The Random Politics Thread

[PokerPacker]

On 12/6/2021 at 7:07 PM, China said:

Democrats fall flat with ‘Latinx’ language

 

As Democrats seek to reach out to Latino voters in a more gender-neutral way, they’ve increasingly begun using the word Latinx, a term that first began to get traction among academics and activists on the left.

 

But that very effort could be counterproductive in courting those of Latin American descent, according to a new nationwide poll of Hispanic voters.

 

Only 2 percent of those polled refer to themselves as Latinx, while 68 percent call themselves “Hispanic” and 21 percent favored “Latino” or “Latina” to describe their ethnic background, according to the survey from Bendixen & Amandi International, a top Democratic firm specializing in Latino outreach.

 

More problematic for Democrats: 40 percent said Latinx bothers or offends them to some degree and 30 percent said they would be less likely to support a politician or organization that uses the term.

 

At a time when Republicans appear to be making inroads among Latino voters, the survey results raise questions about how effectively the party is communicating with them, according to pollster Fernand Amandi and other Democrats and Latino vote experts.

 

“The numbers suggest that using Latinx is a violation of the political Hippocratic Oath, which is to first do no electoral harm,” said Amandi, whose firm advised Barack Obama’s successful Hispanic outreach nationwide in his two presidential campaigns. “Why are we using a word that is preferred by only 2 percent, but offends as many as 40 percent of those voters we want to win?”

 

Click on the link for the full article

There was a story on NPR about the term "Latin-X".  The conclusion was that Latin-American people do not use the term; it's pretty much purely whitey's thing and they came to the same conclusion as above.  Every story I hear from NPR since then used the term whenever speaking of Hispanic people.  Well done, folks; you did the research and ignored it because it makes you feel like you're being more inclusive despite the overwhelming evidence you yourselves dug up to the contrary.

[abdcskins]

https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/08/us/montana-hunting-grizzly-bears-trnd/index.html

 

I was trying to find like an environment thread but couldn't find one.  Anyway, the governor of Montana sounds like a complete idiot.  Grizzly bears have been threatened for quite some time in North America and are endangered in part of Canada.  They are just starting to recover, and somehow he thinks they have completely recovered without providing any evidence or research?  And he wants to kill them?  Dude, stop being a selfish cold-hearted prick.

 

Granted I easily get triggered when it comes to animal rights.  In my opinion they should be left alone completely and hunting should be reserved for animals that truly reproduce at a remarkable rate such as deer.  If grizzly bears start to attack humans or kill farmers' livestock on a consistent basis then perhaps we can revisit it, but even then I think measures should involve tranquilizing and relocating them to more remote parts of the state.    

[LadySkinsFan]

On 12/8/2021 at 1:40 AM, PokerPacker said:

There was a story on NPR about the term "Latin-X".  The conclusion was that Latin-American people do not use the term; it's pretty much purely whitey's thing and they came to the same conclusion as above.  Every story I hear from NPR since then used the term whenever speaking of Hispanic people.  Well done, folks; you did the research and ignored it because it makes you feel like you're being more inclusive despite the overwhelming evidence you yourselves dug up to the contrary.

 

Exactly! On the previous page, I explained why Latin Americans don't use the term Latinx. It's because Spanish is a romance language that uses masculine and feminine words. X isn't real. It's made up by the trans community, which has a white majority.

[Cooked Crack]

 

I'm not taking my work phone clubbing either. Also, 😍.

[China]

 

[LD0506]

[TradeTheBeal!]

 

[China]

"Axios on HBO": Cherokee Nation wants its congressional delegate

 

The principal chief of the Cherokee Nation told "Axios on HBO" it's time for Congress to make good on a 19th century treaty by seating Kim Teehee as the Cherokee people's first nonvoting U.S. House delegate.

 

What they're saying: "The president of the United States agreed to this 180 years ago," Chuck Hoskin Jr. said during the program's season finale. "The United States Senate did its job 180 years ago; there's one part of the government left to take action. That's the United States House of Representatives."

 

Teehee was tapped by the tribe more than two years ago.

Driving the news: Hoskin and Teehee sat down for an interview at the Cherokee National Capitol in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. It's part of heavily Republican Cherokee County.

 

They expressed optimism their efforts are moving in the right direction and said they have support on both sides of the aisle. "I think as long as we are willing to proactively continue to keep the ball moving, we'll get there," Teehee said.

At the same time, Hoskin said, "I think any congressional leader or any president who campaigns on being pro-tribal sovereignty and goes back on such a basic promise, they're gonna be on the opposite side of me and they're gonna be on the opposite side of history. And there'll be a consequence for that."

The Cherokee and Navajo are the two most populous Native American tribes, each with an enrollment of roughly 400,000.

How we got here: The 1835 Treaty of New Echota — signed by President Andrew Jackson and ratified by the Senate — promised the Cherokee Nation a nonvoting House delegate.

It would be similar to what the District of Columbia or the U.S. territories have today.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

 

 

[goskins10]

Not sure if this has been posted elsewhere but this guy is hilarious and spot on. 

 

 

[China]

Kshama Sawant: “We Won Because We Did Not Back Down”

 

nce again, Seattle City Council member Kshama Sawant and her Socialist Alternative organization have beaten the political odds. Last week, she defeated a million-dollar recall campaign by real estate developers and landlords, Democratic Party leaders, big Trump donors, and newspaper editorialists, who all teamed up to evict the eight-year councilor from City Hall.

 

Sawant’s win is both an inspiration for embattled progressives everywhere and a road map of how to fight back aggressively and win. And it’s all the more remarkable because this was a special election, engineered to suppress working-class turnout, with anti-Sawant forces scheduling the election between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

 

“The wealthy…took their best shot at us, and we beat them. Again,” Sawant declared to about 100 supporters gathered on December 10 outside Seattle’s New Hope Missionary Baptist Church. “We won because we did not back down. We did not back down in our socialist city council office. Instead, we went on the offensive, and won some of the most crucial victories for renters’ rights this year. We did not back down in fighting for workers…. We did not back down one inch in our socialist election campaign to defeat the racist, right-wing, big-business-backed recall.”

 

The victory margin was narrow—50.4 to 49.6, a 317-vote difference out of nearly 41,000 cast, with a handful of ballots still being tallied in advance of the election certification on Friday. As Sawant’s fourth race in eight years, this recall effort wasn’t even supposed to be close.

 

Corporate executives and their political allies, with help from the courts, state government, and the media, had orchestrated this special December election. They fully intended to finish off the firebrand socialist, who has led movements producing the first big-city $15 minimum wage, breakthrough renters rights legislation, and a new tax on Amazon and other big businesses to fund affordable housing and Green New Deal projects.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[CousinsCowgirl84]

On 12/13/2021 at 9:52 PM, China said:

"Axios on HBO": Cherokee Nation wants its congressional delegate

 

The principal chief of the Cherokee Nation told "Axios on HBO" it's time for Congress to make good on a 19th century treaty by seating Kim Teehee as the Cherokee people's first nonvoting U.S. House delegate.

 

What they're saying: "The president of the United States agreed to this 180 years ago," Chuck Hoskin Jr. said during the program's season finale. "The United States Senate did its job 180 years ago; there's one part of the government left to take action. That's the United States House of Representatives."

 

Teehee was tapped by the tribe more than two years ago.

Driving the news: Hoskin and Teehee sat down for an interview at the Cherokee National Capitol in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. It's part of heavily Republican Cherokee County.

 

They expressed optimism their efforts are moving in the right direction and said they have support on both sides of the aisle. "I think as long as we are willing to proactively continue to keep the ball moving, we'll get there," Teehee said.

At the same time, Hoskin said, "I think any congressional leader or any president who campaigns on being pro-tribal sovereignty and goes back on such a basic promise, they're gonna be on the opposite side of me and they're gonna be on the opposite side of history. And there'll be a consequence for that."

The Cherokee and Navajo are the two most populous Native American tribes, each with an enrollment of roughly 400,000.

How we got here: The 1835 Treaty of New Echota — signed by President Andrew Jackson and ratified by the Senate — promised the Cherokee Nation a nonvoting House delegate.

It would be similar to what the District of Columbia or the U.S. territories have today.

 

Click on the link for the full article

Why shouldn’t it be a voting delegate?

[PleaseBlitz]

46 minutes ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

Why shouldn’t it be a voting delegate?

I agree with the sentiment but the answer is (1) because the Constitution (probably) says so and (2) because federal law largely does not apply on tribal land. 

[China]

Revealed: the Florida power company pushing legislation to slow rooftop solar

 

The biggest power company in the US is pushing policy changes that would hamstring rooftop solar power in Florida, delivering legislation for a state lawmaker to introduce, according to records obtained by the Miami Herald and Floodlight.

 

Florida Power & Light (FPL), whose work with dark money political committees helped secure Republican control of the state Senate, is lobbying to hollow out net metering, a policy that lets Florida homeowners and businesses offset the costs of installing solar panels by selling power back to the company.

 

Internal emails obtained from the Florida Senate show that an FPL lobbyist, John Holley, sent the text of the bill to state senator Jennifer Bradley’s staff on 18 October. FPL’s parent company contributed $10,000 to Bradely’s political committee on 20 October. A month later, Bradley filed a bill that was almost identical to the one FPL gave her. Another lawmaker introduced the same measure in the House.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

'Reeks of retaliation.' Dover mayor fires 3 city employees who helped council investigation

 

A once-absent mayor facing a special prosecutors' investigation fired three city employees who testified about him during a City Council investigation earlier this year.

 

Dover Mayor Richard Homrighausen fired Service Director Dave Douglas, Safety Director Gerry Mroczkowski and Eva Newsome, the mayor's executive assistant, on Tuesday just days before Christmas. Police officers stood by as they cleaned out their offices.

 

After firing Douglas, Homrighausen was asked what was going on. He replied, "Taking care of city business."

 

He declined to comment further, but later announced the appointment of two new directors while thanking Mroczkowski and Douglas "for their dedicated service." None of the three has any disciplinary action in their personnel files. 

 

Homrighausen, 73, stopped coming to work and council meetings for months in this city of about 13,000 residents south of Canton along I-77 in Tuscarawas County, prompting a council investigation into his physical and mental well-being. Council members have called upon him to resign, citing a declining faith in his ability to lead the city.

 

Instead, the eight-term mayor returned and found himself at the center of a state investigation with three special prosecutors from the Ohio Auditor's Office assigned to the case. He also has been peppered with critical questions from the council.

 

Council President Shane Gunnoe described the situation as "an embarrassing time."

 

"These types of actions and those that have preceded for the last several months are embarrassing to the people of Dover and embarrassing to the employees of the city of Dover," Gunnoe said.

 

"To me, these employees were employees who have carried the load the last two years in the city," he said. "I think their termination was just disgusting. My personal opinion is that it reeks of retaliation by the mayor for their cooperation in council's legislative hearing into personnel issues earlier this year."

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

On 11/19/2021 at 12:27 AM, China said:

Judge temporarily blocks New York Times from publishing Project Veritas materials

 

A New York trial judge on Thursday temporarily blocked the New York Times from publishing some materials concerning the conservative activist group Project Veritas, a rare step that the newspaper said violated decades of First Amendment protections for the process.

 

The order by Justice Charles Wood of the Westchester County Supreme Court covers memos written by a Project Veritas lawyer and obtained by the Times.

 

Wood scheduled a hearing for next Tuesday to consider a longer prohibition against publication, and whether the Times should remove references to privileged attorney-client information in a Nov. 11 https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/11/us/politics/project-veritas-journalism-political-spying.html article about Project Veritas' journalism practices.

 

"This ruling is unconstitutional and sets a dangerous precedent," Dean Baquet, the Times' executive editor, said in an emailed statement.

 

"When a court silences journalism, it fails its citizens and undermines their right to know," he added. "The Supreme Court made that clear in the Pentagon Papers case, a landmark ruling against prior restraint blocking the publication of newsworthy journalism. That principle clearly applies here. We are seeking an immediate review of this decision."

 

Baquet's statement referred to the U.S. Supreme Court's 1971 rejection of the Nixon administration's bid to stop the Times and the Washington Post from publishing the Pentagon Papers, which detailed U.S. military involvement in Vietnam.

 

Bruce Brown, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, called prior restraint "among the most serious threats to press freedom," and said an appeals court should vacate Wood's order if the judge does not.

 

"This is the first prior restraint entered against the New York Times since the Pentagon Papers, and it is an outrageous affront to the First Amendment," Brown said in a statement.

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

Judge upholds ruling against NYT over Project Veritas memos

 

A New York judge has upheld an order preventing The New York Times from publishing documents between conservative group Project Veritas and its lawyer and ruled that the newspaper must immediately relinquish confidential legal memos it obtained.

 

The decision Thursday by State Supreme Court Justice Charles D. Wood in Westchester County, released Friday, comes in a defamation lawsuit Project Veritas filed against the Times in 2020.

 

Months after the lawsuit was filed, the newspaper reported that the U.S. Justice Department was investigating Project Veritas in connection with the theft of a diary belonging to Ashley Biden, the president's daughter. In that story, the Times quoted the memos, leading Project Veritas to accuse the newspaper of violating attorney-client privilege.

 

Wood upheld his earlier order preventing the Times from further publishing the memos, and also ruled that the newspaper must turn over physical copies of the documents and destroy electronic versions.

 

The newspaper reported it would appeal the ruling and seek a stay in the meantime. Publisher A.G. Sulzberger decried the ruling as an attack of press freedoms and alarming for “anyone concerned about the dangers of government overreach into what the public can and cannot know.” He also said it risked exposing sources.

 

“In defiance of law settled in the Pentagon Papers case, this judge has barred The Times from publishing information about a prominent and influential organization that was obtained legally in the ordinary course of reporting,” Sulzberger said in a statement reported by the Times that also asserted there was no precedent for Wood's decision.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Renegade7]

On 12/9/2021 at 10:11 AM, Cooked Crack said:

 

I'm not taking my work phone clubbing either. Also, 😍.

 

I think she's awesome, too, but when you are responsible for an entire country, yes, you are on-call.

[China]

Biden Spends Less On Travel Than One Trump Trip To Mar-a-Lago

 

Conservative media was outraged that Biden’s trips home to Delaware cost $3 million, but a single Trump trip to Mar-a-Lago cost taxpayers $3.4 million.

 

Biden’s regular weekend and a few midweek trips home to Delaware have cost nearly $3 million in security alone, Secret Service expense records shared with The Post show.

 

Biden’s security detail spent $1.96 million on 16 trips to his Delaware homes this year, the records indicate. Another nine trips aren’t yet counted and likely push the total to $3 million.

 

That might seem like a lot of money until one looks at the cost of each of Trump’s trips to his private Florida club.

 

NPR reported in February 2019, “A new report from the Government Accountability Office says four such trips early on in Trump’s presidency cost taxpayers $13.6 million, or some $3.4 million each. That is far higher than the estimates of Trump’s travel costs early in his presidency, which were pegged at about $1 million per trip.”

 

At the same time, the Secret Service was also spending hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to protect Donald Jr. and Eric Trump on each of their trips.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Who wants to bet that the state legislator that is proposing this bill got pulled over for failing to signal?

 

BILL: IN SB0124 Specialized driving privileges.

 

Quote

Repeals the statute requiring a signal of intention to turn before turning or changing lanes.

 

[skinsmarydu]

2 hours ago, China said:

Who wants to bet that the state legislator that is proposing this bill got pulled over for failing to signal?

 

BILL: IN SB0124 Specialized driving privileges.

 

 

Is this person from GA?

[China]

 

[China]

On 10/29/2021 at 4:02 PM, LadySkinsFan said:

I don't know if there a Theranos thread so I put this here because Betsy DeVos's family was swindled out of investing in that scam business. Too funny. 

 

Other investors allegedly swindled include the Walton family, which has more than 50% of Walmart shares, who invested $150 million in Theranos and media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who invested $125 million into the company. In all, Theranos raised $900 million.

 

Holmes is charged with 12 counts of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. If found guilty, she could spend the next 20 years behind bars.

 

 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/devos-family-swindled-100-million-194400579.html

 

 

Former Theranos CEO Holmes guilty of fraud and conspiracy

 

Fallen Silicon Valley star Elizabeth Holmes was convicted of fraud Monday for turning her blood-testing startup Theranos into a sophisticated sham that duped billionaires and other unwitting investors into backing a seemingly revolutionary company whose medical technology never worked as promised.

 

A jury convicted the 37-year-old on two counts of wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit fraud after seven days of deliberation. The verdict followed a three-month trial featuring dozens of witnesses — including Holmes herself. She now faces up to 20 years in prison for each count, although legal experts say she is unlikely to receive anything close to the maximum sentence.

 

The jury deadlocked on three remaining charges. The split verdicts are “a mixed bag for the prosecution, but it’s a loss for Elizabeth Holmes because she is going away to prison for at least a few years,” said David Ring, a lawyer who has followed the case closely.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Trump endorses autocratic Hungarian leader

 

Former President Trump on Monday endorsed Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, a right-wing leader widely criticized as an autocrat who was snubbed by the Biden administration, which did not invite him to attend a recent summit on democracy. 

 

Trump, in a statement sent by his Save America PAC, said Orbán “truly loves his Country and wants safety for his people.”

 

The former GOP president also touted Orbán's hard-line immigration policies, which have drawn Hungary into conflict with the European Union. 

 

“He has done a powerful and wonderful job in protecting Hungary, stopping illegal immigration, creating jobs, trade, and should be allowed to continue to do so in the upcoming Election. He is a strong leader and respected by all,” Trump added, before giving the prime minister his “Complete support and Endorsement for reelection.”

 

Trump’s endorsement comes after the Biden administration last month did not invite Hungary to its "Summit for Democracy," which focused on bolstering democracy, safeguarding against authoritarianism, combating corruption and advancing human rights. More than 100 countries were invited.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Cooked Crack]

 

[China]