The Random Politics Thread

[LadySkinsFan]

Over on Facebook, there's a writer Heather Cox Richardson who daily writes on politics both past and present. 

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heather_Cox_Richardson

 

From Sunday, March 14th, she writes about the birthday of Maine and the backstory about how Maine became a state in the Missouri Compromise. Below is a brief passage from this long article. It's indicative of the ongoing white supremist factions that never died with the North winning the Civil War, or the War of Northern Aggression as the South called it and probably still do. 

 

 

Israel and Elihu were both serving in Congress in 1854 when Congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act overturning the Missouri Compromise and permitting the spread of slavery to the West. Furious, Israel called a meeting of 30 congressmen in May to figure out how they could come together to stand against the Slave Power that had commandeered the government to spread the South’s system of human enslavement. They met in the rooms of Representative Edward Dickinson, of Massachusetts-- whose talented daughter Emily was already writing poems-- and while they came to the meeting from all different political parties, they left with one sole principle: to stop the Slave Power that was turning the government into an oligarchy. 

 

The men scattered for the summer back to their homes across the North, sharing their conviction that a new party must rise to stand against the Slave Power. In the fall, those calling themselves “anti-Nebraska” candidates were sweeping into office—Cadwallader Washburn would be elected from Wisconsin in 1854 and Owen Lovejoy from Illinois in 1856—and they would, indeed, create a new political party: the Republicans. The new party took deep root in Maine, flipping the state from Democratic to Republican in 1856, the first time it fielded a presidential candidate.

 

Edited to add:  this comment from HCR's article.

 

"I really love this story.  It also resonates with the discussion about DC statehood and Puerto Rico statehood and the balance of republican dominate senate seats.  you can see that same impulse to preserve oligarchic control in today's republican senators.  They are literally saying things such as 'if the john lewis voting rights act passes we can never win another election'. It is remarkable.  And without this historic grounding it is difficult to see it for what it is: the struggle against oligarchy."

Edited March 15, 2021 by LadySkinsFan

[LD0506]

[China]

Timing Key In Consulting Deal Between FirstEnergy, Regulator

 

Shortly before a utility lawyer and lobbyist was appointed Ohio’s top regulator of electric and power generating companies, he received $4.3 million from top executives at one of the companies whose fortunes would soon be in his hands.

 

In the months that followed, that company — Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp. — won a string of legislative and regulatory victories worth well over $1 billion over time to the company and its subsidiaries, including a nuclear plant bailout that’s at the center of a $60 million federal bribery probe.

 

The bulk of that tab was to be paid by the state’s electricity customers.

What investigators at the state and federal levels now want to know is whether Sam Randazzo, the utility lawyer-turned-regulator who has since resigned, helped FirstEnergy in exchange for millions.

 

The payment to a future state official meeting Randazzo’s description received from then-executives of the utilities giant in January 2019 is the subject of an ongoing audit by the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, which Randazzo chaired from April 2019 to last November, when he resigned under a cloud.

 

Corporate filings from November differed in the descriptions provided to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission of the payment made by fired top officials. FirstEnergy’s board of directors fired CEO Chuck Jones and two other executives weeks earlier for having “violated certain FirstEnergy policies and its code of conduct.”

 

FirstEnergy’s quarterly earnings report said the payment terminated a “purported consulting contract” dating back to 2013. Recent sleuthing by Energy and Policy Institute, a pro-renewable energy watchdog group, unearthed a disclosure in lending documents that suggested Randazzo was paid for future work, creating questions on what actions he might have taken as PUCO chair on behalf of FirstEnergy.

 

Randazzo was involved in other actions while chair that stood to benefit FirstEnergy companies. The most significant was House Bill 6, the $1 billion nuclear bailout bill.

Then-Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder, a Republican, and four associates, were arrested and indicted on federal racketeering charges in July, accused of orchestrating an elaborate scheme secretly funded by FirstEnergy to secure Householder’s power, elect his allies and pass the now-tainted bill. The legislation was promoted as a plan to secure the future of two aging nuclear plants then operated by a wholly owned FirstEnergy subsidiary.

 

Documents subpoenaed by the FBI showed Randazzo had a significant role in writing the bailout bill.

 

Calendars obtained by the AP through a public records request further show that Randazzo met with Householder and Republican Gov. Mike DeWine at the Governor’s Residence for an “energy discussion” in April 2019. That was less than two weeks after Randazzo had become PUCO chair and a day later the bailout bill was introduced. He also met in 2019 with both men’s policy advisers, as well as other administration officials.

 

DeWine’s office said in response to a separate records request that there was no further documentation of the meeting. The AP reported Dec. 10 that DeWine in early 2019 disregarded cries of alarm over Randazzo’s close ties to FirstEnergy before appointing him to the commission. DeWine has stood by the decision.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[LadySkinsFan]

Corruption in Ohio. 

[Larry]

Tampa Bay Times: Controversial Florida medical marijuana bill one step closer to becoming law

 

 

Quote

 

TALLAHASSEE — If Florida doesn’t make significant reforms to its medical marijuana program, it could have another opioid crisis on its hands, a Republican lawmaker argued in a House committee Tuesday.

 

Rep. Spencer Roach, R-Fort Myers, made this case while advocating for a bill he’s sponsoring which would limit the amount of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) in medical marijuana products offered to Florida patients.

 

My bold. 
 

[Cooked Crack]

 

 

[Barry.Randolphe]

 Disney World in WVA....good luck

 

This sounds like from South Park when Canada goes on strike....and the other world leaders ask them what they want, and their only response is 'more money!'

 

 

 

Edited March 19, 2021 by Barry.Randolphe

[Captain Wiggles]

Quote

Business opportunity takes off like a rocket ship.

 

🤔

 

[China]

Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz, and the Squad have made their mark in Congress — just not with actual lawmaking, study finds

 

The most effective lawmakers at passing actual laws aren’t the ones out there grabbing headlines or feeding the cable news beast.

 

Congressman Jim Jordan, who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Donald Trump for his fierce defence of the former president, was the third least effective Republican in the 116th Congress (2019-20) when it came to actually moving legislation through the House.

 

That’s No 202 out of last Congress’ 204 GOP members, according to a recent study from the Center for Effective Lawmaking, a joint group of researchers from Vanderbilt University and the University of Virginia.

 

Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz, another Fox News darling, ranked well into the bottom quartile among Republican lawmakers, according to the study.

 

To determine each lawmaker’s score, researchers weighed 15 different metrics that sought to capture the number of bills a member introduced last Congress, how those bills fared in terms of moving towards the House floor for a final vote, and the significance of those bills, among several other inputs.

 

The average House member introduced 20 bills in 2019 and 2020, the study found, but just one of roughly every 40 bills actually passed the House. Even fewer passed the Senate and were signed into law by Mr Trump.

 

Lawmaking naturally favours members of the majority party as well as those whose ideology and legislative approach tack towards the centre.

 

While “The Squad” of four progressive congresswomen of colour last term — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota — were some of the most recognisable faces and voices in Washington last term, their uncompromising legislative approach placed them lower on the legislative effectiveness score rankings.

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

[skinsmarydu]

 

[LadySkinsFan]

Fauci pretty much owned Rand Paul. 

[China]

Mary Trump has her next act — and believes her uncle’s guilty of sedition

 

Another Trump has decided to enter the political arena following the 45th president’s departure from office. It’s just not the one most people expected.

 

Mary Trump, a ferocious critic of the uncle she’s called cruel and traitorous, is joining the board of LPAC, an organization that supports LGBTQ+ female candidates running for office. And she’s doing so, she says, partially driven by the belief that her uncle nearly destroyed America’s democratic system of governance.

 

“We came really close to losing our democracy — and I may sound melodramatic but it happens to be true,” Trump said in an interview on Thursday. “I feel it’s the beginning of the fight because we came so close to losing everything, and we’re also faced with a situation in which there’s this fight over the filibuster, and it’s important we understand this is about representation across the board.”

 

Trump, who worked with LPAC before the election, was asked to join the group as it works to recruit candidates for office and raise funds ahead of the 2022 midterm elections. In this political moment, she said, she hopes to use her name and platform to “move away from what has been one of the worst administrations in this country’s history on almost every level.”

LPAC helped elect Democratic Sens. Tammy Baldwin and Kyrsten Sinema as well as Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot. There are only 11 openly LGBTQ members of Congress, including Baldwin and Sinema.

 

“If it’s only men making decisions about womens’ issues or straight people making decisions about LGBTQ issues, then that’s where we run into problems and we’ve seen this,” Trump said.

A trained clinical psychologist, Trump is currently finishing her second book “The Reckoning,” which will examine “America’s national trauma, rooted in our history but dramatically exacerbated by the impact of current events and the Trump administration’s corrupt and immoral policies.” Her bestselling first book, “Too Much and Never Enough,” was a memoir of her life in the Trump family, her recollections of her famous uncle and her scathing and deeply personal depictions of family behavior and motivations that ultimately serve as a political cautionary tale.

 

Her feelings toward her family haven’t improved since then. She accused her uncle of committing “sedition” and doing “everything in his power to steal this election.” As for her cousins — Ivanka, Don Jr., and Eric — she scoffed at the notion that they could potentially run for elected office, too.

 

“I think we should all resent having to have that conversation. Because they are, despite being — let’s put it this way, they have no qualifications, they have no skills,” she said. “Ivanka and Jared just spent the last four years allegedly as employees of the government using their position to make hundreds of millions of dollars which isn’t how it’s supposed to work. I hope they’ll be sitting next to their dad in depositions for the next few years.”

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

I'm sure Fox and the GOP will have fun with this:

 

 

Ford-esque.

[China]

17 hours ago, China said:

I'm sure Fox and the GOP will have fun with this:

 

 

Ford-esque.

 

We knew this was coming:

 

Donald Trump Jr shares video of dad hitting Biden with a golf ball as Air Force One fall sparks flood of memes

[Cooked Crack]

 

 

[PleaseBlitz]

Hmmm, for Mayor of Alexandria, should I vote for a Republican flight attendant with no experience in city management and who has only lived in Alexandria for a few months?  She does make the compelling argument that she has "a lot of time on her hands."  Decisions decisions......

 

https://www.alxnow.com/2021/03/23/flight-attendant-annetta-catchings-running-for-alexandria-mayor-as-a-republican/

 

Quote

Annetta Catchings moved to Alexandria last August and now she’s running for mayor as a Republican.

 

“I’m very confident that I could be the mayor of Alexandria,” Catchings told ALXnow. “I think I have a lot to offer.”

 

The 52-year-old is asking for voters to look past her party. She lives in the Carlyle neighborhood of the city, and said that her 30 years experience as a flight attendant for American Airlines has prepared her to make the right decisions for the city. She also says that the mayorship has as much power as a city council member and that it is largely a ceremonial position.

 

“I’ve flown for 30 years as a purser (chief flight attendant), and I’ve been put in very a variety of situations where I’ve had to make decisions and direct a crew,” Catchings said. “I do that every day. I’ve done that every day for 30 years.”

 

This year, Catchings attended the campaign management school at the Arlington-based conservative Leadership Institute, according to her Linkedin page, and has written a number of opinion pieces for local publications. In January, she wrote that signs with the slogans “Black Lives Matter” and “End Racism” were filled with negative subliminal messages. The following month she wrote about why she is a Black Republican.

 

Catchings said her friends and neighbors urged her to run over concerns of a lack of transparency in city government, increased taxes, housing affordability and education issues. She also said that she’s an empty nester with a lot of time on her hands, and that she can make her own schedule flying with American Airlines.

 

“I got this phase of my life where I’m an empty nester and I have a lot of time on my hands, and I just want to serve the community in a way that I feel is impactful,” she said. “I just feel like everything that I’ve done and who I am has brought me to this place.”

 

Catchings, who filed her paperwork with the city’s registrar of voters on March 18, moved to Alexandria last August. She previously lived in Vienna and Stafford and moved to Virginia in 2004. She also studied journalism at Dillon University. She’s the mother of two grown men and was married to a U.S. Marine for 25 years.

 

[China]

Baltimore prosecutor Marilyn Mosby purchased two Florida homes for more than $1M combined, property records show

 

Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby has purchased two homes in Florida for more than $1 million combined since September, including a condo on the Gulf of Mexico that closed just days before her campaign said it was exploring setting up a legal defense fund for her mounting attorneys’ fees.

 

Mosby bought a condominium on a barrier island just north of Sarasota for $476,000 in February. She financed the Longboat Key property with a 30-year, $428,400 loan, according to Sarasota County property records.

 

Meanwhile, property records in Osceola County show Mosby paid $545,000 in September for a 4,000-square-foot property near Disney World. The records show Mosby used a $490,500 loan for that purchase in Kissimmee.

 

Mosby and her husband, City Council President Nick Mosby, are under criminal investigation by a federal grand jury looking into her campaign, their businesses and their tax returns dating back to 2014, The Baltimore Sun reported Friday.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[LadySkinsFan]

^^^^ Wonder which one they'll pick for homestead exemption?  She's in some serious trouble, like possible prison time. Hard to enjoy that Longboat Key condo.

[CousinsCowgirl84]

https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/24/us/oakland-low-income-bipoc-guaranteed-income-trnd/index.html

 

Low-income families of color in Oakland, California, could receive some extra financial assistance over the next year and a half. 

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf announced this week that the city will launch a guaranteed income project to give hundreds of Black and Indigenous families and people of color $500 per month for 18 months. 

The project's payments will be unconditional, and recipients may spend the money however they choose. 

The Oakland Resilient Families program is the latest trial of a "guaranteed income" system of wealth distribution, where residents are given a set amount of money per month to supplement the existing social safety net.

 

 

 

 

I guess low income whites are just lazy....

[LadySkinsFan]

39 minutes ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

Low-income families of color in Oakland, California, could receive some extra financial assistance over the next year and a half. 

 

I guess low income whites are just lazy....

 

What an asinine thing to say! 

 

 

Edited March 24, 2021 by LadySkinsFan

[CousinsCowgirl84]

16 minutes ago, LadySkinsFan said:

 

What an asinine thing to say! 

 

 

how So? Singling out people based on race seems racist to me. I am willing to try guaranteed income, being that what we have done till now hasn’t worked. But why have we decided low income whites aren’t deserving?

Edited March 24, 2021 by CousinsCowgirl84

[LD0506]

[Cooked Crack]

 

[Cooked Crack]

 

 

[TradeTheBeal!]