Political Roundtable Part XXVII

[Wizardspride]

The long awaited IG report that the likes of SD20 and Nate were touting......

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[Pointgod]

i wonder how many fox viewers realize that hannity/ingram/carlson aren't news shows. Not pejoratively either - like, legitimately, as a format, by design, does not claim to be a news (read: fact-based) program.

But that’s all part of the con. Right wingers have to delude themselves into legitimizing their victim mentality and faux outrage. They turn to Fox News because they don’t want real truth but rather a poor parody of the news that confirms that tells them what they want to hear.

[Wizardspride]

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[Pointgod]

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Eric Swawell snatches Nunes’ soul lmao this was *chef’s kiss* perfect

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[queridiculo]

Good luck getting justice reform to succeed if the profit motive isn't removed from the penal system, simply appalling.

https://reason.com/2019/11/22/west-virginia-inmates-will-be-charged-by-the-minute-to-read-e-books-on-tablets/

Under a 2019 contract between the West Virginia Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation (WVDCR) and Global Tel Link (GTL), the company that is providing electronic multimedia tablets to 10 West Virginia prisons, inmates will be charged 3 cents a minute to read books, even though the books all come from Project Gutenberg, a free online library of more than 60,000 texts in the public domain.

[Pointgod]

i wonder how many fox viewers realize that hannity/ingram/carlson aren't news shows. Not pejoratively either - like, legitimately, as a format, by design, does not claim to be a news (read: fact-based) program.

Funny this popped up in my news feed considering it relates directly to your point. It also explains why guys like STD and Nate cling to false narratives and information so much despite countervailing facts. I honestly don’t know how anyone that works for Fox News lives with themselves.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/22/opinion/vindman-fox-news-.html

In my time at Fox News, narratives were weapons of mass emotional manipulation, what the Nobel laureate Robert J. Shiller defines in “Narrative Economics” as “contagious stories” — as he put it in a paper of the same name, “a simple story or easily expressed explanation of events that many people want to bring up in conversation or on news or social media because it can be used to stimulate the concerns or emotions of others, and/or because it appears to advance self-interest.” One recent report said that we find information or misinformation “22 times more memorable in narrative form.”

Why do people love conspiracy stories? It’s human behavior. Being in on a good conspiracy theory makes you feel like you know something the other guy — in this case, any liberal — does not. The emotional payoff from being on the inside of a conspiracy is a self-esteem jolt that makes you feel smarter than your tribal foe and keeps your eyeballs glued to screens — television, laptops, tablets, cellphones — where the network makes money from advertising.

[Pointgod]

Good luck getting justice reform to succeed if the profit motive isn't removed from the penal system, simply appalling.

https://reason.com/2019/11/22/west-virginia-inmates-will-be-charged-by-the-minute-to-read-e-books-on-tablets/

Under a 2019 contract between the West Virginia Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation (WVDCR) and Global Tel Link (GTL), the company that is providing electronic multimedia tablets to 10 West Virginia prisons, inmates will be charged 3 cents a minute to read books, even though the books all come from Project Gutenberg, a free online library of more than 60,000 texts in the public domain.

Simple question. Is West Virgina a Republican or Democrat controlled state? There’s only one way to change this. Get rid of the virus that is the Republican Party.

[Wizardspride]

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[closg00]

Dems should be holding press conferences roasting Trump on "his emails" AND Nunes's connection to Ukraine, Dems are wussies.

[Pointgod]

Dems should be holding press conferences roasting Trump on "his emails" AND Nunes's connection to Ukraine, Dems are wussies.

Of course they should, but that would lead to the so above it Independents to claim that Democrats are only impeaching Trump because of politics. Unfortunately Republicans aren’t held to the same standards as Democrats and rarely ever pay for their blatant corruption and anti Democratic actions. Sorry to say but your country is full of idiots.

[Wizardspride]

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[Pointgod]

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Oh Lordy there are tapes.

[daoneandonly]

Gracious!

I should apologize for setting off this discussion mostly because it's
a horse that's been dead and flogged to unrecognizable status.

It's kinda entertaining in a way though. It seems there is a notion
that libs should only favor those things that benefit them directly (if they're smart I guess).
To that I'd say, libs do think that way to a certain extent, but perhaps
no where near as much as cons do. They're wired differently. They actually
care about society as a whole to a considerable degree.

PS it remains quite unclear if a particular con has truly begun
to realize or understand the difference between rates and marginal rates.

Everyone knows the difference, what's your point? People in the 32% bracket are still paying that percentage more on their higher earnings, its crap, no other way around it.

And libs do look out for themselves, to the point of your dead horse, anything that allows them to be less accountable, that's the horse they jump on. Hoping said horse is alive to take them to the place where they can do as little, and benefit as much as possible simultaneously. .

[Ruzious]

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Eric Swawell snatches Nunes’ soul lmao this was *chef’s kiss* perfect

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It's great to see those for a personal reason - they're from the Longworth House Office Building, and my father worked there for about 20 years. It was always a thrill for me as a little kid to visit there. The greatness of the building and its history will hopefully include the downfall of people like Nunez and the integrity of people who testified against the president and his gang.

[pancakes3]

I find Hong Kong's fight for democracy to be increasingly important with every passing day and the U.S.'s lack of support to be cowardly.

[dobrojim]

Sen Kennedy, GOP. LA

He’s a special kind of stupid. No one can know anything according
to him.

[TGW]

Aaron Mate is the best journalist in America—bar none.

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[Wizardspride]

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[TGW]

RESIST!

https://newrepublic.com/article/155793/hell-democrats-just-extend-patriot-act

Why the Hell Did Democrats Just Extend the Patriot Act?

By SAM ADLER-BELL
November 20, 2019
It may seem to many Americans that Washington is entirely consumed by the impeachment inquiry, and that no other important business is getting done on Capitol Hill. But on Tuesday, in a break from televised hearings, the House of Representatives voted to fund the government through December 20. If passed by the Senate, the continuing resolution would prevent a government shutdown and forestall a debate about border-wall funding.

That’s all well and good, except that Democratic leaders had slipped something else into the bill: a three-month extension of the Patriot Act, the post-9/11 law that gave the federal government sweeping surveillance and search powers and circumvented traditional law-enforcement rules. Key provisions of the Patriot Act were set to expire on December 15, including Section 215, the legal underpinning of the call detail records program exposed in the very first Edward Snowden leak.

“It’s surreal,” Representative Justin Amash told me on Tuesday, just before the vote. Amash, an independent who left the Republican Party over his opposition to President Trump, pointed to the hypocrisy on both sides of the aisle. Republicans have “decried FISA abuse” against the president and his aides, he said, referring to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, “and Democrats have highlighted Trump’s abuse of his executive powers, yet they’re teaming up to extend the administration’s authority to warrantlessly gather data on Americans.”

By tucking the measure into a must-pass bill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi forced many members who oppose the Patriot Act to vote in favor of its extension. “Although I do have serious concerns with reauthorizing Section 215,” Representative Bobby Rush of Illinois told The Hill, “we must focus on the bigger picture here.” In late October, Rush signed a letter co-authored by Representatives Rashida Tlaib and Earl Blumenauer, which read, “We will not support any legislation that extends Section 215’s sunset date if it fails to contain robust reforms that protect innocent people from unjust surveillance.”

On Monday night, Amash submitted an amendment to strip the Patriot Act language from the budget bill, but the amendment was blocked by Democrats on the Rules Committee.

Just 10 Democrats defied the leadership to vote against the resolution, including Tlaib, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, and Ilhan Omar (a.k.a. “the Squad”). “I cannot in good conscience vote in favor of a [continuing resolution] that reauthorizes unconstitutional mass surveillance authorities,” Tlaib told me, “especially under a president who has retweeted images of his opponents jailed and suggests anyone who disagrees with him is a criminal.” AOC tweeted before the vote, “Yeah that’s gonna be a no from me dog.”

Ultimately, the funding bill passed 231-192, mostly on party lines.

Some advocates have questioned whether the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), which includes the Squad, should have done more to combat—or, at least, register its dissatisfaction with—the last-minute maneuver by Democratic leadership. On Wednesday morning, leaders of the CPC and the libertarian House Freedom Caucus circulated a joint letter on Capitol Hill calling for extensive reforms to the Patriot Act before it is reauthorized. But when it came time for the floor vote, CPC co-chairs Pramila Jayapal and Mark Pocan voted in favor of the funding measure. So did most of the caucus’s members. The only person in CPC leadership to vote against the bill was Omar.

“We needed a show of resolve from House progressives to underscore that protections for civil liberties are vital,” said Norman Solomon, the co-founder of digital activist group RootsAction.org. “Instead we got a cave-in from CPC leadership along with all but 10 Democrats.”

“There’s no other way to spin this,” a progressive staffer on the Hill told me. “This was a major capitulation. The progressive caucus has touted itself as an organization that can wield power and leverage the votes of its 90 members. And they didn’t lift a finger. Democratic leadership rammed this down their throats.”

Repealing the call records program had been considered relatively low-hanging fruit by reform advocates—not least because it’s no longer operational. The National Security Agency announced a year ago that it had shut down the program after a series of compliance mishaps (during which many millions of innocent Americans’ phone records were accidentally collected). Lawmakers in both parties have expressed bewilderment about why they should reauthorize a program the NSA doesn’t use.

But in recent hearings, Trump administration officials have argued that the government should retain the authority in case it needs it later. In early November, an NSA official told the Senate Judiciary Committee the agency feared losing a “tool in our toolbox” that could prove “valuable moving forward.”

Thanks to House Democrats, those fears are allayed for the moment.

The late-game maneuver irked some advocacy groups, which have argued that Democrats’ broader complaints about the Trump administration—its white nationalist advisers, hostility to immigrants, disregard for the Constitution, and disdain for the press—should compel them to prioritize surveillance reform, too.

“Democrats are actively arguing that Donald Trump is unfit for office,” said Sandy Fulton of Free Press. “They’ve repeatedly acknowledged that he’s a threat to our most vulnerable communities. And yet they’re going to give him the Patriot Act?” Democratic leaders want to isolate the debate about intelligence from the debate about Trump’s fitness for office, Fulton explained. “They want to have these two conversations separately. But that doesn’t make sense. They should be the same conversation.”

A CPC spokesperson defended its members’ support of the continuing resolution. While acknowledging the caucus would have “preferred a clean CR without the 215 extension,” she said, “the top priority for the Progressive Caucus is to ensure major surveillance reform is included in any ultimate reauthorization.” The extension will help this goal, she argued: “Without a short extension that allows us to obtain these major reforms, we would end up in a much worse position.”

Jayapal, the CPC co-chair, denied that this was a situation of Democratic leadership bearing down on progressives. “That happens pretty often,” she said, laughing. “So I actually know what that feels like. This wasn’t one of them.”

According to Jayapal, negotiations between members of the Judiciary Committee and the NSA-friendly House Permanent Subcommittee on Intelligence (HPSCI) were going well. “Almost every single thing in our letter has been addressed, but not quite to our level of satisfaction,” Jayapal said. “We’re still pushing really hard, and we need this extra time to be able to finish that.” Without HPSCI’s buy-in, she said, “there’s no point in marking up a bill … because that is often where we run into problems.”

But some advocates say the best way to get buy-in from the intelligence committee is a show of strength. It would only have taken a few dozen progressive defections to kill the continuing resolution, after which the leadership would have been forced to strip the Patriot Act from the bill and schedule another vote on funding the government. “Self-identified progressives should have thrown a monkey wrench into the Orwellian machinery,” said Solomon. “Putting up a fight now would have opened up possibilities for rolling back key aspects of the surveillance state.”

Jayapal disagreed. If the House had not passed the extension, she said, the GOP-led Senate would have sent over a clean reauthorization bill (with no reforms), and she worries moderate Democrats might have gone along with it—especially if faced with the alternative of allowing the provisions to expire altogether. “You could go through and name any strategy for me, and I would tell you why it would fail,” she said.

As for allowing the Patriot Act to sunset, Jayapal told me, “There was no scenario in which this thing was going to expire.” Eighteen years after 9/11, raising the specter of “the next attack” still has political potency. “We already heard that from the Senate,” Jayapal said.

These views represent competing visions for how progressives should wield power in Congress. Jayapal’s pragmatic streak has often contrasted with the more openly confrontational approach of Ocasio-Cortez or Tlaib. While members of the Squad have seemed to relish fights with top Democrats, Jayapal has advocated for sticking to principles, while finding ways to work collaboratively with leadership.

“In my ideal world, we wouldn’t have the Patriot Act. Period,” Jayapal said, “but that’s not where we are. So we’ve got to fix these things, and they need to be substantive, real changes. That’s what we’re working on.”

[Wizardspride]

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