The GQP: Trumpist Death Cult

Francisco 2.0 · April 16, 2021

Everything old is new again.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/04/arkansas-representatives-passes-a-bill-to-allow-creationism-in-schools/

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Last week, the Arkansas state House of Representatives passed a bill that would amend state education law to allow teachers in public schools to teach creationism as "a theory of how the earth came to exist." As it stands, the act promotes blatantly unconstitutional behavior as made clear by a precedent set in a 1982 case involving the Arkansas Board of Education. Despite that, the bill passed 72-21, and it already has a sponsor in the state Senate.

The body of the bill is mercifully short, consisting of two sentence-long amendments to the existing Arkansas code:

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A teacher of a kindergarten through grade twelve (K-12) science class at a public school or open-enrollment public charter school may teach creationism as a theory of how the earth came to exist.

This section is permissive and does not require a teacher to teach creationism as a theory of the earth came to exist.

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But those two sentences are enough to land teachers and their local school system in a world of trouble, in that the permission given runs afoul of a lot of legal precedent. In a key case that involved Arkansas itself, McLean V. Arkansas Board of Education, a group of plaintiffs banded together to challenge a state law that mandated the teaching of "creation science" in public schools. The judge in that case correctly recognized that creation science was actually religious in nature, and it therefore violated the constitution's prohibition against the establishment of state religion.

Spoiler

That ruling wasn't appealed, meaning the legal precedent only applied to Arkansas. But later in that same decade, a similar case from Louisiana made it to the Supreme Court, and it reached the same conclusion. The prohibition against creation science has applied nationally since.

These precedents only apply to the teaching of creationism as science; there are other contexts, like a comparative religion class, where it might be appropriate to teach this idea. But the bill's use of "theory" clearly indicates that it's intended to insert the concept into science classes.

While the state might end up being sued if this law passes, it's just as likely that a teacher in Arkansas will exercise this permission and the suit will end up targeting the teacher and the school board they work for. If the local school board loses (which it would), there is a good probability that it would end up liable for the legal fees of whoever sues. Thus, the legislation serves as an invitation for local school districts throughout the state to rack up enormous legal bills.

Although the legal history of creationism in schools is available to anyone with a working Internet connection, the bill passed with 72 representatives, all Republicans, voting in favor. Of the chamber's 22 Democrats, 21 voted against it, and one other didn't vote.

It's not clear whether these legislators are simply unaware of the legal precedents or if they are simply using this bill as an opportunity to signal their cultural affiliations. We've contacted its two sponsors to find out. As of publication time, neither had responded.

RDCanecutter · April 16, 2021

8 hours ago, Mrs Whiggins said:

Is anyone it is surprised it's Florida?

No?

So, when you have a child who needs a genital inspection to determine the gender, which gender is the adult? (It's actually the child's health care provider, but wow, talk about making something private, public). I don't care how many trans children there are, one child subjected to this type of harassment is one child too many.

They just need the entire stinky 8th grade boys' class to declare they are girls so some bastard will have to inspect and smell their unwashed nads.

mchookem · April 16, 2021

5 hours ago, Beau Vine said:

Just perfect:

Mrs Whiggins · April 17, 2021

2 hours ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

Everything old is new again.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/04/arkansas-representatives-passes-a-bill-to-allow-creationism-in-schools/

Hide contents

That ruling wasn't appealed, meaning the legal precedent only applied to Arkansas. But later in that same decade, a similar case from Louisiana made it to the Supreme Court, and it reached the same conclusion. The prohibition against creation science has applied nationally since.

These precedents only apply to the teaching of creationism as science; there are other contexts, like a comparative religion class, where it might be appropriate to teach this idea. But the bill's use of "theory" clearly indicates that it's intended to insert the concept into science classes.

While the state might end up being sued if this law passes, it's just as likely that a teacher in Arkansas will exercise this permission and the suit will end up targeting the teacher and the school board they work for. If the local school board loses (which it would), there is a good probability that it would end up liable for the legal fees of whoever sues. Thus, the legislation serves as an invitation for local school districts throughout the state to rack up enormous legal bills.

Although the legal history of creationism in schools is available to anyone with a working Internet connection, the bill passed with 72 representatives, all Republicans, voting in favor. Of the chamber's 22 Democrats, 21 voted against it, and one other didn't vote.

It's not clear whether these legislators are simply unaware of the legal precedents or if they are simply using this bill as an opportunity to signal their cultural affiliations. We've contacted its two sponsors to find out. As of publication time, neither had responded.

When this bill was first proposed, it was along with the anti-transgender bill, and I posted something about how it was going to be insane because it sets teachers and students and parents into a bad bad flow chart of stupidity. Looks like their legislature thinks there's nothing wrong with that. Totally not surprised, however.

tx 3 putt · April 17, 2021

12 hours ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

Launching a website for the MAGA folk is hard work.

https://www.newsweek.com/mike-lindell-telegram-fans-confused-social-media-frank-vip-access-fails-launch-1584138?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1618574158

Reveal hidden contents

The reason for the apparent delay was not immediately clear. Lindell was contacted for clarification by Newsweek on Friday, sent via the official MyPillow press email.

In recent weeks, Lindell had promoted the platform as a free speech hybrid of Twitter and YouTube, claiming that it may eventually boast hundreds of thousands of users. He claimed dedicated servers meant it would be resistant to takedown attempts.

While it was pitched as a free speech website, Lindell said swearing, adult content and taking "God's name in vain" would be against the rules of the platform.

Some Telegram fans who sent their phone numbers to the placeholder website's form reported receiving error codes, or no codes at all. Some suggested there may have been a timezone mixup with the launch. Others noted they were waiting patiently.

One user, Shirley James, complained that the rollout did not happen as planned, writing in a comment section under Lindell's latest post: "I'm not feeling very VIPish."

Another Telegram user, Lisa Perez, added: "Well, it did not launch at midnight for us VIP like it was supposed to. Or did I miss something. Midnight their time is 2 a.m. here, I waited for it and nothing." While user Frank Combs voiced a theory: "I just thought of something everybody, instead of midnight tonight, maybe Mike meant noon?"

Lindell, who was banned from Twitter in late January for repeatedly spreading election misinformation, said in an interview on Steve Bannon's War Room podcast on Thursday that it would likely go live "sometime on Friday," without elaborating.

A disclaimer on the platform's domain, FrankSpeech, warned that people who submit numbers more than once may be blocked—a measure to prevent an influx of spam. The full social network is planned to go live for the public on April 19, Lindell claimed.

that site is all about 'free speech' !!!!!!!!

well, except for : https://www.theguardian.com/global/2021/apr/16/mike-lindell-app-frank-free-speech-mypillow-guy

Beau Vine · April 17, 2021

Walden Ponderer · April 17, 2021

You'd think we'd elected Caligula the way these morons talk. Oh, wait, we did. We just kicked his ass out of office in January, too...

Mrs Whiggins · April 17, 2021

The announcer tying that rebellion to God is concerning. The Y'all Qaida element does not need encouragement to start terrorizing people and the RW media thinks it's all great (because they are safe in the studio). IIRC, few of these RW media ever attend active protests but just buy video from other sources.

To clarify, the video above was a social event, but the crazy element is looking for excuses to act out and I wonder how often this rhetoric is 'innocently' placed in commentary.

Edited April 17, 2021 by Mrs Whiggins

Francisco 2.0 · April 17, 2021

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/04/15/republican-party-big-business-georgia-voting-rights-conservative-481978

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When a marriage falls apart, the fights are never really about what they appear to be. Another late night at the office isn’t about the workload; it’s a statement about your priorities. Anger over the takeout order isn’t about the food; it’s about the fact that you don’t understand what your spouse actually likes.

So it is with the crumbling, century-long marriage of the Republican Party and the business community.

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The recent spat between leading Republicans and major corporations like Delta, Coca-Cola and Major League Baseball criticizing Georgia’s restrictive new voting law isn’t just about voting rights; it’s the sign of a deeper breakup that has been years in the making. For anyone confused about how Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell could admonish big companies to “stay out of politics,” after building a career on corporate donations and business-friendly policies, this deeper breakup tells the story.

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Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a legendary business professor and associate dean at the Yale School of Management, has watched this split grow in recent years, and has heard it from CEOs he knows and works with. What the GOP cares about and what major businesses care about are, increasingly incompatible, he says.

“The political desire to use wedge issues to divide—which used to be fringe in the GOP—has become mainstream,” Sonnenfeld says. “That is 100 percent at variance with what the business community wants. And that is a million times more important to them than how many dollars of taxes are paid here or there.”

Spoiler

Over the weekend, Sonnenfeld hastily organized a Zoom conference with roughly 100 major corporate executives to talk through the voter restrictions being considered by state legislatures throughout the country, and about the way top Republicans like McConnell and Ted Cruz are responding with attacks on businesses that speak up in opposition.

Most of the CEOs on the call were Republicans; Sonnenfeld himself has been an informal adviser to Republican and Democratic presidents, but he has a longstanding relationship with McConnell, and spoke at the senator’s wedding to Elaine Chao. The CEOs “ranged from amused to outraged” in their reaction to the GOP attacks on businesses, says Sonnenfeld. “Their comments ranged from talk about ‘taxation without representation’ to the paradox of ‘cancel culture’: It’s OK if they speak out, but only as long as they stay on script?”

As the GOP tries to position itself as the home of “working-class values,” capturing loyalty with a steady campaign against the perceived excesses of progressive culture, it’s running afoul of a business community that can’t simply silo off “culture war” topics. In the eyes of major corporations, issues like voting rights, immigration and transgender-inclusive restrooms have economic impact, too. The millions of people alienated by those fights aren’t just their future customers, many of whom expect to support brands they believe in, they’re the companies’ employees.

“The bad news for Republicans is that they seem to have a 1920s view of who Big Business’ workforce is,” says Sonnenfeld. “That workforce is, at a minimum, highly diverse—and they get along. Trying to stir that up is misguided.”

The new Republican penchant for mocking corporations for being too socially aware—for instance, Sen. Ted Cruz’s Twitter threat to use the power of the state to harm Major League Baseball’s business, signing the message off with “go woke, go broke”—fundamentally misunderstands what matters to business in the 21st century, says Sonnenfeld. “Basically, business leaders believe that it’s in the interest of society to have social harmony. ... Divisiveness in society is not in their interest, short term or long term.”

If the marriage between the Republican Party and the business community is on the rocks, what does that mean for politics? What do we misunderstand about what really matters to CEOs? And why aren’t business executives more afraid of boycott threats from the right?

For answers to all of that and more, POLITICO Magazine spoke with Sonnenfeld this week. A condensed transcript of that conversation follows, edited for length and clarity.

In the last couple of weeks, we've seen major business come out in strong opposition to changes to election law in Georgia and other states. Over the weekend, you helped organize a phone call with around 100 corporate leaders to discuss it all. Tell me about that.

Yes. As anxiety was rising, I invited 120 CEOs on 48 hours’ notice. I thought that if I was lucky—on such short notice, and on a Saturday competing with the Masters [golf tournament]—we’d get maybe 10 to show up, thanks to my personal relationships. But 90 actual CEOs and business leaders showed up, and 120 people were on the call, including the various election and legal experts.

There were some who are interested in trying to find out what happened in Georgia. There was an explanation by the Georgia business leaders of how, in fact, they were working assiduously backstage [on the Republican bills to overhaul election laws in the state] and thought they’d taken out 95 percent of the bad stuff. It turned out they'd gotten 80 percent out; they didn’t realize that left in there was the [legislature having the ability to suspend] county officials who are elected to be in charge of voting. As was pointed out, the Carter Center in Atlanta certifies elections around the world as being democratic or undemocratic on just that basis; they have poll watchers around the world to prevent this kind of thing.

But Georgia was not the focus; that was just the warning shot. The volley over the bow is that we had business leaders from Texas saying, “You don’t know what bad is,” and looking at this spread [of voting rights restrictions] to 47 state legislatures. Michael Waldman, the head of the Brennan Center, gave an analysis of how bad [the proposals are] in these different states.

This November, for the first time in American history, [major business leaders] worked to guarantee millions of workers paid time off to vote. We've never had that before—and that's a bypass around government, with its inability to make Election Day a national holiday. So they created their own workarounds. But on top of that, they were really proud that they managed to have—these particular companies—over a million workers with a full day off not only to vote, but to help fortify elderly voting-site volunteers who were at risk for Covid and [had to handle] the tidal wave of ballots. They did so much, and they were so proud that this was the largest, fairest, most secure election in U.S. history. And to have [the election] condemned [by Republicans] after the companies put so much into ensuring that, they're pretty upset.

What was the reaction among CEOs to all the recent criticism from Republicans?

Well, they ranged from amused to outraged. Their comments ranged from talk about “taxation without representation” to the paradox of “cancel culture”: It’s OK if they speak out, but only as long as they stay on script?

I think the clarion call that actually got this ridiculously high participation rate on such short notice was, in fact, Senator Mitch McConnell’s paradoxical call to action for CEOs. [Last week, McConnell gave a speech in which he told corporations to “stay out of politics,” with the caveat that he did not mean that they should stop making campaign contributions.]

Despite your extraordinary range of Washington contacts, I bet I’m the only person you’ve interviewed that actually spoke at Mitch McConnell’s wedding. Only three of us spoke: It was the ambassador to the People’s Republic of China, the ambassador to Taiwan, me—and maybe Elaine [Chao’s] father. I have a nice relationship with Mitch. I admire him, and I’m glad he walked back his statement. It missed the mark.

The CEOs were across the political spectrum. But one thing they were unified about was their right to have a voice, and the importance of fortifying each other when they get out in front on an issue.

It is kind of like 2017 after Charlottesville, when Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier spoke out against President Trump’s failure to condemn white supremacist hate groups and left Trump’s American Manufacturing Council. At first, the business community wasn’t sure if they were all going to leave [Trump’s various business advisory councils]. But some, like Dave Abney, the chairman of UPS, said Trump’s attack on the character of Ken Frazier [after Frazier resigned] was unjustified. And the Business Roundtable came out with a statement from more than 200 business leaders. They rallied around one another. That was remarkable. It was a clarifying moment, and they came out to make a unified statement—and that’s why we’re here right now.

Earlier you told me something that I can’t let pass by: You spoke at Mitch McConnell’s wedding?

Yeah. I’ve known them for a long time. And I’ve been friends with Elaine for some 40 years. [Pause] It’s never been mentioned anywhere before. I thought I owed you that. [Laughter]

I appreciate it. You mentioned this wide range of political beliefs among the business leaders on the call. I imagine that many of those CEOs are somewhat conservative. Are they alienated from the GOP? How would you characterize their politics right now?

Yes, this group was about 70 percent Republican and easily 60 percent conservative, even if they are Democrats. It was a clear act of defiance just to be on the call. But that doesn’t mean that they all agree with each other on the different options available for corporate response.

What we're seeing right now from business leaders is sort of this gangly return to adolescence to say, “We're not going to be defined by the parentage of either political party.” Lord knows who misclassified very honorable, legitimate social democrats as “progressives.” Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, AOC—[it's] great what they do, but they’re social democrats; not “progressives.” Progressives—Teddy Roosevelt ran on that ticket. So did “Fighting Bob” LaFollette, a Republican senator [and 1924 Progressive Party presidential nominee], with Burton Wheeler, a Democratic senator, as his running mate. They were fighting for bridges and dams and immigration, for urban beautification, the settlement houses of Jane Addams, safe workplaces.

That’s what “progressivism” is and was. And that’s the theory [that animates] Joe Biden and Mayor Pete [Buttigieg] and Amy Klobuchar and maybe Mitt Romney. That’s who progressives are. And that’s where the business community is: They’re pretty much somewhere between Mitt Romney and Joe Biden.

Are there other issues where business leaders feel alienated from the GOP, or is it mainly around these questions of having a basic functioning democracy?

The business leaders, to a person, were trying to explain: They don’t like being politicians. They’re not public officials. But trying to create and fortify social harmony is absolutely directly in the strategic context of what CEOs do—although the Wall Street Journal editorial board [which has been critical of business leaders for speaking out against the Georgia law] doesn’t seem to understand that.

Since [Herbert] Hoover, the Republican Party has been identified as the party of Big Business. Well, the bad news for Republicans is that they seem to have a 1920s view of who Big Business’ workforce is. Whatever they have in mind when they think of “Joe Six-Pack,” the reality is really different. That workforce is, at a minimum, highly diverse — and they get along. Trying to stir that up [in a “culture war”] is misguided. The business community’s interests are not to be xenophobic. It’s not in their interests to be isolationist. It’s not in their interests to be protectionist. And the GOP, those haven’t been their positions, at least since the 1950s. But now they are.

Basically, business leaders believe that it’s in the interest of society to have social harmony. The CEOs really care about these issues. Divisiveness in society is not in their interest—short term or long term. They don’t want angry communities; they don’t want fractious, finger-pointing workforces; they don’t want hostile customers; they don’t want confused and angry shareholders.

The political desire to use wedge issues to divide—which used to be fringe in the GOP—has become mainstream. State by state, party has taken that path. That is 100 percent at variance with what the business community wants. And that is a million times more important to them than how many dollars of taxes are paid here or there.

If [corporate tax rates] go from 34 percent to 27 percent instead of 22 percent, they’re way less concerned about that. There’s too much focus on taxes. On taxes, what we’re seeing is, in fact, CEOs are willing to concede. There’s a lot of ground there. You’ll get anywhere from [JPMorgan Chase CEO] Jamie Dimon and Bill Gates to Jeff Bezos saying, “We'll give a couple of dollars on tax.”

They’re interested in free markets—whether or not that’s product markets, financial markets or labor markets. It’s about the image and reality of America: “Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses,” Emma Lazarus’ poem on the Statue of Liberty. That’s the spirit of it. But it’s also this: If the U.S. is not seen as a comfortable, attractive magnet for the world’s best talent, we’re in trouble. We don’t want all this technological expertise to be siphoned away to our trading partners, and that’s starting to happen.

[Business leaders] are upset about immigration policies. Around this time last year and into the summer, the universities were somewhat inept in their lobbying efforts [on the issue], and even the immigration attorneys were underperforming. They were kind of relying on the same K Street nomadic lobbyists who hop around from place to place, shun controversy, don’t want to create waves, who were kind of checking boxes but not having a meaningful impact. It was the business leaders, four major tech companies in particular, who went off to see Jared Kushner—and I know this point blank; I was in the middle of it, and this has not been out there, by the way—and say, “You can’t condemn us for outsourcing this work to China or India if we can’t bring these highly skilled workers here. We’re already now leasing space in Vancouver and Toronto, and we’re working on wiring the infrastructure so this will be on U.S. time zones. If we can’t get [these skilled workers] into the U.S., we’re still going to function as a North American company with the talent we need.”

They have different priorities [than the Republican Party seems to think]. They’re upset about the [anti-LGBTQ] “bathroom bills.” They’re upset about gun violence; hundreds of companies severed ties with the NRA or stopped dealing in semiautomatic weapons—from Walmart to Dick’s Sporting Goods. As we talk about “regulatory rollbacks” during the Trump administration, they were almost entirely EPA-directed; nobody was lobbying for that in corporate America. With the automakers, it became the entire industry fighting the [Trump-era] EPA, saying, “We like working with California. We think that in addition to what we’re doing with hybrids and [electric vehicles], we are pretty sure that we can get a 50-mile per gallon efficiency in the old-fashioned internal combustion engine. Don’t stop us.” So [Attorney General Bill] Barr was told to unleash the antitrust division to sue the auto industry for conspiring in [agreeing to stricter environmental standards]. It was ridiculous.

You’ve spent a lot of your time at Yale working with business leaders and studying how they think. I’m curious how a CEO makes the calculation of whether or not it makes sense to speak out about an issue. Can you walk me through that?

Yeah, there are five parts, really.

First, they have to know what is in the strategic interests of the business. As a steward of other people’s resources, they have to be mindful that it can’t just be their personal values alone—and when it is, then they have to be willing to put their job on the line, as Ken Frazier did at Merck [following Trump’s comments after Charlottesville].

Second: Is it a defining element of their brand? How does it reinforce their brand and their brand values? Google retreated from China because of invasions of privacy and theft of intellectual property. They drew a line in the sand about what their brand is. Frankly, Apple did not.

Third: If the issue itself is divisive, who else is involved and why? With these [anti-transgender] “bathroom bills,” the companies that led the charge against the euphemistic “religious freedom” acts in Arkansas, Indiana, North Carolina and Texas — amazingly — were AT&T, UPS and Doug McMillon [the CEO] of Walmart. They were out front. I mean, Patagonia was there, Howard Schultz of Starbucks was there, Nike was there, Tim Cook of Apple was there, but they joined later. It had such force because these were not considered political extremists or edgier companies; this was coming from the heartland. When companies like that get involved, it has an effect.

Fourth: Is the particular issue one where remaining silent is itself a stance? On many of these issues—such as voting access, or whether the president was elected in a truly honest election—there's no middle ground; it’s a dichotomous yes or no. Some companies waffle, trying not to make enemies. You can’t get away with that anymore. Your silence is acquiescence; it is a decision. You’re making a decision: Your silence is a decision. And when you recognize that, some of these issues are so salient and so critical that you have to take a position.

Fifth: We know from surveys that the CEO is the most trusted voice in society right now. That wasn’t the case [years ago]. Right now, both your line of work and my line of work have lost a step [in the public eye]. Elected officials at every level—city, county, state, federal—have all been knocked down a peg. Clergy? Lord knows their standing has suffered.

Whose standing has not only been steady, but actually, weirdly, gone up in all these polls that usually agree on very little else? Business leaders and military leaders. They are the most respected pillars in society—and the military can’t have a political voice, so [business leaders] realize they have to speak up. If they see a dangerous slide toward anti-democratic or tyrannical movements, they have to speak up, and it’s in their own self-interest.

And how do they consider the potential risks of coming out with a stance, like the potential for a boycott?

We’re seeing a courage for business leaders to speak out and not worry about being criticized as “woke” or as pressured. They have learned they can take courageous stands and maybe muscle their way through it. The blowback, they’ve learned to anticipate it. Boycotts? They have gotten through that. Some of them, like Nike, realized that they could wear it as a badge of honor.

When Matt Levatich of Harley-Davidson had to try to get product into Asia, because of retaliatory trade barriers that made it difficult to get Harley-Davidsons in Asia—this was Trump’s initiative—he had to shut down their plant in Kansas City. They still had one Racine, Wisconsin. They still had one York, Pennsylvania. But they had to shut this one down to create products inAsia for Asia. President Trump said, “Boycott Harley-Davidson.” My gosh. That’s like boycotting apple pie, baseball and Coca-Cola. I mean, the iconic symbol of Harley-Davidson is the American eagle, of all things. The president says not to buy Harley. Well, who is their only real pernicious competitor? It’s Hero Honda, which has a much larger market share worldwide. This is “Make America Great Again”?

Same thing with what Trump did with Goodyear tires: Goodyear has had a long-standing, decades-old policy of not allowing [employees to wear] political campaign paraphernalia in the workplace. So Trump went after Goodyear [in protest of them not allowing employees to wear MAGA merchandise at work], saying, “Don’t buy Goodyear tires,” telling people to buy the competition. Well, who’s that? It’s not U.S.-based companies: It’s Italian-owned Pirelli and French-owned Michelin in Europe; it’s Japanese-owned Firestone-Bridgestone in Asia. It’s counterproductive.

CEOs have learned to not be afraid of these boycotts. They have to take positions.

Even when you’re really beholden to very strong individual clients [the loss of which] can hurt a professional partnership, you might think they would worry [about speaking out]. But you take a look at somebody like, say, Brad Karp of [the white-shoe law firm] Paul, Weiss: Over the last week, he has 60-some of the nation's largest law firms banded together, ready at a moment’s notice to have SWAT teams of election law experts fanned out to any of these states considering legislation to restrict voting rights. They have the confidence to work collaboratively as problem solvers.

Last question: In terms of its political involvement, where do you see business going from here?

So the huge takeaway is that there are things that are specific to their industry that they can do that aren’t just uniform policy statements—as we saw with Apple and Will Smith this week [announcing they’re pulling the filming of a new movie out of Georgia in protest of the state’s new voting laws]. Some of my colleagues and people in the social advocacy fields want to have these grandiose policy statements and all these petitions. OK, great, fine. But there’s actually a whole menu of actions available that are specific to the companies. And a lot of it’ll be driven through the collective action of people who have a shared fate.

We see this with airline industry getting together, or companies within Georgia or Arkansas or Texas getting together—wherever they have a shared fate. We’re seeing business communities finding a new sense of collective civic duty. And I have the utmost enthusiasm about that.

Beau Vine · April 17, 2021

Neonmoon · April 17, 2021

Dave Lipsky needs to turn down the pedophile vibe about 20%

atomheartbevo · April 17, 2021

18 minutes ago, Beau Vine said:

Among those featured speakers, there's quite a few who are facing massive lawsuits that they won't win. They really needed Roger Stone and Gaetz to tie things together.

Brisketexan · April 17, 2021

Dave Lipsky needs to turn down the pedophile vibe about 20%

Pastor Dave Scarlett would just turn it right back up.

That is a real murderers row of people I would never, ever want to spend more than 30 seconds around.

Post Oak · April 17, 2021

21 minutes ago, Beau Vine said:

UpperWestside · April 17, 2021

40 minutes ago, Beau Vine said:

No surprise that this takes place at Rhema Bible College. When I was in school they were a non-conference game for us in basketball. I remember back then realizing something was off with that school.

Edited April 17, 2021 by UpperWestside

Mrs Whiggins · April 17, 2021

I thought "Dr" Andrew "Andy" Wakefield got kicked off the medical registry for his fraudulent research regarding vaccines and autism. He's still going around with his schtick?

Great.

Bullneck · April 17, 2021

57 minutes ago, Beau Vine said:

Clay Clark? "Health?" This guy"

I see "General Michael Flynn" is going to be there. He's wearing his uniform in his photo. He must be a patriot.

Edited April 17, 2021 by Bullneck

Mrs Whiggins · April 17, 2021

Clay Clark is a motivational speaker/entrepreneur so for that part of the country, it fits completely. He also has a radio show/podcast or something.

He's a local boy, went to Oral Roberts, so he's learned a lot about how to ~~preach~~ sell to a certain demographic regardless of topic.

Edited April 17, 2021 by Mrs Whiggins

tx 3 putt · April 17, 2021

that line up of featured speakers is bananas !

TwiceHorn · April 17, 2021

Clay Clark needs to turn the pedo vibe all the way off. Eight year olds, dude.

RDCanecutter · April 18, 2021

2 hours ago, Beau Vine said:

Quit complaining, guys-- just hear them out, and then do the opposite of whatever they say. You'll live to 120.

Bullneck · April 18, 2021

"There are some bad people on the right,

They're saving their own skins, by ruining people's lives."

Serak The Preparer · April 18, 2021

2 hours ago, Bullneck said:

"There are some bad people on the right,

They're saving their own skins, by ruining people's lives."

That's a nice deep cut - haven't listened to Bona Drag in maybe a decade but still ring a bell.

atomheartbevo · April 18, 2021

5 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

Pastor Dave Scarlett would just turn it right back up.

That is a real murderers row of people I would never, ever want to spend more than 30 seconds around.

4 hours ago, tx 3 putt said:

that line up of featured speakers is bananas !

I have to admit, I kind of want to look up how old Gene Ho is, because she’s another Asian woman who could be 30 years old, or 60 years old.

UDontKnow · April 18, 2021

This is going down in Tulsa? Are there bets being placed on who will follow Herman Cain's previous Tulsa act?

UDontKnow · April 18, 2021

This was already posted in the 'Boobert' thread, but definitely qualifies for the GQP Trumpist Death Cult because MTG and Boebert want people to die from leukemia and other blood dyscrasias.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/marjorie-taylor-greene-and-lauren-boebert-invent-reasons-to-vote-against-bone-marrow-bill

MTG

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In a 132-word statement provided to The Daily Beast, Greene railed against the national debt, abortion, and a lack of transparency—”ZERO transparency”—on spending. “Congress does not take the time to fully read and understand the bills it passes,” Greene wrote.

But judging by an earlier statement from Greene’s spokesman, Nick Dyer, it’s Greene and her staff that may be the ones confused about the actual bill.

“Nothing in this bill prevents the funding of aborted fetal tissue by taxpayers,” Dyer wrote. “It opens the door for the [National Institutes of Health] to use this bill to research the remains of babies who were murdered in the womb.”

While it is technically true that there is not proactive language in the bill preventing “the funding of aborted fetal tissue,” that’s also true of nearly every bill Congress votes on. It also has very little to do with the legislation.

The bill is actually a reauthorization of two programs: The C.W. Bill Young Cell Transplantation Program, a program named after a former Republican Congressman which helps match bone marrow and umbilical cord blood with people in need, and the National Cord Blood Inventory Program. That program also provides funding for the collection and storage of umbilical cord blood and bone marrow, both of which can be used to help treat diseases like cancer, anemia, and other immune system disorders.

Past versions of this bill have made it very clear that the measure does not provide money for embryonic stem cell research—which is related to eggs that were fertilized in a lab and is far more controversial in GOP circles.

Boobert

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“This bill added hundreds of millions of dollars to the national debt, while not receiving a CBO score or going through the committee process," Boebert told CNN.

For one, the bill didn’t add any money to the national debt. While it authorizes $31 million per year for the C.W. Bill Young Cell Transplantation Program for the next five years—and $23 million per year for cord blood inventory program over that same period—the bill is not a spending measure. It will take an actual appropriations bill before actual money goes to the actual programs.

As she drafted her explanation Friday, Boebert seemed to establish a new criteria for legislation that she supports. “I’m not voting for bills that don’t go through committee and add hundreds of millions of dollars to the national debt,” Boebert tweeted Friday afternoon.

Again, the legislation doesn’t actually spend money, and the bills that avoid committee markups but make it to the House floor are typically only the least controversial ones—like measures to help people fight cancer.

MC Fresh Breath · April 18, 2021

17 hours ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/04/15/republican-party-big-business-georgia-voting-rights-conservative-481978

Reveal hidden contents

Over the weekend, Sonnenfeld hastily organized a Zoom conference with roughly 100 major corporate executives to talk through the voter restrictions being considered by state legislatures throughout the country, and about the way top Republicans like McConnell and Ted Cruz are responding with attacks on businesses that speak up in opposition.

Most of the CEOs on the call were Republicans; Sonnenfeld himself has been an informal adviser to Republican and Democratic presidents, but he has a longstanding relationship with McConnell, and spoke at the senator’s wedding to Elaine Chao. The CEOs “ranged from amused to outraged” in their reaction to the GOP attacks on businesses, says Sonnenfeld. “Their comments ranged from talk about ‘taxation without representation’ to the paradox of ‘cancel culture’: It’s OK if they speak out, but only as long as they stay on script?”

As the GOP tries to position itself as the home of “working-class values,” capturing loyalty with a steady campaign against the perceived excesses of progressive culture, it’s running afoul of a business community that can’t simply silo off “culture war” topics. In the eyes of major corporations, issues like voting rights, immigration and transgender-inclusive restrooms have economic impact, too. The millions of people alienated by those fights aren’t just their future customers, many of whom expect to support brands they believe in, they’re the companies’ employees.

“The bad news for Republicans is that they seem to have a 1920s view of who Big Business’ workforce is,” says Sonnenfeld. “That workforce is, at a minimum, highly diverse—and they get along. Trying to stir that up is misguided.”

The new Republican penchant for mocking corporations for being too socially aware—for instance, Sen. Ted Cruz’s Twitter threat to use the power of the state to harm Major League Baseball’s business, signing the message off with “go woke, go broke”—fundamentally misunderstands what matters to business in the 21st century, says Sonnenfeld. “Basically, business leaders believe that it’s in the interest of society to have social harmony. ... Divisiveness in society is not in their interest, short term or long term.”

If the marriage between the Republican Party and the business community is on the rocks, what does that mean for politics? What do we misunderstand about what really matters to CEOs? And why aren’t business executives more afraid of boycott threats from the right?

For answers to all of that and more, POLITICO Magazine spoke with Sonnenfeld this week. A condensed transcript of that conversation follows, edited for length and clarity.

In the last couple of weeks, we've seen major business come out in strong opposition to changes to election law in Georgia and other states. Over the weekend, you helped organize a phone call with around 100 corporate leaders to discuss it all. Tell me about that.

Yes. As anxiety was rising, I invited 120 CEOs on 48 hours’ notice. I thought that if I was lucky—on such short notice, and on a Saturday competing with the Masters [golf tournament]—we’d get maybe 10 to show up, thanks to my personal relationships. But 90 actual CEOs and business leaders showed up, and 120 people were on the call, including the various election and legal experts.

There were some who are interested in trying to find out what happened in Georgia. There was an explanation by the Georgia business leaders of how, in fact, they were working assiduously backstage [on the Republican bills to overhaul election laws in the state] and thought they’d taken out 95 percent of the bad stuff. It turned out they'd gotten 80 percent out; they didn’t realize that left in there was the [legislature having the ability to suspend] county officials who are elected to be in charge of voting. As was pointed out, the Carter Center in Atlanta certifies elections around the world as being democratic or undemocratic on just that basis; they have poll watchers around the world to prevent this kind of thing.

But Georgia was not the focus; that was just the warning shot. The volley over the bow is that we had business leaders from Texas saying, “You don’t know what bad is,” and looking at this spread [of voting rights restrictions] to 47 state legislatures. Michael Waldman, the head of the Brennan Center, gave an analysis of how bad [the proposals are] in these different states.

This November, for the first time in American history, [major business leaders] worked to guarantee millions of workers paid time off to vote. We've never had that before—and that's a bypass around government, with its inability to make Election Day a national holiday. So they created their own workarounds. But on top of that, they were really proud that they managed to have—these particular companies—over a million workers with a full day off not only to vote, but to help fortify elderly voting-site volunteers who were at risk for Covid and [had to handle] the tidal wave of ballots. They did so much, and they were so proud that this was the largest, fairest, most secure election in U.S. history. And to have [the election] condemned [by Republicans] after the companies put so much into ensuring that, they're pretty upset.

What was the reaction among CEOs to all the recent criticism from Republicans?

Well, they ranged from amused to outraged. Their comments ranged from talk about “taxation without representation” to the paradox of “cancel culture”: It’s OK if they speak out, but only as long as they stay on script?

I think the clarion call that actually got this ridiculously high participation rate on such short notice was, in fact, Senator Mitch McConnell’s paradoxical call to action for CEOs. [Last week, McConnell gave a speech in which he told corporations to “stay out of politics,” with the caveat that he did not mean that they should stop making campaign contributions.]

Despite your extraordinary range of Washington contacts, I bet I’m the only person you’ve interviewed that actually spoke at Mitch McConnell’s wedding. Only three of us spoke: It was the ambassador to the People’s Republic of China, the ambassador to Taiwan, me—and maybe Elaine [Chao’s] father. I have a nice relationship with Mitch. I admire him, and I’m glad he walked back his statement. It missed the mark.

The CEOs were across the political spectrum. But one thing they were unified about was their right to have a voice, and the importance of fortifying each other when they get out in front on an issue.

It is kind of like 2017 after Charlottesville, when Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier spoke out against President Trump’s failure to condemn white supremacist hate groups and left Trump’s American Manufacturing Council. At first, the business community wasn’t sure if they were all going to leave [Trump’s various business advisory councils]. But some, like Dave Abney, the chairman of UPS, said Trump’s attack on the character of Ken Frazier [after Frazier resigned] was unjustified. And the Business Roundtable came out with a statement from more than 200 business leaders. They rallied around one another. That was remarkable. It was a clarifying moment, and they came out to make a unified statement—and that’s why we’re here right now.

Earlier you told me something that I can’t let pass by: You spoke at Mitch McConnell’s wedding?

Yeah. I’ve known them for a long time. And I’ve been friends with Elaine for some 40 years. [Pause] It’s never been mentioned anywhere before. I thought I owed you that. [Laughter]

I appreciate it. You mentioned this wide range of political beliefs among the business leaders on the call. I imagine that many of those CEOs are somewhat conservative. Are they alienated from the GOP? How would you characterize their politics right now?

Yes, this group was about 70 percent Republican and easily 60 percent conservative, even if they are Democrats. It was a clear act of defiance just to be on the call. But that doesn’t mean that they all agree with each other on the different options available for corporate response.

What we're seeing right now from business leaders is sort of this gangly return to adolescence to say, “We're not going to be defined by the parentage of either political party.” Lord knows who misclassified very honorable, legitimate social democrats as “progressives.” Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, AOC—[it's] great what they do, but they’re social democrats; not “progressives.” Progressives—Teddy Roosevelt ran on that ticket. So did “Fighting Bob” LaFollette, a Republican senator [and 1924 Progressive Party presidential nominee], with Burton Wheeler, a Democratic senator, as his running mate. They were fighting for bridges and dams and immigration, for urban beautification, the settlement houses of Jane Addams, safe workplaces.

That’s what “progressivism” is and was. And that’s the theory [that animates] Joe Biden and Mayor Pete [Buttigieg] and Amy Klobuchar and maybe Mitt Romney. That’s who progressives are. And that’s where the business community is: They’re pretty much somewhere between Mitt Romney and Joe Biden.

Are there other issues where business leaders feel alienated from the GOP, or is it mainly around these questions of having a basic functioning democracy?

The business leaders, to a person, were trying to explain: They don’t like being politicians. They’re not public officials. But trying to create and fortify social harmony is absolutely directly in the strategic context of what CEOs do—although the Wall Street Journal editorial board [which has been critical of business leaders for speaking out against the Georgia law] doesn’t seem to understand that.

Since [Herbert] Hoover, the Republican Party has been identified as the party of Big Business. Well, the bad news for Republicans is that they seem to have a 1920s view of who Big Business’ workforce is. Whatever they have in mind when they think of “Joe Six-Pack,” the reality is really different. That workforce is, at a minimum, highly diverse — and they get along. Trying to stir that up [in a “culture war”] is misguided. The business community’s interests are not to be xenophobic. It’s not in their interests to be isolationist. It’s not in their interests to be protectionist. And the GOP, those haven’t been their positions, at least since the 1950s. But now they are.

Basically, business leaders believe that it’s in the interest of society to have social harmony. The CEOs really care about these issues. Divisiveness in society is not in their interest—short term or long term. They don’t want angry communities; they don’t want fractious, finger-pointing workforces; they don’t want hostile customers; they don’t want confused and angry shareholders.

The political desire to use wedge issues to divide—which used to be fringe in the GOP—has become mainstream. State by state, party has taken that path. That is 100 percent at variance with what the business community wants. And that is a million times more important to them than how many dollars of taxes are paid here or there.

If [corporate tax rates] go from 34 percent to 27 percent instead of 22 percent, they’re way less concerned about that. There’s too much focus on taxes. On taxes, what we’re seeing is, in fact, CEOs are willing to concede. There’s a lot of ground there. You’ll get anywhere from [JPMorgan Chase CEO] Jamie Dimon and Bill Gates to Jeff Bezos saying, “We'll give a couple of dollars on tax.”

They’re interested in free markets—whether or not that’s product markets, financial markets or labor markets. It’s about the image and reality of America: “Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses,” Emma Lazarus’ poem on the Statue of Liberty. That’s the spirit of it. But it’s also this: If the U.S. is not seen as a comfortable, attractive magnet for the world’s best talent, we’re in trouble. We don’t want all this technological expertise to be siphoned away to our trading partners, and that’s starting to happen.

[Business leaders] are upset about immigration policies. Around this time last year and into the summer, the universities were somewhat inept in their lobbying efforts [on the issue], and even the immigration attorneys were underperforming. They were kind of relying on the same K Street nomadic lobbyists who hop around from place to place, shun controversy, don’t want to create waves, who were kind of checking boxes but not having a meaningful impact. It was the business leaders, four major tech companies in particular, who went off to see Jared Kushner—and I know this point blank; I was in the middle of it, and this has not been out there, by the way—and say, “You can’t condemn us for outsourcing this work to China or India if we can’t bring these highly skilled workers here. We’re already now leasing space in Vancouver and Toronto, and we’re working on wiring the infrastructure so this will be on U.S. time zones. If we can’t get [these skilled workers] into the U.S., we’re still going to function as a North American company with the talent we need.”

They have different priorities [than the Republican Party seems to think]. They’re upset about the [anti-LGBTQ] “bathroom bills.” They’re upset about gun violence; hundreds of companies severed ties with the NRA or stopped dealing in semiautomatic weapons—from Walmart to Dick’s Sporting Goods. As we talk about “regulatory rollbacks” during the Trump administration, they were almost entirely EPA-directed; nobody was lobbying for that in corporate America. With the automakers, it became the entire industry fighting the [Trump-era] EPA, saying, “We like working with California. We think that in addition to what we’re doing with hybrids and [electric vehicles], we are pretty sure that we can get a 50-mile per gallon efficiency in the old-fashioned internal combustion engine. Don’t stop us.” So [Attorney General Bill] Barr was told to unleash the antitrust division to sue the auto industry for conspiring in [agreeing to stricter environmental standards]. It was ridiculous.

You’ve spent a lot of your time at Yale working with business leaders and studying how they think. I’m curious how a CEO makes the calculation of whether or not it makes sense to speak out about an issue. Can you walk me through that?

Yeah, there are five parts, really.

First, they have to know what is in the strategic interests of the business. As a steward of other people’s resources, they have to be mindful that it can’t just be their personal values alone—and when it is, then they have to be willing to put their job on the line, as Ken Frazier did at Merck [following Trump’s comments after Charlottesville].

Second: Is it a defining element of their brand? How does it reinforce their brand and their brand values? Google retreated from China because of invasions of privacy and theft of intellectual property. They drew a line in the sand about what their brand is. Frankly, Apple did not.

Third: If the issue itself is divisive, who else is involved and why? With these [anti-transgender] “bathroom bills,” the companies that led the charge against the euphemistic “religious freedom” acts in Arkansas, Indiana, North Carolina and Texas — amazingly — were AT&T, UPS and Doug McMillon [the CEO] of Walmart. They were out front. I mean, Patagonia was there, Howard Schultz of Starbucks was there, Nike was there, Tim Cook of Apple was there, but they joined later. It had such force because these were not considered political extremists or edgier companies; this was coming from the heartland. When companies like that get involved, it has an effect.

Fourth: Is the particular issue one where remaining silent is itself a stance? On many of these issues—such as voting access, or whether the president was elected in a truly honest election—there's no middle ground; it’s a dichotomous yes or no. Some companies waffle, trying not to make enemies. You can’t get away with that anymore. Your silence is acquiescence; it is a decision. You’re making a decision: Your silence is a decision. And when you recognize that, some of these issues are so salient and so critical that you have to take a position.

Fifth: We know from surveys that the CEO is the most trusted voice in society right now. That wasn’t the case [years ago]. Right now, both your line of work and my line of work have lost a step [in the public eye]. Elected officials at every level—city, county, state, federal—have all been knocked down a peg. Clergy? Lord knows their standing has suffered.

Whose standing has not only been steady, but actually, weirdly, gone up in all these polls that usually agree on very little else? Business leaders and military leaders. They are the most respected pillars in society—and the military can’t have a political voice, so [business leaders] realize they have to speak up. If they see a dangerous slide toward anti-democratic or tyrannical movements, they have to speak up, and it’s in their own self-interest.

And how do they consider the potential risks of coming out with a stance, like the potential for a boycott?

We’re seeing a courage for business leaders to speak out and not worry about being criticized as “woke” or as pressured. They have learned they can take courageous stands and maybe muscle their way through it. The blowback, they’ve learned to anticipate it. Boycotts? They have gotten through that. Some of them, like Nike, realized that they could wear it as a badge of honor.

When Matt Levatich of Harley-Davidson had to try to get product into Asia, because of retaliatory trade barriers that made it difficult to get Harley-Davidsons in Asia—this was Trump’s initiative—he had to shut down their plant in Kansas City. They still had one Racine, Wisconsin. They still had one York, Pennsylvania. But they had to shut this one down to create products inAsia for Asia. President Trump said, “Boycott Harley-Davidson.” My gosh. That’s like boycotting apple pie, baseball and Coca-Cola. I mean, the iconic symbol of Harley-Davidson is the American eagle, of all things. The president says not to buy Harley. Well, who is their only real pernicious competitor? It’s Hero Honda, which has a much larger market share worldwide. This is “Make America Great Again”?

Same thing with what Trump did with Goodyear tires: Goodyear has had a long-standing, decades-old policy of not allowing [employees to wear] political campaign paraphernalia in the workplace. So Trump went after Goodyear [in protest of them not allowing employees to wear MAGA merchandise at work], saying, “Don’t buy Goodyear tires,” telling people to buy the competition. Well, who’s that? It’s not U.S.-based companies: It’s Italian-owned Pirelli and French-owned Michelin in Europe; it’s Japanese-owned Firestone-Bridgestone in Asia. It’s counterproductive.

CEOs have learned to not be afraid of these boycotts. They have to take positions.

Even when you’re really beholden to very strong individual clients [the loss of which] can hurt a professional partnership, you might think they would worry [about speaking out]. But you take a look at somebody like, say, Brad Karp of [the white-shoe law firm] Paul, Weiss: Over the last week, he has 60-some of the nation's largest law firms banded together, ready at a moment’s notice to have SWAT teams of election law experts fanned out to any of these states considering legislation to restrict voting rights. They have the confidence to work collaboratively as problem solvers.

Last question: In terms of its political involvement, where do you see business going from here?

So the huge takeaway is that there are things that are specific to their industry that they can do that aren’t just uniform policy statements—as we saw with Apple and Will Smith this week [announcing they’re pulling the filming of a new movie out of Georgia in protest of the state’s new voting laws]. Some of my colleagues and people in the social advocacy fields want to have these grandiose policy statements and all these petitions. OK, great, fine. But there’s actually a whole menu of actions available that are specific to the companies. And a lot of it’ll be driven through the collective action of people who have a shared fate.

We see this with airline industry getting together, or companies within Georgia or Arkansas or Texas getting together—wherever they have a shared fate. We’re seeing business communities finding a new sense of collective civic duty. And I have the utmost enthusiasm about that.

That was an interesting read, thanks for posting.

Mrs Whiggins · April 18, 2021

Lauren Boebert and MTG would oppose Reading Is Fundamental because who knows what is in those books that children are allowed to take home and read.

Mrs Whiggins · April 18, 2021

I think the tweet was supposed to say 'congregations' but the video is clear here. Ron Filipkowski is an attorney and was on the 12th Judicial circuit nominating commission until he resigned.

He has a very very good point. Pay attention, please please please:

His subsequent comment:

"It’s a tightly organized, choreographed, knitting together of all of the crazy conspiracies into one political platform. I heard world history rewritten. I heard covid, vaccine, gun, and election fraud conspiracies. All of it cloaked in white ‘Christian’ nationalist extremism."

Mrs Whiggins · April 18, 2021

Also--how far can free speech go in the case of Lin Wood? The 'take 'em out' prefaced by firing squad? Um, @TwiceHorn help me out here because I'm pro free speech, but I know it gets fuzzy in places. My inclination is that he is allowed to say this even though I'm appalled by it. Is that correct? He's getting people riled up but using the phrase, 'take em out' gives wiggle room because he could state 'I meant vote them out,' correct? (the video does a better job than the quote in the tweet )

Edited April 18, 2021 by Mrs Whiggins

Js1 · April 18, 2021

1 hour ago, Mrs Whiggins said:

Lauren Boebert and MTG would oppose Reading Is Fundamental because who knows what is in those books that children are allowed to take home and read.

Bold of you to assume it’s not just them being insecure bc they can’t read past a 5th grade level.

Red Five · April 18, 2021

Who is Lin Wood wanting to be murdered in that clip? I'm assuming it's an abortion rant.

TwiceHorn · April 18, 2021

29 minutes ago, Mrs Whiggins said:

Also--how far can free speech go in the case of Lin Wood? The 'take 'em out' prefaced by firing squad? Um, @TwiceHorn help me out here because I'm pro free speech, but I know it gets fuzzy in places. My inclination is that he is allowed to say this even though I'm appalled by it. Is that correct? He's getting people riled up but using the phrase, 'take em out' gives wiggle room because he could state 'I meant vote them out,' correct? (the video does a better job than the quote in the tweet )

While there is precedent for "yelling fire in a crowded theater" as a form of speech that may be regulated (and it's actually "dictum" so of dubious precedential value), it's really hard to draw bright lines that one can "get in trouble" for lying, outrageous speech.

First, you have to find a crime or regulation that such speech violates and then a "state actor" has to take some action (like prosecution) before the First Amendment really comes into play. And, once it does come into play, as you note, the speech starts getting dissected for whether it really is a call to violence or "just" outrageous, metaphorical political speech. It is worth noting that the statutes that led to the "fire in a crowded theater" example, the Espionage Act of 1917 and Sedition Act of 1918, have been narrowly construed and lightly enforced due to a belief that many or most prosecutions under the statutes based on "speech alone" run afoul of the First Amendment (note that law students generally are taught that those Acts are akin to legislative McCarthyism and one of several low points of a moral panic about anarchists and communists in the post-WWI era).

As we have seen with Lin Wood, such outrageous speech does seem to be exposing him to regulation in a way that is probably permissible even under very broad interpretations of the First Amendment and that is in the form of his psychological fitness to practice law (as opposed to whether lawyers that utter false, seditious speech can be disciplined for it on some vague "patriotic" or "anti-democratic" notion. e.g. that their speech undermines democracy and lawyers can't do that).

It is damned near impossible to generalize about this stuff. Wood just has to keep fucking around and then maybe we all find out.

Edited April 18, 2021 by TwiceHorn

Mrs Whiggins · April 18, 2021

Thanks for your take, always appreciate learning about how this works. I can't imagine that Lin Wood even cares anymore whether he practices law, he's graduated to something in another realm completely but I'll have to think further on your words and how this all came to be. Aside from that, from my personal observations there do seem to be folks that enjoy flirting right up to the line in every endeavor they face and this man has that to the nth degree.

Francisco 2.0 · April 18, 2021

Could easily go in the Facebook thread as well.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/military/secret-facebook-groups-america-s-best-warriors-share-racist-jabs-n1263985

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They're the most elite, lethally trained members of the U.S. military, widely considered the best of the best. And yet in secret Facebook groups exclusively for special operations forces that were accessed by NBC News, they share misinformation about a "stolen" 2020 election, disparaging and racist comments about America's political leadership and even QAnon conspiracy theories.

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Among the hundreds of Facebook posts NBC News reviewed from forums for current and former Rangers, Green Berets and other elite warriors: a member of a special forces group lamenting that several aides to former Vice President Mike Pence were part of a "Concerted effort by the thieves and pedophiles walking the hallowed halls of the peoples government" to undermine former President Donald Trump.

"In a just world, they would have already been taken out behind the court house and shot," another member commented.

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n yet another post, a member of one of the groups responded to criticism of the Black Lives Matter movement with an image of a noose and the message "IF WE WANT TO MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN WE WILL HAVE TO MAKE EVIL PEOPLE FEAR PUNISHMENT AGAIN."

"The story of radicalization in special operations is a story that needs to be told," said Jack Murphy, a former Army Ranger and Green Beret who has written extensively about the special operations forces community. "It has shocked and horrified me to see what's happened to these guys in the last five or six years."

Spoiler

Extremism in the military has been in the spotlight since more than two dozen current and former service members were linked to the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. But the private Facebook groups reveal an underbelly of a segment of the military that has long been revered as America's front line of defense.

NBC News reviewed posts from four private groups that describe themselves as solely for special operations forces. While the majority of the content in two of the groups, SF Brotherhood - PAC and US Special Forces Team Room, is political in nature, the forums shouldn't be seen as reflective of the overall views of the whole special operations forces community.

Collectively, the two groups have more than 5,000 members, with some belonging to both. U.S. Special Operations Command has about 70,000 personnel, and there are tens of thousands more retired members of special operations forces.

Facebook has flagged a few of the posts in the groups as including false information, or they have received pushback from fellow members.

The politically charged ones often ridicule President Joe Biden — describing him as "senile" and weak compared to leaders like Russian President Vladimir Putin — and refer to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin with derogatory terms like "bubba."

Many of the posts express support for Trump, including his false claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 election. One member of a group, for instance, commented on an image of law enforcement officers with their guns drawn while barricaded inside the House chamber during the Jan. 6 riot, writing, "too bad they didn't bother to defend the Constitution."

Other posts promote conspiracy theories that those involved in the Jan. 6 riot were members of antifa and Black Lives Matter, not Trump supporters.

"Trump was sabotaged once again!" a member of US Special Forces Team Room wrote Jan. 7 about the Capitol riot. And because of those posing as Trump supporters at the Capitol, he added, "trying to get to the bottom of the obvious election fraud now looks like it doesn't have a chance."

"Well said!" a member responded. But another disagreed. "Nope, they were definitely real trump supporters," he wrote.

Robert Wilson, a former Green Beret who was commander of the 3rd Special Forces Group, said members of the community "are radicalizing themselves online, just like many of these lone-wolf ISIS terrorists did."

"It's a problem, and it's an internal threat to the United States," said Wilson, who was counterterrorism director on the National Security Council during the Obama and Trump administrations.

The secret Facebook groups for special operations forces can be found only by members. All of the groups reviewed by NBC News say they rigorously vet their members to ensure tat their special operations forces backgrounds are authentic.

SF Brotherhood – PAC, for instance, tells its 719 members that "only SF vetted are allowed here" and urges them to "Remain Quiet Professionals." US Special Forces Team Room, which has 4,700 members, is described as "for US Special Forces qualified individuals only."

"You can say what you want, post what you want, but most importantly you can dislike what you want and get over it. Same rules as a team room," the group's description says. (A "team room"is what a special operations unit calls the room where members congregate while deployed, and one rule is that what happens there, stays there.)

The two other groups reviewed by NBC News focused largely on military news, although there were some discussions about political issues, such as discussions about members of the military who participated in the Jan. 6 riot.

While the groups include current special operations forces, more members are retired than active-duty, a member said. NBC News reached out to members of the groups behind the posts described in this article — all of whom are men — but none of them responded on the record.

Garry Reid, director for defense intelligence at the Defense Department, said the Pentagon is trying to better "identify, detect, categorize and take action against any such behaviors in this department."

"This is very disturbing material for me and very disturbing content that in no way would mirror the behavior expected of persons employed by the Department of Defense, and certainly not serving in the U.S. military," Reid said.

When it comes to special operations forces, he said, "because of the sensitivity of the missions and the criticality to security that some of these operations have, people would be even more concerned and upset to know that that exists in that community."

Such behavior isn't acceptable in the military, but it can be difficult to detect and root out, he said.

"Humans have thoughts, and we don't like all the thoughts that people have. But what's not tolerated is putting thoughts into action," Reid said. "And taking action in this case, [meaning] posting something to a site on the internet, is contrary to policy, because it is espousing the views that bring forward aspects of hate and violence and unlawful discrimination. That is just flatly unacceptable."

The posts viewed by NBC News "would be a reason for further investigation," he said.

A spokesperson for Facebook said that while its private groups have the option to be visible or hidden, the company's standards apply to both, and that they are enforced by a combination of technology and employees who review content.

The military's handling of extremism in its ranks has come under intense scrutiny in recent months, and internal data about the scope of the problem are scant. The Pentagon has acknowledged that it doesn't know how many current or former service members are affiliated with extremist groups.

Since the attack on the Capitol, the military has sought to get a better sense of the problem. Austin ordered a 60-day "stand-down" to address the issue, and last week he released a memo outlining new initiatives based on initial findings.

A Countering Extremism Working Group will oversee the implementation of the initiatives, according to the memo. They include screening military recruits for extremist behavior and training outgoing service members in ways extremist groups might target them.

U.S. Special Operations Command, or SOCOM, also published a plan last month to try to improve racial and ethnic diversity and remove bias within an arm of the military that is overwhelmingly white and male. "As national and global demographics shift and become more diverse, so must our enterprise," the Diversity and Inclusion Strategic Plan states.

A recent attempt by SOCOM's recent moves to address diversity created a hiccup. SOCOM reassigned the organization's new chief of diversity and inclusion because of his social media posts, including a derogatory one that essentially compared Trump to Adolf Hitler.

Some retired special operations forces have been among those facing charges in connection with the Jan. 6 riot, including a former Green Beret who is charged with assaulting a Capitol Police officer with a flagpole.

The FBI is investigating active-duty troops and reservists as part of its investigation into the riot. There is growing concern that the problem is more pervasive than it appears among those currently serving.

"I am concerned about active duty," Wilson said. "I don't think special operations forces just develop these ideas in their head when they get out and are in their late 40s. So I think it starts in the military and probably gets worse when they're out."

Part of what could make special operations susceptible to extremism is its insular culture, experts said, because it is composed of small, tight-knit units and lacks diversity.

Military officials have acknowledged that rooting out extremism in such a vast organization of current and retired personnel is difficult. The Pentagon, for instance, doesn't specifically ban membership in extremist groups. Among the new efforts outlined in Austin's memo is to update the Defense Department's definition of banned extremist activities.

"The vast majority of those who serve in uniform and their civilian colleagues do so with great honor and integrity, but any extremist behavior in the force can have an outsized impact," Austin wrote in his recent memo.

Austin's efforts to address extremism have made him the target of vitriolic commentary in the special operations forces Facebook groups.

"Racist punk," "pus-gut maggot" and "bubba" are some of the attacks on Austin in response to his calls for troops to report extremism by fellow troops. Other posts question the merit of Austin's Silver Star or say he got to his current position only because he's Black.

"He has risen to the very peak of his profession, riding on the color of his skin," a member of SF Brotherhood – PAC wrote Feb. 26 about Austin's efforts to address extremism.

More broadly, in terms of race, there are expressions of frustration in multiple posts that white men are being targeted.

Austin has also come under criticism in the Facebook groups for changes to allow transgender people to serve in the military. "Well if this doesn't get the troops ready for combat, I am not sure what will!" a member wrote when posting a Newsmax story with the headline "US Eyes Free Transgender Surgery for Military."

Heidi Beirich, a co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, said the review of the secret Facebook groups was "an incredible find" given how difficult it is to get access to the forums.

"But also it's giving you on the ground real information about the most dangerous people in the military, right?" she said. "These are the exact troops who we do not want involved with things like QAnon."

Extremism among special operations forces is particularly dangerous given their specialized training, experts said, and that's even more the case when it comes to QAnon. The private special operations forces groups feature multiple references to QAnon.

"If you have been following Q for a while you know that Q taught many of us lurkers how he was going to communicate with us to by pass the mainstream media," a member wrote. "He's a mathematician by trade and had a brilliant aptitude to pick up Gematria code early in which the Cabal used to communicate with each other on SM," or social media.

Another post elicits QAnon comments from other members after suggesting it's suspicious that an aide to Pence, Olivia Troye, publicly turned against Trump, that a separate former Pence aide testified in Trump's impeachment trial and that one of Pence's former chiefs of staff was married to an FBI agent.

"They will do anything to destroy Trump and Pence in order to prevent them from exposing their vile plans," a member responded.

QAnon followers aren't necessarily common among special operations forces. But if any member of the military believes in the conspiracy theory, that could create parallel, and competing, chains of command for those forces, Murphy argued, given that QAnon followers swear an oath to the movement that involves fighting the U.S. government. In the QAnon world, the military is responsible for cleansing corruption from the U.S. by rounding up politicians, pedophiles and human traffickers.

"If you really believe that sort of thing and you're a special forces guy, explain to me why you wouldn't pick up a gun and do something about it," he said, saying his former special forces team sergeant is now a QAnon believer who was present at the Capitol on Jan. 6.

"It's not just the occasional private in the 3rd Infantry," he said. "There are senior officers and noncommissioned officers in the military who believe this."

April 18, 2021

My little cousin who has been in the USMC for almost 20 years now. Has done stints in everything from Force Recon, to language school, to DIA liaison for MEF. He brought up a good point about General Flynn, to whom he was nearly-direct report at DIA's DCO under Flynn (basically kicked up to an O-5 & O-6 who took that ground assessment to Flynn for MEU's):

Flynn would get some assessment and demand it be vetted within an inch of its life. Just to move on some small target, it would have to be scrubbed, disinfected, and scrubbed again. Flynn almost suffered from analysis paralysis, which I think Obama liked at first. But you should be that way when tip of the spear lives are involved, as well as countless civilians on gruesome ground operations.

But my cousin's point was you could tell Flynn: "Ground team, air recon, satellite, radio, and HUMINT...all indicate an MEU team can deploy and eliminate this target with civilian casualties at less than 10% likelihood. Mission success at 90% certainty." And Flynn would stew on it and come back with a "No." But tell Flynn that his former civilian bosses harvest children under a pizza parlor to eat their blood in order to maintain global dominance, and Flynn is like, "Yeah, that checks out...let's go with that." And his family are all loyal Trumpers.

Mrs Whiggins · April 19, 2021

Answer to this GOP, answer to this. It is on you, not because the blame lies solely with you, but the percentage of the Democratic party that will not sit down and discuss amending gun laws and closing loopholes in this country in good faith is so small as to be a joke compared to the stonewalling and meaningless words that the GOP formulates. "This is the price of freedom," you say as another family, another neighborhood, another community, another state suffers the trauma of physical and mental wounds that last a lifetime.

We all know risk, it is a choice we make every single day but you have put us before a firing squad of your own devising; in the name of votes, in the name of arms sales, in the name of cowardice when faced with doing what is right. You did everything in your power to take away people's access to healthcare, and all but loaded the weapon and pressed the trigger. Sure, the young man made his choice but he was in a mental prison that you constructed. Shame. Forever shame.

Walden Ponderer · April 19, 2021

On 4/18/2021 at 8:58 AM, Mrs Whiggins said:

Lauren Boebert and MTG would oppose Reading Is Fundamental because who knows what is in those books that children are allowed to take home and read.

Side note -- Mrs. Ponderer's mother is a real piece of work; I'm kinda lucky, I suppose, given that my gawdawful mother-in-law is estranged from her child. Anyway, a few years ago, an attempt was made at reconciliation, and it predictably failed because my wife, in her glorious forthrightness, asked via email if her mother could name some regrets for which she would like to apologize and atone.

The answer?

"I shouldn't have let you read so much."

Is it any wonder Mrs. Ponderer is even more of a leftist than I am? I don't marvel at it. Coming from her background would make anybody rebel. Well, first puke, and then rebel.

Horn Under a Bad Sign · April 19, 2021

Mrs Whiggins · April 19, 2021

Paging Mr. Walter Shaub to the white courtesy telephone, please. Mr. Shaub? (Mr. Shaub is now with the Project On Government Oversight, a watchdog agency)

Beau Vine · April 19, 2021

I don't even know which thread to post this in, other than ALL OF THEM!!!

Beau Vine · April 19, 2021

Biff Tannen · April 19, 2021

6 minutes ago, Beau Vine said:

I don't even know which thread to post this in, other than ALL OF THEM!!!

lol. Gritty.meme

Beau Vine · April 19, 2021

https://www.karabellforltisd.com/about

Beau Vine · April 19, 2021

Do your thing, Lobo:

Longhorn_Fan68 · April 19, 2021

14 minutes ago, Beau Vine said:

I don't care to watch this cunt's histrionics, but please tell me that still is of her getting tased

Biff Tannen · April 19, 2021

1 minute ago, Longhorn_Fan68 said:

I don't care to watch this cunt's histrionics, but please tell me that still is of her getting tased

Unfortunately not, but cops finally had enough and arrested her.

Beau Vine · April 19, 2021

1 minute ago, Longhorn_Fan68 said:

I don't care to watch this cunt's histrionics, but please tell me that still is of her getting tased

No, that's her normal face.

Anastasis · April 19, 2021

Just now, Biff Tannen said:

Unfortunately not, but cops finally had enough and arrested her.

They fucking released her with a piece of paper.

Js1 · April 19, 2021

2 hours ago, Horn Under a Bad Sign said:

Why would I read her legal philosophies when I could just watch The Handmaid's Tale and get the gist of it?

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