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

would alec guinness say it like "ster-eye-ull"?

― treeship.,

exactly

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXpost: re Biden xpost holding off on immigration 'til builds up momentum etc.---not gonna do that:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/biden-immigration-plan/2021/01/18/f0526824-59a8-11eb-a976-bad6431e03e2_story.html

Still really amazed this is allowed

House Republican Lauren Boebert now sets off the metal detector and refuses to comply with US Capitol Police, waking into the chamber. USCP not making a big deal but $5,000 fine comes out of member’s pay.

— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) January 21, 2021

Second offense is $10,000.

She'll be running a GoFundMe campaign to cover the costs of her Freedom! any day now.

can we idk have the police actually not let them in?

She'll be running a GoFundMe campaign to cover the costs of her Freedom! Grandstanding! any day now.

definitely

Sahil Kapur
@sahilkapur

@LeaderMcConnell
proposes a MID-FEBRUARY start to impeachment trial.

His pre-trial pitch: House reads articles on 1/28. Trump’s answer and pre-trial brief due 2/4. Then Trump gets a week to submit his pre-trial brief (2/11). House gets two days to submit rebuttal brief (2/13).

https://t.co/fI9CdkNLfT pic.twitter.com/125SJ14rES

— croatianx tony (@AnthonyRescan) January 21, 2021

I'm running down the road, trying to loosen my load, I've got seven senate Democrats on my mind.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/21/politics/senate-democrats-ethics-complaint-cruz-hawley/index.html

oh wow ethics complaints might actually result in action again

Boebert wishes she was as witty and cutting as AOC, but she’s totally ‘Girl you wish you never started a conversation with at a party.’

More like "Girl you wish you never started a conversation with at the grand old party", amirite?

I'm not savvy enough to know how this would play out in the long term, but the logic feels compelling to me

Get rid of the filibuster and pass everything: healthcare, childcare, family leave, minimum wage, etc. Pass it all. Make Republicans have to try to take those things away from people instead of letting Republicans stop those things from ever happening. You’ll win every time.

— Jon Zal (@OfficialJonZal) January 21, 2021

the courts would take them away from people

why not try and see if the courts bother

they don't have 50 votes to get rid of the filibuster

Dream logic.

Sounds like McConnell is already starting to be obstructive so is the 2nd Impeachment going to be a farce too. apart from most of the things that Biden is trying to do at the start of his incumbency and the mess that was left by the outgoing mess.

Is taht utterly predictable or what.

Damn, felt optimistic for all of 2 days and hoping that this can be allowed to not just be a nominal good start by the Dems.

Opening arguments the law/politics podcast works through the actions of Biden's new incumbency on its first day
https://open.spotify.com/episode/0Ng6iAlrpUhNVSdd5nWwpG?si=0gQmM6_4RwaCC5H_EkFbpA

podcast also available on other platforms but that's the one I use.

I don't understand how you listen to so many podcasts! I don't even listen the ones I've been on lol.

Long thread, by a reporter, about a couple of things in Buttigieg's mayoral background, only a few of which I'd read before:

Pete Buttigieg testifies today on his nomination to run the Dept. of Transportation.

I spent almost a year covering Buttigieg. He refused to speak with me, so I’m going to thread some of the things senators could ask him about today.

— Jonathan Larsen (@jtlarsen) January 21, 2021

Wait, you're telling us a clear CIA plant with no ethical sense is also a racist asshole?

(sorry, my absolute loathing of Mayo Pete has been ratcheted up again now that he's back on these scene. What an absolute turd of a human he is)

Hey, Amy Klobuchar says he's nice.

He is loathsome.

Wow tabes easy on the associative nicknames i beg

My favourite terrible fact about Pete Buttigieg (that I learned the other day) is that his husband still has a thirst trap picture of Mayor Pete in front of the Holocaust Memorial up on his Instagram.

That guy's actually called Chasten?

Wow tabes easy on the associative nicknames i beg

― Qanondorf (darraghmac), Friday, January 22, 2021 7:19 AM (twenty-five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

please, Mayo Pete is my father. call me Mayonnaise Pete.

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/house-congressman-gun-andy-harris_n_600a0874c5b674575ae423ae

the courts would take them away from people

― Clay, Friday, January 22, 2021 2:19 AM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Then you get popular support for packing them

deems, Mayo Pete has been a nickname floating around Black social media since the guy came into the spotlight, fwiw. I just think it's hilarious and so am all for it.

lol

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-55765516

I was reading the WaPo blurb on Biden cleaning house at Voice of America, and I was kind of surprised to learn:

The federal government spends $637 million annually to support the five news networks — VOA, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Middle East Broadcasting, the Office of Cuba Broadcasting and Radio Free Asia

For scale/comparison, NPR's annual budget is around $250 million. So those five I assume very specialized and small international news divisions combined are the cost of two and a half NPRs? Has anyone ever caught any of their programming? For some reason I always thought it was just some person in a closet secretly tapping out morse code or whatever, but I guess it's more sophisticated than that?

JUst being reminded that Biden had to stop work on the Southern border wall. Was tasht actually urgent? I thought very little work had been done on that anyway. THought it was more of a talking point than a construction project.

Or is that the light that Biden took it in so made a firm pronounced stand against the idea instead of preventing a major construction fro continuing and therefore wasting money., Though might be interesting to have a rusting hulk stand asa folly and recognisable relic of the trump mess.

deems, Mayo Pete has been a nickname floating around Black social media since the guy came into the spotlight, fwiw. I just think it's hilarious and so am all for it.

― The return of our beloved potatoes (the table is the table), Friday, 22 January 2021 13:36 (fifty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Irish geographic joke, all good

don't names like "office of cuba broadcasting" and "middle east broadcasting" tell you why we spend more on it than NPR spends? it's not for the purpose of giving the world free information and entertainment

Year ago, when I had a radio with short wave on it, it was pretty easy to listen to VOA. Don't remember anything about it though.

The fact that democrats can't seem to figure out how to deal with this first minor speed bump is very dispiriting.

They've figured out what to do -- they need to do it.

it's not for the purpose of giving the world free information and entertainment

So you're saying it's spy stuff and propaganda? I always thought the point was to be propaganda by way of diverse programming. Anyway, otherwise "office of cuba broadcasting" doesn't really explain it to me. How much can it cost to run an office dedicated just to Cuba?

Answer: Office of Cuba Broadcasting has an annual budget of $28 million, so something like that is a tiny piece of that $640 million budget.

How much can it cost to run an office dedicated just to Cuba?

yes but you have to put Cuban American radio grifters here in Miami on the payroll

VOA reaches approx 250 million people worldwide in 40 + languages so as propaganda goes, pretty broad reach. effectiveness is different question

lol

UNTRUTH USAGM programs are just propaganda
No. The mission of USAGM and its networks is to broadcast accurate, balanced, and comprehensive news and information to an international audience. The mission to promote freedom and democracy is achieved through journalistic integrity and through the dissemination of factual news and information to an audience that typically does not have access to a free press. USAGM broadcasters know that their effectiveness is based on their credibility and that their listeners are not interested in propaganda.

don't names like "office of cuba broadcasting" and "middle east broadcasting" tell you why we spend more on it than NPR spends?

Cf. Radio Martí, which has been broadcasting into Cuba since the early 80s, despite Cuba effectively jamming every minute of its programming, making it a colossal waste of time and money.

Note: Radio Martí is independent of the VoA, so whatever VoA is doing is ALSO a colossal waste.

My wife just did a good job perhaps explaining it to me, by suggesting taking NPR's annual budget, but then adding in the budgets of all the local NPR affiliates, and then have the programming designed to reach many different countries, cultures and languages. Adds up, especially if all these VoA affiliates and adjuncts have top-notch NPR-quality programming, with high production values, name reporters, etc.

Radio Marti is one of those Reagan-era boondoggles that no one much talks about yet should.