Last Call For The Foxconn Flees The Chicken Coop

The biggest "deal" of Tangerine Tyrant's unfortunate era was the $10 billion Foxconn electronics plant in Wisconsin that was supposed to generate thousands of jobs, and prove that Republican economic policies were the key to American competitiveness in a global future. Instead, as I pointed out in October, the plant was all but abandoned before Trump lost the 2020 election, and now that Joe Biden is President, the massive tax boondoggle legacy of Gov. Scott Walker is a complete bust now, and Wisconsin taxpayers are stuck with billions in bills and a handful of jobs.

Taiwan electronics manufacturer Foxconn is drastically scaling back a planned $10 billion factory in Wisconsin, confirming its retreat from a project that former U.S. President Donald Trump once called “the eighth wonder of the world.”

Under a deal with the state of Wisconsin announced on Tuesday, Foxconn will reduce its planned investment to $672 million from $10 billion and cut the number of new jobs to 1,454 from 13,000.

The Foxconn-Wisconsin deal was first announced to great fanfare at the White House in July 2017, with Trump boasting of it as an example of how his “America first” agenda could revive U.S. tech manufacturing.

For Foxconn, the investment promise was an opportunity for its charismatic founder and then-chairman, Terry Gou, to build goodwill at a moment when Trump’s trade policies threatened the company’s cash cow: building Apple Inc’s iPhones in China for export to America.

Foxconn, the world’s largest contract manufacturer of electronic devices, proposed a 20-million-square-foot manufacturing campus in Wisconsin that would have been the largest investment in U.S. history for a new location by a foreign-based company.

It was supposed to build cutting-edge flat-panel display screens for TVs and other devices and instantly establish Wisconsin as a destination for tech firms.

But industry executives, including some at Foxconn, were highly skeptical of the plan from the start, pointing out that none of the crucial suppliers needed for flat-panel display production were located anywhere near Wisconsin.

The plan faced local opposition too, with critics denouncing a taxpayer giveaway to a foreign company and provisions of the deal that granted extensive water rights and allowed for the acquisition and demolition of houses through eminent domain.

As of 2019, the village where the plant is located had paid just over $152 million for 132 properties to make way for Foxconn, plus $7.9 million in relocation costs, according to village records obtained by Wisconsin Public Radio and analyzed by Wisconsin Watch.

Foxconn, formally called Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd, said the new agreement gives it “flexibility to pursue business opportunities in response to changing global market conditions.” The company said “original projections used during negotiations in 2017 have at this time changed due to unanticipated market fluctuations.”

After abandoning its plans for advanced displays, Foxconn later said it would build smaller, earlier-generation displays in Wisconsin, but that plan never came to fruition either.

Prior to Tuesday’s announcement, Foxconn Chairman Liu Young-way told reporters in Taipei that the company currently makes servers, communications technology products and medical devices in Wisconsin, adding that electric vehicles (EVs) have a “promising future” there. He did not elaborate.

Liu had previously said the infrastructure was there in Wisconsin to make EVs because of its proximity to the traditional heartland of U.S. automaking, but the company could also could decide on Mexico.

Hon Hai shares fell as much as 1.6% on Wednesday morning, underperforming the broader Taiwan market which was down 0.7%.

 

So the Foxconn failure will at most produce 10% of the promised jobs, and still end up costing the state billions in tax incentives.

Hoocoodanode?!?

Black Lives Still Matter, Con't

As the verdict in the Derek Chauvin murder trial was being announced, another Black girl was being shot to death by police in Columbus.

In an unprecedented move, Columbus police showed body camera footage of the shooting of a 16-year-old girl by a Columbus police officer just hours after the incident on the Southeast Side.

The shooting, which happened about 20 minutes before a guilty verdict was announced in the trial of Derek Chauvin, a former Minneapolis police officer who killed George Floyd, prompted hundreds to protest at the shooting site and Downtown.

Ma’Khia Bryant: What we know about the 16-year-old girl fatally shot by Columbus police

The video shows an officer approaching a driveway with a group of young people standing there. In the video, it appears that the 16-year-old, identified now as Ma’Khia Bryant, who was moments later shot by police, pushes or swings at a person, who falls to the ground.

Bryant then appears to swing a knife at a girl who is on the hood of a car, and the officer fires his weapon what sounds like four times, striking Bryant, who died a short time later.

"It's a tragic day in the city of Columbus. It's a horrible, heartbreaking situation," Mayor Andrew J. Ginther. "We felt transparency in sharing this footage, as incomplete as it is at this time" was critical.

 

Ma'Khia Bryant called the police for protection, because girls were fighting outside her house. When they showed up, the girls were still fighting, she got involved, and the police made no effort to deescalate the situation, they just put four bullets in her chest and executed her. 

The officers at the scene then chanted "Blue Lives Matter" as they walked away from the slaughter.

One guilty verdict won't change the system. It will take thousands of cops imprisoned for murder to do so. And that means thousands of more deaths like George Floyd and Ma'Khia Bryant before America does anything about it.

But Black Lives Still Matter.

 

Steny Hoyer Versus The Stupid

House Democratic Majority Leader Steny Hoyer is finally laying down the law when it comes to dealing with endless House GOP sedition caucus idiocy.

 

House Democratic leaders believe they've found a workaround to defuse weeks of delay tactics used by hard-line Republicans that have irked lawmakers in both parties and brought much of the chamber's floor action to a halt. At least temporarily.

The conservative firebrands have sought to make life difficult for Democrats in protest against what they say are efforts to shut out the minority party. But their tactics have made it virtually impossible for Democrats and Republicans to fast-track so-called suspension bills — noncontroversial measures that are critical to running the House — and instead created a legislative slog.

Under the response shaped by House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, leaders of the far-right Freedom Caucus would no longer be able to effectively seize control of the floor by demanding individual votes on dozens of suspension bills and forcing members to vote late into the night, at least for the rest of this week.

Instead, Hoyer plans to package much of that broadly palatable suspension legislation into a single block on the floor, which he said would “save us somewhere in the neighborhood of seven-and-a-half hours” of voting time.

“What we have seen in the past few weeks has been an unfortunate example of extreme partisanship getting in the way of even the most bipartisan legislation there is," Hoyer said in a statement, confirming POLITICO’s reporting on the planning.

In total, Hoyer said, the conservatives' tactics have cost at least 15 hours of votes on bills that otherwise could have been approved with little fanfare in a voice vote.

"There are Democrats and Republicans who want to get things done, and we will work around those who do not,” added House Rules Committee Chairman Jim McGovern.

The Freedom Caucus has wrestled over how far to push its rebellion. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy stopped by the group’s weekly meeting on Monday evening, where he encouraged members to fine-tune their strategy and focus on achievable goals. McCarthy also warned Freedom Caucus members that they could face potential consequences from Democratic leaders if they keep disrupting the floor.

One of the ultimate goals driving the Freedom Caucus' floor tactics is getting controversial Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) back on her committees after a bipartisan vote to strip her of those assignments. But Democrats are ruling out that demand.

“I’ve been meeting with Steny and I went to the Freedom Caucus last night. We had a good discussion,” McCarthy told POLITICO in a brief interview. “They want to fight. They’re frustrated with everything that’s happening, and I get all that. But my point is: What’s the goal, what’s the strategy?”

 

Even Kevin McCarthy is tired of Marjorie Taylor Greene and her merry band of neo-Nazis. Hoyer reining them in gives McCarthy more juice too, so he'll play along.

Of course, the House GOP sedition caucus will only resort to more extreme measures in the future...

StupidiNews!

• Vice President Kamala Harris says that the guilty verdict in the Derek Chauvin trial was "but a piece" of the healing necessary to resolve "generations of trauma" suffered by Black America.
• After months of being declared free of the COVID-19 virus, a New Zealand airport worker has tested positive for the disease, prompting New Zealand to reconsider opening its air borders.
• Chad President Idriss Deby was killed on the front lines in the country's battle with Islamist militants, after 30 years of rule, Deby's son Mahamat Kaka has been named interim president.
• House Democrats in New York and New Jersey could sink President Biden's infrastructure bill if the legislation doesn't include a repeal of the Trump-era SALT cap on state tax deductions.
• Apple is allowing social platform Parler back into the App Store after the network known for white supremacist Trump supporters agreed to new moderation standards.
  

Last Call For Black Lives Still Matter, Con't

The jury in the trial of the former police officer who killed George Floyd came to a verdict on all three counts in roughly 24 hours, and Derek Chauvin was found guilty on all three.

Former Minneapolis Police officer Derek Chauvin has been convicted on all charges by a jury in the Hennepin County court.

The 12 jurors found him guilty of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter in George Floyd's death in May 2020.

The maximum sentence for second-degree unintentional murder is imprisonment of not more than 40 years. The maximum sentence for third-degree murder is imprisonment of not more than 25 years. The maximum sentence for second-degree manslaughter is 10 years and/or $20,000.

 

Chauvin was handcuffed and remanded into custody.

Like the convicted murderer he is. 

Black Lives Still Matter.

25,000 Posts And Counting

The Big Blogger Machine here informs me that this this Post number #25000 on ZVTS, and again I wanted to say that none of this would be possible without the readers and commenters that interact with the blog daily.

 

Thanks again for keeping me motivated and shouting into the abyss. It needs to be shouted at.

Walter Mondale Dead at 93

Former Carter Vice President Walter "Fritz" Mondale died this week at age 93.

Walter Mondale, who transformed the role of U.S. vice president while serving under Jimmy Carter and was the Democratic nominee for president in 1984, died Monday at 93, according to a family spokesperson.

The big picture: President Biden, who was mentored by Mondale through the years, said in 2015 that the former vice president gave him a "roadmap" to successfully take on the job. 

He was the first vice president to have an office in the White House and was deeply engaged in both U.S. and foreign policy, working closely with the president. 

"I took Fritz's roadmap. He actually gave me a memo, classic Fritz, gave me a memo, as to what I should be looking for and what kind of commitments I should get to be able to do the job the way Fritz thought it should be done," Biden said at an event honoring Mondale in 2015.

Backstory: Mondale spoke by phone on Sunday with President Biden and former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, as well as Vice President Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, said his friend and former campaign staffer Tom Cosgrove. While he and his family believed his death was imminent, after those calls he “perked up.” 

In a final goodbye email to 320 staffers spanning four decades, Mondale told his staffers how much they meant to him, adding he knew that they’d keep up “the good fight” and “Joe in the White House certainly helps.” The email, which was shared with Axios, was prepared to be sent upon his death. 

Cosgrove said Mondale had been deeply worried about the impact of a potential second Donald Trump term on American democracy. "There was a difference after the inauguration - a letting go,” Cosgrove said. “There was a big exhale of relief.”

Mondale and Carter were the longest-living post-presidential team in U.S. history.

 

Mondale got the short end of the historical stick, frankly. He basically invented the job of the modern VP more than forty years ago, the President's right-hand person and on occasions, attack dog and lightning rod, saying the things the President could not.  He nominated Geraldine Ferarro in 1984 when he ran against Reagan, and history only really remembers him for the absolute asskicking Reagan gave him, with Mondale winning only his home state of Minnesota (barely) and DC. Reagan's 525-13 destruction of Mondale represented the high-point of GOP politics and shaped the country for decades.

Democrats have been afraid of losing like that ever since, even when they win. And there's a reason why it took 36 years for another woman to be nominated as VP. Hillary Clinton of course ran for President and lost to a cartoon character, so it makes what Joe Biden and Kamala Harris did even more historic.

America eventually gets to the right place, but it takes a long time for it to happen.

Last Call For Black Lives Still Matter

As closing arguments in the trial of the former police officer who killed George Floyd wrapped up in Minneapolis and the case heads to a jury, a new USA Today/Ipsos poll finds support for BLM back to its pre-June 2020 levels, and even lower among white Americans than it was last year, while support for police is back up to all-time highs. As FiveThirtyEight's Alex Samuels points out, that makes police reform difficult to impossible right now politically.

Daunte Wright was driving in his car through Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, two days ago when police officers pulled him over and later fatally shot him. This isn’t the first time cops have used excessive or fatal force against a Black person. In fact, just 10 miles away from where Wright died, former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was on trial for murder after kneeling on George Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes last year.

Floyd’s death sparked a massive movement against police brutality and a sweeping shift in public opinion. And while it’s possible that in the wake of the latest tragedy, public support for reforming policing might increase again, new calls for change face a significant obstacle in public opinion. Gains in support for reform, especially among white Americans, tend to be fleeting, and there’s no consensus on what type of reforms the public wants.

Eleven months after Floyd’s death, support for the Black Lives Matter movement has fallen, while America’s trust in law enforcement has risen. Sixty-nine percent of Americans, according to a USA Today/Ipsos survey from March, now trust local police and law enforcement to promote justice and equal treatment of all races versus 56 percent who felt the same way last June. 

 

Meanwhile, in the almost four years Civiqs has been asking about support for the Black Lives Matter movement, a majority of white people have never supported the movement.1 Support peaked at 43 percent last June, just days after Floyd’s death. Since then, white Americans’ support for the movement has dipped back down to roughly where it was before Floyd’s death and is currently at 37 percent.

 

Some of the biggest drops in support among white Americans occurred among older people (between the ages of 50 and 64), Republicans and men. Black Americans, meanwhile, have remained steady in their support of the movement. Overall, 85 percent of Black Americans say they support Black Lives Matter, compared to 88 percent last year. And that cuts across age, education and gender.

The reasons for the decline in support among white Americans are myriad. Some experts have chalked it up to a decline in protests and less media coverage of ongoing calls for police reform, making it easier for white people to tune out issues of police brutality. It’s also worth noting, of course, that many protests for Black and civil rights start off unpopular, and people’s perception of the current movement might change over time; white Americans have gradually become more liberal on issues of race, for instance. (Public opinion tends to ebb and flow with tragedy, too, a trend we’ve seen in recent years with the debate over gun control.)

It’s a stark reminder, though, that despite the heavy media coverage the Chauvin trial has received in its first three weeks, its outcome is anything but certain. As we’ve written before, it’s uncommon for police officers to face legal consequences for excessive force. While a majority of Americans (57 percent) think Chauvin should be found guilty, according to a recent Economist/YouGov poll, 56 percent of registered voters told Morning Consult in a separate poll that they’re not following the trial closely. Twenty-one percent said it was because they didn’t think anything will change.

But even if Chauvin is convicted, it’s unlikely policing will fundamentally change in the U.S. Not only is public opinion variable, leading lawmakers to back off reform, law enforcement is often reluctant to admit wrongdoing toward Black people.

 

Police reform isn't popular. People like cops. They're supposed to protect you. But as with firearms, race, and gender the conversations have been mutated and deflected so many times that they are watered down to meaninglessness.

And we muddle through until the next police killing.

Cleaning Up Trump's Mess, Con't

The Biden administration continues to clean up the Trump toxic waste swamp, ending one dehumanizing, barbaric Trump policy at a time, this time around starting with getting rid of the term "illegal immigrant".

The Biden administration has directed immigration enforcement agencies to stop using references to immigrants that were commonplace under the Trump administration, according to the Washington Post on Monday.

In copies of memos sent to department heads at Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection on Monday that were obtained by the Post, the Biden administration details the change in rhetoric that aims to reverse former President Trump’s hardline immigration policies.

The Post reported that changes include “noncitizen or migrant” instead of “alien,” “undocumented” or “illegal,” and “integration” in lieu of “assimilation” when referring to immigrants.

Top officials in CBP and ICE make clear in the memos that under the Biden administration, language that is more inclusive is a top priority.

“As the nation’s premier law enforcement agency, we set a tone and example for our country and partners across the world,” CBP’s top official, Troy Miller, said in his memo, according to the Post. “We enforce our nation’s laws while also maintaining the dignity of every individual with whom we interact. The words we use matter and will serve to further confer that dignity to those in our custody.”

In a separate memo, ICE acting director Tae Johnson expressed a similar sentiment, saying that the agency will ensure “agency communications use the preferred terminology and inclusive language” in response the guidance set by the Biden administration.

The changes in rhetoric regarding immigrants take effect immediately.

The new guidance follows a similar directive from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which processes green cards and citizenship applications, regarding agency communications such as internal correspondence and public information.

The use of “alien” and “illegal” has commonly been used by Border Patrol agents and ICE in news releases, social media and memos to refer to immigrants taken into custody after entering the country illegally.

 

There's still a lot of mess to clean up though, as evidenced by Biden's latest move taking out the trash on climate change.

The White House has reportedly removed and reassigned a scientist chosen by a Trump administration appointee to oversee the government’s definitive report on the effects of climate change.

Citing two sources close to the matter, The Washington Post reports that Betsy Weatherhead, an experienced atmospheric scientist, has been removed from her position as lead of the National Climate Assessment and been reassigned to U.S. Geological Survey.

According to the Post, officials at the White House Office of Science Technology Policy (OSTP) ultimately made the decision to reassign Weatherhead. The OSTP confirmed Weatherhead’s removal.

Weatherhead's selection was praised by the scientific community at the time, the Post notes, due to her decades of experience as a climate scientist in both academic and private sectors. She once served on the board of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and is considered to be an expert on Earth observations, ozone depletion and the intersection of weather and climate.

Individuals close to the situation told the Post there was friction between Weatherhead and officials from the 13 agencies participating in the research program.

Despite her career as a respected climate scientist, the Post notes that Weatherhead has placed importance on communicating scientific uncertainty, which may have been what made her unpopular with the Biden administration.

Weatherhead's ideas for the assessment reportedly clashed with federal officials as she sought to bring in more authors from the private sector and increase the amount of chapters on climate change mitigation.

 

Another Trump bitter clinger, sticking to the ass of the regime like poop, but Biden's more than willing to clean up all the crap.

 

We'll be cleaning up Trump's mess for the rest of my lifetime, I figure.

The GOP's Race To The Bottom, Con't

After news broke over the weekend of GOP Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar's odious "America First Caucus"neo-Nazi manifesto, everyone's scrambling to get away from the political barrel of gunpowder in the GOP living room, and nobody's scrambling faster than Green and Gosar themselves.

 

Two far-right House Republicans linked to a document calling for the protection of "Anglo-Saxon political traditions" distanced themselves from what they said was a draft of prescriptions for an "America First Caucus."

Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., said in a Saturday statement that he "did not author" the document and that he became aware of it only after it was reported by the news media, saying he "will continue to work on America First issues in the House Freedom Caucus."

"Let me be perfectly clear. I did not author this paper," he said. "In fact, I first became aware of it by reading about it in the news yesterday, like everyone else."

In addition, Nick Dyer, a spokesperson for Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., said in a statement that the document was merely "an early planning proposal and nothing was agreed to or approved."

When the document surfaced Friday, Dyer assailed "dirty backstabbing swamp creatures" for sharing it with Punchbowl News, which first reported on its contents and said the effort was linked to Gosar and Greene. "Be on the look out for the release of the America First Caucus platform when it's announced to the public very soon," he said.

Greene released a statement Saturday saying the platform was "a staff level draft proposal from an outside group that I hadn't read."

 

 In the words of Bart Simpson:

 

Don't nobody know who it was that wrote that, but it wasn't us, man!

Greene is meanwhile trying an immediate headfake by going after Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters. 

 

GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.) announced on Sunday that she plans to introduce a resolution to expel Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters (Calif.) from Congress.

Greene in a statement on Sunday said that she will "be introducing a resolution to expel Rep. Maxine Waters from Congress for her continual incitement of violence."

The Republican lawmaker specifically targeted Waters for speaking to protesters at a demonstration in Brooklyn Center, Minn., on Saturday. Protests broke out in the city last week after police fatally shot 20-year-old Daunte Wright during a traffic stop on April 11.

Waters told reporters on Saturday that she is "going to fight with all of the people who stand for justice," adding, "We’ve got to get justice in this country, and we cannot allow these killings to continue," Fox News reported.

The killing of Daunte Wright comes as former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin is on trial on murder charges in the death of George Floyd last year. Floyd died after Chauvin knelt on his neck for several minutes during an arrest.

Asked about Chauvin’s trial, Waters told reporters that if Chauvin is not found guilty, "we've got to stay on the street, and we've got to get more active. We've got to get more confrontational. We've got to make sure that they know that we mean business," according to Fox News, in addition to making other comments on the trial and police brutality in the U.S.

Greene on Sunday claimed that Waters’s comments “led to more violence and a drive by shooting on National Guardsmen in Minnesota early this morning.”

 

It's moronic, racist, and vile, but Greene knows that if the press is focused on her little Mein Kampf tribute to "Anglo-Saxon culture" she's the one in dire trouble. If instead people are talking about how "Maxine Waters is just as bad" then Greene wins completely. 

She's counting on it. Better than even odds that the press is still talking about Waters than Greene by this time next week, and that's exactly what she's hoping for.

We'll see if the media bites, but...

StupidiNews!

• A manhunt is underway in Texas for a shooting suspect after three were killed in Austin, police believe the suspect is armed and dangerous.
• Allies of jailed Russian dissident Alexey Navalny are expected to stage protests this week across the country as reports of the opposition leader's health are grim. 
• Major hedge fund and asset investors are calling on world banks to set tougher global emissions limits ahead of a meeting of world leaders on climate change later this year.
• Talks between Iran and Group of Six nations continue in Vienna as the Biden Administration works to reset the nuclear deal with Tehran scrapped by the Trump regime.
• Three out of eight Americans are now vaccinated against COVID-19, but public health officials worry as resistance to getting the vaccine among the rest of America increases.
  

Suddenly, The Trumpists Love The Press

The Trumpist terrorists who stormed the US Capitol on January 6th are now claiming that they can't be charged with crimes because they are "journalists" and hey, they are protected!

 

At least eight defendants charged in the Jan. 6 riot have identified themselves as a journalist or a documentary filmmaker, including three people arrested this month, according to an Associated Press review of court records in nearly 400 federal cases.

The insurrection led to the deaths of five people, including a police officer, and there were hundreds of injuries. Some rioters manhandled and menaced the reporters and photographers who are credentialed to cover Congress and were trying to cover the mayhem that day. A group of AP journalists had photographic equipment stolen and destroyed outside the building.

One defendant, Shawn Witzemann, told authorities he was inside the Capitol during the riot as part of his work in livestreaming video at protests and has since argued that he was there as a journalist. That explanation did not sway the FBI. The plumber from Farmington, New Mexico, is charged with joining in demonstrating in the Capitol while Congress was certifying Joe Biden’s electoral victory over Donald Trump.

“I seek truth. I speak to sources. I document. I provide commentary. It’s everything that a journalist is,” Witzemann told a New Mexico television station after his arrest April 6. He did not respond to a social media message and email from the AP.

Witzemann’s nightly news show is titled the “Armenian Council for Truth in Journalism” — satirically, his attorney says. On its YouTube page, which has just over 300 subscribers, the show says it “delivers irreverent and thought provoking commentary and analysis, on an eclectic range of subjects.”

Another defendant works for Infowars, the right-wing website operated by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. Others have fringe platforms named “Political Trance Tribune,” “Insurgence USA,” “Thunderdome TV” and “Murder the Media News.”

But while the internet has given more people a platform to use their voice, the definition of a “journalist” is not that broad when put into practice in court, said Lucy Dalglish, dean of the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism, who used to practice media law as an attorney.

She said it is an easy case to make that Capitol riot defendants were not journalists because reporters and photographers must have credentials to work there. She said any defendant captured on video encouraging rioters cannot credibly claim to be a journalist.

“You are, at that point, an activist with a cellphone, and there were a lot of activists with copyrighted videos who sold them to news organizations,” Dalglish said. “That doesn’t make them journalists.”

Even credentialed reporters and news photographers are not immune from prosecution if they break a law on the job, said Jane Kirtley, who teaches media ethics and law at the University of Minnesota.

“It’s not a get-out-of-jail-free card,” Kirtley said.

 

What these assholes want of course is for folks like Greenwald and Alex Jones and Matt Taibbi to declare them "journalists" and come to their defense, and to publicly attack credentialed news organizations for not doing the same. 

 

They're not doing it out of camaraderie for journalists who really are threatened (and let's not forget that these are the same assholes wearing the "a rope, a tree, a journalist" t-shirts during the Trump regime and spewed epithets of FAKE NEWS at the press during Trump's hate rallies) they're doing it to avoid prison for terrorism.

Actual journalists should be enraged at this nonsense.

But watch, we'll have this "argument" over the "fascist, press-hating Biden administration" here very soon.

Sunday Long Read: Your Dreck Support Guy

After Amazon and Google de-platformed Trump's cadre of racist, violent online social media sites like Gab and Parler, they got back online and stay online because of people like 23-year-old Nick Lim, a techbro jackass who just wants the neo-Nazis he runs websites for to have a voice, and they pay him handsomely for it.

Two and a half months before extremists invaded the U.S. Capitol, the far-right wing of the internet suffered a brief collapse. All at once, in the final weeks of the country’s presidential campaign, a handful of prominent sites catering to White supremacists and adherents of the QAnon conspiracy movement stopped functioning. To many of the forums’ most devoted participants, the outage seemed to prove the American political struggle was approaching its apocalyptic endgame. “Dems are making a concerted move across all platforms,” read one characteristic tweet. “The burning of the land foreshadows a massive imperial strike back in the next few days.”

In fact, there’d been no conspiracy to take down the sites; they’d crashed because of a technical glitch with VanwaTech, a tiny company in Vancouver, Wash., that they rely on for various kinds of network infrastructure. They went back online with a simple server reset about an hour later, after the proprietor, 23-year-old Nick Lim, woke up from a nap at his mom’s condo.

Lim founded VanwaTech in late 2019. He hosts some websites directly and provides others with technical services including protection against certain cyberattacks; his annual revenue, he says, is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Although small, the operation serves clients including the Daily Stormer, one of America’s most notorious online destinations for overt neo-Nazis, and 8kun, the message board at the center of the QAnon movement, whose adherents were heavily involved in the violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6.

Lim exists in a singularly odd corner of the business world. He says he’s not an extremist, just an entrepreneur with a maximalist view of free speech. “There needs to be a me, right?” he says, while eating pho at a Vietnamese restaurant near his headquarters. “Once you get to the point where you look at whether content is safe or unsafe, as soon as you do that, you’ve opened a can of worms.” At best, his apolitical framing comes across as naive; at worst, as preposterous gaslighting. In interviews with Bloomberg Businessweek early in 2020, Lim said he didn’t really know what QAnon was and had no opinion about Donald Trump.

What’s undeniable is the niche Lim is filling. His blip of a company is providing essential tech support for the kinds of violence-prone hate groups and conspiracists that tend to get banned by mainstream providers such as Amazon Web Services.

It’s almost impossible to run a real website without the support of invisible services such as web hosting, domain name registration, and protection against distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, which involve crashing a site by bombarding it with junk traffic. Getting banned by AWS, Cloudflare, or other infrastructure providers, as the Daily Stormer and 8kun have been, is a step beyond a ban from Facebook or Twitter. It puts the American far right on a short list that includes child pornographers and terrorist organizations such as Islamic State—groups that promote and incite violence and basically aren’t allowed to have websites. “Every time I see an article attacking social media companies—and they deserve it—I think it’s more important to go after the companies that are hosting terrorist material,” says Rita Katz, founder of SITE Intelligence Group, a nonprofit that tracks terrorist activity online. “There’s already a good recipe that was used for ISIS. Why don’t you use it on the far right?”

It’s tougher to keep a site such as the Daily Stormer offline as long as somebody like Lim is willing to support it. U.S. laws governing domestic extremism are less expansive than those focused on international terrorism, partly to protect the rights of U.S. citizens with unpopular political views. And even the big web-hosting companies have struggled to set consistent standards. While Cloudflare has refused to work with the Daily Stormer, it supports other sites peddling racism, including those for Stormfront and the Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust. The overlap between Republican Party officials and the belief systems that sparked the Capitol attack, which started out as a Trump rally, can make it all the tougher to draw clear lines.

Voices from across the U.S. political spectrum have registered concerns about companies setting up litmus tests to ban groups from the internet. That said, the voices Lim supports tend to come from the same general neighborhood. He sought out Andrew Anglin, who runs the Daily Stormer, to offer the neo-Nazi free tech support. He says his largest customer is 8kun, and he has a personal relationship with Ron Watkins, the site’s former administrator and one of its key leaders since its inception.

Lim argues that the real political crisis facing the U.S. is not extremist violence but erosion of the First Amendment. He says that restrictions on online speech have already brought the U.S. to the verge of communist tyranny, that “we are one foot away from 1984.” After a moment, though, he offers a sizable qualifier: “I never actually read the book, so I don’t know all the themes of the book. But I have heard the concepts, and I’ve seen some things, and I thought, ‘Whoa! That’s sketchy as f---.’ ”

 

There are real first amendment issues, even under the Biden Administration, in 2021. The Daily Stormer website is not one of them. We had an attempted political coup on the US Capitol with the intent of killing enough lawmakers to make Trump President to steal and election and establish a military dictatorship, and people are still wondering why I think a Second Civil War is inevitable, complete with a body count in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions.

That wouldn't have been possible without Nick Lim.

That's not a good thing.

Trump Without The Baggage

GOP donors have settled on their Trump 2.0 experiment, and it's GOP Gov Ron DeSantis of Florida, as right-wing Washington Post columnist Ross Douthat points out. The problem is for once, Douthat is actually right. If nobody finds a way to stop DeSantis, he will be President in 2024, along with a Republican Congress, and then it's 100% over.

 

The proximate cause of the enthusiasm for DeSantis is his handling of the pandemic, and the media’s attempted manhandling of him. When the Florida governor began reopening Florida last May, faster than some experts advised, he was cast as a feckless mini-Trump, the mayor from “Jaws” (complete with open, crowded beaches), the ultimate case study in “Florida Man” stupidity.

A year later, DeSantis is claiming vindication: His state’s Covid deaths per capita are slightly lower than the nation’s despite an aged and vulnerable population, his strategy of sealing off nursing homes while reopening schools for the fall looks like social and scientific wisdom, and his gubernatorial foils, the liberal governors cast as heroes by the press, have stumbled and fallen in various ways.

Meanwhile many media attacks on his governance have fizzled or boomeranged, most notably a “60 Minutes” hit piece that claimed to have uncovered corruption in the state’s use of the Publix supermarket for its vaccination efforts but produced no smoking gun, conspicuously edited out much of DeSantis’s rebuttal, and fell afoul of fact checkers. The governor’s public outrage in response was justified, but he must have been privately delighted, since there’s nothing that boosts the standing of a Republican politician quite like being attacked deceptively or unsuccessfully by the press.

So DeSantis has a good narrative for the Covid era — but his appeal as a post-Trump figure goes deeper than just the pandemic and its battles. The state he governs isn’t just a test case for Covid policy. It’s also been an object lesson in the adaptability of the Republican Party in the face of demographic trends that were supposed to spell its doom.

When the 2000 election famously came down to a statistical tie in Florida, many Democrats reasonably assumed that by 2020 they would be winning the state handily, thanks to its growing Hispanic population and generational turnover among Cuban-Americans, with an anti-Castro and right-wing older generation giving way to a more liberal younger one. But instead Florida’s Democrats keep falling short of power, and the Republicans keep finding new ways to win, culminating in 2020, when the Trump-led G.O.P. made dramatic inroads with Hispanics in Miami-Dade County and took the state with relative ease.

DeSantis’s career has been a distillation of this Florida-Republican adaptability. Born in Jacksonville, he went from being a double-Ivy Leaguer (Yale and Harvard Law) to a Tea Party congressman to a zealous Trump defender who won the president’s endorsement for his gubernatorial campaign. A steady march rightward, it would seem — except that after winning an extremely narrow victory over Andrew Gillum in 2018, DeSantis then swung back to the center, with educational and environmental initiatives and African-American outreach that earned him 60 percent approval ratings in his first year in office.

Combine that moderate swing with the combative persona DeSantis has developed during the pandemic, and you can see a model for post-Trump Republicanism that might — might — be able to hold the party’s base while broadening the G.O.P.’s appeal. You can think of it as a series of careful two-steps. Raise teacher’s salaries while denouncing critical race theory and left-wing indoctrination. Spend money on conservation and climate change mitigation through a program that carefully doesn’t mention climate change itself. Choose a Latina running mate while backing E-Verify laws. Welcome conflict with the press, but try to make sure you’re on favorable ground.

This is not exactly the kind of Republicanism that the party’s donor class wanted back in 2012: DeSantis is to their right on immigration and social issues, and arguably to their left on spending. But the trauma of Trumpism has taught the G.O.P. elite that some compromise with base politics is inevitable, and right now DeSantis seems like the safest version of that compromise — Trump-y when necessary, but not Trump-y all the time.

 

Here's the fun part: DeSantis is going to eventually run up against Trump. The person best equipped to remove DeSantis from the picture may be Donald Trump himself.

Certainly Biden or Harris will have a rough time beating Trump back in 2024. But I think DeSantis would be an even tougher opponent, just because FOX News wants him to be.

The GOP's Race To The Bottom, Con't

It was only a matter of time before GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and House Republicans made their post-Trump move towards being the party of Whites official with the formation of the America First caucus, complete with a focus on "Anglo-Saxon political traditions".

Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) are starting a right-wing caucus in Congress that seeks to “follow in President Trump’s footsteps,” which could prove yet another thorn in the side of Republican leaders already struggling to unite a bitterly divided party.

According to a seven-page policy platform published by Punchbowl News, the group wants members to display “a certain intellectual boldness” and be willing to “step on some toes and sacrifice sacred cows” – in other words, break with the GOP on some issues.

Among the group’s positions are a belief in unfounded claims of widespread election fraud and support for voting restrictions, as well as an effort to roll back all coronavirus safety measures and “make sure we do not overreact to a pandemic in this same way again.”

A lengthy passage on immigration says the U.S. is “a nation with a border, and a culture, strengthened by a common respect for uniquely Anglo-Saxon political traditions,” which is “threatened when foreign citizens are imported en-masse.”

Under “infrastructure,” the platform promotes “architectural, engineering and aesthetic value that befits the progeny of European architecture,” echoing Trump’s now-revoked executive order banning many modern architectural styles for federal government buildings.

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), who Punchbowl reported had “agreed to join,” told Forbes he is “looking” at joining the America First Caucus but said he “hadn’t seen” the language about immigration, claiming the group is “not supposed to be about race at all.”

“We’re stronger, you know, as diversified,” Gohmert said when asked about the incendiary language in the platform, adding “there’s some things that helped make us strong – slavery nearly destroyed us, it was a horrendous thing.”

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), who is under federal investigation for an alleged sexual relationship with a 17-year-old, tweeted he is “proud” to be joining the caucus, which he said will “end wars, stop illegal immigration & promote trade that is fair to American workers.”

A spokesperson for Rep. Barry Moore (R-Ala.), denied Punchbowl’s reporting that he joined the group: "He will not agree to join any caucus until he’s had an opportunity to research their platform."

Nick Dyer, a spokesperson for Greene, confirmed the existence of the group to Forbes in a statement that said to “be on the look out for a public release for the America First Caucus platform when it’s released publicly very soon.”

Forbes has reached out to Gosar’s office for comment.

The term “Anglo-Saxon” has become increasingly controversial, particularly in academia, due to the adoption of the term and its symbology by white supremacists. A medieval studies group originally called the International Society of Anglo Saxonists even changed its name in 2019 after a member alleged it emboldens white supremacy.

“We’re taught, when we get on an airliner, before you help somebody else, you put your own mask on first, so that you are capable of helping somebody else,” Gohmert said of the caucus’ philosophy. “If we let our country go without taking care of America, making sure we’re viable for the future, then we’re not going to be in a position to help the other countries,” he added.

 

House GOP Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is in full panic mode over this, because he knows exactly what this means for GOP chances in any 2021/2022 race where the electorate isn't at least 80% white. 

 

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said Friday that the Republican Party is not the party of "nativist dog whistles" in an apparent response to a new right-wing caucus that explicitly calls for promoting "Anglo-Saxon political traditions."

McCarthy issued a tweet that does not explicitly reference the new "America First Caucus" — established by GOP Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.) and Paul Gosar (Ariz.) — but came hours after its policy platform began leaking to the media.

"America is built on the idea that we are all created equal and success is earned through honest, hard work. It isn’t built on identity, race, or religion," McCarthy wrote.

"The Republican Party is the party of Lincoln & the party of more opportunity for all Americans — not nativist dog whistles," he added.

 

Except of course here we have Republicans explicitly stating that the GOP is absolutely the party of racist, nativist dog whistles and that those who are not White and of European descent are unwelcome in the party and unwelcome in America.  Even McCarthy realizes that's a political death sentence for the GOP in a state like his own California, and increasingly in states like NC, Georgia, Michigan and Arizona, and deservedly so.

The larger issue of course is that the GOP is dispensing with the appetizer and salad course and going straight to the, well, white meat dish. There's no longer any pretending that the GOP isn't the party of Whites First, and anyone remaining in the party at this point, well.

No real doubt as to their loyalties, huh?