President Biden: The NEW one and only politics thread

I guess I'll drop this here, although y'all may already be chewing on it up in one of the journalism forums. The Missouri governor completely showed his ignorance (and his ass) by releasing a stupendously stupid Tweet string attacking a journalist who reported that metadata in hdml browser code was exposing information that should be protected. It's a classic case of kill (or prosecute) the messenger.

Missouri governor threatens legal action against journalist who found flaw that exposed Social Security numbers - CNN


Missouri governor accuses journalist who warned state about cybersecurity flaw of criminal ‘hacking’

https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2021/10/14/mike-parson-st-louis-post-dispatch-hacker/

Tweet string here, with abundant comments to the effect of "Your people published teacher's social security numbers for anyone to see, and you're blaming the guy who warned you so that it could be fixed!" and "You're a completely computer illiterate moron!".

The "hack" was a right click to reveal html code.

 

So John Deere replaced striking factory workers with salaried employees...

 

“The settlement talks intensified only after U.S. District Judge Randy Moss”
Well, at least we know where he ended up after a pretty good nfl career.

 

Babbitt shooting internal police docs reveal 'no good reason for shooting,' according to Judicial Watch

I'm pretty sure so such report exists or Judicial Watch is deliberately misinterpreting it.

Whether or not Babbitt was armed or as an individual posed a threat is irrelevant. She was part of a mob that wanted to kill people. If she got through, the mob would have gotten through and they would have killed people. I can say that with 100 percent certainty.

 

Jake from State Farm posted a link two pages back about historian and professor Heather Cox Richardson, who I had never heard of before. (Thanks, Jake) I followed her on Facebook. Here are some excerpts from her daily blog/newsletter for today. She's well worth a follow.

"Today Stephen K. Bannon, a one-time adviser to former president Trump, was supposed to testify before the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Yesterday, Bannon’s lawyer sent a letter to committee chair Representative Bennie G. Thompson (D-MS) saying that Bannon would neither produce documents nor testify because “President Trump”—not former president Trump—“is exercising his executive privilege; therefore, he has directed Mr. Bannon not to produce documents until the issue of executive privilege is resolved.”

This is a weird argument. Bannon was not, in fact, employed by the White House at the time of the January 6 insurrection, there is no executive privilege for a former president, the events of January 6 were not part of the duties of the president, and the current president, Democrat Joe Biden, has waived executive privilege in this case."

"The former president promptly issued a statement complaining that the committee was considering criminal contempt, but the statement felt weak and repetitive—rather as if he was just going through the motions—and, ominously for Bannon, didn’t mention his former friend by name. "

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This should be fun.

"Today, a judge ruled that the former president has to appear for a videotaped deposition in a lawsuit in which Mexican protesters said they were attacked in 2015 outside Trump Tower in New York as they protested against his slurs against Mexican immigrants. “Donald J. Trump shall appear for a deposition October 18, 2021 at 10 a.m. ... or, in the event of illness or emergency, on another mutually agreed to date on or before October 31, 2021,” Judge Doris Gonzalez's order said."

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"For all the other legal news in the media today, the former president seemed to focus his wrath on news from Arizona. His spokesperson hammered on the idea—now thoroughly debunked—that the vote in that county was suspicious.

But on that front, too, judges had something to say. The Arizona Senate had argued that they had the right to withhold records with information about their “audit” of the votes in that county because those records involved deliberations about the process, but today the Superior Court of Maricopa County ruled that the public’s interest in transparency trumped any argument for secrecy and that they must produce the records."

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"Trump loyalists are suddenly focusing on the supply chain delays that they say will ruin Christmas. Ohio Representative Jim Jordan tweeted today that Christmas presents were never late when Trump was in charge, leading Princeton historian Kevin Kruse to accompany Jordan’s tweet with a post of a CBS headline from December 24 of last year, saying “More than one million packages will not reach their destinations this Christmas.” Journalist Aaron Rupar, who writes the newsletter Public Notice, pointed out today that Christmas has been mentioned at least 106 times on the Fox News Channel since yesterday morning, not including reruns."

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Here's a link to the article Jake put up if you missed it. Like I said, she's worth a follow. Turns out I was already following her on Twitter, I just added FB.

Facebook's Historian: Professor Heather Cox Richardson — The Heights

 

I hope Heather turns her FB postings into a history book for our times

 

They didn't have a Trump toady in charge of the post office, too.

 

Jim Jordan reminds me of that one guy in every church who inevitably says something very stupid with 100% conviction that is always followed by a low murmured buzz of people patting their partners' knees and saying, "Let it go. He can't help it."

 

Sure there was.

"Ohio Representative Jim Jordan tweeted today that Christmas presents were never late when Trump was in charge, leading Princeton historian Kevin Kruse to accompany Jordan’s tweet with a post of a CBS headline from December 24 of last year, saying “More than one million packages will not reach their destinations this Christmas.”

 

This is kind of a re-run, but I think it's quite simple. Dating back to the mid-1990's, right-wing orthodoxy has held that government is not just incompetent, but a coherent malevolent entity that is conspiring against its own citizens, in many cases on a spiritual level. And then after bureaucrats restrict their movements for 6-12 months, more bureaucrats are attempting to coerce them into putting something into their bodies. I mean, Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHaye couldn't have written that better.