A group of Senate Republicans want to force technology companies to comply with “lawful access” to encrypted information, which basically means they're targeting end-to-end encryption again, and specifically taking aim at the type of security offered by the popular messaging service WhatsApp. Read the rest
Reverend William is looking for love.
I have no idea what he's a Reverend of, or if he's even ordained at all. In fact, as you progress through his "Republican Goddess" quiz, he doesn't seem to be a Christian of any kind, but more of a New Age Spiritualist Right Wing Conspiracy Theorist. I'm not sure what that ordination ceremony entails (but then, I am ordained in the Church of Latter-Day Dudes).
But either way: "Reverend William" has grown tired of those lonely LA nights, and has set up a website to help him find true happiness.
Read the restI'm a healthy 68. I'm looking for a woman born in any year from 1950–1995, who takes excellent care of herself.
I am a natural-born U.S. citizen residing in Los Angeles, California, U.S.A. I will consider relocating within the United States but am unwilling to move to another country. If the woman I'm looking for lives outside the United States, she must be willing and legally able to move to the United States to marry me and to live with me here.
As you read through this website, you will notice that I'm an intense, complex man who thinks waaay "outside the box." If my intensity/complexity is too much for you, or if I think too far "outside the box" for you, well then, we are not a match. I seek a woman who is likewise intense and complex (not a mild or simple woman; nor a woman who thinks I wrote way too much here).
Donald Trump has won the Republican presidential primary in Illinois, and in so doing, secured exactly enough delegates to win the GOP nomination for 2020. Read the rest
On Christmas Eve, Brian Kolb [R-Canandaigua] -- then minority leader in the New York State Assembly -- published an op-ed urging New Yorkers to drive sober during the holidays; on New Year's Eve, Kolb wrecked a state-owned official vehicle and then failed a roadside blood-alcohol test. Read the rest
On November 27, just as the courthouses were closing and newsrooms were going to a skeleton crew, the Board of Governors of the University of North Carolina -- lately stuffed with GOP operatives and seemingly bent on destroying the university -- announced that it would settle a lawsuit with the Sons of Confederate Veterans -- a white nationalist organization devoted to installing the "traitors' flag" of the Confederacy across the south -- for $2.5m, diverting millions from educational purposes to building a Klan museum. Read the rest
The "pay-for game" is that gotcha game that Conservatives like to play, wherein the ridiculous boondoggles favored by the right (billions for Trump's wall, more than a trillion in tax cuts for the wealthy, massive increases in Pentagon and intelligence agency spending, even a $16 million bomb used for no military reason) can be financed with infinite amounts of deficit spending, while any program that benefits the majority of America needs has to be "fully funded," generally by making cuts in other programs that benefit the majority of America -- something that the idiotic Democratic establishment has bought into. Read the rest
South Dakota Republican Governor Kristi L. Noem spent $449,000 (more that $0.50 per resident of South Dakota!) on a campaign to educate state residents about the state's program to address its methamphetamine epidemic. That campaign's slogan? "Meth: I'm On It." Read the rest
New Hampshire's Digital Fair Repair Act -- based on model Right to Repair legislation circulated by the Repair Coalition -- died this week after the state House of Reps voted it down, with Rep John Potucek [R-Derry] telling a reporter that he voted against the bill because "In the near future, cellphones are throwaways. Everyone will just get a new one." Read the rest
Climate change is real. The state of Florida is particularly susceptible to its effects, being a largely coastal landmass. Hurricanes and floods strike with increasing frequency, damaging or outright destroying homes, businesses, and public infrastructure. As a result, maintenance and repair costs are rising, too. And that doesn't even touch on the human impact—the elderly residents killed by extreme temperatures, and the food- and mosquito-borne diseases that mutate and spread through the swampy heat. The latest studies predict a two-foot rise in sea level over the next forty years.
But you wouldn't know any of that from a visit to the Florida Statehouse at any point during the reign of Republican Governor Rick Scott, however. That's because Scott had implemented an unofficial policy banning the use of "climate change" and "global warming" in all official government communications ("unofficial" only in that Scott was a conniving politician who understood that you can't legally ban words in the United States, but you can use your authority to bully people out of using them anyway). It's the same tactic that the Trump Administration has used to steamroll federal scientists. From the Miami Herald:
Read the rest“We were told not to use the terms ‘climate change,’ ‘global warming’ or ‘sustainability,’” said Christopher Byrd, an attorney with the DEP’s Office of General Counsel in Tallahassee from 2008 to 2013. “That message was communicated to me and my colleagues by our superiors in the Office of General Counsel.”
Kristina Trotta, another former DEP employee who worked in Miami, said her supervisor told her not to use the terms “climate change” and “global warming” in a 2014 staff meeting.
We already know most Republicans in the Senate are Trump ride-or-die toadies who would eat their own children if it made Orange Hitler smile. Well, today, on the day an anonymous whistleblower's complaint threatens to topple the presidency, is just like any other day on the GOP side of the Senate. Read the rest
Oregon's legislature is about to vote on a piece of climate change cap-and-trade legislation that the Democratic majority are likely to win, so to avoid the vote, 12 Oregon state senators have gone into hiding, thus depriving the senate of the necessary quorum. Read the rest
On Tuesday, the Oklahoma House Judiciary Committee approved Senate Bill 614, which forces doctors to counsel patients seeking medical abortions with false statements claiming the procedure is reversible; doctors who refuse to lie to their patients would be guilty of a jailable felony. Read the rest
On Monday 12 members of Nevada Republican candidate for Governor Adam Laxalt's family published an op-ed denouncing his credentials, his record, and his connection to Nevada.
Via the Reno Gazette:
Read the rest...All of these shortcomings come down to a lack of real, authentic connection to our state, and a failure to understand what is important to real Nevadans. We are a state driven by a modern economy and a diverse population, and we take deep pride in our rich, complicated history. Nevadans value their independence and their ability to share in the beauties of our wild state, while still respecting each other’s autonomy. If Adam is elected governor, these values will be put in danger. Public lands will become less accessible for hunters and fishers and backpackers. Adam’s positions on health care and reproductive rights would limit how Nevadans care for their bodies, or be free from government interference in relationships as sacred and personal as marriage. Adam wants to repeal hundreds of millions of dollars of education funding, even though he knows full well that Nevada is ranked 49th in the nation for pre-K-12 education.
If he responds to this column at all, it will probably be to say that he hardly knows the people writing this column. And in many ways that would be true. We never had a chance to get to know him, really — he spent his life in Washington, D.C., while we lived in Northern Nevada and grew up in public schools and on public lands.
Republican Rep. Jason Lewis mocked a woman who complained of sexual harassment by affecting a traumatized feminine voice during a radio segment where he made quite clear that "she wasn't raped." In another recorded segment, Lewis complained about not being able to "call her a slut" anymore when "they behave as a slut."
https://media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/comeon.mp3
Here's the full clip, from a 2012 edition of his radio show, as posted by CNN:
A transcript:
LEWIS: How traumatizing is it? How many women at some point in their lives have a man come onto them, place a hand on shoulder, or maybe their thigh, kiss them, and they would rather not have that happen, is that really going to be seared in your memory, that you'll need therapy for, that you'll never get over tHe MoSt tRaUmAtIziNg ExPerIeNce? COME ON. She wasn't raped.
CNN's Andrew Kaczynski reports that Lewis threatened to sue them for copyright infringement if they posted the recording. Read the rest
US Senator David Purdue (R-GA/@sendavidperdue), a grown-ass human being elected to high office in the most powerful nation in the land, was asked a question about Brian Kemp, who is both a (monumentally unhinged) candidate for governor of Georgia and Georgia's Secretary of State, in charge of overseeing the election in which he is standing. Read the rest
In an embarrassing video released today, the Republican candidate for Pennsylvania governor, Scott Wagner, thinks he's a tough guy when he threatens his opponent, Gov. Tom Wolf: "Well, Governor Wolf, let me tell you what, between now and Nov. 6, you better put a catcher’s mask on your face, because I’m going to stomp all over your face with golf spikes."
Wolf's running mate tweets that Wagner has "lost it."
.@realScottWagner has lost it.??Warns my running mate he’s going to “stomp on his face with golf spikes” https://t.co/ocwBndREsC
— Mayor John Fetterman (@JohnFetterman) October 12, 2018
No, he hasn't lost it. This is just what the devolution of the GOP looks like.
Via the Daily Beast Read the rest
— John Kasich (@JohnKasich) August 13, 2018
Enjoying the current state of Republican party politics? Read the rest
