US Politics: July 2020 - "Denigrating this Luxury Avenue"

I’m sure that Jay Caspian King meant that as a literal percentage, being a measurable statistic and all.

Police activity is being reported at Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder’s farm in Perry County and the U.S. Attorney’s office said it is holding a 2:30 p.m. press conference today related to $60 million in bribes paid to a state official and associates.

FBI Special Agent in Charge Chris Hoffman and U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio David DeVillers are expected to brief the press on a federal racketeering case, a news advisory says.

Householder, a farmer and businessman in Glenford, has led the GOP-controlled Ohio House since January 2019. He previously held the speaker’s gavel 2001 to 2004 but left due to term limits....

https://www.daytondailynews.com/news/breaking-news-fbi-agents-are-at-ohio-house-speaker-larry-householders-farm/JCKHFEK4ZFH5HJF5O4MCP3BY2M/

wow.

Larry Householder came to hold the most power in THE Ohio state House, and then he went mad with power

Lol in this picture the guy is giving Traficant a run for his money for "guy most likely to be corrupt."
https://www.daytondailynews.com/resizer/8GW1uXAscGBf2iqiuzBoyT6Bz_8=/1066x600/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/coxohio/IKSRQNY2DWJC52R3CGTJK2HJDA.jpg

You don’t get those rolls unless you’re swimming in dirty money that’s for sure

Illinois speaker of the house seems to be on borrowed time as well.

https://everycharacteractorbehindadeskinacoenbrothersfilm.com/

$60 million is some clown shit. At that point, you're basically screaming "ARREST ME PLZ"

Even for Ohio politics this is just carelessness. The nuclear angle is not confirmed as yet but I suspect that's what it is. https://t.co/iilOtFVtol

— Richard M. Nixon (@dick_nixon) July 21, 2020

Idk I admire him holding out for a cool 60 mil, most of these machine freaks can be had for like 100 grand and a rub and tug at a Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse

upgrading Ohio Republican corruption from the Mark Hanna/McKinley days

A million here, a million there... pretty soon you're talkin about real money

what are the most corrupt state governments? NY/RI/OH/IL pop to mind, but maybe i just haven't heard enough about FL/WI/NC etc

Florida isn't corrupt, just moronic.

The charter school racket might rank closest.

Rick Scott was kind of inherently corrupt coming in, he didn't require the state to take him there.

something to be said about how we elected a guy whose company was fined for Medicare fraud, but hey, the other guy was A LIBRUL

As a neighbor, I don't get the sense that Wisconsin is so much corrupt as it is just ground zero for GOP efforts to flip what remains of the blue state Midwest.

what are the most corrupt state governments? NY/RI/OH/IL pop to mind, but maybe i just haven't heard enough about FL/WI/NC etc

*raises hand, waves from NJ*

Fascinating that Chris Christie somehow isn’t in prison over the bridge thing

here's a fun one:

As the number of coronavirus cases continues to surge, nearly three-quarters of Americans say the behavior of their fellow citizens is making the pandemic worse, according to new Axios-Ipsos polling.

The survey finds that 74 percent of Americans overall feel that way. Among Democrats, the number is even higher: 83 percent. Meanwhile, 65 percent of Republicans think other Americans are making things worse.

The same survey, which was released Tuesday, also finds that nearly a third of Americans (31 percent) think the actual death toll from the pandemic is less than what is being officially reported.

Republicans (59 percent) and people who get most of their political information from Fox News (61 percent) are the most likely to say that the real number of deaths is less than the official count, according to the polling. Meanwhile, most Democrats (61 percent) believe the real toll of the pandemic is greater than what has been officially reported.

as usual, the ~30% of the country that makes up the core of trump morons believes the exact opposite of the truth

https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/inline-images/axios_covid-19_w17-v2.jpg

all them dead bodies piled up in mounds

You'd think those Republicans would see all the bodies piled up, given the prominence of all those FEMA death camps.

Oh, wait, wrong president.

more than half the population is abnormal

FBI Special Agent in Charge Chris Hoffman

not the point I know but "Special Agent in Charge" is an actual position?? It sounds like something my kid would make up

Apropos of not much, and 10 days early, but I nominate "I'll be right someday" for August thread title.

what are the most corrupt state governments? NY/RI/OH/IL pop to mind, but maybe i just haven't heard enough about FL/WI/NC etc

I think WI and NC are outstandingly corrupt in the political dimension (undercutting separation of powers, lame-duck skulduggery, voter suppression, etc.) but WI pols at least are not known for the refrigerator-full-of-cash style of corruption.

the FBI Special Agent in Charge reports directly to the G.R.O.S.S. Dictator-for-Life, iirc

Special Agent In Charge sounds like a Kevin James movie

sounds better in the original German etc etc

State-level we're merely notable, tho not noteworthy. The city of Philadelphia, however, easily makes top 5 most corrupt cities.

the level of ongoing, insane corruption in city and state government is perhaps the most surprising thing about the US to me now that i've been here for a few years. real failed state stuff. on another level to anything i've seen in any other country, but it's considered completely normal here.

Frank Rizzo taught me everything I needed to know about Philadelphia's city government.

the partisan polarization is why. when state and local governments are always run by members of the same party, incumbency is an even bigger hurdle for primary challengers to overcome, and any sort of accountability that's supposed to happen at the ballot box erodes to almost nothing.

DC is seeing more of its old machine politicians thrown out because the demographics are changing, and the new-ish voters are much less trusting of the characters who've been in charge.

don't worry, the thriving local news industry will find the wrongdoers.

The Washington Post still loves the old incumbents lol

the western us has been ruled by real estate interests and has been since the louisiana purchase, "government" exists to facilitate that

I grew up during Wilson Goode's Philly, when the Dem mayor proved he could be both corrupt *and* bomb his own city.

You want to talk about failed state stuff?

Philly's sanitation workers have been getting infected with Covid at alarming rates, but aren't given PPE or hazard pay for working long shifts during this crisis, when more residential trash has been being produced due to more people staying at home.

As a result, many of these sanitation workers, if not ill, are calling off work, because they're working 7-14 days in a row for 12 hours on trucks that don't have AC.

The city won't give them hazard pay or PPE, but is considering hiring private services to deal with trash.

In the meantime, our garbage day is Friday. We were told to delay one day, so Saturday. It's now Tuesday, it's been 90+ Fahrenheit every day for the past week, and none of the garbage has been collected. None of it, and no answers as to when it will be collected so that people could plan for these circumstances. No communication. Nothing.

I was born in 84, so don't remember much of Rizzo or Goode except their horrific legacies.

on twitter recently i saw some veteran pol mention that at no level of government had he ever seen 'lobbying' more effective than that by real estate developers and car dealerships in albany, ny

oof re: trash. i bet joe bologna feels like he's back in the old country.

It smells like hotdog water and diapers everywhere.

he finally became president

THE NOTE: The president is displaying a new tone and a new level of engagement, after aides and allies have pleaded with him to recognize the gravity of the moment, @rickklein writes. https://t.co/8giw8IfiE3

— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) July 21, 2020

It smells like hotdog water and diapers everywhere.

― blue light or electric light (the table is the table), Tuesday, July 21, 2020

^^ best line from The Waste Land imo

Key graf:

Sixty-three percent of Americans support the Black Lives Matter movement and a record 69% -- the most by far in 32 years of polling -- say Black people and other minorities are denied equal treatment in the criminal justice system, two of several signs of deep changes in public attitudes on racial discrimination. These views don't necessarily translate into majority preferences on policy -- 55% oppose reducing police funding in favor of more social services, for instance, with 40% in favor. Nonetheless, this ABC News/Washington Post poll finds substantial shifts in how Americans view underlying issues of racial justice.

stoked to hear about LAW AND ORDER/STATUES in this afternoon's global pandemic briefing.

BLM is insanely popular and 1% of people think crime is the most important issue in this election. a president who was more trusted might be able to bend reality and increase that 1%, but his other problem is that he is completely untrusted! no one believes anything he says!

There's also this, which is just fabulous news
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/20/trump-john-yoo-lawyer-torture-waterboarding?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other&fbclid=IwAR1Suv5X1cDAJcx4bc4kiPNMXZLp7T3iphNbp421Jt5kTTPRm7tYh6TRgyM

John Yoo told the Guardian he has been talking to White House officials about his view that a recent supreme court ruling on immigration would allow Trump to issue executive orders on whether to apply existing federal laws.

“If the court really believes what it just did, then it just handed President Trump a great deal of power, too,” Yoo, a professor at Berkeley Law, said.

“The supreme court has said President Obama could [choose not to] enforce immigration laws for about 2 million cases. And why can’t the Trump administration do something similar with immigration – create its own … program, but it could do it in areas beyond that, like healthcare, tax policy, criminal justice, inner city policy. I talked to them a fair amount about cities, because of the disorder.”

Snowflake liberal Berkeley professor John Yoo

I knew that fuckface's name sounded familiar. And of course found a way to blame Obama in there!

Yoo hate to see it.