American Politics VII: Virginia Reel

[Outer Sparta]

You can’t force an election before the term is up and kicking her out of the party means McConnell gets the majority leader position and nothing gets done.

It may have escaped your notice, but with Manchin and Sinema, nothing's getting done already.

For the Democrats, the number one priority is to elect more democrats to the Senate to make those two powerless. Oh yeah, and primary Sinema in 2024 if none of the internal stuff changes her positions (which probably won't do so).

[Kowani]

Appeals court overturns federal court order to house the homeless on LA's Skid Row

A federal judge’s sweeping order requiring the city and county of Los Angeles to quickly shelter all homeless people living on downtown’s Skid Row was overturned Thursday by an appeals court that called it an abuse of judicial discretion.

The 9th U.S. Court of Appeals found extensive error by U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter, who is overseeing a major lawsuit about the problem of homelessness in Los Angeles. The appeals court found plaintiffs lacked standing to bring most of their claims in the lawsuit and that Carter based his preliminary injunction on claims and “novel legal theories” not made by the plaintiffs. “To fill the gap, the district court impermissibly resorted to independent research and extra-record evidence,” the appeals court said. Carter toured Skid Row at least twice and held an extraordinary hearing at a homeless shelter before issuing a 110-page order in late April that slammed local officials’ inability to restrain the unprecedented growth of homelessness that has seen encampments spread into nearly every neighborhood in the region.

The order gave the city and county six months to house Skid Row homeless and to audit any spending related to the crisis of people living on the streets. The lawsuit was brought by the LA Alliance for Human Rights, a coalition that includes businesses, residents, landlords, homeless people and others who allege that inaction by the city and county on the problem has created a dangerous environment.

“They found that his order was insufficiently supported by the evidence because he didn’t rely on what we submitted,” said attorney Elizabeth Mitchell, who represents the alliance. “It doesn’t mean that it isn’t true. Frankly, the county and city aren’t disputing his findings.” The appeals court said Carter’s order was premised on his finding that structural racism was the driving force behind the Los Angeles homelessness crisis and the disproportionate impact on the Black community, but none of the plaintiffs’ claims were based on racial discrimination.

Mitchell said the alliance would file an amended complaint to include members of the coalition who have standing to address issues the court raised. “I think a lot of people are looking at this as a roadblock,” Mitchell said. “But it’s more like a speedbump.”

County attorney Skip Miller said his clients are grateful for the ruling but remain committed to alleviating homelessness.

“The county will continue with its massive efforts to address homeless as it has all along,” Miller said. "We appreciate where Judge Carter is coming from and look forward to working with him to find a solution to this lawsuit.”

[Austria-Bohemia-Hungary]

America, where you have to sue the State to get some shelter from the elements...

[Cannot think of a name]

That's by design. You don't want full coverage. Full coverage would reveal that not only have these been increasingly pointless, expensive, and hapazard but at best...at best they have exposed levels of petty fraud by Repbulicans like fake ballot boxes and paying a candidate to run that has the same name as your opponent. Real actual things done in the election.

You keep a thing like this on simmer and let people move on while still stewing it. The people outside partisan bubbles cease caring, but when it comes around again and they have to engage for half a second for another election that low boil is still there. A bunch of contradicting headlines are all there in the hopes that they read it as an actual controversy that has had developments when the reality is it's been one long sustained dry hump.

Also, 'blond white girl dies' is all FOX really ever want to talk about..

EDIT:.. although even I didn't expect this to be the lead story..

Dog the Bounty Hunter reveals 'hottest' area authorities need to search to find Brian Laundrie

Link

I do like how people have been able to use the long established disparity in media reporting on missing pretty white girls to highlight the plight of kidnapped native women where they’re absolutely right, I hadn’t heard about that and it’s stunning that it isn’t way bigger news.

I mean, they haven’t managed to make it the news story it should be but they have increased visibility of the problem.

[Bear Stearns]

Punish achievement? What if I were to be the son of a billionaire father and I inherit his riches by doing fuck all and just because I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth? Does that make me have an achievement even though I literally would have done nothing in my life in that scenario except be born in the top .01%?

Ah, envy! But you’re too much of a coward to break into the mansion and rob the rich by yourself. So, you outsource your theft to government agencies in uniforms and carrying guns. You tell yourself that it’s not really robbery, after all, the majority of my neighbors voted and agreed that we should steal from the rich. You can lie to yourself, but the truth remains.

merrill lynch?

[Kilobugya]

It may have escaped your notice, but with Manchin and Sinema, nothing's getting done already.

That's not exactly true. Not much is getting done, but judicial nominations are being processed, and a few reconciliation bills (like covid relief) were passed. Not much, not enough, but would be even worse with McConnell as majority leader.

[Shrillland]

It may have escaped your notice, but with Manchin and Sinema, nothing's getting done already.

That's not exactly true. Not much is getting done, but judicial nominations are being processed, and a few reconciliation bills (like covid relief) were passed. Not much, not enough, but would be even worse with McConnell as majority leader.

Yeah, fair enough.

[Lord Dominator]

Also, control of the committees means Republicans aren’t doing whatever batchit fantasies pop into their heads for investigations

[Kilobugya]

America, where you have to sue the State to get some shelter from the elements...

Well, you know, here in France, we have in our Constitution (part of what the communists managed to push through the National Council of Resistance in 1944-1946) :

In the dawn of the victory of the free people over regimes that tried to enslave and diminish human beings, [...] the people of France proclaims as particularly fundamental for our time the following social and economical principles :
[...]
10. The Nation ensures to individuals and families the conditions necessary to their development.

11. It guarantees to everyone, especially to children, mothers and elderly workers, protection of health, material security, rest and leisure. Every human being who, because of their age, physical or mental health, or economical situation, is unable to work is entitled to receive from collectivity decent means of existence.

And yet 75 years later we still have homelessness, including homeless children or elderly, and regular lawsuits regarding it... defending people's fundamental rights is always an ongoing struggle, no law written on paper makes you safe if it's not enforced, and the capitalists will always fight back, as hard as they can, against even the most basic human decency, if they feel they can profit from suffering.

[Page]

Punish achievement? What if I were to be the son of a billionaire father and I inherit his riches by doing fuck all and just because I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth? Does that make me have an achievement even though I literally would have done nothing in my life in that scenario except be born in the top .01%?

Ah, envy! But you’re too much of a coward to break into the mansion and rob the rich by yourself. So, you outsource your theft to government agencies in uniforms and carrying guns. You tell yourself that it’s not really robbery, after all, the majority of my neighbors voted and agreed that we should steal from the rich. You can lie to yourself, but the truth remains.

Why should I recognize the money/property as even belonging to the rich in the first place? Funny thing is you call people cowards for wanting the state gang to collect taxes by force, but it's the force of the state gangs that keeps all the rest of rich folks' wealth safe from expropriation.

[Kilobugya]

Ah, envy! But you’re too much of a coward to break into the mansion and rob the rich by yourself. So, you outsource your theft to government agencies in uniforms and carrying guns. You tell yourself that it’s not really robbery, after all, the majority of my neighbors voted and agreed that we should steal from the rich. You can lie to yourself, but the truth remains.

You're wrong on so many counts it's very hard to know where to start, but there are at least fundamental errors that are worth correcting.

The first one is that you seem to forget that private property itself is something the state enforces. The rich outsource to the government the protection of their wealth, with a police force paid mostly by the taxes of the workers, since the rich mostly avoid paying taxes. And the level of violence used to enforce that is orders of magnitude higher than the one used to enforce welfare. Families are dragged from their home into the street. People are shot dead by the police. They are dragged into hellholes called prisons where they are exposed to inhumane conditions. That just doesn't happen to rich people who cheat their taxes.

The second one is much more fundamental. Wealth creation is not an individual but a collective endeavor. Unless you never went to school, never had a teacher, never used a public road, never went to an hospital, never used the idea of someone else, never employed anyone, ... No one gets rich by their own labor. People can rich by being born in rich families, receiving good education, inheriting material wealth, cultural wealth and contact networks. They get rich by relying massively on pre-existing infrastructure. They get rich by building upon the ideas of others. They get rich by exploiting the workforce of others, from the janitors cleaning their office to the farmer feeding them to those who actually produce and deliver the good or services they sell. That Jeff Bezzos earned over $24 billions during the pandemic isn't due to any special work that he performed to fight it. It comes at the expense of his workers being recklessly exposed to the virus, to them being forced to pee in bottles because they don't have bathroom breaks. There is nothing natural, sane or inevitable at how the wealth that was created collectively being distributed so unfairly. That's the consequence of a system of oppression that relies to massive violence, called capitalism. As Victor Hugo said "It's from the hell of the poor that the heaven of the rich is made."

[Vassenor]

Ah, envy! But you’re too much of a coward to break into the mansion and rob the rich by yourself. So, you outsource your theft to government agencies in uniforms and carrying guns. You tell yourself that it’s not really robbery, after all, the majority of my neighbors voted and agreed that we should steal from the rich. You can lie to yourself, but the truth remains.

You're wrong on so many counts it's very hard to know where to start, but there are at least fundamental errors that are worth correcting.

The first one is that you seem to forget that private property itself is something the state enforces. The rich outsource to the government the protection of their wealth, with a police force paid mostly by the taxes of the workers, since the rich mostly avoid paying taxes. And the level of violence used to enforce that is orders of magnitude higher than the one used to enforce welfare. Families are dragged from their home into the street. People are shot dead by the police. They are dragged into hellholes called prisons where they are exposed to inhumane conditions. That just doesn't happen to rich people who cheat their taxes.

The second one is much more fundamental. Wealth creation is not an individual but a collective endeavor. Unless you never went to school, never had a teacher, never used a public road, never went to an hospital, never used the idea of someone else, never employed anyone, ... No one gets rich by their own labor. People can rich by being born in rich families, receiving good education, inheriting material wealth, cultural wealth and contact networks. They get rich by relying massively on pre-existing infrastructure. They get rich by building upon the ideas of others. They get rich by exploiting the workforce of others, from the janitors cleaning their office to the farmer feeding them to those who actually produce and deliver the good or services they sell. That Jeff Bezzos earned over $24 billions during the pandemic isn't due to any special work that he performed to fight it. It comes at the expense of his workers being recklessly exposed to the virus, to them being forced to pee in bottles because they don't have bathroom breaks. There is nothing natural, sane or inevitable at how the wealth that was created collectively being distributed so unfairly. That's the consequence of a system of oppression that relies to massive violence, called capitalism. As Victor Hugo said "It's from the hell of the poor that the heaven of the rich is made."

Let's put this another way.

The median Amazon employee earned $29,007 in 2020. In direct compensation alone Bezos earned $1,681,840 in the same period. Are we seriously supposed to believe that he works fifty-eight times harder than the median employee?

[Comerciante]

You're wrong on so many counts it's very hard to know where to start, but there are at least fundamental errors that are worth correcting.

The first one is that you seem to forget that private property itself is something the state enforces. The rich outsource to the government the protection of their wealth, with a police force paid mostly by the taxes of the workers, since the rich mostly avoid paying taxes. And the level of violence used to enforce that is orders of magnitude higher than the one used to enforce welfare. Families are dragged from their home into the street. People are shot dead by the police. They are dragged into hellholes called prisons where they are exposed to inhumane conditions. That just doesn't happen to rich people who cheat their taxes.

The second one is much more fundamental. Wealth creation is not an individual but a collective endeavor. Unless you never went to school, never had a teacher, never used a public road, never went to an hospital, never used the idea of someone else, never employed anyone, ... No one gets rich by their own labor. People can rich by being born in rich families, receiving good education, inheriting material wealth, cultural wealth and contact networks. They get rich by relying massively on pre-existing infrastructure. They get rich by building upon the ideas of others. They get rich by exploiting the workforce of others, from the janitors cleaning their office to the farmer feeding them to those who actually produce and deliver the good or services they sell. That Jeff Bezzos earned over $24 billions during the pandemic isn't due to any special work that he performed to fight it. It comes at the expense of his workers being recklessly exposed to the virus, to them being forced to pee in bottles because they don't have bathroom breaks. There is nothing natural, sane or inevitable at how the wealth that was created collectively being distributed so unfairly. That's the consequence of a system of oppression that relies to massive violence, called capitalism. As Victor Hugo said "It's from the hell of the poor that the heaven of the rich is made."

Let's put this another way.

The median Amazon employee earned $29,007 in 2020. In direct compensation alone Bezos earned $1,681,840 in the same period. Are we seriously supposed to believe that he works fifty-eight times harder than the median employee?

Do you know how hard it is to press buttons, go to cocktail parties, and make phone calls?

[Kowani]

House passes defense spending bill that mandates that women register for the draft (316-113)

The Democratic-controlled House approved a wide-ranging bipartisan defense policy bill Thursday despite strong opposition from a conservative wing of the Republican Party.

The House voted 316-113 in favor of the $768 billion defense measure after lawmakers spent hours debating hundreds of amendments. The bill, which guides Pentagon policy and would cover the fiscal year 2022, is about 5 percent more than the previous year’s bill.

It would provide automatic pay raises for U.S. troops, fund the branches of the armed forces and veterans health care and authorize other military programs, among other measures.

The bill, which is reauthorized annually, typically passes with broad bipartisan support. But a day before the bill’s passage, the House Freedom Caucus urged the Republican Party to oppose the measure because of an amendment that would allow the registration of women for the Selective Service System, which was approved with bipartisan support while the bill was in committee.

[Jeriga]

Or, like, Hitler

Pinochet was an exception, and I'm not sure military dictatorships count as "on the right". Regardless, his regime was certainly authoritarian, which I oppose regardless of economic policy.

Hitler was NOT right wing politically. That is one of the worst propaganda of the last 100 years. The National SOCIALIST Workers Party only differed from the Soviet Union in the idea of where socialism should be focused: nationally, or internationally. Fascism and Communism are both on the far left of the economic axis, with very little space between them. Post WW2, the Communists spread the idea that Fascists were "Right Wing", so that communism was defined as the center, or the norm.

You... you need to learn history my dude. You 100 percent have no idea what you're talking about.

[Antipatros]

House passes defense spending bill that mandates that women register for the draft (316-113)

The Democratic-controlled House approved a wide-ranging bipartisan defense policy bill Thursday despite strong opposition from a conservative wing of the Republican Party.

The House voted 316-113 in favor of the $768 billion defense measure after lawmakers spent hours debating hundreds of amendments. The bill, which guides Pentagon policy and would cover the fiscal year 2022, is about 5 percent more than the previous year’s bill.

It would provide automatic pay raises for U.S. troops, fund the branches of the armed forces and veterans health care and authorize other military programs, among other measures.

The bill, which is reauthorized annually, typically passes with broad bipartisan support. But a day before the bill’s passage, the House Freedom Caucus urged the Republican Party to oppose the measure because of an amendment that would allow the registration of women for the Selective Service System, which was approved with bipartisan support while the bill was in committee.

Any indication of how likely this is to pass in the Senate in its current form? I would assume that the chances are pretty high.

[Vassenor]

Arizona Democratic Party votes to subject Sinema to a Vote of No Confidence if she fails to vote to reform the filibuster or doesn't support the reconciliation bill.

[Kowani]

House passes defense spending bill that mandates that women register for the draft (316-113)

The Democratic-controlled House approved a wide-ranging bipartisan defense policy bill Thursday despite strong opposition from a conservative wing of the Republican Party.

The House voted 316-113 in favor of the $768 billion defense measure after lawmakers spent hours debating hundreds of amendments. The bill, which guides Pentagon policy and would cover the fiscal year 2022, is about 5 percent more than the previous year’s bill.

It would provide automatic pay raises for U.S. troops, fund the branches of the armed forces and veterans health care and authorize other military programs, among other measures.

The bill, which is reauthorized annually, typically passes with broad bipartisan support. But a day before the bill’s passage, the House Freedom Caucus urged the Republican Party to oppose the measure because of an amendment that would allow the registration of women for the Selective Service System, which was approved with bipartisan support while the bill was in committee.

Any indication of how likely this is to pass in the Senate in its current form? I would assume that the chances are pretty high.

correct
the senate armed forces committee already passed it on a bipartisan basis when crafing their own version of the bill
and defense spending bills are must-pass anyway

[Kilobugya]

the senate armed forces committee already passed it on a bipartisan basis when crafing their own version of the bill
and defense spending bills are must-pass anyway

Wouldn't it be possible to sneak in a debt ceiling bump in it? Since without the debt ceiling bump, this bill is pretty powerless. Or it's too late in the process?

[Kowani]

the senate armed forces committee already passed it on a bipartisan basis when crafing their own version of the bill
and defense spending bills are must-pass anyway

Wouldn't it be possible to sneak in a debt ceiling bump in it? Since without the debt ceiling bump, this bill is pretty powerless. Or it's too late in the process?

no

i mean technically yes but you'd have to send both the CR and the NDAA back to the House
and yeah good luck on that timing
the poor budget committee staffers

[Kowani]

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) becomes the first sitting congressman to explicitly embrace the Great Replacement conspiracy theory

the ride never ends

[San Lumen]

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) becomes the first sitting congressman to explicitly embrace the Great Replacement conspiracy theory

the ride never ends

In other words he just proclaimed himself a white supremacist. I wouldn’t be surprised if others follow.

[Page]

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) becomes the first sitting congressman to explicitly embrace the Great Replacement conspiracy theory

the ride never ends

Isn't this scumbag supposed to be locked up for statutory rape or something?

[Antipatros]

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) becomes the first sitting congressman to explicitly embrace the Great Replacement conspiracy theory

the ride never ends

Man, this party is off the fucking rails LOL

Isn't this scumbag supposed to be locked up for statutory rape or something?

Allegedly. I don't think it really matters from a political perspective at this point, unless he ends up going to prison.

[Thermodolia]

Or, like, Hitler

Pinochet was an exception, and I'm not sure military dictatorships count as "on the right". Regardless, his regime was certainly authoritarian, which I oppose regardless of economic policy.

Hitler was NOT right wing politically. That is one of the worst propaganda of the last 100 years. The National SOCIALIST Workers Party only differed from the Soviet Union in the idea of where socialism should be focused: nationally, or internationally. Fascism and Communism are both on the far left of the economic axis, with very little space between them. Post WW2, the Communists spread the idea that Fascists were "Right Wing", so that communism was defined as the center, or the norm.

Well no. That’s actually not true at all.

The right wing or left wing divide is a painfully stupid and extremely limiting system, the more axis you add the more accurate it is to plot where fascism would be.

If you look at the political compass you have four quadrants, while fascism (at least the traditional version not the Hitler one) is right wing it’s not that far from what is considered the authoritarian center.

Now the reason I don’t call fascism “the most right wing ideology” is because it’s not. That title goes to monarchism, and you can’t really get more authoritarian right wing than a dude on a throne who claims he was put there by god because tradition.

Now this is a bit of a sidetrack here but fascism isn’t socialism, or far left. The reason is because at it’s core fascism is just more authoritarian corporatism. Private industry is still allowed but it’s guided by the state slightly. Fascism also needs war or at the very least a strong military to survive. Which is why there’s no fascist systems still around because they burn themselves out