Not enough Whisky for this Tango Foxtrot

[River]

So so light WTF. Might be more "mildly interesting".

Colorado gained a Congressional district. We also passed an anti-gerrymandering amendment to our state constitution, which has caused some frustration in our Dem-controlled statehouse but, as one of the people who voted for the amendment, tough luck. I think partisan gerrymandering is really bad for political parties, no matter who's in charge in a given state. So now there's this committee trying to draw a map and put it up for public comment and there've been a couple drafts released. This most recent one (which will change no doubt) extends my district all the way to the Utah border. Not as senseless as it sounds if you're thinking about population counts, though the redrawn map has a very interesting consequence: it puts Boebert and Neguse head to head for the CO-2 seat. If this goes through, she's not keeping her job. Unless she moves to Mesa County and runs there.

[elengil]

We also passed an anti-gerrymandering amendment to our state constitution,

[RoseMorninStar]

We also passed an anti-gerrymandering amendment to our state constitution,

That is so awesome. I wish it were the law of the land.

... it puts Boebert and Neguse head to head for the CO-2 seat. If this goes through, she's not keeping her job. Unless she moves to Mesa County and runs there.

[Frelga]

It is the right thing to do, which is why GOP doesn't do it. Sadly, when one party tries to adhere to some code of honor while the other uses every underhanded and violent means to stay in power, the first party is going to lose.

[narya]

There are so many assumptions that go into a redistricting (not the least of which is "I assume this will favor my party"). I lived on the south edge of Anchorage, so my neighborhood was often lumped in with various suburbs and bedroom communities in the vicinity of Anchorage. At one point it was even called "the donut district", surrounding Anchorage. The assumption was that suburban Alaskans had all the same issues, not related to urban Alaskans or rural "bush" Alaskans. Later, our section of suburban Anchorage, filled with people who all lived and worked in Anchorage, was summarily lumped in with the town of Kenai, a 4 hour drive to the south, and all the blank space on the map in between. The problem is, someone living on the edge of, but still in, Anchorage, is not going to have much in common with someone living in Kenai, which has a healthy hatred of Anchorage. I didn't get any representation in those years, because the representative did not dare do anything that could be misconstrued as "pro-Anchorage".

[Voronwë the Faithful]

A bit of a click-bait headline, but I wouldn't call it inaccurate.

Literally the single most Donald Trump thing Donald Trump has ever done

[Dave_LF]

As someone elsewhere said, whatever it takes to keep him far away from everything serious and solemn on that day is ok by me.

[Frelga]

Is this not illegal? Over here, non-union members who supervise union staff get a caution read to them all the time about maintaining impartiality. Or is it only when a union is already in place?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I'm not a labor law expert (yes that actually is quite a different thing than an employment law attorney) but it would seem very likely to me that would be a violation of the NLRA.

Of course just because someone tweeted that it happened doesn't mean that it did happen. The person who tweeted it seems to be affiliated with something called "VICE." I don't know that is not a reputable source, but I don't know that there are.

[Frelga]

Vice is supposedly left leaning, but it's a Murdoch property. I might look into their spin but I don't think their facts are more sus than average.

[RoseMorninStar]

VICE: according to Media Bias/Fact Check.

[Frelga]

I'm only putting his here because it doesn't fit anywhere else, but it's a relatively positive story. And it's pretty wild.

There's only one Jew left in Afghanistan, and he's a total jerk, which is why he won't leave. He's such a jerk that Taliban kicked him out of Taliban jail at one point because he was so annoying.

Afghanistan’s last Jew still won’t leave the country (or divorce his wife)

But then!

After Afghanistan’s last Jew refused to leave, his would-be Jewish rescuers helped dozens of other Afghans escape instead

An epilog.

Last known member of Afghanistan's Jewish community leaves country, taking dozens of women and children with him

[Inanna]

Ah. Thanks, Frelga. I wonder if he will divorce his wife now.

[elengil]

uh...


https://news.yahoo.com/secretive-pentag ... _test=1_03

WASHINGTON - A Pentagon program that delegated management of a huge swath of the internet to a Florida company in January - just minutes before President Donald Trump left office - has ended as mysteriously as it began, with the Defense Department this week retaking control of 175 million IP addresses.

The program had drawn scrutiny because of its unusual timing, starting amid a politically charged changeover of federal power, and because of its enormous scale. At its peak, the company, Global Resource Systems, controlled almost 6% of a section of the internet called IPv4. The IP addresses had been under Pentagon control for decades but left unused, despite being potentially worth billions of dollars on the open market.

...

On the unusual timing of the start of the pilot program - which began the transfer of control of IP addresses at 11:57 a.m. on Inauguration Day, three minutes before President Joe Biden took office - Goemaere added, "The decision to launch and the scheduling of the DDS pilot effort was agnostic of administration change. The effort was planned and initiated in the Fall of 2020. It was launched in mid-January 2021 when the required infrastructure was in place."

[N.E. Brigand]

According to a New York Times profile of political gossip columnist Michael Wolff, who is the author of three somewhat scandalous books on Donald Trump's presidency, former Trump campaign chair and presidential advisor Steve Bannon was working as a media adviser to Jeffrey Epstein as late as early 2019, mere months before Epstein's final arrest. At that time, Bannon was prepping Epstein for a 60 Minutes interview that never happened. Bannon has confirmed to the Times that he recorded some 15 hours of practice interviews with Epstein. (As reporter Jeet Heer of The Nation notes on his blog, Wolff himself has been quite close to Epstein: in 2003, "Wolff tried to engineer a business partnership with Jeffrey Epstein and Harvey Weinstein to buy a magazine." And years after Epstein was first arrested in 2005, Wolff wrote a magazine profile meant to rehabilitate Epstein's image, but it ended up not being published because Wolff had promised Epstein that the magazine couldn't fact check with anyone but Epstein himself.)

Epstein's connections to Donald Trump are well known. But in light of this news, I am reminded again that after Steve Bannon was arrested and charged with fraud in 2020, Trump pardoned Bannon on his last day in office.

[Frelga]

[RoseMorninStar]

Imagine, not tolerating misinformation.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Despite the fact that this relates to the 2022 election, this can only go here.

Donald Trump just kind-of endorsed Stacey Abrams for governor

[Frelga]

They should listen to him.

This is just an incredibly shameless way to lie with graphs.

[Inanna]

Disgusting. Like WTF. How did they even manage to make that??