks before and after their shift without compensating them for time worked, and failed to pay premium wages to employees who were denied legally required meal breaks."

Walgreens' settlement includes attorney's fees and other penalties, but $2,830,000 went to Walgreens employees to compensate them for the wages that the company had stolen. And, because it is a settlement, that amount represents a small fraction of the total liability. According to the order approving the settlement, it represents "approximately 22% of the potential damages."

So this is a story of a corporation that stole millions of dollars from its own employees. How much news coverage did it generate? There was a single 221-word story in Bloomberg Law, an industry publication. And that's it. There has been no coverage in the New York Times, USA Today, CNN, or the dozens of other publications that covered the story of a man stealing a few hundred dollars of merchandise.

I admire her drive, especially considering that now the deck is even more stacked against her.

(CNN)Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams announced on Wednesday that she is running for governor, setting up a possible rematch with Georgia GOP Gov. Brian Kemp in what could become one of the most closely watched races in the country.

Abrams ran for governor in 2018, losing to Kemp by 1.4 points.

“Rejecting an apology and hanging up on someone is part of cancel culture 101 and a pillar of the Democrat party,” Boebert said in an Instagram video.

Amazed, but also impressed at how much they have turned that phrase into an utterly vacuous "thing I don't like" stand-in.

WTA tournaments are all being suspended in China because of their kidnapping of Peng Shuai.

Prederick wrote:

Amazed, but also impressed at how much they have turned that phrase into an utterly vacuous "thing I don't like" stand-in.

utterly vacuous is an apt description of Boebert.

How the donors in that room who are receptive and acknowledging that can claim they aren't racist is staggeringly mind boggling.

I mean, I'm not giving Boebert a pass. But there are two sides to the proverbial tango.

That’s why they like her. She says the things they want to say.

Just half?

Yeah, and the scary part is it's mostly Republicans. So you can guess who they blame.

gewy wrote:

Yeah, and the scary part is it's mostly Republicans. So you can guess who they blame.

The rich white men who f*ck everything up?

Mixolyde wrote:
gewy wrote:

Yeah, and the scary part is it's mostly Republicans. So you can guess who they blame.

The rich white men who f*ck everything up?

In this country, “democracy” meant “rule by rich white men who f*ck everything up” for well over half of our history. Some would argue it still means that, given the makeup of our legislative branch.

Only half of that age bracket voted in 2020 Which is a huge improvement compared to 2016 (up 11%). I bet mid-terms are still anemic. If they have concerns there's a way to voice them. F'n vote. So frustrating.

I mean, that's a bit circular, isn't it? The whole problem is that they think voting doesn't work. That's like telling someone with a flat tire to drive down to the tire shop and pick up a new one.

538's take on the redistricting so far

Some salient (my opinion) quotes:

Nathaniel Rakich wrote:

Going into this redistricting cycle, Republicans had 2.5 times as many districts as Democrats to redraw (187 versus 75), yet that hasn’t translated into big GOP gains so far.

Nathaniel Rakich wrote:

At the same time, Democrats have gone for the jugular in each of the few opportunities they’ve had so far to gain seats.

Nathaniel Rakich wrote:

They [Republicans] have taken already Republican-leaning seats and moved them totally out of Democrats’ reach. If you look under the hood of the GOP’s two-seat gain, you can see that although they have lost nine light-red seats (which we define as having a partisan lean between R+5 and R+15), they have gained 11 dark-red seats (R+15 or redder).

Nathaniel Rakich wrote:

That said, there’s some reason to think the share of swing seats will increase from here. Eighty-seven percent of the districts that have been enacted so far were enacted under single-party rule, but 55 percent of the districts that have yet to be enacted will be drawn via independent or bipartisan means, such as redistricting commissions or the courts.

Nathaniel Rakich wrote:

Some of these maps, in fact, are so egregious that they may not survive long enough to get used in the 2022 elections (much less beyond that). ... If any of these lawsuits are successful, fairer replacement maps could wind up tilting the 2021 redistricting scales toward Democrats in a more unambiguous way.

hbi2k wrote:

I mean, that's a bit circular, isn't it? The whole problem is that they think voting doesn't work. That's like telling someone with a flat tire to drive down to the tire shop and pick up a new one.

Right now, and the situation is not much better in Canada, we just have political parties that actually straddle the left/right division. But, it is the political situation/environment we have, so if you want things to change, a certain amount of work needs to be done IN this system.

I'm just resigned to stormtrooper and bounty hunter rule for however many years it takes for Democrats to whip their team into line. And it's not going to be pretty. The next election will show whether we are still a functioning democracy at the bare minimum of the definition (free, uncontested elections); Congress and the courts are already lost.

It is just so disheartening/darkly funny to see all these articles about Roe being limited and overturned. Like it is some revelation! Oh my goodness how can that happen?

Wake the f- up. Conservatives have made it a clearly stated goal for the last 40 years. And they kept working at it from the bottom up. Idiots just lied to themselves saying "oh it is the law of the land now so we can stop worrying" etc.

croaker wrote:

538's take on the redistricting so far

Some salient (my opinion) quotes:

Also the GOP gerrymandered so hard the last decade there's not much left for them to do. And they control a ton of state legislatures, even ones like KY or NC with a democratic governor.

The 2010 NC maps spent the whole decade in court and the 2020 ones are there already

Now this dude want's his own gestapo.... What could possibly go wrong.

(CNN)

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis wants to reestablish a World War II-era civilian military force that he, not the Pentagon, would control.

DeSantis pitched the idea Thursday as a way to further support the Florida National Guard during emergencies, like hurricanes. The Florida National Guard has also played a vital role during the pandemic in administering Covid-19 tests and distributing vaccines.

But in a nod to the growing tension between Republican states and the Biden administration over the National Guard, DeSantis also said this unit, called the Florida State Guard, would be "not encumbered by the federal government." He said this force would give him "the flexibility and the ability needed to respond to events in our state in the most effective way possible." DeSantis is proposing bringing it back with a volunteer force of 200 civilians, and he is seeking $3.5 million from the state legislature in startup costs to train and equip them.

Can't wait until he reveals their snappy new uniforms consisting of brown shirts and brown ties.

Stele wrote:
croaker wrote:

538's take on the redistricting so far

Some salient (my opinion) quotes:

Also the GOP gerrymandered so hard the last decade there's not much left for them to do. And they control a ton of state legislatures, even ones like KY or NC with a democratic governor.

The 2010 NC maps spent the whole decade in court and the 2020 ones are there already

I’m also concerned because 538 is always, consistently wrong. Their predictive analysis is literally worse than throwing goat bones. If they’re saying there’s bright spots for democrats, that’s terrifying.

Here is fivethirtyeight's "How good are our predictions?" tool.

JC wrote:

Now this dude want's his own gestapo.... What could possibly go wrong.

(CNN)

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis wants to reestablish a World War II-era civilian military force that he, not the Pentagon, would control.

DeSantis pitched the idea Thursday as a way to further support the Florida National Guard during emergencies, like hurricanes. The Florida National Guard has also played a vital role during the pandemic in administering Covid-19 tests and distributing vaccines.

But in a nod to the growing tension between Republican states and the Biden administration over the National Guard, DeSantis also said this unit, called the Florida State Guard, would be "not encumbered by the federal government." He said this force would give him "the flexibility and the ability needed to respond to events in our state in the most effective way possible." DeSantis is proposing bringing it back with a volunteer force of 200 civilians, and he is seeking $3.5 million from the state legislature in startup costs to train and equip them.

There are already 23 states with one, including California, Texas and New York.

Robear wrote:

Here is fivethirtyeight's "How good are our predictions?" tool.

Hey Fox, in your own words, how good are you at guarding henhouses?