Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[EuchreJack]

Damn, it looks like those dastardly Feds are going after all the goo and noble Florida Republicans:
Federal grand jury investigates bid-rigging in DeSantis’ education department

No wonder the Republicans want a Government Shutdown demand a less woke Federal Government.

[EuchreJack]

Well, now we know why the FBI has been so bloody useless in stopping foreign infiltration into US politics.

[Loud Whispers]

Well, now we know why the FBI has been so bloody useless in stopping foreign infiltration into US politics.

Moles abound!

[Lord Shonus]

Well, now we know why the FBI has been so bloody useless in stopping foreign infiltration into US politics.

There's rumors that this guy is behind the big October Surprise in the 2016 election - the report of another investigation into the Clinton e-mail thing that turned out to be a nothingburger. There's a fair bit of correspondence suggesting that Comey didn't want to make the announcement because of the political overtones (it would look very much like the FBI interfering with the election), but ultimately did so because it was going to be leaked and that would be a bigger optics problem.

Note that this announcement probably flipped the election, given how small the margins were in enough states to make the difference.

[Great Order]

Was there ever actually a reason given for them to reopen the investigation? As far as I'd been able to gather the reason was "A lot of people were raising a stink" but I wasn't really going and researching it so...

[Rolan7]

I'm concerned about KOSA (particularly the broad-spectrum powers regarding defining what types of content are harmful to minors). We could be looking at a very different internet soon in terms of adults being able to access needed information freely and with reasonable expectations of privacy.


This suddenly came up for me in a visceral way because the Habitica app, which I use to help keep track of tasks and manage my garbage mental health, is shutting down all of its forum-like features, AKA "guilds," in the next week. Guilds are themed chats which may be private or public. In particular I'm losing access to a private trauma support group and match services for the remaining group chat feature, the "party," will now be randomized. Guilds may have organized chats between thousands of people, whereas my party has 8 members.

(Posting volume in Guilds is generally pretty low. There are relatively few posters and many, many readers).

I take issue with the changes I've mentioned because one of the things I try to avoid online is private or even semi-private chats with minors, because I am not cisgender as you know, and it is better not to have any ambiguity as to what has been discussed. In particular, my "party" has no minors in it, and all of the adults were recruited from a left-leaning guild and are sympathetic to trans people. I am not really willing to go through a randomized matching process in the current political situation.

I am especially annoyed because my Habitica social circle has zero overlap with any of my other online or meatspace identities, which actually really helped when it came to the trauma management. It was private and I could say whatever embarrassing thing I needed to and get support. I don't want to just move the guild feature over to Discord, for example. I really wanted it to be fully detached from all my other things.


Additionally, this year a psychiatrist in California ghosted me during intake for trauma-focused group therapy after I divulged my gender identity. Unfortunately that gender identity is very much bound up with the types of events and the sometimes atypical way in which I've reacted to them, so mentioning it was necessary for my care and not really optional. Online support has been really helpful for the past few years and it feels like it's under threat right now.

I don't know what to say. I'm trying not to let my feelings run away with me, but this situation over at Habitica came very out of left field for me, and I'm hoping it's not just the tip of the iceberg in terms of sudden and drastic KOSA-related changes.

Boosting because I feel we were distracted and didn't talk about how nightmarish this is.

[Duuvian]

I agree; it has been a while since I read it. I haven't read the version that was marked up yet. I'll likely read it at some point in the near future. I think some other bills might have been merged into it, including the absolute garbage one from Hawaii that I pointed out somewhere in this thread (I think), whose Senator by the way I am very, very disappointed in if this is true. I was going to speculate on it based on the growing rage on the internet over this, but I'll wait until I read the bill again.

EDIT: I almost forgot to mention: Big Day for Ohio today. I politely suggest you to vote your mind today if you are a resident of the Land of the Burning River. You might not get the chance again for effective ballot proposals.

[Vector]

I appreciate the boost, Rolan, thank you.

[Lord Shonus]

EDIT: I almost forgot to mention: Big Day for Ohio today. I politely suggest you to vote your mind today if you are a resident of the Land of the Burning River. You might not get the chance again for effective ballot proposals.

Issue 1 was crushed at the polls, meaning that no change was made to Ohio's ballot initiative procedures.

[Duuvian]

Yes indeed. I probably don't say this enough but: Well done Ohioans. That was apparently a massive turnout for such a time for a vote if the TV is correct. I still going to be sad if OSU wins though.

[Lord Shonus]

The total population (not voting population) of Ohio is ~12 million. Over three million votes were cast in the election, with "no" winning by around 400,000 - a solid 15% margin.

August special elections were recently banned in this state (except this one was OK because the law banning August elections didn't specifically list "constitutional amendments") because turnout is usually 5% of the voting population at best. This election saw 25% of the state's total population showing up.

[Duuvian]

That reminds me, I did put "effective ballot proposals" but I think I got that wrong in a broader than correct way, what you said in regards to "constitutional amendments" was more correct I think. I thought about it later watching news when that was clarified for me, but I figured it probably wasn't something I should most certainly ride to the internet to correct asap. Thanks for reminding me Shonus.

[hector13]

One thing we’re not mentioning is that this was a Republican proposal (I believe they also were the ones saying August elections were bad because of the low turnout etc.) because there’s another referendum on abortion rights in November.

Had this amendment passed, that would have required 60% of people to vote for it, as opposed to just a straight majority. According to polls in Ohio, 58% of people would have voted for it.

It's as though Republicans think people can’t read between the lines or something.

[scriver]

Don't you mean the other way around?

[Frumple]

Well... half-way good on ohio. Hopefully they take it the rest of the way.

... in less good news, there's over four dozen dead due to wildfires in maui, at least one town basically entirely wiped off the map. It's pretty rough over there, what firefighting capacity they have has apparently been consistently overwhelmed for something like a few days.