US Politics September 2023 - education-getting, income-having, Bible-readin church-goin MOTHERF*****

sigh

good morning!

Will the DeSantis campaign survive the month?

Probably, but why not ask anyway

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/-ron-desantis-super-pac-ends-door-knocking-nevada-super-tuesday-states-rcna102645

It appears that the Never Back Down PAC is backing down

hell of a campaign: https://www.thedailybeast.com/republican-president-candidate-ron-desantis-is-afraid-of-questions-from-15-year-old-quinn-mitchell

Quinn Mitchell has seen at least 35 presidential candidates in person since 2019, when he first started showing up at New Hampshire primary events to ask them questions.

Not a single one of them had ever treated the now-15-year-old as if he were a threat—until Ron DeSantis came to town.

It all started with a straightforward question. In June, when DeSantis stopped for a town hall event in Hollis, Mitchell raised his hand in the crowd.

“Do you believe that Trump violated the peaceful transfer of power,” the teenager asked the governor, “a key principle of American democracy that we must uphold?”

DeSantis dodged the question and said Americans shouldn’t get stuck in the past, but not before remarking—in a somewhat impressed, incredulous tone—on Mitchell’s age. “Are you in high school?” the governor asked.

The moment went viral, with DeSantis’ non-answer encapsulating how even Donald Trump’s lead primary rival could not bring himself to acknowledge the former president’s efforts to undo the 2020 election. CNN even played it during an interview with Chris Christie to tee up a question to the Trump foe.

For Mitchell, however, the exchange kicked off a series of events that deeply rattled him and his family.

Speaking about it for the first time in an interview with The Daily Beast, Mitchell says that he was grabbed and physically intimidated by DeSantis security at two subsequent campaign stops, where the candidate’s staffers also monitored him in a way he perceived as hostile.

The experience, Mitchell said, was “horrifying” and amounted to “intimidation.”

At a Fourth of July parade DeSantis attended, Mitchell was swarmed by security and physically restrained after a brief interaction with the governor—with his private security contractors even demanding Mitchell stay put until they said so.

With his mother alarmed, the situation escalated to such a degree that the candidate’s wife, Casey, spoke directly with her—but to suggest her son was being dishonest about what happened, according to Mitchell.

Then, at an August 19 event—where Mitchell was tailed closely by two security guards—an attendee told The Daily Beast they saw a staffer for DeSantis’ super PAC, Never Back Down, take a photo of the teenager on Snapchat before typing out an ominous caption: “Got our kid.”

So if I understand correctly the Never Back Down PAC is actually running the DeSantis campaign, which is technically against the law. But the PAC gets around the no coordination rules by setting up websites and putting up stuff for the DeSantis to read rather than emailing it to them, which is how reporters got ahold of the debate prep notes.

bob dylan prophesied the rise of this formidable teen

Hey baby, there ain't no easy way out

!! Walking out of courtroom after sentencing, Proud Boy Domenic Pezzola lifts his fist and yells "TRUMP WON"

— Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) September 1, 2023

Nearly in tears, Pezzola minutes earlier told the judge he'd given up politics

(Judge was no longer in courtroom when Pezzola made the outburst)

Pezzola had just been sentenced to 10 years in prison

— Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) September 1, 2023

obv they treated the kid horribly but this kis is a young sociopath in training

i don't know, that might actually make sense for him, on some level. it's very low probability but there is a non-zero chance that there's some sort of coup or attempt at an 'uprising' in the US in the next 10-30 years (i know, bleak, sorry, probably won't happen, or it's inevitable, or it doesn't matter, whatever is the least pessimistic thing to think), and in that scenario he becomes a hero for sticking for his man trump all the way to the end

now, you know I am against the carceral state and prisons and violence within prisons as we know it, but there is a non-zero chance he gets shivved in the next 0-18 years and we don't have to think about him sticking for his man trump all the way to the end

the tales of probability: an investigation into the wilderness of the imagination

the future is vast and unknowable!

His reaction is reminiscent of that of the women in the Manson family.

the future is vast and unknowable!

the answer to "what is mitch mcconnell thinking about in the void?"

Any member of a violent street fighting cadre trying to overthrow an election violently should be jailed. I don't know what kind of restorative justice or rehabilitation would suffice in this instance as a deterrent.

Wiki scrub-up!

The source of these concerns are changes made by an editor with the screen name “Jhofferman,” who has disclosed that he was paid by Ramaswamy to make alterations to the page.

According to the article’s version history, the editor removed lines about Ramaswamy’s receipt of a Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans in 2011. Paul Soros was the older brother of billionaire funder of leftist causes George Soros...

The Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans, per its website, was founded by the couple “to assist young New Americans at critical points in their education", which they felt was an unmet need.

Vivek’s political career DOA, he’s got the Soros stink

The Deep State Manchurian Candidate

that doesn’t sound like bootstraps, either

handouts from a soros
i know, i know - it’s serious

I am excited to announce that I will be running for the 2024 President of the United States Of America on behalf of the Libertarian party 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/GRDTgYRT7K

— Chris Fronzak (@FRONZ1LLA) September 4, 2023

Yeah, this guy.

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5O6tfXwRN8I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OS6_lDdLxDU

Pennsylvania is key for Biden. Democrats there say the party is in shambles.
It’s not just the presidential race at stake. A major state Supreme Court race is this year...and a key Senate race next year.

Wait, yr telling me that a member of a Philadelphia political dynasty is corrupt and dysfunctional? I’m shocked, positively shocked.

This may fall under IT/email. However, the right-wing outrage machine was fed one of my current email addresses. The GMail spam filter usually catches them; occasionally I try to unsubscribe but it doesn't make much of a reduction in the flood. Does anyone know of any "creative" ways to mess with the parties behind these emails?

Not "creative" but unsubscribing & marking as spam is the direct way. If you can determine who their email service provider is, you may be able to reach out to them and let them know their customer is sending you unsolicited emails.

The problem with political emails is that they are protected speech in the USA, so its dicey for service providers to take any independent actions that limit them. If your service provider lets you authorize them to block them or segregate them into a spam bin on your behalf, then they can implement that. As for unsubscribing, that's up to the sender to honor your request. For unscrupulous senders all it does is verify your address is active.

I made the mistake of giving Jon Tester $20 and now I am being deluged with some of the worst email subject lines in the history of written English.

The problem with political emails is that they are protected speech in the USA, so its dicey for service providers to take any independent actions that limit them.

No. Anti-spam laws are strict, and more importantly spam complaints can be traced back to the email service provider and damage their overall sending reputation. Any ESP worth their salt will have terms of use that prohibit sending emails to people who didn't grant permission to be added to a mailing list. Email is not like other communication channels (e.g. text messages) which are not regulated in the same way.

Granted, many political organizations may be using providers that explicitly cater to political emails and don't crack down on spam as much. But you can still mark their emails as spam and Gmail will start blocking the sender if they get enough complaints.

Yeah, speaking as someone who runs a subscription email newsletter, the regulations are really strict. I have readers all the time who accidentally unsubscribe from the email (unfortunately easy to do) and the only way they be added back is if I send them a resubscribe link and they confirm it. I can't just add back someone who unsubscribed, even if they send me an email requesting it.

only way they CAN be added back...

You know Enrique Tarrio is fucked when his *defense* tells the judge his sentence shouldn't be more than 15 years. I bet he's real proud now.

A panel of federal judges rejected Alabama’s latest congressional map on Tuesday, ruling that a new map needed to be drawn because Republican lawmakers had failed to comply with orders to create a second majority-Black district or something “close to it.”

In a sharp rebuke, the judges ordered that the new map be independently drawn, taking the responsibility away from the Republican-controlled legislature while chastising state officials who “ultimately did not even nurture the ambition to provide the required remedy.”

The legislature had hastily pushed through a revised map in July after a surprise Supreme Court ruling found that Alabama’s existing map violated a landmark civil rights law by undercutting the power of the state’s Black voters. The revised map, approved over the objections of Democrats, increased the percentage of Black voters in one of the state’s six majority-white congressional districts to about 40 percent, from about 30 percent.

Trump judges too.

That old three-fifths math still sticking around

Tarrio gets 22 years. Good riddance.

bye, fucker

This fucking piece of shit, a Miamian.

The kind of sentence Hitler should have had for the Beer Hall Putsch

holy fuck

That Alabama map was such a fuck you. Republican legislatures are completely unhinged, they don't give a fuck, they'll pass any old thing they want. So that even all these Republican judges are going, uh, tone it down there fellas. (Not ALL the Republican judges, obviously. Some of them are batshit too.)

Retain power at all costs is the mantra.

Because they know that if they lose it, they'll never get it back.

Even sympathetic judges don't like their orders being ignored.

Meanwhile my state rep of Tennessee Three fame announced yesterday she's running against Marsha Blackburn for Senate next year. Blackburn has responded with a website that is kind of the definition of "don't threaten me with a good time": https://www.radicalgloria.com/

Obviously a long shot to actually win the race — Blackburn won by 11 points in 2018 — but I think it's a smart move by Gloria and the state party to capitalize on the celebrity of the Tennessee Three. She'll be able to raise a ton of money for her own campaign but also for other Dems in TN, and in general it will be the highest-profile statewide race the Democrats have managed in years.

Also just nice to see the state party really embrace and get behind an outspoken progressive on a statewide ballot instead of pretending they can win by running milquetoast moderates.

Is there any indication what the plan is for Ukraine funding?

Probably just keep pulling the fire alarm whenever anyone asks.

Looks like Sen. Tuberville was nowhere to be found this evening so Chuck Schumer went ahead and pushed through the delayed military promotions all at once.

Hmm, seems like this may not include the more senior promotions

So is this Jamaalthing a nothingburger?

I hear it was worse than J6

concerning

Sounds like he carelessly opened a door that had a fire alarm attached, not that he pulled an alarm. Which means we're going to have years of hearings and tv appearances and calls for his resignation or ouster. Because Hillary, Obama, Hunter, Trump.

Eh, it sounds like he probably pulled it on purpose. I don't really buy the "accident" story. Seems dumb, but lots of things in Congress are dumb. He'll be reprimanded, hell maybe they'll move to expel him just for fun — because definitely the White Nationalist caucus expelling an uppity Black man will do wonders for their image.

I did that once at a staff meeting in a buffet restaurant: just suddenly hit by the last straw, couldn't stand anymore, hit the nearest exit. Maybe that's what happened to him.

It sounds like he was just confused about the exit. What would he even want to achieve by purposefully pulling the alarm in a different building?

There's nothing to pull, it was a door that was alarmed. This one:

This is the door that ⁦@RepBowman⁩ used to leave the Cannon Building pic.twitter.com/OiUVB0iyJ4

— John Bresnahan (@bresreports) September 30, 2023

I dunno, I see no reason why he would set it off on purpose. As dumb as it may have been to open it, I buy his excuse, that the door is commonly used during votes and he didn't think he would actually set off the alarm.

Unless I'm missing something, it seems pretty clear (like, written in all caps on 2 separate signs) that the door does not open until the alarm is sounded.

What's up with the other part of the sign that says "door will unlock in 30 seconds"? So the door is ... locked and alarmed, and only unlocks if the alarm has been going off for 30 seconds? What kind of emergency exit stays locked when the alarm is triggered? So someone might rush to the door, set off the alarm, alerting everyone, who then run to the door and ... wait there for 30 seconds? 30 seconds is a long time!

Maybe he knew it would set off the alarm but figured it would be immediately turned off? Who knows. Regardless, it's not a big deal but the GOP is going to act like it was. (Conservative friend of mine texted me with an apparently straight face, "Is this an act of insurrection?")

xp that is a delated egress door, and the typical time between alarm activation and door opening is 15-30 seconds. Guessing the reason for that type of door in that type of building is to give security personnel reasonable notice that an exterior door is ajar, so as to prevent tailgaters (insurrectionists) from getting in.

er, delayed egress door

So if there was an emergency and you wanted to get outside *right now*, you can't? Things like shooters, fires ... that happens so fast. Meanwhile, people will be running to the door, massing up ...

my understanding is

-the door is unlocked and can be used during the week without triggering any alarm
- at weekends the door is locked, but still needs to work as a fire door, so it can be opened with an alarm
- Bowman was late for a vote, was trying to open this door that he has used in the past but unexpectedly found that it wouldn't open, saw the sign that says 'alarm sounds' 'door will unlock', and in a moment of in a moment of confusion and low-level panic pulled the fire alarm on the wall thinking this would open the door without it occurring to him that this would set the off the fire alarm for the whole building (seems totally plausible as something someone might do when distracted and agitated)
- The sign indicates that if you push on the locked door an alarm will sound and then the door will open, but I don't think this is what Bowman did, he actually pulled the fire alarm thing on the wall? If he had pushed the door I don't know if the fire alarm would have sounded throughout the whole building, or if it would have just been an alarm sounding at that door, maybe for a few seconds before cutting off again?

See what you made me do? Y’all got me playing Ragged Glory for the first time

lol wrong thread

Never!
xxp

in a moment of confusion and low-level panic

DOORGATE

“There's nothing to pull, it was a door that was alarmed. This one:“

There is a fire alarm to the left of the doors.

Next thing you know he's going to put a bag of dog poop in front of MTG's office door and set it on fire.

A real man would have called in a bomb threat.

This whole "triggering the alarm as they rushed to make an urgent vote" thing, wasn't Boebert caught running up the capitol steps (in vain) to make the debt ceiling vote? Doesn't anyone have a filofax anymore?

In all seriousness, I do buy the "moment of confusion and low-level panic" reasoning behind opening that door. Confusion and low-level panic have caused me in the past to both open a closed jetway door at the airport and board the wrong train at Penn Station.

Occam's razor would support his defense.

He would've cut the electricity to the alarm with an Occam's razor.

“Sounds like he carelessly opened a door that had a fire alarm attached, not that he pulled an alarm”

Where do you see this? The video shows him pulling the alarm next to the door

the theory is he pulled the alarm to give himself and other democrats more time to review the bill, right? to make sure the republicans didn't sneak something in?

i know he is denying it, but if this is what happened, it doesn't seem so bad.

I mean i dont think its a big deal but we dont have to make stuff up to defend him

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1nqw7KfhXQ

Feel like you people are talking about this story more than Fox News.

I doubt it

omg george… pic.twitter.com/bVOlLIhhlB

— ettingermentum (@ettingermentum) October 1, 2023

i forgot he was still in congress

has some nerve making fun of anyone else's embarrassing moments tho i'll tell you what

Newsom picks Laphonza Butler. She seems cool. It’ll kind of suck if she totally rules and then we wind up with Adam Schiff.


https://www.politico.com/news/2023/10/01/newsom-senate-pick-butler-00119360

This is important:

The announcement was expected to come Monday, and an adviser to the governor, Anthony York, told POLITICO that Newsom is making his appointment without putting limitations or preconditions on his pick running for the seat in 2024. That means Butler could decide to join the sprawling and competitive field of Democratic contenders seeking to succeed Feinstein, with special elections now layered on top of the March primary and November runoff.

Uber and Airbnb consultant, we've really got to raze Silicon Valley and salt the earth.

http://sternburgerwithfries.blogspot.com/2019/08/another-former-seiu-official-is-on.html

xpost one of the Belgian news sites said Newsom could pick British tabloid favourite Meghan Markle for the Feinstein seat.

This is the main issue with nearly every left of center politician in California— they’re often corporate ghouls. The idea of Newsom running for president is sickening to me, that some here would cheer that move is just more evidence that the country is fucked.

could have been worse though, see above

It's October, I just turned on the TV, and Nancy Mace is on The View claiming New York & California allow abortions at 9 months.

of course!

Any pushback?

Whoopi had words for her that I didn't quite hear because I was already on ilx.

It escalated quickly because just prior to that Mace was talking about how she was a teenage survivor of sexual assault who went from being a Waffle House waitress to the first female graduate of The Citadel who was mad about not getting gun control or female rights bills passed to the outburst I just described within 30 seconds.

Mace is such a weirdo. She'll probably have an MSNBC show in a few years.

Just getting all the paperwork done here, checking the correct boxes and such.
US Politics October 2023: "They were crying. People who have never cried before."