Miscellaneous news items that don't warrant their own thread

[Ibanez]

I have to agree with you. It's all degrees of virtue signaling, IMO, regardless if it's BLM, Trump, Thin Blue Line or your college mascot.

Though - it's not 100% on either side. There's an abandoned building here that has "Trump 2020" still spray painted on the side. It's down the street where some tool, to this day, paints " HODL GME" on the road.

To UNI's point - it's still ridiculous.

But was that govt paying for that building or street to be painted? That was the case in the OP. If not, its not the same.

And wtf is ‘HODL GME’

Nope -just vandalism of private property.

And it refers to holding GME stock because people think it’ll go to $1M/ share or some stupid shit.

[Winterborn]

I like this bill and it is a good step towards government transparency.

As noted, the first bill would require the public release of visitor logs for the White House and “any locations where the president and vice president regularly do official business.” (We’ll circle back to that one in a moment.) The second bill would order the retention and eventual release of “non-official electronic messaging accounts.”

These are both touchy areas for the White House and the media. Presidents of both parties have been far too secretive about visitor logs. Trump did away with the publication of visitor logs in all cases, both at the White House and at Mar-a-Lago. Biden’s administration has been making the White House logs available but dubiously insists that no such records exist for his mansions in Delaware. This is of critical concern in terms of transparency since Joe Biden is setting records for the amount of time he spends in Delaware rather than on the job in Washington. Even if this law is passed, do you honestly think that Joe Biden will go along with a rule saying he has to maintain and publish those logs for his homes? Do you believe Donald Trump would open up the vaults of Mar-a-Lago were he to return to office? Color me dubious.

The proposed law involving “non-official electronic messaging accounts” opens up a different can of worms that nobody has addressed in a sufficient fashion thus far. Back in the “good old days,” (assuming you think there ever were any) communications were delivered and stored on paper. If someone was going to try to hide any nefarious activity, they would need to literally burn the records and hope that nobody else had made a copy.

But now almost everything is created, transmitted, and published digitally. There are countless records that have been created that have never been printed out on paper. Those records can disappear with a click of a mouse. (Or, in the case of Hillary Clinton, with some BleachBit and a hammer.) Digital forensic techniques exist that can sometimes recover some of those records, but that depends on investigators being able to get their hands on the storage devices in most cases. Unless somebody blows the whistle, many records may simply vanish without the public or the media suspecting that they ever existed.

https://hotair.com/jazz-shaw/2023/03/21 ... cy-n538337

[BDKJMU]

Kalm- from your neck of the woods.

Wow- Obviously unqualified, but I guess she's a lib who checks off a couple of identity politics boxes..
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congre ... -rcna67703

Another one:

[Skjellyfetti]

yeah... sometimes embarrassment, loss of reputation, and humiliation are well deserved.

[kalm]

yeah... sometimes embarrassment, loss of reputation, and humiliation are well deserved.

[Ibanez]

Kalm- from your neck of the woods.

Wow- Obviously unqualified, but I guess she's a lib who checks off a couple of identity politics boxes..
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congre ... -rcna67703

Another one:

I don't know what a Brady Motion is but if a judicial nominee can't answer a basic question like what is Article V of the Constitution..then we got problems.

[Pwns]

Ana Kasparian threw this grenade right into the heart of left-wing Twitter.

Honestly surprised at the number of liberal women who are pushing back against this stuff.

[GannonFan]

Ana Kasparian threw this grenade right into the heart of left-wing Twitter.

Honestly surprised at the number of liberal women who are pushing back against this stuff.

Nah, she'll be labeled a terf for a tweet like that. She sounds like JK Rowling. No dissent is allowed.

[GannonFan]

Another one:

I don't know what a Brady Motion is but if a judicial nominee can't answer a basic question like what is Article V of the Constitution..then we got problems.

Actually, for a judicial nominee, the Brady Motion (even though I had to look it up - but I'm not a judicial nominee either) is probably even more day-to-day stuff for them than Article V is. No reason not for them to know it.

[Ibanez]

I don't know what a Brady Motion is but if a judicial nominee can't answer a basic question like what is Article V of the Constitution..then we got problems.

Actually, for a judicial nominee, the Brady Motion (even though I had to look it up - but I'm not a judicial nominee either) is probably even more day-to-day stuff for them than Article V is. No reason not for them to know it.

Then yeah...mind boggling to not know it.

[BDKJMU]

Vindman’s wife and Filipkowski..

[UNI88]

Democrats Call Out Jim Jordan’s Hypocrisy During Chaotic Weaponization Hearing

House Republicans celebrated their newfound majority earlier this year by forming a special subcommittee to investigate supposed anti-conservative bias throughout the government. The Weaponization of the Federal Government Committee has largely been a flop, with Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) helming a series of hearings that instead of unearthing “deep state” conspiracies have highlighted just how little the GOP is concerned with actual governance.
...
The Jan. 6 committee was led by Democrats but featured two Republican members, Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger. The committee would have featured more Republicans if then-House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy hadn’t pulled them off the committee after then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi vetoed the appointment of Jordan and Rep. Jim Banks (R-Pa.) to the panel given their participation in the effort to overturn the 2020 election results. The committee ultimately held several devastating hearings detailing how former President Donald Trump and his allies worked to prevent Biden from taking office, culminating in a violent insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

MAGAts were up in arms that the January 6 Committee was a farce (and I agree with them but also recognize that they share part of the blame for that) but when it's obvious that Jordan's Weaponization of the Federal Government Committee is also a farce what do they give us?



Thanks for the image BDK!

[GannonFan]

Oh, and getting this out there before we have one of Trump, I have never been comfortable with mug shots being taken and then shared with the public at the indictment or arrest step of a proceeding. Given the age of the internet, those mug shots last for perpetuity, regardless if the person in the mug shot is found guilty or not of whatever they got the mug shot for. I'm sure there are a disturbingly high percentage of people who have a mug shot and then later went on to be found innocent of the charges brought against them. I just always found the practice of releasing mug shots, which are never favorable to the person in them, to be quite presumptive of the person being guilty well before we prove it.

[kalm]

Permanent welfare state thwarted. Phew!

(Dayen makes some fair points).

[houndawg]

Oh, and getting this out there before we have one of Trump, I have never been comfortable with mug shots being taken and then shared with the public at the indictment or arrest step of a proceeding. Given the age of the internet, those mug shots last for perpetuity, regardless if the person in the mug shot is found guilty or not of whatever they got the mug shot for. I'm sure there are a disturbingly high percentage of people who have a mug shot and then later went on to be found innocent of the charges brought against them. I just always found the practice of releasing mug shots, which are never favorable to the person in them, to be quite presumptive of the person being guilty well before we prove it.

I agree, but I would support a special exemption for Trump.

[GannonFan]

Permanent welfare state thwarted. Phew!

(Dayen makes some fair points).

Don't worry, some things didn't even happen because of COVID and they're still out there today. Medicaid increases are how we'll get to universal health care in another decade or two, that's still moving ahead. And trust me, my wife's side of the family has several family units that are fully living on the dole and from the Facebook posts they make they are not suffering one bit. We talk about generational wealth, but there's something to be said about generational know-how of how to work the system and these folks have it in spades.

[GannonFan]

Oh, and getting this out there before we have one of Trump, I have never been comfortable with mug shots being taken and then shared with the public at the indictment or arrest step of a proceeding. Given the age of the internet, those mug shots last for perpetuity, regardless if the person in the mug shot is found guilty or not of whatever they got the mug shot for. I'm sure there are a disturbingly high percentage of people who have a mug shot and then later went on to be found innocent of the charges brought against them. I just always found the practice of releasing mug shots, which are never favorable to the person in them, to be quite presumptive of the person being guilty well before we prove it.

I agree, but I would support a special exemption for Trump.

I'd be fine with that, and I'd be fine with implementing it immediately after his mugshot.

But in this day and age of the internet and things lasting forever (we tell kids in school to guard their social networks and what they post for this very reason) the fact that we take really incriminating photos of people looking guilty and publish them on the internet where they will last forever, regardless if later on they are found guilty or not, is mind boggling to me. Like I said, I'm fine with posting them after a conviction, but doing so even before a trial just smacks of crooked justice. Except for Trump, I don't care what we do with him.

[kalm]

Permanent welfare state thwarted. Phew!

(Dayen makes some fair points).

Don't worry, some things didn't even happen because of COVID and they're still out there today. Medicaid increases are how we'll get to universal health care in another decade or two, that's still moving ahead. And trust me, my wife's side of the family has several family units that are fully living on the dole and from the Facebook posts they make they are not suffering one bit. We talk about generational wealth, but there's something to be said about generational know-how of how to work the system and these folks have it in spades.

Sounds like your in laws are damned near living like the rest of the industrialized world.

[GannonFan]

Don't worry, some things didn't even happen because of COVID and they're still out there today. Medicaid increases are how we'll get to universal health care in another decade or two, that's still moving ahead. And trust me, my wife's side of the family has several family units that are fully living on the dole and from the Facebook posts they make they are not suffering one bit. We talk about generational wealth, but there's something to be said about generational know-how of how to work the system and these folks have it in spades.

Sounds like your in laws are damned near living like the rest of the industrialized world.

I'm sure they are. Loving life, barely working, and not paying for much of anything. There will always be those that do and those that take advantage of the doers. Hard to see that changing.

[kalm]

Sounds like your in laws are damned near living like the rest of the industrialized world.

I'm sure they are. Loving life, barely working, and not paying for much of anything. There will always be those that do and those that take advantage of the doers. Hard to see that changing.

Sounds wonderful. How does the rest of the world do it?

[GannonFan]

I'm sure they are. Loving life, barely working, and not paying for much of anything. There will always be those that do and those that take advantage of the doers. Hard to see that changing.

Sounds wonderful. How does the rest of the world do it?

I think you're overestimating the number of people who aren't working. When I speak with colleagues in some of these other countries, I somehow have the amazing ability to always catch them at work doing their jobs, despite your apparent inference that they rarely do so. I'm sure they work less than us, on average, but they work a ton compared to my inlaws. There is a matter of degree here (no pun intended).

[kalm]

Sounds wonderful. How does the rest of the world do it?

I think you're overestimating the number of people who aren't working. When I speak with colleagues in some of these other countries, I somehow have the amazing ability to always catch them at work doing their jobs, despite your apparent inference that they rarely do so. I'm sure they work less than us, on average, but they work a ton compared to my inlaws. There is a matter of degree here (no pun intended).

I didn’t say anything about how hard they work. You did about your in-laws. The point is we can afford a better social safety net…family leave, paternity leave, sick days, vacation time, education, etc.

We can do it and we must if we’re going to stay competitive and be happy.

[GannonFan]

I think you're overestimating the number of people who aren't working. When I speak with colleagues in some of these other countries, I somehow have the amazing ability to always catch them at work doing their jobs, despite your apparent inference that they rarely do so. I'm sure they work less than us, on average, but they work a ton compared to my inlaws. There is a matter of degree here (no pun intended).

I didn’t say anything about how hard they work. You did about your in-laws. The point is we can afford a better social safety net…family leave, paternity leave, sick days, vacation time, education, etc.

We can do it and we must if we’re going to stay competitive and be happy.

You equated my in-laws with people working in other countries, with an amazing insight and surety about people you don't even know. I understand you were trying to make the point that you just finally got to. There's a social safety net, which I agree with as you detail it, and then there's just people who do nothing. There is a difference.

[kalm]

I didn’t say anything about how hard they work. You did about your in-laws. The point is we can afford a better social safety net…family leave, paternity leave, sick days, vacation time, education, etc.

We can do it and we must if we’re going to stay competitive and be happy.

You equated my in-laws with people working in other countries, with an amazing insight and surety about people you don't even know. I understand you were trying to make the point that you just finally got to. There's a social safety net, which I agree with as you detail it, and then there's just people who do nothing. There is a difference.

Oops, guilty. But yes, I was being sarcastic.

People who do nothing/productivity is subjective. There will always be some just like there are some who amass great wealth that “do nothing”.

It’s the paid for a mixed economy.

[houndawg]

Permanent welfare state thwarted. Phew!

(Dayen makes some fair points).

Don't worry, some things didn't even happen because of COVID and they're still out there today. Medicaid increases are how we'll get to universal health care in another decade or two, that's still moving ahead. And trust me, my wife's side of the family has several family units that are fully living on the dole and from the Facebook posts they make they are not suffering one bit. We talk about generational wealth, but there's something to be said about generational know-how of how to work the system and these folks have it in spades.

Nobody works the system like the rugged individuals in our rural Heartland. Generational income off of farmland that hasn't been worked in a generation