“This is a cynical distraction from the work that we should be doing,” Senate Minority Leader Melissa Agard, D-Madison, said. “But thankfully, they’re not becoming law.”
Agreed, Ms. Agard. It's political theatre, and is not going to get past Evers' veto. The detail in the article is excellent and calls out:
A lead proponent testifying at the Capitol was a former Republican legislative aide representing a Florida-based advocacy group with no membership and tens of millions of anonymous donations. One Republican lawmaker noted it was the third time that afternoon that Adam Gibbs had spoken in favor of the bills, all which were aimed at dismantling the state’s social safety net.
“Busy day in the Legislature,” replied Gibbs, communications director for the nonprofit Foundation for Government Accountability.
...what's the problem with the FGA (aside from it's an out of state organization with no actual membership that for some reason has the full attention of Wisconsin legislators)?
A Wisconsin Watch analysis of the 2021-22 session found that of the 17 bills passed with Opportunity Solutions Project/FGA support, Evers vetoed all but one. The lobbying group also opposed a Democratic-sponsored bill that would extend Medicaid for eligible women for a full year after childbirth; Republicans refused to schedule a hearing, and the GOP-led budget committee stripped it from the governor’s budget. The group also supported 16 bills that ultimately did not pass both chambers.
....
Watchdogs that monitor dark money groups say FGA is just the latest example of an advocacy organization bankrolled by a small network of billionaire activists intent on deregulation, dismantling welfare protections and restricting voting rights.
FGA doesn’t disclose its donors. But IRS data tracked by the Center for Media and Democracy, which investigates the influence of money in politics, show some of the largest checks came from foundations tied to conservative causes.
The Ed Uihlein Family Foundation donated $17.85 million between 2014 and 2021, according to tax filings. The Bradley Foundation of Milwaukee gave $2.75 million over a similar period.
FGA’s lobbying arm isn’t required to disclose its funding sources. Critics call that a loophole in the law, giving donors the ability to secretly influence public policy.
The IRS says charitable foundations like FGA aren’t supposed to engage in substantial political lobbying. But like other similar groups, it shares office space, staffers and other resources with its lobbying arm. Such arrangements allow donors to make tax deductible donations that ultimately end up being used for lobbying.
So all you have to do to funnel dark money to Wisconsin Republicans is to open a non-profit in the same office as your lobbying firm. Gotcha.
it was a “military organization”, he said, that will be used for “aiding law enforcement with riots and illegal immigration”.
The whole time I was reading this, I was wondering how the fuck any of this is legal, and this passage answers my question perfectly: it's not. The constitution explicitly says that the military is never to be used for policing purposes, because the founding fathers were terrified of this exact kind of overreach happening as a result. This is the same as if the Third Amendment somehow became relevant again in modern times. That's why they branded the militia as "disaster relief," for the same reason as Fox News is branded as "entertainment" and not news media; they know this would never hold up against the law.
Boosted and upvoted for reprinting the text on the Fediverse.
I don't see this as being a winning tactic for Trump. He simply doesn't have the support from the power-brokers he did in 2016 - he's pissed off his wealthy donors and cost them too much money and power, both through grift and his glaring ineptitude in office. He will likely win the primary, but his chances in the general election are slim. He won't win the popular vote (again), and the electoral college landscape is less welcoming than it was seven years ago.
That being said, it's pretty clear that Trump realizes this. When you have both the institutions of the state and the financial backers in your party turn against you, no amount of populism can save you. He probably figures that he might as well go down "fighting the man", as it's unlikely at this point that surrender would provide him a better set of consequences than going out in a blaze of narcissistic glory.
This is where the real danger lies - after the election, when he's lost and has that brief moment as the dust settles before he's sent to jail, that's when he'll go nuclear, and you'll see him call not to "stand back and stand by", but to go to war.
While I don’t believe we’re anywhere near out of this yet, I don’t think he’d be anything like 2016 Trump if he loses again. At that point he’s lost twice (unfortunately probably to Biden again) and his supporters are filled with rage and vengeance but they also want a winner.
It could certainly get scary in a “American Troubles” kind of way, but if he stays out of the White House, I see his followers peeling away to shack up with DeSantis and other, newer goons to get their authoritarian fix.
As for jail, I think it depends: if he’s convicted snd sent to federal jail while losing the election, I think Georgia’s state level charges have a 50-50 chance of extending that stay, since I doubt ye’d be jailed for life. If the federal conviction fails, the state charges are much more likely to get dropped.
Agreed, unless something changes, I don't see his level of support increasing to a point where he'd actually be able to mobilize a force large enough to begin a true civil war on the occasion of his loss.
That being said, given the virulence and fanaticism of the extremists in his cohort, I can see him advocating violence to the point where domestic terrorism becomes a daily part of American life, much like mass shootings have.
I'm not so much worried about him winning as the damage he'll do when he loses.
…can’t believe that I haven’t made this mental connection yet, but this was how the KKK came about: following a disastrous attempt at gaining power by violence from the duly elected by an increasingly radical segment, the losing party engages in acts of terrorism to try to bring the lesser-thans back into line by fear.
<pre style="background-color:#ffffff;">
<span style="color:#323232;">>The military is no place to experiment with untested technology.
</span>
HAHAHAHAHA. Better tell that to the United States Army Test and Evaluation Command or the Army Futures Command or any of the other branches test and evaluation commands. That Gosar guy is a dipshit.
Marketwatch notes that “the rate of inflation in the Tampa Bay region was the highest in the country. Prices rose an estimated 7.3% from June 2022 to June 2023, well above the 3% rate for the nation as a whole.”
Last month as well, inflation was huge across much of Florida.
“Residents in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach area saw prices shoot up 9% in May compared with a year earlier. By comparison, nationwide inflation for the same period was less than half that rate, with prices rising 4% in May compared with a year earlier,” CBS News reported on Tuesday. “People living in the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater area have it slightly easier, with inflation rising at a 7.3% annual pace, but that’s still much higher than the U.S. as a whole.”
Why?
“Florida’s inflation rates are skyrocketing and the state now leads the nation thanks mostly to the rising cost of housing,” NBC Miami reports Wednesday.
In fact, many reports point to housing prices, which shot up 55% in Florida since the start of the pandemic, compared to 40% nationwide, CBS noted.
Ignoring real issues to scapegoat minorities and fight a culture war that alienates migrant labor and discourages business investment? Destroying his state's economy to throw off the national curve and own the libs? Either way, bold move, Cotton. How's that working out?
Among GOP voters, DeSantis is now at just 17%, which matches his all-time low says Morning Consult. He “is losing ground to Biden: DeSantis trails Biden by 5 percentage points in a hypothetical general election match-up, and hasn’t outperformed the incumbent since March.” source
If I'm not mistaken, DeSantis is out at Florida no matter what because of term limits for the governor. So I am not surprised to see slipping poll numbers for favorability. I am shocked to see him diving below the margin for error beneath a democrat in a presidential toss up poll though!!
I am shocked to see him diving below the margin for error beneath a democrat in a presidential toss up poll though!!
The margin of error for that poll is significantly <5% for the Biden face-off:
Latest survey conducted July 7-9, 2023, among representative samples of roughly 6,000 registered voters, with an unweighted margin of error of +/-1 percentage points.
That is the lowest I've ever seen a margin of error. During general election voter polling, the average is 3-6%, which is why I found the 5% lead Biden has on DeSantis so surprising.
"We lost $100 million from attacks by the box stores, the shopping networks, the shopping channels, all of them did cancel culture on us."
Funny how when people show them the door for being lying antidemocratic assholes, that's "cancel culture." Meanwhile the right seems quite happy to exclude people from public life, refuse services to groups they don't like, make it easy for bosses to fire employees for unionizing or speaking out, and right wing media is quite fond of cutting mics or banning people when they disagree. They are quire happy to perform their own boycotts because they hate trans people and companies that don't. For some reason they don't call any of that 'cancel culture.'
Mike, people just don't want to support you and don't want you around because you're a dangerous, disingenuous, fascism advocate. Our nation would have been better off if he had remained a crackhead and never participated in promoting and amplifying Trump's lies.
And no Democratic/left politician had to write any laws to disrupt the lying bastard. It’s the capitalism they love so much.
Typical “conservative” crybabies. Love to block people from doing legal things while simultaneously crying if people exercise their free speech and don’t give them money.
Speaking as one of the conservatives I love this lol. Fuck this guy and fuck his company. This isn't being "cancelled" this is just capitalism and I'm here for it.
Literally how the free market is supposed to work according to small government advocates. TFW no one wants to do business with you due to making your brand toxic.
Hell yes. My wife and I are thinking about moving back from deep red TN, where they gerrymandered away Nashville’s one representative. Seeing the GOP in Michigan keep shooting itself in the foot is great.
One type of story (that I can't find any good examples of here, so that's good!) that I don't like is the hearsay or expert-says types of stories. e.g., former-ex-prosecutor-political-insider says Trump definitely did something bad and will be charged next week.
It's not real news masquerading as news for clicks and there's nothing new or real to discuss in the comments.
"so-and-so slams so-and-so"-type articles are usually like this, too. It's just political bickering and doesn't contain any new points of discussion. Any comments on these articles is often just more attacking, since that's where the discussion started from.
I realize these are probably quite difficult to identify and moderate objectively, but I think the community would be better off without them!
This one will be challenging, but we will consider it. Thanks for weighing in though. Even if this doesn't become a direct rule, it at least points to the kind of community we want to co-create.
Could it be geared to allow content around editorialized content from news sources (e.g. NYT, WaPo, Newsweek, etc.)? Maybe a comment that says sensationalized content/clickbait will not be allowed.
Simply requiring that an actual article is linked (and not a screenshot of a retweet of a Twitter post of an opinion of a screenshot of an article headline) would be a great first step and easier to moderate.
I can admit I'm getting outnumbered on this. I appreciate you adding your voice to this perspective so that I can re-evaluate my stance on it in an effort to provide this community what it wants.
I can definitely get behind that. Most of the political anger is setup with this pot stirring he said she said shit. Granted, there still is a place for some of the puffery "I'm going to pass a law to do X" even though it may or may not happen. A lot of them can be total bullshit, like hopelessly unpopular laws being put into consideration that have no hope of even getting to vote, let alone passing. But at least that is real politics rather than the simple shit slinging of editorial content today.
Businesses want access to cheap labor. With boomers retiring, American workers can finally demand higher wages. Many businesses don't want to pay it ("No oNe waNtS tO wORk aNyMOrE"). Those businesses that can't outsource to where the cheaper labor is will find another source. Illegal immigrants (which aren't always available) and kids.
Remember what drove the slave trade: the need for labor to bring in the most valuable commodity of the day - cotton. There either wasn't enough labor or the willingness to pay for it.
What we are seeing today is just another version of the same corporate greed.
We don't know that a Newsom campaign could beat Trump and I think we would be foolish to assume so.
Generally, if the VP doesn't win the nomination, the party doesn't stand a very good chance of winning the election. I think if Biden didn't run and Harris did not get the nomination (I think Newsom would slaughter her), Trump takes 2024 fairly decisively.
I think the democratic party's best path forward is an uncontested Biden/Harris reelection, and then instead of running in 2028, Harris decides to retire.
I agree with this but I just don't think it's realistic that Harris slinks away in 2028. I don't see her as power hungry per se, but I do see her really enjoying being "the first" especially as it pertains to race and gender. She will not accept anything short of the Dem Convention nomination after a second VP term.
Except next time it'll just be someone worse than trump, so we'll have to support Harris as she's the best candidate to defeat whomever. That's how it always is with the dems. "Vote for us now and we'll totally be able to fix things in the future!". Then they never do. I'm not a republican voter, but I'm on the fence about Biden again. I'd rather "throw my vote away" by voting 3rd party than succumb to corpo dems. Hell Biden said he would forgive the loans, but he was the one who helped make it so you can't declare bankruptcy on said loans in the first place. Not to mention the dems not holding their ground in the capitol and allowing more and more bullshit through. Enough is enough.
Shapiro has never outwitted anyone ever. Well maybe except for himself. I’ll never understand people’s fascination with him. Or desire to associate with him or what he calls thought.
Just because someone disagrees with you does not mean they lack values. When it comes to fascists in America it’s honestly often quite the opposite. They disagree based on intense values shared with many other races classes etc.
And the fact that American Conservatives so often claim to be color blind etc. All while perpetuating systems with disparately racial outcomes. Only proves their dishonesty.
There are no cultural dynamics that contribute to Shapiro’s behavior. And don’t get me wrong I’m not saying that he has no values. They just don’t extend much beyond self interest and personal wealth and power. He has no concern for anyone else. And his seeming lack of concern for programs with racial disparities outside of the ones that might impact him personally or be abused to him personally proves it.
Not only on top of being homophobic/transphobic this is cringe as hell. Oh god, who is this for besides terminally online incels? I don’t see this helping sway the older demographic at all….
You nailed it. This is for the Andrew Tate stans of the internet.
They are measurably the most lonely people seeking a sense of community that is missing from their real lives. It makes them susceptible to radicalization, which is why they are so easily targeted with this kind of messaging of taking such immense pride in the depravity of inhumanness.
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