Enough With The Cutesy Titles, People Are Dead: US Politics January 2021 pt 2

is this... what good news feels like?

My Pillow douche has already been dropped by a bunch of major retailers. Good luck with that lawsuit, buddy!

Hey, we're gonna have a whole different president in one (1) day.

Speaking of MLK, I'm not sure I get what fashy Onion was aiming for here:

https://babylonbee.com/news/far-right-extremist-suggests-treating-people-of-all-races-equally

xps

satanists of size

Satanist Size Queens

xp

Ugh, they're basically saying MLK was an "All lives matter" guy.

Meanwhile…

Two U.S. Army National Guard members are being removed from the security mission to secure Joe Biden’s presidential inauguration. A U.S. Army official and a senior U.S. intelligence official say the two National Guard members have been found to have ties to fringe right group militias.

https://apnews.com/article/biden-inauguration-joe-biden-politics-ron-klain-mitch-mcconnell-45d78184ec204e0a775e0f38496ff67b

also remove them from the Guard, k thanks

Get him to the airport, put him on a plane.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bm51ihfi1p4

(I know--10 million others posting the same thing right now.)

Another affidavit of self-owning:

https://www.justice.gov/opa/page/file/1356326/download

The meat of it starts around point 13. These idiots profess to be well-trained militias with all the fixings, and yet ... they take selfies, talk shit, post self-incriminating stuff on social media with easy to search hashtags. Clearly a lot of these nuts are a different kind of "too online." Like, they don't realize that posting to a platform used by hundreds of millions is tantamount to posting *to* hundreds of millions. I suppose that's the logical endpoint of morons conditioned to think the first amendment applies to their right to use Facebook and Twitter, and this goes for the soon to be former moron in chief, too.

I think my favourite thing about manchin is that he’s a big centrist anti deficit brain on everything except the state of West Virginia where his view is that money is not real and anything is possible when you get down to the nut cuttin.

xpost I'm not sure I agree w that. You could also say nonviolent protests that result in jail time are 'self ownage' i.e. well, maybe, but it's a sacrifice the participants are willing to take on the chin for a larger purpose: making the event resonate longer and more deeply. Or I could just paste this from Garbage Day (from a week ago) which makes the point better:

The ongoing success of the movement or community is determined by how viral the post-event content tail is. Stop The Steal has already succeeded in that regard. 8chan vikings and terrorist militia members were able to create such an incredible amount of content from Wednesday’s insurrection that our feeds are still awash in images and videos of it.

What’s still unclear, though, is whether or not the actual event that the months of hype have been building towards has actually happened yet or if we’re still, very much, in it.

it's a sacrifice the participants are willing to take on the chin for a larger purpose

Maybe for some of them, but it's pretty clear that a lot of them are flabbergasted re: having to face any consequences whatsoever.

Also, some big committee chair shifts since 2009:

Banking: Chris Dodd -> Sherrod Brown
Budget: Kent Conrad -> Bernie Sanders
Finance: Max Baucus -> Ron Wydenhttps://t.co/UkdXPfqW1C

— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) January 19, 2021

this is really good news

it's pretty striking how effective deplatforming Trump has been, we'd be in such a more dangerous place if he was doing 10 angry tweets an hour

fr

it's almost like moderating content is more effective than relying on the audience to ignore trolls

otm.

this plus that report saying twitter misinformation dropped 73% once trump (and yes, also all the lower-level q accounts) got banned

He's gonna log onto some BBSes

Post misinfo in the Tavern on Legend of the Red Dragon

this plus that report saying twitter misinformation dropped 73% once trump (and yes, also all the lower-level q accounts) got banned

I mean, we're taking this on spec but it's not out of the realm.

Bill # 1:

From a violent insurrection to countless attempts to suppress votes:

Attacks on democracy have come in many forms.

The first bill the @SenateDems majority will introduce will be the #ForThePeople Act to renew democracy, end big money in politics, and tackle corruption. #S1

— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) January 19, 2021

i'm assuming this is the follow-up to the 2019 bill (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.R._1_(116th_Congress)), which was passed in the house but then died of neglect in the senate

Government ethics. The bill would require presidential and vice-presidential candidates to disclose their previous 10 years of income tax returns, eliminate the use of taxpayer money by politicians to settle sexual harassment claims, and create a new ethics code for the U.S. Supreme Court, which is not subject to existing judicial codes of conduct.

Voting rights. The bill would create a national voter registration program, make Election Day a federal holiday, replace partisan gerrymandering with nonpartisan commissions to draw electoral districts, and limit efforts to purge voting rolls.

these are key

i imagine implementation of the latter will take years and probably face GOP court challenges, naturally

Perhaps but

Good morning to the 6-3 conservative Supreme Court. Democrats are attaching a severability clause to every section of their new democracy/ethics overhaul legislation.

From the official summary: pic.twitter.com/qxnDHiQh1o

— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) January 19, 2021

In essence, they can't say 'oh you got this bit wrong' and use that as an excuse to remove it all.

replace partisan gerrymandering with nonpartisan commissions to draw electoral districts
replace partisan gerrymandering with nonpartisan commissions to draw electoral districts
replace partisan gerrymandering with nonpartisan commissions to draw electoral districts
replace partisan gerrymandering with nonpartisan commissions to draw electoral districts
replace partisan gerrymandering with nonpartisan commissions to draw electoral districts

this alone is worth annihilating the filibuster over

morons conditioned to think the first amendment applies to their right to use Facebook and Twitter

the first amendment may not protect their access to FB or Twitter, but it does prevent the government from criminalizing their political speech. what they also failed to recognize is that conspiring to commit criminal acts against the government is not protected political speech under the first amendment.

although i'd rather replace "nonpartisan commissions" with "a computer program"
xp

SimDistricting

wow, mcconnell has summoned the courage to admit that trump "provoked" the 1/6/21 mob

maybe he and elaine are planning to retire and move to a fortress earlier than i thought

GOP will fight that bill tooth and nail if for no other reason than its implementation would effectively end the GOP on the national level. And so, if for no other reason, it needs to become law, like yesterday.

xpost a pillow fortress

Okay, that was low hanging fruit, but lol anyway

although i'd rather replace "nonpartisan commissions" with "a computer program"

From the very depths of my soul as a Black software engineer: fuck no, never automate this

Replacing the tempered judgment of multiple people of different backgrounds and political contexts with a number simulation coded up by Chad after he left the gym and doused himself in Axe Body Spray is a goddamned terrible idea

word xp

have we learned nothing from... all of science fiction
but seriously, yeah, it's a bad idea. a human always has to write the algorithms

Replacing the tempered judgment of multiple people of different backgrounds and political contexts with a number simulation coded up by Chad after he left the gym and doused himself in Axe Body Spray is a goddamned terrible idea

lol, i mean i agree with that

does this mean what I think it does

https://www.facebook.com/loubegaofficial/posts/248747929950046

eh, i'm back at work today for the first time since last thursday, and my "part-time" job now involves doing all of the work that i previously did in 45 hours a week, just compressed into 20 hours. this way, i have a couple days off each week and don't get benefits! anyway, what i'm trying to say is i have no time to try to put forth an idea of a computer drawing district lines that makes clear that i did mean that in the most exaggerated, sci-fi dystopia way, and that i know that human beings are actually involved when computers do things. so this will have to do

Mambo Number 6-6-6

btw, though, i have this other idea, for our ILX village. you know how everyone in this village is apportioned land based on what Gary does in the secret room on his abacus? i was thinking, what if Gary revealed what he does on his abacus to divvy out the ILX land, and he did it outside, by the campfire, and also upgraded his abacus workflow to Microsoft Excel? he could even use formulas to save some time. i know this is crazy because someone is going to have to put the formulas in, and it's probably going to be a human being. but i'm thinking MAYBE a computer would address that situation where cankles got 72% of the land after getting sb'd for the millionth time, because that wouldn't make sense to a computer

but forgive me - again, i forget that whenever i mention a "computer" doing things, it means that no humans are involved because you just the AI the goal of creating perfect democracy, and things get out of hand, the paperclips go flying, etc

ok, back to my job, which is of course "continuing to be the most gigantic dumbass in the entire universe"

Best case scenario is the nonpartisan commission creates the districts that at least have to pass muster with some sort of computer program. I believe the litigation regarding gerrymandering frequently uses such programs to show how much a particular district varied from a basically randomly created district.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/gerrymandering-elections-next-gen-computer-generated-maps

What not to do

NEW: An 18-year veteran police officer, currently with the Houston Police Department, initially lied about entering the U.S. Capitol during the insurrection, the feds say.

They found photos and videos from inside the rotunda in his deleted images folder.https://t.co/DYJzqjqCzG

— Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) January 19, 2021

McConnell's done:

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday explicitly blamed President Donald Trump for instigating the violent Capitol riots that took place on January 6.

"The mob was fed lies," the GOP leader said on the Senate floor. "They were provoked by the president and other powerful people."

McConnell's rebuke of Trump comes as the outgoing president faces an upcoming impeachment trial in the Senate over the deadly siege at the Capitol. The top Republican has said he's currently undecided on impeachment, but he has reportedly been leaning toward convicting Trump. McConnell's move will be key to how the trial plays out, as a "yes" vote from him may encourage other Republican senators to follow suit. At least 17 GOP members, along with every Democrat, would need to sign on in order to convict Trump.

Trump was impeached last week for incitement of insurrection after his supporters breached the Capitol building while Congress was meeting to certify President-elect Joe Biden's 2020 victory.

"They tried to use fear and violence to stop a specific proceeding of the first branch of the federal government, which they did not like," McConnell said on Tuesday. "But we pressed on. We stood together and said an angry mob would not get veto power over the rule of law in our nation, not even for one night. We certified the people's choice for their 46th president."