Sock it to him, sock it to him!
Category: Government
Republican alumni support Biden
A group of former George W. Bush administration and campaign officials has launched a new super PAC to mobilize disaffected Republican voters for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.
The group, launched…under the name “43 Alumni for Biden,” “seeks to unite and mobilize a community of historically Republican voters who are dismayed and disappointed by the damage done to our nation by Donald Trump’s presidency,” according to a release. The formation of the group is the latest example of efforts being made by anti-Trump Republicans to defeat the President in November.
Karen Kirksey, the director of the committee and who worked on the Bush 2000 election campaign and in the Labor and Agriculture Departments, said the endorsement of Biden is “not necessarily in full support of his political agenda but rather in full agreement with the urgent need to restore the soul of this nation.”
Welcome aboard, folks. “Better late than never” is an acceptable excuse at election time. I guess.
Thanks, Governor Michelle –
Have to admit it’s nice having a politician sitting in the governor’s mansion with sufficient brains to overcome the sillyass tendencies of most of that breed here in USA, USA.
Regulations based on science, medical expertise, have been in place here in New Mexico since the beginning of this pandemic. A little bit of easing showed up when it looked as if it might be OK – quickly slowed when it became clear that petit bourgeois fools like Trump and his ilk were condemning this nation to hundreds and thousands of unnecessary deaths.
They won’t be prosecuted for murder. They should!
Another Flunky Takes Over Another Agency
Thank you for the radio handbook translated into English.
The man appointed by Donald Trump to head the US global media agency that oversees Voice of America and other state-funded broadcasters has carried out a purge of career officials at the top levels of the organisation and installed Trump loyalists.
The action by Michael Pack appeared to confirm fears that Trump wanted to turn the US Agency for Global Media into a loyal state broadcaster of the kind normally found in authoritarian societies.
Pack, a conservative film-maker and ally of right-wing ideologue Stephen Bannon, fired the heads of Middle East Broadcasting, Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and the Open Technology Fund according to CNN, which quoted an official as calling the dismissals the “Wednesday night massacre”. The head of VOA resigned after Pack won Senate confirmation.
Pack has installed Emily Newman, a former adviser to the Department of Homeland Security, as the new chief of staff, according to CNBC.
Newman issued an all-staff memo announcing the new hierarchy and telling them: “Until further notice, no actions are to be taken, and no external communications are to be made, without explicit approval” of the new executives.
Trumpo will borrow “experts” from his buddy Vlad to help rearrange priorities for the new Voice of Fearless Leader.
Judge rules Devin Nunes can’t sue Twitter over statements by fake cow
That has to be the headline of the week!
Mother Jones
A judge has ruled that Rep. Devin Nunes has no right to sue Twitter over statements made by a fake Internet cow, someone parodying his mother and a Republican strategist.
Judge John Marshall said in a decision Friday that Twitter was “immune from the defamation claims of” Nunes, R-Tulare, due to federal law that says social media companies are not liable for what people post on their platforms…
Nunes “seeks to have the court treat Twitter as the publisher or speaker of the content provided by others based on its allowing or not allowing certain content to be on its internet platform,” Marshall wrote. “The court refuses to do so…”
Absolutely hilarious. A pleasure to see this happen to Congress’ creepiest version of what passes for a Republican conservative, nowadays.
Covid-19 infection rate growing
Click to enlarge
In early June, the infection rate of Covid-19 testing had fallen way below 5%. Thanks to the combination of social distancing, sheltering in place, mask usage, and contact tracing we had lowered the number of daily new cases to their lowest level since early in the pandemic. Looks like June 10 was the low, with a 7-day moving average of 17,123 new positive tests out of 419,896 administered tests.
As you can see, that average is turning up. What has changed has been the move out of our self-quarantines. We lost focus, got lazy, politically weaponized Covid. We ignored Fauci, dammit! Protesters were greeted with tear gas — a great way to spread infectious respiratory diseases. And we have re-opened states that have not been following CDC guidelines.
The data reveals this simple fact: The increase in Covid-19 cases in the USA is NOT caused by an increase in testing…
Guidelines from WHO suggests countries with extensive testing for COVID-19, should remain at 5% or lower for at least 14 days. Looks like we are coming up on that date. Don’t be surprised when the E.U. Bars American Travelers as It Reopens Borders, Citing Failures on Virus – because we suck at this.
Barry doesn’t mince words. Although I would add to his commentary on practices in general – Don’t forget our government is providing shit-for-brains leadership. It’s what can happen when you let anachronistic regulations take precedence over democracy in elections.
Conservative Creeps try once again to ban end-to-end encryption
Most overused tent-peg mallet in Congress
A group of Republican senators are making yet another attempt to ban end-to-end encryption in messaging services, which would make illegal Apple’s Messages and FaceTime services, as well as a wide range of other message apps like WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram.
No surprise, either, that they are again demonstrating that they don’t understand how end-to-end encryption works…
“Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham…and U.S. Senators Tom Cotton…and Marsha Blackburn…introduced the Lawful Access to Encrypted Data Act, a bill to bolster national security interests and better protect communities across the country by ending the use of “warrant-proof” encrypted technology by terrorists and other bad actors to conceal illicit behavior…”
Service providers – don’t provide access to end-to-end encrypted messages because they can’t. That is, literally, the whole point of end-to-end encryption: it protects privacy by ensuring that only the parties involved in the communication can decrypt the contents…
I wonder sometimes why these idjits haven’t gotten round to attempting to ban, say, flashlights or even more new-fangled tech, like cameras. They can all be used by someone, somehow, to break laws.
Trump tells press he’d slow coronavirus testing. Never had the balls to tell Fauci!
At a hearing Tuesday on Capitol Hill, Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health and other federal officials said that no one had told them — including President Trump — to slow down testing for the coronavirus. The statements came after Trump has repeatedly said that more testing would lead to more infections being revealed…
Trump has been much criticized for his handling of the coronavirus outbreak. The U.S. has the largest number of confirmed cases in the world — more than 2.3 million — as well as the most deaths — about 120,000. The daily number of people dying with COVID-19 has declined in recent weeks, but the number of cases is rising in many parts of the country…
Later in the testimony, Rep. Jerry McNerney, D-Calif., asked Fauci and Redfield whether they had been consulted about Trump’s decision to withdraw the U.S. from the World Health Organization. Fauci and Redfield said they had not been directly consulted, but that they keep working with the agency on health matters.
“The CDC has a long history of working with WHO. We continue that collaboration,” Redfield said. “We continue working at the technical scientist-to-scientist level.”…
Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., raised the issue of how the virus has disproportionately endangered African Americans and other minorities…
“Obviously, the African American community has suffered from racism for a very, very long period of time,” Fauci said. “And I cannot imagine that that has not contributed to the conditions that they find themselves in, economically and otherwise. So the answer, congressman, is yes.”
The hearing was interesting, useful. I always get a chuckle over the number of times Trumpo blathers out talking points aimed at the lower lifeforms who automagically vote for him. And, then, an enterprising newsperson checks up and verifies that the Trumpet hasn’t done a damned thing.
Not that he hasn’t instituted the most evil destruction of law and progress in American history. He just can’t stop lying.
80% of Covid-19 cases in the US went undetected in March
A new study suggests that as many as 8.7 million Americans came down with coronavirus in March, but more than 80% of them were never diagnosed…
A team of researchers looked at the number of people who went to doctors or clinics with influenza-like illnesses that were never diagnosed as coronavirus, influenza or any of the other viruses that usually circulate in winter.
There was a giant spike in these cases in March, the researchers reported in the journal Science Translational Medicine…
The researchers could not count every single case, so they ran a series of calculations to make sure their data fit in with what’s known about state populations and about the annual flu epidemic, as well as with the hard data that was collected from actual testing of coronavirus patients. They also took into account growing evidence that people started avoiding hospitals, clinics and doctor’s offices once it was clear there was a pandemic, and after pandemic lockdowns started.
Just one more failure in transparency, information-gathering and honesty that will keep political historians busy cranking out analyses and reports for decades — telling the tale of the worst president in American history.
Our politicians say TikTok could be a “national security threat”. Best possible recommendation!
If the creeps and cretins in Congress fear TikTok, it must be doing something right…
Stop them! They’re looking at me…
TikTok, the viral short video app where millions of teens post comedy skits set to snappy music hooks, is facing a growing backlash in the United States.
US lawmakers on both sides of the aisle warn that the app could pose a national security risk, and are calling on regulators and intelligence agencies to investigate TikTok’s ties to China…
And they’re scared shitless of parody!
The app was downloaded 177 million times last quarter…the second most downloaded app worldwide…It also made $40 million in revenue on the iOS App store last quarter, and has amassed about 100 million users in the United States…
TikTok said in a statement that it stores all US user data in the United States and backs it up in Singapore.
“Our data centers are located entirely outside of China, and none of our data is subject to Chinese law,” the company said in a statement Friday. “Further, we have a dedicated technical team focused on adhering to robust cybersecurity policies, and data privacy and security practices.”
Our Congressional dorks would be laughable if they didn’t have the power they do. Incompetents, brains wrapped in 19th Century DNA, cowardice governed by corruption does not engender respect.
