John Oliver talks about tech monopolies

In this 26:49 video, John Oliver talks about monopolies and how they fight hard and dirty top protect their profits and markets from competition. He starts with some brief comments about the breakup of Standard Oil and AT&T, then moves on to Apple, Google and Amazon.

Although the video is long, it is well worth the time. It's about as funny as a serious talk about the power and poison of monopolies can be. There's some pretty funny commentary here, including a brief but great digression into the intelligent evil and malice of dolphins.

Given the power of monopoly money to subvert and corrupt our broken congress, two narrow bills pending in congress intended to partly defang the tech giants probably won't pass. They are the Open App Markets Act and the American Choice and Innovation Online Act. As usual, conflicts of interest and ethical sleaze are all over the place with congress. Schumer's daughters work for Amazon. That says it all. Those two bills are probably dead, probably leaving us screwed.

The ex-president's big grift rip off: It still rips people off today

The hearings this morning were interesting. But only interesting to open minds. 

Closed minds either didn't listen to it, or reject it as lies. Closed minds do not change. For the most part, evidence is irrelevant. Tribe and cult loyalty is everything, inconvenient facts and truth are lies.

The only point this post makes is that T**** used his position of public trust and power as a gigantic grift to cash in on at least $250 million. He was and still is interested in paying off his debts, not anything else.

The power and credibility of the American radical right Republican Party and its current leader T**** are built on demagoguery, lies, deceit, slanders, fraud, Christian fundamentalism, corrupt vicious capitalism and endless sleaze.

Most of the Republican Party and American conservatism is demagogic, neo-fascist, corrupt, mendacious and especially staunchly anti-inconvenient truth and anti-democratic. The Republican Party and American conservatism is the enemy of what is good, freedom-loving and honest.

 

Qs & commentary: Is that mostly false and therefore over the top? If so, my bad, but I don't think I am wrong, so, I'm not bad. Or, is that reasoning flawed? If so, exactly and precisely how is it flawed?

Many Dems now argue that Biden should not run in 2024

From NYT 6/11/22:

Should Biden Run in 2024? Democratic Whispers of ‘No’ Start to Rise.

In interviews, dozens of frustrated Democratic officials, members of Congress and voters expressed doubts about the president’s ability to rescue his reeling party and take the fight to Republicans.

Midway through the 2022 primary season, many Democratic lawmakers and party officials are venting their frustrations with President Biden’s struggle to advance the bulk of his agenda, doubting his ability to rescue the party from a predicted midterm trouncing and increasingly viewing him as an anchor that should be cut loose in 2024.

As the challenges facing the nation mount and fatigued base voters show low enthusiasm, Democrats in union meetings, the back rooms of Capitol Hill and party gatherings from coast to coast are quietly worrying about Mr. Biden’s leadership, his age and his capability to take the fight to former President Donald J. Trump a second time.

Interviews with nearly 50 Democratic officials, from county leaders to members of Congress, as well as with disappointed voters who backed Mr. Biden in 2020, reveal a party alarmed about Republicans’ rising strength and extraordinarily pessimistic about an immediate path forward.

“To say our country was on the right track would flagrantly depart from reality,” said Steve Simeonidis, a Democratic National Committee member from Miami. Mr. Biden, he said, “should announce his intent not to seek re-election in ’24 right after the midterms.”

 

Democrats’ concerns come as the opening hearing of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol made clear the stakes of a 2024 presidential election in which Mr. Trump, whose lies fueled a riot that disrupted the peaceful transfer of power, may well seek to return to the White House.

For Mr. Biden and his party, the hearings’ vivid reminder of the Trump-inspired mob violence represents perhaps the last, best chance before the midterms to break through with persuadable swing voters who have been more focused on inflation and gas prices. If the party cannot, it may miss its final opportunity to hold Mr. Trump accountable as Mr. Biden faces a tumultuous two years of a Republican-led House obstructing and investigating him.

Read the rest of the article here: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/11/us/politics/biden-2024-election-democrats.html

See also this related article in The Guardian: "AOC refuses to endorse Biden for 2024 as Democrats doubt his ability to winhttps://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/12/aoc-biden-2024-election-democrats-anxiety

 

White domestic terrorists stopped while trying to do their thing

Arresting bigoted White terrorists before they

could attack and/or murder innocent people they hate

Bigoted and/or racist White supremacists are among the top terrorist threats in the US at present. The Spokesman-Review writes:

‘Little army’ of 31 masked Patriot Front members arrested in Coeur d’Alene 

near Pride in the Park

Police in Coeur d’Alene arrested 31 masked members of a white nationalist group suspected of conspiring to riot in the city’s downtown on the same day as a scheduled Pride in the Park event nearby.

The arrested men of “Patriot Front” arrived in Coeur d’Alene inside a U-Haul truck that police pulled over. Only one was from Idaho. The rest came from Washington, Arkansas, Colorado, Illinois, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Virginia and Wyoming. Among the arrested is the national leader of the group, Thomas Rousseau, according to the Kootenai County Jail roster.

Coeur d’Alene Police Chief Lee White said the group evidently “came to riot downtown.” White said the group also had “paperwork” that appeared similar to a police or military operations plan.

The arrests became a spectacle as onlookers watched and used cellphones to take video and pictures of numerous police officers standing by as others rolled up the rear door of the U-Haul near the Paul Bunyan restaurant to reveal more than two dozen men wearing khakis, blue shirts and coats, white balaclavas and baseball caps. The U-Haul was eventually towed away.

 

An unmasked angry White bigot boy going to 

the slammer where he belongs

Why is it always males, especially T**** supporters? 

Are they just evil, stupid, something else or 

all three?

“Patriot Front” my ass. They are not patriots. They are murderous White neo-fascist terrorists and traitors. No doubt they support T****. They are fine Republicans in good standing with the neo-fascist GOP. Marjorie Taylor Greene will probably be Tweeting in their defense soon claiming something crackpot like fluoride in the water and/or Hunter Biden's laptop made them go out to attack non-heterosexual people.