November 29, 2020

"We Didn't Have a Ground Game" A Democratic congresswoman on why she lost her seat

November 29, 2020

'Why the GOP is so rattled by the Rev. Warnock's faith-based Georgia Senate campaign'

Warnock’s campaign, unlike that of many Democrats in recent years, hasn’t shied away from religious appeals to voters and making the election about moral reality. This even applies to the issues that Democrats are most often averse to discuss through a religious frame. “I’m a pro-choice pastor, and I believe that a hospital room is way too small for a woman, her doctor, and the United States government,” Warnock tweeted recently. He’s also pledged to support the Equality Act, which would amend existing civil rights law — including the Civil Rights Act of 1964 championed by King — to explicitly include sexual orientation and gender identity as protected characteristics.

Warnock isn’t alone. Many progressives today are rooting their political appeals in their religious convictions at levels that haven’t been seen since King and the Civil Rights Movement. “The Squad” in the House of Representatives have all embraced religious appeals. Religion News Service even described them as “the new version of the God Squad.” Earlier this year, New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez gave a passionate defense of LGBTQ rights rooted in her faith during a congressional hearing: “I feel as though if Christ himself walked through these doors and said what he said thousands of years ago, that we should love our neighbor and our enemy, that we should welcome the stranger, fight for the least of us … he would be maligned as a radical and rejected from these doors.”
SNIP----

While the interplay of religion and politics is often hard to calculate, we know that 71% of both Democrats and Independents identify with a religious tradition. Leaving God talk to the GOP has left religious people with only one voice in their ears, which even Hillary Clinton lamented after the 2016 election.

Republicans clearly recognize the strength of the religious appeal. That’s why they’re attacking Warnock’s faith. It’s a classic “attack the strength” political approach, mastered by operative Karl Rove, who is working for the GOP in the Georgia senate runoffs.

Warnock’s opponent Kelly Loeffler and the GOP have released a series of sermon snippets that attempt to paint the successor to King in the worst light possible. One was an attempt to portray Warnock as anti-military. But his point, “America, nobody can serve God and the military,” comes straight from the Gospel of Matthew. Another was portrayed as divisive even though the idea that “America needs to repent for its worship of whiteness” reflects the growing awareness in American churches of the need to confront White supremacy.

The attacks on a prominent Black pastor who champions social justice aren’t surprising. “Martin Luther King Jr, who was lauded and applauded right now, in his last years, was one of the most hated men in this country,” the Rev. Dr. Freddie Haynes, senior pastor of Friendship West Baptist Church in Dallas, told Politico.
[link:https://www.theatlantavoice.com/articles/op-ed-why-the-gop-is-so-rattled-by-rev-warnocks-faith-based-georgia-senate-campaign/|

November 27, 2020

It is God's will, God uses flawed people- The evangelical meltdown over Trump loss is contradicting

what they have said in the past about their reasons for supporting Trump. Great analysis at the end of the video clips re: God's omnipotence. You can't have it both ways. You said Trump's presidency was God's will. Did God not exercise his will in this election?
You said God uses flawed people to convey his message, that was the reasoning for getting behind trump. If that's the case, since you see Biden as flawed. So wouldn't the same hold true? God using another flawed person to convey his message?

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November 26, 2020

Social Media's Liability Shield Is Under Assault

Social Media’s Liability Shield Is Under Assault

There is growing pressure to revise Section 230 to make internet businesses more accountable for online content

WASHINGTON—The law that enabled the rise of social media and other internet businesses is facing threats unlike anything in its 24-year history, with potentially significant consequences for websites that host user content.

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act was instrumental to the success of Silicon Valley tech giants such as Facebook Inc., Twitter Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google and YouTube by giving them broad immunity for the content they publish from users on their sites.

There is a growing consensus in Washington and elsewhere that Section 230 needs an overhaul, even as liberals and conservatives disagree on the reasons why.


SNIP-----
Congress enacted Section 230 in 1996, during the internet’s adolescence. Courts had held early online services liable when they tried to moderate posts, similar to a newspaper’s liability for what it decides to publish. Lawmakers overrode those court decisions to encourage websites to be Good Samaritans and remove objectionable content.

Revisions to Section 230 could come from multiple directions. Congress could rewrite it. Regulators could try to reinterpret it. The Supreme Court has never weighed in on Section 230, and at least one member of its conservative majority has signaled it may be time to do so.

[link:https://www.wsj.com/articles/social-medias-liability-shield-is-under-assault-11606402800?st=u3yp57ertvwuo4t&reflink=article_copyURL_share|

November 26, 2020

Trump's last min policy changes includes bringing back execution by firing squad

Who would they hire to do this? The Proud Boys? Thankful on this day, we will have a new president on Jan 20th

[link:https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-races-to-weaken-environmental-and-worker-protections-and-implement-other-last-minute-policies-before-jan-20|


One proposal has raced through the process with little notice but unusual speed — and deadly consequences. This rule could reintroduce firing squads and electrocutions for federal executions, giving the government more options for administering capital punishment as drugs used in lethal injections become unavailable. The Justice Department surfaced the proposal in August and accepted public comments for only 30 days, instead of the usual 60. The rule cleared White House review on Nov. 6, meaning it could be finalized any day. The Justice Department didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Once finalized, this rule might never be put into practice. The Trump administration executed a federal prisoner in Indiana on Nov. 19 and plans five more executions before Jan. 20, all with lethal injections. After that, Biden has signaled he won’t allow any federal executions and will push to eliminate capital punishment for federal crimes.

November 26, 2020

American pride has been perverted to fuel the anti-mask movement

This is from a high school paper, Gives you some relief, that the kids will be alright

American pride has been perverted to fuel the anti-mask movement

SNIP----
Many Americans have displayed anti-mask sentiment and have created forums and organized protests to voice out their opposition towards wearing masks, and the very existence of their activism and what it is founded upon is baffling. In most of the reported incidents with these protesters, their argument against masks always goes back to their identity of being American citizens.

Since the time of its founding, Americans have always felt deep pride in the fact that their country fought to establish and keep the many kinds of freedom that it gave to its citizens.
This emphasis on freedom has left some people feeling entitled to having a choice on mandates that are meant to protect citizens, such as wearing masks during a pandemic. Any sentiment that tells them otherwise is seen as oppressive and communistic.

Anti-mask activists believe that wearing a mask infringes on their bodily autonomy, and one of the outcries that could be heard during protests is “My body, my choice”, which is a feminist slogan used to advocate for bodily autonomy and women’s reproductive rights.

It is pitiful that some people equate the harmless measure of wearing personal protective equipment to prevent the spread of a disease with the fight for gender equality.
SNIP-----


America was founded on the principle of human rights and individual freedoms: the right to free speech, the right to practice any religion (or no religion), the right to have a fair and speedy trial, the right to protest and assemble. These are rights that benefit all individual Americans.
Nowhere in the Constitution of the United States of America does it say that wearing a mask to prevent people from catching a virus and potentially dying is forbidden. What would the Founding Fathers think if they saw Karens appropriating the foundational idea of America for their own agenda?

[link:https://www.thecalifornianpaper.com/2020/10/american-pride-has-been-perverted-to-fuel-the-anti-mask-movement/|

November 23, 2020

Steve King's Ignorant Tweet reminded me of this: How The British Reinvented Slavery

It's almost an hour long. But really informative. I was born in Jamaica. The way I learned the history of " Coolies" in Jamaica when I was younger, was that they came as indentured servants after slavery was abolished in Jamaica. Admittedly, I was a child at the time. At the time I thought it was always voluntary and life was great. When I got older, and more curious about things. I learned differently.


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Here's an article that talks about it if you can't bear to sit for an hour

Britain and Australia's hidden history of Indian slavery

by Vinil Kumar
17 June 2020
Indian indentured slavery should be remembered as one of British and Australian capitalism’s historical atrocities. The indenture system, as it is commonly called, existed between 1834 and 1920, during which time about 2 million Indians were transported to 19 colonies across the British empire, and to some French and Dutch territories. More than 400,000 were taken to both Mauritius and Malaysia, 240,000 to what was then British Guiana, 150,000 to Natal (now part of South Africa), 145,000 to Trinidad and Tobago and more than 60,000 to Fiji. The mass displacement created a substantial diaspora, with Indian migrants and their descendants approaching half the population in some countries.

By the turn of the 19th century, the international slave trade had become less central to British capitalism. The Haitian revolution, a mass uprising of slaves against French colonialism, showed the threat slavery could pose to colonial rule. There were mounting calls for the trade to be banned, which Britain and the United States did in 1807. The abolition of slavery across the British empire followed in 1833. But abolition created a shortage of cheap labour for the sugar plantations of the British Caribbean and other developing colonies across the empire. Without a new supply, the profits of these plantations and the sugar industry were in jeopardy. Among the profiteers was the Australian-based Colonial Sugar Refining Company (CSR), which had to find cheap labour for the Fijian sugarcane fields it would come to dominate.

“Indenture” was an attempt to quench this thirst for labour while tiptoeing around the new legal restrictions on slavery. The system was based on an agreement (girmit), which each labourer would enter into for five years. They would leave India to work for a small wage for an employer. When the contract expired, they could return home at their own expense, or extend their indenture for a further five years, after which they would be granted free return passage for themselves and their immediate family.

The British plunder of India had left vast regions impoverished and famine-struck for decades. Young men (and some women) from these areas were approached by local recruiters offering work and the promise of fortune. They were taken to local recruitment depots for medical checks and to finalise a written agreement. Calcutta and Madras (Kolkata and Chennai) became the main departure ports.
The seemingly consensual and paid nature of indenture allowed the British government and many historians subsequently to argue that the system was nothing like slavery. Reality tells a different story. The low regard for Indian indentured labourers was reflected by the derogatory term “coolies”, which was associated with the Urdu word “kuli”, meaning slave. Deception was rife in recruitment. Thumbprints were used to sign agreements because many couldn’t read or write. Historian Brij Lal recounts the complaints during a 1907 strike at CSR’s Labasa plantation in Fiji. Khani Zeman, one of the labourers, insisted that he was illiterate at the time of recruitment. “Nor did we even put our thumb-marks to any paper”, nor had any agreement been read to him, he said.

[link:https://redflag.org.au/node/7231|

November 22, 2020

Rafael Warnock's New Ad: Law Enforcement in Support of Warnock

[link:https://twitter.com/JacobRubashkin/status/1330283159880146944|

November 22, 2020

Custody battle in the age of Covid

My sister and her ex have been fighting over custody of my niece since they separated earlier this year. I won't say what I think about him. I'll just leave it as, mom always said when you have nothing nice to say then zip it. In any event, my sister allowed him to take my niece for the weekend. I face timed my niece today, and to my horror he had taken her to a football game with his new family and none of them were wearing masks. My niece has asthma.
I immediately called my sister after I got off the phone with my niece to let her know
and she tells me that its something that they have been fighting about, how he parents now that they are no longer together.

IMO, this should be non negotiable. He's already told me I am not her parent so I don't get a say so. It won't stop me from telling him how irresponsible he is when I see him though. Its bad enough he took her out to a crowded place, but even worse to not put a mask on her, and even worse to tell her she didn't need a mask because she was outdoors. When I asked her, where's your mask, that's exactly what she said, I don't need one, I'm outside. Ridiculous! They were surrounded by a lot of other people and they sure as hell were not 6 feet apart. My niece knows better, she reminds me we need to put our masks on when she's with me. I was really annoyed that her father was feeding her disinformation.


Here is a recent article on this issue

][link:https://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/broward/fl-ne-covid-family-court-order-20201001-dt65cwe3nrex5ltjwnjkh3ggqu-story.html|

November 21, 2020

The Mooch was on tv, he said trump is creating havoc because he wants a deal to not get prosecuted

in NY. He said trump knows all the trouble he's in and is going to create as much havoc in hopes that he gets a deal to leave and not get prosecuted. He said things will probably get much worse. Whatever horrible thing you can think of, its going to be much worse.

Well, now for the good news. He doesn't think trump will run again. He thinks the Republican Party will move on from trump when he gets prosecuted and the evidence starts coming out. He doubts they will want to associate themselves with him when all the fraud he's guilty of starts to come out.