“It’s a little too quiet” - US Politics February 2021

Biden admin is expanding a pilot program to end receipt of physical mail, newspapers, books etc in federal prisons, with all correspondence having to go to a private company to be digitised, surveilled & databased, with prisoners then only able to read a scan on a tablet if their prison admin allows, and someone is prepared to pay for it.

thanks for that zs

that link is horrifying sic

It's been a year since anyone in jail has been able to have visitors, let's remove or compromise all their remaining contact with the outside world, in order to enrich one insane monster CEO.

I doubt that, for two reasons. For one, a violent, murderous mob leaves more of an impression than an improper phone call to Ukraine (especially after a year of Russiagate, which everyone not named Krassenstein was utterly sick of). For two, with Trump no longer in office and silenced on social media we no longer have to hear "WITCH HUNT!!" and "PERFECT PHONE CALL!!" every 5 minutes, and the media doesn't have to both sides it or lead with "Trump says no collusion, others disagree". Has any non-FOX outlet framed this as anything other than "he's clearly guilty and Republicans are cowards"?

What networks are framing it now doesn't mean people will know/remember/care in 18-24 months.

Trump being off social media is all the more reason none of this matters or will stick - if the masses are still thinking about Donald Trump in 12 months, the Biden administration will have failed somewhere along the way.

that program, and PA Gov. Tom Wolf's endorsement of it in state prisons, is the reason why neither me nor my father will vote for that stupid sonofabitch. I see cars with Wolf stickers on them and spit.

Here's more about that program, btw:

https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2015/jul/7/companies-pitch-tablets-prisoners-maintain-family-ties-aid-reentry-and-generate-profit/

It's worth noting that prisoners often have to pay to use these "convenient" tablets, too, and the profits there go to another company.

That's fucking disgusting. If anything, prisoners should be given more books. Keep 'em reading, have 'em write book reports, turn 'em into nerdy introverts.

Ugh that whole parasitic system of extracting money from inmates and their families is awful. In our local jail, they stopped allowing in-person visits seven years ago and prisoners can only talk via phone or video tablet, at a price. (You can get a free video visit if you physically go to the jail, but that makes it even worse in a way — you're literally in the same building but can only see each other via a shitty video image.) And of course the county gets to keep most of the money as a commission. It's reprehensible and the Biden admin absolutely should not be doing that bullshit. If there are security concerns with mail, deal with those, but don't turn it into a profit center.

The jail-industrial complex is rotten from top to bottom and needs to be abolished in its current state. Literally everything about it is terrible.

In case you didn't know, The Marshall Project is a good place for regular news/updates/political action on the topic of incarceration

https://www.themarshallproject.org/

What networks are framing it now doesn't mean people will know/remember/care in 18-24 months.

Trump being off social media is all the more reason none of this matters or will stick - if the masses are still thinking about Donald Trump in 12 months, the Biden administration will have failed somewhere along the way.

― Joe Biden Stan Account (milo z), Sunday, February 14, 2021 5:16 PM (eighteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Well Trump is definitely not gonna be out of the news in a years time. His legal issues are just beginning. But I do think that this stuff will all seem crazier in hindsight, after a couple years of relatively boring politics. Think of how big the story him lying about his crowd size at the inauguration was, before we were all desensitized to stupid shit like that happening every fucking week. It’s going to be trivially easy for Dems to run on montages of “here’s what happened the last time you fuckers were in charge”

xpost Yeah the Marshall Project is doing good and important work.

the conclusory statements in this thread are pretty irritating to me. i think i understand the feelings, but they're useless.

every dem and independent should be marshalled in one of two directions-- either supporting and advancing competent federal government process and policy by the admin, or marching to every statehouse and getting as deep as possible into fucking up any gop efforts by any means necessary. gop must be made to cry, gnash their teeth, and wail. voting rights must be guarded jealously as fuck. loudspeakers on trucks level shit.

it just seems like state corruption and revolt is how the confederacy means to overthrow democracy without having to fire at ft sumter.

i don't think there is much to learn from this recent affront. the most important lessons of impeachment 2 were already learned in impeachment 1-- that the gop doesn't care about governing, that there is no bottom, that to them process exists only to frustrate progress. elections are decorative events while securing power in any way available.

booming post imo

agreed but i would ask for the sake of the record that the chairman notes that this state of affairs is hardly limited to "confederacy" politicians. Many of the USA's greatest poisonous snakes hail from above the mason/dixon line.

Exactly true, i did not mean the actual states or even the region of the confederacy.

much like "boomer" has become, Confederacy is a mindset

i agree but there's many a guy from Vermont who acts like Kentucky is a foreign country and it can't happen here

Maine had one of the worst of the assholes.

The Maine one, no doubt.

71% of American adults, including nearly half of all Republicans, believe former President Donald Trump was at least partially responsible for starting the deadly Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol, according to an Ipsos poll conducted for Reuters.https://t.co/NRn8xcvf4L

— Lindsay Wise (@lindsaywise) February 14, 2021

may I rebut

During a press conference with House managers after Trump's second impeachment trial, Nancy Pelosi said: "I think our country needs a strong Republican party. It's very important." pic.twitter.com/aPbxgxDlYd

— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) February 13, 2021

I was just reminded by a comment above that I found out this week how early the Sinclair Lewis What if novel It Can't Happen Here appeared, 1935. It obviously wasn't taken seriously enough at the time of release cos the nazi party grew large enough to be a world wide threat. Would have been something if the Nazi party was just associated with the joke name showing them to be a bunch of country bumpkins.
But no, their legacy is still pretty prevalent obviously right now.

Do hope there are good things to look forward to but if Dems are coming out with odd reactionary policies and not being as progressive as possible and things can be reversed again by the next govt it's difficult to be fully optimistic. Can hope there is going to be some improvement and some pursuit of justice though.

I would think that in a 2 party system the need for a rational opposition party was self evident. I thought the 2 parties were seen to counterbalance each other. Which might be a reason for very slow progress.
& both parties are broad churches umbrellaing a lot of different beliefs. I am glad to see taht there is some element of real progressiveness being represented in government. Not so happy taht they are being countered within their own party.

BUt if you are sticking to a 2 party system I think there are bound to be pitfalls inherently involved. Would also think that stasis was something taht was t least somewhat intentional. But it seems that one party has gone haywire and is being deeply irrational. So is that what is being referred to as needing a strong GOP , that the current one is definitely showing signs of weakness presented as strength instead of showing signs of coherence which owuld be strength? Corruption and strength are not cospacial are they?

You need one strong white supremacist, anti-government party, and another one with leadership that is pro-capital and without a strong public service interest.

Pelosi basically said in that presser if you aren’t turning down ceo gigs to be in congress she doesn’t want you running as a Democrat. pic.twitter.com/lUhiNd5aFf

— 💥 Donald Braden 🍞✊🏾✊🏼✊🏽✊🏿✊✊🏻🌹 (@DonaldMBraden) February 14, 2021

But you, too, can change the color of the trolley from red to blue every few years. That's democracy in action!

yeah i don’t think it’s a controversial statement to say that in a two-party system, it’s very bad for one party to be the “leopards eating people’s faces” party. however, there’s no short term reality where this will change, so it would be nice for dems to acknowledge this and stop trying to appeal to a reasonableness that doesn’t exist

yea I understand what Pelosi is saying but she needs to read the room. if you're under 40, do you even have any memories of what a "strong Republican party" looks like? they've been utterly dishonest, openly corrupt, and shamelessly evil my entire life. the only thing that's changed since Trump got elected is that they don't even attempt to hide it anymore.

My definition of "strong Republican Party" = Dubya years. No thanks.

I mean im pretty old and i need to see all of pelosi’s conments but i AM FUCKING INFURIATED by them.

gop delenda est. godzilla style. two party system may need a loyal opposition, this is not the first time they’ve proved they dngaf about that.

it’s like saying “ppl need hobbies and clubs—the NRA is needed in our society. think of the gun safety they can teach!”

this is really fucked up

Claudia gets a surprise from her mother, @KellyannePolls!

"Remember, honey. Winners are people who are willing to lose."@claudiamconwayy | #AmericanIdol pic.twitter.com/paW0YcO9o8

— American Idol (@AmericanIdol) February 15, 2021

I agree that we need a strong GOP which needs to be gutted of all its current members and agendas so that Nancy and her caucus of elderly centrist dems can take it over.

Claudia Conway is on American Idol?

also: American Idol still exists?

lol my exact reaction. I had to check if it was some kind of deepfake.

Thirded

this was taped in November. since then Claudia has posted numerous videos of Kellyanne being abusive & apparently she leaked her own underage daughter's nudes. its fucked even beyond the whole "rehabilitating a fascist" angle

I mean, I'm disappointed but not surprised, Kellyanne is just the tip of the iceberg. Feel like they're all going to get rehabbed in the coming months, the media loves this shit.

Scott Brown's kid, then Kellyanne Conway's kid

I guess we're only a few years away from hearing Barron bray his way through "My Way"

Stephen Miller will probably be on the next Dancing with the Stars.

Dancing with the Fascists has been on that bullshit for years

(I know you know that, I just wanted to use Dancing with the Fascists)

I mean, might as well rebrand at this point, yeah.

american pop culture is such trash

is the thought that Claudia didn't just show up to audition, American Idol had the idea to invite her cos OMG CONTROVERSY, RATINGS

I know the 'nude photo share' hadn't happened yet but it was pretty common knowledge of the friction she and her parents had even back when they taped

lol DJP

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nationalreview.com/corner/pop-culture-filth-proof-john-derbyshire/amp/