#pete ricketts

[theinconvenientlifestyle]

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Mehdi Hasan at Zeteo News:

A group of influential Republican senators has sent a letter to International Criminal Court (ICC) chief prosecutor Karim Khan, warning him not to issue international arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials, and threatening him with “severe sanctions” if he does so.  In a terse, one-page letter obtained exclusively by Zeteo, and signed by 12 GOP senators, including Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Florida’s Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz of Texas, Khan is informed that any attempt by the ICC to hold Netanyahu and his colleagues to account for their actions in Gaza will be interpreted “not only as a threat to Israel’s sovereignty but to the sovereignty of the United States.”

12 Republican Senators-- including Tom Cotton, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Mitch McConnell, and Katie Britt-- have all signed onto a letter in support of Israel's war crimes threatening the ICC if they issue arrest warrants to Israel Apartheid State officials.

[politicaldilfs]

Nebraska Governor DILFs

Ben Nelson, Bob Kerrey, Frank B. Morrison, Norbert Tiemann, Pete Ricketts, Arthur J. Weaver, Charles Thone, Charles W. Bryan, Dwight Griswold, J. James Exon, Robert Leroy Cochran, Dave Heineman, Dwight W. Burney, Jim Pillen, Victor Emanuel Anderson, Mike Johanns, Ralph G. Brooks, Val Peterson

[kohenari]

I’m SHOCKED!

Are you telling me that the current Governor—who gave millions of dollars to the campaign of the next Governor and who campaigned for him for months—is now asking the next Governor to appoint the current Governor to an open US Senate seat?

I wonder if he’ll get it!

Honestly, this whole sordid affair is just so staggeringly, nakedly corrupt. The last time Ricketts tried for this Senate seat, his family couldn’t pay enough to get Nebraskans to actually vote him into office. This time, there’s no need for an election at all. That’s priceless.

Anyway, the thing about an oligarchy is I don’t want to live in one. But here we are.

[silkburrito27]

Never a bad time to bring out this shirt I made during the height of the pandemic

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Senate Democrats sought to pass legislation Tuesday banning bump stocks for firearms after the Supreme Court overruled a previous ban, but a single Republican objected on behalf of his party, effectively stalling the bill.

Backed by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., sought “unanimous consent” to pass his BUMP Act that would prohibit the devices, which modify semi-automatic weapons to fire bullets more quickly.

The New Mexico senator said he’s a firearm owner who sees no purpose for bump stocks other than to facilitate mass shootings, as in Las Vegas in 2017, when a gunman killed dozens of people at a music festival and more than 500 people were injured.

“The Las Vegas gunman was able to murder and injure so many so quickly because he used a deadly device known as a bump stock,” Heinrich said on the Senate floor. “There’s no legitimate use for a bump stock. Not for self-defense, not in a law enforcement context, not even in military applications as they’re less accurate than a standard fully automatic military platform. But what they are tailor-made for is a mass shooting.”

But the bill was met with an objection from Sen. Pete Ricketts, R-Neb., blocking it from moving forward. The objection was backed by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and many other Republican senators, marking a turnaround after many of them championed a bump stock ban imposed by the Trump administration after the Las Vegas massacre.

Ricketts labeled the bill “a gun-grabbing overreach," saying it is written vaguely and could give the Biden administration power to target “common firearm accessories, not just bump stocks.”

“That’s really, really scary,” Ricketts said, calling the measure an infringement on the rights of law-abiding gun owners. He labeled it “another day in the Democrat summer of show votes,” following recent votes on protections for IVF and contraception which were also blocked by Republicans.

The clash comes in the heat of an election year, when Republicans are running as staunch supporters of gun rights while President Joe Biden and Democrats call for stricter firearm laws.

The move Tuesday followed a Supreme Court decision last week saying the executive branch may not use existing law to ban bump stocks, although the 6-3 ruling along ideological lines kept the door open for Congress to regulate the accessories with a new law.

Unanimous consent is one mechanism for the Senate to pass legislation speedily, often used for non-controversial measures. Schumer can also bring the bump stock bill or other legislation up through the regular process, which takes more time and requires 60 votes to break a filibuster. That means at least 9 Republicans would have to support it if Democrats and independents stick together.

Before the unanimous consent request, Schumer didn’t say whether he’d bring up the bill through regular channels if it stalled, imploring Republicans to “see the light” and not block it.

“Many of them were extremely supportive of this when President Trump did it as a regulation,” Schumer said. “Donald Trump is hardly a friend to gun safety. But I’m just shocked that the Supreme Court will be even to the right of him.”

Heinrich warned that if Congress doesn’t prohibit bump stocks, “street gangs and cartels and mass shooters” may be able to access these devices “and turn them against our communities.”

He added: “This will not be the last time you hear about these devices on the floor of the Senate.”

[mariacallous]

Republicans on Monday conceded defeat in their push to change how the state of Nebraska counts its electoral votes as a way to help Donald Trump beat Kamala Harris in November.

“Our governor had considered a special session of the legislature in order to make that change, but the votes aren’t there to do it,” U.S. Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) told reporters on Monday after a key Republican in the Nebraska Legislature announced his opposition.

“It’s over,” she said.

Trump and Republican members of Congress last week urged Nebraska Republicans to change their electoral rules just weeks before the November presidential election so that the state’s five electoral votes would likely all go to Trump instead of allowing one to go to the Democratic candidate based on how Nebraskans vote. Nebraska and Maine are the only states that don’t follow a winner-take-all formula.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a top Trump ally on Capitol Hill, even traveled to Nebraska to urge lawmakers to support the change, but the effort appeared to stall out after state Sen. Mike McDonnell (R) balked, denying proponents a filibuster-proof majority in the legislature.

“I have taken time to listen carefully to Nebraskans and national leaders on both sides of the issue,” McDonnell said in a statement on Monday. “After deep consideration, it is clear to me that right now, 43 days from Election Day, is not the moment to make this change.”

The state’s 2nd Congressional District, including Omaha and its suburbs, has swung toward Democrats since Trump was elected in 2016. In 2020, President Joe Biden won the district and its one electoral vote by 6.5 percentage points. Recent polling of the district shows the Democratic nominee, Vice President Harris, with a similar lead over Trump.

Changing the way Nebraska awards electoral votes could potentially have a major effect on the presidential race. If Trump receives an additional electoral vote, as he likely would in a winner-take-all allocation, Harris would need to sweep in the Rust Belt states (Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania) as well as carry an additional Sun Belt state (Arizona, Georgia, Nevada or North Carolina) to avoid a tied election.

Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.) called the lack of support for the voting change “disappointing.”

“I’ll have to talk to the senator to see if he can change his mind, but until he does we don’t have the votes,” he added on Monday.

[i-am-mr-k]

Take a look around your state . . . If you have a republican Governor, how many vacancies that are usually filled by election are held by someone appointed? Here in Nebraska, the Ricketts Family Trust LOVES open vacancies and the appointment power of the Governor. Guess how we got our Jr. Senator?

Trump/MAGA are trying to end elections.

[eelhound]

"Nearly half of the US population uses TikTok. It’s the most downloaded app in the country and the world. And last Wednesday, President Joe Biden signed its ban into law.

Members of Congress backing the anti-TikTok bill from both sides of the aisle have tried to emphasize that it’s 'not a ban' — it’s a forced sale. The 'ban' requires Chinese tech company ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, to sell the app to a US-based company within twelve months or the app will be banned in the United States.

ByteDance has responded saying that it will refuse to sell, and that it will instead fight the ban in court. ByteDance believes it can win the court case, based on precedent from federal courts blocking an attempted ban in Montana in November 2023. Former president Donald Trump also tried to ban TikTok twice by executive order when he was in office; those efforts were struck down by the courts too.

Lawmakers are citing data privacy and national security as the primary concerns behind the ban. But others have been more explicit — they are worried about how the app is influencing Americans’ political views, particularly among young voters.

Discussion of the TikTok ban in Congress has been rife with red-baiting and anti-Chinese fearmongering. Senator Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat, referred to TikTok as a 'Communist Party propaganda tool.' And Senator Pete Ricketts, a Nebraska Republican, said:

Pro-Palestinian and pro-Hamas hashtags are generating fifty times the views on TikTok right now. . . . These videos have more reach than the top ten US news websites combined. This is not a coincidence. The Chinese Communist Party is doing this on purpose.

The senator went on to blame TikTok and the Chinese government for the student protests that started at Columbia University and have since spread to dozens of college campuses across the country on TikTok and the Chinese government.

There is no concrete evidence supporting the idea that political ideas shared on TikTok are more progressive or pro-Palestine than what you find on other platforms or that it skews more progressive than the overall population — with nearly 70 percent of voters now supporting a cease-fire in Gaza. It’s unclear how TikTok’s algorithm handles political content. But one of lawmakers’ greatest concerns is that the platform has offered a new avenue for people to virally spread political messages outside of traditional media.

This is not to say that TikTok doesn’t pose data-privacy concerns. But as Paris Marx writes, TikTok’s opaque data-privacy practices are not specific to TikTok or China. TikTok is a private company. Like all profit-driven social media companies, US- and Chinese-owned alike, there are genuine concerns over data usage — but the TikTok ban won’t fix those.

'The US government’s desire to ban TikTok instead of taking industry-wide action is a good indication that its campaign isn’t really about national security or data protection,' Marx points out, 'but something much deeper: namely the preservation of American economic and geopolitical hegemony.'

In this regard, the federal government sees a lot to gain from banning TikTok. Asserting control over highly profitable Chinese tech companies will help US companies like Meta maintain dominance in the social media space, an important consideration given the United States’ growing Great Power rivalry with China. The ban may also allow the US government tighter control over media narratives, particularly around Israel’s increasingly unpopular war on Gaza and government repression of protests.

I’m a content creator on TikTok, alongside millions of others. TikTok has allowed me to reach millions of people to share ideas about movements for social and economic justice. Recently, I’ve covered the wave of student protests calling for a cease-fire in Gaza and university endowment divestment from weapons manufacturers and other financial ties to Israeli apartheid by interviewing students on the ground in New York City. If TikTok is banned, it means shutting down my voice and the voices of many others who are loudly opposing our government’s support for Israel and spreading awareness of the growing protest movement.

It’s unclear if the ban will be upheld in court. And if the forced sale is upheld, it’s also unclear if twelve months will be enough for a sale to make it through the legal and financial red tape. In any case, it will be at least a year before we see any changes to the app and its availability in the United States.

If the TikTok ban is successful, though, it will serve as a major blow to free speech without actually protecting users’ data. It will mean restricting access to news and political ideas simply because the federal government wants to suppress the ideas that are being shared and popularized on the platform — like opposition to US support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza."

- Caitlyn Clark, "The TikTok Ban Is an Egregious Assault on Free Speech." Jacobin, 29 April 2024.

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Adam Kredo

Lawmakers like Budd, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, have taken a great interest in the Palestine Chronicle and its nonprofit parent company, the People Media Project, since the Free Beacon first reported on Monday about its links to Iranian regime-controlled propaganda sites. The outlet’s editor in chief, Ramzy Baroud, wrote for two now-defunct websites that the U.S. government seized in 2020 for being part of a propaganda network controlled by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC). At least six of the outlet’s writers also wrote for these IRGC-controlled sites.

Following Aljamal’s death during an Israeli raid in Gaza to free the hostages, the Palestine Chronicle published a glowing obituary, claiming its writer was just an innocent civilian trying to perform journalism. As Budd and his colleagues note in their letter, however, Aljamal "previously served as a spokesman for the Hamas-run Palestinian Ministry of Labor in Gaza."

"While Aljamal may have played a journalist by day, the evidence clearly suggests he was, at a minimum, a Hamas collaborator, if not a full-time terror operative, responsible for keeping hostages captive," according to the letter, which is also backed by Sens. Ted Cruz (R., Texas), Joni Ernst (R., Iowa), Rick Scott (R., Fla.), Pete Ricketts (R., Neb.), and Roger Wicker (R., Miss.), the ranking member on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

With questions now swirling about the Palestine Chronicle and its editor Baroud, the senators say a multi-pronged federal investigation is necessary to determine if the outlet and its parent company were "actively employing an individual with apparent ties to and support for Hamas." The Palestine Chronicle downplayed its ties to Aljamal in a Monday piece, saying Aljamal "was a freelance writer who contributed articles to the Palestine Chronicle on a voluntary basis, mostly since the start of the Israeli genocide in Gaza."

"It is possible that this tax-exempt media outlet had no knowledge of its correspondent’s Hamas affiliation; however, given the organization’s recent attempts to cover up evidence of its ties to Aljamal, this seems unlikely, making them complicit in supporting terrorist propaganda on their platform," the senators wrote.

The lawmakers also instructed the IRS to "prepare a report on the findings of this investigation for the [Senate] Finance Committee to review in the appropriate venue."

[pennsyltuckyheathen]

New York Post : GOP senator calls for investigation into Hunter Biden's defense team over 'unethical conduct'

These Republicans are so pathetic and weak and desperate. It's nonstop lies and deceit and accusations.

Americans are so tired of this kind of crap.

[i-am-mr-k]

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Assassin of Youth (1938)

AKA Marihuana, The Marijuana Menace

[badgraph1csghost]

It didn't hit me until last week how our corrupt government has manufactured the illusion of choice. Pete Ricketts, the former governor who basically bought his way into office, is running for re-election as senator. He basically created the scandal that got his predecessor ousted from the house and his hand-picked governor successor, Jim Pillen, decided to send Scurvy Pete up the capitol. This is how power is gained. Not through voting; through bribery and political alliances.

So, Scurvy Pete's running for re-election. He spends about $5m clogging up the airwaves in Nebraska with promises to "oppose the Biden agenda at every turn" (direct quote), and it occurs to me that this is the platform that all the other republicans are running on too.

Then, I find out that Scurvy Pete is right at the forefront of the 1st-amendment-abolishing TikTok ban, and-- oh yeah, would you believe that Joe Fucking Biden is ALSO trying to slam this through to his desk where he'll sign it quicker than he's ever signed anything in his life! Duh! The republicans and the democrats are in LOCK STEP with each other! They don't need to do anything but perform for the camera anymore, because whatever political divisions there were back in 2020 just fucking evapourated in October.

The true colours of the United States government have been revealed for all to see and ignore. Regardless of party affiliation, American politicians are 100% behind arming Israel, exterminating Muslims, elevating private schools while defunding public ones, handing control of the internet over to revisionist christians, and finally quashing the people's ability to dissent.

Choice is an illusion.

[jackmedwn]

MJTruthUltra on X: "🚨 BOMBSHELL The Biden/Harris “Inflation Reduction Act” is Literally Funding Domestic Terrorism inside the United States! • Sen. Shelley Moore Capito and Pete Ricketts made held a presser on their investigation into the distribution of funds in the Biden/Harris “Inflation https://t.co/iUfpKekDE8" / X

Please click "View on Twitter."

[jaidacorvera]

So, no one asks how or why I call our governor a pig farmer.

It's the truth. He owns Pillen Family Farms, a pig farming enterprise of 108 pig farms owned by him.

And he is polluting our water.

On top of that, he has the gall to refuse someone's critique of his operations by not even reading her work and attacking her for her heritage, not more than minutes after he claimed our state was the most accepting. Which begs me to ask - the most accepting of what, Jimmy?

The only reason he got into office is because Pete Ricketts guaranteed the seat for him and because he "rescued a fumble at a game".