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ChunkMcHorkle

@ ChunkMcHorkle @lemmy.world

Posts
11
Comments
570
Joined
3 yr. ago

Only pedophiles defend pedophiles.And I fucking HATE pedophiles.

Woody Allen is still a pedophile who raped one of his own young step-daughters and married another.

People who defend that shit are SICK.

  • Just admit it: The Supreme Court is political

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  • Chief Justice John Roberts wants us to believe that neither the court nor the judiciary as a whole has “Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges.” Justice Neil Gorsuch insists that the court is not populated by “politicians in robes.”

    Justice Amy Coney Barrett went on Fox News to say that justices “don’t wear red and blue, we all wear black because judges are nonpartisan. And the idea is that we are all listening to the law. We’re all trying to get it right. We’re not playing for a team.”

    One notes that the judges most invested in the appearance of "not playing for a team" are, in fact and by every discernible measure, all playing for the same team.

  • Just admit it: The Supreme Court is political

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  • It's an obedience situation with that one:

    A PoP handbook states that members are expected to be obedient to male authorities, or group heads, and are expected to give 5% of their earnings to the group. Heads are influential decision-makers in members’ lives, weighing in on issues ranging from dating to marriage and determining where members should live.

    During her confirmation I recall reading a number of reports that -- to put it politely -- indicate her husband has a great deal to do with her work; iow, that describe her as a "handmaiden" that is completely obedient to her husband, something she had said herself before her nomination. In the confirmation hearings she was questioned about this directly and forced to deny that her husband would be an influence if she were confirmed, but it was superficial at best. Outside the hearings, other reporting that took a much closer look at the husband revealed all kinds of sketchy links and obligations.

    Which is to say that in her case the corruption is not primarily about money, it's a weirdly toxic faith, and the actor/beneficiary is not herself, but her husband and his ties. Think Leonard Leo. It was strange and dark and labyrinthine and I'd have to look it all up again to describe it in any detail, but man that is some shady shit going on just behind her.

    Excellent comment up top, btw. Well sourced, much appreciated.

  • Blanche formally rescinds Trump’s $1.8bn ‘anti-weaponization fund’ ahead of nomination hearing

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  • There's a new Guardian article now that addresses the sham of the confirmation agreement:

    ‘Completely hollow’: critics denounce Blanche deal to halt Trump slush fund

    “These assurances are not worth the paper they’re written on,” Brandon DeBot, policy director at the Tax Law Center at NYU, said in a statement. “They don’t pull back on the ongoing attempts to give the president, his family, and his affiliates unauthorized immunity from tax audits. They don’t do anything new to stop the president from trying to bring back the fund, as he threatened to this weekend. It’s abundantly clear we need congressional action.”

    The documents Blanche released only say the prior justice department order creating the weaponization fund is rescinded. It does not modify the original settlement agreement creating the fund, reached as the result of a Trump lawsuit seeking billions in damages for the unauthorized release of his tax returns.

    Blanche acknowledged during his confirmation hearing that Trump or his sons – the plaintiffs in the case – could theoretically sue to enforce the agreement. Trump spent the weekend praising the slush fund, and even threatened to revive it.

    Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrat on the House judiciary committee, said Blanche’s announcement does nothing to prevent the justice department and Trump from creating the weaponization fund under a different name.

    Raskin said: “These hollow words are an affront to the American people, Congress and the courts, and are clearly designed to lull Senators Cornyn and Tillis into a false sense that their legitimate concerns have been addressed while leaving Blanche’s corrupt scheme fully intact.”

    There's more if you're interested, but no one thinks for two seconds that this is legitimate, or more importantly, that it's actually going away. It's not going anywhere, because Blanche is going out of his way to ensure that it can be resurrected with any legal challenge by the orange chancre or his spawn.

  • Wikimedia Foundation refuses voluntary union recognition, hires union-busting law firm

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  • Of course it wouldn't. And NLRB was one of the first agencies directly targeted by Musk's DOGE, which by some bizarre and unrelated coincidence was also involved in a huge multi-year lawsuit against SpaceX at the time, and said to be holding information related to that suit, the same suit that was dropped this year via an interesting ruling involving the NLRB itself. Of course NLRB is still 100% trustworthy, nothing to see here.

  • As Reddit stock falls, CEO questions value of Google's AI Overviews

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  • Yeah, a number of people have been saying they can still get on but Reddit is definitely doing this. It appears to be getting rolled out in some kind of A/B distribution.

  • Kentucky Governor to McConnell: Prove Fitness to Serve or ‘Resign’

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  • Yes, for every chair there is a Ranking Member of the minority party, and committee assignments are readily shuffled. This is true of both the House and the Senate.

    Usually it's not a big deal. But nothing can be done by anyone until and unless there is a formal vacancy. That would be created by either McConnell himself announcing he will not be back, or he is somehow proven dead or incapacitated. That seems to be what his party is trying very hard to hold off.

  • Kentucky Governor to McConnell: Prove Fitness to Serve or ‘Resign’

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  • Thanks. I almost wonder if Beshear is thinking along the same lines because anything he does to address the practical absence is going to be litigated far beyond the election itself, so maybe (I don't know, this is just a guess) he's doing just enough to be able to prosecute the fraud when the dust settles. It's as viable a course as any other.

  • Kentucky Governor to McConnell: Prove Fitness to Serve or ‘Resign’

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  • Honestly, I wish they wouldn't. This motherfucker is not just holding his general Senate seat vacant, he's also holding a couple of very powerful committee seats he has vacant, robbing the Republicans not just of his floor vote but of his committee votes. He's chair of Rules and a member of Appropriations, as well as holding a number of lesser assignments that are still important as the orange chancre is actively destroying whatever still allows us to have a functioning government.

    Legislation has to go through committee before it ever hits the Senate floor for debate, meaning that McConnell is and has been absolutely crucial to moving forward legislation enabling Trump and stopping any checks on it before it even gets to a vote. Appropriations is possibly the most powerful committee in the Senate anyway, but pay very special attention to the kind of legislation that has to pass Rules first, for example:

    • Corrupt practices (this refers to US election law);
    • Credentials and qualifications of Members of the Senate, contested elections, and acceptance of incompatible offices;
    • Federal elections generally, including the election of the President, Vice President, and Members of the Congress;
    • Nominations to fill a vacancy in the Vice Presidency;
    • Presidential succession;
    • United States Capitol and congressional office buildings, ...the Smithsonian Institution (which is under direct fire right now as the Republicans are desperately trying to rewrite American history and erase the record of slavery wherever they can)

    Again, McConnell is chair of Rules. You really want that motherfucker's committee assignments filled? Not to mention that it is the Senate that confirms presidential appointments, such as Attorney General and Director of National Intelligence, both of which are filled right now with incompetent (and worse) men actively seeking confirmation.

    So for as many people want McConnell to prove he's alive, and for as much as I'd like to see his handlers sweat as they continue to enable his fraud of pretending he will ever return to his position, I say let the motherfucker rot. I know Gov Beshear is trying to do right by Kentuckians who deserve to be represented in the Senate, but for myself I'm not entirely sure McConnell ever represented anyone beyond himself.

    Let his chairs remain vacant.

  • Congresswoman Asks House Republicans to Investigate Andrew Tate’s Reported Ties to Barron Trump

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  • Trump will declare a ‘national emergency’ before midterms: Bannon

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  • What the article isn't saying is that Bannon himself is part of the plan, making sure everyone knows a national emergency is coming, getting in front of it. Bannon's not talking about election insecurity out of concern: telling the media now is his part in making it happen. This asshole WANTS a third term and everything that goes with it, including ICE at polling stations:

    Steve Bannon calls for Trump to deploy ICE and military troops to polling sites - The Trump ally was one of few GOP voices to support the president’s push to nationalize voting -- Politico, February 2026

    Steve Bannon says ‘there is a plan’ for Trump to be president in 2028: ‘We had longer odds in 2016 and 2024’ -- The Independent, October 2025

    Steve Bannon Doubles Down on Third Trump Term -- Newsweek, April 2026

    Also, it bears repeating: before you give this asshole too much credence it's best to always keep in mind that Bannon was arguably Jeffrey Epstein's best friend. So close were they that Epstein was on his way to meet Bannon the day he got arrested in 2019. His very last text was to Bannon as he was being detained at Teterboro Airport, telling Bannon their plans are "All canceled" now.

    To quote one of Bannon's texts to Epstein,

    Now you can understand why trump wakes up in the middle of the night sweating when he hears you and I are friends

    See it for yourself.

  • Mitch McConnell’s staff refuse to answer basic questions on his health

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  • It's not me you have to convince, but yeah. For myself, I personally think McConnell's been dead since the day 911 was called, and he's either being artificially sustained or they're actively hiding the death. If some judge starts calling that out it's going to be hot in August for a number of those complicit in whatever's going on with McConnell in reality.

    But I'm not the governor of Kentucky, and I honestly don't have any idea which way Beshear is leaning. It's inconvenient for Kentucky but he may actually decide it's in Kentucky's best interest to let McConnell's machinations continue to rob the Senate of another Republican vote.

  • Troy Jackson leads Sen. Susan Collins in new poll

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  • Lol exactly. "Amoebic dysentery leads Sen. Susan Collins in new poll" to the surprise of absolutely no one but Susan Collins.

  • Mitch McConnell’s staff refuse to answer basic questions on his health

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  • Because of McConnell's own fuckery with Kentucky law regarding filling vacant offices, in 2021 and again in 2024, the legal question is unclear. Gov. Beshear has been very open about it lately, saying, "We're looking at everything," when pressed about what legal option(s) he may take.

    To answer your question directly, he could try to get a judge to rule requiring McConnell's presence or personal answer, but that would require being able to demonstrate a legal necessity on behalf of the state, which seems self-evident but which he may not actually have in law. During the first month he was also been reluctant to unduly publicize McConnell's "private health" issues, but his patience is gone and he is no longer holding back.

    It's also pretty clear that the governor could simply declare the seat vacant, pointing to McConnell's prolonged absence as proof and call the special election anyway, just to force the matter, but that's not as simple as it seems either, because even if a vacancy becomes apparent, with or without McConnell's cooperation or disclosure, the legal question is far from settled.

    From before Kentucky was a state (it was part of the commonwealth of Virginia under royal charter), the governor had the right and the power to fill vacant offices, and did so without issue. Upon statehood, that right of the governor to fill vacant seats with the candidate of his choosing was codified into the Kentucky state constitution. Until recently, a federal seat has been included in that right and power.

    But in 2021, when McConnell's health started to fail, he had the Kentucky state legislature enact a law that required the governor to select his own replacement from a shortlist of three candidates supplied to him by the state legislature.

    Apparently that wasn't good enough for McConnell, and in 2024 he had the Kentucky state legislature change the law again, this time requiring that the governor make no replacement choice for his own seat at all, but rather call a special election -- unless that vacancy occurs within three months of a regular election, in which case the seat will just remain vacant until the candidate elected in November fills the vacancy in January. That's what the August 3 date people are throwing around is about: it's the three-month-prior to the regular Kentucky election date in November.

    The problem here is that none of these recent laws have been tested, AND they directly contradict the Kentucky state constitution: meaning that whatever the governor does, there will be legal challenges.

    Meaning that all these people in this thread calling out what they think is the obvious stupidity/ignorance of other people in the thread are exactly that themselves, because they have missed the most obvious thing of all and what the governor himself has been pointing out repeatedly: literally NO ONE knows what will happen now.

    And that is likely what McConnell meant to accomplish: all along he wanted to ensure that should his health fail, a Dem governor could not appoint his interim replacement, and legally that is all but certain just because no matter what happens, the legal challenges will likely run out the clock.

  • House Committee Blocks Push to Strip Pentagon Bill of Israel Integration Measure

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  • As one example, Tom Homan's been screeching and threatening about Dems speaking against ICE, and as another example it's finally coming home even to Republicans that their support of Israel is surprise-kicking their elections to progressives, so yeah. It actually does help.

    Any little way you can block a fascist is just that much harder they have to work for it, and well worth doing. Don't mock a small step, especially when large steps are not really possible right now. It's all the small things put together that make the big things possible.

  • House Committee Blocks Push to Strip Pentagon Bill of Israel Integration Measure

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  • Hey old-farts/dumb-shits, making the US military subservient to the genocidal maniacs of Isreal will not buy your way into heaven.

    Truth. I wish more people understood that it is this, old men's fears of hell, that is driving all the pro-Israel bullshit in Congress and not actually anything having to do with real world issues -- beyond stealing the Gaza strip for development and trying to make the actual victims of their theft the world's enemy, of course.

    But even that's just bonus.

    It's still ALL about genuinely bad individuals in power who have done truly bad things their entire lives now growing old, with just enough understanding of Christianity to be frightened of the roaring encroaching hellfire they know they deserve, and trying to buy their way out of the heat via a handful of Old Testament verses that promise good things to those who "bless Jerusalem" (iow, Israel).

  • 'We're a humiliation': Trump voters admit America is now 'objectively worse'

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  • In a sense, yes. For the giver, anyway. You can only give a gift link if you have an account, and the gift links you generate (usually limited to a certain number per month) are tied to your account.

  • Some power companies are using eminent domain to seize land for data centers, as 70% of Americans say not in my backyard

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  • It doesn't have to get as far as eminent domain. In at least one Georgia case the land was condemned by local authorities, the start of the legal process of eminent domain, and the family was no longer able to live in it regardless. So the use of eminent domain as a threat to force the sale of privately held land is already happening.

    Every "voluntary" easement is signed in the shadow of automatic condemnation. When the company across the table can take your land if you say no, you aren't negotiating, and attorneys representing landowners know that.

    This quote is from one article of many about how non-local companies use condemnation as a tool to steal land, and how that has a very long history in the US. This particular article is about how a community in Nashville attempted to use condemnation in the other direction, condemning a property wanted by a data center so that no one could use it, but it gives the history pretty well.

  • Lindsey Graham Occupied the Most Racist Senate Seat in U.S. History

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  • I do too. My history teachers tried, but most of what I learned about history I learned as an adult, mainly because I really like historical biographies. There was a time when I'd have multiple books going at once, but that was decades ago now.

    What has really fired me up in the last few years has been listening to Heather Cox Richardson and Joanne Freeman, who are both essentially historians/history teachers/historical authors turned contemporary political commentators.

    Until them I avoided almost all modern political commentary because it all sounds like fantasy football to me, with participants hotly arguing conjecture. But when I first heard Richardson, she was talking about how some particular thing with Trump had a clear parallel in something that had happened in Reconstruction, I could see it for myself, and suddenly history had relevance again.

    I was hooked. She does a Saturday morning thing with Dr. Freeman, whose specialty seems to be Alexander Hamilton, and they both just talk history in the modern context and laugh. I haven't read their books, but I might, and Richardson also has a Substack I catch occasionally.

    Somehow those two have got me interested again, and it's no longer strategists arguing fantasy politics. (I still don't listen to anyone else, lol.)

    Never too late to learn.

  • Lindsey Graham Occupied the Most Racist Senate Seat in U.S. History

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  • Oh there are SO many more, but this article listed only the Class Two Senate seats for South Carolina. If they'd included both classes you'd just have almost the full list of South Carolina senators.

    I noticed because I missed the presence of Andrew Butler, another South Carolina senator of the same Butler family named in the article, who was responsible for the caning of Charles Sumner in the Senate.

    For any history buffs like me, I am including the story, because it actually mirrors a lot of what is happening right now. For anyone else, now you know that the vast majority of South Carolina senators were and are racist sacks of shit (there are a few exceptions, fortunately).

    In 1856, roughly four years before the start of the Civil War, westward expansion was hotly debated, and not just with words, because abolitionists wanted banning of slavery in any territory to be a requirement of entry into the Union and statehood, while slave-owning states of course did not.

    This wasn't just about slavery; like MAGA today it was about power and who got to control the country, as the pro-slavery states sought to ensure that territories admitted to statehood did not dilute their own federal influence, power and control. So how newly-admitted states were represented and got to vote was a huge deal, especially if that admission might upset various cheats like the Three-Fifths Compromise and others like it that gave slave-owning states an unnatural advantage not directly conferred by actual population.

    The Kansas-Nebraska Act was one of these cheats, a short-lived compromise co-authored by Andrew Butler of South Carolina, which allowed newly admitted states in the west to enter the union while permitting slave ownership by leaving it up to the new state to decide for themselves, where slavery was already just as hotly argued over as it was anywhere else.

    States rights, in other words. This should be sounding familiar by now.

    So when the Kansas-Nebraska Act went through the Senate, an abolitionist named Charles Sumner from Massachusetts gave an impassioned speech against it, while also being sure to personally insult Butler as many ways as he could throughout, with liberal use of sexual innuendo (probably not misplaced, according to Wikipedia).

    By way of response, Butler's first cousin once-removed, Preston Brooks, who was a representative for South Carolina at the time, came onto the Senate floor with a couple of other southern congressmen two days later and caned Sumner nearly to death. Brave men as they were, they waited for the chamber to be almost empty before they did so, claiming that this was so that no ladies present in the galleries could see, and Brooks attacked Sumner as he was sitting at his desk writing a letter while his associates held off those attracted by the commotion so no one could help Sumner, one using a pistol. Sumner had already passed out and was being held up by the lapels by Brooks as he continued to whip him with the cane before others were able to get to him, and suffered severe injuries.

    Afterward, the South closed ranks around its own and re-elected those involved, making heroes out of them, but Preston Brooks died of a respiratory infection shortly after re-election anyway. Sumner survived and lived another twenty years, but he

    suffered head trauma that would cause him chronic pain and symptoms consistent with what would now be called traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder, and spent three years convalescing before returning to his Senate seat. He suffered chronic pain and debilitation for the rest of his life.

    Funny thing, the caning of Charles Sumner ended up being one of the biggest own-goals of the pro-slavery South: when these racist slave owners brought their violence into the Senate itself it angered a number of abolitionist Kansas settlers, one of whom was John Brown, and the Pottawatomie Massacre in response, and in the long run only strengthened the newly-formed anti-slavery Republican party and helped put Abraham Lincoln into office four years later.

    Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

  • politics @lemmy.world
    ChunkMcHorkle @lemmy.world

    Mitch McConnell provides proof of life, reveals fall led to hospitalization after weeks of silence

    www.theguardian.com /us-news/2026/jul/12/mitch-mcconnell-hospitalization-fall
  • politics @lemmy.world
    ChunkMcHorkle @lemmy.world

    Graham Platner ends Maine Senate campaign after sexual assault allegation

    www.theguardian.com /us-news/2026/jul/08/graham-platner-maine-senate-campaign
  • politics @lemmy.world
    ChunkMcHorkle @lemmy.world

    Why Is the NYT Editorial Board More Worried About Progressivism Than Fascism? | Common Dreams

    www.commondreams.org /opinion/nyt-progressives-fascism
  • politics @lemmy.world
    ChunkMcHorkle @lemmy.world

    US House speaker gives Trump so-called ‘America First’ award amid global chaos

    www.theguardian.com /us-news/2026/mar/26/trump-mike-johnson-america-first-award
  • Progressive Politics @lemmy.world
    ChunkMcHorkle @lemmy.world

    Sgt. McGinnis' protest restyled in the manner of System of a Down by Andre Antunes

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