DL Open Thread: Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2024
The Ultimate Reality Show Cabinet. Yesterday’s entries: Dr. Oz and Linda McMahon. Before somebody else predicts this, I figured I might as well: Trump is likely negotiating with Fox to give them exclusive rights to that reality show concept. (Oops, too late. Bastard!) Which is why he’s trying to fill his cabinet with people almost exclusively suited to the concept. First Executive Producer/President of the United States in history. Plus, seriously–Linda McMahon for Secretary of Education??
Google’s ‘Culture Of Concealment’:
The memo became the first salvo in a 15-year campaign by Google to make deletion the default in its internal communications. Even as the internet giant stored the world’s information, it created an office culture that tried to minimize its own. Among its tools: using legal privilege as an all-purpose shield and imposing restraints on its own technology, all while continually warning that loose lips could sink even the most successful corporation.
How Google developed this distrustful culture was pieced together from hundreds of documents and exhibits, as well as witness testimony, in three antitrust trials against the Silicon Valley company over the last year. The plaintiffs — Epic Games in one case, the Department of Justice in the other two — were trying to establish monopoly behavior, which required them to look through emails, memos and instant messages from hundreds of Google engineers and executives.
The exhibits and testimony showed that Google took numerous steps to keep a lid on internal communications. It encouraged employees to put “attorney-client privileged” on documents and to always add a Google lawyer to the list of recipients, even if no legal questions were involved and the lawyer never responded.
I know I write this often: Read the whole thing. Not only will you emerge more knowledgeable, you’ll be better equipped to challenge behaviors like this.
Judges And More Judges: Rethugs apoplectic on having the tables turned:
Senate Republicans are acting pretty mad that Democrats are using the lame duck to confirm lots of President Joe Biden’s judges.
Even President-elect Donald Trump vented on social media about Democrats still confirming Biden’s judges, and demanded that Republicans stop them.
“The Democrats are trying to stack the Courts with Radical Left Judges on their way out the door,” Trump yelled in a Tuesday post. “Republican Senators need to Show Up and Hold the Line — No more Judges confirmed before Inauguration Day!”
It’s a pretty ridiculous moment.
It’s not just because Democrats still control the Senate for the next several weeks and can proceed however they want. It’s because when the tables were turned in 2020 ― when the GOP controlled the Senate in the lame duck and Biden had just defeated Trump ― Republicans took full advantage of confirming as many of Trump’s court picks as possible.
Republicans confirmed 23 of Trump’s lifetime federal judges in the lame duck in 2020, after Biden won the election. That’s not even factoring in the GOP’s unprecedented race to confirm Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett in October 2020, as votes were already being cast in the presidential election.
Oh, yes, that.
Will Texas Legislators Do The Right Thing? Probably a rhetorical question, but still:
Weeks after ProPublica reported on the deaths of two pregnant women whose miscarriages went untreated in Texas, state lawmakers have filed bills that would create new exceptions to the state’s strict abortion laws, broadening doctors’ ability to intervene when their patients face health risks.
The legislation comes after the lawmaker who wrote one of Texas’ recent abortion bans wrote an op-ed in the Houston Chronicle defending the current exceptions as “plenty clear.”
But more than 100 Texas OB-GYNs disagree with his position. In a public letter, written in response to ProPublica’s reporting, they urged changes. “As OB-GYNs in Texas, we know firsthand how much these laws restrict our ability to provide our patients with quality, evidence-based care,” they said.
I think the statute is ‘plenty clear’. It’s designed to cause further deaths and to run doctors out of Texas.
What do you want to talk about?
Anyone who plans to attend the SD 1 candidate’s forum, please feel free to comment afterwards. I highly doubt that I’ll listen or, if I do, I’m not gonna listen for the entirety of the sessions. I, occasionally, have a life.
Just as long as it’s not Wayne’s Whirld waxing rhapsodic over George Frankel. Been there, done that, called ‘bullshit’.
I thought you were on the committee for SD 1?
No, SD 5. There are members of RD 7, which is my committee, who are in Sarah’s district.
But I live in Kyle’s Senate district. More members of RD 7 are in Kyle’s district than live in Sarah’s district.
But we’ve got a great committee, and I’m glad that we’ll have members who are eligible in each SD.
I am still in SD 1 and my zoom link just arrived. Should be amusing😎
Give em hell Joe
I’m listening. I have my opinions, but would rather hear Joe’s and others who are listening in.
how many idiotic cabinet choices will trump make before all his acolytes start questioning them? Oh, wait never mind
He’s trolling and laughing like hell. These are just tweets from the toilet. Nobody is nominated until Trump is sworn in and sends names to the Senate. There’s a lot of MAGA infighting between now and then, and more secrets to be revealed.
I think its his way to see who the true believers are and those who oppose him will then feel the wrath for the next 4 years
I see Trump’s picks for his cabinet to be deliberately absurd, in particular to weaken the government and pave the way for Fascism. Also as yet another bid to expand the powers of the presidency, thanks to the corrupt supreme court said powers are already at near god like levels.
Mike Johnson declares war against Sarah McBride:
https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2024/11/20/congress/johnson-on-capitol-hill-bathrooms-00190645
Utterly despicable, but in character:
“Speaker Mike Johnson has banned transgender women from using women’s bathrooms in the House portion of the Capitol building, enacting into policy a push led by Rep. Nancy Mace.
“All single-sex facilities in the Capitol and House Office Buildings — such as restrooms, changing rooms, and locker rooms — are reserved for individuals of that biological sex,” Johnson said in a statement Wednesday.
Are they going to demand DNA tests for admission?
I think Nancy Mace just doesn’t want Sarah staring at her fake boobs.
Which would make Sarah the only person Nancy doesn’t want staring at her fake boobs.
Sarah McBride getting both support and hate over on Bluesky. It’s been a challenging day to read the posts there, some praising her for rising above and some chastising her for caving. It’s hard to know where to stand. I just feel for her so much and worry about her safety.
How is she caving?
Anyone who thinks she’s going to fight ugly doesn’t know her.
A sampling:
“LIBERALISM WIN: transgender representative completely gives into her rights being taken away in an honorable, classy way 🔥”
““but what do you want sarah mcbride to do” literally anything other than nothing”
“now obviously there’s an impossible standard that the first trans congresswoman is going to be held to by the community and by the country but “immediately fawning and rolling over at literally the first hurdle” is so cartoonish that i can’t even lmfao”
“This is such a dumb move on Sarah’s part. She’s condemning all trans people to horrible fates by not fighting back. ”
“How to fight tyranny, rule 1: Do not obey in advance.
Dumbass Sarah McBride: “what was that? I was busy obeying in advance””
Thanks for the sampling.
As I said, they don’t know her. They’ll learn. She’s not going anywhere.
On my timeline on Mastodon, the few commenters called her classy and dignified. This was the best one, though: “she should go to the bathroom whenever the Speaker does.”
Finally, something Alby and I can agree on. Sarah is a class act “in it to win it” in the long term.
The demand for performative bullshit that contributes nothing is a bizarre fetish of some on the left. I don’t get it.
People are angry, and they can’t yell at these people themselves, so they want their representatives to do it for them. That’s an emotional response, not a strategic one.
And emotional responses usually don’t get you anywhere, even if the emotion is understandable. Sometimes they even work against developing a successful strategy. Good for Sarah.