Now, with Republicans withholding critical lethal assistance, largely at the behest of former President Donald Trump, Ukrainian troops are feeling the pressure.

The amount of damage being done globally at the behest of Donald Trump’s personal ego is unconscionable.

Topic of tonight’s nightmare: “sex party with Matt Gaetz.”

Christopher Rufo is not a mastermind, and articles like this are the only reason he has any power (not directed at OP).

Credit to Senator Ron Johnson for invoking the 5-second rule of criminal defense.

Asked about the episode, a spokesperson for Johnson pointed to his previous comments, where he said, “my involvement in that attempt to deliver spanned the course of a couple seconds”…

The explanation they arrived at was that the big $500 all at once provided valuable startup capital for new businesses and farms, which the $20 a month group would need to very conscientiously save over time to replicate.

I don’t know anything about rural Kenya, but I’m skeptical that these particular findings could be applied to bigger economies. The market in the US seems extremely hostile to small businesses, so investment typically looks more like stock market participation and massive private equity for risky tech startups.

In that environment, I would bet that the steady passive income would perform better.

Just before the vote was about to begin, Max Miller of Ohio, one of Santos’ Republican colleagues, sent an email to the full Republican conference, writing that he and his mother were victims of credit card fraud tied to Santos’ campaign and that he would be voting to remove Santos.

“Neither my Mother nor I approved these charges or were aware of them,” Miller wrote in the email obtained by NPR. “We have spent tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees in the resulting follow up.”

Can’t imagine a more appropriate way to miss the point.

We had city commission candidates in my area who expressed similar sentiments (“He says … the city is not doing enough to deal with the homeless population and crime. He wants to improve the budget for both police and street maintenance”).

Seems it’s easy to think any attention is good attention if you believe the subject of your attention is more sidewalk detritus than person.

I discovered today that I live in an unincorporated community, so I’m apparently not governed by the city in which my address resides but rather just by the county. So I have nothing to vote for today.

Best of luck to everyone else for a quick and painless experience!

This is an opportune time to plug my favorite book: Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible, in which Lumumba and Congo’s independence from Belgium play an ancillary role.

I was ignorant of anything related to these events before reading it, but I remember she writes about them with a powerful undercurrent of disgust and anger. A tone I think she revisited later in The Lacuna.

I struggle to imagine how the House could actually get worse, but I also know unequivocally that it is going to get way, way worse.

Why is No Labels so concerned about keeping Draper and Grayson off the ballot? The unsolicited candidates, particularly Grayson, might force No Labels to disclose its donors.

Hilarious. A dark-money funded political party, nee “organization,” might accidentally have to reveal its secret master plan a little early because the system, shockingly, managed to work against them, a little bit.

The language about the hacks being “consistent” with the “methods and motivations” of “Russian-directed efforts” (Russian-directed?) is oddly weak beer, and came during the same time frame when the story was being hawked to Slate dope Franklin Foer.

Taibbi’s doing the same degree of speculating he’s accusing the government of. He’s a smart guy, but as usual of late, he’s laying a thick coat of quasi-conspiracy nonsense on top of otherwise decent work.

Amid his mom’s time in hospice during the coronavirus pandemic, Rissi said he had spent hours listening to his brother “ranting and raving” about allegations of election improprieties in Arizona. In the months after her death, Rissi said he was taking medication for his own ailments that he says altered his behavior. His voice cracking, he recounted how his wife had told him one day that he had called someone the night before and was screaming into the phone. Rissi said he didn’t know what he’d done until the FBI showed up at his door.

He used the Rosanne defense: it’s the pharmaceutical companies’ fault that decent people keep turning into conspiracy zealots. Well, not all decent people. Just those predisposed to radicalism and…indecency, I suppose.

This is the first I’ve heard anyone suggest that Musk’s changes at Twitter somehow improved “the actual experience of what it’s supposed to do.” Although the “x through the administrative state” line proves this is pure, gutless pandering.

So as usual, he’s not actually as stupid as he sounds, just opportunistic and immoral.

But that didn’t stop the legislature from increasing its budget…

“For the last 30 years, as far as the records I’ve been able to find, the justices have been writing the same boilerplate language in their Senate Judiciary questionnaires, which to me is an indictment against the seriousness with which they take their ethical responsibilities,” said Gabe Roth, executive director of Fix the Court.

It’s not his fault, he was just copying the empty promises all the other nominees were making.

/s

the people who tend to do it are acting in bad faith, and whose actual beef is that he’s not simping for genocidal dictators

I hesitated even challenging for exactly this reason. I want people who do good things to be empowered to continue doing them. And I completely agree with you that people who’ve survived incarceration and paid that penalty have a fundamental right to a blank slate return to normal life. But I feel like the establishment of a public persona can change that dynamic slightly. From the video that @FlowVoid@midwest.social helpfully provided, it seems like his current work is maybe partially focused on deradicalization, which requires some degree of trustworthiness and credibility. Honestly, I think his past could enhance that work if he was open about it and integrated it into his approach.

Ultimately, you’re right. He’s “paid his dues” as far as society is concerned and has no real obligation to put that stuff on display if he doesn’t want to. But I also think it’s fair to be a little skeptical; we can only make inferences about other people’s character and intentions, and this is naturally a factor for that inference. I’ll end with this note, though: it’s obvious that he garners a lot of respect for what he’s doing with these videos, so I’m confident I’ll find that his good character is plenty apparent through his actions now. Time to watch some videos and prove it to myself.

The offender in the comments is obviously overzealous, and I’m not familiar with “Beau”, but I did some searching and it…kinda does seem like he deserves some accountability.

I see he served some time, but is it true he’s never publicly addressed this in his Beau role? Cause when someone is trying to amend for past misdeeds, I tend to think there’s an obligation to be honest and transparent about those misdeeds.

Details here (search for Justin King): https://www.dcjs.virginia.gov/sites/dcjs.virginia.gov/files/publications/victims/florida-strategic-plan-human-trafficking.pdf

I’ll take a link to that channel. I’m a sucker for obsessive 3-hour video essays.