#Robyn Pennacchia

[the-cimmerians]

In 2022, Massachusetts residents voted in favor of a Fair Tax ballot measure to extra-super-duper-tax those earning more than one million dollars a year and to spend the revenue from that on education and transportation initiatives.

Naturally, there were the naysayers. Those who warned that all of the state’s rich people would move away to their very own Galt’s Gulch or whatever, if they were forced to pay a four percent tax on anything they make over a million dollars. The implication there, of course, is that raising this tax would, ironically, lead to the state collecting less revenue overall.

That didn’t happen! In fact, the state has already raised $1.8 billion in revenue so far for this fiscal year — which is $800 million more than they expected, and they still have a few months to go. The vast majority of the surplus will go to a fund that legislators can use for one-time investments in various projects.

The revenue has already been invested in universal school lunches, in more scholarships to public colleges, in improvements to the MBTA, and to repair roads and bridges. These are all things that will improve the quality of life for everyone, including the “ultra-rich” who happen to live there. The fact is, it’s just nice to live in a society that is more civil, that takes care of its people and its children and that fixes things when they are broken.

[ ]

Elizabeth Warren, Pramila Jayapal, and others have introduced bills in the House and Senate for a nationwide millionaire’s tax of two percent — two cents on the dollar for all wealth exceeding $50 million and six percent on all wealth over a billion dollars. This would bring in an estimated $3.75 trillion over 10 years, which we could use to improve the lives of all US citizens. We could have so many nice things!

It’s time to stop living in fear of what millionaires and billionaires — who have made their fortunes off of roads we’ve paid for and employees we’ve paid to educate — will do or where they will move if forced to pay their fair share. That’s no way to live. If they have some place better to go that won’t force them to contribute to improving their community? Let them. Other people will come along and be more than happy to pick up where they left off. But more than likely, they won’t do jack shit because they’re rich, and if they wanted to live someplace else, they’d be there by now.

[imkeepinit]

Rep. Gosar censured over anime video that depicted violence against Democrats

[rjalker]

[ID: Screenshots of tweets by "Salem @aWildSalem" that read:

"People really built a society with no third spaces, made it illegal or unsafe to be outside, and then blamed phone use for making teens depressed.

I've had this conversation with multiple parents. They want the phones to be the source of the problem because they don't want to admit that we have created a physical environment that is hostile to teenage existence.

The digital world has now become the main (or sometimes only) third space that a lot of kids can escape to. Even in healthy families, kids need somewhere to hang with friends and make new ones without adult surveillance.

These parents approach this by trying to put hard limits on screen time but they don't provide an alternative! So they end up creating more conflict because children have needs that have to be met. Without another source, the kids end up sneaking more screen time."

This is followed by a tweet by "Robyn Pennacchia - @RobynElyse" that reads:

"Have been saying this for years.

People make jokes about kids not being hanging out at malls anymore? Kids are banned from malls. They're banned rom parks, they're banned from parking lots, they're kicked off streets."

End ID.]

Your kids need independence.

[diaryofabookgirl]

Women are also rejected. Women also spend their teen years pining after dreamy boys who will never love them back. You don’t see us going around murdering people over it. You don’t see us setting up internet communities for the purpose of talking about how evil and shallow men are for not taking us to pound town. Women don’t go around killing men who don’t like them, because if you’re a woman in this society, a boy not liking you is the least of your problems. It is nowhere near the shittiest thing you’re going to be expected to “just deal with” in your life – one of those things being the fact that we are expected to “just deal with” how men are sometimes going to murder a bunch of people because they felt entitled to romantic attention from women. We are expected to “deal with” that, while never bringing up the terms “male privilege” or “male entitlement” or “toxic masculinity” and why those things so often lead to mass murder, on account of how that might really hurt the feelings of the men who have been gracious enough to not go on killing sprees.

This Is Not What ‘Lovesick’ Is, Robyn Pennacchia | Published on March 23, 2018 at Wonkette (see source for full article)

[calicojack1718]

James Randi Outed Some Truly Heinous Frauds, And For That We Should All Be Grateful - Wonkette

James Randi Outed Some Truly Heinous Frauds, And For That We Should All Be Grateful – Wonkette

James Randi Outed Some Truly Heinous Frauds, And For That We Should All Be Grateful — Wonkette

Somehow the news of James “The Amazing Randi” Randi’s death got past me on the crowded news cycle. Luckily, it didn’t get past the good folks over at Wonkette.

Crowding out really important news stories like this with their BS and constant whining is another reason to decry the Ol’ Pussy Grabbér’s…

[howwelldoyouknowyourmoon]

Mike Pence Is A Moonie Now, Practically

Wonkette    Robyn Pennacchia

March 06, 2021 04:00 PM

Hey! Remember the Moonies? Probably, since they're still around and they still own the Washington Times (but not Entenmann's, which was apparently a rumor back in the 80s). The Rev. Sun Myung Moon may be dead, but the church is still going strong under the leadership of his wife, Hak Ja Han Moon, and his daughter, In Jin Moon.

This week, the Unification Church held their 5th annual Rally of Hope — starring none other than former Vice President Mike Pence. This seems like a weird choice for our very holiest vice president, given that the Moons think they are gods (and their followers believe them), which one would think would go against his Christian beliefs.

In the speech, Pence praised Hak Ja Han Moon and the Washington Times, which he described as a model of "fair and accurate reporting."

Of course, given that he's persona non-grata in the Trump cult now, he may just be lonely and looking for a new place to belong. After all, the church pretty much invented the term love bombing.

Unification Church members are smiling all of the time, even at four in the morning. The man who is full of love must live that way. When you go out witnessing you can caress the wall and say that it can expect you to witness well and be smiling when you return. What face could better represent love than a smiling face? This is why we talk about love bomb; Moonies have that kind of happy problem. — Rev. Sun Myung Moon

No word yet on if he's leaving Mother to go get mass married in a Unification Church ceremony, but anything can happen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4A5Wx-muGUg&t=3266s

Mike Pence speaks at 54:30

https://www.wonkette.com/mike-pence-is-a-moonie-now-practically

___________________________________

Hak Ja Han speaks at: 2:01:20 

“Following World War I many material and ideological challenges arose and in the midst of these challenges heaven prepared someone to bring the completion of the 6,000 year history of the providence, the Only Begotten Daughter. Heaven sent the Only Begotten Daughter and this providence took place. Jesus, before walking the path of the cross, prophesied that he would come again to host the Marriage Wedding of the Lamb. In other words the purpose of the Second Advent of the Christ is to meet the Only Begotten Daughter and form True Parents. Without the Only Begotten Daughter the dream of the Second Coming True Parents cannot be fulfilled. The situation at the time of my birth was difficult because Korea was liberated but a few years later Korea would be divided into the pro-Soviet North and the pro-democracy South. At that time had America understood the importance of Heaven’s providence the course of history in the Korean peninsular might have been different....”

_____________________________________

In 1985 the Washington Times sponsored a fund for the Contras who committed atrocities, and trafficked drugs to the US

_____________________________________

Missing Pieces of the Story of Sun Myung Moon by Frederick Clarkson    September 8, 2012 The reporting and punditry in the wake of the death of Sun Myung Moon has left a lot to be desired. Even long, seemingly comprehensive treatments of Moon’s life and empire, such as the one that ran in The New York Times, did not delve deeply into Moon’s profound far right and criminal involvements; antidemocratic politics; or even the mysterious sources of foreign cash for The Washington Times, and extensive political operations in the U.S. for decades, let alone the Moon organization’s broad, insidious affects on American culture and democracy.

_____________________________________

“Moon’s Law: God Is Phasing Out Democracy” by Frederick Clarkson

Kim Sang-In has, since at least 1982, been executive Vice President of the parent company of Moon’s Washington Times newspaper, News World Communications (NWC). Bo Hi Pak is President of NWC, as well as CAUSA, and the still existent Korean Cultural Freedom Foundation (KCFF). Han Sang Keuk later became the Korean Ambassador to Norway,6 and is currently involved in CAUSA’s International Security Council.

_____________________________________

Money and Power and Moon’s Washington Times by Rory O’Connor

_____________________________________

The church recently ran a two-page ad in the Moon-owned Washington Times, asserting that 36 U.S. presidents from George Washington to Richard Nixon endorsed Moon during a series of “spirit world” conferences

U.S. Presidents Endorse Sun Myung Moon From ‘Spirit World’

[mostlysignssomeportents]

#1yrago Square dancing was a racist hoax funded by Henry Ford to get white people to stop dancing to black music

Wonkette writer Robyn Pennacchia went on a brilliant Twitter rant about the strange history of square dancing, which is not an old American tradition, but rather a 20th century hoax that Henry Ford and Dr Pappy Shaw created to get white people to stop dancing to music made by black people.

Ford even got school districts to teach square dancing in gym classes, and convinced 27 states to make square dancing their official state dances.

https://boingboing.net/2017/12/08/dr-pappy-shaw.html

[the-cimmerians]

Vice President Kamala Harris announced this week that the Biden administration is looking to lessen the burden medical debt has on people by purging it from their credit report. This means that even if people have piles of medical debt — one in five Americans say they do — it’s not going to affect their ability to get a mortgage or a car loan. So they will at least have a place to rest their head and a car they can drive to work every day while paying off their medical bills.

Via AP:

Harris said that would make it easier for them to obtain an auto loan or a home mortgage. Roughly one in five people report having medical debt. The vice president said the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is beginning the rulemaking process to make the change. The agency said in a statement that including medical debt in credit scores is problematic because “mistakes and inaccuracies in medical billing are common.” “Access to health care should be a right and not a privilege,” Harris told reporters in call to preview the action. “These measures will improve the credit scores of millions of Americans so that they will better be able to invest in their future.”

It only seems fair that high medical bills for an emergency or serious illness shouldn’t affect one’s credit rating anyway. It’s not like we’re talking about someone irresponsibly dropping several grand at Versace and then never paying off the credit card bill. Fifty-seven percent of Americans could not afford a surprise $1000 emergency, so the inability to pay off massive amounts of medical debt is hardly a fair reflection of an inclination to default on normal payments — payments you can budget for — on something like a mortgage or auto loan. “Way to be irresponsible by getting cancer, lady! You should definitely be punished for that by not being able to find any place to live!” seems pretty harsh, no?

[berf-a-smurf]

I did, during which I found this fantastic write-up:

I urge you to follow the link and read the rest!

[Picture IDs:

Original tumblr post by whitepeopletwitter contains a screenshot of a twitter post by The Debt Collective (@StrikeDebt) saying “good morning to everyone except these two - Alexander Taylor and Myra Brown - who sued over student debt relief and got it struck down.” The tweet includes the portrait photos of Alex (left) and Myra (right).

My reblog contains two photos: a tumblr user’s rb tag in whitepeopletwitter’s post’s notes reading “# i did not fact check this”

Followed by my “I did” line.

Followed by the second photo: a screenshot from Wonkette.com. Headline “Look At These Twerps Who Ruined Student Loan Forgiveness For Everybody”. By Robyn Pennacchia. Under that, the same side-by-side picture of the two’s portraits. The article begins with the paragraph: “Meet Alexander Taylor and Myra Brown, two people who definitely spent a lot of time in school reminding teachers that they forgot to assign homework.” That’s where the screenshot ends.

End Picture IDs.]

[scottiestoybox]

Is Jim Jordan Planning To Kill Us All?

Is Jim Jordan Planning To Kill Us All?

https://www.wonkette.com/is-jim-jordan-planning-to-kill-us-all Robyn Pennacchia December 07, 2021 09:36 AM       Rep. Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio, has been on something of a roll lately. Last week, he announced to the world that Real America was done with COVID-19. It was a fairly premature declaration given that the areas of the country Jordan likely considers to be “Real America”…

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Robyn Pennacchia at Wonkette:

In 1911, 146 garment workers died in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, because their boss had the brilliant money-saving idea of locking the doors to the stairwells and exits in order to prevent them from taking unauthorized breaks. The streets were littered with the bodies of people who threw themselves out of the windows, hoping that would be a safer escape. One of the witnesses to that horrific moment in American history was Frances Perkins. Already a suffragist, consumer and labor rights activist, and sociology professor, Perkins was so horrified by the fire that she committed herself to improving labor standards in New York and elsewhere. In 1934, after FDR appointed her Secretary of Labor, she became the first woman in a presidential Cabinet (and to this day, the longest serving Secretary of Labor in US history). As Secretary of Labor, Perkins created the Bureau of Labor Standards in order to improve working conditions for the American labor force. In 1971, the Bureau of Labor Standards became the more comprehensive Occupational Safety and Health Administration, better known as OSHA. Over the years, OSHA has instituted regulations that have protected American workers from getting hurt or killed on the job So, naturally, a Republican wants it gone. For the third time in as many years, Rep. Andy Biggs has introduced the NOSHA Act, an act that would abolish OSHA in favor of letting states set their own safety standards.

[...] During his first term, Trump gutted OSHA, and he’s promised to do worse in his next. Which will be very hard, because in his first term, his administration killed a yearslong project that was specifically dedicated to preparing hospitals, nursing homes and other medical facilities … for a pandemic. Because when will one of those happen, right? Also, on Monday, Trump demanded that every regulatory agency kill 10 regulations for every new one they implement, which should work out just great. Surely no one will die or be left bankrupt or get food poisoning or anything like that. Surely businesses will do what’s necessary to protect their employees and customers, even if it would cost more than the lawsuits would if they didn’t bother. [...] Every safety regulation is written in blood. Each of those regulations exists because someone died or was severely hurt or made severely sick by something that regulation would have prevented. The first job safety regulation, the Massachusetts Factory Act of 1877, was passed after The Pemberton Mill Collapse — caused because the greedy new owners of the mill made it “profitable” by shoving more machinery into it than it could handle, and it collapsed, killing 145 workers (mostly women but some children) and injuring 300 more. (Lawrence would later be the site of the 1912 Lawrence Textile Strike, better known as the Bread and Roses Strike, a year after the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory burned.) No one is coming up with random unfair regulations just to hurt the feelings of “job creators” or because they want to destroy American businesses. But OSHA exists because companies locked people in buildings to ensure they weren’t taking unauthorized breaks, because they overloaded buildings with more machinery than they could handle. It has provided a recourse for employees who believe their safety isn’t being considered by their employers, and, according to a report published by the AFL-CIO, it has saved almost 700,000 lives and likely prevented millions of injuries since it was implemented.

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ)’s bill to abolish OSHA is an attack on workplace safety.

[nodynasty4us]

If Joe Biden bears any responsibility for the way this turned out, it's due to having voted for the war as a senator, not for withdrawing as president.

Robyn Pennacchia in Wonkette

[trendingnewstracker]

Saturday Night Owls: Lame duck White House occupant eager to kill Californians with Medicaid cuts

Night Owls, a themed open thread, appears at Daily Kos seven days a week 32 DAYS UNTIL JOE BIDEN AND KAMALA HARRIS TAKE THE OATH OF OFFICE Robyn Pennacchia at Wonkette writes—Well This Is Just A Swell Time For Trump To Cut Healthcare Funds To California Over Abortion: California is having a difficult time. It’s…

https://is.gd/ByWmhV

[thewightknight]

Whenever you get something like this, be it female Ghostbusters or a black Johnny Storm or whatever, the standard regressive talking points come out, and they are generally rather ridiculous. I know, it's shocking that people allergic to critically looking at the media they consume might not produce the greatest response to other criticisms, but it does happen.

My old favorite is, "What if we changed FEMALE character to male, huh!" It's exactly the hot take you'd expect from people whose understanding of sexism or racism begins and ends with the dictionary, but I'm here to tell you bros that feminists are 1,000 percent on board with a huge chunk of that idea.

Brief shout-out to my friend Robyn Pennacchia at Wonkette for this writing prompt. You should read everything she has ever written and tell her she's nice.

Let's start with Disney. Think about it...a gender-swapped Little Mermaid. A man can't talk for three-quarters of the movie and has to use empathy and other means to win the heart of a person he's in love with? Women wouldn't throw money at that; they'd throw the whole damned purse. It's probably why someone wanted to remake Splash with Channing Tatum.

How about Frozen? A young male king who has been struggling with powers threatened by repressed emotions finds comfort and salvation in the love of a sibling and no one ends up in a stupid refrigerator to get him there? Yeah, that sounds kind of nice, actually. Mulan? Man goes undercover as a woman in an Amazonian army to save his parent? I'd watch that.

Someone in the original thread that inspired this mentioned Pretty Woman, that classic hooker with a heart of gold story. I'd argue that they already made the crap gender-swapped version of that with Deuce Bigalow (and even then, the first film really does have some sweet moments). Regardless, let's totally switch it. Let's see a successful corporate shark of a woman trying to understand love as more than a visible commodity as a young man finds his self-worth being appreciated. Has there ever even been a movie like that?

[feastoffun]

Who can turn the world on with her smile? @robynelyse Robyn Pennacchia that's who! (at Feast of Fun)