Open Thread For June 23, 2017
Yes, Vote Totals May Well Have Been Altered Due To Russian Interference. Besides, it’s written by Charles Pierce, so it’s a great read. But, it’s an essential read. A rare excerpt:
We are creeping ever closer to actual evidence that there was Russian ratfcking of the vote totals in the last election. Not long ago, people wouldn’t even suggest that out loud. We were made vulnerable to something like this because of the interference by the Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore, by the curious goings-on in Ohio in 2004, by a relentless campaign to convince the country of an imaginary epidemic of voter fraud, and by a decade of voter suppression by any means necessary. The Russians wanted to undermine the confidence Americans had in their elections? We made it pretty damn easy to do that.
Coats: Trump Was ‘Obsessed’ Over Russian Probe. The President is a corrupt madman. Everybody knows it. And yet…
One More Reason The Democratic Party Sucks: Hillary’s corporate fundraisers working hard on behalf of the Trump Agenda. Yo, Hillary brown-nosers, don’t even try to make the case that The Third Way is dead. It permeates every pore of the rotting corpus of the Democratic Party.
‘FML’: White House staffers respond to Trump’s latest conspiracy theory tweets.
Western Tech Firms Bow To Their Russian Masters: I mean, what harm could that possibly do?
The Problem With The Latest Charter Schools’ Legislation. Can you say ‘de facto segregation’?
BTW, you can catch me tonight on WHYY-TV 12 on First at 5:30.
What do you want to talk about?
Re the Newark Charter legislation — yes indeed, it’s a lawsuit waiting to happen, and a slam-dunk win for whoever files it. The state lost the Wilmington school deseg case in the 1970s because sections of the 1968 Educational Advancement Act resulted in unconstitutional segregation. The reason: language that kept minority kids out of suburban schools by banning the merger of the Wilmington system with suburban school districts. So, what would this law do? Keep minority kids out of charter schools by walling off the Wilmington section from the suburban portion of the Christina School District.
Besides likely being unconstitutional, this provision is flat-out stupid. Why?
1. Given that Wilmington parents have been saying for years that they didn’t want their youngest kids (not to mention those of high school age) bused to the Newark area, there’s little reason to expect huge numbers to suddenly say a half-hour (or longer) bus ride is a great idea.
2. Newark Charter is so damn popular that seats won through its lottery are cherished nearly as much as a winning Powerball ticket. Its waiting list is longer than the school’s actual enrollment. So, as long as you’ve got a lottery, you’re not going to see more than a handful of city kids cashing in a Willy Wonka golden ticket.
The folks who like Newark Charter almost lily white, with a dollop of high-achieving Asian Americans on top, would be far better served by eliminating the Wilmington exclusion from the legislation and letting everyone take their chances in the lottery. Keeping the exclusion in the bill not only raises the odds of a lawsuit, but it also exposes Dave Sokola and all his cosponsors as the bigots they truly are.
^ ^ ^ What he said.
Also, at DelLib, learn something new every day. How did I miss FML?
There’s a rally to support school funding Monday. I emailed the details to Jason for posting.
I know it’s uncomfortable, but you’re going to need to put your body in the street. These things don’t correct themselves.
Read wapo today they have evidence putin ordered election system hacking. 22 states were affected. We know millions of voters were purged. Thats how trump won.
This is why we’ll never be able to vote him out. Do you think his govt has any interest in stopping this from happening again? He’s gonna get 80% of the vote for re-election with 30% approval rating and the R’s wont bat an eye.
Sources, Liz, until we know. Right now I do not know Russians effected 22 states.
I’m following the hacking story. At this point, I don’t think DT was in on the hacking, and Putin didn’t hack to help Dt so much as Putin hated and feared Hillary Clinton. During the campaign, Clinton asserted she was going to take steps to expose the Russian political system, probably in response to Russian activity in Ukraine, Syria, and murders of political opponents in Russia. I think Dt actually was not a part of that. I think he is up to his earballs in money laundering for Russian oligarchs, but that is a subsidiery investigative lead, relative to Russian interference in our election. In addition, it feels like our media are “slow-walking” us to the “discovery” that Russia changed the results of the election directly. 3 states is all it took in a system that uses the electoral college. To further the point, if/when our media “discovers” evidence that Russia changed the outcome of the election, then we are really in a pickle. We have no mechanism for undoing a fraudulent election. Nothing is authorized in the constitution, and to my knowledge, to redo a presidential election in the case of a fraudelent outcome is not a subject of any federal law. Clearly, this is a case that would go before the ultra-conservative, actually unmoored, conservative majority on the SCOTUS. The outcome of any “process” we develop ad-hoc is clear as mud.
Thanks (?) for that summary. Let’s all remember that when this was going down, Obama tried to get the famous American patriot, Mitch McConnell on board with a bi-partisan approach to addressing it. We all know how that went.
i picked the wrong lifetime to stop sniffing glue.
Great Joe Biden story about him calling out a hedge fund manager who cracked wise at a VIP dinner:
http://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/2017/06/23/joe-biden-s-beef-with-bill-ackman-sparks-heated-exchange-and-presidential-chatter.html
@Ben at 4 pm: LOL, I get your reference. Also, Supperware products are ideal for storing leftovers to help stretch your food dollar.
Suggested theme song for Democratic or Progressives parties: Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes’ Wake Up Everybody. Totally agree with wikiwox or whoever recently posted that the old, white leaders in the Democratic National party such as Pelosi, et al., need to get out of the way or get out. But I don’t expect them to do the right thing.
DE State Senator Pettyjohn slapped with a felony charge in Maryland…
http://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/crime/2017/06/23/delaware-state-senator-charged-after-gun-found-carry/423488001/