The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

 

The good:

The Republican Party’s finances are increasingly worrisome to party members, advisers to former president Donald Trump, and other operatives involved in the 2024 election effort, according to 10 people familiar with the matter.

The Republican National Committee disclosed that it had $9.1 million in cash on hand as of Oct. 30, the lowest amount for the RNC in any Federal Election Commission report since February 2015. That compares with about $20 million at the same point in the 2016 election cycle and about $61 million four years ago, when Trump was in the White House.

The Democratic National Committee reported having $17.7 million as of Oct. 30, almost twice as much as the Republican Party, with one year before the election.  [snip]

Donors have not cut as many large checks to the RNC in recent years, and the party’s small-dollar program has also suffered, according to people familiar with the party’s finances, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal party details. Some donors aren’t giving to the RNC because they think that will help Trump, which they don’t want to do, these people said, while others have said they prefer to wait until 2024 to give. Some have grown frustrated with the party’s leadership, people close to major donors said.

The party cut certain expenditures this year after projected money did not come in, according to people familiar with the decisions.  [snip]

Republican frustrations burst into the open this month after GOP losses in races for the Virginia legislature, the Kentucky governorship, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, and on an Ohio ballot initiative on abortion rights.

In October, the RNC rejected a request for additional funding for the Virginia GOP this fall, said the state party chairman, Rich Anderson. RNC officials said they had budgeted based on a meeting earlier in the summer with Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s team in which they didn’t ask for money.

Other state party officials have grown frustrated when they’ve asked the RNC for money to pay legal bills and been turned down, according to people familiar with the discussions...(our emphasis)

The Malignant Loser has his independent source of sucker dough but, as the article notes, the cash crunch has impacted, and may continue to impact, crucial downballot elections.  Maybe the thought that one's donations were paying for some election denying/ voter suppressing thug's legal bills is starting to get old.  Or maybe it's just all the losing.

The bad:

Since at least 2019, Meta has knowingly refused to shut down the majority of accounts belonging to children under the age of 13 while collecting their personal information without their parents’ consent, a newly unsealed court document from an ongoing federal lawsuit against the social media giant alleges.

Attorneys general from 33 states have accused Meta of receiving more than a million reports of under-13 users on Instagram from parents, friends and online community members between early 2019 and mid-2023. However, “Meta disabled only a fraction of those accounts,” the complaint states.

The federal complaint calls for court orders prohibiting Meta from the practices the attorneys general allege violate the law. Civil penalties could add up to hundreds of millions of dollars, as Meta allegedly hosts millions of users who are teens and children. Most states are seeking anywhere between $1,000 to $50,000 in fines per violation. 

According to the 54-count lawsuit, Meta violated a range of state-based consumer protection statutes as well as the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA), which prohibits companies from collecting the personal information of children under 13 without a parent’s consent. Meta allegedly did not comply with COPPA with respect to both Facebook and Instagram, even though “Meta’s own records reveal that Instagram’s audience composition includes millions of children under the age of 13,” and that “hundreds of thousands of teen users spend more than five hours a day on Instagram,” the court document states.

One Meta product designer wrote in an internal email that the “young ones are the best ones,” adding that “you want to bring people to your service young and early,” according to the lawsuit... (our emphasis)

Zuck and his band of meta- miscreants are grooming "young ones" just like the tobacco companies who tried to hook young people on smoking. They're techno- pimps.

The ugly:

A 48-year-old man was arrested on Sunday in connection with the shootings of three college students of Palestinian descent in Burlington, Vermont, on Saturday night, police said.

Jason J. Eaton was detained midday Sunday near the site of the shooting, the Burlington Police Department said in a press release. Police then searched his home and arrested him Sunday evening, officials said.

Eaton is expected to be arraigned Monday morning, police said.

The college students had been wounded Saturday night in a shooting in Burlington, the state's most populous city, by a gunman who opened fire at them "without speaking,” police had said in a statement on Sunday.

A preliminary investigation by the Burlington Police Department determined the three students, all in their 20s, were shot outside the home of one of the victim's relatives, which they were visiting for the Thanksgiving holiday, police said in a statement Sunday.

Police detectives, county personnel and federal agents spent Sunday canvassing the neighborhood near the shooting and conducting interviews with neighbors, authorities said. The FBI helped with “victim services and computer and cellphone analysis,” officials said.

Agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were canvassing near the location of the shooting at about 3:38 p.m. when they “encountered and detained” Eaton, Burlington officials said.

The shooting occurred in front of the apartment building where Eaton lived, police said. After he was detained, officials were granted a search warrant, which was executed at his residence at about 9:53 p.m., police said.

“Evidence collected during that search warrant, and additional evidence developed during the course of this investigation, gave investigators and prosecutors probable cause to believe that Mr. Eaton perpetrated the shooting,” police said.

One victim is in serious condition, reportedly with a bullet lodged in or near his spine; the other two are in stable condition.  The coward who did this needs to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.  As should the cowards responsible for this.

Right Wing Manufactures A Soros Conspiracy

Rethuglicans and the far-right groups that support them have been trotting out a familiar trope after the fight over the confirmation of drunken sexual abuser and partisan rageaholic Brett "KavaNut" Kavanaugh: George Soros was paying the anti-KavaNut demonstrators. Conspiracy spinners on the neo-fascist right use Soros, Hungarian-born Jew and progressive philanthropist, as a symbol of their slanderous "international Jewish conspiracy" nonsense.  It's gone so far that Soros' Open Society Foundation has been hounded from his native Hungary by the neo- fascist, Trump- approved regime of Viktor Orban.

Neo-fascist sociopath Donald "Rump" Trump's despicable TV lawyer and deranged opportunist Rudy "Ghouliani" Giuliani claimed that the "anti-Christ" Soros funded the anti-KavaNut protests, a falsehood that was repeated by Rump before the confirmation vote on Saturday. Desiccated corn stalk and senile chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee Chuck Grassley said he believed the false conspiracy, too.

The rise in anti-Semitic activities after Rump's election has been pronounced, especially in the number of neo-Nazi and other anti-Semitic social media sites. The FBI also reported that hate crimes rose the day after Rump's election, with cases of vandalism, harassment, and assaults continuing as his supporters feel emboldened. Just in the past  2 days, a Jewish community center in Northern Virginia was defaced with swastikas, the second time in 18 months, just miles from the White (Supremacist) House. Incidents like this, and others where white supremacists are arrested for planning attacks on Jews and other minorities, happen on a weekly basis.

With Rump in campaign mode before the mid-terms, expect the surge in hate crimes and hate speech like the Soros libel to increase. These are the most loathsome of people, the public figures and the private ones.

Another Jewish Cemetery Vandalized [UPDATED]

As many as 100 headstones at a Jewish cemetery in a section of Philadelphia were toppled and vandalized this weekend, making it the second time in a week that a Jewish cemetery has been desecrated. Last weekend, a Jewish cemetery in St. Louis was the victim of a similar act. Police are investigating the incident at the Mount Carmel Cemetery, while fundraising is underway to repair the damage, and community leaders across religious lines pledged to clean up the damage.

The vandalism follows dozens of bomb threats to Jewish community centers around the country, and cases of firebombings of Muslim mosques here, here, and here. The common enemy of Muslims and Jews are the neo-Nazis and white supremacists that have come out of the woodwork since the elections, feeling that they have a champion in neo-Fascist demagogue Donald "Rump" Trump. In the days immediately following his electoral college win, there was an outbreak of pro-Trump vandalism, intimidation and harassment. Now that their champion is facing increasing opposition to his policies and his attempts to undermine democracy, it's not inconceivable that some of his deranged right-wing followers are acting out their bigotry and frustration. We're afraid that this may be the beginning of a long siege of hatred.

BONUS:  In this light, Rex Huppke (Chicago Tribune) makes note of Rump commander- in- chief  Steve "Loose Cannon" Bannon's remarks at CPAC last week, in which Bannon taunted the press as "globalist media" --

"Globalist media" is a loaded term that bubbled up out of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories of a media controlled by Jewish elites, a concept akin to "international bankers," cabals of wealthy Jews supposedly plotting to take over the world. 

Bannon knows this, I have no doubt. He ran Breitbart, a website that caters to white nationalists, many of whom are overtly anti-Semitic. 

So why toss out the globalist media canard just days after the executive director of the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect condemned Trump and called the president's late statement about the Jewish center threats a "Band-Aid on the cancer of Antisemitism that has infected his own Administration." 

I spoke with Anne Frank Center director Steven Goldstein following Bannon's comment Thursday. 

"We are now seeing a pattern," he said. "And during the week in which the Trump administration has been under a microscope for anti-Semitism, this is how you refer to the press? In some of the most unfortunate anti-Semitic terms in history? That doesn't happen by accident." 

They're not even bothering with the dog whistle any more.

UPDATE: Sixteen Jewish Community Centers in 12 states have been threatened just today, forcing evacuations and heightened concerns.

Another Week, Another Mass Shooting

Details are still emerging on yesterday's horrific shooting at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, WI. Authorities have identified the shooter as Wade Michael Page, a 40 year-old Army vet who is alleged by the Southern Poverty Law Center to have neo-Nazi skinhead links. Police say he purchased the 9mm semiautomatic gun used in the past 10 days. Police say they have not determined a motive, but are investigating it as "domestic terrorism." The shooter killed six and critically wounded three before being killed by the police.

Sadly, since September 11, 2001, the Sikhs have been victims of anti-Muslim hate crimes, despite the fact that they are not Muslims, but a monotheistic religion originating in India that practices good deeds and tolerance. Following 9-11, Sikhs, who wear colorful turbans and full beards, were attacked by thuggish cretins who mistook them for Muslims (themselves the target of hate crimes). Whether this proves to be one of those attacks will be determined, but it's hard to imagine another motive for attacking such a peaceful and decent group at prayer in their house of worship.

UPDATE: More info and a photo of the shooter from NBC. He certainly fits the skinhead image, doesn't he? Police are also looking for a "person of interest" seen recording the scene after the shooting.

UPDATE 2: Here's a more informative picture; we suppose there are fewer doubts about his motives now.

Quotes of the Day

"I congratulate President Obama on receiving this prestigious award. I join my fellow Americans in expressing pride in our president on this occasion." -- Sen. John "Walnuts" McCain (R-AZ), offering the classy Republican alternative to the general frothings of Obama Derangement Syndrome sufferers over President Obama receiving the Nobel Peace Prize.

"Stick it up your ass!" -- Rep. Ike Skelton (D-MO) addressing Rethug homophobe Rep. Todd "Head" Akin (Rethug-MO) on the House floor, purportedly over opposition from Head Akin and other Rethugs to the inclusion of a provision, in a defense policy bill, to extend federal hate crimes law to include violence based on sexual orientation. With all the closeted gays in the Rethug caucus, they should have a pretty good idea what the "it" is that goes up the ass.

Hate Never Gets Old

The New York Times has a disturbing graphic in its editorial section today. It shows where nooses have been displayed in the U.S. in the past two years to intimidate African-Americans. Most incidents are scattered throughout the South and East, and none occurred in states north and west of Texas. A surprisingly large cluster is depicted in and around New York City.

It would be interesting to research whether the acting out of racist nuts is related to the declining fortunes of the right wing, and to the increasing belligerence of right wing radio talk shows.