US Politics, June 2020 — You have to dominate.

I mean it's not like his other movies don't have plenty of problematic elements

Yeah. I still like Anderson's work but you pretty much start to just accept that he sees people of color as peripherals within a couple movies.

Fair xp

Yeah Danny Glover in a bit part, then ... one narrator?

CNN’s Van Jones Secretly Helped Craft the Weak Trump Police Reform He Praised on TV

Jones went on CNN’s Inside Politics with John King and Anderson Cooper 360 to enthusiastically commend Trump’s executive order—even as it was being criticized as cynical and unproductive by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and “delusional” by the Color of Change, an influential racial justice organization that Jones himself co-founded in 2005.

CNN viewers weren’t informed that he had actually attended secret White House meetings with his new friend Jared Kushner, discussing ways to frame the presidential project.

According to a knowledgeable White House source, who expressed satisfaction that there were zero leaks, Jones and California human rights attorney Jessica Jackson, who runs #cut50, a prison-reform group that Jones also founded, actively participated with law enforcement officials and White House staffers to help fashion the order and guide the politics of the discussion to what they considered “the sweet spot” between law enforcement and “the reasonable middle” and “the reasonable left.”

Skyping from his Los Angeles home, with a biography of Nelson Mandela and a Black Panther graphic novel visible on the bookshelf behind him, Jones told viewers of CNN’s noon show Inside Politics: “The executive order is a good thing, mainly because you saw the support of law enforcement there... There is movement in the direction of a database for bad cops. We have never had a federal database for bad cops, that’s why all these cops go all over the place doing bad stuff… The chokeholds, that’s common ground now between Nancy Pelosi and Trump. Good stuff there.”

Hours later, Jones doubled down on Anderson Cooper 360—again without disclosing his role advising the Trump White House. “What do you make of this executive order?” Cooper asked him.

“I think it’s pushing in the right direction,” Jones told the CNN anchor. “What you got today is, I think, a sign that we are winning,” he added. “Donald Trump has put himself on record saying we need to reform the police department… We are winning! Donald Trump had no plan a month ago to work on this issue at all. The fact that we are now in the direction of moving forward, I think, is good.”

He's an asshole, always has been.

That should be a dealbreaker for a news career.

Of course we live in an era of no shame.

remember when Jones said "Donald Trump became president tonight" or some shit after Trump bombed a base in 2017

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/29/iran-issues-arrest-warrant-for-trump-over-killing-of-qasem-soleimani.html

Wanted: DJT, Dead or Alive (I Suppose)

I know, I know, nobody wants to hear anything with the word "Russia" in it, it's so boring and nobody cares and blah blah blah...

Donald Trump can take all his empty words about respecting our service and shove them. #TRE45ON #TraitorTrump pic.twitter.com/7vxGxLBYh0

— VoteVets (@votevets) June 28, 2020

hahaha that ad is hilarious. I hate political ads, they're so fucking over the top.

"intelligence reports on his desk. cheerios all over the floor."

sounds like my wfh situation, only with intelligence reports on the desk

I met the guy who runs VoteVets. It may surprise you that he lives his life cranked up to 11.

you can't really devise a 'virtuous'? -- 'good'? -- US national security strategy when no one living remembers one

― brooklyn suicide cult (Dr Morbius), Sunday, June 28, 2020 4:11 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

ding ding ding

morbs otm

I know it would be ethically gross, but if specific victims of these bounties can be pinpointed, it would be political malpractice for Biden not to invite their families as his guests of honor to the first debate.

i don't think the debates are going to happen in the usual audience format

Would be a sea of red hats, crammed shoulder-to-shoulder (provided its was in a smaller sized venue) if they did.

new debate format: debate participants, moderators, and observers should all lock together in a giant rugby-style scrum, slowly shuffling like a broken amoeba with trump and biden in the very center, trying to raise their heads up every once in a while to get air

lmaoooooooo

BREAKING: Reddit bans "The_Donald" forum in a sweeping overhaul of its hate speech and harassment policieshttps://t.co/UQKAbpbMVZ

— rat king (@MikeIsaac) June 29, 2020

Guaranteeing the potency of their self-image as embattled martrys for years to come. Not that there was a better choice though, I don’t think.

i'm still not sure what happens to trump and his troll army (like The_Donald and 8chan) after the election, assuming he loses. they might go in different directions, or the trolls might follow him.

one school of thought is that that trump will be very happy to lose and go away and concentrate on being a bad businessman instead. if that's the case, i suppose his trolls will go follow some other idiot. but i don't see trump voluntarily walking away from tens of thousands of racists that worship him.

it seems more likely to me that that in his post-presidency period he and his followers will settle nicely into their natural role, which is being on the outside of government, throwing bombs in every direction.

Trump's disapproval rating is at 55.6 among RV/LV polls, according to FiveThirtyEight. It's the highest in 2.5 years https://t.co/85ZK8iNafA

— Nate Cohn (@Nate_Cohn) June 29, 2020

i don't want to fall into the pre-2016 trap of thinking that trump hanging around would be "good" politically for the democrats, but it does seem like if he sticks around and keeps some followers, they are likely to subtract votes from whatever Compassionate Conservative movement emerges from the wreckage. i don't think president nikki haley or whatever will actually be a good person, but they are likely to at least try to make gestures in the direction of not being racist pieces of shit 100% of the time, which would enrage the trolls and elderly white people.

all of that would be a good thing electorally for democrats, but it seems like a bad thing for the country if the only sizable 3rd party-esque movement in years is dedicated to racist trolls

fucking forums only taking action when his numbers tank and the end is in sight. Years of them supporting that bullshit. FB the worst offender, obv

i'm still not sure what happens to trump and his troll army (like The_Donald and 8chan) after the election, assuming he loses. they might go in different directions, or the trolls might follow him.

Paywalled, unfortunately.

Primed by Trump, militias gear up for ‘stolen’ US election

With the president weaponising fears of electoral fraud, armed groups are becoming increasingly paranoidhttps://t.co/6MkrMalOH8

— JJ MacNab (@jjmacnab) June 29, 2020

increasingly paranoid and withdrawn, you say?

No it isn't, no you aren't, yes they do, no they don't, good, and no it isn't https://t.co/NJHrh91mIm

— Paul Blest (@pblest) June 29, 2020

i don't know exactly who is on my top ten shit list, but i know matt gaetz is on it

and he will never contract COVID

The sheer number of users who would simply not be exposed to this stuff if it weren't on facebook (because they don't know how a computer/any other social network) is amazing.

reddit banning the_donald makes no difference to anything but their advertising team. facebook doing something would actually change the world (which is why they won't).

you know what's cooler than changing the world?

making another billion dollars

I learned that after earning my next billion

yeah, it's one of those things you just have to go yourself through to figure out

the irony is that these fuckers, after earning their unnumbered billions, finally retire, only to set up some philanthropic foundation named after themselves, where they can fiddle away their remaining days pretending they are trying to change the world for the better. because what can you do with billions of dollars besides treat the world like your plaything?

I wouldn't know about that. Say, I have mentioned where my workplace is?

https://zuckerbergsanfranciscogeneral.org/

do I still get a taco truck on every corner in Biden's America?

it's impressive that every sentence in that matt gaetz tweet is factually incorrect, but it kind of doesn't matter because the first four words are also wrong. it's not joe biden's america. trump is the president! to the extent you're worried about this stuff, it's on him!

the irony is that these fuckers, after earning their unnumbered billions, finally retire, only to set up some philanthropic foundation named after themselves, where they can fiddle away their remaining days pretending they are trying to change the world for the better. because what can you do with billions of dollars besides treat the world like your plaything?

Apparently, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is having some trouble giving its money away:

Facebook’s controversies have caused some potential partners to question if they are willing to be associated with CZI. A few scientists who receive funding from CZI have told the philanthropy in recent weeks that they are reexamining if they still want to work with CZI going forward, one source said.

Color of Change, a racial justice group that has been sharply critical of Facebook, turned down a $2 million grant offer last year, according to sources, who said the group effectively saw it as “dirty money” because it came from Facebook. Color of Change declined to comment.

Other groups that have paused at CZI offers include some public school systems, some of which were skittish about using its flagship education initiative: a personalized learning platform called Summit. Some school leaders have told CZI officials they have concerns about the tech because of Facebook’s missteps in handling its users’ data privacy, according to sources.

i don't want to get too tea leafy but CZI is kinds of a menacing combination of letters isnt it

i've posted this before but it's very good https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/plutocrats-at-work-how-big-philanthropy-undermines-democracy

because what can you do with billions of dollars besides treat the world like your plaything?

Why wait to retire?

Feb 17: Bezos pledges https://www.npr.org/2020/02/17/806720144/jeff-bezos-pledges-10-billion-to-fight-climate-change-planets-biggest-threat0 billion to "fight climate change," is criticised in some quarters (a car with me in it) for creating a slush fund and tax write-off with no actual plan, in order to forestall growing internal activism from Amazon employees

June 26: Bezos takes decisive, productive action by renaming the hockey arena near Amazon's office Climate Pledge Arena

oops

that hockey arena is gonna be leed certified zero emissions! we're halfway home!

well, it'll "strive to" be

I like the idea but honestly I prefer Lemon

That Dissent piece is very interesting

The tax dodge of pouring the bulk of your estate into a charitable foundation in order to escape inheritance taxes was conceived and instated during the brief period when the early progressive movement had strong momentum, anti-trust legislation passed, and the progressive income tax was born. The big charitable foundations were a rearguard action designed to keep large fortunes intact and use them to wield political influence under the guise of charity. The important thing was that the money and influence were kept away from public/democratic control and confined to a few board members.

this is good praxis

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/house-democrats-push-through-first-bill-in-a-decade-expanding-affordable-care-act/2020/06/29/350d3046-ba0f-11ea-8cf5-9c1b8d7f84c6_story.html

FAKE NEWS

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/29/politics/trump-phone-calls-national-security-concerns/index.html