October 28, 2022

It's not just Congress at stake

There are a lot of key governor-ships at stake, and state legislative races are also super important. Also local elections, school boards, etc.

These also may not be as affected by national trends. There's a lot going on and state legislative and local races can be decided by small margins. So you can have more impact at the local level.

October 21, 2022

True stories of the devastating consequences of MAGA abortion bans from women

This is powerful
https://twitter.com/MeidasTouch/status/1583532401371643906?s=20&t=8MoZP6yQcUyNHba9D1cEgA

October 16, 2022

Is Biden wrecking the Chinese semi-conductor industry?

Twitter thread from Jordan Schneider --
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1580889341265469440.html

"The US government's new export controls are wreaking havoc on China's chip industry.

New rules around "US persons" are driving an "industry-wide decapitation."
The following is the translation of a thread posted earlier this week by @lidangzzz.

"Lots of people don’t know what happened yesterday.

To put it simply, Biden has forced all Americans working in China to pick between quitting their jobs and losing American citizenship.

Every American executive and engineer working in China’s semiconductor manufacturing industry resigned yesterday, paralyzing Chinese manufacturing overnight.

One round of sanctions from Biden did more damage than all four years of performative sanctioning under Trump.
Although American semiconductor exporters had to apply for licenses during the Trump years, licenses were approved within a month.
With the new Biden sanctions, all American suppliers of IP blocks, components, and services departed overnight —— thus cutting off all service [to China].
Long story short, every advanced node semiconductor company is currently facing comprehensive supply cut-off, resignations from all American staff, and immediate operations paralysis.
This is what annihilation looks like: China’s semiconductor manufacturing industry was reduced to zero overnight. Complete collapse. No chance of survival.
(snip)

Summary from Lam Research, which is involved with these new sanctions:

1. All Chinese advanced computing chip design companies are covered by these sanctions, and TSMC will no longer do any tape-out for them from now on;

2. All autonomous-driving chips will be sanctioned as well;

3. The starting point for this round of sanctions is to go all the way up the food chain and ensure the elimination of all American products and technologies from the entire ecosystem;

4. Any company or individual who violates these sanctions face arrest by the US Department of Justice..

I will stress again:

This round of sanctions means annihilation for China’s semiconductor industry. This is nothing like the 10+ rounds of performative sanctioning during the Trump years —— this is a serious act of industry-wide decapitation.
Any Chinese company that survives is a company that hasn’t been fully sanctioned yet;

Any fully sanctioned Chinese company is 100% doomed; there’s no possibility of survival.

American citizens and permanent residents will predictably vote with their feet."
FWIW, while I think there is certainly a grain of truth in this thread, the impact into the medium term may be a bit overstated.

My guess is that companies like LAM out of an abundance of caution paused servicing in order to make sure they were complying with the law.

The regs, after all, are not intended to stop US firms from working in China behind the cutting edge, and if that is their impact they may be tweaked in the coming months.

That said, executives in China, many of whom do hold US passports, have a very difficult decision to make.

Given that many of China's most successful entrepreneurs in recent years in light of Zero Covid and Xi's leadership have decided to leave the country, these new regs may be the tipping point for a lot of China's most experienced talent in the chip space."



These articles discuss the issue:

https://www.outlookindia.com/international/explained-how-americans-in-chinese-tech-firms-might-have-to-choose-between-us-citizenship-and-job-news-230218

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/13/us/politics/biden-china-technology-semiconductors.html

Funny how Biden is actually being tough on China, and conservatives are worried about it of course.

October 9, 2022

Inflation worries

Yesterday we went grocery shopping and it felt odd. Everyone seemed grim and in a sour mood. Because of the way my brain works these days, I could only imagine people walking around, being upset about the higher cost of food and blaming Biden and the Dems... and this depressed me as a bad omen for the midterms, where our democracy is truly on the line. Hopefully this was more my imagination and my general mood than reality.

But I really worry about inflation and that people are hurting and deciding that electing fascists is some kind of solution.
I wish more people understood that there is terrible global inflation right because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, climate disaster and the lingering pandemic, and that actually inflation is better here than most places, because of the policies of the Biden administration.

But of course the news media won't emphasize that, and of course treasonous fascist FoxNews will blame Dems and I worry people will think Republican fascists are going to solve their problems. God help us.

October 7, 2022

"President Trump's staggering record of uncharged crimes" -- a long list from CREW

https://www.citizensforethics.org/reports-investigations/crew-reports/president-trumps-staggering-record-of-uncharged-crimes/

As of September 2022, Donald Trump has been credibly accused of committing at least 55 criminal offenses since he launched his campaign for president in 2015. That total only reflects allegations relating to his time in or running for office and omits, for instance, Trump’s criminal exposure for fraudulent business dealings.

The seven offenses we have added since we published the first version of this table in March 2022 include three criminal offenses relating to the investigation of election fraud and related crimes in Fulton County, Georgia; one offense relating to potential wire fraud stemming from fraudulent representations made to solicit PAC contributions after the 2020 election; and three offenses relating to Trump’s unlawful possession of government records at Mar-a-Lago after leaving office. The updated tracker likely understates Trump’s legal exposure because the high volume of sensitive records discovered at Mar-A-Lago suggests that he could be indicted for multiple counts of willfully retaining without authorization government records containing national defense information, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 793(e)), even though it is only listed once on CREW’s tracker.

Federal and state prosecutors are at an important crossroads with respect to accountability for the former president. On the one hand, the deadline has already passed or will soon pass for charges relating to several extremely serious offenses. That includes offenses relating to Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign as well as his obstruction of the FBI’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election and the subsequent special counsel investigation. The investigation of both matters was terminated by the Department of Justice at the direction of former Attorney General Bill Barr. While there is substantial evidence that Trump committed several felonies, he is unlikely to face consequences for that conduct.

On the other hand, Trump is squarely in the crosshairs of at least three grand jury investigations that have been very active over the last half year: the Fulton County, Georgia investigation of election fraud and related offenses; a federal grand jury investigation of the January 6 insurrection and events leading up to it; and a federal grand jury investigation of Trump’s unlawful possession of government records since leaving office and related offenses. These investigations suggest that Trump’s long run of avoiding accountability may soon be over.

Table of crimes--
https://www.citizensforethics.org/reports-investigations/crew-reports/president-trumps-staggering-record-of-uncharged-crimes/#table

September 29, 2022

Really Important (I know there's lots of going on) but on the debt ceiling

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/five-alarm-fire

"The DC insider sheets are already buzzing about the exciting news: House Republicans plan a new round of debt limit hostage taking next year. Of course, this is all treated as somehow totally normal, as opposed to an unconstitutional form of legislative terrorism. This piece in Axios walks through the ins and outs of it, noting the following ….
...

Only Republicans do this. It only happens with Democratic Presidents. Perhaps understandably, the head of the pro-business Chamber – which is, paradoxically, somewhat reviled now in the Trumpite GOP – can’t say this directly. But journalists don’t have to repeat their nonsense. The leading contender for the key committee chairmanship that would call the shots on this is already being clear on what Republicans will do. Tell the President that he has to repeal his 2021-22 legislation or the country has to declare national bankruptcy.

For various reasons I think it is more likely than not that the US will default on its debt. Remember that we came pretty close to default in 2011. That was with a far less crazy House GOP caucus and a much stronger House leader. Kevin McCarthy, as we noted on Tuesday, is a characterologically weak man with a penchant for toadyism. They will drive the country into debt default. At the same time, there is no appetite among Democrats for rolling back the president’s climate and fiscal agenda to appease this kind of terrorism.

...

But there is an out. During the lame duck session of Congress after the election, Democrats can simply raise the debt limit on their own or if possible just get rid of the debt limit altogether. It’s a completely inane thing. Only a handful of other countries in the world have something like it. It creates a two tiered system: a decision to use your credit card to buy something and a separate decision on whether to pay your credit card bill. In the real world it doesn’t work that way. I’m not sure you can get rid of the limit system without running into the filibuster. But you can definitely raise the limit through reconciliation."

July 18, 2022

Has anyone seen any Republican say they don't think a 10 year old girl

should be forced to have a child by the state? I haven't.

July 15, 2022

Republicans want to keep Americans from traveling between states

This is fascism and more evil from the evil fascist Republican party.

Missouri lawmakers have introduced a “bounty” bill similar to the one now in operation in Texas, which would allow private citizens to sue anyone who helps a resident obtain an abortion out of state. Another bill would apply Missouri’s laws to abortions that occur in other states.


Speaking of Texas, a group of state House lawmakers who call themselves the Texas Freedom Caucus hope to “impose additional civil and criminal sanctions on law firms that pay for abortions or abortion travel,” regardless of where the abortion occurs.

According to The Washington Post, an anti-abortion organization led by Republican state lawmakers has been exploring “model legislation that would restrict people from crossing state lines for abortions.”

“Just because you jump across a state line doesn’t mean your home state doesn’t have jurisdiction,” Peter Breen, vice president of the Thomas More Society, told The Post. “It’s not a free abortion card when you drive across the state line.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/15/opinion/abortion-rights-travel.html

July 14, 2022

What people mean when they say Democrats are pandering to extremists

Jared Yates Sexton--

Just a reminder when the media, pundits, and politicians spend all their time advising Democrats to “stop pandering to their extremes,” they’re literally talking about abandoning people of color, women, and gay/trans people

You can dress it up however, but that’s the whole thing

And, for the record, none of what they’re warning against is unpopular. It’s just literally moderates and conservatives covering up years of failures, bad policies, and ceaseless inequality and trying to protect their wealth and power.

“The Left” has been tirelessly undermined and ostracized from political power. This ridiculous push at this moment is about ceding ground to authoritarianism, which is how this cycle always works. They cede ground until they join them.

The truth is that these “extremes,” including advocating for equality, reproductive freedoms, and simply standing up for oppressed groups, are wildly popular. It just happens that the conversation is set by moderates who don’t want to lose their power.

Biden and the Democrats aren’t pandering to the Left. They’ve criticized them, opposed their agendas, and continually push to the center. Moderates and conservatives are simply creating narratives to launder their own failures and gain even more control over the party.

Never forget for a moment that all these “Never Trump” Republicans who laid the groundwork for him got kicked out of their party and are trying to more or less takeover the Democrats and shift the Overton Window. Them and moderates make a hell of a team.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1547671635297050625.html

June 28, 2022

The hearing today is showing the most corrupt and deeply disturbing presidential crimes in history

Just unreal.

https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/1541837934906802177?s=20&t=XI-J_iXEJeMrruPBqWoiJg

https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/1541838379800838145?s=20&t=XI-J_iXEJeMrruPBqWoiJg