All purpose news and politics thread part VI: This Is Not The Time For Posing

[myownlittleusername]

Not just centuries, millennia. The Jews have been targets and scapegoats for literally thousands of years. I'm not Jewish, I'm not particularly religious so don't know my old testament well, and my interest in history typically lies in other time periods and areas, so I don't know what all the Jewish people have been through or why, but I know that they were slaves in Egypt and persecuted in the Roman Empire and throughout the Dark Ages. The fact that people are still persecuting them even now is truly mind boggling. But then black people were slaves in my country just a couple centuries ago, and segregation is in living memory of many today, and there's still racists using the n word now.

I think humanity is getting better, but by God is it too slow of a march towards progress. We should be better than this already. We're this close to creating an artificial general intelligence if you pay attention to the AI and tech world, some truly futuristic sci-fi stuff is finally taking shape, we're on the very precipice of the future here, yet we're still such primitive primates and cavemen still that the data we feed these AIs is ingraining them with our cultural and racial biases. Like I didn't think that the risk of a racist AI would be a legitimate concern for our future civilization, and yet here we are.

We're not ancient Egyptians, Romans, medieval peasants, southern plantation owners, or Hitler's Germany. We should be better than this.

Mostly agree, except that there's no evidence the Jews were ever slaves in Egypt beyond the story in the Torah.

https://www.reformjudaism.org/were-jews-slaves-egypt

https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/2017-...f-fdfb9a4b0000

[WestPhillyPunisher]

MTG trying to distance herself from Nick Fuentes despite the fact that she spoke at one of his events. And Milo Yiannopoulos was supposedly going to be an "intern" for her a few months back.

https://twitter.com/patriottakes/sta...27582278639616

Sounds like the whole of the GQP is distancing themselves from Fuentes like he had the Black Plague and came off a month long vacation in Chernobyl.

[Tendrin]

Gee. How about that.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) made national headlines in April when he signed a bill repealing the Reedy Creek Improvement District (RCID), the special taxing district on the Walt Disney Company’s Central Florida property. But now that the governor has won re-election, Disney has brought back a former CEO — and the legal reality loomed ready to inflict some staggeringly bad consequences — DeSantis is reportedly backing down.

The bill repealing RCID effective June 1, 2023 was sponsored by State Rep. Randy Fine (R) and State Sen. Jennifer Bradley (R), who did not communicate with anyone at Disney, RCID, or any of the county governments that would be affected before passing this ill-conceived law.

The Republicans backing the move openly admitted they were doing so in retaliation for former Disney CEO Bob Chapek’s criticism of the Parental Rights in Education bill (deemed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill by its critics), specifically regarding a memo Chapek sent to Disney employees vocally objecting to the bill after its passage. Chapek also hit the pause button on the Mouse making any political contributions and a plan to move thousands of employees from Palo Alto, California to a new facility being built in Lake Nona (a region in the southeast area of Orlando).

“The bill essentially sets up a system of legislative blackmail,” I wrote back in April, by timing the repeal to take effect after the 2022 midterm elections and 2023 regular legislative session, sending a message to Disney to sit down and shut up (and get out their campaign checkbook again).

Numerous legal experts decried the RCID repeal bill as a violation of the First Amendment for its openly retaliatory intent, and multiple Florida statutes seem to clearly prohibit the government from repealing RCID in this manner, specifically one granting a protection for RCID’s bond holders. (As an added complication, if RCID is repealed, its over $1 billion bond debt would then legally become the debt of Orange and Osceola County taxpayers, forcing an increase in property taxes by thousands of dollars for every household).

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...80067534acd4fe

[Catlady in training]

Trump is living proof of that old saying: “It is better to remain silent and be thought of as a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.”

And that he doesn't listen to his legal counsel, but at least he doesn't pay them for the advice he refuses to take.

If Trump was the genius businessman he claims to be, he would have started to profit from his memes by now. Like selling merchandise with his quotes or something.

[Tendrin]

Twitter has now reinstated the account of the editor of the neo-nazi website the Daily Stormer. Dude has a federal warrant for his arrest and twitter is like 'no problem let him back on'.

Ridiculous,.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Twitter has now reinstated the account of the editor of the neo-nazi website the Daily Stormer. Dude has a federal warrant for his arrest and twitter is like 'no problem let him back on'.

Ridiculous,.

But hey, Muskrat is all about free speech….unless you post pics of his looking like an albino like Kanye had done, then it’s out you go!

[Kirby101]

Mostly agree, except that there's no evidence the Jews were ever slaves in Egypt beyond the story in the Torah.

https://www.reformjudaism.org/were-jews-slaves-egypt

https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/2017-...f-fdfb9a4b0000

Thank you for this. I talk myself blue explaning to people that the whoile Exodus story is a myth based on Babylonian stories. Probably circa 600 BC, not 1500 BC. Never slaves in Egypt, no Moses, no ark of the covenant.

[ed2962]

Sounds like the whole of the GQP is distancing themselves from Fuentes like he had the Black Plague and came off a month long vacation in Chernobyl.

As well they should. The guy isn't part of an ambiguous right wing group like the Proud Boys or the Oath Keepers, he's an open white nationalist and misogynist. I just think it's funny in particular MTG condemning him after she spoke at his event. Even if she didn't know who he was before going, she couldn't take 10 minutes to google the organization she appearing at before hand? Even Lauren Boebert of all people called her out for it several months ago.

[Malvolio]

If Trump was the genius businessman he claims to be, he would have started to profit from his memes by now. Like selling merchandise with his quotes or something.

Well, he does still make a few bucks from those MAGA hats. You know, the ones made in China.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, as well as 2021, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day posted profiles of U.S. Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi, an old pal of Mississippi Republicans like Haley Barbour and Trent Lott who like the both of them, has ties to the Neo-Confederate group, the Council of Conservative Citizens (which sure explains why he whines about the Voting Rights Act being “unfair” to the South), as well as ties to the anti-gay hate group, the Family Research Council (which explains why he tried to pass legislation to stop gay couples in the military from being able to get married). Sen. Wicker proposed a Personhood bill while in the house, the Life at Conception Act, which would have guaranteed Constitutional rights to zygotes, opposed Sen. Al Franken’s anti-rape bill in the Senate, and has falsely claimed the U.S. military has court martialed Christians for their choice of religion. So far in this session of Congress, Sen. Wicker has mostly stayed out of the headlines, but has voted to confirm every member of the Trump “Cabinet of Horrors”, for Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court (calling the credible accusations against Kavanaugh a “smear” by Democrats), as well as voted for the “skinny repeal” of the Affordable Care Act.

Wicker just won re-election with 59% of the vote in the 2018 elections, and will be in office until 2024. He currently is doing his best to get people infected so they can die of Covid-19, claiming that mask mandates and advisories against large gatherings in the interests of public health “have gone too far”, and would prefer people use their “religious freedom” as an excuse to behave as a death cult to get together to become their own hot zone and die.

• January 31st, 2020: Roger Wicker votes against witnesses being allowed in the first impeachment trial of Donald Trump, effectively making it a “trial”.
• February 5th, 2020: Sen. Wicker votes against the first impeachment of Donald Trump, in spite of the mountain of evidence showing that he solicited foreign assistance in the 2020 elections.
• February 25th, 2020: Wicker votes for the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, an insane piece of anti-choice legislation that would ask abortion providers to try to admit aborted fetuses to a hospital if they were “alive” after the procedure, which is medically impossible given the age that abortions can be performed at.
• February 13th, 2021: Roger Wicker votes to acquit Donald Trump in his second impeachment trial, feeling that he deserves no punishment for inciting an attack on the Capitol and jeopardizing the lives of the legislative branch of our government.
• March 6th, 2021: Sen. Wicker votes against the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, because he can’t be bothered to care if people need financial assistance during a pandemic
• September 30th, 2021: Wicker votes for an amendment to a government funding bill that would target and eliminate government aid for Afghani refugees that just fled their country after the return of the Taliban.
• December 14th, 2021: Wicker votes against raising the debt ceiling, jeopardizing the United States’ credit rating.
• February 28th, 2022: Sen. Wicker votes against the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would have established a right to physicians to perform abortions to save their patients’ lives.
• March 30th, 2022: Wicker votes against putting the extremely qualified nominee, Judge Kentanji Brown-Jackson, onto the Supreme Court. He deemed her nomination as an attempt at meeting a “quota”.
• July 27th, 2022: Roger Wicker votes against the PACT Act, blocking additional funding towards veterans exposed to “burn pits” while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, in a vote conducted out of spite that Democrats passed the Act the prior day. Several Republicans are seen shaking hands and fist bumping to celebrate screwing over the vets, while releasing a series of photos of the Senate GOP Caucus filling USO boxes and claiming they “support the military”.

Roger Wicker is embracing the current GOP tactic of shamelessly taking credit for all the legislation Democrats are passing and he votes against, because he can’t admit he does nothing for his constituents. Hopefully, they realize that when he’s up for re-election in 2024. That is, at least, if he makes it that far, given he has already tested positive for Covid-19 on three different occasions (and believes that masks aren’t something that should be happening on planes).

[SUPERECWFAN1]

So a lot of anger at Biden here for basically pushing that the railroad workers sign the contract without the 7 paid sick days. Which has a lot of people mad at him for trying to avert a strike.

I think it's a lot more harder a deal than people want to think. Sure the rail companies should give the employees paid sick days for sure. I agree that much.

Here Bidens in a No Win situation. Republicans aren't gonna vote to give them paid sick days. The Senate needs 10 GOP to do it. So people can say....oh Biden needs to tell them to strike !

That could be a problem as the country could lose $2 billion dollars a day and the belief is it could be devastating for economy. Which is already seeing tons of people struggling due to higher costs. So adding more supply chain issues isn't good.

[Tami]

So a lot of anger at Biden here for basically pushing that the railroad workers sign the contract without the 7 paid sick days. Which has a lot of people mad at him for trying to avert a strike.

I think it's a lot more harder a deal than people want to think. Sure the rail companies should give the employees paid sick days for sure. I agree that much.

Here Bidens in a No Win situation. Republicans aren't gonna vote to give them paid sick days. The Senate needs 10 GOP to do it. So people can say....oh Biden needs to tell them to strike !

That could be a problem as the country could lose $2 billion dollars a day and the belief is it could be devastating for economy. Which is already seeing tons of people struggling due to higher costs. So adding more supply chain issues isn't good.

Why paid sick leave became a big issue in rail labor talks

But why was paid sick leave such a sticking point — and why didn’t workers get it?

Rail carriers have said they need to maintain their attendance policies to ensure adequate staffing. Some industry experts and union officials say rail carriers no longer have enough workers to cover for absent colleagues because companies in recent years have switched to “precision scheduled railroading,” a system designed to improve efficiency and cut costs. Instead of running trains that carried just one type of product — which saw trains waiting for long stretches before they enough load to justify departing — rail companies now have more trains carrying a mix of goods on a set schedule. Fixed scheduling allows companies to use the same crew more often that they could under the old system.

Between November 2018 and December 2020, the rail industry lost 40,000 jobs, according to a report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The bureau described precision scheduling as possibly the “most widely accredited reason for the decrease in rail transportation employment,” although the pandemic, uncertainties in trade and a decline U.S. coal usage also hurt the industry.

But the labor force cuts “led to this kind of crisis of work life balance,” said Todd Vachon, a Rutgers University labor professor who sees short staffing as “a model of maximizing profits to have high returns for shareholders.”

And unions say precision scheduled railroading has left little room to give workers the benefits they need.

“There is a direct connection to these business decisions that the railroads have made — either PSR by itself or just these attendance policies that’s an offshoot of PSR — forcing people to work more than any average American worker wants to do or can do,” said Dennis Pierce, the national president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, an influential union that narrowly voted to ratify the White House proposal.

In a statement to The Washington Post, Brendan Branon, Chairman of the National Railway Labor Conference, who represented the industry at the bargaining table, rejected the idea that paid sick leave represented a sticking point in labor talks, arguing that “all rail employees have some form of paid sick leave.”

Association of American Railroads spokeswoman Jessica Kahanek pointed to a list that includes several leave options, such as a system in which sick employees can temporarily remove themselves a list of available workers, as well as time off under the Family and Medical Leave Act. And all employees have a long-term sickness benefit that can pay a portion of the worker’s income for up to 26 weeks, the rail association said.

But time off under the Family and Medical Leave Act is unpaid, according to the Department of Labor. And the system that allows employees to remove themselves from availability is unpaid, union lawyer Richard Edelman said. Workers also could be disciplined for using it, he added.

Moreover, he said, the long-term sickness benefit is meant for more serious illnesses or injuries, and would not help employees who get the flu, for example, or need emergency dental surgery. “All of those things that are one or two day things — rail road employees don’t have that,” Edelman said.

[Tami]

For prolific covid scammer, first came the cash. Then came the chase.

On a perfect spring day at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport, Abidemi Rufai arrived at the international terminal ready for the long journey back home to Nigeria.

On his wrist, Rufai, 44, wore an expensive Cartier watch. Around his neck, he wore an 18-karat gold chain with a lion pendant. As he approached the check-in desk for his business class seat on the KLM Royal Dutch Airlines flight, Rufai had seven pieces of luggage, three smartphones, and seven debit and credit cards.

It was May 2021. A year earlier, Rufai had pulled off a spectacular heist of U.S. taxpayer money. The calm with which he moved through the airport belied the chaos he had left in his wake.

His brazen and repeated pilfering of coronavirus relief funds had helped freeze the entire unemployment system in the state of Washington, where he had obtained identifying information for unsuspecting residents. For months, state and federal officials struggled to get ahead of Rufai and other fraudsters, sparking investigations on two continents that culminated in a guilty plea. Eventually, they would discover in Rufai’s email accounts and phone the personal data of 20,000 Americans and voluminous stolen tax returns, as well as photos of Rufai with a powerful Nigerian governor and images of him dressed impeccably in dark sunglasses and royal-blue robes. In one, he sat on an ornate thronelike chair.v

Since the coronavirus pandemic hit in early 2020, the U.S. government has spent more than $5 trillion to respond to the crisis and stabilize the American economy. Much of that money helped families and businesses survive a dire economic shutdown. But billions of dollars were stolen, and no one is sure, even now, exactly how much has disappeared.

Some of it was nabbed by U.S. criminals, but a chunk went to foreign nationals who had honed their tactics in defrauding people through identity theft and scams over years and saw in the pandemic a chance to hit it big. Rufai’s wild tactics and dramatic life story — laid out in vivid detail in court documents — offers a startling view of one of the many accused scam artists who siphoned riches from the huge money pot created by Washington in 2020 and 2021.

The details paint a portrait of how a seasoned identity thief hit the jackpot when covid funds began to flow, preying on a tremendous amount of money that was suddenly thrust into the economy in a way that made it very easy to steal. His previous efforts at defrauding the U.S. government amounted to less than $100,000 over three years, according to federal prosecutors. But in a span of six months in 2020, he was able to swipe more than half a million dollars, prosecutors said. He was one of the most prolific thieves but joined hundreds of others, both international and domestic, who overwhelmed government officials trying to protect billions of dollars.

[CaptainEurope]

Dutch media are reporting that Karol Wojtyla, then arch bishop of Krakow, suspended dozens of child raping priests from their jobs. So far, the official Vatican line was that he had been shocked, SHOCKED when he found out about widespread child abuse as pope John Paul II, a decade later.
Holy coverup.

[Tendrin]

The hosts of a "Drag Queen Story Hour"-style event for children in Columbus, Ohio, on Saturday pulled the plug because of what they described as the intimidating presence of right-wing demonstrators.

The scheduled holiday themed "Holi-Drag Storytime" at the First Unitarian Church of Columbus, which runs the K-5 institution behind the event, Red Oak Community School, was canceled at the last-minute Saturday morning following internal discussions, organizers said.

Members of Ohio's Proud Boys organization and other right-wing groups made good on promises to make waves outside the venue Saturday. More than 50 demonstrators, including members of the Proud Boys, gathered near the church Saturday morning and shouted, chanted and held up signs. Some were armed with long guns.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...ters-rcna59990

And in North Carolina:

https://twitter.com/Esqueer_/status/1599272595391553537

The fascists wanted to stop a drag show in North Carolina so they shot up multiple power substations and knocked out power to 40,000 people to prevent the show from happening. This is terrorism.

We're at the point that armed anti LGBTQ fascists are intentionally shooting up electrical infrastructure to prevent a drag show from happening. It's not a far leap from this to just straight up murdering people. This is escalating drastically.

The president of the Texas Freedom Coalition and an elected delegate openly celebrated the attack on the power station in North Carolina that knocked out power to 40,000. She said #ImOkWithIt. They're openly celebrating terrorism against entire towns to hurt LGBTQ people.

But don't worry. I'm sure there will be a conservative along here shortly to tell us how Libs of Tiktok and Tuckler Carlson,. the leaders in increasingly hateful rhetoric towards LGBTQ people to their *millions of followers* across the country, are totally not stirring hate and none of this is any way suggestive of hostility towards LGBTQ people, and even if it weas, it's totally their own fault because drag is 'sexualized'.

https://www.wral.com/nearly-38k-cust...ence/20612201/