Good news, everyone! The state of Minnesota just killed a community broadband ban, joining the 34 American states that don’t ban community broadband networks just because big telecom corporations throw tantrums about it. Minnesota’s ban was especially offensive, in that big telecoms could claim it wasn’t an outright ban, but “just” a ban in areas where big telecoms operated, or pretended to operate, or “might one day” operate, which means, like, everywhere. Consider that another blow against monopoly power in America.
Speaking of which: our FBI raids a landlord corporation Cortland Management, which has allegedly schemed with national rent-fixers to keep rents absurdly high in at least two thirds of our nation’s apartments. You’ll recognize the national rent-fixers (RealPage) from an October 2022 ProPublica article, you remember, the one where a RealPage employee said landlords didn’t raise prices fast/high enough because they had “too much empathy”? That is to laugh! Also too, RealPage’s owner is a hedge fund firm, a.k.a. a bankster.
Baristas at coffee chain corporation Blank Street Coffee win a union contract for workers at 19 NYC locations, with hopes of winning over workers at the other 21. Of course banksters started Blank Street, of course they understaffed the locations and didn’t fix safety issues, and of course they hired a notorious union-busting firm once they got wind of how dissatisfied their workers were, but the baristas overcame all of that – plus the inevitable losses within their ranks – to get a contract negotiated in a relatively short period of time (nine months, versus the 15-month average per a 2022 Bloomberg analysis). Given how much everyone wants coffee these days, it made a lot of sense for union organizers to look baristas’ way long, long ago; glad to see that’s finally become obvious (albeit largely due to the baristas’ own efforts).
Because we need the reminders, Robert Reich runs down all the “nothingburgers” Republicans try to make big dramas about these days. Like “illegals” voting (it’s already illegal!) and crime that’s half of what it was 30 years ago and, of course, “wokeness,” the whine of people who think they should be exempt from change or accountability. And yes, the border counts as a nothingburger! And anyone that obsessed about it needs to start with the man in the mirror! It’s all drama, all hysteria, all the time from Republicans, and forget about Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene – the vast majority of this drama and hysteria comes from men, including the Republican Presidential nominee, the Shouter-in-Chief.
When I hear that a Texas woman almost died miscarrying because of that state’s draconian anti-abortion laws, I think maybe our sensation-hungry “liberal" media might run with it. I suspect I will be disappointed – our “liberal” media lives in mortal fear of right-wing nutjobs, and to the degree that’s justified (I’m not saying it isn’t), the correct response must be to defy the nutjobs, lest you remain hostage to their drama and hysteria for the rest of your life. Otherwise folks will think our “liberal” media only cares about stoking right-wing rage with their sensationalism, and “I didn’t tell the truth because assholes threatened me” is not a work you want to bring to the Pearly Gates.
From the “this is the MOST! SURPRISING! THING! I! Have EVER! HEARD!” file: more Republicans now think it’s not so bad for a felon to be President than before their candidate got convicted of 34 felonies. What we don’t say enough about this case is that it’s a campaign finance issue – Mr. Trump thought, once upon a time, that fewer people would vote for him if they knew he had sex with a porn star, so he tried to hush it up. Apparently the “law and order” voters of his party no longer think that’s true. Anyway, we leave these people to God – the folks who more likely have a problem with all of Donald Trump’s legal problems are independent voters, and they’ll more likely decide Mr. Trump’s fate at the ballot box than all his shouty dittoheads.
In a related note, legal scholars think Donald Trump “has an opening” to appeal his 34 felony convictions to our Supreme Court, and that opening could involve federal campaign finance laws. Rick Hasen, as good a source of legal wisdom as exists in America, says that Mr. Trump could “argue that the New York election law that he was prosecuted under to turn the false business records misdemeanors into felonies improperly relied upon alleged federal election law violations,” since the judge specifically mentioned the Federal Election Campaign Act in his instructions. I can easily imagine at least four of nine Justices crying “injustice” at that, and they’ll probably whine about the “harm” done to his Presidential campaign like anyone should give a hoot about that – after all, our Constitution hamstrings the Executive branch for a reason.
Finally, the publisher of the notorious 2000 Mules film has announced it’ll stop distributing the film – because they face a defamation lawsuit from Mark Andrews, whom the film depicts as a “mule” but who was, as it turns out, legally dropping off ballots from his family. Let’s not let it pass that Mr. Andrews faced death threats from right-wingers after they saw him in the film. Anyway, though this is good news for Mr. Andrews and for America, the truly-devoted will continue to hawk “voter fraud” nonsense and keep whining about how everything’s stacked against them. If you’re wrong, everything should be stacked against you!
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