USA News and Discussions

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wjfox
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Re: USA News and Discussions

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Rep. Paul Gosar tweets altered anime video showing him killing Rep. Ocasio-Cortez and attacking President Biden

Yesterday at 11:00 p.m. EST

Rep. Paul A. Gosar (R-Ariz.) shared an altered, animated video that depicts him killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and swinging two swords at President Biden, prompting condemnation and calls for his Twitter and Instagram accounts to be suspended.

Ocasio-Cortez responded Monday night after arriving in Glasgow, Scotland, as part of a congressional delegation. Gosar, she said, will probably “face no consequences” because House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) “cheers him on with excuses.”

A Gosar staffer defended the video Monday night, dismissing claims that it glorifies violence.

“Everyone needs to relax,” Gosar’s digital director, Jessica Lycos, said in a statement.

A Twitter spokesperson said late Monday that a “public interest notice” had been placed on Gosar’s tweet because it violates the company’s policy against hateful conduct.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... story.html
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Re: USA News and Discussions

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wjfox wrote: Wed Nov 10, 2021 12:49 pm Rep. Paul Gosar tweets altered anime video showing him killing Rep. Ocasio-Cortez and attacking President Biden

Yesterday at 11:00 p.m. EST

Rep. Paul A. Gosar (R-Ariz.) shared an altered, animated video that depicts him killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and swinging two swords at President Biden, prompting condemnation and calls for his Twitter and Instagram accounts to be suspended.

Ocasio-Cortez responded Monday night after arriving in Glasgow, Scotland, as part of a congressional delegation. Gosar, she said, will probably “face no consequences” because House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) “cheers him on with excuses.”

A Gosar staffer defended the video Monday night, dismissing claims that it glorifies violence.

“Everyone needs to relax,” Gosar’s digital director, Jessica Lycos, said in a statement.

A Twitter spokesperson said late Monday that a “public interest notice” had been placed on Gosar’s tweet because it violates the company’s policy against hateful conduct.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... story.html
The FBI is probably visiting him for questioning, if they haven't already.
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How the Build Back Better Bill Fights the Rising Cost of Living
by Harold Meyerson
November 11, 2021

https://prospect.org/blogs/tap/how-buil ... of-living/

Introduction:
(The American Prospect) Up to now, to the extent that the Democrats have made the case for their Build Back Better bill, they’ve made it, all too inaudibly, on the benefits it will be providing. They need to do that far more emphatically now, but with one all-important twist. As inflation has now become a very real national problem, and not necessarily one that’s all that ephemeral, it’s time to make the case that the bill reduces the very expenses most Americans struggle to meet.

Joe Manchin—whose closest biblical analogue appears to be the God who torments Job—now says that inflation may be sufficient reason for him to back off his commitment to President Biden to support a $1.75 trillion bill. The logic behind such a shift is nonexistent: Rather than fueling higher costs, the bill will lift a host of financial burdens on our citizenry. Indeed, the bill targets a number of sectors where prices have been out of control for years.

More from Harold Meyerson

For instance, drug prices. The bill significantly reduces the ceiling on seniors’ out-of-pocket yearly drug payments from $6,000 to $2,000 and authorizes the government to negotiate down the price of a number of medications (not a high enough number, but it’s a start).

For instance, child care. The bill allots funds to ensure that a family’s child care payments don’t exceed 7 percent of their income and establishes universal pre-K for three- and four-year-olds.

For instance, child-rearing. The bill extends the Child Tax Credit, albeit for only one year, but that doesn’t preclude its extension.
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It’s Time to Expose and Upend That Damaging Myth About Spending
by Sonali Kolhatkar
November 11, 2021

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2021 ... t-spending

Introduction:
(Common Dreams) The drama over the Build Back Better Act has revealed the power of narrative in our political landscape.

It is not enough to put forward policy proposals that actually help people, pay for them with taxes on the wealthiest, and then try to pass those proposals into law. You also need to fight a destructive, damaging narrative against "government spending."

Unfortunately, relentless propaganda against the very idea of government funding human needs has made it difficult to get even the most popular programs passed. The media often amplifies this bias, covering the cost of legislation rather than its contents.

You can see this clearly in the debate over Build Back Better, an omnibus piece of legislation that embodies much of President Joe Biden's agenda. An October CBS News/YouGov survey revealed that nearly 60 percent of those polled had heard about the bill's price tag—but only a paltry 10 percent knew its contents in any detail.

The poll also revealed that those who knew the bill's contents were more likely to support it. It found overwhelming popular support for specific aspects of the bill—including lowering prescription drug prices, expanding Medicare coverage, guaranteeing paid leave, and universal pre-K, among many others.
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caltrek
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Steve Bannon Indicted for Contempt of Congress
by Zachary Basu
November 12, 2021

https://www.axios.com/steve-bannon-indi ... aef7a.html

Introduction:
(Axios) A federal grand jury on Friday indicted former Trump adviser Steven Bannon on two counts of contempt of Congress for his failure to comply with a subpoena issued by the House Jan. 6 select committee.

Why it matters: It's the first such indictment to come out of the committee's investigation of the Capitol insurrection — and the first time the Justice Department has charged someone for contempt of Congress since 1983.
  • Bannon faces fines and possible jail time. Each count of contempt of Congress carries a minimum of 30 days and a maximum of one year in jail, per the DOJ.
Catch up quick: Bannon's lawyer told the panel in October that he would not cooperate, citing an assertion of executive privilege by former President Trump.
  • Democrats and many legal experts criticized the claim of privilege as dubious, as Bannon had been fired by Trump in 2017 and was a private citizen at the time of the Jan. 6 Capitol attack.
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Suddenly the Far Right Wants to Fix the DC Jail. It Just Took Locking Up Some White Insurrectionists.
by Isabela Dias
November 12, 2021

https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justi ... ctionists/

Introduction:
(Mother Jones) A group of protesters gathered outside the Washington, DC, Courthouse on Wednesday holding signs emblazoned with “Free Them All” and “Care Not Cages” to demand the release of detainees at the DC jail, many of whom have been awaiting trial for several months. “Our loved ones and our family members have been kept in that jail in feces and in urine. They’re being held in inhumane conditions,” Qiana Johnson, an organizer with the Black-led prison abolitionist grassroots group Harriet’s Wildest Dreams said to the small crowd. “Mayor after mayor, administration after administration—that jail has been the same.”

She added: “The DC jail is 87 percent Black and the moment that a white person enters into that jail, they want to make change. Shame!”

Johnson was referring to a new wave of public scrutiny and outcry over the jail’s dismal conditions that she and other activists say was prompted not by the long-standing mistreatment of people of color and efforts of advocates such as herself, but rather in response to complaints from a much smaller and whiter detained population: the January 6 Capitol insurrection defendants and one of their most outspoken champions, controversial Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.

In mid-October, US District Court Judge Royce Lamberth called for a Department of Justice investigation into the potential violation of the detained rioters’ civil rights and held jail officials in contempt of court for failing to turn over medical records that were necessary to approve surgery for Christopher Worrell, a defendant and member of the Proud Boys from Florida who has cancer and is being held on charges of pepper-spraying law enforcement officers, to which he has pleaded not guilty. Judge Lamberth has since ordered Worrell, whose many claims of medical mistreatment have been characterized by the DOJ as “unsubstantiated,” to be transferred to a different jail or released on home detention, calling the conditions at the jail deplorable.
caltrek's comment: There is an old cliché that has made the rounds that "a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged" to which I have always insisted on adding that "a liberal is a conservative who has been arrested."
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Steve Bannon Indicted for Contempt of Congress
More background on that, most of which is repetitive of the earlier article to which the above was the headline:

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/20 ... ump-jan-6/

Worth noting:
Many left-leaning pundits, already critical of Garland for a perceived reluctance to prosecute Trump and his allies, ripped the US attorney general over the DOJ not immediately charging Bannon.
…The DOJ’s press release is here*, and the full grand jury indictment is here**.
*https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/stephen- ... t-congress

**https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-relea ... 1/download
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One of the traits about the United States which is not true of all other countries is the extent to which the rule of law prevails. As the article below makes clear, this adherence is far from perfect, yet it at least provides for a battleground of sorts. One in which the "good guys" sometimes win.


Virginia Check for $2.4 Million Received by Courthouse News
by Bill Girdner
November 12, 2021

https://www.courthousenews.com/virginia ... ouse-news/

Introduction:
(Courthouse News) Courthouse News on Friday received a $2.4 million check from the Virginia Commonwealth, representing attorney fees spent pursuing a First Amendment action against state court clerks.

The check for attorney fees came as the result of a declaratory judgment won after a four-day trial last year, and the successful defense of that victory in the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.

The issue at trial was an old one that is being fought all around the nation — the practice by state court clerks of blocking access to new e-filed complaints until after clerical work is finished. The federal courts and a growing number of state courts provide access as soon as the new filings are received, which matches traditional access in the days of paper.

The Virginia clerks fought the First Amendment action by Courthouse News with every possible trick, including denying the existence of internal statistics on delay which in fact existed and were revealed after repeated requests and repeated evasions or denials.

“Plaintiff, and other members of the press and public, have historically enjoyed a tradition of court clerks making most newly filed civil complaints publicly available on the day that they are filed,” wrote U.S. Judge Henry Coke Morgan in ruling for Courthouse News. “The First Amendment requires that such documents be made available contemporaneously with their filing.”
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Steve Bannon Indicted for Contempt of Congress
https://www.alternet.org/2021/11/bannon-indictment/
(Alternet) "The polarization in this country will deepen as this investigation continues," Rohde said. "There's no choice. This subpoena had to be issued, this subpoena had to be enforced, and Steve Bannon needs to be prosecuted for defying it. But we just should brace ourselves. It's inevitable that this will be seen as proof of some giant conspiracy by the courts, the media and the 'deep state' to silence Trump and his supporters."
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Biden signs $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, fulfilling campaign promise and notching achievement
Source: Washington Post
President Biden on Monday signed into law a sweeping $1.2 trillion infrastructure measure, notching an achievement that had long eluded his predecessor in the White House, Donald Trump. Republicans and Democrats gathered at the White House on Monday as Biden signed the legislation, which is aimed at improving the country’s roads, bridges, pipes, ports and Internet connections. Trump had repeatedly tried and failed to secure a bipartisan infrastructure deal.

“Here in Washington, we’ve heard countless speeches, promises and white papers from experts. But today, we’re finally getting this done,” Biden said. Vice President Harris and several lawmakers spoke ahead of Biden at the ceremony, including Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and Rob Portman (R-Ohio). “This is what can happen when Republicans and Democrats decide we’re going to work together to get something done,” Portman said. Harris said the infrastructure push “will be a nationwide effort, the likes of which we have not seen in a generation.”

She also urged lawmakers to pass the Build Back Better plan, a second package that aims to overhaul the country’s health-care, education, immigration, climate and tax laws. The House is expected to take up the measure this week. Sinema thanked Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), calling them “the Wonder Women of our group, always focused on the practical outcomes.” Several Republicans, including Sens. Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.), Bill Cassidy (La.) and Mitt Romney (Utah) and Rep. Tom Reed (N.Y.), were also in attendance.

The mood at the ceremony on the White House lawn was celebratory, with members of Congress expressing gratitude for the cooperation of those across the aisle — a rare occurrence. Biden, who has often spoken longingly about the days of compromise and consensus, seemed in good spirits as he touted the benefits of the new law and the bipartisan manner in which it was achieved — with no mention of the vitriol that Trump and his supporters have lodged at the Republicans who voted for the infrastructure bill.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... story.html
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