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republicansaredomesticterrorists · 1 month

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Jeff Yass just bought Trump. Here’s what he stands to gain.

The right-wing billionaire and TikTok investor is about to help the former president add billions of dollars to his net worth. This is what oligarchy looks like.

March 25, 2024, 4:42 PM EDT

By Ja'han Jones

Billionaire investor Jeff Yass is playing his Trump card.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reported Friday that the right-wing megadonor and major TikTok investor is a part owner of the company that merged with Donald Trump’s media company, which owns Truth Social, the former president’s struggling social media platform. The head-scratching deal stands to add billions of dollars to Trump’s net worth.

Yass’ name recently started popping up in news reports after Trump denounced legislation in Congress that could ban TikTok unless the social media outlet is sold from its China-based parent company. This was a major reversal of Trump’s previous opposition to TikTok and came after Yass met with Trump in Florida, with the backdrop of the former president’s mounting legal fees only adding to suspicion that Yass essentially could be purchasing a presidential candidate.

Trump claimed afterward that he hadn’t spoken with Yass about TikTok, and Yass is a major backer of efforts to promote school privatization, so I guess it’s possible that the right-wing billionaire didn’t say a thing about one of his most prominent investments. (Yass recently declined a request for comment from NBC News.)

But it certainly looks like Trump is under Yass’ thumb now.

It also looks like TikTok — or at minimum, one of its key investors — has just tried to one-up other social media companies in Big Tech’s ongoing battles over influence in Washington. Two years ago, The Washington Post revealed that Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, had waged a behind-the-scenes pressure campaign that involved trying to get media outlets and lawmakers to scrutinize TikTok more heavily. And although Meta can’t take total credit, that effort does seem to have helped get us to the present-day scenario, with a possible TikTok ban under consideration at the federal level and several other bans enacted at the state level.

With Trump, Yass appears to be employing the oligarchic approach to protecting an investment: transfer heaps of cash to a desperate presidential candidate and hope they do your bidding.

☝️😡🤬

#Jeff Yass just bought a presidential candidate #oligarch #Jeff Yass #republican assholes #traitor trump #crooked donald #maga morons #resist #never trump #tik tok

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feralrabidcrow · 7 months

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What do you think the mercs hobbies were, past and present?

Scout loves drawing, as inspired by Expiration Date. He's really good at it, like crazy good, but he usually uses his talents for chaos, such as drawing Spy having sexual congress with the Eiffel tower. He also collects baseball cards, and sings Tom Jones to himself when he's alone in his room, but everyone knows because of how loud he sings. He sings into his baseball bat like it's a microphone, most passionate ballad of 'Sex Bom' you will ever hear.

Soldier is devoted to creating an army of raccoons, no matter how much the raccoons bite and scratch him. If you can consider that a hobby. Can you count snapping Scout's puny neck as a hobby? Is violence in general a hobby? He takes great joy in trying to 'shape up' the other mercenaries, through wake up calls, making them eat nasty MREs, yelling at them to train harder, and running the base like it's boot camp. I don't think this man has picked up a relaxing pastime in his entire life.

Pyro loves collecting things, anything really. Stickers, candy, rubber ducks, if it fits in their pocket, they'll hoard it somewhere only to bestow it to someone randomly (at least it can seem random) as a gift. Obviously they have a hobby for starting fires, but their less destructive hobbies include tea parties, scrapbooking, cake decorating, and hanging out with Engie in the workshop just to pass time.

Demo loves gathering the mercs around and telling them ghost stories. If there's a thunderstorm, and the lights go out, he's grabbing the candles and the spookiest voice he can muster. While the man loves his scrumpy, in the past before he just stuck to the good ol reliable stuff, Demo dabbled in the art of mixology, crafting up the most bizarre yet delicious drinks you could think of, but they certainly could pack a punch! He hasn't entirely lost the skill, but most of the time he's too drunk to work a bar with the finesse he once could. There would be a lot of glass shattering.

Heavy is a big time reader. Whenever he has the time to spare, he's pulling out a thick book that no one can identify and digging in. However, he has a remarkable ability that I lack; the ability to remain aware of his surroundings while buried in a book. No matter how invested he is in the literature he's currently consuming, if you call for him he'll drop it and come help. He enjoys spending time with Medic's doves; after their beloved doctor, he's their second favourite person. He also enjoys cooking, something he learned from his mother a great many years ago.

Engineer obviously spends a lot of his free time in the workshop tinkering about, but he also loves to spend time just hanging out with the mercs, who he all considers friends, that Friendly Engie! Whether it's a barbecue, a game of poker, karaoke night, whatever shenanigans the mercs are doing to pass the time between matches, Engie is right there in the center of it, enjoying all the bonding time with his teammates that they can get. He's a major extrovert, and can get on well with just about anyone he meets!

Medic takes his job as a hobby, delighting in reaching into someone's chest cavity and playing God for a bit. He's very passionate about bird care, treating his flock of doves as if they were his children. He also loves music, and has a radio playing in the medbay whenever he can. Medic has a wonderful singing voice, but he rarely sings nowadays, though he used to in his younger years. He also is a surprisingly good dancer, but only Heavy knows about that one.

Sniper loves abandoning the base and going out into the middle of nowhere to just be one with nature and get some peace and quiet. He goes hunting, catches himself some game, cooks it over a fire, spends the night stargazing and listening to nocturnal animal calls. He's the most introverted of the group, and while he does sometimes sit in for poker and other team activities, he's happiest in the great outdoors by his lonesome.

Spy is a connoisseur in fine wines and other elegant alcoholic drinks, taking the time when he can to attend fine dining and wine tasting events. He plays piano, rather impressively well, among his wide set of talents, but unlike many talents that he picked up just for a job, he takes great joy in his musical skills. He also has a fondness for seducing your mother.

#team fortress #tf2 #team fortress 2 #team fortress scout #tf2 headcanons #tf2 fanfiction #tf2 writing #scout tf2 #soldier tf2 #pyro tf2 #demoman tf2 #heavy tf2 #engineer tf2 #medic tf2 #sniper tf2 #spy tf2

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docholligay · 4 months

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Dr. Holligay Tries Things That Aren't Running: Oula One

So, continuing with my very sexy and respectable journey to win a high-priced and totally unnecessary kitchen item, I come hot off the heels of my hilariously and gloriously slow three mile run to the noble choice of: Whatever class is available to me at 9 am and in a decent spot on my bingo card.

That's Oula One, babes! Do I know what Oula One is? Not even fucking REMOTELY. Do i know that it is a stepping stone to winning really stupid kitchen appliances? Oh fuck yes. Let's go.

An incredibly kind woman greets me by introducing herself, shaking my hand, and explaining that it's a yoga dance fusion class.

Excellent! I hate yoga! I scream with my entire mind.

She must have heard me with her third ear or somethinking, because she's smiling and telling me not to worry, because it's all about doing what feels good in my body. Great! I hate doing what feels good in my body! Part of the reason I hate yoga is it is neither fun nor punishing. I LOVE to be taken to the end of my tether. One of my favorite activities of last year was our 24 hour run, where I ended up with cactus spines through my toe. Running lets me take myself to the redline and see if I can cross the finish line before the engine explodes. Boot camp tells me that I'm fucking weak, and I can drag myself in a full plank across a gym floor, can't I? Work harder, it screams. This is great for me! I love feeling like I could not possibly have given one more inch.

Yoga, on the other hand, is both very difficult, and not punishing. I can't touch my hand flat palmed to the floor, but neither do I feel broken by pushing to it. I am just bored! I am an extremely hyperactive human being and sitting cross legged grounding myself is probably against the Geneva Convention. I want to crawl out of the classroom like an inchworm.

But here I am! In a dynamic yoga class, sitting on the floor in my damn booty booty ass ass running shorts, which are very practical on a track but less so here. I was wearing sloth underwear today and everyone knew it. You're welcome. Since I'm here, I am going to give it my best try, and I am going to go in with an open mind.

Twist ending for me most of all: I actually sort of enjoyed it! It moves much faster than a normal yoga class, but you repeat the moves a lot and can get deeper and deeper into them. It's extremely hippy-dippy, which I absolutely am not, and I had to muffle my laughter when she was like, 'This song is about keeping our shadow self near us" but...I am somewhat older than y'all so i don't know if you have this experience.

So picture a party, and there's a lot of weed at this party. Now, you don't smoke weed because it makes you strange in ways you don't like, but you do like partying, and there's some extremely suspect but deeply alcoholic Homebrew "mead" and you're making the best of it, and besides you need a favor from the guy you came with because you want to buy shrooms for the meteor shower backpacking trip a few weekends from now (I realize I have touched the absolute heart of tumblr right now, and you all are nodding in agreement at this very relatable scenario) This person is like a lot of the people who always had weed before everyone did, and so there are dyed silks hanging from her walls, and Loreena McKennitt is playing in the background, and you're definitely a little buzzed, and getting kind of a contact high, and then people start to dance. They dance with these big, open swirls of their body, and almost certainly someone is wearing moss green.

That is how I would describe the yoga-dance fusion at this class. Easy to follow, very vibes-based, and heavily based in big, open moves that give good stretch. Seeing as it takes an act of God and Congress for me to stretch, forcing myself to go do it every week or ever every other would not be the worst thing.

I cannot BELIEVE I am saying this, but I would go again.

Definitely without the ass shorts though.

#things that aren't running

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hwsforeignrelations · 7 months

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Researching US debt for a very sexy finance essay and im just imagining this candle lit scene at a beautiful sushi restaurant and there's this very sweet, content atmosphere. Al's like don't u worry my boiled brisket bbygurl i got the check. And he opens his wallet and at LEAST a dozen credit cards spill out onto the table.

Now Arthur is just amused and playing footsie while Alfreds pretending like he doesn't notice and is nonchalantly flipping thru the credit cards to find one that's not maxed out.

Then they scurry off and marathon sex their way through all 9 reading/ref rooms of the Jefferson library of congress

#hetalia #plotty #usuk #hws america #hws england #y'all at this point I don't have time to write or draw for shit so please consider my terrible and sexy ideas #HOPEFULLY I'll get my work schedule under control and revisit writing bcs i MISS TT #Jeff lib o congersr is literally FAV place to study i fuckin LUV beau architecture ♥️♥️♥️♥️💕🍜#Alfred likes the smell of old books cus it smells like Arthur and Arthur gets aroused by literature and shagging his usda beefcake into rugs

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on-partiality · 5 months

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Today's the 250th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party so here's some information on the Sons of Liberty, the lead up to the Boston Tea Party and what happened after!

apologies for any inaccuracies, I wrote this pretty late

The conflict between the American colonies and New England started after the French and Indian war ended with the Treaty of Paris on the 10th of February, 1763. The French and Indian war started because of conflicting territory claims in North America between the British and the French. Originally it was fought between only the British Americans and the French colonists with Native Americans helping on either side (especially with the French because they were severely outnumbered). However two years into the war the United Kingdom - except for ireland - decided enough was enough and officially declared a war with France which started a large world-wide conflict over many territories. In the end, the war was won by the Colonial Americans and British, the French lost all of their North American territory and what used to be their territory was split somewhat evenly between the Spanish and the British but that was only sorted out after the British fought in a war against the Spanish called the Anglo-Spanish war (the first one). So a victory, that sounds good for America right? Wrong. Wars are expensive, maintaining an army is expensive and the British were dealing with many other wars in all different territories at around the same time so England had a national debt of nearly 177.645 MILLION modern day USD.

England had a HUGE poverty crisis. They had to come up with a way to get money and quickly so on April the 5th 1764 the British parliament amended their pre-existing Sugar and Molasses Act. A tax on the importation of wine, molasses, indigo and sugar from places that weren't part of Britain, mainly the non-British Caribbean. This act also banned all foreign rum. Then on March the 22nd, 1765 the British parliament passed the stamp act. A tax on playing cards, newspapers, legal documents. The main problem with this tax was that it couldn't be paid in the paper money used in the 13 colonies, it had to be paid off using the British Sterling which wasn't easy to obtain in America. That and paper was possibly the most important resource in the 18th century. Later in October 1765, a Stamp Act Congress was held in Philadelphia to discuss all of the problems with this act. Then on March the 24th the British passed the Quartering Act which stated that if British troops want to stay at your house you have to provide them with food and let them inside of your house. This was a clear invasion of two very basic rights of Englishmen, private property and personal security.

The Americans fought back against these acts like with Boston's non-importation agreement where merchants from Boston agreed not to buy or sell anything from/to Britain and the Golden Hill riot in New York and the Gaspée Affair which was when a group burned a British ship while the soldiers were off looking for smugglers in Rhode Island, the group was then accused of treason. The most notable of all of these protests though was the later Boston Tea Party.

The Boston Tea Party happened because of a group called the Sons of Liberty which was created in 1765 out of a strong hatred of the Stamp Act. They believed that it was ridiculous that the British could tax the Americans when the Americans didn't even have a representative in parliament, their phrase was 'no taxation without representation'. There's a lot of dispute over what kind of organisation the Sons of Liberty actually was. I might go into all of the theories in another post but for the moment if you want to come up with your own idea on it I suggest looking into them yourself, for this post I'm just going to call them a group or organisation because it's pretty ambiguous. Anyway, the Sons of Liberty usually met at liberty poles/liberty trees which are believed to have been marked as meeting places using the Sons of Liberty's flag. The group was founded in Boston in the Massachusetts Bay colony and it's leader was Samuel 'Sam' Adams.

The Sons of Liberty's first big really move was to burn an effigy of the local Stamp Act enforcer, Andrew Oliver and then burn his office and destroyed the house of his associate. The group's protests were more often then not violent but they got their points across. It didn't help when the Boston Massacre happened in 1770, which only further outraged the colonists, expect the Boston Massacre to get it's own in depth post one day because the court trial was super interesting. Then on the 10th of May, 1773 the British made another act called the Tea Act which made it so that the colonists had to pay more for tea that wasn't legally imported. The Tea Act was meant to help the British East India Tea Company because they were making most of Britains money and they'd gone into a huge debt which caused 20-30 English banks to collapse and started the British Credit Crisis of 1772-1773. The problem was that because the imported tea from Britain was really cheap people didn't buy from local businesses which caused farmers to go completely bankrupt. The Tea Act was the final straw for the Sons of Liberty and many Americans.

Britain sent a shipment of East India Company Tea to America and all of the American colonies that the tea was going to be sent to convinced the people on the ship to resign except for Massachusetts. So the Dartmouth, a ship full of tea arrived in Boston Harbour, Samuel Adams called for a meeting at Fanueuil Hall and thousands of people turned up so they had to move meeting places. During the meeting the Colonists discussed possible resolutions, they decided to have a medium group of men watching the tea to make sure it wouldn't be unloaded and pleaded for the ship to leave. The governor of Massachusetts refused to let the ship leave and two more ships arrived. On December the 16th, 1773, Samuel Adams met with the people of Massachusetts again to tell them about the governors refusal, the meeting caused total fury amongst all of the colonists.

In protest of the Tea Act and all of the other taxes the British had put on the Americans, the people ran out of the meeting room, some of them put on Native American costumes both in an attempt to conceal their identity because what they were about to do was illegal and as a symbolic choice to show that America's their country, not Britain. They then ran onto the 3 tea ships while Samuel Adams was telling everyone to calm down and stay for the end of the meeting. And spent 3 hours hurling all of the chests of tea into the water.

The British did not respond well, they believed that the Colonists needed to be punished so they passed the infamous Intolerable Acts which consisted of the Boston Port Act, meant to force Boston to pay for the tea by closing the port until the people of Boston paid for the tea which the Colonists argued was unfair because it was punishing the whole population for something only about half of them did, the Massachusetts Government Act which changed the way that the government of Massachusetts worked by giving people appointed by the British Parliament/King far more power, this made it easier for the British government to manage the Massachusetts Bay colony from England, the Administration of Justice Acts which state that any accused Royal officials can get a trial in England if they don't believe that they would be judged fairly in Massachusetts - which seems like a strange thing to add given how the Boston Massacre trial with John Adams went? - And I've already talked about the last intolerable act, the Quartering act which states that you have to let British troops stay in your house if they want to and you have to give them food.

#amrev #american revolution #american revolutionary war #american history #history #revolutionary war #sons of liberty #boston #boston tea party #massachusetts #world history #military history #on this day #on this date

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tomorrowusa · 4 months

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It isn't just liberals who claim that House Republicans are in Putin's pocket.

Conservative Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN-02) told the host of a rightwing podcast that some of his House colleagues have been compromised by the Kremlin.

A Republican Tennessee congressman accused his colleagues of being “compromised” by Russian spies and moneyed interests, who bed and then blackmail them to sway their votes. [ ... ] “The old honeypot,” the conservative representative, continued. “The Russians do that, and I’m sure members of Congress have been caught up. Why in the world would good conservatives vote for crazy stuff like what we’ve been seeing out of Congress?” [ ... ] “You’re visiting, you’re out of the country, you’re out of town, or you’re in a motel, or bar in D.C., and some — whatever you’re into, women or men or whatever — comes up and they’re very attractive and they’re laughing at your jokes, and you’re buying them a drink,” he explained. “Next thing you know, you’re in the motel room with them naked.” “And next thing you know, you’re about to make a key vote and what happens? Some well dressed person comes out and whispers in your ear, ‘Hey, man, there’s tapes out on you,’ or ‘Were you in a motel room on whatever [date] with whoever?’” Then comes the suggestion that “you really ought not be voting for this thing,” Burchett said.

So there are probably the equivalents of the famous "pee tapes" for members of the House GOP caucus.

Speaking of Donald Trump...

Putin ‘has Trump’s number’ and still sees him ‘as an asset’, says Fiona Hill

Vladimir Putin has had Donald Trump’s “number for some time … knows how to manipulate him” and still sees him “as an asset”, the former White House Russia expert Fiona Hill said, discussing the Russian leader and the Republican presidential frontrunner. “That’s literally [Putin’s] trump card,” Hill told the One Decision Podcast, hosted by Jane Ferguson, a reporter, and Sir Richard Dearlove, a former head of MI6, when asked if she thought the Russian president, bogged down in war in Ukraine, was betting on Trump beating Joe Biden next year and returning to power. Hill added: “The anticipation that Trump’s going to come back is something for Putin of a boon … he can play with that. He can use it as kind of a warning … scare the Ukrainians, the Europeans, the rest of the world. Putin is pretty confident, given his experiences with Trump in the past, that Trump will be quick to try to resolve the … war in Ukraine in his favor. “And, you know, obviously, Putin has had Trump’s number for some time, he knows how to manipulate him … he has been very good at the art of flattery with Trump. He sees Trump as an asset in many respects.” From 2017 to 2019 Hill was a senior national security aide in the Trump White House, eventually coming under the spotlight as a witness in Trump’s first impeachment, for seeking to blackmail Ukraine for dirt on political rivals. In 2013, she published Mr Putin: Operative in the Kremlin, a widely praised study.

Trump has done little to hide his Putin connection since 2015. Yet tens of millions of American voters can't wait to cast their votes for a Russian asset.

The Republican Party is apparently riddled with office holders doing Russia's bidding – either through blackmail or through manipulation.

The 2024 election is the clearest ever between American democracy and foreign totalitarianism. We should not take the outcome for granted.

#russia #republicans #russian assets #blackmail #donald trump #vladimir putin #honeypot #house gop caucus #tim burchett #tn-02 #fiona hill #россия #владимир путин #дональд трамп #трамп - путинский пудель #election 2024

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mostlysignssomeportents · 3 months

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This day in history

Catch me in Miami! I'll be at Books and Books in Coral Gables on Jan 22 at 8PM.

#15yrsago Veeps: Profiles in Insignificance, a look at the bumbling, murdering, drunken idiots (and others) who’ve served as vice-president of the USA https://memex.craphound.com/2009/01/18/veeps-profiles-in-insignificance-a-look-at-the-bumbling-murdering-drunken-idiots-and-others-whove-served-as-vice-president-of-the-usa/

#10yrsago Tim Wu on FCC’s net neutrality disaster https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2014/01/14/a-fema-level-fail-the-law-professor-who-coined-net-neutrality-lashes-out-at-the-fccs-legal-strategy/

#10yrsago Random NSA program generator, with denials https://divergentdave.github.io/nsa-o-matic/

#10yrsago Parfaitzilla: the dessert that ate Japan https://mochihead.tumblr.com/post/31243751745

#10yrsago Scoring Obama’s NSA reforms (spoiler: it’s not good) https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/01/rating-obamas-nsa-reform-plan-eff-scorecard-explained

#15yrsago Mr Chicken: the genius who paints London’s fried-chicken signs https://web.archive.org/web/20101208073826/https://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2009/march/meet-mr-chicken

#10yrsago Congress requires publicly funded research to be publicly available https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/01/newly-passed-appropriations-bill-makes-even-more-publicly-funded-research-available-online

#10yrsago Android malware uses accelerometer readings to figure out if it was running on a real phone or in emulation https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/01/google-play-malware-used-phones-motion-sensors-to-conceal-itself/

#5yrsago An archive of Freedom, Paul Robeson and Louis Burnham’s radical Harlem newspaper https://web.archive.org/web/20190123223255/http://dlib.nyu.edu/freedom/

#5yrsago Unsealed court documents reveal that Facebook knew kids were being tricked into spending thousands of dollars on their parents’ credit cards https://revealnews.org/blog/a-judge-unsealed-a-trove-of-internal-facebook-documents-following-our-legal-action/

#5yrsago Why charter schools are the flashpoint for the LA teachers’ strike https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/01/rising-tide-teacher-strikes-finally-exposing-corrupt-charter-school-agenda.html

#5yrsago Now EVERYBODY hates the new EU Copyright Directive https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/01/now-everybody-hates-new-eu-copyright-directive

#1yrago Care Inflation: The inflation no one wants to talk about https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/18/wages-for-housework/#low-wage-workers-vs-poor-consumers

#1yrago Eleanor Janega's "Once and Future Sex": The true, weird, horny history of medieval gender and sex https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/17/ren-faire/#going-medieval

I'm Kickstarting the audiobook for The Bezzle, the sequel to Red Team Blues, narrated by @wilwheaton! You can pre-order the audiobook and ebook, DRM free, as well as the hardcover, signed or unsigned. There's also bundles with Red Team Blues in ebook, audio or paperback.

#pluralistic

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goshyesvintageads · 1 year

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United States Playing Card Co, 1952

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krispyweiss · 5 months

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youtube

Song Review: Béla Fleck - “Unidentified Piece for Banjo”

The Library of Congress found it and Béla Fleck got the first crack at George Gershwin’s “Unidentified Piece for Banjo.”

A solo piece, it finds Fleck demonstrating his peerless playing style - three distinct parts are audible from this one guy - while allow the composer’s personality and environment to shine through the decades-old music.

It’s out to announce Fleck’s Rhapsody in Blue, which arrives Feb. 12, 2024, the 100th anniversary of the title piece premiering in New York City. It contains three versions, “Rhapsody in Blue(grass),” recorded with My Bluegrass Heart; “Rhapsody in Blue(s)” with Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas and Victor Wooten; and a traditional performance with the Virginia Symphony Orchestra and Fleck handling the piano parts on banjo.

“I had never heard anything like it – it was love at first listen,” Fleck says of his first exposure to “Rhapsody.”

Fans might feel the same way about “Unidentified Piece for Banjo,” which rounds out the LP alongside “Rialto Ripples.”

Grade card: Béla Fleck - “Unidentified Piece for Banjo” - A

12/15/23

#Youtube #béla fleck #george gershwin #unidentified piece for banjo #rhapsody in blue #my bluegrass heart #sam bush #jerry douglas #alison krauss and union station #victor wooten

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mightyflamethrower · 17 days

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consequences of illegal behavior, systemic mediocrity follows.

Under toxic National Socialism, Stalinism, and Maoism, millions of cronies and grifters mouthed party lines in hopes that their approved ideology would allow them to advance their careers and excuse their lawbreaking.

The same thing has happened with the woke movement and the now-huge Diversity/Equity/Inclusion conglomerate.

Grifters and opportunists mask their selfish agendas under the cloak of neo-Marxist care for the underprivileged or victimized minorities. Meanwhile, they seek to profit illegally as if they were old-fashioned crony capitalists.

During the disastrous COVID-19 lockdown, California governor Gavin Newsom pontificated about leveraging the quarantine to ensure greater equality: “There is opportunity for reimagining a [more] progressive era as it [relates] to capitalism…We see this as an opportunity to reshape the way we do business and how we govern.”

Meanwhile, Newsom did not seem very “progressive” when he was caught in one of California’s most expensive restaurants dining with sidekick lobbyists while violating the very mask and social distancing rules he had mandated for 40 million others.

Newsom also bragged about social equity when he signed a new California law mandating $20 an hour for fast-food workers—while many of his own employees at his various company-controlled eateries made only $16 an hour.

And he allegedly gave a unique exemption from his wage law to one particular bakery/restaurant chain, Panera, whose owner is an old friend and major campaign contributor.

Newsom apparently feels that the more progressively he postures, the less he’ll be called out for his own hypocrisy and self-interested agendas.

In another egregious case, the now-imprisoned felon, Sam Bankman-Fried, may have been the greatest con artist in American history. He siphoned billions of dollars from his cryptocurrency company, destroying the fortunes of thousands when his multi-billion-dollar Ponzi empire collapsed.

How did Sam and his two Stanford law-professor parents manage to accumulate millions of dollars in resort properties and perks without getting caught until after their empire collapsed?

Answer: Sam showered millions of dollars on left-wing politicians to advance their progressive crusades. His parents justified this family giving as a form of “effective altruism.”

That catchy phrase masked the reality that his crusade for social justice was just an incredibly effective get-rich-quick scheme.

The Bankman-Fried family apparently reasoned that their devotion to this woke form of “altruism” would translate into riches for themselves, albeit bankruptcies for investors.

Another example: in Georgia’s Fulton County, District Attorney Fani Willis ran for office, promising to indict supposed right-wing monster Donald Trump.

She raised campaign money on her woke credentials. Often, when challenged, she played the race victim card.

Meanwhile, Willis hired as a special prosecutor her secret paramour, the incompetent Nathan Wade, although he had never tried a single felony or even criminal case.

She and Wade then went on expensive junkets. She claimed that she reimbursed him with cash that was, of course, unverifiable.

Given their woke ideology, both assumed they were entitled to splurge at taxpayers’ expense, offer likely-false testimony under oath, and violate canons of professional behavior for lawyers.

She wasn’t alone in her corruption. After the death of George Floyd, the founders of the left-wing Black Lives Matter movement went on a house-buying rampage. The more corporations filled their coffers with millions, either from guilt or as protection money, the more new homes the directors purchased.

One co-founder, Patrisse Khan-Cullors, a self-described Marxist, splurged by spending $3.2 million in BLM money to buy herself four upscale residences.

And the most radical Democratic members of Congress—the so-called Squad—apparently feel that the more they level accusations of racism, the more they can profit without fearing any consequences for their wrongdoing.

One squad member, Rep. Ilhan Omar, redirected $2.8 million of her office’s allotted government money to her husband’s political consulting company.

Still another member, the radical leftist Rep. Cori Bush, often harangued the country to defund the police. Now the FBI is investigating her for stealthily paying tens of thousands of campaign dollars to her own husband for “security.”

Woke and DEI activists may not necessarily be any more innately mediocre, corrupt, or conniving than other politicians and activists.

But they seem so, because they loudly broadcast that they are for “diversity,” “equity,” and “inclusion”—and thus assume themselves to be exempt from all scrutiny and free to profit in any way they please.

The woke/DEI project is enticing thousands of shysters, careerists, and mediocrities, all keen to enrich themselves on the premise that they are noble fighters for social justice who deserve immunity from any scrutiny.

How odd it is that America is wasting billions of dollars hiring DEI czars and electing woke politicians who so often accuse others of a multitude of sins, largely as a way of enriching themselves, hiding their own culpability, and making a mockery of the law.

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 7 months

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Mike Luckovich

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

September 25, 2023

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

Pundits struggle to decide whether Trump’s rise represents something new in the United States or whether it is a continuation of the growing anti-democratic politics of the Republican Party. As a card-carrying Libra, I’m going to suggest it was both.

If yesterday’s letter was about how Trump’s turn to authoritarianism is unprecedented among major party political leaders, tonight’s is about how the Republican Party prepared the way for this moment in part by rigging the system through gerrymandering so that their politicians no longer need to appeal to voters. Those extreme gerrymanders threaten to skew the 2024 election and are contributing to the Republican Party’s inability to perform the most basic functions of government.

Gerrymandering is the process of drawing legislative districts to favor a political party. The practice was named for Elbridge Gerry, an early governor of Massachusetts who signed off on such a scheme (even though he didn’t like it). Political parties can gain an advantage in elections by either “packing” or “cracking” their opponents’ voters. Packing means stuffing the opposition party’s voters into districts so their votes are not distributed more widely; cracking means dividing opponents’ voters among multiple districts so there are too few of them in any district to have a chance of winning.

The Constitution requires the government to take a census every ten years to see where people have moved, enabling the government to draw districts that should allow us to elect politicians that represent us. Political operatives have always carved up maps to serve themselves when they could, but today’s computers allow them to draw maps with surgical precision.

That created a big change in 2010. Before that midterm election, hoping to hamstring President Barack Obama’s ability to accomplish anything by making sure he had a hostile Congress, Republican operatives raised money from corporate donors to swamp state elections with ads and campaign literature to elect Republicans to state legislatures. This Operation REDMAP, which stood for Redistricting Majority Project, was a plan to take control of state houses across the country so that Republicans would control the redistricting maps put in place after the 2010 census.

It worked. After the 2010 election, Republicans controlled the legislatures in the key states of Florida, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Ohio, and Michigan, as well as other, smaller states, and they redrew congressional maps using precise computer models. In the 2012 election, Democrats won the White House decisively, the Senate easily, and a majority of 1.4 million votes for House candidates. And yet Republicans came away with a thirty-three-seat majority in the House of Representatives.

The results of that effort are playing out today.

In Wisconsin the electoral districts are so gerrymandered that although the state’s population is nearly evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans, Republicans control nearly two thirds of the seats in the legislature and it is virtually impossible for Democrats ever to win control of the state legislature. In April, voters elected Janet Protasiewicz to the state supreme court by an astonishing margin of 11 points, in part thanks to her promise to reject the extreme gerrymandered maps.

Protasiewicz’s election shifted the court majority away from the Republicans. Even before she was elected, one Republican senator suggested impeaching her, and now, because she has called the district maps “rigged” and said, “I don’t think you could sell to any reasonable person that the maps are fair,” Republicans are calling for her impeachment before she has even heard a case. (After saying the maps were rigged, she added: “I can't ever tell you what I’m going to do on a particular case, but I can tell you my values, and common sense tells you that it’s wrong.”)

Voters are also evenly split in North Carolina—illustrated by the fact that a statewide race elected Democrat Roy Cooper as governor—but there, too, gerrymandering has rigged the maps for the Republicans. After a Democrat switched sides to give the Republicans a veto-proof majority in both houses of the legislature, the House of Representatives last week passed laws taking away the governor’s power to make appointments to state and local election boards and removing the tiebreaker seat the governor appointed to the state board.

Instead, the legislature has taken over the right to make those appointments itself, meaning that election rules could become entirely partisan. At the same time, the legislature exempted its legislators from complying with the state open-records law that requires redistricting documents be public.

In Ohio, almost 75% of voters agreed to amend the state constitution in 2018 to prohibit political gerrymanders. Nonetheless, when the Republican-dominated legislature drew district maps in 2021, they gave a strong advantage to Republicans. The state supreme court struck the maps down as unconstitutional, but the U.S. Supreme Court permitted them to stay in place for the 2022 election. The court will now revisit the question, but it has moved further to the right since 2022.

In Alabama, in June, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed a lower court decision that the maps in place in 2022 were likely unconstitutional and must be redrawn to include a second majority-Black district. But when the state legislature drew a new map the next month, it defied the court. The court was shocked at the refusal to comply, and appointed a special master, who today offered three options. Any of them would offer the Democrats a chance to pick up another seat, and the state is challenging the new maps.

Tennessee shows what gerrymandering does at the state level. There, Republicans tend to get about 60% of the votes but control 76% of the seats in the House and 82% of the seats in the Senate. This supermajority means that the Republicans can legislate as they wish.

Gerrymandered seats mean that politicians do not have to answer to constituents; their purpose is to raise money and fire up true believers. Although more than 70% of Tennessee residents want gun safety legislation, for example, Republican legislators, who are certain to win in their gerrymandered districts, can safely ignore them.

Tennessee shows the effects of gerrymandering at the national level as well. Although Republican congressional candidates in Tennessee get about 65% of the vote, they control 89% of Tennessee’s congressional delegation. In the elections of 2022, Florida, Alabama, and Ohio all used maps that courts have thrown out for having rigged the system to favor Republicans. The use of those unfair maps highlights that the Republicans took control of the House of Representatives by only the slimmest of margins and explains why Republicans are determined to keep their gerrymanders.

Because their seats are safe, Republicans do not have to send particularly skilled politicians to Congress; they can send those whose roles are to raise money and push Republican ideology. That likely explains at least a part of why House Republicans are no closer to agreeing on a deal to fund the government than they have been for the past several months, even as the deadline is racing toward us, and why they are instead going to hold an impeachment hearing concerning President Joe Biden on Thursday.

Michigan was one of the Operation REDMAP states, redistricted after the 2010 election into an extreme gerrymander designed by Republicans who bragged about stuffing “Dem garbage” into four districts so that Republicans would, as one said, stay in power for years. In 2016 a Michigan woman, Katie Fahey, started a movement to get rid of the partisan maps. In 2018, despite a Republican lawsuit to stop them, they successfully placed an initiative to create an independent redistricting commission on the ballot. It passed overwhelmingly.

After the 2020 census the commission’s new maps still slightly favored Republicans because of the state’s demographic distribution—Democrats are concentrated in cities—but the parties were competitive. In 2022, Democrats took control of the state government, winning the House for the first time since 2008.

—

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#Letters From An American #Heather Cox Richardson #gerrymandering #history #REDMAP #state legislatures

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rivertalesien · 8 months

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People are still sharing their 9/11 memories but it was hard revisiting that day. Mine started with hearing Donnie Bonaduce on the radio screaming about what was going on until I had to turn on The Today Show to figure out what that idiot was on about now...and there it was. I remember Katie Couric's sobriety as they all tried to hold it together for their audience. Watching that second plane hit the tower. There's no words for that.

In the first hours after, there was so much chaos and so many rumors, and we heard very little from any government officials. Bush did make a brief statement in the morning, but then all we heard was of him on Air Force One flying around the country (he doesn't return to DC until later that evening). He basically up and disappeared. We heard Cheney was giving orders and this only made Bush seem even more removed: we all knew who was really in charge.

From the false reports of other bombings and hijackings around the country, this really seemed like something enormous and there was no one out there to calm anyone's nerves or tell us what the plan was. Not even their spokesperson, Condoleeza Rice, made a statement.

Osama bin Laden's name was everywhere on the news, though it was just speculation. It's the GOP who are sending up the "act of war" card and blaming it on bin Laden. We heard Congress was being taken to an undisclosed location and the government was still operational.

I remember the first couple of hours after the planes hit as being significant for the country's trauma and how it would all play out later: the longer we went without a serious breakdown of the events and the scope, without any sign of reassurance or any official details, the deeper the trauma set. The whole country was being shut down. Airplanes everywhere had to land (that week of no planes in the air? That silence was haunting). New York City was being evacuated. We'd never experienced anything like this. My grandparents said even WWII seemed less dramatic by comparison. It felt like we were being spun too fast on a blood-soaked merry-go-round and couldn't get off. My grandfather said at least they'd had Churchill and FDR. We talked like this was the start of World War III.

The first real statement with any substance that we heard from a world leader on the matter was Tony Blair, then Prime Minister of the UK. He wasn't Churchill, but his words and his voice were something of a calm in that storm: we weren't alone. For all I cared, Blair could have been president at that moment.

The whole day was a nightmare, mostly for New York, and it didn't end with Bush's press conference that evening, promising vengeance. I believed it then and I believe it now: it was the wrong thing to say and it set the Worst Timeline in motion.

It didn't take long for the flags to come out, to see them on every door or waving from the back of pickup trucks. It didn't take long before the first stories of attacks on Muslims in the US. It didn't take long for terror to become a way of life, to see it packaged and sold on TV. It didn't take long for our government to give unprecedented power to Bush jr. to wage war wherever he liked for however long he liked. Each day felt like the walls were closing in.

We knew the hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, but two years later we were invading Iraq on the false pretense of them having weapons of mass destruction. They had nothing to do with 9/11.

In the streets that March of 2003 we got a preview of the future: filled with militarized police and media as the mouthpiece of an authoritarian regime. It was the first time being on the wrong end of a can of pepper spray and feeling nothing but disgust at how easy it was to spot all the lies. Media calling protestors "strangers" and "violent" when the only violent aspect was the police. It felt like we'd wandered into the Twilight Zone.

We had eight years of non-stop revelations of what monsters we were becoming.

Obama's tenure wasn't a reprieve. It might have been the commercial break.

But we've never left that purgatory and the far-right is even more determined to keep tunneling us into hell.

I keep wondering if we'll break out of our collective trauma and start over, but if its out there, maybe it's waiting for the next catastrophe.

#9/11

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steampunkforever · 10 months

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John Wick Chapter 4 is only worth the watch if you’ve seen the other films in the franchise. John Wick is tired and so is Keanu, and frankly so are we. It’s a good thing that this is the last one, but if we’re being honest they should’ve merged the plotlines of John Wick 2 and 3 in order to make this feel like less of a slog.

That said, for all the instances where John Wick 4 stumbles (like an extended martial arts fight scene where every altercation serves to remind you that this was in fact written by stuntmen and their crew wants to show off) I’m too charmed by the one thing this movie gets right even when it gets a scene wrong: campiness.

*Writes “John Wick 4=camp?” Into notebook margin and is instantly subpoenaed to testify in front of Congress*

I’m not entirely joking here. There’s a blind assassin (played by Donnie Yen) named Caine. The movie makes him play cards and also engage in mid-range pistol duels hinging on accuracy. There’s an attack dog that has a vendetta against one goon in particular (this is a goon movie btw). There’s a flavor of ninja goon I can only describe as “tacticool samurai.” John Wick’s suit is bulletproof and allows him to take an improbably amount of bullets with just a flinch and a growl. There’s a bad cover of Paint It Black, done in French. It’s campy!

The villains here are where the camp truly shines. The third (and frankly also the second) chapters of the Wick saga we’re trying too hard to be cool, introducing villains and concepts that shot for “over the top” but fell into the realm of silly. Part of the reason that each Wick sequel required a higher percentage of NYC to strive to collect the price on his head. The threats needed to be memorable, and these weren’t that.

John Wick Chapter 4 fixes this. The principle rival (not counting various beard-and-tattoo-identifiable goons led by said rival) in this film is Caine, the blind guy they force to play cards (mean!) and who uses motion sensing doorbells to locate his enemies (memorable, clever, wacky!) obviously is both memorable and a bit silly, but there’s also a beefy German mob boss Wick has to axe-fight in the midst of a Berlin warehouse rave, and Bill Skarsgard doing a bad french accent and brooding over an artistic but geographically inaccurate not-to-scale diorama of Paris. At one point he breaks his cell phone in a fit of rage and makes a goon bring him a rotary phone replacement.

Not to say that the film is goofy in its entirety. The Berlin warehouse scene is visually ambitious, and for as overdone as “John Wick killing people during a party” seems to be getting, it was still engaging and enjoyable. The best part of the movie for me was an extended top-down Hotline-Miami-Style shootout scene utilizing Genesis Arms Gen-12 shotguns and “dragonsbreath” pyrotechnic ammo that ranked as not only the best shootout of the film but one of the best sequences in the entire franchise.

John Wick 4 is not a masterpiece. It’s not even the particularly the best outcome in what we’d hoped for as the final installment in John Wick’s story. It’s a 3-hour mixed bag that you’ll only appreciate if you’ve seen the preceding three films, but no matter if you’ve watched it from the beginning or if this is your intro to the saga, you’ll be glad that it’s over when the credits roll.

#john wick chapter 4 #john wick #filmposting #film #goonposting

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demospectator · 11 months

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"Clay St. West of Kearny SF 1873 - First Cable Car in the World" In this elevated view west on Clay Street to the Clay St. Cable RR cable car at Kearny Street Terminus, Portsmouth Square can be seen on the right. Signage for the R. Cutlar Dentist, H. Traube watchmaker and jeweler at left. This photo is a detail from Carleton Watkins' stereo card number 2368 (Variant) under the original title: "Clay St. Hill R.R., San Francisco, Cal. Run by A.S. Hallidie's patent Endless Steel Wire Rope and Gripping Attachment. Overcomes an Elevation of 307 feet in a length of 2800 feet. Worst grade, one foot in six" (from the Marilyn Blaisdell Collection). The photo is also notable as one of the very few photographs showing a pre-1906 Chinese resident in the same frame as a cable car.

Chinatown at the Advent of the Cable Car

This year San Francisco marks the sesquicentennial of its cable car system. In the late 19th century, San Francisco experienced rapid urbanization and faced the challenge of its hilly terrain. Traditional horse-drawn streetcars struggled to navigate the steep inclines, necessitating an innovative transportation solution.

In the predawn hours of August 2, 1873, Andrew Smith Hallidie introduced the first successful cable car system in the world. The cable cars utilized an underground cable mechanism to propel the cars along tracks, overcoming the city's hilly landscape. This new mode of transportation revolutionized urban mobility and played a pivotal role in San Francisco's development.

California and Montgomery streets, c. 1889. Photographer unknown (from the Martin Behrman Negative Collection / Courtesy of the Golden Gate NRA, Park Archives). The view is west on California across Montgomery, as an Omnibus Railway Co. horsecar #11 passes the Parrott Building, or Parrott Block (1852, Architect Stephen Williams) seen in background. A Chinese man is walking south at the northeast corner of the intersection. The signs for the offices of Equitable Life and Dr. William F. McNutt at 405 Montgomery are visible at right.

The introduction of cable cars in San Francisco had a profound impact on the Chinese community. Several cable car lines conveniently passed through Chinatown, allowing Chinese residents to access transportation. The cable cars provided a reliable means of travel for the community, connecting them to other neighborhoods and employment opportunities initially for domestic workers serving the mansions atop Nob Hill and eventually throughout the city.

Clay Street Cable Car, c. 1873. Photograph by Carleton Watkins and published as “Pacific Coast. 2369″ and by Taber Photo (from the Marilyn Blaisdell collection). In this startling image, patrons and car operators can be seen posing on or alongside cable cars on Clay near Jones Street, except for at least two Chinese men seated in the car at left. Their faces were lost to history because one man placed his hat over his face, while the other inclined his head to avoid the camera’s lens. Watkins' image may be the only extant image showing urban pioneer Chinese actually riding an early cable car, possibly to their jobs as domestic servants for the mansions on Nob Hill.

Watkins' stereo card bears the legend: “Clay Street Hill R.R., San Francisco, Cal. Run by A.S. Hallidie's patent Endless Steel Wire Rope and Gripping Attachment. Overcomes an Elevation of 307 feet in a length of 2800 feet. Worst grade, one foot in six. 2369” Photograph by Carleton E. Watkins (from the collection of the San Francisco Public Library).

“At the Corner of Dupont and Jackson Streets” c. 1896 -1906. Photograph by Arnold Genthe (from the Genthe photograph collection, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division). A cable car on the Jackson Street line can be seen at right. “Two girls wearing embroidered holiday wear are crossing the street,” as historian Jack Tchen wrote in his book about Genthe’s Chinatown photos. “The store behind them is a ‘Chinese and Japanese Curios’ store located at 924 Dupont Street, southwest corner. The good-quality, expensive vases in the window display and the sign in English indicate that the store catered especially to tourists. Some such stores were owned by Japanese, but the main reason that both Chinese and Japanese goods were sold in the same store was that the general public could not distinguish between the two cultures.” (NOTE: Tchen’s location of the address at 924 Dupont appears incorrect, as the photo depicts the west or odd-numbered side of the street. The building bearing an address of 943 Dupont actually occupied the southwest corner of the intersection with Jackson Street. Directories of the time indicate that the Tong Yuen Lai confectionary operated at the 943 address during the 1890’s. By the 1905 publication of the Chinatown phone directory, the Jong Mee Cigar Store had either co-located or operated solely at the address.)

The cable cars, particularly the Clay, Sacramento, California, and Jackson street lines, had played a significant role in fostering economic growth within Chinatown.

“B 3096 Clay Street Hill, Chinatown, San Francisco” c. 1885. Photograph by Isaiah West Taber (from the Marilyn Blaisdell Collection). In this view east on the south side of Clay Street, and just above Dupont, the trees of Portsmouth Square can in the distance at left, a horsecar can be seen on Kearny and an original Clay Street cable car. The large billboard for Globe Business College and Conservatory of Music in distance. The large vertical sign in Chinese denotes an herbalist or apothecary store.

The view east on Clay Street, c. 1888. (Photographer unknown from the collection of the California Historical Society). A cable car is in the process of crossing Dupont Street and heading west up the hill. The balconies of the Yoot Hong Low restaurant appear at left.

“161 Street Scene in Chinatown,” no date. Photographer unknown (from a private French collection). A cable car can be seen traveling west on Clay passing Stockton Street.

“Chinese Quarter, San Francisco, Cal.” c. 1891. Photograph by A.J. McDonald (from a private collection). A cable car is seen passing the 800-block of Clay Street between Dupont St. and Waverly Place. The decorated balconies of the Yoot Hong Low restaurant can be seen at center.

“B 2807 Lotta’s Fountain, and junction of Market, Kearny a& Geary Streets, S.F.” c. late 1880s. Photograph by Isaiah West Taber (from a private collection). A Market Street Cable Rail car appears in the right foreground. Two Chinese men can be seen in the background at left on the sidewalk between the two lampposts and under the Philadelphia Lager sign.

“Carrying New Year Presents” c. 1900-1905. Photograph by Arnold Genthe (from the Genthe photograph collection, The Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division). A cable car can be seen on the hill just behind the head of the young woman in the photo. She appears to have been a servant to the family of prominent merchant Lew Kan. The boy in the photo is Lew Bing Yuen, the older son, who also appears in Genthe’s well-known photo “Children of the High Class.”

After transformation of post-1906 Chinatown into the “Oriental City,” this urban transit network remained crucial the neighborhood’s integration with the citywide economy. Tourists and locals utilized the cable car system, and Chinese-owned businesses along, and in proximity to, the cable car lines experienced increased patronage. This urban mobility represented by the cable car system, even after its reduction to only two lines, has sustained the Chinese community from it pioneer beginnings to this day.

“San Francisco Cable Car Lines at the Fullest Extent of Operation (1890s)” (courtesy of the Cable Car Museum). As the Cable Car Museum advises here, “Clay Street Hill Railroad was the sole cable car company for 4 years. A former horsecar company, Sutter Street Railroad, developed its own version of Hallidie's patented system and began cable service in 1877, followed by California Street Cable Railroad -1878, Geary Street, Park & Ocean Railroad -1880, Presidio & Ferries Railroad -1882, Market Street Cable Railway -1883, Ferries & Cliff House Railway -1888, and Omnibus Railroad & Cable Company -1889.” At its peak, the San Francisco companies had laid “53 miles of track stretching from the Ferry Building to the Presidio, to Golden Gate Park, to the Castro, to the Mission.”

For the Chinese families who began to populate the eastern slopes of Nob and Russian Hills (and the garment workers in the small sewing factories along Pacific Avenue west of Stockton Street), the cable cars served as their principal transit system until the establishment of bus routes such as the Pacific Avenue shuttle (championed by Phil Chin and his Chinatown Transportation Improvement Project crew a half-century ago), and now known as the no. 12 Folsom/Pacific line.

A group of women (at least one of whom has bound feet) disembarks from a cable car in 1908. Photographer unknown (from the collection of the Chinese Historical Society of America). For women with bound feet (including great grandmothers on both sides of my family), the cars represented not only convenience but a necessary travel option for the residents navigating the hilly topography of San Francisco Chinatown.

The clang of cable car bells and the snap of the cable in the tracks remain an integral part of the soundtrack for the several generations of Chinese children who grew up in the greater Chinatown area.

Cable cars symbolized the vital role of urban transportation in fostering connections and opportunities -- providing convenient travel options for the residents of Chinatown, maintaining the neighborhood’s economy during hard times, and tying the segregated Chinese community to the larger city.

“Convergence of Cultures” oil painting by Mian Situ.

[updated 2023-8-14]

#Chinatown and the cable cars #Chinese riding 1873 cable car #Carleton Watkins #Andrew Hallidie #Clay Street cable car line #Chinatown Transportation Improvement Project #Lew Kan #Lew Bing Yuen #Sacramento Street cable car line #Jackson Street cable car line #Market Street Cable Rail line

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