All purpose news and politics thread part v: The quickening

[Malvolio]

Yeah, I think Trump is getting to the point where he's running out of Lackeys to do the menial jobs he can't do himself.

Well, yeah. No one else wants to work for the guy, so he has to go back and rehire some of the people he fired.

[jetengine]

I don't know why the Berners are so angry Biden's still here. If he IS fucking up as much as they belive then at this point his money and time are effectively meat shields for Bernie so the GOP focus on Biden

[numberthirty]

Much of their movement is rooted in the lie that "moderates don't win" despite Obama winning twice and moderates recently dominating the midterm elections.

The same goes for (moderate) Hillary beating (progressive) Sanders by millions of votes, despite being (by their own estimation) a "terrible" candidate.

They can't talk facts because they know the facts are against them -- that's why they usually just attack other candidates and the Democratic party instead.

If progressives (Sanders) were as strong as they claim, there would be no need to lie about moderates in comparison -- their record would speak for itself.

Absent an actual record of success, however, they have to try to make moderates look like failures in order to make Sanders look like the better option.

And the facts are not against any of the moderates...

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/26/u...donations.html

Michael Bloomberg Has Used His Fortune to Help Republicans, Too

In 2016, Democrats thought they had found the perfect candidate to win a United States Senate seat in Pennsylvania and put them within striking distance of taking back the majority. But Katie McGinty, an environmental policy expert with degrees in chemistry and law, ran into an overwhelming obstacle: Michael R. Bloomberg’s fortune.

The former mayor of New York poured in $11.7 million to help re-elect the Republican incumbent, Senator Pat Toomey, who had led an effort, albeit unsuccessful, to expand background checks for gun purchasers, a top priority of Mr. Bloomberg’s.

Mr. Toomey won by less than two percentage points, handing a key victory to the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell: The Republicans held on to control of the chamber by two seats. At the time, it was the most expensive Senate race the country had ever seen, and Mr. Bloomberg’s money was one of the largest influxes of outside influence.

A review of Mr. Bloomberg’s giving shows that he has not only backed Republicans in competitive and pivotal races like Mr. Toomey’s, but that he has also sunk money into Republican primaries on behalf of McConnell allies. They include Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina — Mr. Bloomberg helped Mr. Graham in 2014 by giving $250,000 to a PAC supporting him — and the late Senator Thad Cochran of Mississippi, who in 2014 fought off a Tea Party insurgent by just a few thousand votes and had $250,000 in support from Mr. Bloomberg.

[numberthirty]

Actual fact:

Bloomberg sunk his money into creating the current set of problems folks are trying to fix.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Yeah, I think Trump is getting to the point where he's running out of Lackeys to do the menial jobs he can't do himself.

Can't do, or won't do? There's a difference.

====================

Billionaire Bloomy saying bad things (past) and doing bad things (present):

Mike Bloomberg Once Blamed End Of ‘Redlining’ For 2008 Economic Collapse

Michael Bloomberg Quietly Rejoined Clubs That Largely Exclude Women, Minorities

To paraphrase Ricky Ricardo, Mikey, you got some 'splainin' to do!

**********

Trump Tells Gov. Cuomo To Drop New York State Lawsuits Against Him

Trump tweeted his ire before the two met to discuss the suspension of a travel program that undocumented immigrants in New York could use. I hope Cuomo told Trump to take a long walk on a short pier.

**********

Mitch McConnell Tells Trump To Stop Tweeting In The Lamest Possible Way

The Senate Republican repeatedly said that Trump should listen to the attorney general’s advice to exercise restraint on Twitter. Yeah, lame is the best description for the meek rebuttal by Midnight Mitch on Trump's latest harangue.

**********

Coronavirus Death Toll Nears 1,400 In China, With 5,090 New Cases

The number of reported cases has been rising more quickly after the hardest-hit province changed its method of counting them Thursday.

**********

‘Bunch Of Thugs’: W.Va. Governor Refuses To Apologize For Insult To Girls’ Basketball Team

And he doesn’t see why the term has been called racist. Oh, WBEEEEEEEE....!

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2015, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" ran a profile of Greg Collett, a three-time losing candidate for the Idaho State Senate who has the chutzpah to campaign against the Affordable Care Act and government being involved with insurance while simultaneously having his ten children on Medicaid. He responded to criticism for this from both the right, and the left, by going online to cite Mormon doctrine to defend his stunning hypocrisy. Not to be limited to kooky on just one issue, Collett also claims that "public education is one of the planks of the Communist Manifesto". After quickly making himself the butt of many jokes, he faded from view in Idaho politics.



In 2016, 2017, 2018, as well as in 2019, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" published its profiles of Missouri State Senator Andrew Koenig (who should still not be confused with the actor who played Boner on the TV show "Growing Pains" and then would eventually take his own life in 2010.) In his nine years in the Missouri state legislature, Koenig has been involved in some of the dumbest efforts that body has seen in that time frame, first as one of the co-sponsors of HB 283, Missouri's "Birther Bill" back in 2011, hanging out with Orly Taitz and later Koenig also supported a bill to prohibit compliance with the United Nations Agenda 21 environmental treaty a few years ago, apparently because he's another one of those conservatives who believe it's a secret plot for global domination. In May 2014, that Koenig sponsored HB 1587, a bill to prevent teachers from misinforming students about "scientific controversies," specifically citing "the theory of biological and hypotheses of chemical evolution" as controversial. That got him mentioned on the Colbert Report... but believe it or not, that's not the only time Koenig was raked over the coals by Colbert, as he also did in 2012 for trying to place a ban on school teachers from talking about being gay, at all.

Hell, Koenig's response to the civil unrest in Ferguson, Missouri after the shooting death of Michael Brown was to vote for a bill to make it easier for police officers to declare their use of deadly force was justified. But don't worry, he doesn't want the police state to get to restrictive, as he also put out a nullification bill that would prohibit Missouri law enforcement from enforcing federal firearms laws. Speaking of nullification, Koenig is a huge fan, because he also co-sponsored and voted for legislation to try and have Missouri prohibit implementation of the Affordable Care Act, apparently showing he doesn't know how the Civil War started, but thinking fighting against socialized healthcare is worth that kind of conflict happening again. To this day, Andrew Koenig still continues to ignore basic facts to push forth partisan bills, like how after the Planned Parenthood videos were debunked was strategically edited, and widely misleading frauds by a pro-life group, he still insisted on trying to create legislation to assure that any fetal remains are destroyed in an incinerator, rather than be used for stem cell research, or any other scientific endeavor, or perhaps even allowing investigators to just perform surprise inspections of clinics whenever they want without a warrant, because the 4th Amendment shouldn't apply to them.

And you think he would know Planned Parenthood was found innocent of any wrongdoing, considering he led the witch hunt by chairing the Missouri House Committee that was looking for any kind of evidence they could to justify that. He’s also co-sponsored legislation to create stricter Voter Identification laws and legislation to attempt to drug test people on welfare. Koenig continued pushing for even more strict Voter ID legislation, and made another attempt at getting a ban on fetal tissue donation passed.

In February of 2017, Koenig made a fool of himself after he took to the floor of the Missouri House to speak in defense of a transphobic bathroom bill in the state legislature aimed at public school children, and argued:

"Kids say funny things."'Oh, when I grow up I want to be a dog,' or who knows what. But that doesn’t mean that I turn around and try to cultivate that and say, ‘Yes, you can be a dog. Kids, in play, they say different things. They say, 'I want to be a spaceship.' Does that mean that we should say something like that and affirm that?"

It was at that point that Dr. Sharon Dunski Vermont testified and handed Koenig his ass for not knowing the difference between a transgendered teen and a child playing pretend.

In the summer of 2017, Koenig sponsored SB 5, an anti-abortion TRAP law aimed at closing all of the abortion clinics in Missouri. He spent 2018 trying to pass whatever bills he can to cut the corporate tax rate in Missouri, as if the angry ghost of Grover Norquist was coming for him (which would really be strange, given Norquist isn’t dead), and because he works for only corporations and not actual people. This past year, he voted for a bill to ban abortion in Missouri “if Roe v. Wade is overturned”.

Andrew Koenig is up for re-election in 2020, and his challenger is Democratic state legislator Deb Lavender, who previously flipped a traditionally red seat in the Missouri House of Representatives blue for the first time back in 2014. We’re hoping that in 2020, Lavender can do the same with a State Senate seat, and send Andrew Koenig packing.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

I don't know why the Berners are so angry Biden's still here. If he IS fucking up as much as they belive then at this point his money and time are effectively meat shields for Bernie so the GOP focus on Biden

There’s like one person who said that and nearly every other pro Bernie person said it was dumb for him to drop out

[aja_christopher]

Actual fact:

Bloomberg sunk his money into creating the current set of problems folks are trying to fix.

He also "sunk his money" into trying to help African-Americans and Latinos in NY -- what has Sanders done with his own money to help black and Latino kids?

And don't try to deflect -- name exactly (i.e. factually) what Sanders is doing to address racial inequality directly.

Like I said before -- all you can do is try to drag down other candidates because "progressives" don't do any better and don't win presidential elections.

No candidate is perfect, including Sanders, who only recently addressed issues of race when he discovered he needed those votes to win the nomination.

-----
"Launched in August 2011, the NYC Young Men’s Initiative (YMI) is a cross-agency enterprise that is culmination of 18 months of work, begun when New York City committed to finding new ways to tackle the crisis affecting its young Black and Latino men. The City pledged to invest a combination of public and private funds to support new programs and policies designed to address disparities between young Black and Latino men and their peers across numerous outcomes related to education, health, employment and the criminal justice system.

These programs and policies will break down barriers to success and help young black and Latino men achieve their professional, educational and personal goals. The Young Men’s Initiative is funded through a combination of city funding and generous contributions from Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Campaign for Black Male Achievement at the Open Society Foundation...

To strengthen educational supports, $18 million will help provide transformative mentoring and literacy services while a $24 million investment will launch the Expanded Success Initiative, a pioneering effort that will target schools that have shown progress in closing the achievement gap in high school graduation and use them as a laboratory for strategies to eradicate the achievement gap in college and career readiness.

Additionally, an investment of almost $25 million will connect young men with employment opportunities via an expansion of Jobs-Plus, an evidence-based program that saturates public housing communities with high-quality services, community support for work, and removes barriers to obtaining employment."

http://www.nyc.gov/html/ymi/html/about/about.shtml
https://www.bloomberg.org/press/rele...-latino-males/

-----
"Obama Builds on Bloomberg's Young Men's Initiative"

"President Obama plans to draw from one of Mayor Bloomberg's signature initiatives to ensure young men of color have access to more economic opportunity. The former mayor will be at the White House Thursday when Obama makes the official announcement.

The new national program is based on Bloomberg's Young Men's Initiative, which launched in 2011 to help men of color access education, employment, and mentoring opportunities at more than a dozen city agencies. It was designed using the results of a study commissioned by the city on the barriers facing young black and Latino men compared to their peers.

President Obama talked about the "tough odds" facing men of color in his State of the Union address last month and promised a new initiative to help them reach their full potential.

The White House program will be called "My Brother's Keeper."

https://www.wnyc.org/story/president...ns-initiative/

[Steel Inquisitor]

And the facts are not against any of the moderates...

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/26/u...donations.html

The context for aja_christopher's response to why some leftists have trouble accepting that moderates have a greater track record at getting elected then they do. That fact isn't going to go away, and their movement won't get stronger by going into denial over it. Moderates don't owe their winning steak to Bloomberg.

[numberthirty]

He also "sunk his money" into trying to help African-Americans and Latinos in NY -- what has Sanders done with his own money to help black and Latino kids?

And don't try to deflect -- name exactly (i.e. factually) what Sanders is doing to address racial inequality directly.

Like I said before -- all you can do is try to drag down other candidates because "progressives" don't do any better and don't win presidential elections.

No candidate is perfect, including Sanders, who only recently addressed issues of race when he discovered he needed those votes to win the nomination.

-----
"Launched in August 2011, the NYC Young Men’s Initiative (YMI) is a cross-agency enterprise that is culmination of 18 months of work, begun when New York City committed to finding new ways to tackle the crisis affecting its young Black and Latino men. The City pledged to invest a combination of public and private funds to support new programs and policies designed to address disparities between young Black and Latino men and their peers across numerous outcomes related to education, health, employment and the criminal justice system.

These programs and policies will break down barriers to success and help young black and Latino men achieve their professional, educational and personal goals. The Young Men’s Initiative is funded through a combination of city funding and generous contributions from Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Campaign for Black Male Achievement at the Open Society Foundation...

To strengthen educational supports, $18 million will help provide transformative mentoring and literacy services while a $24 million investment will launch the Expanded Success Initiative, a pioneering effort that will target schools that have shown progress in closing the achievement gap in high school graduation and use them as a laboratory for strategies to eradicate the achievement gap in college and career readiness.

Additionally, an investment of almost $25 million will connect young men with employment opportunities via an expansion of Jobs-Plus, an evidence-based program that saturates public housing communities with high-quality services, community support for work, and removes barriers to obtaining employment."

http://www.nyc.gov/html/ymi/html/about/about.shtml
https://www.bloomberg.org/press/rele...-latino-males/

-----
"Obama Builds on Bloomberg's Young Men's Initiative"

"President Obama plans to draw from one of Mayor Bloomberg's signature initiatives to ensure young men of color have access to more economic opportunity. The former mayor will be at the White House Thursday when Obama makes the official announcement.

The new national program is based on Bloomberg's Young Men's Initiative, which launched in 2011 to help men of color access education, employment, and mentoring opportunities at more than a dozen city agencies. It was designed using the results of a study commissioned by the city on the barriers facing young black and Latino men compared to their peers.

President Obama talked about the "tough odds" facing men of color in his State of the Union address last month and promised a new initiative to help them reach their full potential.

The White House program will be called "My Brother's Keeper."

https://www.wnyc.org/story/president...ns-initiative/

Not dropping just shy of twelve million on helping Republicans hold onto the Senate in 2016.

That's what he has done.

If folks are going to be consistently blamed for not voting "Against" Trump, there is no way that you can apply that same logic to Bloomberg actually dropping nearly twelve million on helping Republicans hold onto a Senate that has put Trump's judicial appointments onto the bench and not pin a large part of the squarely on Bloomberg and his involvement.

[aja_christopher]

Not dropping just shy of twelve million on helping Republicans hold onto the Senate in 2016.

That's what he has done.

So Sanders has done nothing positive on that level, so you're going to continue to try to resort to negative campaigning.

Meanwhile, he also lost a primary against "terrible moderate" Hillary by millions of votes, which is the main issue at hand going into the general election.

Thanks for clearing that up.

So far as not "voting against" Trump goes, at least Bloomberg can own up to his mistakes, apologize for them, and try to make amends.

Something I have yet to see from either you with regards to Trump, or Sanders with regards to divisive politics within the Democratic party.

[numberthirty]

So Sanders has done nothing positive on that level, so you're going to continue to try to resort to negative campaigning.

Meanwhile, he also lost a primary against "terrible moderate" Hillary by millions of votes, which is the main issue at hand going into the general election.

Thanks for clearing that up.

So far as not "voting against" Trump goes, at least Bloomberg can own up to his mistakes, apologize for them, and then work to make amends.

Something I have yet to see from either you or Sanders.

Not actively working to put the Senate into Republican hands is the positive thing that Sanders did.

It's as simple as that.

As for "Amends...", exactly what work will he do that will square setting the stage for Trump to be able to appoint judges?

Build a time machine?

[aja_christopher]

Not actively working to put the Senate into Republican hands is the positive thing that Sanders did.

It's as simple as that.

It's as "simple as that" because you know you have no answer to the question "what is Sanders doing now to address his own campaign issues with regards to race and divisiveness" -- the kind of divisiveness that led to Trump's victory in 2016 and may do exactly the same in the next election.

Because all you bring to the conversation regarding the Democratic party is negativity and you (repeatedly) prove you have little else to offer.

[Tami]

The one candidate who seems to have the fewest Negative Background stories so far is Elizabeth Warren. I think there are a few, but not much that she is being attacked on.

[aja_christopher]

"An invasion of propaganda: Experts warn that white supremacist messages are seeping into mainstream"

"Colin P. Clarke has been teaching a course on terrorism and insurgency at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh for four years, and much more of his class these days is devoted to white supremacy than in the past. So Clarke was not one bit surprised when a new report by the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism revealed that efforts to spread white supremacy propaganda – often through discriminatory fliers, banners and posters – more than doubled from 2018 to last year.

Moreover, the university is located just a short walk from the Tree of Life synagogue, and Clarke has seen up close the consequences of hateful words turning into violent action.

“It’s concerning because, for all the people who don’t move on to become threats of violence, some will, and some will get their start by seeing pieces of propaganda that will alert them to the fact this group exists,’’ Clarke said.

The ADL report represents a sobering warning about the reach of white supremacist groups, which can take advantage of the efficiency and anonymity provided by social media to disseminate their ideology with little fear of backlash. Last year the ADL recorded its highest number of propaganda incidents ever with 2,713 cases, compared to 1,214 in 2018. College campuses, full of impressionable young minds open to new ideas, are a favorite target, receiving about one-fourth of the propaganda against minority groups like immigrants, blacks, Jews, Muslims and members of the LGBTQ community...

John Cohen, a former counterterrorism coordinator at the Department of Homeland Security and now an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s Center for Security Studies, said white supremacists have become more sophisticated in their communication.

“They’ve rebranded themselves,’’ Cohen said. “In the past they were viewed as racist individuals who were on the fringe or outside of mainstream society. Now their thoughts and ideas and messaging have been incorporated into the mainstream political discourse by a growing number of elected officials.’’

While emphasizing he’s not singling out either party, Cohen warned about the danger of normalizing white supremacist ideology. In the runup to the 2018 midterm elections, President Donald Trump often railed against the caravans of migrants from Central America making their way to the U.S. to request asylum.

On Oct. 27 of that year, 10 days before the election, accused gunman Robert Bowers burst into the Tree of Life synagogue and killed 11 people in a shooting rampage. In anti-Semitic online comments, Bowers had blamed Jews for aiding caravans of “invaders that kill our people.’’

Less than a year later, on Aug. 3, 2019, a shooter who had posted a hateful manifesto decrying a “Hispanic invasion of Texas’’ gunned down 22 people at an El Paso Walmart. Another 24 people were injured in the attack, allegedly perpetrated by 21-year-old Patrick Crusius, whose screed warned about foreigners replacing white people in the U.S.

Cohen said political leaders are playing with fire when they promote white supremacist talking points, such as exaggerated claims of the security threat immigrants present and their supposed drain on public resources, to stoke their supporters.

“By mainstreaming those ideologically beliefs for the purposes of inspiring their political base, they have also inspired disaffected, violence-prone individuals to conduct attacks,’’ Cohen said. “That’s one of the reasons we’re seeing an increase in acts of domestic terrorism in the country.’’

https://www.yahoo.com/news/invasion-...114411230.html