US Politics, March 2024: The house of illuminati will NOT be holding any other event in the foreseeable future.

Hell, they'll end up on his payroll, through a layer or two removed natch, to do his dirty work.

The silver lining in this scenario is that we know Trump would never actually pay them

I’ve gotta a pretty firm rule that I never celebrate people showing up for prison. And it’s because it’s a terrible (which isn’t to say it’s wrong or unnecessary) thing to see, even when it’s right and deserved. But this dude is really straining my system. I mean stfu already. https://t.co/ayeMAvmDdM

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) March 19, 2024

He looks like he's been in prison for decades

In a sense he has.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/19/us/politics/alabama-dei-bill.html

Alabama Republicans pushed through a sprawling measure on Tuesday that would not only ban state funding for diversity, equity and inclusion programs at public universities, local boards of education and government agencies, but also limit the teaching of “divisive concepts” surrounding race, gender and identity.

The bill passed with broad support in the State Legislature, but faced vehement opposition from student groups, civil rights advocates and Democrats who said it was a chilling attempt to undercut free speech and diversity efforts, especially given Alabama’s history of educational segregation and racism.

The bill also forbids public universities and colleges from allowing transgender people to use bathrooms that align with their gender identity...
....
With the legislation, Alabama lawmakers join a broad, right-wing campaign that has targeted D.E.I. programs and initiatives, and has sought to roll back or limit efforts to expand racial diversity on college campuses across the country.

The prohibitions are largely focused on the teaching of “divisive concepts,” which the bill defines in part as assigning “fault, blame or bias” to any race, religion, gender or nationality. Other examples of divisive concepts include teaching that a person is “inherently responsible for actions committed in the past” or that a person should “accept, acknowledge, affirm or assent to a sense of guilt, complicity or a need to apologize” based on their race, religion, gender or background.

All of these anti-DEI bills ought to be shot down on basic 1st Amendment grounds because they are 100 percent content-based prohibitions. But who knows what to expect from the courts anymore. It’s just, how much more blatant could it be than fucking Alabama passing laws basically saying you can’t say anything about race that will make white people feel bad. The Confederacy ain’t dead.

Florida's initiative is basically dead because the courts stopped it.

I know this is an unpopular thing to say, and why it is, but it’s almost like many states in this country just don’t want me to ever visit them, spend money there, etc.

I feel like this kind of undermines the Biden impeachment effort, but maybe James Comer can explain how it actually helps

former Giuliani associate Lev Parnas: "From shortly after my arrest on October 9, 2019, to now, I have been trying to share the irrefutable truth with you: The American people have been lied to by Trump, Giuliani, & various cohorts of individuals in govt and media positions." pic.twitter.com/q5aHzAk0HL

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 20, 2024

nah the New York Times will

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2024/03/17/remarks-by-president-biden-at-the-gridiron-club-and-foundation-dinner-march-16-2024/

Of course, the big news this week is two candidates clinched their parties’ nomination for president. One candidate is too old and mentally unfit to be president. The other is me. (Laughter and applause.)

Look, I’m running against the same guy that I beat in 2020. But don’t tell him. He thinks he’s running against Barack Obama. (Laughter.) That’s what he said.

And another big difference between us: I know what I value most. I’m Jill Biden’s husband, and I know her name. (Laughter and applause.)

he's a senile loser + they want to raise the retirement age seems like the right angle to me

I feel like this kind of undermines the Biden impeachment effort, but maybe James Comer can explain how it actually helps

our "conservative" friends are as emotionally mature as fifth graders, and "impeaching" joe biden is basically no different than trying to stigmatize him as a nerd who deserves to be bullied because popular "rich" kid trump says so. what a fucking country

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/21/us/politics/congress-spending-bill-shutdown.html?ugrp=c&unlocked_article_code=1.eU0.cwqo.iiE_5czKbAcf&smid=url-share

Democrats and Republicans both highlighted victories in the painstakingly negotiated legislation. Republicans cited as victories funding for 2,000 new Border Patrol agents, additional detention beds run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and a provision cutting off aid to the main United Nations agency that provides assistance to Palestinians. Democrats secured funding increases for federal child care and education programs, cancer and Alzheimer’s research.

and a provision cutting off aid to the main United Nations agency that provides assistance to Palestinians.

yep and it lasts until March 2025 for extra ghoulishness

it's also just insane that funding cancer research is a concession to the Dems. I know "GOP = death cult" got thrown around a lot during the height of Covid but sheesh they're really leaning in

the border stuff is also dismal. I genuinely don't see what the Ds have to lose taking a humane and compassionate stance on immigration, asylum, and refugees

(yes, I know they don't control the House)

People are already starting to come in through the northern border, I assume that will accelerate with these new border provisions

People are already starting to come in through the northern border, I assume that will accelerate with these new border provisions

Immigration leapfrog!

It always strikes me how, when US conservatives say they want to "close the border" they never mean the Canadian border or international flights into the USA. Just the border with our brown-skinned-majority neighbors.

One of the largest group of 'undocumenteds' are Canadians who overstayed their visas

But Trump did the “Muslim Ban”, which included airports. Anyway Republicans don’t get cancer cause they have an immune system, haw haw.

I'm still shocked that the Muslim ban was ruled constitutional

In the end, what he got was a ban on people from "darker," majority-Muslim countries, and in many instances only on permanent immigration from those countries.

In the end what he got was admiration and appreciation from Islamophobes everywhere.

Joe Manchin has a new position: He will no longer support a Biden judicial nominee unless they have at least one Republican vote. If they have no GOP votes, he’s a no.

Story on the Mangi nomination, with @frankthorp @kate_santaliz:https://t.co/qWTQv9kxPr pic.twitter.com/58O2b3lSoU

— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) March 21, 2024

Joe puts another lump of coal in our Xmas stockings and Mitch gives him a big grin and a hug.

i'm gonna go row by his yacht and give this manchin guy a piece of my mind. i heard on the open sea there are no rules

In the end what he got was admiration and appreciation from Islamophobes everywhere.

Of course, and from white nationalists/supremacists as well. It's an intentional move against the perceived "great replacement."

i don't know where to put this but they were talking about it on the radio today. crazy! sadly, all i can think of is a netflix executive reading this and saying "hmmm..limited series idea..."

"Chinese organized crime “has taken over marijuana in Oklahoma and the United States,” Donnie Anderson, the director of the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control, said in an interview."

"Among the victims are thousands of Chinese immigrants, many of them smuggled across the Mexican border to toil in often abusive conditions at farms ringed by fences, surveillance cameras and guards with guns and machetes. A grim offshoot of this indentured servitude: Traffickers force Chinese immigrant women into prostitution for the bosses of the agricultural workforce."

https://www.oklahoman.com/story/news/2024/03/20/kingfisher-county-ok-marijuana-farm-murders-chinese-organized-crime/73017293007/

they are also taking over tons and tons of regular farms in oklahoma. pretty soon they will just be growing nothing but weed there. the laws are weird in oklahoma. you can pretty much grow unlimited amounts of pot.

this might be old news to you guys. it sounded like fiction on the car radio today!

oof, news to me but not surprising

That does sound in line with every other thing that's ever happened in Oklahoma.

hey what about your government suing your beloved Apple you guys?? whose side are you on in this war? you know you wanted to marry steve jobs but you also have dreams where you are snuggling with merrick garland! me, i don't care either way. they both suck.

Five million a month in actual legal payments was a line that jumped out to me in that RNC story. It is all just nuts.

good morning!

Where’s the Trump properties fire sale ad?

More like "Trump Properties Set On Fire For The Insurance Money," amirite?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPtjyqgZAUk

Pornhub mainpage for Texans:

Dear user,

As you may know, your elected officials in Texas are requiring us to verify your age before allowing you access to our website.

Not only does this impinge on the rights of adults to access protected speech, it fails strict scrutiny by employing the least effective and yet also most restrictive means of accomplishing Texas’s stated purpose of allegedly protecting minors.

While safety and compliance are at the forefront of our mission, providing identification every time you want to visit an adult platform is not an effective solution for protecting users online, and in fact, will put minors and your privacy at risk.

Attempting to mandate age verification without any means to enforce at scale gives platforms the choice to comply or not, leaving hundreds of thousands of websites open and accessible.

As we've seen in other states, such bills have failed to protect minors, by driving users from those few websites which comply, to the hundreds of thousands of websites with far fewer safety measures in place, which do not comply. Very few sites are able to compare to the robust Trust and Safety measures we currently have in place. To protect minors and user privacy, any legislation must be enforced against all platforms offering adult content.

Unfortunately, the Texas law for age verification is ineffective, haphazard, and dangerous. Not only will it not actually protect children, but it will also inevitably reduce content creators’ ability to post and distribute legal adult content and directly impact their ability to share the artistic messages they want to convey with it.

The safety of our users is one of our biggest concerns. We believe that the only effective solution for protecting minors and adults alike is to verify users’ age on their device and to either deny or allow access to age-restricted materials and websites based on that verification.

We call on all adult sites to comply with the law. Until the real solution is offered, we have made the difficult decision to completely disable access to our website in Texas. In doing so, we are complying with the law, as we always do, but hope that governments around the world will implement laws that actually protect the safety and security of users.

We encourage you to:
A. Learn more about device-based age verification* solutions that make the internet safer while also respecting your privacy.
B. Contact your representatives and demand device-based verification solutions that make the internet safer while also respecting your privacy.

*Device-Based Age Verification refers to any approach to age verification where the personal information that is used to verify the user’s age is either shared in-person at an authorized retailer, inputted locally into the user’s device, or stored on a network controlled by the device manufacturer or the supplier of the device’s operating system. Whether through pre-installed content blocking and filtering software, the disabling of web-browsing permissions, or other means, the user will then be prevented from accessing age-restricted content over the internet unless they are age-verified. To come to fruition, such an approach requires the cooperation of manufacturers and operating-system providers.

they are also taking over tons and tons of regular farms in oklahoma. pretty soon they will just be growing nothing but weed there. the laws are weird in oklahoma. you can pretty much grow unlimited amounts of pot.

this might be old news to you guys. it sounded like fiction on the car radio today!

― scott seward, Thursday, March 21, 2024 7:05 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

my neighbor across the street seems to be pretty well off but he's gone half the year farming in Oklahoma. idk what that meant until another neighbor told me "he grows weed, tons of it, every time you see him come back in that giant pickup truck there's probably pounds of it in the back"

tbh I can't imagine it's gonna spread out too much further, seems to be a saturated market everywhere

lol

🚨BREAKING NEWS -- MTG chatting with the floor staff, just handed a piece of paper with a resolution to the parliamentarian staff.

She threatened earlier to file a motion to vacate....@bresreports and i just witnessed it.

— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) March 22, 2024

Remember on motion to vacate: MTG has to go to a mic and call up the resolution. Then the leadership can delay the vote for two legislative days. That would put this until after recess, two+ weeks from now. https://t.co/xJUEnSVdnd

— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) March 22, 2024

What a country

In other words:

The House of Illuminati Will Not Be Holding Any Events Until a New Speaker is Chosen

On the porn age-verification thing, it seems like there should be an industry solution there. Create a one-stop age verification system that can be used by any website that needs to verify ages (booze, gambling, etc). Seems solvable.

It’s not about keeping kids safe it’s about control

This woman is one of a kind (MTG, I mean).

they should just make it so that if anyone tries to look at porn in texas mike johnson's son gets an alert on his phone and then he can tell his dad.

The same thing happened with porn sites in Montana. You can't access them (well, most of them — Pornhub and xHamster are doing this, but xvideos is not) without either a) going through whatever arduous and risky ID-based verification the law mandates or b) signing up for a free VPN and telling the site you're in Finland or someplace. Ask me how I know!