US Politics: A Sinematic view on voting rights and the filibuster

[Centrist Simon Steele]

4 hours ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

It is a terrible slogan tbf, sounds bad, takes way too long to explain and sounds scary and bad off the ear.

But it is mostly something just popular on Twitter.

In terms of actual adopted by a major political group with influence on government, or party, not really. Thankfully.

I don't know--I think it's a good slogan as, even though you need to explain it, it expresses that systemic change must occur in the corrupt police force. That the police force is so broken, we need to really do something about it.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

34 minutes ago, Centrist Simon Steele said:

I don't know--I think it's a good slogan as, even though you need to explain it, it expresses that systemic change must occur in the corrupt police force. That the police force is so broken, we need to really do something about it.

It's a dreadful slogan, only made worse when people say they literally want to completely defund and abolish the police. That makes it a lot harder to explain the more nuanced position of diverting some current funds to social services, which to be clear is needed. 

[Larry of the Lawn]

56 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

It's a dreadful slogan, only made worse when people say they literally want to completely defund and abolish the police. That makes it a lot harder to explain the more nuanced position of diverting some current funds to social services, which to be clear is needed. 

And yet you just did so, apparently without difficulty, in half a sentence.  

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

30 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

And yet you just did so, apparently without difficulty, in half a sentence.  

Do you expect the average person to be able to figure that out? Because I don't.

[DMC]

This is really fucking simple.  Defund the police is a bad slogan because the overwhelming majority of Americans do not support that.  However, the overwhelming majority of Americans do want to reform the police.  And the two mean the same exact thing.  So just change the goddamn word.

[Ran]

So the mainstream meaning of "defund the police" is supposed to be "reform the police", but it's worth noting that the entry of the term into popular awareness was with groups like Black Vision... and when they say "defund the police", they mean "abolish the police":

 

And it's not like the mainstream media has hidden or failed to understand that the origins and initial meaning of the term was from plice abolition -- here is Mariame Kaba with an NYT opinion piece making it all very clear and explicit.

So, yeah, "defund the police" means different things to different people, and maybe the slogan should be something that is substantially clearer to people. The gymnastics being done to try and justify sticking to a term that has no generally-accepted clear and canonical meaning just seems like a self-own. "Words are wind." I don't understand why people are so precious about the phrase, unless it's that they are cynically thinking that keeping the phrase current will make it easier to "shift the Overton window" towards police abolition.

[Zorral]

Not at the top of the news reported today in the NYT:

"Trump’s Lawyers Make Late Bid to Fend Off Charges Against His Business
An indictment against the business, the Trump Organization, and a top executive, Allen Weisselberg, could come as soon as this week in Manhattan."

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/28/nyregion/trump-organization-charges.html?

Quote

 

. . . . At a meeting with senior officials with the Manhattan district attorney’s office and the New York State attorney general’s office, defense lawyers pointed to the harm that the business, the Trump Organization, could face if it were indicted, including damage to its relationships with banks and business partners, the people said. Meetings to discuss this kind of fallout of a criminal indictment, called collateral consequences, are routine in white-collar investigations and often indicate that charges are near.

The prosecutors did not inform the defense lawyers if they had made a final decision on whether to charge the Trump Organization, said the people, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss a private meeting. . .

 

 

[argonak]

9 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Not at the top of the news reported today in the NYT:

"Trump’s Lawyers Make Late Bid to Fend Off Charges Against His Business
An indictment against the business, the Trump Organization, and a top executive, Allen Weisselberg, could come as soon as this week in Manhattan."

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/28/nyregion/trump-organization-charges.html?

 

"Hello good sir, you have committed an oopsie and violated federal law.  Were you a poor person we would throw you in the hard core slammer and laugh our ways to the bar.  But since you are gentlemen of high caliber, we shall instead have a little chat and politely ask you to apologize and not do it again,"  The federal agent said with a friendly smile.  Taking a seat, he straightened his tie and folded his hands.

"Oh, thank you, I shall certainly not do it again.  Shall I pay a fine that equates to about 5% of the profit I made on my oopsie?"  The CEO answered politely, before motioning one of the club's waiters to bring a drink to the FBI agent.

"Yes, that is the going rate, thank you again. You are most gracious," the agent answered as he accepted the exquisite hand made glass with an aged scotch.  After a small sip, he nodded his head in gratitude.

"You as well.  Same time next year?"  Patting his lips with a napkin, the CEO stood up and paused for the agent's answer.

"Oh for certain."  the FBI agent answered, politely waving the CEO onward to his clearly more important responsibilities, while he finished his drink.

 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

32 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Not at the top of the news reported today in the NYT:

"Trump’s Lawyers Make Late Bid to Fend Off Charges Against His Business
An indictment against the business, the Trump Organization, and a top executive, Allen Weisselberg, could come as soon as this week in Manhattan."

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/28/nyregion/trump-organization-charges.html?

 

I sincerely hope they charge the organization and him personally.

[Fez]

Supreme Court's last opinion day for the term is this Thursday (and it's 2 cases about voting rights and campaign finance that are left, oh boy). So Thursday should be when we find out if Breyer is retiring or not.

[DireWolfSpirit]

3 hours ago, argonak said:

"Hello good sir, you have committed an oopsie and violated federal law.  Were you a poor person we would throw you in the hard core slammer and laugh our ways to the bar.  But since you are gentlemen of high caliber, we shall instead have a little chat and politely ask you to apologize and not do it again,"  The federal agent said with a friendly smile.  Taking a seat, he straightened his tie and folded his hands.

"Oh, thank you, I shall certainly not do it again.  Shall I pay a fine that equates to about 5% of the profit I made on my oopsie?"  The CEO answered politely, before motioning one of the club's waiters to bring a drink to the FBI agent.

"Yes, that is the going rate, thank you again. You are most gracious," the agent answered as he accepted the exquisite hand made glass with an aged scotch.  After a small sip, he nodded his head in gratitude.

"You as well.  Same time next year?"  Patting his lips with a napkin, the CEO stood up and paused for the agent's answer.

"Oh for certain."  the FBI agent answered, politely waving the CEO onward to his clearly more important responsibilities, while he finished his drink.

 

Let us not forget said agent and family having room, golf and dining comped for the week at Trump resort of his choice. 

[argonak]

2 hours ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Let us not forget said agent and family having room, golf and dining comped for the week at Trump resort of his choice. 

As if men of such caliber would slum in a Trump resort.  I think this treatment of white collar crime has historically transcended party politics.

[Zorral]

A turn-around in the Dem race for mayor nom; Adams lead fell to barely 2% after the first ranked choice talley:

https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/nyc-elections-2021/ny-nyc-mayoral-race-results-20210629-sua7digqinauxnwuyvfonhhlze-story.html

Nevertheless -- I am still trying to wrap my brain around a mayoral election with this guy Adams who hates people who aren't rich, totally bagged up with the cops, financial, banking and real estate industries, and seems not really all there -- running around naming himself the "face of the Dem party in in NY" (what happened to the faces of people like AOC?), vs. Curtis Sliwa, who is just an attention begging hog -- sheesh.  I was thinking this morning about this, and considering if it comes to this, for the first time in my life, there really is NO point in me voting.

 

[Altherion]

10 minutes ago, Zorral said:

A turn-around in the Dem race for mayor nom; Adams lead fell to barely 2% after the first ranked choice talley:

It's a pretty interesting race. The article you liked has a link to the results where you can go through the rounds one by one. There are two turning points remaining -- the obvious one in the final round (Garcia vs. Adams) and a more subtle one in the pre-last round where Garcia currently leads Wiley 29.8% to 29.3% (or by a little under 4000 votes). If Garcia can manage to hold on in the pre-last round, she has pretty decent odds of beating Adams in the final one as absentee ballots come from areas where Adams is not as strong. However, if Wiley defeats Garcia in the pre-last round, Adams is almost certain to win as he unambiguously crushes Wiley head-to-head according to practically all of the polling.

[butterbumps!]

47 minutes ago, Altherion said:

It's a pretty interesting race. The article you liked has a link to the results where you can go through the rounds one by one. There are two turning points remaining -- the obvious one in the final round (Garcia vs. Adams) and a more subtle one in the pre-last round where Garcia currently leads Wiley 29.8% to 29.3% (or by a little under 4000 votes). If Garcia can manage to hold on in the pre-last round, she has pretty decent odds of beating Adams in the final one as absentee ballots come from areas where Adams is not as strong. However, if Wiley defeats Garcia in the pre-last round, Adams is almost certain to win as he unambiguously crushes Wiley head-to-head according to practically all of the polling.

Who did you end up voting for, if you don't mind my asking?   I only ended up voting Garcia (1) and Wiley (2).   I really hope Garcia pulls this off.  My union stayed with Adams to the end.  I think a bunch of them did, which I think has a lot to do with why he did so well.  I'm annoyed about it, but I mostly expected it.  I'm pleasantly surprised Garcia is holding on though.  I saw my Borough went for her pretty overwhelmingly.

[Altherion]

1 hour ago, butterbumps! said:

Who did you end up voting for, if you don't mind my asking?   I only ended up voting Garcia (1) and Wiley (2).   I really hope Garcia pulls this off.  My union stayed with Adams to the end.  I think a bunch of them did, which I think has a lot to do with why he did so well.  I'm annoyed about it, but I mostly expected it.  I'm pleasantly surprised Garcia is holding on though.  I saw my Borough went for her pretty overwhelmingly.

I voted for Garcia and no further choices. By the time I voted (on the primary election day), Yang's support had collapsed and it was clear that the only people who had a chance at winning were Adams and Garcia. I'm also pleasantly surprised Garcia still has a chance at winning; based on the numbers from a week ago, her odds looked a lot worse.

One other interesting thing about this election is that those numbers from last week were just plain wrong:

Quote

It did become increasingly clear on Tuesday that there was a discrepancy in the initial ranked-choice tally. When elections officials issued their unofficial returns on Primary Night which they said also reflected in-person votes cast during early voting, the first place results were based on 799,827 votes in the Democratic mayoral primary, with 96.62% percent of scanners reporting results. When the officials presented their first ranked tallies, more than 140,000 additional votes were included in the tally.

It's still not obvious what exactly happened there.

[Zorral]

So wtf is this?  Now the BOE says there are discrepancies in the tally! 

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/29/nyregion/adams-garcia-wiley-mayor-ranked-choice.html?

Quote

 

The New York City Board of Elections on Tuesday released a new tally of votes in the  Democratic mayoral primary, suggesting that the race between Eric Adams and his two closest rivals had tightened significantly.

But just a few hours after releasing the results, the elections board issued a mysterious tweet revealing a “discrepancy” in the report, saying that it was working with its “technical staff to identify where the discrepancy occurred.” . . . .

 

 

[Mlle. Zabzie]

Garcia Gal here as well.  We have close friends who are pretty involved with her campaign.  I really hope she pulls it off.  

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

House passes a bipartisan resolution to remove to remove Confederate statues from the U.S. Capitol. Better late than never, but we'll see what happens in the Senate. Also, fuck Kevin McCarthy:

Quote

House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy said Tuesday he'd support the bill, and noted that the controversial statues were of Democrats.

"I think the bill should go further: Maybe it's time the Democrats changed the name of their party," McCarthy said.

Sure, us Dems will rebrand ourselves as the Liberal party when you call Republicans the Fascist party. Fair deal?

[Kalbear]

HAHAHHAHHA