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lokiinmediasideblog · 8 months ago

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FISA 702 HAS PASSED THE HOUSED. WE MUST STOP IT!

Fax your legislators! TELL THEM YOU WON'T VOTE FOR THEM IF THEY VOTE YES ON FISA (Fy-zah) 702!

You can also fax your legislators for FREE at:

From Edward Snowden's Twitter:

If you were mad about your House rep voting to let the government spy on you without a warrant ("FISA 702" - fy-za seven-oh-two), we may have one last shot. CALL YOUR REP @ (202) 224-3121 and say "𝗜𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘃𝗼𝘁𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝟳𝟬𝟮, 𝗜 𝘃𝗼𝘁𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗴𝗲𝘁 𝗿𝗶𝗱 𝗼𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂."

From the article link:

House lawmakers voted on Friday to reauthorize section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or Fisa, including a key measure that allows for warrantless surveillance of Americans. The controversial law allows for far-reaching monitoring of foreign communications, but has also led to the collection of US citizens’ messages and phone calls.

Lawmakers voted 273–147 to approve the law, which the Biden administration has for years backed as an important counterterrorism tool. An amendment that would have required authorities seek a warrant failed, in a tied 212-212 vote across party lines.

Donald Trump opposed the reauthorization of the bill, posting to his Truth Social platform on Wednesday: “KILL FISA, IT WAS ILLEGALLY USED AGAINST ME, AND MANY OTHERS. THEY SPIED ON MY CAMPAIGN!!!”

The law, which gives the government expansive powers to view emails, calls and texts, has long been divisive and resulted in allegations from civil liberties groups that it violates privacy rights. House Republicans were split in the lead-up to vote over whether to reauthorize section 702, the most contentious aspect of the bill, with Mike Johnson, the House speaker, struggling to unify them around a revised version of the pre-existing law.

Republicans shot down a procedural vote on Wednesday that would have allowed Johnson to put the bill to a floor vote, in a further blow to the speaker’s ability to find compromise within his party. Following the defeat, the bill was changed from a five-year extension to a two-year extension of section 702 – an effort to appease far-right Republicans who believe Trump will be president by the time it expires.

Section 702 allows for government agencies such as the National Security Administration to collect data and monitor the communications of foreign citizens outside of US territory without the need for a warrant, with authorities touting it as a key tool in targeting cybercrime, international drug trafficking and terrorist plots. Since the collection of foreign data can also gather communications between people abroad and those in the US, however, the result of section 702 is that federal law enforcement can also monitor American citizens’ communications.

Section 702 has faced opposition before, but it became especially fraught in the past year after court documents revealed that the FBI had improperly used it almost 300,000 times – targeting racial justice protesters, January 6 suspects and others. That overreach emboldened resistance to the law, especially among far-right Republicans who view intelligence services like the FBI as their opponent.

Trump’s all-caps post further weakened Johnson’s position. Trump’s online remarks appeared to refer to an FBI investigation into a former campaign adviser of his, which was unrelated to section 702. Other far-right Republicans such as Matt Gaetz similarly vowed to derail the legislation, putting its passage in peril.

Meanwhile, the Ohio congressman Mike Turner, Republican chair of the House Intelligence Committee, told lawmakers on Friday that failing to reauthorize the bill would be a gift to China’s government spying programs, as well as Hamas and Hezbollah.

“We will be blind as they try to recruit people for terrorist attacks in the United States,” Turner said on Friday on the House floor.

The California Democratic representative and former speaker Nancy Pelosi also gave a statement in support of passing section 702 with its warrantless surveillance abilities intact, urging lawmakers to vote against an amendment that would weaken its reach.

“I don’t have the time right now, but if members want to know I’ll tell you how we could have been saved from 9/11 if we didn’t have to have the additional warrants,” Pelosi said.

Debate over Section 702 pitted Republicans who alleged that the law was a tool for spying on American citizens against others in the GOP who sided with intelligence officials and deemed it a necessary measure to stop foreign terrorist groups. One proposed amendment called for requiring authorities to secure a warrant before using section 702 to view US citizens’ communications, an idea that intelligence officials oppose as limiting their ability to act quickly. Another sticking point in the debate was whether law enforcement should be prohibited from buying information on American citizens from data broker firms, which amass and sell personal data on tens of millions of people, including phone numbers and email addresses.

Section 702 dates back to the George W Bush administration, which secretly ran warrantless wiretapping and surveillance programs in the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks. In 2008, Congress passed section 702 as part of the Fisa Amendments Act and put foreign surveillance under more formal government oversight. Lawmakers have renewed the law twice since, including in 2018 when they rejected an amendment that would have required authorities to get warrants for US citizens’ data.

Last year Merrick Garland, the attorney general, and Avril Haines, director of national intelligence, sent a letter to congressional leaders telling them to reauthorize section 702. They claimed that intelligence gained from it resulted in numerous plots against the US being foiled, and that it was partly responsible for facilitating the drone strike that killed the al-Qaida leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, in 2022.

#us politics #internet #mass surveillance #censorship #lgbtqia #palestine #islamophobia #FISA 702 #KOSA

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justinspoliticalcorner · 5 days ago

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David Nir for Public Notice:

Donald Trump's plan to stock his cabinet with the most appalling MAGA nihilists hinges on the obeisance of one man in particular: House Speaker Mike Johnson. And given Johnson's track record of cowardice, Trump may indeed get what he wants — and demolish a pillar of democracy along the way. The crescendo of increasingly nightmarish picks like Tulsi Gabbard, Matt Gaetz, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. almost makes Liz Dye's take here at Public Notice — that Trump is trying to install the crowd at the Star Wars cantina — seem too kind. So beyond the pale are Trump's worst choices that even some Republicans in the Senate are balking. And it's worth remembering that many Trump nominees during his first term in office withdrew from consideration in the face of GOP inaction or hostility. But whether or not Republican senators are inclined to revert to subservience and greenlight these nominations, Trump is already armed with a plan to bypass the confirmation process entirely. He wants to fill vacancies without a confirmation vote by making so-called recess appointments when the Senate is not in session — a power granted to him by the Constitution. And he has a path to do it.

A will and a way

For many years, Congress has not actually taken a formal recess, precisely to deny presidents the ability to side-step lawmakers. Trump, though, has demanded that the Senate resume the practice of adjourning itself so that he can ram his picks through without any oversight. The GOP's new majority leader, John Thune, replied submissively to Trump’s demand, saying on Fox News last week that "all options are on the table." And Johnson echoed that sentiment on Fox News Sunday yesterday, saying of recess appointments that “there may be a function for that.” It turns out that, even for a legislative body that often convenes for just three days a week, it's surprisingly difficult for the Senate to take a proper, on-the-books break. Such an adjournment requires a majority vote, which even Thune acknowledged might be "a problem" for some Republican senators. But even if Senate Republicans could muster a majority, a motion to recess can be amended, as Semafor's Burgess Everett notes. That means Democrats could hold up such a motion indefinitely, unless Republicans were to unilaterally change Senate rules regarding recesses — a move Everett calls "a smaller-scale version of the 'nuclear option'" that might also have a hard time garnering 50 votes.

[...] It's still possible none of this comes to pass. The Senate could, for instance, retain a fig-leaf version of its right to vet nominees by simply rubber-stamping Trump's picks, no matter how odious or unqualified. It looks like Thune will be able to spare three votes in the Senate, after all.

The Downballot publisher David Nir wrote in Public Notice that House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) could plan to upend the advice and consent traditions of the Senate by jamming through recess appointments.

#Mike Johnson #US Congress #US House of Representatives #US Senate #119th Congress #Recess Appointments #NLRB v. Canning #Matt Gaetz #Robert F. Kennedy Jr.#Tulsi Gabbard #John Thune

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tomorrowusa · 1 year ago

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There is a lot of emphasis in the news media on Biden's age while almost nothing about Trump's fitness. This needs to change and we should be more active about holding news organizations to account.

In a four day period in September, the cable news stations mentioned Biden’s age 193 times while Trump’s age was mentioned just 56 times. (MediaMatters.org on September 29, 2023.) After this one sided coverage, these same media outlets then polled the voters about Biden’s age and found (surprise!) that voters are more concerned about Biden’s age than Trump’s age. It’s garbage in and garbage out.

There's just a 3.5 year difference between Biden and Trump. But Trump is not the fitter of the two. Being an epic blowhard and blabbermouth is not a measure of fitness.

After Biden concluded his debt ceiling deal with McCarthy in June, the extremist so-called House “Freedom” Caucus members complained that Biden “outsmarted” McCarthy in the negotiations. The House GOP’s most extreme members hate Biden and have zero incentive to tell the truth about Biden’s good state of health.

So even the most extreme Republicans had to admit that they were outfoxed by Biden.

On October 2, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) took to the floor of the House to denounce the deal that funded the government for forty five days Gaetz said: “It is going to be difficult for my Republican friends to keep calling President Biden feeble while he continues to take Speaker McCarthy’s lunch money in every negotiation.”

As for Trump's health, mental health in particular, the evidence of his debility is on full display.

Meanwhile, the mainstream press has largely ignored and downplayed Trump’s declining mental condition and increasing tendency to threaten violence. Probably the only mainstream media piece that accurately described the respective health of Biden and Trump was in the New York Times on June 4, 2023. The pertinent excerpts are as follows: “While in office, Mr. Trump generated concerns about his mental acuity and physical condition. He did not exercise, his diet leaned heavily on cheeseburgers and steak and he officially tipped the scales at 244 pounds, a weight formally deemed obese for his height. After complaining that he was overscheduled with morning meetings, Mr. Trump stopped showing up at the Oval Office until 11 or 11:30 a.m. each day, staying in the residence to watch television, make phone calls or send out incendiary tweets. During an appearance at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, he had trouble lifting a glass of water and seemed to have trouble making his way down a modest ramp. Most striking was Mr. Trump’s cognitive performance. He was erratic and tended to ramble; experts have found that he had grown less articulate and that his vocabulary had shrunk since his younger days. Aides said privately that Mr. Trump had trouble processing information and distinguishing fact from fiction. His second chief of staff, John F. Kelly, bought a book analyzing Mr. Trump’s psychological health to understand him better, and several cabinet secretaries concerned that he might be mentally unfit discussed invoking the 25th Amendment to remove him.”

He's gotten worse rather than better since leaving office.

These aren’t isolated statements. The highlights (or lowlights) of Trump’s deteriorating condition are as follows. Trump forgot who is currently president, and claimed “the Obama administration” recorded the length of his “border wall.” He even claimed **Jeb Bush** invaded Afghanistan and Iraq! Trump appeared confused when he said Jeb Bush was president during the Iraq War. “You know he was a mili — he got us into the, uh, he got us into the Middle East … Right?” In September, Trump mixed up Biden and Obama, and claimed Biden might start World War TWO. Trump even said you need a government photo ID to buy a loaf of bread. At the same time, Trump’s remarks have taken a dark turn and he has repeatedly threatened violence. Trump suggested that General Mark Milley should be executed. If anybody else had said that, they would be getting a visit from the FBI. The fact that this isn’t being treated as major front-page news is astonishing to me.

Trump makes threats to media moguls and they go easy on reporting his delirium.

The run away front runner for the GOP presidential nomination said Comcast, the owner of NBC and MSNBC, “should be investigated for its ‘Country Threatening Treason’” and promised to do so should he be re-elected president next year. Why does the press continue to cover up Trump’s poor health when he has promised to go after them? How can they be so stupid? It’s pretty wild that, of the two leading presidential candidates, the guy found liable for rape and who is facing ninety one criminal indictments isn’t the one who is facing calls to step aside for someone else to run. The mainstream media has lost all sense of scale and proportion. The media fixation with Biden as opposed to this clearly impaired guy is journalistic malpractice.

Psychologist Mary Trump, Donald's niece, called her uncle a "dangerous presence" on Australia's ABC earlier this year. She also said he was essentially "an insecure little boy who seeks attention".

youtube

And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Ask your news providers why they are seldom mentioning Trump's mental health in their coverage. They should not be normalizing his threats against people and his bizarre erratic comments.

#donald trump #trump's deteriorating mental health #trump is unfit for office #mary trump #republicans #2024 gop presidential nomination #election 2024

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leviathan-supersystem · 5 months ago

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@traveling-spartan @priveetru

gonna be responding to this in a separate post because i've already left two comments on the post this was in reply to and i suspect that the OP already would consider that two too many.

at any rate:

Government regulation causes monopolies more often than it combats them.

[...]

It's why big corps like Disney lobby for said regulation in the first place, it crushes all their smaller competitors for them.

for what it's worth the data doesn't seem to be backing this up. if both these claims were true, you'd expect to see a multitude of pieces of regulation that disney supported, and few if any pieces of regulation that disney opposed, but this quick overview of some of disney world's political spending on florida trend [x] doesn't show that. now admittedly this is just the partial info for the disney world division in florida specifically, and not a general overview of all their political spending, so if anyone has more complete data i'd be interested to hear it. that said, i think it's a decent slice of data to start with.

in fairness, here we can find one notable example of disney lobbying for regulation- namely when they funded efforts to support Amendment 3, which would have prevented any more large casino chains from opening in florida, so that disney world could avoid competing with major casino chains like Genting and Las Vegas Sands. and, to be fair, as noted in the article this was a pretty major driver of campaign spending.

however, A: this was primarily aimed at combating rival megacorps, not combating small businesses, (and naturally the casino megacorps disney was fighting were spending their lobbying money to combat said regulation) and B: this was the only time in the article we see disney fighting for regulation rather than against. examples in the article of disney lobbying against regulation include:

By virtue of its size and economic importance, Disney has always been an influential voice in state politics. But the company had found itself on the losing end in a series of lobbying battles — among them, a fight with the National Rifle Association about whether employees could bring guns to work.

this is an important example of how regulation of private enterprise is sometimes necessary to preserve our fundamental rights- if disney can say employees can't bring guns to work even if they keep them in their parked car, what's to stop landlords from saying tenets can't bring guns in their apartment? if you value the right to bear arms, you should understand why sometimes the power of private enterprise over employees and customers must sometimes be curbed.

Disney also battled with personal-injury attorneys about whether parents could sign away the liability rights of their children and with counties and hotel chains about how online travel companies should be taxed.

[...]

Disney’s 2018 spending included $1 million on Amendment 2, which keeps a tax cap in place that limits increases in the taxable value of commercial and other non-homestead property from rising more than 10% per year. Records show Disney was by far the largest donor to a Florida Chamber of Commerce-backed political committee used to promote the amendment. The cap saved Disney more than $6 million last year alone through reduced property tax payments to Orange County and the South Florida Water Management District.

[...]

As prominent as Disney has made itself on the campaign trail, lawmakers who have worked with the company say it still tries hard to maintain a low profile while lobbying — to avoid having its brand linked with potentially controversial public policies. Disney, for example, has exerted “significant influence” on the Legislature to not pass a law requiring employers to use the e-Verify system to ensure they aren’t employing undocumented workers, says former Senate President Don Gaetz, a Republican from Okaloosa County.

[...]

Cloaked or not, the company enjoyed a number of successes in the 2019 legislative session. Late in the session, as lawmakers finalized a broad tax package, Disney — working through the Florida Retail Federation — persuaded lawmakers to add an extra sales-tax break that will help big retailers who order too much inventory and wind up not selling it all. Retailers generally don’t have to pay sales tax when they order inventory because they are planning to resell it to consumers. The sale to consumers is the transaction that’s supposed to be taxed. But retailers must pay the tax on whatever they don’t sell, since they have become the end user of the product. Disney has for years donated its leftover inventory to charities. So the company persuaded the Legislature to create a sales tax exemption for the leftover inventory that goes to charity. Economists expect the new tax break will save retailers about $5 million a year. Disney won’t say how much it expects to save itself. Disney also worked quietly to reshape a bill, which it objected to in 2018, that would have exposed hotel operators to civil lawsuits if they failed to do enough to prevent human trafficking.

i'll leave it for the reader to consider why disney would want to combat regulation which might cause them to be held accountable for facilitating human trafficking.

Disney even won some changes in state rules for how tourist venues manage all the stuff — from hats to strollers to phones — that visitors lose or leave behind. Generally, businesses are supposed to alert law enforcement and must hold on to lost property for 90 days before they can dispose of it. But that has become cumbersome for Disney — and for Universal Orlando, Central Florida’s other big theme-park resort — which must devote lots of warehouse space simply to holding lost-and-found items. Disney helped write a bill establishing new rules for theme parks, hotels and some other commercial venues that requires them to hold the property for just 30 days and then donate it directly to charity.

looking outside the article to other examples of disney's political lobbying, we find them lobbying against minimum wage laws [x]

Five years ago, on Nov. 6, 2018, the city’s voters approved Measure L, which mandated that “area resort workers” — Disneyland employees, basically — must be paid a living wage if the parent company receives city subsidies. The Walt Disney Company, which at the time was paying some of its workers the state-mandated $11 an hour minimum, fought the measure bitterly, and the ordinance spent most of the next five years kicking around the state court system as a class-action lawsuit sought to force the company to comply. Only in late October, when the California Supreme Court declined to hear Disney’s final appeal, did Measure L become settled city law.

we can also find disney lobbying against heat safety regulations (and against raises to the minimum wage at the same time, a twofer) [x]

House Bill 433 prohibits local governments from passing legislation that protects workers from extreme heat and laws requiring companies to raise the minimum wage beyond the state’s current $12 an hour. But now, we’re learning more about how this bill was passed and the role that Disney World played in helping to remove basic protections from outdoor workers, including cast members. According to Jason Garcia of Seeking Rents, the Florida Chamber of Commerce and Associated Industries of Florida donated more than $2 million to mostly Republican legislatures and another $1 million to the Florida Republican Party. The two lobbying groups expected House Bill 433 to become law for those donations.

[...]

Local government officials in South Florida were considering passing heat protections after the death of migrant farm workers of heat stroke. These laws would have prohibited work in extreme Florida heat and mandatory water breaks for workers. The possibility of these laws stopping work became dangerous to businesses in Florida, which would have had to shut down in extreme heat. Thus, donations to politicians were made to get this bill passed.

[...]

The law was wildly unpopular, with hundreds of civic groups opposing it. That outrage nearly killed the bill. However, according to Garcia, with just one day left in the legislative session, lobbyists sent texts to lawmakers to ensure the bill’s passage.

so what can we see from all this? first, that there are more pieces of regulation that large businesses lobby against than regulations that they lobby for, so the claim that businesses are the primary force behind pushing regulation is patently false and B: when businesses do support regulation in order to pursue their financial interests, this is mainly in order to combat rival large corporations, not small businesses. because fundamentally large businesses don't have to worry that much about competition from small businesses, because fundamentally small businesses can't compete. a small business would have had to expand to the point of being a large corporation long before it would be something disney would have to worry about "competing" with instead of just buying out or ignoring entirely. you think that a megacorp like disney is worried about competition from a little mom and pop shop? get real.

Fines for breaking the rules, for example, always disproportionately affect small businesses where large corporations either have enough money to pay those fines and be unaffected by them, or have the legal teams to get around them.

a few responses to this. the first is, so what? laws against murder, rape, assault, etc are all easier for the rich to dodge, and yet we don't decide murder should be legal. the solution to that imbalance is to be more serious about holding rich people accountable for these crimes, or for fine-related punishment to scale the fine to income, not to get rid of the laws altogether. if a regulation outlaws genuinely abusive or harmful behavior from a company, the way that small companies can avoid that fine is by simply not engaging in abusive or harmful behavior.

secondly, plenty of regulations nonetheless have specific exemptions for small businesses anyway. for example

In general, if your business is under $50 million in annual sales and your fuel or additive has traditional chemistry, then you are exempt from the health effects testing requirements. If you have non-traditional chemistry and are under $10 million in annual sales, you are exempt from some of the testing. EPA staff can discuss testing requirements.

[x]

or for another example:

The Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act requires packaged foods and dietary supplements to bear nutrition labeling unless they qualify for an exemption (A complete description of the requirements). One exemption, for low-volume products, applies if the person claiming the exemption employs fewer than an average of 100 full-time equivalent employees and fewer than 100,000 units of that product are sold in the United States in a 12-month period. To qualify for this exemption the person must file a notice annually with FDA. Note that low volume products that bear nutrition claims do not qualify for an exemption of this type. Another type of exemption applies to retailers with annual gross sales of not more than $500,000, or with annual gross sales of foods or dietary supplements to consumers of not more than $50,000. For these exemptions, a notice does not need to be filed with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). On May 7, 2007, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) launched a new web-based submission process for small businesses to file an annual notice of exemption from the nutrition labeling requirements. The new process will make it easier for businesses to update their information. In addition, firms eligible for the exemption will receive an electronic reminder when it is time to resubmit their nutrition labeling small business exemption notice.

[x]

or yet another:

Manufacturers of consumer products covered by the Department of Energy (DOE) standards with annual gross revenues not exceeding $8 million from all its operations, including the manufacture and sale of covered products, for the 12-month period preceding the date of application, may apply for a temporary exemption from all or part of an energy or water conservation standard. (42 U.S.C. 6295 (t))

[x]

so, no, regulations are not a sinister trick of large corporations to crush small business, because if they were they wouldn't specifically exempt small businesses.

does this mean that @priveetru was right? are regulations an important part of maintaining ideal market conditions and thus creating Real Capitalism, which is Good?

also no.

first, it's all "real capitalism". more regulated, less regulated, it's still Real Capitalism. and as demonstrated by the things going on around us, right now, real capitalism is Bad.

as @traveling-spartan pointed out, large corporations can simply afford to pay or dodge any fees for breaking regulation (though overall they would prefer not to have to, hence why they usually fight against regulation) and small businesses are often exempt from regulations in the first place. so who do regulations actually prevent from economic malfeasance?

nobody. not a soul. they're a completely ineffective bandaid on a bazooka wound which accomplishes nothing.

regulated or unregulated, all market economies tend towards consolidation. on a long enough timeline, all small businesses either are successful enough to become large businesses, are unsuccessful enough to go out of business, or are average enough to get bought out. it's an inevitable part of capitalism as it actually exists, and no matter what fantasy you chase after of a hypothetical, imaginary, impossible "real" capitalism, whether this fantasy is laissez-faire or tightly regulated, you will never escape that reality.

if you want to solve the problem, you can't keep chasing after an imaginary "real capitalism". instead you need to move past capitalism altogether. if you want to address the fact that bill gates and other billionaires are monopolizing farmland and therefore gaining control over our very subsistence, the solution to that isn't to sit around praying to the invisible hand of the free market to save us, and it's also not begging and pleading the existing bourgeoisie state to Le Heckin Tax The Billionaires. the real solution is for regular working class people like us to rise up and take back what is rightfully ours, and create a new state that actually serves the needs of the working people and not just the owning class.

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snommelp · 1 year ago

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House Republican from Georgia Andrew Clyde

(who you may remember saying that the January 6 riot was indistinguishable from normal tour groups)

is proposing amendments to an appropriations bill so that it would defund prosecutions into Donald Trump

in other words, Clyde is saying "we will only fund the government if Trump is above the law"

and other Republicans like Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene are making similar attempts at defunding federal prosecutors, the FBI, etc.

(note also that these are the same people who railed against "defund the police" campaigns, now demanding that federal law enforcement be defunded)

but it needs to be made clear RIGHT NOW that if the US government shuts down because of a lack of funding, it's not because of Biden, and it's not because of Democrats -- it is 100% because MAGA Republicans are holding the nation hostage and so-called "moderate Republicans" are incapable of reigning in the extremists in their party

#politics

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mariacallous · 6 hours ago

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Pam Bondi, whom President-elect Donald Trump has tapped to be his attorney general, said last year that campus protesters who express support for Hamas should face FBI questioning.

Trump named Bondi, who served as Florida attorney general from 2011 to 2019, on Thursday. The nomination came after his first pick, the scandal-plagued former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, withdrew following meetings with Republican senators, who apparently made clear that allegations of sexual predation and drug use , which he has denied, would bury him.

Bondi’s confirmation process is expected to face fewer hurdles.

On Friday, Jewish Insider uncovered an interview Bondi gave Newsmax, the conservative news outlet, last year about the spike in anti-Israel protests on American campuses following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, which sparked Israel’s multi-front war.

“The thing that really was troubling to me, these students in universities in our country — whether they’re here as Americans or if they’re here on student visas — and they’re out there saying, ‘I support Hamas,'” she said in the Oct. 23, 2023, interview. “Frankly, they need to be taken out of our country, or the FBI needs to be interviewing them right away when they’re saying, ‘I support Hamas. I am Hamas.’ That’s not saying I support all these poor Palestinians who are trapped in Gaza.”

A number of protests in the weeks after the attacks included people who praised the attacks, although most of the protesters focused on condemning Israel’s counterattacks and on the suffering of Gaza Palestinians. Over the past year-plus, some hardline pro-Palestinian activists have continued to evince support for Hamas.

The Republican Party platform, released in July, calls for the deportation of noncitizens who back Hamas and terrorism, and pledges to “make our college campuses safe and patriotic again.” Trump and his advisers have also called for deporting foreign students who organize pro-Hamas protests.

The platform does not recommend the investigation of Americans who express rhetorical support for the terrorist group, as Bondi did in her interview, a path that could trigger First Amendment challenges.

Bondi, one of Trump’s earliest and most steadfast backers in his bid for the presidency, advised him during his first impeachment proceedings. She has a record of pro-Israel statements, lining her up with most of Trump’s other cabinet picks, though she has also lobbied for Qatar’s government, according to Semafor.

Some Jewish Republicans were wary of Gaetz because he voted earlier this year against emergency defense assistance for Israel and also opposed a bill that would codify an official definition of antisemitism, and invited a Holocaust denier to the State of the Union address.

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zvaigzdelasas · 1 year ago

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An amendment from Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas, passed 221-213 to ban the military from providing troops with paid travel leave to receive abortions in states where it’s no longer legal. Another amendment from Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-Mont., passed 222-211 to ban sex reassignment surgery and hormone therapy for transgender troops.[...]

After the amendments passed, Democrats who usually support the defense bill announced that they would now vote against final passage.[...]

An amendment from Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., to impose a blanket ban on all security aid to Kyiv failed 70-358. A narrower provision from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., would have cut $300 million in long-term aid to Kyiv from the bill’s Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative. The Taylor Greene amendment also failed 89-341.[...]

The House also voted down 217-198 an amendment from Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., that would have undone the bill’s language restricting the Biden administration’s efforts to retire the B83 megaton gravity bomb, which is 80 to 100 times more powerful than the bomb the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima. Blumenauer’s amendment put him in line with the White House, which released a statement earlier this week asking Congress to remove the B83 language.

13 Jul 23

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 1 year ago

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"The selection of Mike Johnson as speaker of the House of Representatives represents the final stage of the takeover of the party by its white Evangelical fringe-right group which reflects a blend of politics last seen in Europe in the mid-seventeenth century. At its core is an intense hatred for science and higher education and a passionate drive for the subjugation and suppression of women and minorities. In many respects, it's a trip back to the America that antedated the civil war. But the most dangerous aspect of this group, well reflected in the conduct of Johnson, is a deeply anchored opposition to democracy, and a preference instead for "God-anointed" leaders like Trump and Johnson, whose identity is revealed not at the polls, but in the minds of its white male leaders."

[NZZ:: Robert Scott Horton]

* * *

House Republicans collapse.

House Republicans elected MAGA extremist Mike Johnson from Louisiana as the Speaker of the House. The election of Johnson represents a collapse and surrender of the several dozen remaining non-MAGA extremists to the minority MAGA fringe of their party. It is a debacle for the tattered remnants of the GOP, a fact confirmed by the crowing of Matt Gaetz, who conflates winning a brawl and governing a nation. Gaetz said,

MAGA is ascendant and if you don’t think that moving from Kevin McCarthy to MAGA Mike Johnson shows the ascendance of this movement, and where the power of the Republican Party truly lies, then you’re not paying attention.

Matt Gaetz is correct that the “power of the Republican Party” lies in the MAGA extreme, but he couldn’t be more wrong in claiming that “MAGA is ascendant.” The extremist views of Mike Johnson, Matt Gaetz, and Marjorie Taylor Greene are badly out of step with the views of the strong majority of Americans.

Republicans could not have chosen a worse emissary of the GOP message heading into the 2024 elections (except for the reviled Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene). As soon as Mike Johnson was elected, his extremist views came into sharp focus. See Talking Points Memo, Best Way To Make Someone’s Quiet Extremism Widely Known? Elect Them Speaker.

As explained in TPM, Johnson has been a key player in a far-right Christian organization (The Alliance Defending Freedom) that was behind Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health (overturning Roe v. Wade) and 303 Creative (legalizing discrimination against LGBTQ people). Per TPM:

The newly elected Speaker of the House once worked as an attorney for a far-right Christian legal group whose work you are almost certainly familiar with. The Alliance Defending Freedom — where Johnson was once an attorney and a spokesperson — is the group behind many of the most recent legal attacks on reproductive rights and the LGBTQ community. Most recently, the group represented the plaintiff in 303 Creative v. Elenis, in which the Supreme Court sided with the plaintiff arguing the First Amendment allows businesses to discriminate for religious reasons if the business offers “expressive” services. ADF was also part of the team defending Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban before the Supreme Court in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the case where the Supreme Court ultimately overturned Roe v. Wade.

Johnson has published editorials that claim homosexuality is “inherently unnatural” and a “dangerous lifestyle” that would lead to legalized pedophilia and possibly even destroy “the entire democratic system.” He favors the imposition of a nationwide ban on the reproductive liberty of women. Johnson was the leader in drafting a brief asking the Supreme Court to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The brief is here: Texas v. Pennsylvania | Amicus Brief of 126 Members of House of Representatives.

Republicans have made a grievous mistake in electing Mike Johnson, who is already being batted around by Matt Gaetz and other extremists who are claiming that Johnson made “doomed-to-fail” deals in order to become Speaker.

For example, Matt Gaetz claimed that Johnson won’t propose a continuing resolution because “It’s not part of the plan,” even though Johnson sent a “Dear Colleague” letter that presupposes a continuing resolution by the end of November. Gaetz also claims that Johnson will not advance a bill funding Ukraine’s defense. (The substance of the prior sentences is derived from Punch Bowl News, which is behind a paywall.)

Republicans elected Johnson because they were exhausted and because his record was below the radar. In a few hours on Wednesday evening, it became clear that Johnson will be an albatross around the neck of every vulnerable Republican in districts won by Joe Biden in 2020.

[Robert B.Hubbell]

#Robert Scott Horton #political #US House of Representatives #NZZ #Mike Johnson #authoritarianism

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wutbju · 7 months ago

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By their fruit ye shall know them....

Adam Morgan, BJU Class of 2011, is proving that he is NOT safe. Consorting with Matt Gaetz of all people? Really??

You can say no, Adam.

Far-right conservative Matt Gaetz, a Florida Congressman, is coming to Greenville to help campaign against his colleague William Timmons. Gaetz will join South Carolina state representative and Fourth Congressional District Candidate Adam Morgan to keynote a campaign rally on April 23 at the Greenville Marriott. “I’m looking forward to welcoming Congressman Gaetz to South Carolina,” said Morgan in a press release. “Matt is a strong leader in Congress and I’m thankful to have his support, as well as several other conservative members of Congress, who are committed to consistently fighting for conservative ideals and winning.” Doors will open at 6 p.m. for the rally beginning at 6:30. Tickets required for entrance can be found here. “Congress needs more America First warriors willing to fight the establishment, the uniparty and the special interests,” said Congressman Gaetz. “Adam Morgan is that warrior who will join me to fight the DC swamp to take back our country and restore our conservative values. I enthusiastically endorse his candidacy for South Carolina’s Fourth Congressional District and am excited to have him fighting with me soon for the country we love.” Morgan, an extreme conservative who chairs the SC Freedom Caucus, recently garnered national attention on the social media app X, formerly known as Twitter, when he posted a video of him on the South Carolina House Floor claiming that dark money groups were behind the pressure for him to vote for an economic development. “My constituents told me to vote no on the $1.3 billion VW project ($400 million of which is taxpayer cash). But the swamp wants me to ignore those ‘back home,’” Morgan posted to X, which received 1.3 million views. Gaetz responded to Morgan’s post, saying “Inject this into my veins.” Gaetz has also openly spoken about Timmons on X, saying “We need better Republicans than this.” Still, earlier this year, Timmons garnered former President Donald Trump’s endorsement for a second time. "Congressman William Timmons is a terrific advocate for the people of South Carolina's 4th Congressional District," Trump said in a press release. A captain in the Air National Guard, he fights hard to secure our border, strengthen our military, support our veterans, grow the economy, defend our Second Amendment, and hold Joe Biden and the Radical Left Accountable. An original member of my South Carolina Leadership Team, Congressman William Timmons has my complete and total endorsement." The primary is June 11 and early voting begins Tuesday, May 28. Whoever secures the primary will face off against Democrat Kathryn Harvey.

#Bob Jones University #Adam Morgan #Patch the Pirate #Matt Gaetz #BJUisNOTSafe #SC GOP

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