Everyone is reporting about the letter inviting the traitor in for an arrest related to his treason in the 1/6 coup attempt. The NYT comments on how Republicans are reacting:
Like so much of the Trump presidency itself, the extraordinary has become so flattened that Mr. Trump’s warning on Tuesday that he was facing a possible third indictment this year, this time over his involvement in the events that led to the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol, drew shrugs from some quarters of his party and a muddled response from his rivals.
At one Republican congressional fund-raising lunch on Tuesday in Washington, the news of a likely third Trump indictment went entirely unmentioned, an attendee said. Some opposing campaigns’ strategists all but ignored the development. And on Capitol Hill, Mr. Trump’s allies quickly resumed their now-customary defensive positions.
Justin Clark, who served as Mr. Trump’s deputy campaign manager in 2020 and whose firm, National Public Affairs, has conducted polling of the primary race, said the challenge for his rivals is the voters themselves. Data from Mr. Clark’s firm shows that Republicans view an attack on Mr. Trump “as an attack on them,” he said.
More importantly, the rabble at reddit have some interesting insights:
iStayedAtaHolidayInn commented: This guy is getting really familiar with the arraignment process. He’s gonna slam those little fingers on the fingerprint pad like a proShady_Nasty_77 responded: “a man came to me.. tears in his eyes…and said Sir, no one has ever slammed that fingerprint process like that..it was beautiful.”AdrianInLimbo commented: Larry, bring me the small ink blotter. Donny is coming in.Thomascgalvin astutely observed: Most arrested former President in American history!tdevine33: More impeachments than terms. More indictments than impeachments.
And, there's the thug Matt Gaetz ready to step in to vindicate the rule of law the old-fashioned GOP way, i.e., stop the investigation:
Matt Gaetz launches bill to defund Jack Smith probe as Trumpasks Capitol allies for Jan 6 indictment helpRep Matt Gaetz of Florida said on his podcast that he will in the coming days introduce a bill to defund Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into former President Donald Trump as Mr Trump reportedly asks Capitol Hill allies for help as he faces another potential indictment.
What a stinking mess. But at least its entertaining in a sick sort of way.
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Artificial intelligence software is scaring a growing swath of workers in AI-replaceable jobs. The NYT writes about people in call centers:
‘Training My Replacement’: Inside a Call Center Worker’s Battle With A.I.
To many people, chatbots and other technology feel like a ticking time bomb, sure to explode their work. But to some, the threat is already here.Like so many millions of American workers, across so many thousands of workplaces, the roughly 230 customer service representatives at AT&T’s call center in Ocean Springs, Miss., watched artificial intelligence arrive over the past year both rapidly and assuredly, like a new manager settling in and kicking up its feet.
Ms. Sherrod, 38, vice president of the call center’s local union chapter, who exudes quiet confidence at 5-foot-11, regarded the new technology with a combination of irritation and fear. “I always had a question in the back of my mind,” she said. “Am I training my replacement?” .... “If we don’t talk about this, it could jeopardize my family,” she said. “Will I be jobless?”When automation swallows up jobs, it often comes for customer service roles first, which make up about three million jobs in America.
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Sixteen fake electors in Michigan have been indicted:
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel announced on Tuesday that 16 fake electors who signed certificates falsely claiming that then-President Donald Trump had won Michigan in the 2020 election — including Kathy Berden, a Republican National Committeewoman from the state and Meshawn Maddock, the former co-chair of the Michigan Republican Party — have been charged with crimes related to the scheme.
As CNN reported, all 16 individuals were charged with multiple felonies "for their role in the alleged false electors scheme following the 2020 U.S. presidential election," Nessel's office announced. The charges range from counts of election law forgery, which carries a maximum of five years in prison, to conspiracy to commit forgery, which carries a maximum of 14 years in prison.
One can only hope those 16 spend some time in jail before they get pardoned by a Republican president. There sure are a lot of felons in the GOP leadership.
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Ted Cruz got his knickers in a bunch over the new Barbie movie. MSNBC reports:
A growing number of voices on the right are accusing the upcoming Barbie movie of pushing Chinese propaganda. The film, which comes out July 21, stars Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling as Barbie and Ken, who leave Barbie Land to explore the real world. In one scene before they leave, a rough, hand-drawn map of the world can be seen in the background. The map includes the so-called nine-dash line, a much-disputed division of territory in the South China Sea.
The accusation is incredibly foolish. As Dan Drezner, a professor of international politics at Tufts University, explained last week, the cartoonish image from the film is “a nonsense map. There are squiggles and arrows and hashtags and dotted lines all over the damn place. To the extent that the map is supposed to depict the Pacific Rim, the dotted line is nowhere close to where the actual nine-dash line is.”
In other words, the map is not a secret message, intended to warp audiences' minds.
And yet, there was Cruz, taking an exceedingly weird interest in the movie. In fact, a spokesperson for the senator told the Daily Mail last week, “China wants to control what Americans see, hear, and ultimately think, and they leverage their massive film markets to coerce American companies into pushing [Chinese Communist Party] propaganda — just like the way the Barbie film seems to have done with the map.”
Soon after, Cruz kept at it, suggesting that “Barbie” is somehow responsible for promoting Chinese propaganda.
Since this sounded too stupid to be true, it warranted further investigation. By golly, there is an 8-dash line in the map!
Barbie - Chinese spy
(allegedly)
China claims everything inside as
its territorial waters
Vietnam and the Philippines are very nervous about it
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