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

[worstblogever]

FBI facing allegation that its 2018 background check of Brett Kavanaugh was ‘fake’

[Tami]

Daughter-in-law of Trump’s right-hand man is cooperating with financial probe: ‘She refuses to be silenced’

The former daughter-in-law of Donald Trump’s longtime finance chief is cooperating with investigators in the probe into the business dealing of the former president and “refuses to be silenced,” said her lawyer.

“Jennifer Weisselberg is committed to speaking the truth, no matter how difficult that may be,” said her lawyer Duncan Levin in a statement to the Business Insider.

“She will continue to cooperate fully with the various law enforcement agencies that are investigating her ex-husband’s family and the very powerful interests they represent,” he said.

“Jennifer refuses to be silenced any longer by those who are conspiring to prevent her from sharing what she has learned over the past 25 years,” Mr Levin added.

Her lawyer made the remarks in response to a story published in the New Yorker on Friday, according to which Mr Trump allegedly shared nude photos at a shiva and hit on Ms Weisselberg during the Jewish mourning ceremony.

[PwrdOn]

If you don't articulate answers to those questions the assumption might be that they just don't know better.

People obviously know better, but they also know that conservatives have no interest in making a good faith attempt at addressing any of those issues, they just want silence people from speaking out by making irrelevant comparisons. The thing is though, not only does this tactic not work at all, it actually harms those people even more, because the minute anyone hears about "gays being thrown off of rootops" these days, they immediately assume that it's some right wing troll pushing an anti-Muslim agenda, which means that anyone actually attempting to advocate for LGBT rights in the Middle East becomes even more dismissed and marginalized than they already are. Of course conservatives don't care about this, because they never cared about any of those people to begin with, they just wanted to score internet points to own the libs.

[worstblogever]

So the argument is that if an individual doesn't recognize why it's okay to call for someone to be fired for writing Beep/bop/boop on their Twitter profile, they are deficient in basic human emotion? I suspect people will have trouble persuading anyone to change their mind on political issues with that outlook.

Your argument is apparently, "Well, I'm willfully ignorant, and won't look up why trans people should have basic human rights and dignity, or why denying them that simple courtesy should affect any potential employment. Also, if nobody does this homework for me to show me how to do the bare minimum to be a decent person with a modicum of tolerance for others, THAT'S ON THEM!"

And we're expected to take this seriously.

[worstblogever]

Daughter-in-law of Trump’s right-hand man is cooperating with financial probe: ‘She refuses to be silenced’

[Tami]

Griddy files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the wake of Texas power crisis

Griddy Energy has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the aftermath of the severe winter weather that hit Texas last month and triggered an energy crisis.

The wholesale electricity provider came under fire after many of its customers reported being hit with exorbitant bills during what is now dubbed Winter Storm Uri. The storm temporarily knocked out power for millions of Texans.

"Our bankruptcy plan, if confirmed, provides relief for our former customers who were unable to pay their electricity bills resulting from the unprecedented prices," Griddy Chief Executive Officer Michael Fallquist said in a statement announcing the bankruptcy proceedings.

Fallquist said that prior to Uri, Griddy was a "thriving business" and blamed the operators of the state's power grid, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, for hurting its business and causing financial harm to customers.

Griddy said that it did not profit from the winter storm crisis and provided access to customers of real-time wholesale electricity prices. Griddy added that it neither influences nor controls the price of electricity and the prices are passed directly to customers without markup.

Finally, the company said that it earns the same $9.99 monthly fee regardless of the fluctuations in the price of electricity.

[Tami]

On Medicaid expansion, relief bill leaves red states with no excuses

Most states realized years ago that Medicaid expansion through the Affordable Care Act is a good deal, but as things stand, there are still 12 holdouts. As a result, there are more than 2 million low-income Americans who don't have health coverage.

The Democrats' American Relief Plan hopes to reduce that number -- ideally to zero. The Washington Post reported yesterday:

This may sound a little complicated, but the offer is straightforward: under the ACA, the federal government already covers 90% of the costs of expanding Medicaid. As Vox recently explained, the Democrats' new COVID relief package ups the ante: "[N]ewly expanding states would also receive a 5 percent bump in the federal funding match for their traditional Medicaid programs for two years. Because the traditional Medicaid population is significantly larger than the expansion population, the funding bump is projected to cover a state's 10 percent match for expansion enrollees and then some over those two years.

It led Jon Chait to joke, "Now states taking the Medicaid expansion would have more than 100 percent of the cost covered by Washington. They would literally have to pay for the privilege of denying coverage to their poorest citizens."

If any state should take advantage of such an opportunity, it's Mississippi, not only because of its financial difficulties -- the Magnolia State is the nation's poorest -- but also because of its high uninsured rate. Since Mississippi would be in a position to actually make money by embracing Medicaid expansion, this seems like an obvious call.

But it's not quite working out that way. As Mother Jones noted yesterday, Gov. Tate Reeves (R) isn't budging.

[MajorHoy]

Fled Cruz has all the backbone of a wet noodle.

Please, don't insult wet noodles by comparing them to Cruz!

[numberthirty]

Why folks tend to doubt it when news outfits claim to have "Confirmed..." something. How could you actually have confirmed what the Post now admits did not happen?

https://nypost.com/2021/03/15/washin...squoted-trump/

Washington Post runs correction admitting it ‘misquoted’ Trump in Georgia election story

[Kirby101]

Why folks tend to doubt it when news outfits claim to have "Confirmed..." something. How could you actually have confirmed what the Post now admits did not happen?

https://nypost.com/2021/03/15/washin...squoted-trump/

Ah, the FoxNews of print media. Quoting a source the WP says Trump said to find fraud and she would be a national hero. But he really said to find election dishonesty and she is the most important person in the country. Paraphrasing which has the same meaning as what he did say. And when the tape becomes available, they correct with the exact quote.
They didn't get the story wrong and now made it exact. It did happen 30, the precise words from the source were not exact.
Nice try at more Trump defense though.

[numberthirty]

Ah, the FoxNews of print media. Quoting a source the WP says Trump said to find fraud and she would be a national hero. But he really said to find election dishonesty and she is the most important person in the country. Paraphrasing which has the same meaning as what he did say. And when the tape becomes available, they correct with the exact quote.
They didn't get the story wrong and now made it exact. It did happen 30, the precise words from the source were not exact.
Nice try at more Trump defense though.

Lemme guess...

Yahoo News is part of the conspiracy too?

https://news.yahoo.com/washington-po...113302862.html

Washington Post panned for massive correction to Trump election story

As for "When The Tape Became Available..."

Yeah... Sure.

There was not tape right off of the jump that various news outfits could have heard that would have cleared up that someone was clearly on some nonsense.

Said tape just magically turned up last week...

[numberthirty]

As for "Trump Defense..."?

If someone looks at all of that and sees "Trump..."?

A second look might be in order.

[Kirby101]

Lemme guess...

Yahoo News is part of the conspiracy too?

https://news.yahoo.com/washington-po...113302862.html



As for "When The Tape Became Available..."

Yeah... Sure.

There was not tape right off of the jump that various news outfits could have heard that would have cleared up that someone was clearly on some nonsense.

Said tape just magically turned up last week...

First, OMG, that Yahoo News is only showing a FoxNews broadcast. I mean really 30?

And yes the tape just turned up.

December Trump call to GA investigator found by officials in trash folder

And as i said, the words quoted from the original source weren't exact, but they said basically the same thing. The story of what Trump did is true.

Here is the correction from the WP:

Correction: Two months after publication of this story, the Georgia secretary of state released an audio recording of President Donald Trump’s December phone call with the state’s top elections investigator. The recording revealed that The Post misquoted Trump’s comments on the call, based on information provided by a source. Trump did not tell the investigator to “find the fraud” or say she would be “a national hero” if she did so. Instead, Trump urged the investigator to scrutinize ballots in Fulton County, Ga., asserting she would find “dishonesty” there. He also told her that she had “the most important job in the country right now.”

Sounds to me like a the same election interference.You?

[numberthirty]

Sure...

I'm going to take a reasonable look at this, and buy into the assertion that someone just found it in a "Thrash..." folder.

No reason to think that could be anything accept "On The Level..."

...

Here is the correction from the WP:

Correction: Two months after publication of this story, the Georgia secretary of state released an audio recording of President Donald Trump’s December phone call with the state’s top elections investigator. The recording revealed that The Post misquoted Trump’s comments on the call, based on information provided by a source. Trump did not tell the investigator to “find the fraud” or say she would be “a national hero” if she did so. Instead, Trump urged the investigator to scrutinize ballots in Fulton County, Ga., asserting she would find “dishonesty” there. He also told her that she had “the most important job in the country right now.”

Sounds to me like a the same election interference.You?

As for "Election Interference..."?

Are you seriously telling me that a issuing a direct command "Find The Fraud..." is the exact same thing as saying someone would "Find Dishonesty..." if they looked into something?

Should the guy have butted out in a perfect world?

Sure.

That does not change a suggestion that an inquiry is in order into a direct order.

Never mind that Republicans now have this legitimate lack of fact-checking to point to in the future.

[numberthirty]

https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/16/2...faraday-future

Foxconn says it might build EVs at empty Wisconsin site, or in Mexico