babylonsister
babylonsister's JournalTed Cruz Calls The Military Pansies As Biden Honors Their Service
https://www.politicususa.com/2021/05/21/ted-cruz-military-pansies.htmlPosted on Fri, May 21st, 2021 by Jason Easley
Ted Cruz Calls The Military Pansies As Biden Honors Their Service
Sen. Ted Cruz blamed the left for turning the military into “pansies” after President Biden honored their service.
Cruz tweeted:
https://twitter.com/tedcruz/status/1395586598943825924
Cruz tweeted a video that claimed the US military is weak because of women, gay, and transgender persons serving, which was the basis for his claim that the left is turning the military into “pansies.”
The women, gay, and trans individuals who put on the uniform each day are doing something Cruz never did. They are risking their lives and serving their country.
Ted Cruz allowed Trump to insult his wife, father, and family, and his response was to do nothing.
Sen. Cruz thinks that by engaging in this 1990s culture war nonsense, he is punching his ticket to the 2024 Republican nomination, but Ted Cruz will never be president.
Cruz tried to disguise his attack on the military by blaming the left, but Joe Biden celebrates the troops while Ted Cruz calls them pansies.
Why Tish James Joined the Trump Criminal Probe
https://politicalwire.com/2021/05/21/why-the-tish-james-joined-the-trump-criminal-probe/Why Tish James Joined the Trump Criminal Probe
May 21, 2021 at 6:32 am EDT By Taegan Goddard
Grown Adult Republican Lawmakers Fined $500 After Whiny Mask Protest on House Floor
https://www.thedailybeast.com/republican-lawmakers-fined-after-whiny-mask-protest-on-house-floor?ref=homeGrown Adult Republican Lawmakers Fined $500 After Whiny Mask Protest on House Floor
AEROSOL ALERT
Jamie Ross, News Correspondent
Published May. 19, 2021 5:12AM ET
The Rude Pundit: I'm Losing My Capacity for Empathy Thanks to People Who Refuse to Get Vaccinated
https://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2021/05/im-losing-my-capacity-for-empathy.htmlThe Rude Pundit
Proudly lowering the level of political discourse
5/17/2021
I'm Losing My Capacity for Empathy Thanks to People Who Refuse to Get Vaccinated
snip//
I'm fucking exhausted with the vaccine refuseniks. I'm especially exhausted with Republican refuseniks because their goddamn president, the one that made this whole situation so much worse, still brays like a drunk jackass at a cheap petting zoo about how he personally ejaculated the vaccine for everyone. Which is it, GOP? If you love Trump so much, why not take his cold, hard injection?
The same thing goes for masking. I stopped wearing a mask outdoors except in crowded places a few months ago, even before I was vaccinated, because the science said I could. Most of the time, I wear a mask just to make others feel comfortable, even in places that don't still require it around here. I'd bet that the majority of people who wear masks indoors in places like Texas or Iowa or Florida are vaccinated. I get that. I have empathy there. We just went through some scary shit that's still going on. I understand that you might be really freaked the fuck out. But there's gonna come a day where I think, "Yeah, I'm done wearing a mask if I don't have to." Probably on a day that hits 90 degrees. At some point, you either trust the vaccine or you don't. I'm Modernaed up, motherfuckers.
Of course, the refuseniks are gonna be total lying twatmites about mask-wearing, demanding that they be able to go without, even if the science says they shouldn't. Some of them have started saying the snarky, transphobic "I identify as vaccinated." To which you can only say: Okay, you dumb bitches, then when are you going to transition to vaccinated? By the way, you can get a t-shirt that says that shit. In fact, there's a whole line of anti-vax tees because of course there are.
Look, we're never going back to "normal." The pre-COVID normal doesn't exist anymore. For instance, I learned that I can wear a mask at the house of my friends who have cats, to which I am savagely allergic (please don't tell me what to try - I have). But the mask allows me to hang out, shoot the shit, do some edibles, even pet the cat. I'm not going back to normal: my eyes watering, stuffed nose, face freaking out. And my face is like the world in general. We're figuring out how to negotiate this post-pandemic world, trying to figure out what works for us.
And the assholes who won't get vaccinated are making it that much fucking harder.
'He's a well-known racist': Judge accused of trying to hit Black Lives Matter protesters with SUV
'He’s a well-known racist': Judge accused of trying to hit Black Lives Matter protesters with SUV
Lauren Floyd for Daily Kos
Daily Kos Staff
Tuesday May 18, 2021 · 11:25 AM EDT
It took North Carolina officials seven days to take seriously an allegation that a Fayetteville appeals court judge tried to run down Black Lives Matter protesters even though the city had video of the encounter initially revealed by The Fayetteville Observer. Myah Warren, a 23-year-old activist and member of a Fayetteville-Cumberland Human Relations Commission, told both the local newspaper and The Washington Post she twice tried to press charges against Republican Judge John Tyson after he tried to hit her and other protesters with his SUV on May 7 in the town center, the Market House. Civil officers told her she couldn’t and even lied that Tyson was no longer a judge, but when an investigator reviewed footage of the incident, she received word that she had a case against the well-connected judge, Warren told the newspaper.
“This vehicle circled the market house twice and on the second time veered into activists at approximately 6:28pm!!!” the Fayetteville Activist Movement said in a Facebook post. “He then JUMPED the curb and we approached to get ID info on the car.” Warren said she still had a hard time finding an attorney that would represent her against Tyson. “He’s a well-known racist,” she told The Washington Post.
Warren cited a murder case in which Tyson wrote a dissent opinion on appeal defending Chad Cameron Copley, a white man who in August 2016 murdered an unarmed Black man after telling 911 dispatchers he was “locked and loaded” and there were "hoodlums" in the area, according to The Associated Press. Responding to the appeal attempt, Judge John Arrowood wrote the majority opinion that Copley, 43, "concealed himself in his darkened garage with a shotgun" and without warning fired his gun, killing 20-year-old Kourey Thomas. Tyson wrote in his dissent obtained by the AP that the trial judge "denied (Copley) of his most fundamental rights to protect and defend himself, his family, and their home."
Seemingly taking a cue from the murderer, Tyson also is accused—although charges against him don’t reflect it—of lying to a 911 dispatcher in the incident involving Warren. The Washington Post identified the judge as the person who called police to report about five to 10 protesters blocking traffic, a claim the city video fails to support. It does however show an SUV allegedly driven by Tyson driving in a lane closed to traffic with the words “BLACK LIVES DO MATTER” painted in the center. The lane was a few steps away from the curb protesters held signs on.
more...
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/5/18/2030983/--He-s-a-well-known-racist-Judge-accused-of-trying-to-hit-Black-Lives-Matter-protesters-with-SUV
Retail Workers are Pissed Off About the End of Masks In Stores
6 hours ago
Retail Workers are Pissed Off About the End of Masks In Stores
“That was our safety blanket, almost. And now it’s just gone.”
Andrea Guzman
After the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s announcement last week that fully vaccinated people do not have to wear masks in most situations, retailers like CVS and Costco said they were lifting mask mandates in stores. The news came as a shock to some workers.
I spoke with three workers at Trader Joe’s across the country, which lifted its mask mandate on Friday. (They asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation from their bosses.) The workers said the news came without any notice. “I honestly felt pretty uncomfortable,” said a worker in Missouri who was informed early in her shift. “There were actually like three or four [employees] who decided to go home that day just because it was a little bit overwhelming.”
Over the pandemic, 423 food and retail workers have died; more than 83,000 were infected or exposed. “After 18 months of seeing co-workers get sick and pass away and to now have to be in a situation where that could happen again—aside from putting worker’s health at risk,” said Erica Smiley, Executive Director of union rights organization Jobs with Justice, “it’s also really traumatizing.”
The Missouri Trader Joe’s worker said they wished the company had taken time to make a decision on mask-wearing. “That was our safety blanket, almost. And now it’s just gone.”
more...
https://www.motherjones.com/food/2021/05/retail-workers-are-pissed-off-about-the-end-of-masks-in-stores/
Taxpayers Are Still Paying for Jared Kushner to Pretend to Be Important
Just loathsome-I wish this were illegal.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/05/jared-kushner-abu-dhabi-ritz-carlton
Levin Report
Taxpayers Are Still Paying for Jared Kushner to Pretend to Be Important
The former first son-in-law’s jaunt to the Middle East last week cost the U.S. $13,000.
By Bess Levin
May 17, 2021
If you only got your news from Donald Trump’s new social media website (a.k.a blog), or by watching the speeches he gives to wedding guests and random passersby at Mar-a-Lago like an old man shouting at an empty blender, you might think he was still president. In fact, he is not, but the U.S. is still paying for Secret Service protection for all of his adult children and their families. Which is why when former first son-in-law Jared Kushner took a little trip to the Middle East last month, it cost taxpayers nearly $13,000.
The Daily Beast reports that federal documents show the State Department coughed up at least $12,950 for Ivanka Trump’s husband’s security detail to accompany him during a stay the Ritz-Carlton Abu Dhabi between May 5 and May 14. It’s not clear what Kushner was doing in Abu Dhabi, but we assume it was related to the “Abraham Accords Institute for Peace” that he recently founded after pretending to solve the conflict in the Middle East. (Yes, it appears that despite reading 25 books on the matter, Kushner did not actually bring stability to the region, which is shocking considering his “breakthrough” deal, hailed as the Trump administration’s “biggest foreign policy achievement,” made little to no mention of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Or that one review of his plan read, “The authors of the plan clearly understand nothing.”)
While $13,000 sounds like a large chunk of change for taxpayers to cover for an extremely wealthy private citizen, it was actually a lot less than what Americans had to fork over for Kushner’s last overseas visit as first son-in-law, which cost taxpayers at least $24,335 in hotel fares alone, not including the tab for flights, local transportation, and meals, as well as salary and overtime for Kushner’s Secret Service detail, per the Daily Beast. Or the sum the U.S. is expected to shell out for the entire Trump clan over the next few months. As The Washington Post wrote in January, “The perk for the Trump family is expected to cost taxpayers millions of dollars and further stress the elite federal security force, which in the past four years had to staff the largest number ever of full-time security details—up to 42 at one point, according to former senior administration officials.”
As the Daily Beast notes, it is “virtually unheard of” for former administration officials, like Jared and Ivanka, to keep their Secret Service protection after they leave office, just as it is “highly unusual,” per The Washington Post, for a president to provide 24-hour security to so many adult family members, particularly the kind who take personal trips all over the world, in addition to travel related to their work at the Trump Organization. According to the Post, “from 2017 to 2019, government records show, Trump family members took more than 4,500 trips that required Secret Service to travel alongside them, costing taxpayers tens of millions of dollars.” When Jared and Ivanka spent a weekend in the Dominican Republic in 2018, for example, taxpayers spent more than $58,000 of public funds on room and board, the Daily Beast noted.
Republicans' Joe Biden Problem: He Keeps Doing Things People Like
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/05/republicans-joe-biden-problem-he-keeps-doing-things-people-likeRepublicans’ Joe Biden Problem: He Keeps Doing Things People Like
The sheer popularity of the president’s agenda could be a major problem for Republican candidates in the upcoming midterm elections.
By Eric Lutz
May 17, 2021
In last year’s presidential campaign, Donald Trump tried to scare voters away from Joe Biden by framing him as a dangerous radical—someone so far left and so unhinged that he was “against god.” It was a losing strategy: Biden, who has spent decades in the public eye, was so clearly not the person Trump was describing him as that none of the punches landed. Biden won a decisive victory on a unity platform.
Even now, as Biden oversees an ambitious and unabashedly progressive agenda, efforts by the MAGA right to cast his presidency as a “disaster” have been mostly fruitless, in no small part because his policies are largely popular. While the country is fiercely polarized, more voters than not appear to prefer Biden’s steady hand and policies aimed at actually improving their lives to the right’s chaos and focus on inane culture wars. That’s left the GOP with a problem in next year’s midterms, which the minority party typically turns into a referendum on the president: How do you run a campaign based on the idea that the guy in charge doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing when voters seem pretty satisfied with his performance?
The answer is that maybe you don’t. Dozens of Republican strategists told Politico on Monday that the party’s 2022 playbook will not focus on linking Democrats to Biden the way they did with Barack Obama in 2010 and the way Democrats did with Trump in 2018. Instead, the strategists said, Republican candidates will seek to tie their opponents to Nancy Pelosi, socialism, cancel culture, and various other liberal bogeymen. “Biden is not a good bad guy,” Republican strategist Ed Rogers told the outlet. “It’s hard to demonize him.”
Taking over for Trump at one of the most dire points of the pandemic, Biden has steered the nation toward normalcy, with a ramped-up vaccine rollout that has sent infection rates plummeting, to the point where government health officials say they no longer believe masks are necessary for those who have been inoculated. Meanwhile, his administration has championed largely popular policies, while avoiding the kind of drama and chaos that Trump inflicted on the nation. Trump supporters and GOP elected officials may continue to treat Biden as an illegitimate leader who stole the election and is either a left-wing extremist or a puppet for socialism. But it may be harder to convince anyone else that he is some kind of sinister force, as evidenced by Trump’s failed efforts last year.
more...
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/05/republicans-joe-biden-problem-he-keeps-doing-things-people-like
Documents Show Trump Officials Used Secret Terrorism Unit to Question Lawyers at the Border
How did antifa become such a boogeyman? Didn't anyone know how to google? 
3 hours ago
Documents Show Trump Officials Used Secret Terrorism Unit to Question Lawyers at the Border
In newly disclosed records, Trump officials cited conspiracies about Antifa to justify interrogating immigration lawyers with a special terrorism unit.
Dara Lind
This story was published originally by ProPublica, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for ProPublica’s Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox as soon as they are published.
Taylor Levy couldn’t understand why she’d been held for hours by Customs and Border Protection officials when crossing back into El Paso, Texas, after getting dinner with friends in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, in January 2019. And she didn’t know why she was being questioned by an agent who’d introduced himself as a counterterrorism specialist.
Levy was part of the legal team representing the father of a girl who’d died the previous month in the custody of the Border Patrol, which is part of CBP. “There was so much hate for immigration lawyers at that time,” she recalled. “I thought that somebody had put in an anonymous tip that I was a terrorist.”
The truth was more troubling. Newly released records show that Levy was swept up as part of a broader than previously known push by the administration of President Donald Trump to use the federal government’s expansive powers at the border to stop and question journalists, lawyers and activists.
The records reveal that Levy and attorney Héctor Ruiz were interrogated by members of CBP’s secretive Tactical Terrorism Response Team. The lawyers were suspected of “providing assistance” to the migrant caravan that was then the focus of significant attention by the administration and right-wing media. Officials speculated in later reports that immigration lawyers were seeking to profit by moving migrants through Mexico, and that “Antifa” may have been involved.
more...
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/05/documents-show-trump-officials-used-secret-terrorism-unit-to-question-lawyers-at-the-border/
Eric Boehlert: Stop shaming workers
Stop shaming workers
The new economy
Eric Boehlert
1 hr ago
Workers suddenly enjoy newfound clout in the emerging post-pandemic economy. With lots of employers desperate to fill a stockpile of new positions as retail outlets spring back to life in a vaccinated America, a short-term worker shortage has emerged. Republicans and their business community friends are furious, blaming a lazy workforce, and the press is helping their cause by shining a spotlight on employer complaints, while paying far less attention to employee priorities.
snip//
Writing in the Washington Post, Megan McArdle announced unequivocally that the $300 stimulus checks were “holding back the economic recovery,” by giving people a strong disincentive to work. McArdle’s proof? “Anecdotally,” she was sure it was true.
Over and over that pro-business talking point has been echoed in local news coverage, as well. When WKNB in Youngstown, Ohio, reported on the Republican governor cutting off employment benefits, only business owners who supported the move were quoted, no workers. Same with a local report from the Albany Times Union in New York, which quoted a restaurant manager blaming the worker shortage on the government for “giving them all the money to stay home.” No workers were interviewed.
That GOP narrative misses an important story unfolding as America emerges from the pandemic: Long-held assumptions about how we live are being scrambled.
For instance, as more schools nationwide reopen, millions of schoolchildren are opting not to return to in-person learning, just like millions of Americans, for now, are currently choosing not to return to the workforce. If the claim is that workers are staying home because the government is paying them in $300 weekly checks, what’s the reason students are staying home, since there’s no federal financial incentive to do so?
Answer: Priorities and lifestyles changed during the pandemic.
The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Will Bunch recently nailed it in a column:
more...
https://pressrun.media/p/stop-shaming-workers
Profile Information
Gender: FemaleHometown: NY
Home country: US
Current location: Florida
Member since: Mon Sep 6, 2004, 09:54 PM
Number of posts: 171,099
