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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
That's not a good thing, mind you.
The more a given agency has to lose by the return to business as usual, the more invested they will be in helping prevent such a return. The likelihood of a civil return to stability diminishes with each person in power who gains a vested interest in preventing the return to stability.
Edited by TobiasDrake on Jul 2nd 2019 at 4:16:54 AM
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.I'm speaking in the context of Nazism and white supremacy based support of Trump that the Border Patrol as we found out has whole heartedly embraced and now we have FBI agents covering for Stormfront as well as many other groups since they've admitted they've deliberately worked to prevent white nationalists from being labeled terrorists. There's a massive number of institutional horrors that have just become normalized.
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.So we’ve now got two post-debate polls showing Biden in the low twenties, Harris in second, Warren in third and Bernie dropping to fourth.
Dam, things are getting tight.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranIn even more good news
Trump administration retreats on census citizenship question
White House and Justice Department officials confirmed the decision, which came in the aftermath of a Supreme Court ruling on June 27 that faulted the administration for its original attempt to add the question.
“I respect the Supreme Court but strongly disagree with its ruling regarding my decision to reinstate a citizenship question on the 2020 census,” Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in a statement.
“The Census Bureau has started the process of printing the decennial questionnaires without the question. My focus, and that of the bureau and the entire department, is to conduct a complete and accurate census,” Ross said.
Although the Supreme Court left open the possibility of the administration adding the question, there was little time left for the government to come up with a new rationale.
The government had said in court filings that it needed to finalize the details of the questionnaire by the end of June.
There's a rather important article about the debates and what the candidates talked about, or rather what they didn't talk about. I’m Trans. The 2020 Candidates Don’t Know How to Pander to Me.
Out of all the candidates Castro was the only candidate to mention trans issues, and he didn't do it properly in that he mixed up trans men and trans women.
Which is a rather unacceptable situation, trans rights have been under relentless attack under the Trump administration and before it, trans women have had an unacceptably high rate of murder, particularly trans women of color. This is an issue candidate should demonstrate that they care about without any ambiguity, through mentioning it publicly and unveiling plans to help trans people and the rest of Gender, Sexuality, and Romantic Minority community.
Still, there is a bright side. Kirsten Gillibrand has an extensive program advancing the rights of GSRM people, trans people included. Hopefully, the rest of the candidates will follow her lead.
"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang
Not entirely true, Cory Booker also brought up Trans rights. I'll post more once I've read the article.
Edit: She does also mention that in the article, its healthcare that Castro was the only one to bring it up. Going to agree with the entire piece, the debates were extremely disappointing on this front. The entire LGBTQ community got brought up twice on the second one, and only for self aggrandizement or as a sledgehammer against another candidate, and both times in passing. With that and the fact that Castro repeatedly misgendered the people he was supposed to be showing solidarity with, does not give me high hopes that protecting Trans rights will be done with any due diligence, outside of high profile moves like protecting military service.
This goes double for candidates like Harris who took Transphobic actions in the past. The ever present concern is having Trans rights be bartered away for more political capital, or perhaps swept under the rug so others pet issues (like "corrruption")
Edited by AzurePaladin on Jul 2nd 2019 at 7:13:24 AM
The awful things he says and does are burned into our cultural consciousness like a CRT display left on the same picture too long. -FighteerUseful article on Warren’s career and policies from Shondaland;
similar profiles on the way for each candidate who responds.
Some takeaways:
- Warren has the most liberal voting record of any current U.S. Senator.
- She introduced legislation that would compel public companies to report annually on their operations' climate consequence, including dependence on fossil fuels, greenhouse gas emissions, and strategies to reduce their impact.
...
What book (not including the Bible) has influenced you most?
The Little Engine That Could is one of my favorites. It's about courage, strength, and getting the job done.
...
What is your comfort food?
I love the cookies from Cookie Time Bakery in Arlington, Massachusetts.
Other than God and the Constitution, what do you believe in?
I firmly believe in the power of the people. When Donald Trump was sworn in, I remember thinking Republicans now control the House, the Senate, and the Presidency. They're going to dismantle the Affordable Care Act and rip away health care from millions of Americans on day one. But that didn't happen. Mamas took to the hallways of Congress with their babies who have serious medical needs, seniors protested outside of their senator's office and got arrested, young people mobilized and held rallies, people wrote letters and made calls — and guess what? We stopped them.
...
What is America doing right? What makes you hopeful?
The American people make me hopeful. The people just elected a whole slate of young people, women, and people of color to Congress. They’ve been calling, writing, protesting, and holding elected officials accountable. Together, we have sent a message that corporate profits and powerful interests cannot overpower the health, safety, and economic well-being of hardworking families. This is our time, our responsibility, our chance to rebuild a country where government works, not just for the rich and powerful. Change is coming.
I’m really hoping that future debates put a spotlight on trans issues. I want to know that Harris has changed her views before I fully back her (and even then, I’d do it somewhat begrudgingly with her anti sex work record). Plus, I just want to know that they actually care about reversing Trump’s positions on that front, and won’t just forget us.
Edit: She does also mention that in the article, its healthcare that Castro was the only one to bring it up. Going to agree with the entire piece, the debates were extremely disappointing on this front. The entire LGBTQ community got brought up twice on the second one, and only for self aggrandizement or as a sledgehammer against another candidate, and both times in passing. With that and the fact that Castro repeatedly misgendered the people he was supposed to be showing solidarity with, does not give me high hopes that protecting Trans rights will be done with any due diligence, outside of high profile moves like protecting military service.
Ah, I must've missed that.
But yeah, from a trans-rights pov it was fairly subpar. Which is something that needs to be corrected, no one should be left behind and that's especially pertinent to a minority group as vulnerable as trans people are.
"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang![]()
According to the Washington Blade
, her "apology" for that was a contradictory mess of passing blame, then claiming the buck stopped with her, and giving vague platitudes without actually saying if she changed her mind or not.
I'm definitely with you, it needs a spotlight put over it.
Edited by AzurePaladin on Jul 2nd 2019 at 7:49:09 AM
The awful things he says and does are burned into our cultural consciousness like a CRT display left on the same picture too long. -FighteerFrances Perkins — the first woman in U.S. history to hold a cabinet position. As FDR's Labor Secretary, she was a chief architect of the New Deal. She also played a big role in getting the Social Security Act passed and signed into law.
Encouraging as it signals labor-friendliness.
https://whatthefuckjusthappenedtoday.com/2019/07/02/day-894/
1/ House Democrats sued for Trump's tax returns, challenging the administration's refusal to comply with a subpoena for the records. The Ways and Means Committee accused the Trump administration of "an extraordinary attack on the authority of Congress to obtain information needed to conduct oversight," naming the Treasury Department, IRS, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, and IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig in the suit. The Trump administration has argued that Congress's power to access the returns is limited to information that would serve "legitimate" legislative purposes. (Politico / Washington Post / New York Times / NBC News / ABC News)
📌 Day 873: The House authorized committee chairs to sue the Trump administration in federal court to enforce a series of subpoenas. The House Judiciary Committee can now begin legal proceedings to enforce the panel's subpoenas for Mueller's evidence and force former White House Counsel Donald Mc Gahn to cooperate with the panels' probe into whether Trump obstructed justice. The move also empowers other committee chairmen to seek enforcement of their own subpoenas for testimony and documents, such as Trump's tax returns. The measure, however, stopped short of a criminal contempt citation for Attorney General William Barr and Mc Gahn. (Politico / Washington Post / Wall Street Journal / Bloomberg)
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/06/11/house-sue-trump-subpoenas-1359850
📌 Day 841: The House Ways and Mean Committee subpoenaed Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin over Trump's tax returns. IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig was also subpoenaed. Chairman Richard Neal gave Mnuchin and Rettig until until May 17 to turn over six years of Trump's returns, and is expected to go to court to enforce his request if the Trump administration continues to argue that the committee does not have a legitimate legislative purpose that warrants compliance. Earlier this week, Mnuchin rejected Neal's request for the returns. Trump previously vowed to fight all subpoenas from House Democrats. Subpoenas are now pending from the Ways and Means, Judiciary, Oversight and Reform, Financial Services, and the Intelligence Committees. (CNBC / New York Times / Politico / Washington Post / Wall Street Journal)
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/05/10/house-democrats-subpoenas-trump-tax-returns-1317459
2/ The Trump administration dropped its plans to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census after the Supreme Court effectively blocked the addition of the question, calling the rationale for the question "contrived." After the ruling was announced last week, Trump said he was considering delaying the census until the question could be added. The process of preparing a new justification, however, was expected to take months and delay the process of printing hundreds of millions of forms. (Washington Post / Politico / CNN / Wall Street Journal / New York Times / CNBC)
The Trump administration missed its own July 1st deadline to print the 2020 census. The materials have yet to be officially approved by the White House's Office of Management and Budget, which is headed by acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney. (NPR / Daily Beast / New York Magazine)
3/ The Department of Homeland Security sent out fines for nearly $500,000 to some immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally for "failing to depart the U.S. as previously agreed." ICE said the Immigration and Nationality Act grants the agency the right to impose "civil fines on aliens who have been ordered removed or granted voluntary departure and fail to depart the United States" of no more than $500 for each day the person is in violation of the section. Immigration lawyers say they've never heard of it used this way. (NPR)
4/ Trump threatened to increase ICE raids and deportations of undocumented immigrants after the Fourth of July holiday, saying "they're going to be gone, they're going back to their countries. They go back home." Trump praised the Mexican government for taking steps to curb the flow of migrants reaching the U.S. border, claiming, "It was because of tariffs that they're doing it, but the point is they're doing a great job." Trump then reiterated his threat to deport all undocumented immigrants, "because that's what we do." Trump delayed planned nationwide ICE raids last month for two weeks to see if Congress can "work out a solution." (NBC News)
https://apnews.com/70c173c8d213438e9fbef4d1f2bba07b
Rep. Joaquin Castro snuck a hidden camera into a migrant detention facility and tweeted out photos and videos, saying Americans "must see what is being carried out in their name." The tweets show several women in the custody of Customs and Border Patrol sitting on the floor with blankets at a facility in El Paso. The facility in question housed "women from Cuba, some grandmothers, crammed into a prison-like cell with one toilet, but no running water to drink from or wash their hands with. Concrete floors, cinder-block walls, steel toilets." Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also visited the facility, where she said officers were keeping women in cells with no running water, and had "told them to drink out of the toilets." (The Hill / The Guardian / NBC News / Buzz Feed News / Washington Post)
5/ Tanks for Trump's Fourth of July "Salute to America" arrived in Washington. At least two Bradley and two Abrams tanks were purportedly en route to the National Mall. Trump also requested that the chiefs for the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines stand next to him during the celebration. (NBC News / New York Times / Associated Press)
The 20-foot-tall balloon depicting Trump as a baby in diapers will fly on the National Mall during Trump's "Salute to America" event. (Politico / CNN)
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/07/02/baby-trump-balloon-fourth-of-july-1395398
6/ Ivanka Trump was an unofficial stand-in for diplomats and government officials at meetings with world leaders at the G-20 summit, in South Korea, and at the demilitarized zone last week. Ivanka called the experience "surreal." (Washington Post / New York Times / CNN / NBC News)
https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/30/politics/ivanka-trump-g20-north-korea/index.html
poll/ Americans' pride in the U.S. hit an all-time low. 45% say they are "extremely proud" to be Americans. In 2018, 47% felt "extremely proud." (Gallup / Axios / CNN)
I feel this is kinda misleading. 25% say they are very proud and 18% say they are moderately proud.
◊ Only 9% say they are "only a little" proud, and just 3% say they aren't proud at all. So that's still 43% of Americans who are proud of the U.S. to some extent.
Given it's politico, beware of clickbait headline.
Hickenlooper campaign in shambles – Senior staffers asked the former Colorado governor to drop out of the presidential race and run for Senate
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/07/02/hickenlooper-2020-campaign-1395051
The source said that the campaign only has about 13,000 donors, making it almost impossible to qualify for the next round of presidential debates in the fall. The campaign also only raised just over $1 million in the second quarter — about what he raised in the first 48 hours of his candidacy — and will likely run out of money completely in about a month.
At least five staffers have left or are leaving Hickenlooper’s struggling operation, including his campaign manager, communications director, digital director and finance director. Hickenlooper named a new campaign manager on Monday night.
Hickenlooper publicly blamed his former staff Tuesday for his failure to gain traction in the crowded Democratic primary.
“We thought it was time to make a change,” he told MSNBC’s Craig Melvin. “You know, these campaigns are long, hard campaigns and you don’t always get it right with the first team.”
But a source familiar with the situation disputed the governor’s characterization, saying he is lashing out at the political professionals around him and surrounding himself with Colorado loyalists rather than confronting reality.
The Hickenlooper campaign declined to comment.
Edited by sgamer82 on Jul 2nd 2019 at 11:21:27 AM
So if anyone tries to claim the U.S. flag hasn't become a religious icon or idol, point them to the whole shitstorm around Nike deciding not to put it on their trainers for the 4th.
I'm not sure it will impact him one way or the other. Hickenlooper's super popular here in Colorado. Coloradan Republicans and Democrats alike love the guy and would vote for him in a heartbeat. The real question, I think, is whether he'd be willing to make that transition from executive to legislative branch.
He spent eight years as the mayor of Denver, then went on to another eight years as the state governor. So I can see the logic in trying to jump up to the next rung on the executive ladder, so to speak. He's used to being the boss.
But the national scale is profoundly different and I'm not surprised he isn't doing well at that level. Especially since "Republicans like me too; I'm all about big business!" isn't a great selling point outside the state, where the fracking industry controls a lot of small towns' futures. He really needs the kind of federal exposure and experience that a Senator role would provide before he even thinks about a Presidency.
Edited by TobiasDrake on Jul 3rd 2019 at 6:03:51 AM
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.

New World Order?!What kind of bullshit conspiracy is this?From what I've gathered,yes,there are supporters of Trump in the FBI and other three letter groups,the investigations into Hillary are clear evidence of that
have a listen and have a link to my discord server