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

[ed2962]

1 year before his reelection, Obama was trailing Romney on most polls



That's not correct. You might not believe this, but this is why I've pointed out Amazon: I have a friend from India who moved to Seattle to work for Amazon, later his family moved there as well. He was working from home one morning and suddenly he lost access to systems and then received that generic automated e-mail mentioned on the news articles. That was that. He eventually had to move back to India, because he couldn't stay in the US (visa, not sure how that works?). His manager, HR, etc. never spoke to him; he was later contacted regarding the severance package and his flight back to India. He found out via Linkedin that his entire team got eliminated, incl. his manager. He had no clue this was gonna happen. So no, it wasn't just "5 people", it was 18k who found out via automated e-mail on the designated day.

I don't know what Mets was complaining about, also missed that.

A lot of people come to America under a "work visa". Depending what type you have, they expire after a certain amount time and you have to get it renewed or else leave the country. It sounds like your friend's visa was due and rather than risk getting deported and messing up his chance to come back, he left willingly. I don't know what the percentage is now since the recent migrant crisis, but up until a couple of years ago, the majority of illegal immigrants in America weren't actually people sneaking across the southern border, but were in fact folks overstaying their work visa.

[kidfresh512]

GREAT NEWS

Independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema will not run for re-election in Arizona

Great news for Gallego. Even her exit message was arrogant.

“Because I choose civility, understanding, listening, working together to get stuff done, I will leave the Senate at the end of this year,” she said.

Yeah how did "working together for months on the bipartisan border deal go? They turned around and stabbed her right in the face in a "shocker" cause Trump said so.

[Username taken]

GREAT NEWS

Independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema will not run for re-election in Arizona

So she left the party to stan for her "big donors" and her support eventually evaporated leaving her nowhere.

[Reverse Happy]

GREAT NEWS

Independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema will not run for re-election in Arizona

Good, that simplifies things. Guess the border-deal R pullout made her ragequit.

[Tendrin]

Good, that simplifies things. Guess the border-deal R pullout made her ragequit.

The writing on the wall for Sinema has been there for some time, tbh.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

GREAT NEWS

Independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema will not run for re-election in Arizona

Good riddance to bad rubbish.

[Jack Dracula]

Snapping is common in some places. The Times covered back in 2015.

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/22/f...-clapping.html

The New York Post had a less nice take.

https://nypost.com/2015/11/17/millen...tart-snapping/

It's generally done to show affirmation when clapping might be disruptive, off-putting, or triggering (IE- if the expected audience is neuro-diverse.) Finger-snaps to show agreement is rather common in education-based professional development events.

I'd suspected something like that. It's a strange enough detail that it seems inserted.
Regardless of the tale's truth, a single HR person and a few new hires don't equal a "work culture".

[Jack Dracula]

GREAT NEWS

Independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema will not run for re-election in Arizona

She will not be missed.

[Tami]

Amid Age Concerns, the White House Tries a New Strategy: Let Joe Be Joe

He is wearing aviators and baseball caps. He is making visits to ice cream parlors and barbecue joints, and asking to meet with influencers who can disseminate images of him on TikTok and Instagram. He is talking more often to reporters and fielding questions on the Middle East, Republicans and, of course, his age.

None of this is a coincidence. As President Biden faces what polls show is significant concern about his 81 years, and a tight election against his likely opponent, Donald J. Trump, the White House strategy is to have him step out of his protective bubble and directly take on voters’ worries.

“I have been saying for several months to the campaign, ‘Please, let him be Joe Biden,’ and so have many others,” Senator Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware and a close ally of the president, said in an interview. “It is not only good for the campaign. It is good for him and it’s good for the country when Joe Biden gets a chance to get out from behind the podium and be less President Joe Biden and more Joe.”

Part of the White House strategy, which has been building since the beginning of the year, is to focus Mr. Biden’s trips outside Washington more on social media and one-on-one experiences with voters. The White House started inviting local residents and content creators this year to meet Mr. Biden at campaign stops, where the president will often take a few moments to introduce himself.

Some of Mr. Biden’s top advisers, including Rob Flaherty, a deputy campaign manager, and Anita Dunn, who oversees Mr. Biden’s communications strategy, believe that social media influencers and locals the president meets on his visits have the ability to introduce Mr. Biden to a younger, more diverse audience that would not otherwise be familiar with him. (When Mr. Biden visited a family in North Carolina in January, a TikTok made of the visit by one of his hosts racked up 4 million views, according to metrics shared by the Biden campaign.)

In an interview, Mr. Flaherty said that Mr. Biden often sends a flurry of requests to aides working on digital media for the campaign. Last week, when Mr. Trump compared himself to Aleksei A. Navalny, the deceased Russian opposition leader, the president asked his aides to give him an iPad and had them post a video on TikTok of him reacting to Mr. Trump’s comment.

[Robotman]

Trump takes bizarre turn as he ratchets up racist rhetoric against migrants

He’s normalized racism and hatred so much that this barely registers anymore.

[CaptainEurope]

Samoans do the Humpty Hump and pick some guy nobody heard of in the Democratic primary. Votes cast in total: 91.

[CaptainEurope]

The writing on the wall for Sinema has been there for some time, tbh.

A big win on a border deal could have kept her in the race. If Galego wins this, Trump's open border policy could have safeguarded a Dem majority in the Senate. What a time to be alive.

[CaptainEurope]

Nikki Haley with a solid 5 point lead in Vermont.

[CaptainEurope]

Down ballot, a decent night for (somewhat) moderates:

Arkansas’ 3rd District: Rep. Steve Womack will win the Republican nomination, CNN projects, beating back a challenge from his party’s right. Womack, the former chair of the House Budget Committee, faced a primary challenge from state Sen. Clint Penzo, who said he entered the race after Womack voted against Rep. Jim Jordan for speaker last fall.
Texas’ 7th District: Rep. Lizzie Fletcher will win the Democratic primary, CNN projects, as the incumbent looks to secure a fourth term. Fletcher faced a challenge from the left by engineer Pervez Agwan in the safely Democratic Houston-area district.
Texas’ 18th District: Longtime Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee will win the Democratic primary, CNN projects, likely paving the way to a smooth reelection in the deep-blue district that she’s represented since 1995. Jackson Lee defeated former Houston City Council Member Amanda Edwards, her onetime congressional intern, who chose to stay in the primary after Jackson Lee announced for reelection after an unsuccessful – and bumpy – run for Houston mayor last year.
Texas’ 23rd District: Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales will be forced into a runoff, CNN projects, after he failed to clear 50% of the vote in the primary. Gonzales and Brandon Herrera will face off in May for the Republican-leaning seat along the US-Mexico border. Gonzales was censured by the Texas Republican Party last year in part over his support for legislation to protect same-sex marriage and a bipartisan gun safety bill following the Uvalde mass shooting in his district.

[aja_christopher]

Trump takes bizarre turn as he ratchets up racist rhetoric against migrants

He’s normalized racism and hatred so much that this barely registers anymore.