USA News and Discussions

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caltrek
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Facing the Winter of the Soul
by Patrick Mazza
December 23, 2021

https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/12/23 ... -the-soul/

Introduction:
(Counterpunch) In times like these, it is crucial to gather our thoughts to face the challenges ahead, to clearly map our position and the journeys to come. I will try to do that here.

The darkness of the times is in our face. The Big Lie campaign around the “stolen election” has resulted in democracy-killing measures passed in numerous state legislatures, suppressing voting and effectively giving legislatures the power to nullify election results. Along with radical gerrymandering, these measures seem likely to hand Congress to the Republicans in 2022 and the White House in 2024, with Trump’s return a high probability.

Yet, in reality, our certainties are grounded in a great deal of delusion. That we could continue a prosperity built on energy sources that twist the climate. That we could maintain a democratic system in an era when wealth and corporate power are increasingly concentrated. That the market could adequately address most needs and solve most problems, with some public policy tinkering around the edges. The collapse of comfortable delusions of security and certainty drives us to face the reality we need fundamental systems change.

We hear much about the attempted coup of January 6 and the slow-moving coup under way. But if a coup comes to the U.S., we’ll only be reaping what we’ve sown around the world, staging coups in numerous nations, from Guatemala and Iran, to Brazil, Indonesia, and Chile, and, more recently, Honduras and Ukraine, just to name a few. This does not even count the “regime change” wars that have wrecked whole countries and millions of lives, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, etc. …We continue with our comfortable lives in the U.S., blithe to what our national security state has done around the world.

To bear the dark times we face, and the darker times that may well be coming, we must find the light in our own souls, and recognize this struggle is not only political, but also moral and spiritual. As with many people throughout history facing systems of oppression and seemingly impossible odds, we must bear witness to what we know is right. For the sake of staying true to our own souls, if nothing else.
Don't mourn, organize.

-Joe Hill
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caltrek
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Four Capitol Rioters Plead Guilty in Time for Christmas Break
by Samantha Hawkins
December 23, 2021

https://www.courthousenews.com/four-cap ... mas-break/

Introduction:
WASHINGTON (Courthouse News) — Four men from Missouri and Alabama pleaded guilty Thursday to their role in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, accepting what has become the standard plea deal for nonviolent, low-level rioters.

Zachary Martin, Michael Quick, Stephen Quick, from Missouri, and Kari Kelley, from Alabama, all pleaded guilty to parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building. The charge is punishable by a maximum sentence of six months in prison, though it has been typical for those who plead guilty to the unlawful picketing charge to skirt prison sentences all together.

Over 150 individuals have now pleaded guilty to their role in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, out of the approximately 700 people who have been charged.

The brothers Quick had driven from Missouri to attend Trump’s Stop the Steal rally. Along with Kelley, they entered the Capitol through a broken window. Unlike Kelly, the brothers turned themselves into the FBI. For his part, Stephen told agents that he was ashamed of what he had done. Michael meanwhile told agents that he didn’t know that he was trespassing, and was under the impression that police were letting them into the building.

Whereas Kelley was identified from security footage inside the Capitol, Martin was turned in by several acquaintances and friends after he live-streamed his time in the Capitol on Facebook. Five individuals sent agents screenshots of the then-deleted video.
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Biden Administration Has Reunited 100 Children Taken from Parents Under Trump
by Ben Fox
December 23, 2021

https://www.latinorebels.com/2021/12/23 ... omparents/

Introduction:
WASHINGTON (AP) — A Biden administration effort to reunite children and parents who were separated under President Donald Trump’s zero-tolerance border policy has made increasing progress as it nears the end of its first year.

The Department of Homeland Security planned Thursday to announce that 100 children, mostly from Central America, are back with their families and about 350 more reunifications are in process after it adopted measures to enhance the program.

“I would have loved to have this happen much more quickly. But we are making progress and I feel like we’re gaining momentum,” said Michelle Brané, executive director of the administration’s Family Reunification Task Force.

President Joe Biden issued an executive order on his first day in office to reunite families that were separated under the Trump administration’s widely condemned practice of forcibly separating families and children at the U.S.-Mexico border to discourage illegal immigration.

The work of the task force has been complicated by a number of factors, including inadequate or missing records on the separated families, the sheer number of cases and the fact that many parents are in remote Central American communities and were unable to track down their children or get to the United States to retrieve them.
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Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation GOP Chair to Resign After Partisan Brawl
by Victoria Guida
December 31, 2021

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/3 ... ign-526295
(Politico) Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Jelena McWilliams on Friday unexpectedly submitted her resignation after the Trump appointee faced partisan strife at the bank regulator, in a move that will give Democrats control of the agency in the coming weeks.

Her departure, effective Feb. 4, means that FDIC board member Martin Gruenberg will become acting chair — his third stint atop the 88-year-old independent agency that insures trillions of dollars in deposits at the nation’s banks. It followed an attempt by Gruenberg and other Democrats on the agency’s board to wrest control from McWilliams, whose term was not scheduled to end until June 2023.

Earlier this month, the Democratic majority on the FDIC’s board voted to take public feedback on potential changes to the agency’s bank merger approval process. McWilliams did not participate in the vote, and the FDIC in an official statement said the action was not valid. A legal debate ensued over whether a majority of the board can put items up for a vote without the consent of the chair, with Democrats maintaining they had clear authority.

At a Dec. 14 board meeting, McWilliams rejected a bid by Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Rohit Chopra — an FDIC board member and ally of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) — to add a record of the vote to the FDIC’s official minutes.

Later, in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, McWilliams referred to the episode as a “hostile takeover.” But she made no mention of the saga in her resignation letter to President Joe Biden on Friday.

From a Common Dreams article on this same topic:

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/ ... ir-resigns

Extract:
(Common Dreams) The Open Markets Institute also welcomed her resignation, highlighting that it comes after she tried and failed "to subvert a democratic vote of the FDIC board to review bank merger policy."

...Max Moran, research director at the Revolving Door Project, called out some media outlets—including by the Times and Politico—in an opinion piece for The Hill last week, accusing them of covering the "hugely consequential standoff" like "another partisan soap opera, with an aggrieved Republican on one side… and an ambitious interloper on the other."

"McWilliams and Chopra both make compelling characters, but only one is quite clearly violating the law, and attempting to seize absolute power over a crucial agency with no repercussions," Moran wrote, outlining the recent events with alarm.

...Jeff Hauser, who leads the Revolving Door Project, tweeted Friday that McWilliams' resignation "is basically a confession."

"Reminder: This had to happen eventually," Hauser said. "The extent to which early coverage of McWilliams' lawlessness was positive was INFURIATING—she had ZERO legal justification for her coup. Hope all Trumpist Big Lies are treated less credulously in 2022!"
Edit: The American Prospect also had a piece concerning this development:

https://prospect.org/blogs/tap/democrat ... ry-agency/

Extract:
(The American Prospect) This is a windfall for Democrats—and a reward to Gruenberg and the FDIC board’s other progressive Democrat, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau director Rohit Chopra, for playing hardball...

All of this matters because in addition to tightening standards for bank mergers, the nation’s regulatory agencies will soon act to restore capital and liquidity requirements for big banks, strengthen consideration of climate change in evaluating bank balance sheets, and undertake the first toughening of regulation under the Community Reinvestment Act in a quarter-century.

To accomplish these feats, the newly progressive FDIC will have to reach consensus with the Federal Reserve, which is temperamentally disinclined to aggressive financial regulation, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
Last edited by caltrek on Wed Jan 05, 2022 4:42 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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weatheriscool
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Manchin: There are 'no negotiations' on Biden spending bill 'at this time'
Source: The Hill
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) told reporters Tuesday that he isn’t involved in any serious talks at this time about reviving President Biden’s sweeping climate and social spending bill, underscoring the lack of progress on the president’s signature domestic policy plan.

“I’m really not going to talk about Build Back Better anymore because I think I’ve been very clear on that. There is no negotiations going on at this time,” Manchin said.

Manchin said he’s more interested in working on legislation that has bipartisan support ...
“Our country is divided and I don’t intend to do anything that divides our country anymore.”
Instead, Manchin said he wants “whatever I can do to unite and bring people together.”

Manchin argued for preserving the role of fossil fuels to ensure a dependent supply of affordable energy, as he has done many times. “We have to have enough energy to run our country,” he said.
Read more: https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/588 ... -this-time
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WHAT EVEN IS THIS
FUCKIN' PREPPING FOR WAR WITH CHINA?! HUH?!
MOST USELESS SPEECH
BARELY ANYTHING'S EVEN BEEN DONE
MOST INSTIGATORS OF 1/6 ARE STILL FREE AND OPENLY DISCUSSING PLANS TO CREATE A NEOTRADITIONALIST THEOCRATIC AN-CAP DYSTOPIA, AND NOTHING'S BEEN DONE

HOW WAS TRUMP, THE MOST DEGENERATE FAILURE OF AMERICA IN RECORDED HISTORY, BETTER THAN THIS
And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future
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Manhattan district attorney announces he won't prosecute certain crime
Source: CNN
(CNN)Just days after taking office, Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg released a memo detailing new charging, bail, plea and sentencing policies that he said he believes will make the city safer and the criminal justice system more fair, yet the plan faces criticism from police union leaders.
Among the crimes Bragg said his office would not prosecute: marijuana misdemeanors, including selling more than three ounces; not paying public transportation fare; trespassing except a fourth degree stalking charge, resisting arrest, obstructing governmental administration in certain cases, and prostitution.
Misdemeanor offenses that are legally required to be given a "desk appearance ticket" will be offered diversion or community-based programs intended to help an offender, the memo said. The office may also decline to prosecute the offense.

Bragg wants to "reserve pretrial detention for very serious cases," according to the memo, and he intends to limit underage defendants in adult courts. Bragg also outlined a policy to request partially or unsecured bond in the same amount as cash bail requests.
Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/06/us/alvin ... index.html

This right here is why many of our cities are turning into hell holes. Enforce the goddamn laws! :twisted:
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“Dagger at the Throat of Democracy”: Biden’s Impassioned January 6 Anniversary Speech
by James West and Noah Y. Kim
January 6, 2022

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/20 ... -breaking/

Introduction:
(Mother Jones) Speaking on Monday from the National Statuary Hall at the Capitol, which one year ago today witnessed the worst attack on American government since 1814, President Joe Biden passionately condemned the “lies and madness” that drove the January 6 insurrection—calling out President Donald Trump and his supporters for putting “a dagger at the throat of American democracy.”

In what was probably one of the most forceful addresses of his still-fledgling presidency, Biden accused Trump and his Republican enablers of waging an “undemocratic” attack on the ideals of the American founding, including and especially the right to free and fair elections.

“For the first time in our history, a president had not just lost an election. He tried to prevent the peaceful transfer of power as a violent mob reached the Capitol,” Biden said. “But they failed. They failed. And on this day of remembrance, we must make sure that such an attack never, never happens again.”

Biden forcefully rebuked Republican efforts to smooth over and minimize the terror that shook the Capitol, either by dismissing it as a “tourist visit” or deeming the rioters themselves patriots.

“This wasn’t a group of tourists,” Biden said. “This was an armed insurrection. They weren’t looking to uphold the will of the people. They were looking to deny the will of the people.”
Don't mourn, organize.

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