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

Senate passed the spending bill. I'm curious if this:

Yet conservatives said the legislation was insufficiently conservative, citing the $1.2 trillion price tag. They were particularly infuriated to see $200 million in fresh funding for the new F.B.I. headquarters in Maryland, as well as earmarked funding requested by senators for L.G.B.T.Q. centers.

means that Fetterman pulling funding for the center we talked about a little while back was exactly as bad a move as it seemed after all? (quote from NYT)

Nah, it wouldn’t have to be that at all.

But it would be that. Remember the Congress that you'd have to get any legislation mandating this sort of age verification system past and how they work these days. You think they're going to make anonymity a priority? The system wouldn't be designed by NASA in the 50s, it would be given to a company like the aforementioned Palantir and designed from the ground up to primarily siphon marketing data and track the activity of an enemies list. And of course age verification as an afterthought because nobody asking for that really cares if it works or not anyway.

Finally a win for the Liberals! Funding for a new FBI building!

Seriously

we're supposed to take this as a win for the rule of law, except the FBI has never been shy about ignoring the law

Remember the Congress that you'd have to get any legislation mandating this sort of age verification system past and how they work these days. You think they're going to make anonymity a priority?

What I’m talking about is trying to AVOID further gubmint regulation. Hence the industry solution.

Tipsy, you are much smarter than I, but I don't think there's any way to do what you proposes that doesn't leave a digital trail. And again, there are "industry" things like akm pointed out, but I'll be damned if I'm giving a snapshot of my driver's license to whoever the fuck they are.

lol I’m not smarter than anyone I’m just a non-tech guy saying “This technology could exist!”

But to stick with the analogy of the booth that checks your ID at the festival, in that scenario nobody else sees your ID, they see the bracelet. So I’m thinking of like a transferable token — maybe it’s a browser extension, I don’t know — but one that can digitally check the “Are you over age X” box sufficiently for legal purposes (in the same way the wristband does).

Or maybe it looks different than that, I don’t know. But we already convey so much personal information online that I believe whatever’s left of Silicon Valley’s creative thinking could figure it out. And I’m just speculating that these kinds of state crackdowns might provide sufficient incentive. Nobody’s done it yet but there’s been no pressing need to.

it’s doable, but your identity provider would have to be pretty secure and it’d be nice to have it as an open standard

you could have something similar to a passkey where your phone or w/e passes a one-time use token that is then authenticated by the identity provider when a website asks for it. so they’d have to agree to not log who is authenticating tokens, but one site would know who you’re authenticating to, but the many sites would have no idea who you are

What I’m talking about is trying to AVOID further gubmint regulation. Hence the industry solution.

At that scale any industry solution IS a government solution. If it's meant to satisfy laws about age-restricted access, government buy-in will be required. And the temptation to make any verification token trackable is simply not a temptation I believe any company nor three-letter agency can resist. They won't even try to resist it... they will design the system around it. Like, look at the shitbirds that run every single tech company of any meaningful size. They are 100% sociopathic assholes who literally compete with one another in public about who can be the bigger sociopathic asshole. That is who will be cooking up your age verification token system.

Tammy Murphy is dropping out of the NJ Senate race. This, plus Bob "Gold Bars" Menendez effectively dropping out (there's no way he's gonna run as an independent, he's not stupid) is a huge blow to the Democratic party machine in that state. Kim will win the overall Senate race, and/but he'll come in free of any allegiance to the crooks that have run the state for decades. He should be a national figure in no time.

Just read up on this— really wild stuff.

I wonder how much local politics are influenced by whether or not there is a presidential primary for a given party on the ballot. Clearwater municipal elections (supposedly nonpartisan but yeah right) were dominated by the conservative candidates this year, because the voters in Pinellas county were skewed 75% Republican to 25% Democratic- despite registered voters being much more evenly split. This result can be traced directly to the fact that there was a Republican primary election on the ballot and not a Democratic one.

Just bad luck, or was this an intentional effort to make a not-so-conservative city in Florida fall a bit more under the shadow of the GOP?

The more politically experienced officials of both parties are well aware of such nuances of electoral politics and seek to leverage them to their advantage. It's only the novices and amateurs of electoral politics who overlook those kinds of details.

epistantophus! You live in Clearwater?!

I thought Clearwater was also a Scientology stronghold.

I do! And yes, I believe it is.

I moved here from Boston some 4 years ago.

Never thought I’d say I prefer Boston, which I consider to be one of the more malevolent circles of hell

I wonder how much local politics are influenced by whether or not there is a presidential primary for a given party on the ballot. Clearwater municipal elections (supposedly nonpartisan but yeah right) were dominated by the conservative candidates this year, because the voters in Pinellas county were skewed 75% Republican to 25% Democratic- despite registered voters being much more evenly split. This result can be traced directly to the fact that there was a Republican primary election on the ballot and not a Democratic one.

― epistantophus, Sunday, March 24, 2024

It seems like it was a mistake for Florida not to hold a Democratic primary for president this year, and that it suppressed turnout in down-ballot elections

Totally agree. I’m wondering what the calculation was- the benefits of showing unity and support for the incumbent, saving money, allowing Biden to focus on the general, vs. the negative impacts on down-ballot elections.

Or was it more of a calculation on the GOP side? Allow Haley to continue primary efforts until the best down-ballot opportunities were past.

It was a fucking stupid mistake. I'm still reeling.

the Florida Democratic Party has a losing fetish

the Florida Democratic Party has a losing fetish

@unperson

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/03/24/nj-first-lady-tammy-murphy-to-end-senate-campaign-to-replace-bob-menendez-00148728

Alfred, if there is ever a Florida FAP, I am 100% down to try a Negroni- though my usual cocktail is Bourbon, neat.

we'll invite Neanderthal too.

Oh absolutely- I’m in!

A good piece about what happened in NJ this weekend.

a detail related to the timning of gallagher's resignation that i didn't know:

Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) surprised party leaders and narrowed the House GOP majority to a single vote with his decision to resign from Congress effective April 19. Gallagher had already announced he wasn’t going to run for re-election. His resignation date is one day after the deadline to call a special election, meaning House Republicans will be hamstrung by his departure all the way through the end of this Congress.

The New Jersey article is fascinating. NJ politics is so weird and terrible. And it also reinforces the importance of having really good candidates — it sounds like even with the whole set of circumstances putting pressure on the corrupt system, it still would have prevailed without a strong challenger.

The other thing about Andy Kim is people say they're glad to vote for him. Not "I like my Congressman" or "I'm with X" but "I feel good about this." That doesn't come cheap, and I think Kim knows it.

— Richard M. Nixon (@dick_nixon) March 25, 2024

His resignation date is one day after the deadline to call a special election, meaning House Republicans will be hamstrung by his departure all the way through the end of this Congress.

I don't think this is correct if he's resigning 4/19. See:

Wisconsin election law requires a special election to fill a vacancy if it occurs before the first Tuesday in April of an election year.

The first Tuesday in April is the 2nd.

hmm, i'm not sure! the quote i posted above was from here, and it links to this piece...

https://apnews.com/article/mike-gallagher-resigns-house-republicans-majority-73f1991cc954d865d55ca7949d57dd35

...which says "There also won’t be a special election for Gallagher’s seat. His resignation will happen within a window in Wisconsin law that dictates the seat be filled in the general election."

but obviously i have no expertise! makin' coffee is my expertise

Yeah, there won't be a special election, but he's not resigning ONE DAY after the deadline

Seems clear that it's a deliberate fuck you to the House leadership tho, right? He could resign earlier and guarantee an election.

Those guys know how to hate.

More age verification in the news: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/floridas-desantis-signs-law-restricting-social-media-people-under-16-2024-03-25/

We have a similar bill pending in Tennessee, which if I'm reading it right will require every existing user of FB/Insta/X/TikTok/etc. to verify their age within 14 days of taking effect. Unclear exactly how that will happen.

Automatic First Amendment problems, which, you may scoff, but lower courts basically stopped DeSantis' other anti-social media bill a couple years ago (and the most heinous parts of Don't Say Gay).

Yep, I'm hoping for that outcome. Which obviously it seems like these kinds of restrictions should be struck down — but I'm not sanguine about conservative courts' views of the First Amendment. Or at least the parts not about "religious liberty."

Republicans already starting in on these alien cargo ships sent by foreign powers to knock down our bridges

Maria Bartiromo tries to link the Francis Scott Key bridge collapse in Baltimore to "the wide open border" pic.twitter.com/bkMdvFNa3g

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 26, 2024

But Singapore is their favorite place!

Also lol at conservatives not knowing what a "Flag of Convenience" is

it's live network news. it's a constant churn of the art of fake forgetfulness where you just re-learn things from guests every hour. all knowledge resets every so often so viewers just tuning in will be able to follow the plot

To be fair, many of them are genuinely dumb as rocks.

Just for the record, no matter what country a cargo ship is registered to, who owns it or who is the captain, in that situation it would be under the command of a local ship's pilot who operates under the authority of the port where the ship intends to dock.

and that local ship pilot's name? Joe Biden

in that situation it would be under the command of a local ship's pilot

Apparently there were actually two Baltimore pilots on there.. but they had an apparent power failure