All purpose news and politics thread part VII: News & Politics Total Landscaping

[Robotman]

Trump Reportedly Asks Fossil Fuel CEOs For $1 Billion

In exchange, the former president vowed to undo many of President Joe Biden's green energy policies. Quid pro quo on steroids, the cream, the clear, Andro, the whole miserable nine yards. I'd just LOVE to see any of our right wing friends here defend this scummy transactional shit.

It’s crazy but it’s really not hyperbole to say that Trump getting re-elected would be detrimental to the entire human race. Rolling back any environmental protections and attempts to fight climate change when we’re hanging on by a thread.

2023 was the warmest year in the modern temperature record

[Mutant X]

It’s crazy but it’s really not hyperbole to say that Trump getting re-elected would be detrimental to the entire human race. Rolling back any environmental protections and attempts to fight climate change when we’re hanging on by a thread.

2023 was the warmest year in the modern temperature record

I don't know if you guys have heard about it. But here in Brazil, we are facing catastrophic consequences of climate change right now.

[Tami]

Trying to blackmail Columbia University is a bad look for these Trump judges

This week 13 conservative judges, all of whom were appointed by former President Donald Trump, told the president of Columbia University in a letter that they won’t hire as judicial law clerks future graduates of Columbia Law School (or even those who went to Columbia University as undergraduates). In a letter that was also sent to the law school’s dean, the judges say they won’t change their minds unless the school acquiesces to their demands for more conservative faculty and staff members, punishment for students who broke the school’s rules and an end to what they believe are enforcement policies that are biased against conservatives.

The judges, who are wrongly using their positions of power in an attempt to extort change at a private institution, claim that Columbia has “become an incubator of bigotry,” and they profess to have “no doubt that the university’s response would have been profoundly different” if the protestors were “religious conservatives” who “view abortion as a tragic genocide.”

But perhaps most important, what we have with this letter is members of our judiciary using their federal posts to all but blackmail a private university to bend to their political will. This is political activism unbecoming of any member of our federal judiciary. Let’s remember that these are judges who received lifetime appointments because they’re supposed to stay outside of politics.

[hyped78]

Hillary Clinton slams pro-palestinian protesters on ignorance of Middle East history

https://www.newsweek.com/hillary-cli...e-east-1899106
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/09/u...l-history.html

"Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has suggested that pro-Palestinian protesters at college campuses across the nation are uneducated about the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."

"Clinton suggested campus protesters may have fallen prey to pro-Hamas "propaganda" on social media and in the classroom, adding young people are consuming information that often has a hidden "agenda" or lacks "any kind of context."

"Propaganda is not education," Clinton said. "Propaganda, whether it's on TikTok or in the classroom, is actually the opposite of education. Anybody who is teaching in a university, or anyone who is putting content on social media, should be held responsible for what they include and what they exclude."

"So much of what we're seeing—particularly on TikTok—about what's going on in the Middle East, is woefully false," she continued. "But it's also incredibly slanted: pro-Hamas, anti-Israel. And it is not any place where anyone should go to get information on complex manners, like what's going on there."

Clinton concluded by saying that educators "need to do a better job" in helping young people understand how to "filter" and interpret information on world affairs, while avoiding the pitfalls of falling into "easy absolutes" on issues that are "too complicated.""

[Dalak]

Trump Reportedly Asks Fossil Fuel CEOs For $1 Billion

In exchange, the former president vowed to undo many of President Joe Biden's green energy policies. Quid pro quo on steroids, the cream, the clear, Andro, the whole miserable nine yards. I'd just LOVE to see any of our right wing friends here defend this scummy transactional shit.

Asking for a bribe openly, and it's not even the first time. How far we've come.

It’s crazy but it’s really not hyperbole to say that Trump getting re-elected would be detrimental to the entire human race. Rolling back any environmental protections and attempts to fight climate change when we’re hanging on by a thread.

2023 was the warmest year in the modern temperature record

I don't know if you guys have heard about it. But here in Brazil, we are facing catastrophic consequences of climate change right now.

Yes, we need to do something about this yesterday, but with the politicization of it by conservatives in America they will dig in and fight it just to avoid letting the Dems get a win. These problems will affect their children, grandchildren, and descendants for generations to come, but they only care that they don't catch the LGBT's.

Whether Biden's been right or wrong, overachieved or come up short, at least he's been doing his best to help the American people, a stark contrast to Trump who's only out to help himself and the wealthy while leaving the rest of us to fend for ourselves. Has Trump mentioned anything about helping lift the people out of the sort of "dire" financial straits our esteemed right leaning posters bring up ad nauseam? If he does have such a plan, I'd be curious to know what it is....unless of course Trump has no plan, other than to fatten the pockets of the uber-rich while telling his easily fooled supporters that minorities, immigrants and gays are responsible for their suffering.

People tend to forget the trade wars with China Trump got us involved in, and how being so buddy-buddy with Putin resulted in the war with Ukraine which hurt global wheat prices, which makes Fast Food more expensive, which makes it all BIDENS FAULT obviously.

Hmm

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/ar...search/678292/

Your article is locked behind a sub/paywall, which is sad because it looks intriguing.

Trying to blackmail Columbia University is a bad look for these Trump judges

Open Blackmail is right up there with Open Bribes . . . how far we've come.

[Tami]

I don't know if you guys have heard about it. But here in Brazil, we are facing catastrophic consequences of climate change right now.

Some places, like Brazil, are getting hit hard right now. Other places are only just experiencing the outer edges of the effects. I don't know enough about what makes some places more vulnerable than others, but the effects should become more widespread and more noticeable over the next ten years or so.

[Zelena]

Some places, like Brazil, are getting hit hard right now. Other places are only just experiencing the outer edges of the effects. I don't know enough about what makes some places more vulnerable than others, but the effects should become more widespread and more noticeable over the next ten years or so.

The climate change increases the effects of natural climatic variations. After all, climate probably played a role in Mayan civilisation collapse.

Nowadays we cover a larger part of the surface of the Earth so more prone to be victim of natural catastrophies. Hard to say if we are more or less resilient than past civilisations.

One thing is sure: climate change is here to stay and we don’t know how far it will go…

[CaptainEurope]

The climate change increases the effects of natural climatic variations. After all, climate probably played a role in Mayan civilisation collapse.

Nowadays we cover a larger part of the surface of the Earth so more prone to be victim of natural catastrophies. Hard to say if we are more or less resilient than past civilisations.

One thing is sure: climate change is here to stay and we don’t know how far it will go…

Yet nobody ever seems to protest autocratic Azerbaijan at Eurovision, even though the affluence of the country is built on killing millions over the next years by destroying the climate.

Screenshot 2024-05-10 180933.jpg

[CaptainEurope]

Now happening: Steve Bannon's conviction for defying the Jan. 6 committee has been upheld by a unanimous three-judge panel of the DC Circuit Court of Appeals.

His four-month jail sentence has been on hold pending this ruling. This was his final shot at appeals. He's going to jail.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Now happening: Steve Bannon's conviction for defying the Jan. 6 committee has been upheld by a unanimous three-judge panel of the DC Circuit Court of Appeals.

His four-month jail sentence has been on hold pending this ruling. This was his final shot at appeals. He's going to jail.

Just four months? That's all? And how long had Sloppy Steve been trying to delay the inevitable? Just like every MAGA he-man, Bannon was scared to death of ending up behind bars. Pathetic!

[Mister Mets]

Nancy Mace claims that former staffers mismanaged one million dollars, and spied on her accounts. They say it was all due to mistakes she made.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...1-million.html

Mace, 46, says the departed staffers mismanaged $1million, hacked her phone, spied on medical records, and even submerged electronic devices in water and deleted files to cover their tracks.

The mother-of-two claims they even went as far snooping on her childrens' calendars and would monitor doctor appointments.

Mace, 46, says the departed staffers mismanaged $1million, hacked her phone, spied on medical records, and even submerged electronic devices in water and deleted files to cover their tracks.

The mother-of-two claims they even went as far snooping on her childrens' calendars and would monitor doctor appointments.

Her new team is still trying to repair damage, she said.

'I knew that they were sabotaging the office for a while. I didn't know to the extent that they were doing it,' Mace told DailyMail.com in a sit-down interview at her Capitol Hill home, the one at the center of a dispute between her and her ex-fiancé.

'They were signing my name on documents they didn't have permission to do - one of them submerged their electronic devices under water so we couldn't access their files. They deleted files, some of them deleted files off our server, so there'd be no documentation for the new staff that were coming in.'

In December, the congresswoman fired her chief of staff Dan Hanlon, then her deputy chief of staff, Richard Chalkey, and legislative director, Randal Meyer, resigned. A total of nine staffers had departed the office by February.

Mace went on: 'We had another former staffer that would leak the names of the new employees we were hiring so that negative stories could be written about them.'

'We even had interns quit because old staff threatened the interns, threatened that they would never get a job on the hill if they worked in my office.'

Mace said she had another former staff member who hacked her devices and was tracking her for nine months.

'Literally, they could see where I was at all times. They could see my kids' calendars, my doctors' appointments, my medical information.'

'The stories I have from some of my former staff are horrific, and were a massive invasion of my privacy.'

But not only that, she said.

'We're finding thousands of dollars in bills they didn't pay,' the congresswoman went on. 'Paperwork that didn't get filed that was supposed to.'

Mace was irate to find out that her staff had left close to $1 million on the table in her office budget. 'It was $400,000 in 2022 and close to half a million in 2023,' she said.

'It's our job to manage our office, be fiscally responsible, but to use everything we have to communicate our constituent services,' she said.

'If people don't know that, hey, you didn't get your IRS refund in 2020,w e'll help you or if you need an appointment at the VA, and you've waited for six months and you need assistance, we'll get that appointment for you. Heck, I'll even call the DMV if you can't get in the DMV.'

'That money could have also gone toward salaries, bonuses - especially if you're entry level, it's really hard to get by in D.C.,' she went on. 'It was really outrageous.'

It's not clear who exactly burned the bridge as the staff departed en masse. Mace claims her old staff was plotting against her, and she's found relief in a new group of aides she can trust. But former Mace employees have described a 'toxic' worked environment.

A source familiar with the daily operations of the office shot back: 'The swamp has truly gotten to Nancy Mace. A 'fiscally conservative' congresswoman is upset that staff saved her constituents money?'

Any money unspent in an office budget goes back to the Treasury.

'I guess she never understood that the office budget is not a personal bank account. Ask her mentor, Senator Paul. Every year he sends unspent funds back to the Treasury to pay down the debt. Rep. Mace would rather spend tax money on vanity mail pieces than return a dime back to the American people.'

Two former staffers laid blame on Mace for failing to give approval for a $400,000 mailing program in 2022 before deadline.

They denied that her personal devices had been hacked, and said it was standard routine for elected officials to share their personal calendars with staff.

'She had a personal calendar, a political calendar, and official calendar. All three of those calendars were managed and shared with senior staff so that we could go about the daily operations. No one hacked her accounts. She set them all up.'

'She routinely would try to revoke access, be like 'you can no longer see my calendar' for a couple of weeks. And you know what, we couldn't do our jobs.'

'This seems to be stemming from paranoia and trust issues,' another former staffer said. 'She's clearly unwell and I hope she gets help.'

Everything the staff had access to was granted by her.'

The former aide claimed that the 'submerged device' allegation stemmed from a staff member who dropped water on their computer and took it to the tech team. 'This wasn't espionage or something.'

As for signing her name without her permission, 'she's talking about the run-of-the-mill, every office has hand stamp of a member. This is a stamp that she had directed our team to use for clerical tasks that she didn't want to be bothered with.'

After former chief Dan Hanlon left the office, he launched a brief primary run against her, propped up by other former aides.

Her best case scenario is that she's really bad at choosing employees.

[hyped78]

Yet nobody ever seems to protest autocratic Azerbaijan at Eurovision, even though the affluence of the country is built on killing millions over the next years by destroying the climate.

Because that's not "cool", apparently...

[Catlady in training]

Yet nobody ever seems to protest autocratic Azerbaijan at Eurovision, even though the affluence of the country is built on killing millions over the next years by destroying the climate.

Screenshot 2024-05-10 180933.jpg

FWIW, I've seen some people saying that even if Israel was forbidden from competing, they would still boycott it out of solidarity with Armenia. And reminding people to boycott Azerbaijan too if they boycott Israel. But that seems to be very tiny minority compared to those who only talk about boycotting Israel. Make of that what you want...

[SquirrelMan]

FWIW, I've seen some people saying that even if Israel was forbidden from competing, they would still boycott it out of solidarity with Armenia. And reminding people to boycott Azerbaijan too if they boycott Israel. But that seems to be very tiny minority compared to those who only talk about boycotting Israel. Make of that what you want...

I saw a Jewish American journalist put it this way on twitter:
No Jews, no news.

[Catlady in training]

And of course, we are now buying gas from Azerbaijan instead of Russia, so we conveniently look the other way too...