Monday, November 14, 2022

Trump ‘decided to be part of the problem’

 


Former Vice President Mike Pence said in a new interview that former President Trump’s tweet during the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot attacking Pence was “reckless.”

“It angered me,” Pence told ABC’s David Muir. “But I turned to my daughter who was standing nearby, and I said, ‘It doesn’t take courage to break the law, it takes courage to uphold the law.’ ”

 

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/3734106-pence-trump-decided-to-be-part-of-the-problem-on-jan-6/

Sunday, November 13, 2022

Democrats retain grip on U.S. Senate, defying Republican 'red wave' predictions

 Democrats retain grip on U.S. Senate, defying Republican 'red wave' predictions

 

PHOENIX, Nov 13 (Reuters) - Democrats held onto control of the U.S. Senate while limiting projected losses in the House, handing a major victory to President Joe Biden and extinguishing hopes of the "red wave" that Republicans had expected leading into the midterm elections.

Democratic leaders described the outcome - sealed late Saturday with a win for the incumbent senator in Nevada - as both a vindication of their agenda and a rebuke of Republican candidates, many of whom had parroted former president Donald Trump's false claims about widespread election fraud.

 

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/democrats-keep-control-us-senate-crush-republican-red-wave-hopes-2022-11-13/

 

Tuesday, November 8, 2022

Vigilantes Are Intimidating

 Vigilantes Are Intimidating Voters

Billy Wooten has been running elections in Georgia’s Chatham County for about 25 years. First, as a poll worker; then as a trainer for other poll workers; and now as the county’s board of elections supervisor.

For the most part, his instructions for the 15 or so poll workers who showed up for an October 14 orientation weren’t that different from years past: He always explains how to work the technology, how to respond when a voter shows up at the incorrect polling location, and what to do with the bags of ballots at the end of election night. But increasingly, Wooten, 67, has had to supplement his training with tips on how to respond to election-integrity skeptics, and especially the ones who have signed up to become poll watchers.
“Some people might decide they’re gonna be trouble.”
While the statewide audit ultimately showed no change in the outcome of the election, pro-Trump activists still attempted to badger Wooten’s workers.

Well, some of his workers.

As the team broke for lunch and headed for the parking lot where the election deniers were marching, “the white poll workers were told, ‘Enjoy your lunch,’” recalls Wooten, “and the Black workers were asked, ‘Were you still stealing votes?’”

It’s a tale as old as the nation itself. For over a century, agitators have attempted to interfere in fair elections, especially through attempted disenfranchisement of Black people.

While the United States ratified the 15th Amendment, enshrining Black mens’ right to vote, in 1870, it was far from a guarantee they could cast a ballot unscathed. In 1920, for example, a white mob repeatedly ordered Black men in Ocoee, Florida, to leave the voting precinct. When one Black man returned to the polls, a large group of white men—including members of the Ku Klux Klan—killed several Black men (historical accounts range somewhere between six and 60).

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/11/poll-watchers-election-armed-vigilantes/




Our world is unjust and replete with suffering

 Our world is unjust and replete with suffering

By Kieran Setiya
2nd November 2022
Our world is unjust and replete with suffering – what can an individual possibly do about it? As the philosopher Kieran Setiya writes, there are far better options than capitulation or despair.

Chances are, before you clicked the link that brought you here, you were doomscrolling: skimming from headline to headline in a daze of horror. Click once to see energy prices spiraling; click again for the faltering of democracy; a third time for glaciers melting as climate chaos worsens. Scanning the news can leave you feeling overwhelmed by the scale of the world's crises. What choice do we have but to deaden our emotions? The alternative would be guilt and shame for carrying on our lives without doing much to make a difference.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20221102-injustice-is-everywhere-so-what-are-our-moral-duties

 


 

Promoters of the QAnon conspiracy theory

 

Promoters of the QAnon conspiracy theory on Telegram are claiming US President Joe Biden announced in an address to the nation that Democrats plan to "cheat" during midterm polls by flooding vote counts with fraudulent ballots after Election Day. This is false; Biden made no such remark, but instead urged Americans to be patient as election workers across the country tally all legally cast ballots, a process that takes time.


 

Sunday, November 6, 2022

Saturday, January 29, 2022

 

covid is real    FACEBOOK IS PHONY


Sat 29 Jan 2022 02:52:34 AM EST 


The last couple of months #facebook has been sending me notices SAYING THAT  5 , 6or 7 years ago that a PART OF A POST GOES AGAINST THERE STANDARDS.

I just got another one.


I posted something LAST YEAR that said:



"SOME PEOPLE ARE SAYING COVID IS A HOAX.... AND THAT IS BS!!"


so #FACEBOOK TAKES THE FIRST HALF OF THE POST, LEAVING OFF THE PART THAT SAYS "and that is BS"


AND ACCUSES ME OF SAYING COVID IS A HOAX.


I HAVE NO IDEA WHY THEY SEE BENEFIT IN EDITING POSTS SO THAT THEY CAN CLAIM THE POST GOES AGAINST COMMUNITY STANDARDS.

DO THEY HAVE A SECRET PURGE LIST?




Wednesday, January 19, 2022

Joe Manchins Alternative Facts


President Biden's efforts to remove the Senate filibuster in order to address voting rights was dealt another blow Thursday when Arizona Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema said she would not back off her position to uphold the current filibuster rules.

Currently, 60 votes are needed to prevent a filibuster. The change in question, which is often referred to as the "nuclear option," would essentially do away with the filibuster and allow the Senate to pass legislation with just a simple majority of 51. To pass anything legislatively on voting rights, Senate Democrats would need that change to be made since they have no Republican support for the measure.

Along with Sinema, one of the most vocal Democratic opponents of this proposal is Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia. When asked to explain his stance Monday, Manchin implied the rules shouldn't be changed because the 60-vote threshold is "what we've always had for 232 years."
    Facts First: Manchin is wrong. The 60-vote threshold required to invoke cloture (which effectively ends debate or a filibuster and signals a move to vote) was established in 1975, not 232 years ago. The current threshold is itself a reduction from the original set in 1917, which required a two-thirds majority to invoke cloture. And it's worth noting that the "nuclear option" has also been triggered before.
      The Senate already uses a simple majority to end debate in a few specific cases. In 2013, after Republicans blocked votes for several of President Barack Obama's nominees, Senate Democrats, led by then-Majority Leader Harry Reid, set a precedent to require only a simple majority of those voting to invoke cloture on all presidential nominations, except those for the Supreme Court. The rules were changed again during the Trump administration to apply to Supreme Court nominees as well after Democrats attempted a filibuster to prevent a vote on President Donald Trump's first Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch.
        It's worth noting that Manchin's 232 years is not an arbitrary number as the US Constitution went into effect roughly that long ago, in 1789. However, the filibuster is not mentioned in the Constitution, nor are the rules for it enshrined therein. The Constitution does outline a few situations, such as an impeachment trial, that require more than a simple majority vote but otherwise gives the Senate the right to set its own rules. Under Senate rules of the late 1700s, immediately after the Constitution went into effect, a debate could be ended with the vote of a simple majority.


        https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/13/politics/manchin-filibuster-fact-check/index.html