#republican debate 2023 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dontmeantobepoliticalbut · 1 year

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Former Vice President Mike Pence will not appeal a federal judge’s order that he testify in the special counsel’s probe of former President Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election, his adviser announced Wednesday.

The decision not to fight the order could provide special counsel Jack Smith with remarkable access to one of the key people with critical insight into Trump’s thinking and efforts to cling to power.

Last week, Judge James Boasberg, the chief judge of U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, largely dismissed efforts mounted by Pence and Trump to limit his testimony and avoid handing over documents.

Boasberg acknowledged a constitutional argument against forcing Pence to testify in front of a grand jury about matters related to his role as Senate president during the certification of the election on Jan. 6, but nevertheless concluded that immunity should not prevent Pence from testifying about conversations related to alleged “illegality” on Trump’s part.

“Vice President Mike Pence swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution, and his claim that the Biden Special Counsel’s unprecedented subpoena was unconstitutional under the Speech or Debate Clause was an important one made to preserve the Separation of Powers outlined by our Founders,” Pence adviser Devin O’Malley said in a statement Wednesday. “In the Court’s decision, that principle prevailed. The Court’s landmark and historic ruling affirmed for the first time in history that the Speech or Debate Clause extends to the Vice President of the United States. Having vindicated that principle of the Constitution, Vice President Pence will not appeal the Judge’s ruling and will comply with the subpoena as required by law.”

It’s unclear exactly when Pence will appear before the grand jury in Washington, according to a source familiar with the matter, and the case remains under seal. Trump’s attorneys could still appeal Boasberg’s ruling. Last week, his legal team filed an appeal to block the testimony of several of his senior aides.

Pence has already published a memoir and Wall Street Journal op-ed detailing several significant interactions with Trump in the days leading up to Jan. 6. NBC is told prosecutors are focused on specific efforts Trump took to try to block the certification of the election.

#us politics #news #nbc news #2023 #donald trump #republicans #conservatives #trump administration #gop #mike pence #special counsel #Jack Smith #subpoena #Judge James Boasberg #U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia #Speech or Debate Clause #us constitution #Separation of Powers

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klaudia2646 · 6 months

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#chris christie #ron desantis #nikki haley #vivek ramaswamy #tim scott #3rd presidential debate #republican presidential debate 2023

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current-analysis · 1 year

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House of Representatives vote on the rules package

The meeting started with Representative James McGovern (D., Mass.), who started off by indicating his opposition to the rules. McCarthy is empowering the extremism in his party by giving in to the demands of the conservative members.

Next, the presiding officer called on the Gentleman from Oklahoma Tom Cole (R.), who claimed that the new set of rules would hold the president accountable, investigate the origins of the virus, and negotiate an economic strategy with China, and a slew of other republican-fueled goals.

The presiding officer then called on the gentleman from Massachusetts, McGovern (D.), who brought up the fact that the republican's new rules, add $140 billion to the national debt. He calls to the gentlewoman from California, Judy Chu (D). Chu brought up the issue of the woman's health protection act. Stating that this act will protect people's rights to make decisions about their own health.

The next republican speaker the gentlewoman from Minnesota, Michelle Fischbach Defended the republican created rules by listing off the reasons that change needs to happen. She believes that the pandemic disaster response is “Ludacris” and people need to start working face-to-face again. She was passionate about wanting to get back to work, and not allowing proxy voting. As for transparency, she believes that the proposed 72-hour rule will help everyone get an opportunity to actually review the bill before it gets passed or denied. She ends her speaking time by criticizing the “out of control spending and super high inflation” that is caused by increasing the debt ceiling.

The rest of the republican narrative was along these same lines. They all advocated for in-person legislation, and no more proxy voting. The 3-day rule, or the “true 72-hour rule” was also proposed, representative James McGovern (D., Mass.) made multiple comments claiming the rule as one he created. General openness in the government, prosecuting “bad” bureaucrats and holding others more accountable. Responsible spending was pushed forth by republicans as not increasing the debt limit. Although McGovern (D., Mass), hoping to debunk the republicans, brought up the fact that their rules package will add $140 billion in national debt. The republican rule package also includes odds and ends, like only one topic proposed on a bill at a time, rescinding money from the IRS, fixing the border problem, term limits, and others.

McGovern was claiming to know something about a secret 3-page addendum that the republicans slipped in last minute without anyone knowing. The Republicans denied this 3-page document, claiming that their document has been available on their website since Friday. The republicans were transparent about the one change that was made.

In response to Michelle Fischbach's (R., Minn.) outlandish language, calling the protocols that were put in place during the pandemic “Ludacris”, McGovern (D., Mass.) mentioned that millions of people died during covid and remote procedures saved lives.

The Democratic agenda was about women's right to health, mostly surrounding abortion. Another commonly mentioned item was that the rules package had an extremist agenda. Americans' social security and Medicare would be in jeopardy, and defunding the IRS will allow billionaires to get away with paying minimal taxes. McGovern ended the talk saying that the American people have voted, and told the republicans that their extremism is not how they want our country run. McGovern was asking the republicans to drop the extreme and join the democrats in being a house of the people.

My personal conclusion from this house debate over the new republican majority rules package is that there is going to be a lot in the rules package that the democrats won’t like. The American people vote every 2 years for new house members and this is how the people have voted. The democrats need to understand that the republicans have an extreme demographic that also deserves to be represented. Legislation and democracy are based on debate and that is one thing I’ve been happy to see happen over the last few days. I know that is a republican sentiment, but I think most Americans would be happy to know that their politicians are actively working in a televised space to bring about the kind of legislation the people are asking for.

People might forget that our politicians represent us, as American people. If they aren’t able to get along in the chamber, how are we expected to get along in our workplace, online, or at bars? Watching the debates in the chamber over the last few days, I’ve seen a lot of blaming and not a lot of bipartisan solutions. Our lawmakers are there to work together and have a discourse over what is working for their constituents and what isn’t. Instead, it's turned into a blame game of insulting people who have different ideas than you do. I for one am ready to stand up for who I am as an American citizen and tell my lawmakers that the way they speak with opposing party members on the other side of the aisle is disgraceful. Mutual respect is very important among humans, regardless of beliefs.

#house of representatives #debate #politics #republicans #democrats #bipartisan #house rules #2023

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fandom · 9 months

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How 'bout that Riverdale finale, y'all?

After seven bizarre seasons, Riverdale finally ended in the most Riverdale-possible way. The cast of What We Do In The Shadows sat down with us before the SAG strike and answered a ton of your questions, which you can see here. It's August in the year 2023, so of course the Destiel confession made news again and trended, like, super hard. The first two episodes of Ahsoka have fans clamoring for more. We got our first look at the second season of Our Flag Means Death and if the photos and cast are any indication, it's gonna be incredible. Astarion is reigning supreme as the new Baldur's Gate 3 blorbo. Best of luck to all of the UK given the railway ticket offices closures. Oh also there was a debate in the US between the Republican presidential candidates and Donald Trump did not participate. This is Tumblr's Week in Review.

Riverdale

Donald Trump

Good Omens

What We Do In The Shadows

Destiel

Artists on Tumblr

Our Flag Means Death

Ahsoka

Genshin Impact

Crowley | Good Omens

Aziraphale | Good Omens

Ineffable Husbands | Crowley & Aziraphale, Good Omens

Baldur's Gate 3

The QSMP Minecraft server

Astarion | Baldur's Gate 3

UK Politics

2023 F1 Dutch Grand Prix

Star Wars

Hozier

Neuvillette | Genshin Impact

We'll be taking a break next week! Fandometrics will return on September 11, 2023.

#week in review #08/28/2023 #riverdale

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kp777 · 6 months

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By Thom Hartmann

Common Dreams

Nov. 16, 2023

What baffles me is why a TV news personality who earns $2.9 million a year would go to such lengths to avoid even mentioning a solution that’s been signed onto repeatedly by virtually every Democrat in Congress for over a decade.

Why did NBC’s Kristen Welker use an incomplete frame for her question about Social Security at last week’s GOP debate, and why didn’t Lester Holt or anybody else correct her?

Here’s her question:

KRISTEN WELKER: “Americans could see their Social Security benefits drastically cut in the next decade because the program is running out of money. Former President Trump has said quote, ‘Under no circumstances should Republicans cut entitlements.’ Governor Christie, first to you, you have proposed raising the retirement age for younger Americans. What would that age be specifically, and would you consider making any other reforms to Social Security?”

The simple reality is that if a person earns $160,200 a year or less, they pay a 6.2% tax on all of their income. In other words, a person making exactly $160,200 pays $9,932.40 (6.2%) in Social Security taxes.

If you earn $12,000 a year, $56,000 a year, $98,000 a year, or anything under $160,200 a year, you also pay 6.2 cents of tax toward Social Security on every single dollar you earn. If you made $10,000 last year, you pay $620 in Social Security taxes: 6.2 percent. Like the old saying about death and taxes, you can’t avoid it.

BUT those people who make over $160,200 a year pay absolutely nothing — no tax whatsoever — to fund Social Security on every dollar they earn over that amount. After Warren Buffett or Mark Zuckerberg or Jeff Bezos pay their $9,932.40 in Social Security taxes on that first $160,200 they took home on the first day of January, every other dollar they take home for the rest of the year is completely Social Security tax-free.

If somebody makes $1,602,000, for example, it would seem fair that, like every other American, they’d pay the same 6.2% ($99,324) in Social Security taxes. But, no: they only pay the $9,932.40 and after that they get to ride tax-free.

If somebody earned $16,020,000 it would seem fair that they’d pay the same 6.2% to support Social Security as 96 percent of Americans do, but no. Instead of paying $1,004,400 in taxes, they only pay $9,932.40.

Hedge fund guys who make a billion a year — yes, there are several of them — can certainly afford to pay 6.2% to keep Social Security solvent. At that rate, they’d be paying $62 million on a billion-dollar income in Social Security taxes as their fair share of maintaining America’s social contract.

But, because the tax rate is capped to “protect” the morbidly rich while sticking the rest of us with the full bill for Social Security, those titans of Wall Street pay the same $9,932.40 as the doctor who lives down the street from you and earns $160,200 a year.

This is, to use the economic technical term, nuts.

And, while every wealthy person in America knows all about this because it’s such a huge benefit to them, I’ll bet fewer than five percent of Americans know how this scam for the rich works. (I searched diligently, but couldn’t find a single survey that asked average folks if they knew about the cap.)

There is no other tax in America that works like this. Most have loopholes designed to promote specific socially desirable goals, like the deductibility of home mortgage interest or children, but no other tax is designed so that anybody earning over $160,200 is completely exempt and no longer has to pay a penny after their first nine thousand or so dollars.

And here’s where it gets really bizarre: if millionaires and billionaires paid the exact same 6.2% into Social Security that most of the rest of us do (and paid it on their investment income, which is also 100% exempt today), the program would not only be solvent for the next 75 years, but it would have so much extra cash that everybody on Social Security could get a significant raise in their monthly benefit payments.

But because America’s morbidly rich don’t want to pay their share for keeping Social Security solvent, Republicans are having a debate about how badly they can screw working class retirees.

They ask:

“Shall we cut the Social Security payments?”

“How about raising the retirement age from 67 (Reagan raised it from 65 to 67) to 70 or even 72?”

“Or maybe we should just hand the entire thing off to JPMorgan or Wells Fargo and let them run it, like we’re doing with Medicare? We could call it Social Security Advantage!”

“Or how about turning Social Security into a welfare program by ‘means testing’ it, so rich people can’t draw from it and every budget year it can become a political football for the GOP like food stamps or WIC?”

Responding to Welker’s severely incomplete question, Chris Christie hit all four:

GOVERNOR CHRISTIE: “Sure, and we have to deal with this problem. Now look, if we raise the retirement age a few years for folks that are in their thirties and forties, I have a son who’s in the audience tonight who’s 30 years old. If he can’t adjust to a few year increase in Social Security retirement age over the next 40 years, I got bigger problems with him than his Social Security payments. “And the fact is we need to be realistic about this. There are only three things that go into determining whether Social Security can be solvent or not. Retirement age, eligibility for the program in general, and taxes. That’s it. We are already overtaxed in this country and we should not raise those taxes. But on eligibility also, I don’t know if out there tonight and if you’re watching Warren, I don’t know if Warren Buffett is collecting Social Security, but if he is, shame on you. You shouldn’t be taking the money.”

Christie was the only one of the five Republicans on the stage who even dared mention taxes.

Nikki Haley said:

“So first of all, any candidate that tells you that they’re not going to take on entitlements, is not being serious. Social Security will go bankrupt in 10 years, Medicare will go bankrupt in eight.”

Neither of those assertions are even remotely true, but, of course, this was a GOP debate. She continued:

“But for like my kids in their twenties, you go and you say we’re going to change the rules, you change the retirement age for them. Instead of cost of living increases, we should go to increases based on inflation. We should limit benefits on the wealthy.”

Her other solution, apropos of nothing, was to end government responsibility for Medicare and privatize the entire program by shutting down real Medicare and throwing us all to the tender mercies of the health insurance billionaires:

“And then expand Medicare Advantage plans. Seniors love that and let’s make sure we do that so that they can have more competition. That’s how we’ll deal with entitlement reform and that’s how we’ll start to pay down this debt.”

Ramaswamy’s answer was so incoherent and off-topic I won’t repeat it here. Suffice it to say he rambled on about the cost of foreign wars (Ukraine, Israel) “that many blood-thirsty members of both parties have a hunger for.” Apparently, Vivek doesn’t realize that Social Security isn’t part of our government’s overall budget but has its own segregated funds and trust fund.

Since it’s creation in 1935, Social Security never has and never will contribute to the budget deficit or influence any other kind of government spending.

Tim Scott said we should take a cue from Reagan, Bush, and Trump and just cut billionaires’ income taxes again because that does such a great job of stimulating the economy (not) and then claw back the inflation-based raises people on Social Security have received the past three years.

“Number two, you have to cut taxes. … So what we know is that the Laffer Curve still works, for the lower the tax, the higher the revenue. And finally, if we’re going to deal with it, we have to take our annual appropriations back to pre-2020, pre-COVID levels of spending, which would save us about a half a trillion dollars in the next budget window. By doing that, we deal with Social Security and our mandatory spending.”

DeSantis was equally incoherent, also refusing to answer the question about raising the retirement age and completely avoiding any mention of the sweetheart deal his billionaire donors get on their Social Security taxes. Instead, he said we needed to get inflation under control and stop Congress from “taking money from Social Security,” something Congress has never done and legally never will be able to do.

All this incoherence aside, Republicans appear to have a plan to deal with Social Security.

House Speaker MAGA Mike Johnson has been pushing a “Catfood Commission” just like Reagan’s 1983 commission that raised the retirement age to 67, reaffirmed the cap on taxes, and made Social Security checks taxable as income. He no doubt expects his commissioners will provide “recommendations” Republicans can run with to cut benefits without raising taxes on their billionaire donors, all while blaming it on the commissioners just like Reagan did in 1983.

When Johnson said that his “top priority” was creating such a commission “immediately” and that his Republican colleagues had responded to the idea “with great enthusiasm,” Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee responded on Xitter:

“A week into his tenure, MAGA Mike Johnson is ALREADY calling for closed-door cuts to the Social Security and Medicare benefits American workers have earned through decades of hard work.”

But back to the original question. I understand why Republicans refuse to even consider lifting the cap on Social Security taxes so their morbidly rich donors won’t have to start paying their fair share of Social Security to keep the program solvent.

I’ve been watching Kristen Welker on television for years, and she’s generally been a pretty straight shooter as a reporter. Ditto for Lester Holt, who sat right beside her. This, frankly, astonished me.

Were they afraid Republicans would exact revenge on them if they raised the question of the tax cap?

Or was it precisely because they’re making millions, just like most of the executives they answer to?

More broadly, is this why we almost never hear any discussion whatsoever in the media — populated with other news stars who also make millions a year, managed by millionaire network executives — about lifting the cap?

One hopes the answer isn’t that crass...

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

#social security #social security tax #social safety net #republicans #republican party #corporate media #journalism #2024 presidential election

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thelearningcat · 9 months

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That's at least two shots worth of "my sad backstory" bingo card spots in this debate

#republican debate #thepoliticalsciencat #political science #rep deb 23 #republican debate 2023

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just-about-nothing · 9 months

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gonna be liveblogging the republican debate 2nite as a warning (will all be on this post) just fyi

#i rant #us politics #2023 republican debate

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mostlysignssomeportents · 6 months

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Big Telco’s fury over FCC plan to infuse telecoms policy with facts

I'll be at the Studio City branch of the LA Public Library on Monday, November 13 at 1830hPT to launch my new novel, The Lost Cause. There'll be a reading, a talk, a surprise guest (!!) and a signing, with books on sale. Tell your friends! Come on down!

Reality has a distinct anti-conservative bias, but conservatives have an answer: when the facts don't support your policies, just get different facts. Who needs evidence-based policy when you can have policy-based evidence?

Take gun violence. Conservatives tell us that "an armed society is a polite society," which means that the more guns you have, the less gun violence you'll experience. To prevent reality from unfairly staining this pristine ideological mind-palace with facts, conservatives passed the Dickey Amendment, which had the effect of banning the CDC from gathering stats on American gun-violence. No stats, no violence!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dickey_Amendment

Policy-based evidence is at the core of so many cherished conservative beliefs, like the idea that queer people (and not youth pastors) are responsible for the sexual abuse of children, or the idea that minimum wages (and not monopolies) decrease jobs, or the idea that socialized medicine (and not private equity) leads to death panels:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/26/death-panels/#what-the-heck-is-going-on-with-CMS

The Biden administration features a sizable cohort of effective regulators, whose job is to gather evidence and then make policy from it:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/23/getting-stuff-done/#praxis

Fortunately for conservatives, not every Biden agency is led by competent, honest brokers – the finance wing of the Dems got to foist some of their most ghoulish members upon the American people, including a no-fooling cheerleader for mass foreclosure:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/06/personnel-are-policy/#janice-eberly

And these same DINOs reached across the aisle to work with Republicans to keep some of the most competent, principled agency leaders from being seated, like the remarkable Gigi Sohn, targeted by a homophobic smear campaign funded by the telco industry, who feared her presence on the FCC:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/19/culture-war-bullshit-stole-your-broadband/

The telcos are old hands at this stuff. Long before the gun control debates, Ma Bell had figured out that a monopoly over Americans' telecoms was a license to print money, and they set to corrupting agencies from the FCC to the DoJ:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/11/14/jam-to-day/

Reality has a vicious anti-telco bias. Think of Net Neutrality, the idea that if you pay an ISP for internet service, they should make a best effort to deliver the data you request, rather than deliberately slowing down your connection in the hopes that you'll seek out data from the company's preferred partners, who've paid a bribe for "premium delivery."

This shouldn't even be up for debate. The idea that your ISP should prioritize its preferred data over your preferred data is as absurd as the idea that a taxi-driver should slow down your rides to any pizzeria except Domino's, which has paid it for "premium service." If your cabbie circled the block twice every time you asked for a ride to Massimo's Pizza, you'd be rightly pissed – and the cab company would be fined.

Back when Ajit Pai was Trump's FCC chairman, he made killing Net Neutrality his top priority. But regulators aren't allowed to act without evidence, so Pai had to seek out as much policy-based evidence as he could. To that end, Pai allowed millions of obviously fake comments to be entered into the docket (comments from dead people, one million comments from @pornhub.com address, comments from sitting Senators who disavowed them, etc). Then Pai actively – and illegally – obstructed the NY Attorney General's investigation into the fraud:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/06/boogeration/#pais-lies

The pursuit of policy-based evidence is greatly aided by the absence of real evidence. If you're gonna fill the docket with made-up nonsense, it helps if there's no truthful stuff in there to get in the way. To that end, the FCC has systematically avoided collecting data on American broadband delivery, collecting as little objective data as possible:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/26/pandemic-profiteers/#flying-blind

This willful ignorance was a huge boon to the telcos, who demanded billions in fed subsidies for "underserved areas" and then just blew it on anything they felt like – like the $45 billion of public money they wasted on obsolete copper wiring for rural "broadband" expansion under Trump:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/27/all-broadband-politics-are-local/

Like other cherished conservative delusions, the unsupportable fantasy that private industry is better at rolling out broadband is hugely consequential. Before the pandemic, this meant that America – the birthplace of the internet – had the slowest, most expensive internet service of any G8 country. During the lockdown, broadband deserts meant that millions of poor and rural Americans were cut off from employment, education, health care and family:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/12/ajit-pai/#pai

Pai's response was to commit another $8 billion in public funds to broadband expansion, but without any idea of where the broadband deserts were – just handing more money over to monopoly telcos to spend as they see fit, with zero accountability:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/26/pandemic-profiteers/#flying-blind

All that changed after the 2020 election. Pai was removed from office (and immediately blocked me on Twitter) (oh, diddums), and his successor, Biden FCC chair Jessic Rosenworcel, started gathering evidence, soliciting your broadband complaints:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/03/23/parliament-of-landlords/#fcc

And even better, your broadband speed measurements:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/14/for-sale-green-indulgences/#fly-my-pretties

All that evidence spurred Congress to act. In 2021, Congress ordered the FCC to investigate and punish discrimination in internet service provision, "based on income level, race, ethnicity, color, religion, or national origin":

https://www.congress.gov/117/plaws/publ58/PLAW-117publ58.pdf

In other words, Congress ordered the FCC to crack down on "digital redlining." That's when historic patterns of underinvestment in majority Black neighborhoods and other underserved communities create broadband deserts, where internet service is slower and more expensive than service literally across the street:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/10/flicc/#digital-divide

FCC Chair Rosenworcel has published the agency's plan for fulfilling this obligation. It's pretty straightforward: they're going to collect data on pricing, speed and other key service factors, and punish companies that practice discrimination:

https://www.fcc.gov/document/preventing-digital-discrimination-broadband-internet-access

This has provoked howls of protests from the ISP cartel, their lobbying org, and their Republican pals on the FCC. Writing for Ars Technica, Jon Brodkin rounds up a selection of these objections:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/11/internet-providers-say-the-fcc-should-not-investigate-broadband-prices/

There's GOP FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, with a Steve Bannon-seque condemnation of "the administrative state [taking] effective control of all Internet services and infrastructure in the US. He's especially pissed that the FCC is going to regulate big landlords who force all their tenants to get slow, expensive from ISPs who offer kickbacks to landlords:

https://www.fcc.gov/document/carr-opposes-bidens-internet-plan

The response from telco lobbyists NCTA is particularly, nakedly absurd: they demand that the FCC exempt price from consideration of whether an ISP is practicing discrimination, calling prices a "non-technical aspect of broadband service":

https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/document/110897268295/1

I mean, sure – it's easy to prove that an ISP doesn't discriminate against customers if you don't ask how much they charge! "Sure, you live in a historically underserved neighborhood, but technically we'll give you a 100mb fiber connection, provided you give us $20m to install it."

This is a profoundly stupid demand, but that didn't stop the wireless lobbying org CTIA from chiming in with the same talking points, demanding that the FCC drop plans to collect data on "pricing, deposits, discounts, and data caps," evaluation of price is unnecessary in the competitive wireless marketplace":

https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/document/1107735021925/1

Individual cartel members weighed in as well, with AT&T and Verizon threatening to sue over the rules, joined by yet another lobbying group, USTelecom:

https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/document/1103655327582/1

The next step in this playbook is whipping up the low-information base by calling this "socialism" and mobilizing some of the worst-served, most-gouged people in America to shoot themselves in the face (again), to own the libs:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/15/useful-idiotsuseful-idiots/#unrequited-love

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/10/digital-redlining/#stop-confusing-the-issue-with-relevant-facts

Image: Japanexperterna.se (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/japanexperterna/15251188384/

CC BY-SA 2.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

Mike Mozart (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/jeepersmedia/14325839070/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/jeepersmedia/14325905568/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/jeepersmedia/14489390566/

www.ccPixs.com https://www.flickr.com/photos/86530412@N02/8210762750/

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

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dontmeantobepoliticalbut · 11 months

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This story has been clarified to reflect that U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie said in the tweet that he believes he can read top secret information on the floor of Congress. There was no indication that he plans to read any such information.

U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie said on Twitter that he could reveal national secrets by reading them aloud in Congress.

Massie, a Kentucky Republican who tends to embrace Tea Party and Libertarian ideals, believes a clause in the U.S. Constitution enables him to read top secret information included in documents involved in former President Donald Trump's latest indictment tied to his handling of classified information aloud in committee hearings, which are broadcast live on C-SPAN.

"For what it’s worth, under the Constitution, no member of Congress can be prosecuted for reading aloud on the floor any of the documents Trump allegedly has copies of," Massie tweeted Monday.

As of Wednesday afternoon, Massie has not acted on his reading of the law by revealing top secret information.

Massie, who represents Kentucky's 4th Congressional District, has accused President Joe Biden's administration of weaponizing government with Trump's indictment. Biden has said he's never pressured the Department of Justice in the case and has not and will not speak with Attorney General Merrick Garland about it.

As part of his indictment, Trump faces 31 counts of willful retention of national defense information under the Espionage Act. The documents were described as some of the country's most important secrets, including "top secret," requiring special handling, the originator determines who receives the documents and not for release to foreign nationals, according to the indictment.

#us politics #news #the courier journal #2023 #rep. thomas massie #Kentucky #republicans #conservatives #tea party movement #libertarians #libertarians be like #speech and debate clause #us constitution #donald trump #classified documents #classified documents probe

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contemplatingoutlander · 7 days

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This is an important article about the hypocrisy of Republicans who are claiming to be fighting antisemitism while at the same time using antisemitic tropes in their messaging. This is a gift🎁link so you can read the entire article even if you do not subscribe to The New York Times. Below are some excerpts.

Debate rages over the extent to which the protests on the political left constitute coded or even direct attacks on Jews. But far less attention has been paid to a trend on the right: For all of their rhetoric of the moment, increasingly through the Trump era many Republicans have helped inject into the mainstream thinly veiled anti-Jewish messages with deep historical roots. The conspiracy theory taking on fresh currency is one that dates back hundreds of years and has perennially bubbled into view: that a shady cabal of wealthy Jews secretly controls events and institutions contrary to the national interest of whatever country it is operating in. The current formulation of the trope taps into the populist loathing of an elite “ruling class.” “Globalists” or “globalist elites” are blamed for everything from Black Lives Matter to the influx of migrants across the southern border, often described as a plot to replace native-born Americans with foreigners who will vote for Democrats. The favored personification of the globalist enemy is George Soros, the 93-year-old Hungarian American Jewish financier and Holocaust survivor who has spent billions in support of liberal causes and democratic institutions. [...] In a July 2023 email to supporters, the Trump campaign employed an image that bears striking resemblance to a Nazi-era cartoon of a hook-nosed puppet master manipulating world figures: Mr. Soros as puppet master, pulling the strings controlling President Biden.

[...] The review found that last year at least 790 emails from Mr. Trump to his supporters invoked Mr. Soros or globalists conspiratorially, a meteoric rise from prior years. The Times also found that House and Senate Republicans increasingly used “Soros” and “globalist” in ways that evoked the historical tropes, from just a handful of messages in 2013 to more than 300 messages from 79 members in 2023.

I encourage you to read the entire article. The level of hypocrisy here is horrific.

#antisemitism #republicans #fascism #antisemetic tropes #george soros #the new york times #gift link

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the-cimmerians · 2 months

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At midnight on Saturday, more than 20 anti-LGBTQ+ bills died in West Virginia after the legislature adjourned sine die. Bills that did not pass included the misleadingly named "Women’s Bill of Rights," which would have ended legal recognition for transgender people in the state, as well as a bill that would have prohibited gender-affirming care for all transgender youth. West Virginia is the second state in a week hinting that anti-transgender legislative attacks are encountering resistance. Last week, Florida's legislature also adjourned, effectively killing dozens of anti-transgender bills.

One bill that failed to pass as the West Virginia legislature adjourned was House Bill 5243, also known as the misleadingly-named "Women’s Bill of Rights" by its proponents. The bill primarily aimed to exclude transgender individuals from all legal gender protections in the state. Riley Gaines, who heavily promoted the bill, joined Governor Jim Justice at a press conference where it was announced as a major policy priority. The proposed legislation would have led to bathroom restrictions, prohibitions on driver's license and ID changes, and the elimination of legal recognition for transgender people's gender identities. Despite frantic, last-minute efforts by some Republicans to pass it, Democratic lawmakers countered by proposing dozens of amendments for debate. As a result, Republicans placed it at the bottom of the calendar.

“HB 5243 offered no real tangible protections for cisgender women, all while punching down on another marginalized community, and sought to erase protections for transgender West Virginians,” says Ash Orr, a trans organizer in West Virginia, “Essentially, it amounted to yet another culture war bill designed to divert attention from genuine issues affecting all residents of West Virginia.”

Another bill that did not pass in West Virginia was House Bill 5297, which sought to entirely prohibit gender-affirming care for all transgender youth. The state had previously enacted a ban on gender-affirming care, but it included an exception for transgender youth experiencing "severe dysphoria." HB 5297 aimed to eliminate that exception. More than 400 health care providers signed a letter opposing the bill, describing gender-affirming care as lifesaving and urging the legislature to reject it. The bill failed to pass before the legislature adjourned, meaning that at least some transgender youth in the state will continue to be able to receive care, making it one of the few red states where this is still the case.

The state is the latest in a series of developments suggesting that the anti-transgender panic gripping the GOP may be diminishing in the lead-up to the 2024 elections. Florida also recently adjourned without passing numerous anti-transgender and anti-LGBTQ+ bills. Recent elections have raised questions about the effectiveness of anti-transgender policies in driving voter turnout. In 2023, more than 70% of Moms for Liberty candidates were defeated. The Virginia legislature shifted to Democratic control, despite Governor Youngkin's efforts to campaign for Republicans by emphasizing anti-transgender politics as a policy priority. Governor Andy Beshear was reelected in Kentucky despite substantial ad expenditures attacking him for vetoing anti-transgender legislation.

When asked about the failure of these to pass, Orr stated, “The truth is, transgender people of all ages are living happy, complete, and beautiful lives - this contradicts the false narrative created around our community by anti-transgender politicians.”

The only bill that did pass in the state was a bill that would stop non-binary gender markers on birth certificates, though it is unclear what effect the legislation would have given that the state did not have a history of issuing such birth certificates.

Although these bills are failing to pass in states that have historically targeted transgender individuals, it remains unclear whether their failure signifies a genuine shift away from targeting LGBTQ+ people or merely a pause in anticipation of the 2024 election outcomes. The threat remains significant in many areas, with a few extreme bills being enacted this year, including a gender-affirming care ban in Wyoming and an adult bathroom ban in Utah. Additionally, some new states have witnessed the successful advancement of anti-trans legislation, such as a "Parents Rights in Education" bill in Washington, which could lead to forced outings, and a bill in New Hampshire that permits sports and bathroom bans. The national budget debate also includes anti-trans provisions that are still under negotiation.

Nevertheless, activists in states that have experienced the most severe attacks see reasons for celebration and hope. The failure of dozens of bills targeting the LGBTQ+ community means that residents in these states will have another year to prepare and strategize. If the 2024 elections yield unfavorable results for Republicans who have advocated anti-transgender legislation, similar to the outcomes in 2022 and 2023, it could further argue against the political viability of making these bills a policy priority. Most importantly, transgender individuals in these states are granted the valuable gift of time to catch their breath following the relentless barrage of legislative efforts that have dominated political discourse over the past five years.

#us politics #West Virginia #protect trans lives #Erin Reed #in support of an informed and engaged electorate #your vote matters SO MUCH

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kp777 · 8 months

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By Jessica Corbett

Common Dreams

Sept. 26, 2023

Open internet advocates across the United States celebrated on Tuesday as Federal Communications Commission Chair Jessica Rosenworcel announced her highly anticipated proposal to reestablish FCC oversight of broadband and restore net neutrality rules.

"We thank the FCC for moving swiftly to begin the process of reinstating net neutrality regulations," said ACLU senior policy counsel Jenna Leventoff. "The internet is our nation's primary marketplace of ideas—and it's critical that access to that marketplace is not controlled by the profit-seeking whims of powerful telecommunications giants."

Rosenworcel—appointed to lead the commission by President Joe Biden—discussed the history of net neutrality and her new plan to treat broadband as a public utility in a speech at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., which came on the heels of the U.S. Senate's recent confirmation of Anna Gomez to a long-vacant FCC seat.

Back in 2005, "the agency made clear that when it came to net neutrality, consumers should expect that their broadband providers would not block, throttle, or engage in paid prioritization of lawful internet traffic," she recalled. "In other words, your broadband provider had no business cutting off access to websites, slowing down internet services, and censoring online speech."

"Giant corporations and their lobbyists... will try every trick to block or delay the agency from restoring net neutrality."

After a decade of policymaking and litigation, net neutrality rules were finalized in 2015. However, a few years later—under former FCC Chair Ajit Pai, an appointee of ex-President Donald Trump—the commission caved to industry pressure and repealed them.

"The public backlash was overwhelming. People lit up our phone lines, clogged our email inboxes, and jammed our online comment system to express their disapproval," noted Rosenworcel, who was a commissioner at the time and opposed the repeal. "So today we begin a process to make this right."

The chair is proposing to reclassify broadband under Title II of the Communications Act, which "is the part of the law that gives the FCC clear authority to serve as a watchdog over the communications marketplace and look out for the public interest," she explained. "Title II took on special importance in the net neutrality debate because the courts have ruled that the FCC has clear authority to enforce open internet policies if broadband internet is classified as a Title II service."

"On issue after issue, reclassifying broadband as a Title II service would help the FCC serve the public interest more efficiently and effectively," she pointed out, detailing how it relates to public safety, national security, cybersecurity, network resilience and reliability, privacy, broadband deployment, and robotexts.

Rosenworcel intends to release the full text of the proposal on Thursday and hold a vote regarding whether to kick off rulemaking on October 19. While Brendan Carr, one of the two Republican commissioners, signaled his opposition to the Title II approach on Tuesday, Gomez's confirmation earlier this month gives Democrats a 3-2 majority at the FCC.

"Giant corporations and their lobbyists blocked President Biden from filling the final FCC seat for more than two years, and they will try every trick to block or delay the agency from restoring net neutrality now," Demand Progress communications director Maria Langholz warned Tuesday. "The commission must remain resolute and fully restore free and open internet protections to ensure broadband service providers like Comcast and Verizon treat all content equally."

"Americans' internet experience should not be at the whims of corporate executives whose primary concerns are the pockets of their stakeholders and the corporations' bottom line," she added, also applauding the chair.

Free Press co-CEO Jessica J. González similarly praised Rosenworcel and stressed that "without Title II, broadband users are left vulnerable to discrimination, content throttling, dwindling competition, extortionate and monopolistic prices, billing fraud, and other shady behavior."

"As this proceeding gets under way, we will hear all manner of lies from the lobbyists and lawyers representing big phone and cable companies," she predicted. "They'll say anything and everything to avoid being held accountable. But broadband providers and their spin doctors are deeply out of touch with people across the political spectrum, who are fed up with high prices and unreliable services. These people demand a referee on the field to call fouls and issue penalties when broadband companies are being unfair."

Like Rosenworcel, in her Tuesday speech, González also highlighted that "one thing we learned from the Covid-19 pandemic is that broadband is essential infrastructure—it enables us to access education, employment, healthcare, and more."

That "more" includes civic engagement, as leaders at Common Cause noted Tuesday. Ishan Mehta, who directs the group's Media and Democracy Program, said that "the internet has fundamentally changed how people are civically engaged and is critical to participating in society today. It is the primary communications platform, a virtual public square, and has been a powerful organizing tool, allowing social justice movements to gain momentum and widespread support."

After the Trump-era repeal, Mehta explained, "we saw broadband providers throttle popular video streaming services, degrade video quality, forcing customers to pay higher prices for improved quality, offer service plans that favor their own services over competitors, and make hollow, voluntary, and unenforceable promises not to disconnect their customers during the pandemic."

Given how broadband providers have behaved, Michael Copps, a Common Cause special adviser and former FCC commissioner, said that "to allow a handful of monopoly-aspiring gatekeepers to control access to the internet is a direct threat to our democracy."

Rosenworcel's speech came a day after U.S. Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) led over two dozen of their colleagues in sending a letter calling for the restoration of net neutrality protections. The pair said in a statement Tuesday that "broadband is not a luxury. It is an essential utility and it is imperative that the FCC's authority reflects the necessary nature of the internet in Americans' lives today."

"We need net neutrality so that small businesses are not shoved into online slow lanes, so that powerful social media companies cannot stifle competition, and so that users can always freely speak their minds on social media and advocate for the issues that are most important to them," they said. "We applaud Chairwoman Rosenworcel for her leadership and look forward to working with the FCC to ensure a just broadband future for everyone."

#net neutrality #FCC #Jessica Rosenworcel #ACLU #Common Cause #open internet #democracy

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