All purpose news and politics thread part v: The quickening

[Superbat]

"Anita Hill Told An Iowa Crowd That It’s Too Late For An Apology From Joe Biden

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article...oo-late-for-an

A question submitted later for the Q&A came from someone who said they were considering caucusing for Biden but could not forget his role in the 1991 confirmation hearings. How hard, the questioner wondered, could it be for Biden to simply say he was wrong?

“The statute of limitations for his apology is up,” Hill said to applause. “Here is what I want now … What are you going to do about it? What are you going to do today? Will you promise as leader of this country … would you promise to use all of your energy to address the problem as it happened and to prevent it from happening to another generation? That’s what I want to hear. And I not only want to hear from him, I want to hear from every one of them who want to be the leader of this country.”

[aja_christopher]

"Bloomberg will take bold action to shrink race wealth gap: Harlem Children's Zone founder"

"More than 150 years after the 14th Amendment guaranteed all people “equal protection of the laws” and 56 years after the Civil Rights Act banned racial discrimination, we must confront the reality that the median black family in the United States is still almost 10 times poorer than the median white family. This isn’t a white problem or a black problem. It’s an American problem.

On Sunday, my friend and Democratic presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg unveiled his plan to significantly reduce the racial wealth gap for black Americans. Rather than giving tax breaks to his family and friends, he will invest $70 billion in the neighborhoods that need it most. This national initiative will lift up 100 of the country’s most disadvantaged communities.

Similar to our approach in Harlem, Bloomberg’s policy will address disparities in early childhood development, education, employment, and health and environmental conditions. And, like me, Bloomberg is a big believer in innovation and data. He’s willing to try new things and isn’t afraid to fail, and he will focus on evaluation to expand the programs that work.

Bloomberg also has proposed steps to create 1 million new African American homeowners and start 100,000 new black-owned businesses. In addition, Bloomberg will reinvigorate and reorient the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, requiring companies to report on hiring, pay and procurement data, and collecting lending data. Earlier this month, Bloomberg laid out his plan to protect and restore voting rights by addressing practices such as ID requirements, roll purging and gerrymandering.

I’ve known Mike Bloomberg for many years, and I know he will bring our country together to start closing the racial wealth gap in America.

Bloomberg also created the Young Men’s Initiative, the first municipal plan to focus on the persistent disparities experienced by young men of color in education, employment, health and crime. President Barack Obama later launched My Brother’s Keeper, with similar aims and branches in 250 cities."

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opini...mn/4526405002/

[aja_christopher]

"Three reasons Biden might keep deep African-American support"

"Much of Biden’s advantage with black voters has been attributed to his time serving under President Barack Obama, the nation’s first black president, but a closer look at the data suggests there are deeper connections as well.

Biden’s Southern edge certainly looks formidable. In South Carolina, surveys consistently have Biden ahead by double-digits. And numbers merged from all of this year’s NBC News/Wall Street Journal polls show how strong Biden is with African-American Democratic primary voters.

Overall, Biden has largely maintained a decent edge with Democratic primary voters. He’s at 29 percent in the merged polls among all primary voters, while his next closest competitor Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren is 7 points behind at 22 percent. But Among African-American primary voters, the edge jumps to 38 points compared to his closest rival –- 50 percent for Biden to 12 percent for Warren.

That’s a massive margin with a group that is critical to any Democrat who wants the nomination. Exit polls in 2016 reported that African-Americans produced 61 percent of the primary vote in South Carolina, 71 percent in Mississippi and 51 percent in Georgia.

And the data show African-American voters stand out from the rest of the Democratic primary on a range of key factors -- factors that may push them toward Biden.

African-American Democratic primary voters also look different on age. They tend to be older than primary voters overall. Consider that only 18 percent of the African-American primary vote sits in the 18- to 34-year-old age group. That’s 9 points lower than all other Democratic primary voters. Meanwhile, 57 percent of African-American primary voters are in the 50-and-older age group which is 6 points higher than other Democratic primary voters.

Older voters are generally less eager to embrace big changes. And that leads to what may be the biggest difference between African-American primary voters and Democratic primary voters overall –- their ideology.

Among African-American primary voters, 61 percent label themselves as moderate or conservative. That’s 16 points higher than the rest of the Democratic primary electorate, whose moderate/conservative figure is 45 percent. And, as you might expect, black Democratic primary voters are much less likely to say they are ideologically “liberal.” Only 34 percent of those voters use that word to describe themselves. Among other Democratic primary voters, the number is 20 points higher, 54 percent.

Older, more conservative voters? That sounds a lot like the voters Democrats are trying to win back in the industrial Midwest –- the kind of voters that many analysts think are drawn to Joe Biden and his working-class Pennsylvania roots. When you think of it that way, is it really a surprise that African-American primary voters lean toward Biden?"

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/mee...pport-n1090231

[Superbat]

"S. Carolina elected official now backing Sanders over Biden

https://apnews.com/0a737f5ec6f858829b51ea9b7e8bb41d

A South Carolina elected official who endorsed Joe Biden last month is switching her allegiance to Bernie Sanders in the state’s first-in-the-South presidential primary, saying she had viewed the former vice president — whose support in the state is considered deep -- as “a compromise choice.”

Dalhi Myers told The Associated Press on Wednesday that she was making the change in part because she values what she sees as Sanders’ strength in being able to go toe-to-toe with President Donald Trump in the general election.

“I looked at that, and I thought, ‘He’s right,’” said Myers, a black woman first elected to the Richland County Council in 2016. “He’s unafraid and he’s unapologetic. ... I like the fact that he is willing to fight for a better America — for the least, the fallen, the left behind.”

[zinderel]

Yeah, I'm for wealth taxes and adjustments not because of expectations of funding, but to balance things the hell out. My personal belief is that a good economic policy approach involves balance. When we are too far left with economic policies, sometimes going towards the right is good. Right now we're swung WAY to the right.

I can't sign on to any Free College plan that doesn't start with heavy regulation. I feel we do have to right the wrongs of the student loan slush funds, but we can't double down on that mistake by making another one. Too often, for me, progressive policies have their heart in all the right places but they could use a little....I don't know....moderation? To help them be effective rather than unintended, well-meaning catastrophes.

That’s why we need government to act as it was intended to. Progressive voices urging change and, well, PROGRESS, and conservative voices urging caution and ‘getting your ducks in a row’. As it stands, we have progressive voices doing their part, and conservative voices saying ‘we should be nicer to white supremacists and listen to what they have to say’ and ‘what do scientists know? Global warming?! Why, I have here a snowball that says that’s just hooey!’ or ‘uppity women deserve all the bad things that happen to them, and so do the coloreds and the queers and the immigrants. What? How is that controversial..?’ or whatever gibberish Louie Gohmert is blurting out without thinking....

[Tendrin]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...push-to-weaken

Two years ago, Pennsylvania’s supreme court dealt a blow to state Republicans when it said they had unconstitutionally rigged congressional elections in the state. Republicans fumed and threatened to impeach four of the justices, but the map was redrawn, and voters elected an even split of Democrats and Republicans to Congress in 2018. Now, Republicans are weaponizing a new tactic – a move that seems designed to increase their power on the state’s highest court.
The Republican proposal overhauls the way that court justices are elected in a state that can swing both red and blue. The justices on the court, where Democrats hold a 5-2 majority, are currently appointed through statewide elections, but the new plan would make it so the justices are elected from districts throughout the state. The change would probably hurt Democratic candidates – four of the current justices are from the Pittsburgh area and one is from Philadelphia, both urban areas that tend to skew blue.

[InformationGeek]

I go away for a few hours and everyone is still going on and on and on and on about this stuff. Meanwhile, Trump pretty much copying Star Fleet's logo for Space Force and Pompeo's explosion at a reporter is just getting buried.

Is anyone else noticing this **** or are we just somehow still wrapped up in internal squabbles to care about this insanity?

[Tendrin]

I go away for a few hours and everyone is still going on and on and on and on about this stuff. Meanwhile, Trump pretty much copying Star Fleet's logo for Space Force and Pompeo's explosion at a reporter is just getting buried.

Is anyone else noticing this **** or are we just somehow still wrapped up in internal squabbles to care about this insanity?

We're noticing.

[aja_christopher]

‘what do scientists know? Global warming?! Why, I have here a snowball that says that’s just hooey!’.

I still can't believe that actually happened.

Not only do they assault our democratic principles and civil rights, they also insult our intelligence at nearly every available opportunity.

I go away for a few hours and everyone is still going on and on and on and on about this stuff. Meanwhile, Trump pretty much copying Star Fleet's logo for Space Force and Pompeo's explosion at a reporter is just getting buried.

In other words, just another day in Washington since Trump took over the Republican party.

At this point, I'm just glad we're not in open warfare with Iran -- outside of that, my expectations are so low that copying Star Trek is actually a positive.

[zinderel]

I still can't believe that actually happened.

Not only do they assault our democratic principles and civil rights, they also insult our intelligence at nearly every available opportunity.



In other words, just another day in Washington since Trump took over the Republican party.

At this point, I'm just glad we're not in open warfare with Iran -- outside of that, my expectations are so low that copying Star Trek is actually a positive.

Yeah...like...that stunt should have gotten him laughed out of office.

Instead, he’s on...how many committees...?

If there was to be a single moment when the a Republican Party displayed their utter loathing for the general electorate, that would have to be in the running. It’s a small offense, sure, but the utter GALL of it is what ranks it higher...

And yeah...I mean, there are worse organizations they could have ripped off for the Space Force logo. The military logos from Starship Troopers, for example, would be far more fitting, I think...

Space Force!! Punching aliens in the dick for Uncle Sam and Jesus!

[numberthirty]

I go away for a few hours and everyone is still going on and on and on and on about this stuff. Meanwhile, Trump pretty much copying Star Fleet's logo for Space Force and Pompeo's explosion at a reporter is just getting buried.

Is anyone else noticing this **** or are we just somehow still wrapped up in internal squabbles to care about this insanity?

Did I notice? Sure.

Does it actually amount to anything worth more than one of those little cans of SPAM spread? Doubt it.

[zinderel]

Well...THIS is fun...

Navy investigating who took secret videos of sailors in a bathroom and posted to porn site

An agent from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service discovered the videos on the website Pornhub earlier this month. Several of the videos showed sailors and Marines in uniform with visible name patches. The clips also appear to include civilians, the officials said.

Because of COURSE SOMEONE DID...

[numberthirty]

Since I mentioned this without really linking to it, here's the question Delaney fielded. It's at right around 1:41:00.

While I don't really agree top to bottom with Delaney, the conversation that takes place during that question/answer is easily worth more conversation than any "Space Force..." nonsense -

[InformationGeek]

The brass balls on this lady. What an assholeish pig castrater.

.@SenJoniErnst from outside the Senate Chamber: "I'm waiting to hear that 'mountain of overwhelming evidence,'... I just can't wait to hear it. Basically... everything we've heard has been over and over and over again."

[zinderel]

Adam Schiff Implores Republicans To Show ‘Courage’ In Final Argument

Nice sentiment. But I mean...we ALL know that morality is only something Republicans pretend to have when it gulls the sheep, and courage is something they read about in the military memoirs they fetishize. I mean, didn’t Susan Collins just clutch her pearls because the Democrats called out the Republicans in the Senate in no uncertain terms? Instead of rising to the occasion, she wrote a note to Smug Bowl of Vanilla Pudding (sorry, I mean Chief Justice...) John Roberts to tattle on the guy who hurt her feefees...

Edit: Yeah, here we go - Jerry Nadler 'stunned' Susan Collins into writing a note to John Roberts

The performative outrage of the Republican Party, for you...”How dare you criticize us and expect us to do the job we get paid for!!! We have poor people to strip of food and medicine! IMPORTANT stuff to do, not impeaching the exalted (in his own mind and coddled by ours) piece of overcooked pork rind that we’ve gone whole hog for!!!”