US Politics: He's so indicted, he just can't abide by it...

[Mindwalker]

No new politics thread? I wish I had a better title, but here we are.

Previous guy has already broken his bond constrictions on social media. I'm sure they'll put him in the slammer until trial. /s

 

Edited August 22, 2023 by Mindwalker

[IheartIheartTesla]

This is purely an emotional reaction, but I am worried by a few cultural signifiers such as the modest success of "Sound of Freedom" and the overwhelming one of "Rich Men north of Richmond" that there are some undercurrents of dissatisfaction that we are not taking into account (similar to 2016) that could mean trouble in 2024 if we don't address it head on.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Not to arraign on anybody's parade

 

would'Ve made a fun title imho.

[Maithanet]

8 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

This is purely an emotional reaction, but I am worried by a few cultural signifiers such as the modest success of "Sound of Freedom" and the overwhelming one of "Rich Men north of Richmond" that there are some undercurrents of dissatisfaction that we are not taking into account (similar to 2016) that could mean trouble in 2024 if we don't address it head on.

That is definitely happening, the question is just whether it indicates a sufficient number of voters in meaningful states to matter.  But I am concerned that Biden is as unpopular as he is when, at least IMO, he's been doing a solidly B+ job, and that's better than I expected he would do.  It is hard for me to understand how a low information voter could experience the past 3 years of Biden, compare it to the 4 years of Trump and think that we ought to go back. 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

2 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

That is definitely happening, the question is just whether it indicates a sufficient number of voters in meaningful states to matter.  But I am concerned that Biden is as unpopular as he is when, at least IMO, he's been doing a solidly B+ job, and that's better than I expected he would do.  It is hard for me to understand how a low information voter could experience the past 3 years of Biden, compare it to the 4 years of Trump and think that we ought to go back. 

Want some samples?

 

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 Trump uncovered damning evidence of Biden corruption, for which he was impeached, the very Biden corruption schemes which Congress is now investigating. As a result of which the Bananacrats have again indicted Trump in an act of political revenge.

Quote

 

The fix was in from day one when they impeached Trump over the Ukraine phone call and the FBI hid Biden's Laptop From Hell from the Impeachment Hearing.

#Bananacrats

 

 

And that's still a semi-literate parrot, I can look up some real crazy stuff, if you insist.

[Maithanet]

That's hardly an example of a swing voter.  Polarization means both parties have a high ceiling, but I feel like given where things are today, I would expect Biden to be polling in the high 40s, rather than at ~40%. 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

You ask for low information voter, and I am telling you what they are doing to get them onboard.

They will talk about their made up Biden corruption case and engage in projection and whataboutism.

The bigger issue, that'll definitely hurt Biden is inflation. Growing economy and job market picking up pace is great, however, people will notice that they are poorer, than they used to befour years ago.

That's the line of attack they'd try to hammer Biden on, if they had any sense. But with their standard bearer spending his campaign in the court house, their propaganda machine will have a much harder time making that pitch.

[Martell Spy]

US businessman is wannabe ‘warlord’ of secretive far-right men’s network

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/22/charles-haywood-claremont-institute-sacr-far-right

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One idea he has repeatedly raised on the website is that he might serve as a “warlord” at the head of an “armed patronage network” or “APN”, defined as an “organizing device in conditions where central authority has broken down” in which the warlord’s responsibility is “the short- and long-term protection, military and otherwise, of those who recognize his authority and act, in part, at his behest”.

The “possibilities involving violence” that APNs might face, Haywood writes include “more-or-less open warfare with the federal government, or some subset or remnant of it”.

Further on, Haywood writes: “At this moment I preside over what amounts to a extended, quite sizeable, compound, which when complete I like to say, accurately, will be impervious to anything but direct organized military attack”, adding that “it requires a group of men to make it work … what I call ‘shooters’ – say fifteen able-bodied, and adequately trained, men.”

These “shooters”, Haywood explains, “can operate my compound, both defensively and administratively”, meanwhile, “I have the personality, and skills, to lead such a group.”

Haywood was one of the first on the right to try to rehabilitate the rioters who stormed the US Capitol on 6 January 2021. Just over two months after that incident, he praised it as an “electoral justice protest”, commenting that “the Protest was pretty awesome in every way. Its most precise analog in American history … is the Boston Tea Party.”

 

 

[Zorral]

5 wins for UPS workers that could influence pay and standards for others
UPS union members finish voting Aug. 22 on whether to approve deal that could raise the bar for workers around the country

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/08/20/ups-strike-deal-facts-teamsters/

Quote

 

The UPS contract is important, labor experts say, because it has the potential to influence what other workers around the country, both union and nonunion, are able to get from their employers in the future.

“If you can show that workers at other companies … are getting something, it helps your argument to get the same thing,” said Art Wheaton, the director of labor studies at Cornell University. “A rising tide lifts all boats.”

Here are five key wins in the deal that UPS workers are voting on that could shape the future of work in America:

1. Big raises
All 340,000 UPS employees represented by the union, including part-timers, would see healthy pay raises, including an across-the-board $7.50 an hour increase over the next five years. It’s an important gain, because, until recently, wages in the United States had not kept up with inflation. The top rate for full-time delivery drivers would jump to $49 an hour. Currently, full-time drivers make an average of $42 an hour after four years on the job.

Teamsters leader O’Brien has said that they hope the union can use the gains in the contract to inspire nonunion workers to unionize — in particular at Amazon, the country’s second-largest employer, which has opposed internal organizing efforts. The average pay for Amazon delivery drivers, who are third-party contractors, is roughly $18 an hour, according to the jobs site ZipRecruiter. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post. Interim chief executive Patty Stonesifer sits on Amazon’s board.)

The biggest pay bumps, by percentage, though, will go to part-time UPS employees, who make up more than half of UPS’s 340,000 union workforce and sort packages into warehouses. Under the new contract, part-timers will receive longevity increases, the same raises as delivery drivers, and their minimum pay would immediately jump to $21 an hour, and rise to $23 an hour over the next five years. (Currently, part-timers start at $16.20 an hour.)

With this and other gains, Teamsters say current part-timers will receive an average total wage increase of 48 percent over the next five years, a pay bump that labor experts say that would have been unthinkable several years ago, when workers had less leverage in the labor market.

Strikes spiked in July, as workers seek higher wages to keep up with inflation

Still, some Teamsters members had hoped for a starting wage of $25 an hour for part-timers — given the soaring cost of rent in cities like New York and Los Angeles, where many of these workers live. A vocal group of workers within the union says that they’ll oppose the contract for this reason.

2. Air conditioning and heat safety
Currently, the signature brown vans that UPS delivery drivers operate are not outfitted with air-conditioning. In one of the biggest concessions that will cost the company billions of dollars, UPS has agreed to install air-conditioning in newly purchased delivery vans beginning in 2024, while also retrofitting older vans with heat shields and fans.

More than 140 UPS employees have been injured in heat- or dehydration-related incidents since 2015, according to data reported to the federal government by UPS. And last year, a 24-year-old UPS delivery driver in Southern California died on his route on a scorching summer day.

Forcing people to work in deadly heat is mostly legal in the U.S.

Heat safety is not isolated to UPS delivery drivers — and this win could inspire other workers to demand similar protections. This summer has seen some of the Earth’s hottest days on record. And most U.S. workers who toil in the heat — from roofers to farmworkers — have few legal protections from extreme heat on the job.

3. Ending of a lower-paid class of worker
In a major win for workers, UPS has also agreed to end a two-tier wage program for its delivery drivers — first established in 2018 — which resulted in some delivery drivers earning about $5 per hour less over time than other drivers for doing essentially the same job.

Two-tier employment that undercuts pay and benefits for newer workers has become a common feature of many workplaces since the 1980s, as companies have pushed to cut costs. These systems sow resentment inside workplaces by rewarding employees differently for the same job.

30 years of strikes: See how Hollywood’s massive walkout stacks up.

The UPS agreement to abolish two-tier pay for package delivery drivers could embolden other workers to demand the same. Already, the United Auto Workers, the union representing workers at the Big Three Detroit automakers — Ford, General Motors and Stellantis — is demanding the end of its tiered employment structure that offers lower compensation to many new autoworkers. The union with its 150,000 members has threatened to strike over this and other issues as soon as mid-September.

“UPS is not a director competitor of the auto industry, but the autoworkers union can go ask for what UPS workers got in their contract and say, ‘This is what other unionized workplaces have received in the same economic environment,’” said Wheaton, the labor professor at Cornell University.

4. Thousands of new full-time jobs
In another win for part-timers, UPS has also promised to create 7,500 full-time positions by combining 15,000 part-time jobs. The creation of full-time jobs is important because part-timers are only guaranteed three-and-a-half hour shifts and many would prefer full-time work.

It’s the largest number of full-time jobs that workers have won in decades, although less than the 10,000 jobs won when UPS workers went on strike in 1997.

Research shows that part-time workers earn less per hour worked than other workers in the same industry and face less schedule predictability.

5. Ban on driver-facing cameras
In a victory against the seep of surveillance technology into the American workplace, UPS drivers won a landmark agreement for UPS to eliminate driver-facing cameras installed in delivery vans and promise not to discipline drivers using other cameras in vans. Amazon delivery drivers currently are subject to discipline from similar surveillance cameras in their vans.

Also, UPS and the union have also agreed to contract language that prevents UPS from using driverless vehicles or drones without negotiating with the union.

Across the country, workers are using their unions to fight back against the use of new technologies that they say invade their privacy, threaten their jobs and punish them. The demand for guardrails on the use of artificial intelligence by production studios is one of the principal demands for actors and screenwriters in ongoing strikes that have paralyzed Hollywood.

 

 

[Corvinus85]

Has anyone received emails from the former about donations needed to post bail in Georgia? 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Guess you should ask @Ormond he is on those mailing lists and occasionally shares their insanities.

 

Curious question tho, how many of those donors would give money, if they knew it ended up paying for Giuliani's legal bills.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

I wouldn't be too worried right about Biden's chances in a straight up head to head race. He will probably beat Trump and the only obvious challenger to dethrone him has fallen flat on his face. I'd be more nervous about multiple third party candidates sucking just enough votes away.

[Zorral]

Again the fascist shit machine immediately went to work to tell the world that the Biden administration has been neglecting to provide aid and assisstance to the voters, when just the opposite is the case (just like somehow Biden brought the cyclone to CA, and the economy sux).

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/august-21-2023?

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Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI) said, “We in Hawaii have been through hurricanes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions—but we have never seen such a robust federal response. Thank you.”

 

[Gaston de Foix]

1 hour ago, Maithanet said:

That is definitely happening, the question is just whether it indicates a sufficient number of voters in meaningful states to matter.  But I am concerned that Biden is as unpopular as he is when, at least IMO, he's been doing a solidly B+ job, and that's better than I expected he would do.  It is hard for me to understand how a low information voter could experience the past 3 years of Biden, compare it to the 4 years of Trump and think that we ought to go back. 

The big difference for the low-information voter between past 3 years and Trump's 4 years is, as the Death of Horses has stated, inflation.  It touches every facet of our lives.  

I also think we are discounting Biden's age as a major (and rational) concern for people who do not pay much attention to politics.  We saw how it played out in weird ways against McCain for example.  He's old, people know he's old, and people who maybe gave him the benefit of the doubt in 2020 may not vote for him in 2024 because they think Kamala might become president.  Racism, sexism, yadda, yadda, call it what you like, but it's gonna be a real thing.   

24 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I wouldn't be too worried right about Biden's chances in a straight up head to head race. He will probably beat Trump and the only obvious challenger to dethrone him has fallen flat on his face. I'd be more nervous about multiple third party candidates sucking just enough votes away.

I'm a liberal.  I don't see any reason why I can't worry about both.  

[Phylum of Alexandria]

2 minutes ago, Gaston de Foix said:

I also think we are discounting Biden's age as a major (and rational) concern for people who do not pay much attention to politics. 

I agree that Biden's age is an issue, but when the opposition is himself 77 years old, is it really a decisive factor? Trump is certainly more energetic, but that bleeds into his maniacal/insufferable qualities, so I'd say it would be a wash at best for the uninformed, unengaged voter.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

7 minutes ago, Gaston de Foix said:

they think Kamala might become president.  Racism, sexism, yadda, yadda, call it what you like, but it's gonna be a real thing.   

This has been a very curious talking point on the right. I regularly see clips where Republicans are saying Kamala can't be president. They go after her and Hunter more than Biden a lot of the time. 

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I'm a liberal.  I don't see any reason why I can't worry about both.  

Grow a spine and join a fight club already.

[Varysblackfyre321]

9 minutes ago, Gaston de Foix said:

He's old, people know he's old, and people who maybe gave him the benefit of the doubt in 2020 may not vote for him in 2024 because they think Kamala might become president.  Racism, sexism, yadda, yadda, call it what you like, but it's gonna be a real thing.   

They should have chosen someone a bit more likable to the electorate.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

FFFFFFUCK YES!!!

@Tywin et al. you’re going down, son!

A recent pronouncement from Trumps Truth Social acct.

Quote

The failed District Attorney of Fulton County (Atlanta), Fani Willis, insisted on a $200,000 Bond from me. I assume, therefore, that she thought I was a “flight” risk - I’d fly far away, maybe to Russia, Russia, Russia, share a gold domed suite with Vladimir, never to be seen or heard from again. Would I be able to take my very “understated” airplane with the gold TRUMP affixed for all to see. Probably not, I’d be much better off flying commercial - I’m sure nobody would recognize me!

 

[Gaston de Foix]

1 hour ago, Phylum of Alexandria said:

I agree that Biden's age is an issue, but when the opposition is himself 77 years old, is it really a decisive factor? Trump is certainly more energetic, but that bleeds into his maniacal/insufferable qualities, so I'd say it would be a wash at best for the uninformed, unengaged voter.

But these candidates get evaluated very differently.  You are assuming symmetry of treatment but so much of US politics is weirdly asymmetrical. 

1 hour ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

They should have chosen someone a bit more likable to the electorate.

Gretchen Whitmer was the runner-up and has proved herself in the last 4 years.  Ofc, no guarantee that she would have made a good VP but some of knocks against Kamala (doesn't read her brief, speaks in platitudes etc.) are avoidable.  I care more about banishing Donald Trump from our lives than about trying to change America's perception of itself.  

If having a relatively liberal white VP mitigates the risk of re-electing Donald Trump then I say dump Kamala.  Most nationally elected and nationally-prominent Dems would be OK as president.  At this point as Dems we agree on 99.8% of issues.  Major differences are process-related (i.e., keeping the filibuster but hard to see these being decisive anyway).  

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

40 minutes ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

FFFFFFUCK YES!!!

@Tywin et al. you’re going down, son!

A recent pronouncement from Trumps Truth Social acct.

 

That just means I'm a lock to win the bet.