DL Open Thread: Saturday, December 11, 2021

Trump Supporters Face Little Opposition As They Move To Steal Elections:

Mr. Lindemuth’s victory in November in this conservative rural community is a milestone of sorts in American politics: the arrival of the first class of political activists who, galvanized by Donald J. Trump’s false claim of a stolen election in 2020, have begun seeking offices supervising the election systems that they believe robbed Mr. Trump of a second term. According to a May Reuters/Ipsos poll, more than 60 percent of Republicans now believe the 2020 election was stolen.

This belief has informed a wave of mobilization at both grass-roots and elite levels in the party with an eye to future elections. In races for state and county-level offices with direct oversight of elections, Republican candidates coming out of the Stop the Steal movement are running competitive campaigns, in which they enjoy a first-mover advantage in electoral contests that few partisans from either party thought much about before last November.

And legislation that state lawmakers have passed or tried to pass this year in a number of states would assert more control over election systems and results by partisan offices that Republicans already decisively control.

“This is a five-alarm fire,” said Jocelyn Benson, the Democratic secretary of state in Michigan, who presided over her state’s Trump-contested election in 2020 and may face a Trump-backed challenger next year. “If people in general, leaders and citizens, aren’t taking this as the most important issue of our time and acting accordingly, then we may not be able to ensure democracy prevails again in ’24.”

Just A Horrible Night Of Tornadoes, Destruction, And Death.  Amazon warehouse collapse in Edwardsville, IL; nursing home destroyed in Monette, AR; Mayfield, KY pretty much destroyed. An estimated 70-100 dead in Kentucky.

Speaking Of Amazon…Pollution From Warehouses Impacts Largely Poor And Minority Communities:

Four massive Amazon warehouses – ranging from 500,000 to nearly 900,000 sq ft – now surround this historically Black community, as do distribution centers for Target, Under Armour, Monster Energy and Keeco textiles. Her home is now boxed in on three sides by concrete block buildings and the quiet road out front has been paved into a four-lane expressway rumbling with delivery trucks.

The Inland Empire region, where Parker lives, is now one of the biggest national hubs for the e-commerce industry. The changes it has undergone are being replicated in cities and towns across the country.

To feed the one-click, one-day delivery demands of the nation, new warehouses are opening quickly, often in Black and brown neighborhoods. They sometimes chew up entire suburban blocks and communities in the process, crowding roadways with delivery trucks and vans and air space with cargo planes, clouding the air with more pollution.

Amazon is evil. We enable it.  Break ’em up!

Boycott Kellogg’s.  Inhumane working conditions.  You don’t need their products that badly:

Since going on strike, workers have shared stories about absolutely horrifying conditions they have to put up with to keep their jobs at Kellogg, including working 80-hour weeks. Most recently, Kellogg said it’s planning to permanently replace the striking workers. The union issued a statement saying it continues to support their workers on strike—and some social media users are doing their part by swarming Kellogg’s job applications with fake responses. The goal? To clog the system and make it harder for the company to replace union workers.

Kudos to the ‘anti-work’ movement:

…a post in the Reddit community r/antiwork has made some serious traction in encouraging folks to submit fake applications for new hires to come in and replace those who are on strike. Because applications are accepted online, it’s apparently pretty easy to fill them out and clog the system. Tens of thousands of users have upvoted the post, which perhaps isn’t surprising given that the community has more than one million members.

As reported by Insider, user Sean Black posted a video explaining a code to TikTok that is intended to essentially spam Kellogg with fake applications. The idea is that the code would autofill application questions and include a filler resume to submit the application.

If you support unions, feel free to contribute to the mass of fake applications.

Pa. Panel: Cops Who Kill/Injure Others Should Face Independent Probe.  Yes.  End the foxes-guarding-the-henhouse business-as usual.  I mean, in Delaware.

What do you want to talk about?