December 20, 2019

European center left is the lowest ever in some countries. Troubling trend.

https://twitter.com/GoodwinMJ/status/1208071725881200641


Centre-left at latest election

UK Labour
Lowest seats since 1935

Austria
Lowest since 1945

Germany
2nd lowest since 1949

France
Lowest ever

Italy
Lowest ever

Netherlands
Lowest ever

Sweden
Lowest since 1908

Finland
2nd lowest since 1962

December 20, 2019

Interesting thread on Breitbart and cocaine by Boing Boing's Xeni Jardin

https://twitter.com/xeni/status/1208042280419913728

Me and my LA blogger pals used to hang with Andrew Breitbart, or rather, he used to like to come out of his bunker now and then to hang with us. This wasn’t war until they decided to make it war. I believe America might’ve been very different if he hadn’t been so into

(gif of a razorblade, rolled up dollar bill and a Christmas tree made out of cocaine)

It’s kind of interesting that this particular kind of addiction and the damage it does to the heart is something he has in common with… others

I remember when things got dark he started touching women aggressively. Shoving a prominent female TV news anchor in front of an elevator one time if I remember correctly. Breitbart’s heart. The cocaine didn’t help but it was long rotten.

So many of these men are very sick in this way. It’s important to talk about it.

Unlike alcohol, this is an addiction where the supply factor gets very sensitive very quickly if you have a dependence. Picking up a bottle of vodka isn’t expensive. But a more costly addiction can cause a man in power to do all sorts of things.

I was never a cocaine addict but I understand if you can’t get access to the real thing, Adderall helps. Might be something to keep in mind

Even at its most lucrative in the 2000s, being a blogger was not a lifestyle that could sustain this sort of overhead. No. These temptations require the addict to make devil’s bargains beyond that world.

Now there are all sorts of reasons a weak amoral man or woman might want to get in bed with a lot of money. In one country they call that “kompromat.” Don’t get it twisted the word doesn’t mean peepee tape. It means the leverage by which an individual or system can be corrupted

I want you to put a pin in what I’m about to say. When the financial crash happened in 2008, all of us Internet publishers lost our damn minds. And that is exactly when Russia moved in with money. Facebook, Twitter, Google, Yuri Milner…

Don’t forget it.
You’ll need it.

Hey it’s not “narcing” if he’s dead.

Hey you know who else was really really really into stimulants. Him and his whole army. Look it up. Meth and cocaine, in their modern roots, have been the nazi, fascist, and neofascist drug of choice. White Powder, White Power.

Ask me how I know.

(Life experience. That’s how.)

Kremlin Cash Behind Billionaire’s Twitter and Facebook Investments

In the fall of 2010, the Russian billionaire investor Yuri Milner took the stage for a Q. and A. at a technology conference in San Francisco. Mr. Milner, whose holdings have included major stakes in Facebook and Twitter, is known for expounding on everything from the future of social media to the frontiers of space travel. But when someone asked a question that had swirled around his Silicon Valley ascent — Who were his investors? — he did not answer, turning repeatedly to the moderator with a look of incomprehension.

Now, leaked documents examined by The New York Times offer a partial answer: Behind Mr. Milner’s investments in Facebook and Twitter were hundreds of millions of dollars from the Kremlin.

Obscured by a maze of offshore shell companies, the Twitter investment was backed by VTB, a Russian state-controlled bank often used for politically strategic deals. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/05/world/yuri-milner-facebook-twitter-russia.html

December 20, 2019

Trump just responded to "far left" magazine , Christianity Today . LOL

https://twitter.com/RealPressSecBot/status/1207998952391340032/photo/1


https://twitter.com/RealPressSecBot/status/1207998957957173249/photo/1Trump


A far left magazine, or very “progressive,” as some would call it, which has been doing poorly and hasn’t been involved with the Billy Graham family for many years, Christianity Today, knows nothing about reading a perfect transcript of a routine phone call and would rather.....

....have a Radical Left nonbeliever, who wants to take your religion & your guns, than Donald Trump as your President. No President has done more for the Evangelical community, and it’s not even close. You’ll not get anything from those Dems on stage. I won’t be reading ET again!

December 19, 2019

Trump just had a press conference with Jeff Van Drew

https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1207766886953312257


"I believe this is just a better fit for me."

Rep. Jeff Van Drew makes remarks at the White House after Pres. Trump announced he was switching parties to become a Republican.

December 19, 2019

There's A Gay Guy Dressing Up As Mike Pence Collecting Money For Planned Parenthood

Howard Sherman, an arts administrator who lives in Manhattan, was walking through Times Square earlier this month when he noticed a man bearing a striking resemblance to Vice President-elect Mike Pence dressed in short shorts.

Sherman, whose hobby is photographing the various characters in Times Square, told BuzzFeed News he then started taking photos of the man but did not engage with him in any way.Sherman posted the photos to his Facebook page, where people soon helped him to identify the Pence lookalike as Glen Pannell, who Sherman then interviewed on his own website.

Pannell, a 51-year-old graphic designer and occasional actor, told BuzzFeed News that he decided to dress up as Pence and collect money for various causes because he was feeling very down after the election.

Pannell, who came out in his twenties, has so far collected money for Planned Parenthood, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Trevor Project — a national suicide hotline for gay and questioning youth — and hopes to collect for the International Refugee Assistance Project.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/kassycho/mike-hot-pence

December 19, 2019

Republicans are outmatched, outwitted and outclassed - Jennifer Rubin

Such speeches were miles from Republicans’ juvenile, screeching and irrational remarks. Republicans insulted and ridiculed their opponents, stomped and snorted; they deflected and twisted evidence. They glared, rolled their eyes, booed and (in the case of the minority whip) melodramatically tore up papers. All in all, it was a remarkable display of how far the party’s collective intellect has deteriorated. Today’s Republicans talk and act like thugs, trash the institution in which they serve and make no effort to engage on a rational basis with their opponents.

How did it come to this? Well, stewing in the nonsensical arguments and conspiracy theories gushing from Fox News, proudly adopting know-nothingism (e.g. climate change denial) and repudiating legitimate journalism and scholarly expertise come with a price. The mind atrophies; the ability to discern what is absurd from what is persuasive falters. Never encountering those who refuse to adopt your alternate reality means never having to exercise one’s powers of analysis or learning anything beyond what Fox News hosts spoon-feed them.Certainly, part of their conduct is an act, as Sen. John Neely Kennedy (R-La.), educated at Oxford, demonstrates when he puts on the mask and adopts the twang of a yokel. Part of the Republican routine also is an effort to conform to Trump’s non-reality and never stray from his intellectual wasteland. But frankly, the Republican Party that amplifies voters’ confusion and sense of victimhood is not a magnet for rocket scientists, witty conversationalists or creative thinkers.

In short, the divide is vast and still widening between the parties. One appeals to college-educated voters who consume factual information and develop emotional intelligence as they navigate through diverse workplaces and school settings. The other party appeals to non-college-educated voters who claim the bully president as their own and consume hours upon hours of right-wing media, which panders to ignorance and prejudice, not to mention to amoral profiteers who have figured out how to monetize the right-wing nuttery. (More cynical operators trade on the supposed “authenticity” of those they would claim to be “real Americans” in exchange for judges and robber-baron economics.) Republican politicians and their base not only ape Trump’s views but also imitate his unhinged demeanor, cruelty and preference for conspiracy theories.

When you compare the parties’ representatives side by side, one is struck not only by the remarkable lack of diversity on the Republican side but also by their obnoxious and thick-headed remarks blasted at full volume. There is no other way to say it: The Republican Party is an embarrassment.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/12/19/republican-outmatched-outwitted-outclassed/

December 19, 2019

Mark Meadows is not seeking re-election

His district in NC was redrawn per judicial order.

https://twitter.com/AdamParkhomenko/status/1207618043104264192


https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EMJR4sWX0AARv_c?format=jpg&name=900x900

Democrat Col. Morris Davis is running to replace him.

https://twitter.com/ColMorrisDavis/status/1207619526361268229

.
@RepMarkMeadows
never was a fighter. No military service and then says “no mas!” after his
@NCGOP
rigged district gets less rigged and I jump into the ring ready to kick his ass. Maybe he’ll go home to France or Florida.

December 19, 2019

Meanwhile, Trump calls a woman protestor a slob and laments that security didn't "rough her up"

https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1207471493837287424



Trump disses a woman protester: "There is a slob, there is a real slob ... She will get hell when she comes back home with mom."

Trump then laments that security didn't rough her up as she was getting kicked out.

December 18, 2019

'The Far Side' Returns With Updated Website and (Potentially) New Comics

After a 25-year hibernation, the beloved comic strip The Far Side returned Tuesday with a revamped website, unseen sketches and the promise of new comics in the future.

In September, cartoonist Gary Larson hinted on the long-dormant Far Side website that the comic would reappear in 2019 in some capacity; “Uncommon, unreal, and (soon-to-be) unfrozen. A new online era of The Far Side is coming,” the previously barren website hinted.

In addition to the updated website — which for now features a “daily dose” of previously published works and a curated collection that brings together old comics thematically, a notable improvement considering the cartoonist spent decades actively keeping The Far Side off the Internet — Larson also gave the New York Times a rare interview where he mapped out his goals for TheFarSide.com.

“I’m not ‘back,’ at least in the sense I think you’re asking,” Larson told the Times of The Far Side, which ran from January 1st, 1980 to December 31st, 1994. “Returning to the world of deadlines isn’t exactly on my to-do list.” While the website — launching in time for the strip’s 40th anniversary — will primarily serve as a place for Larson’s previous cartoons, “I’m looking forward to slipping in some new things every so often.”

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/the-far-side-returns-new-website-gary-larson-interview-929057/

December 18, 2019

Why are Democrats in Congress undermining Obamacare? - WaPo Editorial Board

THE $1.4 TRILLION spending bill now making its way to final passage in time to meet a Friday deadline will banish the specter of a partial government shutdown for the foreseeable future. That’s the good news. Otherwise, it is a monumental exercise in fiscal looseness that may add $500 billion to the federal debt over the next decade, according to estimates by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. President Trump and his fellow Republicans deserve much of the blame for this situation, given that, under Mr. Trump, the party has abandoned any pretense of concern over balanced budgets. Yet many of the worst reported provisions enjoy significant Democratic support, too — even though they will undermine the signature policy accomplishment of the Obama administration.

We refer to the bill’s permanent repeal of three key funding sources for Obamacare: a 40 percent excise tax on the value of relatively high-cost “Cadillac” employer-paid health insurance plans; an annual tax on premiums collected by health insurers, allocated according to each insurer based on market share; and a 2.3 percent excise tax on the value of medical devices sold within the United States. Taken together, the elimination of these revenue-raisers will cost roughly $373 billion over a decade, of which $197 billion comes from repealing the “Cadillac tax,” $151 billion from ending the fee on health insurers and $25 billion from the tax cut for medical device-makers, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation.

Compounding the damage is the fact that each tax also served legitimate health-market policy goals, in addition to helping pay for expanded coverage. By reducing incentives for excessive consumption of services, the Cadillac tax would have helped slow the overall growth of health costs. As for the health insurance tax and the medical device tax, those are the rough equivalents of partial rebates to the government for the expanded business those firms enjoyed because of Obamacare.

Of course, repeal is a bit redundant in that Congress has delayed or suspended each of the taxes at least once; indeed, the Cadillac tax has never been imposed, because of repeated “postponements.” Yet permanent elimination represents a final capitulation to the interest groups that opposed them. Both the GOP-aligned U.S. Chamber of Commerce and pro-Democratic labor unions waged a relentless campaign against the Cadillac tax, the former because it was hostile to Obamacare and taxes generally; the latter because union contracts often call for lusher-than-average health benefits. Among the leading Democratic presidential candidates, Sens. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) and Amy Klobuchar (Minn.) have been particularly dogged foes of the tax on medical devices, in deference to home-state industry. Something to remember as they, and their rivals, promise tax hikes to pay for health-care expansion.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-are-democrats-in-congress-undermining-obamacare/2019/12/17/4a898f76-20f1-11ea-a153-dce4b94e4249_story.html

This is just an example of how hard M4A would be.