June 17, 2022

The "Election Integrity" Fraud crosses the RUBE-I-CON

Please read the excellent thread by babylonsister!
https://democraticunderground.com/100216811859
Grift Made Donald Trump and the Modern Republican Party, and It Could Take Them Down

Refresher:
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-fundraising-scam-jan-6-hearing-1367359/
Trump Scammed Supporters Out of $250 Million for Nonexistent Fraud Fund
Supporters who thought they were donating to “election integrity” instead saw some of their money funneled to Trump hotels


Making a thread of my reply for visibility, because
I think it's a turning point issue.

The party of nothing but throwing shit against a wall (LITERALLY) to see what will stick might get some pushback on this "bread and butter" issue, unlike gas pump money going to oligarchs (who are capitalists, and hence, God), but $250 mil being defrauded from them for an orgasmic money bath by blatant crooks.

The grifters have humiliated, manipulated and sent their minions to the slammer, and "it's all good" but such a blatant act might be the flash point, where their utter disdain for he rubes crosses the RUBE I CON.



Just keep this in mind.

Dick Nixon didn't say "I am not a Democrat"

He said:

June 16, 2022

I learned a new term today. CONSERVATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL SCHOLAR.

Old reactionary bigot and misogynist with a sharpie.

June 15, 2022

Strawberry moon photos.

Yesterday's photo (posted on AndyS's thread)
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1036102212
Why we are photographers . . .
The sky background was light, so the horizon shows nicely.


Darker sky tonight. It was later, so no horizon except for a tree.
1000mm effective focal length.

Enjoy!

June 15, 2022

Apple's Backup Plan to Stop Antitrust Legislation

https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/apples-backup-plan-to-stop-antitrust?s=r

Long and complex. Hopefully, this is the core argument:

Apple is quite sophisticated, and has been also working on a secondary level to muck up Senate procedure so that the tech antitrust bills never get a vote.

The strategy is to put forward a separate tech bill around Federal privacy, and get that to the Senate floor at roughly the same time as the tech antitrust bill. The idea is to have some Senators saying that we need to deal with both privacy and antitrust matters, and so both parts of the legislation should go together. (and likely weaken antitrust, IMO, usonian) ...

What’s notable is that the committees who organized this legislation - the Senate Commerce Committee and the House Energy and Commerce Committee - have not done a deep dive into the industry they are trying to regulate. The House Antitrust Subcommittee actually did a long and meaningful investigation into the dominance of big tech firms, reviewing millions of documents, during which members of Congress built enough institutional knowledge they could interrogate big tech CEOs effectively and coherently. It’s why TV comedian John Oliver was able to cite a back and forth from a Congressional hearing showing Jeff Bezos being embarrassed by Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal. That kind of effective interrogation takes enormous amounts of work, which is why the antitrust legislation is directed at real problems and is generating massive pushback from industry in the form of tens of millions of dollars of negative ads.

But the privacy-focused committees, while big tech CEOs did testify, had no such illuminating moments. Rather than doing a deep dive into an industry, they kept musing on privacy and data, absent from any understanding that all of this surveillance is financed by hundreds of billions of dollars of ad money. So now, Apple CEO Tim Cook is now walking around Congress saying that of course there is a problem with tech, but we really need to slow down and make sure that antitrust and privacy go together.

Congressional supporters of the antitrust bill know this, and are pushing back.

Some lawmakers say tying the two efforts to ensure passage before the August congressional recess is a bad idea. “This bill stands on its own and we were promised a vote,” antitrust bill sponsor Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) said at a press conference Wednesday. She said more changes could arise and conversations are ongoing, but she wouldn’t allow for a “weak bill.”

FWIW, I have written to Tim Cook about Apple's acquiescence to Chinese and Russian demands in the past (removing apps, censoring stuff, IIRC) But you know ...

June 14, 2022

DON'T WAIT OR SPECULATE. Stand Up and GOTV! Joe Biden needs more senators and reps.

Reposting for visibility, as requested.
Please reply with any additions or updates.

GOTV as if your life and the lives of many others depend on it
BECAUSE THEY DO

Donating to DNC is always effective, but there's always more to do. Here is a list of what I've found. Adding to it as I find actionable items.

VERY VERY LATEST!
Dems launch plan to elect thousands of local election supervisors
Protect Elections from thuggery.
DU post by mahatmakanejeeves
https://democraticunderground.com/10142905218
Politico article: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/04/18/democrats-recruiting-push-local-election-officers-00025733

A Democratic candidate recruiting group is pitching donors on an ambitious three-year program to find, train and support 5,000 candidates for local offices in charge of election administration, a sprawling national effort intended to fight subversion of future election results.

The program would recruit candidates in 35 states for everything from county probate judges in Alabama to county clerks in Kansas and county election board members in Pennsylvania — all offices that handle elections and will be on voters’ ballots between now and 2024.

RUN FOR SOMETHING:
https://runforsomething.net/
SIGN UP, AND RUN!
https://wherecanirun.org/

FIGHT FOR VOTING RIGHTS
After a year of assaults on American voting rights, the next steps are clear: end the filibuster and enact federal voting rights legislation that protects voters, no matter what state they live in.
https://naacp.org/campaigns/civil-rights-scorecard

VERY LATEST!
(updated May 29, 2022)
Omaha Steve has an updated list of all current ActBlue DU links for donations,
https://democraticunderground.com/100216743202
Includes Ukraine!
(see below for the first five I collected)

OTHER LISTS!
CrispyQ has assembled a great list here:
https://democraticunderground.com/100216548509

LATEST
Progressive Turnout Project is the largest voter contact organization in the country, specifically dedicated to mobilizing the Democratic Party and defending democracy.
Our mission: rally Democrats to vote.
https://www.turnoutpac.org/
From Wednesdays.


I WHOLEHEARTEDLY SUPPORT Rev. Senator Warnock!
Read the letter that Omaha Steve got from Senator Warnock. (GA)
https://democraticunderground.com/100216555367
AND KEEP THE SENATE BLUE AND TRUE
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/duforwarnock (Pinback's DU for Warnock site)
Senator Warnock's official campaign site:
https://warnockforgeorgia.com/

NEW OFFICIAL Democratic Underground for Beto O'Rourke Governor Texas 2022
Donate here: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/du4beto
(There are other Beto links below, FYI)

The DU has a new Stacey Abrams for Governor of GA ActBlue donation link!
Donate here: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/duforstaceyabrams

https://democraticunderground.com/100216519360
Carol Blood will be facing a hardline conservative for Governor of Nebraska.
Donate to Carol here: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/duforblood
Here is her site: https://www.electcarolblood.com/

UPDATED!
OFFICIAL DU ActBlue for Tim Ryan US Senate from Ohio
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/demsrule86forryan
OFFICIAL Democratic Underground for Ohio Senate 2022
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/duohiosenate22
Tim's page: https://timforoh.com/

NEW!
Courtesy of Tommymac
#GOTV2022 Resources:
https://runforsomething.net/
https://www.rockthevote.org/
https://swingleft.org/
https://events.democrats.org/
https://www.democratsabroad.org/voting_news
https://www.padems.com/
https://www.texasdemocrats.org/
https://vademocrats.org/
https://www.georgiademocrat.org/take-action/
https://www.floridadems.org/get-involved/
https://www.ncdp.org/resources/
Awesome.

NEW!
https://democraticunderground.com/100216468060
If you haven't attended any DNC organizing or training sessions, you're missing out!!!
And we need EVERYBODY. I just got done with a Social Media Ambassador training. They have AWESOME tools to use on social media.
Thank you, CousinIT!



NEW!
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/3/9/2084766/-To-elect-a-progressive-majority-we-need-to-flip-North-Carolina-s-open-Senate-seat
Want to end the filibuster? Then help this fantastic Senate candidate beat the GOP
Progressives have two goals when it comes to the Senate this year: preserving our current majority, and making sure our next majority supports reforming the filibuster. Fortunately, this year’s race in North Carolina gives us the chance to do both, which is why Daily Kos is proud to endorse former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Cheri Beasley in her bid to flip this open seat from the GOP.
ActBlue link
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/dkendorses2022beasley?refcode=20220309fpdn1foot

NEW!
https://democrats.org/act/?permalink=volunteer-to-protect-democratic-majorities
Volunteer To Protect Democratic Majorities (DNC)
DNC sent this list of items you can sign up to do. (I pasted a copy of it at the bottom of this post)

NEW!
https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2022/3/6/2083529/-Wasting-90-million-or-investing-90-thousand-How-to-win-in-every-corner-of-the-country
How to win in every corner of the country.

So we came up with a three-pronged strategy:

1) All Politics Are Local: ... it requires local control and a local touch on messaging and campaign infrastructure to truly be successful.

2) Training: We wanted to find grassroots activists and volunteers, to give them as much knowledge and experience as we could.

3) Unconventional campaigning: We knew we couldn’t win a toe-to-toe fight, so we had to take every weakness and make it a strength.

NEW!
https://betoorourke.com/
Beto For Texas

https://act.betoorourke.com/signup/bft-volunteer/
Volunteer

https://secure.actblue.com/donate/bft-website
Donate via ActBlue

https://democraticunderground.com/100216417431
10 Things You Can Do To Defend Democracy
Source: https://liberalarts.tamu.edu/blog/2022/02/28/10-things-you-can-do-to-defend-democracy/
General, but good.

https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2022/2/19/2081124/-Democrats-can-win-in-November-but-all-of-us-need-to-roll-up-our-sleeves-to-help-kick-some-GOP-butt
Democrats can win in November, but all of us need to roll up our sleeves to help kick some GOP butt

https://postcardstovoters.org

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100216345614
Don't just complain, do something. Help GOTV!

https://upload.democraticunderground.com/100216311744
We're Not Going To Win If We Keep Saying We're Losing

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100216219159
President Joe has me Fired up. I'm ready to get off my arse and GOTV for 2022 right now.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100215975225
Doom posting is voter suppression.


ITEMS YOU CAN SIGN UP TO DO FROM DNC

How would you like to volunteer? (Check all that apply)
Become a social ambassador
Make calls
Host an event
Organize friends
Send texts
Organize in your community

• I am a Spanish speaker (Y/N)

If you'd like to organize around a specific community, select all that apply:
Black
Latino
AAPI
Native American
Women
LGBTQIA+
Youth
Disability
Rural
Small Business
Climate
Seniors
Veterans
Other

Guy Kawasaki, an early Apple employee, wrote an article entitled: Don't Kvetch, Kick Butt
I approve of his message.

June 13, 2022

Some background, if it helps people understand.

Read this great series on DKos
https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2021/8/6/2044226/-America-2021-The-Good-the-Bad-the-Ugly
“Democracy in Crisis: We’ve Been Headed Here for Decades.” Part 1of 8
Read all 8 to get the pattern in detail.

For a look into the crooked minds of the perpetrators, read
The Psychology of Genocide by Steven K. Baum. (2008)
He groups people into three categories: Perpetrators, Bystanders, and Rescuers.
How Frickin appropriate is that TODAY?

And, to get an idea how the "cult" behaves, read
When Society Becomes an Addict by Anne Wilson Schaef,
because cult behavior shares lots of patterns with addiction.
When you read the list, you will recognize lots of folks in the Wacko Party.

The "conspiracy" has been hatched by a coalition of Qvangelicals, RW politicians and oligarchs. Since the Buckley/Nixon/Reagan years, basically all ganging together to put a shine and blessing on greed. (It's actually mentioned in that series)
ALL PLAYING RACISM TO THE FULLEST (and homophobia or misogyny or whatever spikes the hate glands)

And to put a proper apocalyptic vision on it all:

Let's look at these as four horsemen.

False Prophets: Need I mention "gospel of hate?"
Civil War: our wonderful grifting politicians, who divide people in order to profit from oligarchs.
Famine: but not for the wealthy -- oligarchs who tie up 99% of wealth.
Death: well, death is racism. That which gets a healthy body (nation of individuals) to fight itself. A disease.

June 13, 2022

The wheels on the bus are falling off.

It seems to me that a committee strategy is to expose the sham and massive grift (opening up criminal fraud charges) so clearly that more will get on the CYA BUS.

June 13, 2022

What the TSA could teach Congress about gun control

TSA PreCheck uses enhanced background checks to make everyone safer.
https://www.vox.com/recode/2022/6/7/23153524/tsa-gun-control-background-checks

With the country continually in mourning over gun violence — we keep seeing mass shooting after mass shooting after mass shooting — it’s time to find ways to prevent it, lest we remain the “only nation where this regularly happens.” Those solutions needn’t be new, and could perhaps be kind of banal, like the risk-based decision-making behind TSA PreCheck screenings.

The Transportation Security Administration introduced TSA PreCheck in response to September 11 to prevent future terror attacks on airplanes. The system has a dual mission: expediting travel for people who submit to enhanced background checks and making everyone safer by allowing the government to focus on people who are considered risky or whose risk is unknown.

To qualify for TSA PreCheck, passengers undergo a screening process that determines whether or not they’re a risk. The process requires a questionnaire about biographical information and criminal history, fingerprints, and an in-person interview (exactly what’s involved in those background checks is classified). If approved, a so-called known traveler faces fewer security checks than everyone else. And by some measures, this system has been very effective. Experts say air travel has become safer even as threats have continued to evolve, partly since PreCheck allows the TSA to focus its attention on higher-risk travelers.

As it considers a raft of new gun control legislation, Congress could learn a thing or two from TSA PreCheck. First off, a similar system for guns would require, at a base level, that everyone go through a federally standardized background check to get a gun, much like everyone has to go through airport security to fly. This would improve on the current state of background checks for guns, in which loopholes allow people to buy guns from private sellers or online without any type of background check. Gun laws also vary widely from state to state, which leads to a flow of weapons from less-strict states to stricter ones. Universal background checks are very popular on both sides of the aisle and even among gun owners.

PreCheck-inspired background checks for guns could also be more thorough and use a wider array of signals than existing background checks for guns, which typically look at just criminal records, institutionalization, and drug use. For example, the Buffalo shooter obtained his gun legally because he didn’t have a criminal record. A system that took into consideration more factors — his young age, the type of weapon he wanted to buy, and the amount of ammunition he requested — could have flagged him as a danger.

It’s also worth pointing out that travelers who have gone through the TSA PreCheck screening only need to do so once every five years. Adopting such a system for guns could mean that once gun owners are deemed safe, they can make purchases unencumbered — as long as they don’t do anything to nullify the approval — while the government directs its attention to those more likely to commit violent crimes.

Sheldon H. Jacobson, a computer science professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign whose research was foundational for creating the TSA PreCheck system, thinks lawmakers could employ similar risk-based decision-making to counter the scourge of gun violence in this country. Using a variety of signals to determine who might be a risk for causing gun violence in the first place, authorities could better match resources with risk.

In a recent interview with Recode, Jacobson pointed out that millions of Americans have submitted themselves to background checks to get TSA PreCheck membership. They even do it for loans. Why are guns any different?

Long-ish conversation follows.
Clipped from it:

You’ve noted that we regularly go through risk screenings for much more banal stuff than guns, like travel and mortgages. Why are guns different?

... there’s a group of people who just feel that they want to have the right to have a gun, no questions asked.

If a legislator is against background checks, then they should be against PreCheck and they should relinquish their PreCheck status and they should never apply for a loan.

June 10, 2022

Mandatory Student Spyware Is Creating a Perfect Storm of Human Rights Abuses

Students can't opt out of this easily abused spying, AFAICT.
I copied a bunch. EFF won't mind, I am sure.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/06/mandatory-student-spyware-creating-perfect-storm-human-rights-abuses

Spyware apps were foisted on students at the height of the Covid-19 lockdowns. Today, long after most students have returned to in-person learning, those apps are still proliferating, and enabling an ever-expanding range of human rights abuses. In a recent Center for Democracy and Technology report, 81 percent of teachers said their schools use some form of this "student monitoring" spyware. Yet many of the spyware companies supplying these apps seem neither prepared nor concerned about the harms they are inflicting on students.

These student spyware apps promise scalable surveillance-as-a-service. The lure of “scalability” is a well-documented source of risk to marginalized users, whose needs for individualized consideration are overshadowed by the prospect of building mass-scale, one-size-fits-all “solutions” to social problems. The problems of scale are dangerously exacerbated by laws that disparately impact marginalized communities.

Today, Americans face an unprecedented, record-breaking wave of legislation targeting transgender youth: from sports bans, to speech and literature bans, to the criminalization of life-saving healthcare, all on top of the widespread practices of locker-room- and bathroom-bans.

And it’s not just trans kids in the crosshairs: Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court precedent that protects the right to have an abortion, is likely about to be overturned.

That means that students who use their devices to research trans healthcare or abortion related material could find those devices weaponized against them, potentially resulting in criminal charges. If prosecutors consider charges against students, the data gathered by mandatory student spyware apps like Bark, Gaggle, GoGuardian, and Securly will prove invaluable.

Another recent report, this one from Senator Warren’s office, concluded that student spyware apps are more dangerous than previously imagined. Their use in schools has disproportionately targeted students from marginalized communities and needlessly increased their contact with law enforcement.

June 9, 2022

Every Accusation is a Confession. How's this for a message?

Permission is granted to reuse, repost, preferably on BILLBOARDS.


Accusation: "It's all about freedom. They want to take away my freedom"
Confession: Shit, yeah, it's all about racism.

Accusation: "Others" are gaming the system to advantage over White/Christian/European "stock"
Confession: White European Christians have historically held back, vilified, demonized, enslaved, and murdered others for the "sin" of being different and living without the advantage of "guns, germs and steel". I fear karmic or divine payback. But what my ancestors did doesn't count.

Accusation: What my ancestors, the founders of the country said counts. And it counts literally.
Confession: I get to cherry-pick what to honor from the past and what to hide in the closet.

Accusation: The rich are blessed, and the poor are sinful.
Confession: If I had a few bucks, I'd get more of those seven "rewards", like sloth, gluttony .... you know.

Accusation: Commandments are absolute. Laws need to be obeyed.
Confession: Well, we found some fine print, amendments and exceptions ...

Accusation: Jesus has dominion over the U.S. and loves us like we were his children.
Confession: I think that "Dominion" is all about beating up or killing weaker people. I couldn't handle a fair fight, or see my gifts as helping others. My Dad beat the living snot out of me, so it's OK. I turned out just fine.

Accusation: "I'm being robbed and persecuted" by libs.
Confession: "I'd rob and persecute if I could. My predecessors in church and state did in the past, and things are still OK now."

Accusation: Things are not OK. They've gone to hell.
Confession: I learned that from TV, radio and pulpit. I've actually got a fortune in Trump Bucks.

Accusation: Those damn immigrants and colored people are taking away what little there is.
Confession: I was told so by rich folks with 99% of the wealth, and Pastor "Groper". After all, piety earned them wealth and the right to a little hanky-panky.

Accusation: The Dems stole the election.
Confession: We tried every trick in the book, and invented a few more to steal it, and failed.

Accusation: The government wants to control me. "My body, my choice"
Confession: I'd like the government to control everyone else, particularly, their reading and sex lives.

Accusation: "libs" are soft on child abuse.
Confession: Republicans, especially people in power, are "hard" on child porn and take authority as a license to abuse.
https://www.1776again.com/2018/03/06/republican-party-pedophile-list/
Sorry to cut this short, but I don't have weeks to list them all.

Accusation: "Every single homosexual in our country should be charged with the crime, the abomination of homosexuality"
Confession: Maybe it's neither a crime nor a sin, but Pastor Pat McGroin says so.

Accusation: Citizens need to take up arms against tyranny.
Confession: Tyranny is whatever pisses off me or Tucker. So there.

Accusation: "It's all damned lies"
Confession: "Because it makes me feel bad."

Accusation: "But WHAT ABOUT ________"?
Confession: "I could only find one damned counter example, and didn't check it, but that's enough to damn everyone."

Accusation: "Those people" work too hard."
Confession: "Just to make me look bad."

Accusation: Dems are bad for the economy.
Confession: Yeah, the rich make out no matter who is in power. I just hate when people with the wrong color get a piece of the pie.

Accusation: Libs are cop-killers.
Confession: I have never seen that, but it's what I'm told. Ignore the convictions of posers, like the ones who killed an Oakland cop.

Accusation: Discipline is not abuse.
Confession: Abuse is not discipline. My Dad beat the daylights out of me.

Accusation: Libs want to take away our guns, which are our only protection.
Confession: Well, that's the case when cops stand around while kids are slaughtered.
No uniforms were wrinkled in this massacre.

Accusation: Libs don't care about school kids being killed.
Confession: I was told that freedom is not free, and someone innocent has to be sacrificed. So long as it's not me., that's OK.

Accusation: Guns are "value free" and mean nothing compared to the mind of the user.
Confession: Hey, the gun substitutes for my tiny limp dick. It's hard, it's powerful. It's a thrill to fondle it and discharge on the weak and unwilling.

Accusation: Libs are perverts.
Confession: See all the above.

Accusation: "We're for something grand"
Confession: "We're for NOTHING. We're a party of NOTHING." If you're for it, I'm against it. WHATEVER.


____________________
Expanding on that a bit:
The great something is a myth. The America that people want to return to never existed except in movies and sick theories like "eugenics" which put a phony lab coat on racism, and all of which has been thoroughly disproven.

The belief in "white replacement"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_genocide_conspiracy_theory
is a cult of blaming one's inadequacy on others, and is held together with the addictive forces of greed, hatred and delusion. As such, the cult shows many of the same behavior patterns of addiction. Hitler was literally and figuratively high on it. History Channel "High Hitler"

For a look into the crooked minds of the perpetrators, read
The Psychology of Genocide by Steven K. Baum. (2008)
He groups people into three categories: Perpetrators, Bystanders, and Rescuers.

Cult members and "bystanders" get hypnotized by the myth and its constant repetition in media and groups that exclude factual contradictory information.

Additional helpful material.
https://theologyintheraw.com/blog/2015/12/5-bad-reasons-for-believing-that-homosexuality-is-a-sin/
5 Bad Reasons for Believing that Homosexuality Is a Sin