Unfair To White Dudes! Tabs, Mon., June 10, 2024
Morning news roundup!
Nice lady is nice.
“If you didn’t understand the crime, until the very end of the trial? You need to talk to your lawyers about getting some help proving that you’re not capable of understanding the charges. And so you shouldn’t be held accountable. Because you’re not mentally sound enough to be under trial.”
Following up on last week’s news about the (alleged) moneylaundering financial crimes by the Epoch Times (like, they were just laundering fictional/stolen pandemic unemployment benefits, and it’s possible that’s what they were claiming as their five hundred percent subscription/readership increases), a reminder that Steve Bannon’s benefactor Guo Wengui is also just plain vanilla stealing money from people. Just like Bannon is going to trial for in September, BUILD THE WALL edition, under Justice Juan Merchan. (Mother Jones / Newsweek) Also Guo’s been just giving his fraud money, while under indictment for stealing all the fraud money, to people like Bannon and Jason Miller, and he’s partly been doing it under the name of “nonprofits” like “The Rule Of Law Foundation.” The writers this season are back in top form! (Daily Beast)
Speaking of Bannon, apparently people are mad that he is going to jail for contempt of Congress, when all he had to do was show up and say no I’m not answering your questions, and that would have been fine. They’re mad because they shouldn’t have to follow laws at all, including the law that says “don’t steal from your own dupes.” Can you imagine defending this? I can’t! (The New Republic)
CNN INVESTIGATES Judge Aileen Cannon: The fuck her deal already? (CNN)
After last week’s win for Hello Alice, which got sued for offering a (private! not governmental!) grant to a not-white-man type person or company, here’s some bad news on the same front, as the Fearless Fund offering a (private! not governmental!) grant competition open to Black women entrepreneurs, because of how they get .0006 of venture-funded capital, was deemed illegal under civil rights laws for Unfair to White Dude. By a judge. In a court. Of law. (Judd Legum at Popular Info)
Bizarre. Fifth Circuit stayed that terrible ruling mandating Southwest Airlines attorneys go get “religious freedom” training from the (very much not) Alliance Defending Freedom. This now makes at least two cases I can think of where the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals wasn’t a giant pukeball of shit! (Chris Geidner at Law Dork)
These are all things — regulating business, making the rich pay their fucking taxes, focusing our economic efforts on the workers instead of the bosses — that our side claims to care about. I no longer think we do, or Joe Biden would be the most popular guy in American history at least with his own side. (Yes, I know about Israel. People must have borrowed Obama’s time machine to be mad at him before October 7 ever happened.) Plus much much more everyone should be knowing about, at the link! (Heather Cox Richardson)
Dan Froomkin says new ethically complicated WaPo publisher Will Lewis needs to GTFO. Hard agree. Also hard doubtful; that kind of guy just says fuck you nope. (Press Watchers)
Paypal looking to patent a … thingie … about detecting bias in AI model training. WHY so they can do MORE OF IT? Just kidding, cheap shot, someone had a nice idea that’s nice. (Daily Upside)
Team Responsible Teenager! (People)
Seems like the Detroit Grand Central reopening concert with Diana Ross and Jack White was a real hootenanny of a good time! Yay Detroit! (Freep)
Cannot stop reading this New York Times mag longread on Italy and tomato sauce. And I haven’t even got to its history of eeeevil! (Gift link NYT)
Happy birthday to mi mamacita communista, who today is 81! Tomorrow her namesake Donna Rose shall be 9! Man I tried so hard to have DR on my mom’s birthday. We even induced labor! It was still 30 hours later she was born.
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I have said before, but some of you do not memorize all my anecdotes, so I will say again:
I was born four days late. FOUR FULL DAYS.
Which is why, when someone is pissed off that I show up 25 minutes after I said I would, that I always tell them, "I was born 4 days late, and I have diligently made up 3 days and more than 23 and a half hours, and you're quibbling about that last little bit? HOW PETTY ARE YOU? I AM TRYING, OKAY?"