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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.

And tearing down democratic institutions so that voters can't fix it.

Paleocon wrote:
JLS wrote:
TheGameguru wrote:

The reality is that the majority of republican voters now basically live in a matrix and are perfectly happy being in there. There’s no hope for these people.

The parallels to WW II Germany are unavoidable. My wife and I just had a discussion about this, which led to the question: when did the spell finally break for the average German citizen? I'm not talking about who knew what when. Because obviously many were fine with atrocities as long as they were winning. Specifically, I'm asking when the majority of Germans realized they made a mistake following Hitler.

From what I can tell, the German nation has taken great pains to own their history, unlike the the U.S. and Native Americans, slavery, and Jim Crow. I fear many in the U.S. are incapable of waking up from the matrix.

I had this very discussion with a number of German friends of mine and they almost universally say that the "spell" as you put it never did break. It basically took the folks who fell for the spell dying for it to die off with them. Folks who loved the Nazis in 1935 still loved them in 1970. There were just fewer of them. And the education programs made sure that their kids saw their parents' views for what they were even if it meant calling them monsters.

It is pretty clear that Republicans learned those lessons which is why they are trying so f*cking hard to dismantle public education and replace it with Putinesque style Jesus camps.

That jives with what our German teacher in college told us. The first generation after WW2 (so boomers basically) were taught about the evils of national socialism, but didn't fail to notice government administration and high-level execs were largely (former) Nazi's. The '68 movement in Germany was largely driven by this, as much as the Vietnam War was for the US or language conflicts for Belgium.

TheGameguru wrote:

The reality is that the majority of republican voters now basically live in a matrix and are perfectly happy being in there. There’s no hope for these people.

IMAGE(https://i.imgflip.com/yqxd5.jpg)

I really hate headlines. Or at the goal of making them confrontational, exciting, etc. for clicks.

Biden's dead-on-arrival budget kicks off fiscal fight with GOP

The first budget outline is always dead on arrival. Just like the first draft of every paper I wrote in school was DOA. They were the first draft and they get revised. It is the starting point for budget negotiations. No one on Earth expects it would be the approved version.

West Virginia just playing to type now.

Republicans on the West Virginia Senate Judiciary Committee celebrated International Women's Day on Wednesday by voting against a law that would have banned child marriage in the state.

The current law, which remains unchanged, allows for children 16 and older to get married with their parents' permission and for children of literally any age to get married with the permission of a judge, regardless of the age of the spouse. This means that an adult man is free to marry the elementary school student of his dreams so long as he can find a judge willing to go along with him.

In news from my home state Larry Householder, a former two-time Speaker of the House for the Ohio legislature, was convicted of bribery today.

A few years back a utility company wanted a state bailout so they approached Householder about buying his cooperation. They set up dark money PAC and funded it to the tune of $60 million. They put Householder in charge of the PAC and he used it as a massive slush fund to boost the campaigns of his fellow state Republicans in exchange for their votes on the bailout bill. And Householder also conveniently found a way to pay off all his credit card debt and make extensive 'repairs' to his Florida vacation home while a cool half a mil showed up in his bank account.

The utility company, FirstEnergy, parlayed that $60 million investment into a $1.3 billion bailout which is one heck of a return.

Ex-Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder, former Ohio GOP leader Matt Borges found guilty

Columbus Dispatch wrote:

A federal jury found both former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and ex-Ohio Republican Party chairman Matt Borges guilty of racketeering conspiracy Thursday – a dramatic outcome in the biggest public corruption case in state history.

The guilty verdict marks the end of Householder’s long political career in which he twice held the speaker’s gavel. He’ll be in the Ohio history books as the only speaker expelled from the Legislature and then convicted in a federal corruption case.

Householder and Borges, who neither showed any emotion when the verdict was read aloud, face up to 20 years in prison. After a seven-week trial, jurors deliberated just nine hours over two days.

The case made it to federal court because of its sweeping scope: $61 million in bribe money paid by FirstEnergy Corp. via dark money groups to help Householder seize political power and in turn pass and defend a $1.3 billion bailout law known as House Bill 6.

“This isn’t typical political activity, and they know it,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Megan Painter said during closing statements at the Potter Stewart U.S. Courthouse in Cincinnati. “Mr. Householder abused that (public) trust and Mr. Borges helped him do it.”

Borges lobbied for the House Bill 6 and worked to block a referendum to put it on the ballot in 2019. He paid a $15,000 bribe to get insider information on the referendum.

Borges, who had an ethics conviction expunged more than a decade ago, declined a chance to sign a guilty plea that could’ve given him no more than six months in prison. Borges said after the verdict that he did not regret that choice.

"I don't believe I would have been telling the truth (by pleading)," Borges said. Householder was never given such an offer.

Prosecutors introduced nearly 900 exhibits into evidence and slogged through volumes of text messages, emails, bank records and more than demonstrated what the men knew and actions they took.

Two key players, Former FirstEnergy Solutions lobbyist Juan Cespedes and Householder’s political adviser Jeff Longstreth, took plea deals and testified against them. A fifth defendant, lobbyist Neil Clark, died by suicide in March 2021 after his arrest.

Prosecutors also played secretly recorded phone calls and meetings captured by the FBI. Clark came on their radar while investigating a separate corruption case. Later, undercover agents posing as real estate developers with an interest in sports betting hired Clark as their lobbyist. Clark led them to Householder.

Investigators tapped Clark’s phone but did not do a wiretap on Householder or Borges’ phones.

Another big break came when Tyler Fehrman called the FBI in 2019 to report that Borges offered him a bribe in exchange for insider intel on the referendum campaign. Fehrman, who considered Borges a friend and mentor, wore a wire in subsequent meetings with him.

Amazing to see Matt Taibbi, the man who wrote this in 2016 meeting with Ted Cruz yesterday:

IMAGE(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fq1QCbRWwAEQcAa?format=jpg&name=900x900)

Four Americans were kidnapped in Mexico as they travel to get surgery. Nothing solid but talk is the cartel thought they were rivals. Two of the Americans were returned alive and two were killed. One of the survivors is still in the hospital with multiple gunshot wounds. Probably made news because of the video.

They also handed over the sicarios involved. As I understand it, fairly typical behavior when they don't want to pick an unnecessary fight with a tough opponent. Frankly, it's a wonder they didn't kill them and hand over the bodies.

How Rod Dreher's Blog Got A Little "Too Weird" For The American Conservative

Dreher's a weirdo with a colossal man-crush on Viktor Orban, however, this part was illuminating:

The right-wing commentator’s columns, which were unedited and bankrolled by a single donor, will be shuttered Friday after a 12-year run. Sources say it was ultimately a diatribe on circumcision that was a bridge too far.

I wonder how many RW media personalities and operations we'd discover are being bankrolled by billionaires in the shadows.

Y'know, like what they accuse Soros of doing.

It's also exceptionally fascinating to see what is "too far" for these types.

Prederick wrote:

I wonder how many RW media personalities and operations we'd discover are being bankrolled by billionaires in the shadows.

It's nearly all of them and to be honest they don't try very hard to conceal it.

Quintin_Stone wrote:
Prederick wrote:

I wonder how many RW media personalities and operations we'd discover are being bankrolled by billionaires in the shadows.

It's nearly all of them and to be honest they don't try very hard to conceal it.

I had to stop reading Dark Money because it was too depressing.

Prederick wrote:

Amazing to see Matt Taibbi, the man who wrote this in 2016 meeting with Ted Cruz yesterday:

What do we call chucklef*cks like him and Greenwald? Hipster contrarians? Why is a smart old friend supporting Putin because "US / NATO bad?"

Robear wrote:

They also handed over the sicarios involved. As I understand it, fairly typical behavior when they don't want to pick an unnecessary fight with a tough opponent. Frankly, it's a wonder they didn't kill them and hand over the bodies.

Handing them over alive sends a pretty strong message, too: "The leadership of this cartel had nothing to do with this and you can feel free to interrogate the people involved to confirm that for yourself."

That's true, Keldar.

If you want an almost documentary-level accurate but fictionalized series that has tracked the rise and fall of the various cartels in Mexico, deeply researched and brilliantly written, read Don Winslow's trilogy on the subject - The Power of the Dog, The Cartel, and The Border. Amazing, amazing books. You can actually look up many of the events that are described in the books and learn about their real-life sources. Once you realize how much these books depend on the actual relationships and histories of the organizations and people involved, you'll be completely fascinated. The only parallel I can think to these books is James Ellroy's LA Noir series, but Ellroy indulges all sorts of rumors and conspiracies in his books, while Winslow uses his characters as windows in a "change the names" version of actual history. By the spacing of the books, you can tell he returns to the series every so often to update it with a new book.

Come to think of it, if you've never read Ellroy, you're in for a treat there too. Start with "The Black Dahlia", which tells the wild story of a killing that actually affected Ellroy as he was growing up, since his mother was also the victim of an unsolved murder, 11 years after Short's killing. As I said, Ellroy's stories are more ...embellished... than Winslow's, but they retain a lot of historicity in their descriptions of social norms and mores, both within the LAPD and outside it, that still echo today. And his prose is even better than Winslow's, which is hard to imagine.

This makes me think the judge plans on cutting off access to mifepristone... because we all know conservatives love transparency and doing things in the light of day...

A federal judge has set a hearing for next week in a blockbuster medication abortion case in Texas but took a series of highly unusual steps to delay making the public aware that such a hearing was being scheduled, The Washington Post reported.

US District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, who is hearing the case, held a private call Friday with the case’s lawyers and scheduled the hearing for Wednesday, according to the Post. The call was not publicly noticed on the case’s docket, nor did the judge issue a public order announcing that Wednesday’s hearing had been scheduled. The case is not under seal.

Kacsmaryk told the lawyers on the call, according to the newspaper, that he would hold off on publicly announcing the Wednesday hearing until Tuesday evening, so as to limit disruptions and potential protests at the proceeding.

In Florida, far-right groups look to seize the moment

Come for the Florida, stay for the part where the Nazi dude is genuinely annoyed at conservatives calling Antifa the real Nazis, because they're the Nazis.

The Silicon Valley Bank Contagion Is Just Beginning

WHEN SILICON VALLEY Bank collapsed on March 10, Garry Tan, president and CEO of startup incubator Y Combinator, called SVB’s failure “an extinction level event for startups” that “will set startups and innovation back by 10 years or more.” People have been quick to point out how quickly the cadre of small-government, libertarian tech bros has come calling for government intervention in the form of a bailout when it’s their money on the line.

Late yesterday, the US government announced that SVB depositors will regain access to all their money, thanks to the Federal Deposit Insurance Company's backstop funded by member banks. Yet the shock to the tech ecosystem and its elite may still bring down a reckoning for many who believe it’s got nothing to do with them.

SVB’s 40,000 customers are mostly tech companies—the bank provided services to around half of US startups—but those tech companies are tattooed into the fabric of daily lives across the US and beyond. The power of the West Coast tech industry means that most digital lives are rarely more than a single degree of separation away from a startup banking with SVB.

The bank's customers may now be getting their money back but the services SVB once provided are gone. That void and the shock of last week may cause—or force—startups and their investors to drastically change how they manage their money and businesses, with effects far beyond Silicon Valley.

Most immediately, the many startups who depended on SVB have workers far from the bank’s home turf. “These companies and people are not just in Silicon Valley,” says Sarah Kunst, managing director of Cleo Capital, a San Francisco firm that invests in early-stage startups.

Y Combinator cofounder Paul Graham said yesterday that the incubator’s companies banking with SVB have more than a quarter of a million employers, around a third of whom are based outside California. If they and other SVB customers suffer cash crunches or cut back expansion plans, rent payments in many parts of the world may be delayed and staff may no longer buy coffees and lunches at the corner deli. Cautious about the future, businesses may withhold new hires, and staff who remain may respond in kind, cutting local spending or delaying home purchases or renovation work.

The second- and third-order impacts of startups hitting financial trouble or just slowing down could be more pernicious. “When you say: ‘Oh, I don’t care about Silicon Valley,’ yes, that might sound fine. But the reality is very few of us are Luddites,” Kunst says. “Imagine you wake up and go to unlock your door, and because they’re a tech company banking with SVB who can no longer make payroll, your app isn’t working and you’re struggling to unlock your door.” Perhaps you try a rideshare company or want to hop on a pay-by-the-hour electric scooter, but can’t because their payment system is provided by an SVB client who now can’t operate.

I find the Silicon Valley thought methodology remarkable.

Whew! I live in a country where we don’t have money for kids’ school lunches or to forgive student loans taken out under bad promises, but scumbag techbros actively destroying this country get their asses wiped when they sh*t on themselves. Add in the fact that Biden just greenlit the willow project and it’s been quite a week! And not one single politician’s head has been separated from his body.

I’m starting to think Americans don’t have any room to talk when they wonder why the Russians let Putin do whatever he wants.

Maybe internet-connected door locks actually aren't a good idea?

Mixolyde wrote:

Maybe internet-connected door locks actually aren't a good idea?

Yeah. No startup product that's based on any kind of online service can be trusted in the best of scenarios. Its just not going to exist in 10 years. Startups are designed not to exist after 3-5 years, one way or another.

Mixolyde wrote:

Maybe internet-connected door locks actually aren't a good idea?

Jonman's Rules of Life #258: Avoid anything that needs an app to work, including but not limited to boardgames, videogames, home automation and financial services.

Jonman wrote:
Mixolyde wrote:

Maybe internet-connected door locks actually aren't a good idea?

Jonman's Rules of Life #258: Avoid anything that an app to work, including but not limited to boardgames, videogames, home automation and financial services.

well there goes my NICU Smart Incubators Shark Week pitch.

Chairman_Mao wrote:

well there goes my NICU Smart Incubators Shark Week pitch.

Nah, medical device regulation would forbid app integration anyway, so you're actually good to go with that one

As if "science" would influence policy! Silly Democrats.

Governors To Pharmacies: Please Clarify Your Abortion Pill Plans Using Actual Science

Major pharmacies, including Walgreens and CVS, are at the center of a heated battle over abortion pills in the U.S. ― and the latest salvo comes from 14 Democratic governors calling on pharmacies to clarify their plans to dispense mifepristone, one of the two drugs used for medication abortion.

“We write in light of recent media reports indicating that some major pharmacy retail companies, faced with political pressure, may be considering not dispensing critical abortion medication to millions of individuals, including in states where medication abortion, like Mifepristone, can be lawfully dispensed,” the governors wrote in a letter released Tuesday morning.

The letter, addressed to seven major pharmacies in the U.S., is signed by a list of governors including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper and Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers. It was written by the Reproductive Freedom Alliance, a nonpartisan coalition of 21 governors committed to protecting reproductive rights in their states.

“As companies that dispense critical, life-saving medications, we urge that your decisions continue to be guided by well-established science and medical evidence and a commitment to the health and well-being of patients ― not politics or litigation threats,” the letter says. “The impact to people’s health and lives is too great to do otherwise.” (Scroll down to read the letter in full.)

Walgreens and CVS announced in January that they would seek certification from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to start dispensing medication abortion, in the form of the combination of the two drugs mifepristone and misoprostol. Weeks later, however, Walgreens walked back its promise to seek certification, after Republican attorneys general from 20 states sent a letter to the pharmacy threatening to sue if Walgreens attempted to mail abortion pills in their jurisdictions.

Since then, Democrats and advocates for reproductive rights across the country have been up in arms that Walgreens bowed to political pressure.

CVS, the biggest pharmacy chain in the U.S., has not commented on whether it will keep its promise to seek FDA approval to begin dispensing mifepristone. Neither Walgreens nor CVS sold abortion pills before this controversy ― they are simply in the process of obtaining certification to do so.

Medication abortion is the most common way to terminate a pregnancy in the U.S., accounting for over 60% of abortion and miscarriage care in the country. Years of research have shown that medication abortion is extremely safe and effective. When used together, mifepristone and misoprostol are more than 95% effective and safer than Tylenol. The FDA currently approves its use up until 10 weeks of pregnancy, and the World Health Organization says mifepristone can be safely used until 12 weeks.

The Supreme Court overturned federal abortion protections last year, and more than a dozen states now have near-total abortion bans on the books. The barriers to in-person abortion care in many Southern and Midwestern states have made access to medication abortion even more critical, since in many states the pills can be mailed via telehealth and taken at home.

Walgreens and CVS are among a number of parties embroiled in the right-wing war on abortion pills. Walgreens may have acquiesced to political pressure in part because of a lawsuit filed in November by a conservative Christian legal group in a federal district court in Texas. The group, Alliance Defending Freedom, claims that the FDA fast-tracked the approval of mifepristone when the department put it on the market in 2000.

Although legal experts say the arguments in the lawsuit are weak ― citing the 20-plus years that mifepristone has been used widely and safely by millions of Americans ― the lawsuit has teeth because of where it was filed. The conservative group intentionally filed it in Amarillo, Texas, because the district only has one judge: Matthew Kacsmaryk, a far-right Trump appointee with a long track record of opposing abortion rights. The next hearing in the lawsuit against the FDA is scheduled for Wednesday morning.

Bet he will win if he does run. We have reached a rather horrible place in our nation where the "R" or "D" behind a name is far more important than anything else.

George Santos files paperwork that would allow him to run for reelection

farley3k wrote:

Bet he will win if he does run. We have reached a rather horrible place in our nation where the "R" or "D" behind a name is far more important than anything else.

George Santos files paperwork that would allow him to run for reelection

Part of me believes that he has upset the Republican party in New York so he will have a primary challenge that he cannot win. The other part of me looks around at the state the Republican party is in and just assumes they like showing how lies get electoral wins and can't wait to shove that into the voters faces again.

Yeah, I just talked myself out of thinking the NY Republican party will bother to challenge him.

Santos won NY03 by about eight points and the voters of NY03 choose Biden by about the same margin in 2020.

At the time that Congressional race was effectively two openly gay and Jewish men in the most affluent district in New York competing against each other with Santos being the significantly younger candidate who also touted strong connections with Wall Street.

Of course now NY03 voters know that Santos is only "Jew-ish" and, instead of being a seasoned and successful business owner and investor, he is actually a two-bit check kiter who sold puppies he stole.

I don't expect the NY Republican Party to challenge Santos, but I doubt they're going to significantly support his 2024 campaign.

And, speaking of the 2024 campaign, Trump's Make America Great Again super PAC just filed an ethics complaint in Florida against DeSantis claiming that DeSantis is running a "shadow presidential campaign." Florida has a 'resign-to-run' law that technically says DeSantis would have to resign from the governorship to run for president, though the law has never explicitly been enforced or challenged. Trump taking formal action against DeSantis, though, signals that his campaign will make this a legal issue for DeSantis (and shows how scared Trump is of DeSantis).

I wonder if DeSantis would resign to run. He probably feels he might win (rightly) which would give him the power he craves but he might lose and would lose the power he currently has in Florida. So does the megalomaniac risk known power for even greater power?

trump was in a similar situation but since he wasn't in office he didn't have as much power to lose so the calculation was easier for him.