All-purpose news and politics thread: Two Steps Beyond!(Part II)

[PaulBullion]

omg stop punching left.

Edit: I mean, at least she was able to do the bare minimum and reject an endorsement from David Duke.

That's a step up from the current administration.

Which still leaves the fact that her opinions appealed enough to Duke to endorse her, in spite of her mixed ethnic background.

[Tendrin]

Here's an article from Jacobin on Gabbard.

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/05/t...mocratic-party

Her ties to Modi are especially worrisome given what's going on in India right now. Seriously, if you're not paying attention to the Hindutva, start.

When a congressional panel was held in April 2014 on “the plight of religious minorities in India,” with witnesses testifying about the mistreatment of Muslims, Gabbard said she didn’t “believe the time of this hearing is a coincidence” and that it aimed to “influence the outcome of India’s national elections.” Gabbard voted against House Resolution 417, which criticized India’s record on religious violence and called for specific measures to guarantee religious freedom in the country, explaining that its passage wouldn’t help US-India relations. Yet two years later, Gabbard introduced a similar resolution that covered neighboring Muslim-majority Bangladesh, saying she was “particularly concerned over issues of religious freedom, and specifically, attacks against minority Hindus, Christians, Buddhists, and others” in the country.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

FBI Probed Whether Trump Was Working For Russia After Comey Firing: Report

Law enforcement officials launched an investigation into whether the president was secretly working on Russia’s behalf, according to The New York Times. Just call Trump The Siberian Candidate.

**********

Trump Sets Record With Longest Government Shutdown Ever

The president’s demand for a border wall has kept much of the government closed for more than three weeks, leaving some 800,000 workers without pay. Congrats, Donnie! I'm sure you must be proud. Ditto to the GOP who continues enabling his hostage taking madness. Meanwhile....

**********

Who’s Going To Pay For The Wall? Mexico, Many Republicans Still Falsely Claim

The government shutdown is over a dispute about how much money Congress ― and therefore taxpayers, not Mexico ― will dole out for new barrier. Keep on spreading those lies, boys. That's what Republicans do best.

**********

Conservative Men Are Obsessed With Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Science Tells Us Why.

Conservatives’ bizarre, escalating obsession with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) reached a new level this week when The Daily Caller published fake revenge porn of the new congresswoman.

Since Ocasio-Cortez, a 29-year-old working-class democratic socialist, unexpectedly toppled powerful white male incumbent Joe Crowley in a June primary, she’s become an object of fixation among Republicans, especially Republican men. Conservative writer Ed Scarry posted a photo of her backside on Twitter, questioning whether her black suit was befitting of a “girl who struggles.” Right-wing media discovered that she ― like a lot of people named “Alexander,” “Alexandra” or some variant thereof ― went by the nickname “Sandy” in high school. A self-proclaimed “proud Christian Dad” on Twitter circulated a video of her dancing in a T-shirt in college as if it would be a career-damaging revelation. A Republican strategist referred to her as “the little girl” on Fox News, which runs segments about her constantly.

There’s an existential, panicked tinge to the behavior here ― what you might call “AOC Derangement Syndrome.” Indeed, some experts say conservative men are obsessed with Ocasio-Cortez because they’re threatened by her.

Conservatives tend to respond to fear more strongly than liberals do, according to Bobby Azarian, a neuroscientist whose expertise in anxiety has led him to examine political behaviors. His research has found that the brains of conservative people are likely to display the same attention biases as the brains of people with anxiety.

“The one main cognitive difference is that conservatives are more sensitive to threat,” he said. “Their fears are sometimes exaggerated. I think they fear her.”

Ocasio-Cortez’s power is a direct threat to conservatives because her very existence in Congress as a young, Latina, working-class woman threatens to upend the social order that has kept white men in the ruling class for centuries. (Eighty-eight percent of House Republicans are white men, most are over the age of 50, and the party’s voters are majority white and male.) On top of that, she is using her position and platform to directly challenge that order ― to attempt to get money out of politics, raise taxes on the super-rich and level the playing field.

“She doesn’t just challenge the patriarchy, she’s challenging the race, class, and gender hierarchies all at once, as well as the capitalist system that requires member of Congress be wealthy before they get there,” said Caroline Heldman, a gender and politics professor at Occidental College. “That’s remarkably threatening.”

It's as I've been saying from day one when AOC arrived in Washington: Republicans hate what they fear, and this woman terrifies them.

**********

Conservatives Are Starting To Turn On White Supremacist Congressman Steve King

The Iowa lawmaker’s praise of white nationalism may finally have gone too far. Now THAT'S positively shocking!

[PwrdOn]

Here's an article from Jacobin on Gabbard.

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/05/t...mocratic-party

Her ties to Modi are especially worrisome given what's going on in India right now. Seriously, if you're not paying attention to the Hindutva, start.

Hindutva is a deceptively appealing ideology if you really think about it from an Indian perspective. After all, India is one of the largest countries on the planet and has made remarkable advances economically and scientifically over the last few decades, but on the global stage it commands virtually zero geopolitical clout. They don't get a seat at the table at any international gatherings of note and we're used to just ignoring them most of the time. And it's especially easy for Indians to look across their northern border and start to believe that they too could amass more power and influence if only they were to ditch all this nonsense about nonviolence, pluralism, and democracy and adopt the heavy handed authoritarian tactics that China has mastered. The country is still stuck in a post-colonial hangover, and is looking for ways to reclaim their manhood and virility after being humiliated and mistreated by the British for so long, and in a way this sort of parallels the kinds of over the top demonstrations of masculinity you might see among blacks and Latinos in the states.

[Tami]

FBI Probed Whether Trump Was Working For Russia After Comey Firing: Report

Law enforcement officials launched an investigation into whether the president was secretly working on Russia’s behalf, according to The New York Times. Just call Trump The Siberian Candidate.

**********

Trump Sets Record With Longest Government Shutdown Ever

The president’s demand for a border wall has kept much of the government closed for more than three weeks, leaving some 800,000 workers without pay. Congrats, Donnie! I'm sure you must be proud. Ditto to the GOP who continues enabling his hostage taking madness. Meanwhile....

**********

Who’s Going To Pay For The Wall? Mexico, Many Republicans Still Falsely Claim

The government shutdown is over a dispute about how much money Congress ― and therefore taxpayers, not Mexico ― will dole out for new barrier. Keep on spreading those lies, boys. That's what Republicans do best.

**********

Conservative Men Are Obsessed With Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Science Tells Us Why.







It's as I've been saying from day one when AOC arrived in Washington: Republicans hate what they fear, and this woman terrifies them.

**********

Conservatives Are Starting To Turn On White Supremacist Congressman Steve King

The Iowa lawmaker’s praise of white nationalism may finally have gone too far. Now THAT'S positively shocking!

F.B.I. Opened Inquiry Into Whether Trump Was Secretly Working on Behalf of Russia

WASHINGTON — In the days after President Trump fired James B. Comey as F.B.I. director, law enforcement officials became so concerned by the president’s behavior that they began investigating whether he had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests, according to former law enforcement officials and others familiar with the investigation.

The inquiry carried explosive implications. Counterintelligence investigators had to consider whether the president’s own actions constituted a possible threat to national security. Agents also sought to determine whether Mr. Trump was knowingly working for Russia or had unwittingly fallen under Moscow’s influence.

The investigation the F.B.I. opened into Mr. Trump also had a criminal aspect, which has long been publicly known: whether his firing of Mr. Comey constituted obstruction of justice.

Agents and senior F.B.I. officials had grown suspicious of Mr. Trump’s ties to Russia during the 2016 campaign but held off on opening an investigation into him, the people said, in part because they were uncertain how to proceed with an inquiry of such sensitivity and magnitude. But the president’s activities before and after Mr. Comey’s firing in May 2017, particularly two instances in which Mr. Trump tied the Comey dismissal to the Russia investigation, helped prompt the counterintelligence aspect of the inquiry, the people said.

[Tami]

This is terrifying. Klyushin has been posting what Trump should do over the past year, and Trump always seems to then do it. He’s now saying RGB needs to “rest.” WTAF.

Twitter Link

This really is shocking. Why is a Russian oligarch making what sounds like a veiled threat about a Supreme Court justice and tagging his Putin’s man in the WH. @911CORLEBRA777

Twitter Link

It sounds like the Russians have it out for Ruth Bader Ginsburg and are pushing Trump to replace her. (He can't of course, not unless she steps down voluntarily)

Russian Billionaire Who Bragged He Got Trump Elected Posts ‘Time To Remove’ Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Tags Trump

A Russian billionaire whose relationship to Donald Trump stretches back years, and who once bragged that he is responsible for getting Trump elected, now has some direct advice for the president — it’s “time to remove” Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Artem Klyushin, a Russian oligarch with close ties to Vladimir Putin, took to Twitter on Friday to make what some have interpreted as a thinly veiled threat against Ginsburg.

Curious to see if this is eventually confirmed by other news sources.

[Tendrin]

On some good news out of, of all places, Florida..

https://earther.gizmodo.com/surprisi...nor-1831677388

n his first week in office, Florida’s new Republican Governor Ron Desantis has made the environment and climate change a top focus.
On Thursday, Desantis signed an executive order to tackle the myriad environmental problems facing the state from toxic algae to sea level rise to Everglades degradation. He also asked for the resignation of all board members of Florida’s most powerful water management district, which has come under fire for leasing parts of the Everglades needed for restoration to the sugar industry just after November’s election. In doing so, Desantis immediately cleared the incredibly low bar of “doing better than Rick Scott,” though there are still details that need to be sussed out to determine just how much oomph the new policies will have.

DeSantis doing the bare minimum required to begin to address the monumental issues Florida faces is a /start/, at least. Not expecting much, of course.

[Tami]

On some good news out of, of all places, Florida..

https://earther.gizmodo.com/surprisi...nor-1831677388





DeSantis doing the bare minimum required to begin to address the monumental issues Florida faces is a /start/, at least. Not expecting much, of course.

it is a good start, hopefully he'll surprise everyone and do even better.

[Tendrin]

it is a good start, hopefully he'll surprise everyone and do even better.

To be honest, I don't think he has much choice if he wants to remain governor.

[Tami]

It's along ways away from me making a decision about who I would support in the 2020 elections, but I already have a short list of *Never in a Million Years*, one that could grow larger over time:

Tulsi Gabbard
Kirsten Gillibrand
Bernie Sanders

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Twitter Link

Twitter Link

It sounds like the Russians have it out for Ruth Bader Ginsburg and are pushing Trump to replace her. (He can't of course, not unless she steps down voluntarily)

Russian Billionaire Who Bragged He Got Trump Elected Posts ‘Time To Remove’ Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Tags Trump



Curious to see if this is eventually confirmed by other news sources.

I’ll also be curious to see if this story will grow legs. After all, it’s not too hard to read between the lines and interpret what Klyushin said as a threat.

[Tami]

There’s a way to know if Russia threw the election to Trump

Many commentators seem to assume that we’ll never be able to know. But Sinan Aral, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says that’s misguided. “When I read in the newspaper that it’s impossible to know that the Russians changed the results of the election, I vehemently disagree,” he told me. “It is possible to know, with a certain degree of statistical confidence, the likelihood that Russian interference changed the results.”

But just how successful were they at changing voter behavior? How many potential Clinton voters did they persuade to pull the lever for Trump? Did they convince some voters to sit out the election altogether?

Take, for example, those three crucial swing states — Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan. As Philip Bump wrote about Clinton shortly after the election: “But for 79,646 votes cast in those three states, she’d be the next president of the United States.”

Aral says he and his colleagues want to study the Russian influence campaign in precisely this geographical context. The MIT scholars have developed a robust methodology for assessing how social media campaigns influence the behavior of their targets — and now they want to bring it to bear on the Russian meddling in 2016. “We need a rigorous, scientific postmortem on Russian misinformation to harden our democracy against future attacks,” he told me. “While current analyses focus on Russia’s reach, what we’re missing is an analysis of their impact – who their misinformation targeted and what effect it had.”

Aral and his MIT research partner Dean Eckles sent me what they call a “blueprint” for such a study. They propose zeroing in on the issue of “causality” by analyzing how different levels of disinformation changed behavior and opinions. They would use randomized experiments to estimate shifts in voter turnout and voting.

“For example, Facebook and Twitter constantly test new variations on their feed ranking algorithms, which cause people to be exposed to varying levels of different types of content,” they write. “One underpublicized A/B test run by Facebook during the 2012 U.S. presidential election caused users to be exposed to more ‘hard news’ from established sources, with effects on political knowledge, preferences, and voter turnout.” Given access to adequate data, the researchers claim they can estimate the impact of the Russian influence campaign in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Florida “with 95% to 99% confidence.”

[Mister Mets]

Democrats have finally broken the top ten in polling for the nation's most popular Governors, with Hawaii's David Ige in tenth place.

https://morningconsult.com/2019/01/1...rnors-q4-2018/

The top nine are a mix of moderate Republicans in blue states (Baker of Massachusetts, Scott of Vermont, Hogan of Maryland, Sununu of New Hampshire) and conservative Republicans in red states (Ivey in Alabama, Mead of Wyoming, Daugaard of South Dakota, Hutchinson of Arkansas, Abbott of Texas)

[kidfresh512]

It's along ways away from me making a decision about who I would support in the 2020 elections, but I already have a short list of *Never in a Million Years*, one that could grow larger over time:

Tulsi Gabbard
Kirsten Gillibrand
Bernie Sanders

Ari's show is on fire lately. Seriously he needs a better timeslot I think they should retire Hardball and five it to Ari.

Hes had a couple segments especially since the shutdown that almost had me cheering.

[wjowski]

I just kind of turn a skeptical eye to those 'Candidates votes matched Z political party X% of the time.' studies. I mean, yes but what exactly did they vote on?