Alex Jones' Infowars is attempting to profit from the coronavirus outbreak

Alex Jones’ Infowars is attempting to profit from the coronavirus outbreak

Jones: “I am very sad about this virus and very sad about the bioweapons and things that are going on, but it is an opportunity for people to take advantage of the products we have”

Far-right conspiracy theory outlet Infowars has been aggressively hawking bulk food packages at inflated prices while spreading wild conspiracy theories about the coronavirus outbreak. Since December, the price of bulk food at Infowars’ online store has more than doubled with the biggest package costing nearly $3,000.

On December 31, China announced an outbreak of COVID-19, a novel coronavirus that started in Wuhan City, with the first known case dating back to December 1. The disease has since spread beyond China and is currently present in 53 countries, including the United States, and has stricken more than 83,000 people.

Infowars is selling bulk food at recently increased prices
As the virus continues to spread, and a pandemic becomes more likely, Alex Jones is using Infowars to panic his viewers while also trying to profit from them.

][link:https://www.mediamatters.org/coronavirus-covid-19/alex-jones-infowars-attempting-profit-coronavirus-outbreak|

I guess Trump Sycophant is disqualifying for republicans because he has black friends

Republicans Are Race-Baiting a Republican

The NRSC goes after Doug Collins for the crime of hanging around Black people.
Rep. Doug Collins is a Georgia Republican, and as the ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee he was one of President Trump’s most vociferous defenders during the impeachment saga. He’s running for Senate now. Standing in his way is Sen. Kelly Loeffler, a Republican businesswoman appointed to the seat in December when her predecessor stepped down with health issues.

The two will square off in November in what has become a bitter fight pitting various factions of the Republican political machine against each other, with both sides claiming that the anti-Trump swamp is thwarting their efforts.

There’s little doubt where the National Republican Senatorial Committee stands. On Thursday the group released an ad slamming Collins for the crime of…hanging around Black people:

The charges here, if you can’t bring yourself to watch, are that Collins says he’s friends with Stacey Abrams and Hakeem Jeffries, and that he once shook Barack Obama’s hand. You don’t exactly need Bletchley Park to crack this code. The ad makes Lee Atwater look subtle.

[link:https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/02/republicans-are-race-baiting-a-republican/|

White man can't dance

Tom Steyer dancing to Back that thang up is the funniest thing I've seen all week.

Thanks for the laughs Tom.

[link:https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/hip-hop/9325946/tom-steyer-dances-juvenile-back-that-thang-up-south-carolina-rally-watch|

Is he gonna have rallies when he's out of office?

He never liked the actual work of being president but he sure eats up the adoration at his Klan rallies. Loves telling his stories of somebody saying Sir, Mr. President ......

Can't have them on the tax payer's dime when he's out of office so what's he gonna do?
Charge his Magats to come listen to his looney tunes speeches?

Wonder how many will still show up if they have to pay to listen to that shit?

Gov. Brian Kemp Is Getting Pressure To Unveil How He Stole The Election From Stacey Abrams

Gov. Brian Kemp Is Getting Pressure To Unveil How He Stole The Election From Stacey Abrams
A federal judge ruled against him.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp might have to explain how he purged more than half a million voters from the ballot that cost Stacey Abrams the race.The long-debated "stolen" gubernatorial election could finally be put to rest. In a federal lawsuit that was initiated by journalist Greg Palast and Helen Butler, executive director of watchdog organization Georgia Coalition for the People's Agenda, the judge ruled against Kemp.

The governor may be required to release the lists of the names suppressed as well as his methods for removing them, according to 11 Alive.

Georgia Coalition for the People's Agenda is one of the civil rights groups challenging Georgia's restrictive voter registration law that requires voter data to "exactly match" data stored in the state drivers' services database or the Social Security database.
According to Campaign Legal, Georgia's use of its "exact match" protocol disproportionately and negatively affects eligible people of color registered to vote — a violation of federal voting statutes and the U.S. Constitution.


"Kemp and the new Sec. of State of Georgia want to keep the lid on their methods for removing literally hundreds of thousands of low-income, young and minority voters on the basis of false information, Palast told Essence. "They cannot hide anymore. This is a huge win and precedent for reporters trying to pry information from the hands of guilty officials."
[link:https://blavity.com/gov-brian-kemp-is-getting-pressure-to-unveil-how-he-stole-the-election-from-stacey-abrams?category1=politics|

Bloomberg on NYC Homelessness: A Total Lack of Accountability

This is an older article, but look for this to come back to haunt Bloomberg. More recent articles are out there about this but this article reflects what was happening at the time

Bloomberg on NYC Homelessness: A Total Lack of Accountability

Mayor Bloomberg and top officials finally commented to the heartbreaking New York Times series about Dasani, an 11-year-old homeless girl. But instead of acknowledging that NYC homelessness hit all-time-record levels on his watch, the mayor and his aides responded with evasions, distortions, and a refusal to accept responsibility.

Mayor Bloomberg made his remarks yesterday during part of his “legacy tour” – you can read his entire response here. And Deputy Mayors Linda Gibbs (principal architect of Bloomberg’s homeless policies) and Howard Wolfson took to the Wall Street Journal’s opinion pages today to mount their defense of the mayor – see here.
But nowhere in the mayor’s remarks or Gibbs and Wolfson’s spin will you find the most basic facts: the number of homeless people in NYC has soared to all-time record highs under Bloomberg; and the number of poor New Yorkers has also risen and remains at alarming levels. You can find most of the key facts and data in our recent presentation “Rising Family Homelessness in NYC,” available here.

Bloomberg and his top officials refuse to take responsibility not only for their failed policies, but also for the deplorable, hazardous conditions at the notorious Auburn family shelter where Dasanai and her family resided for three years – a shelter operated directly by the City under the watch of Bloomberg and Gibbs
Instead, Bloomberg stated, “This kid was dealt a bad hand. I don’t know quite why. That’s just the way God works. Sometimes some of us are lucky and some of us are not.”

Here are the highlights of the distortions and evasions in Bloomberg et al’s response:
1. Record and rising NYC homelessness: According to City data, there are now more than 52,000 homeless homeless people residing each night in the municipal shelter system, up 69% since Bloomberg took office. This is the largest number of homeless people in NYC since the City began keeping records more than three decades ago.

[link:https://www.coalitionforthehomeless.org/bloomberg-on-nyc-homelessness-a-total-lack-of-accountability/|

Democrats can beat Trump with a progressive-centrist unity ticket - I think this a great idea

No fatalism allowed: Democrats can beat Trump with a progressive-centrist unity ticket

[link:https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/02/13/2020-ticket-sanders-buttigieg-klobuchar-warren-bloomberg-column/4722813002/|

Sanders and Warren likely can’t win together, nor can Bloomberg and Buttigieg. The ticket must reflect the spectrum, from populist to pragmatist.
No, Democrats aren’t “losing our damn minds,” James Carville. But growing fatalism about selecting the wrong nominee is unhelpful and unnecessary. As Pete Buttigieg echoed his supporters in New Hampshire, the mantra instead ought to be: "Vote blue no matter who."

The commentariat insists that party faithful are stuck in the middle and have to pick one side. Don’t believe it. Despite their factionalism, Democratic voters, and the throngs of independents who oppose President Donald Trump and his reelection, have a way out: reconciliation.

A populist and a pragmatist

The only way Democrats can beat Trump is with a ticket that credibly represents the interests of voters across the spectrum of their party. That means one candidate who resonates with the idealistic populist cohort, tempered by one with practical tendencies. Sanders and Warren likely can’t win together; nor can Bloomberg and Buttigieg.

But there are abundant mix-and-match possibilities among the crop, such as Sanders-Klobuchar or Biden-Warren. There are also matchups that go beyond the field: Buttigieg or Bloomberg picks Stacey Abrams of Georgia. Klobuchar picks populist Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio. Warren picks North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper or Sen. Jon Tester of Montana.

Has anyone asked Barr if he is interested in "unfair sentences" for anyone other than Trump buddies?

We know that we have a justice system that is often unfair to minorities and poor people - including poor whites. I've heard of insane sentences to first time offenders, teenagers that made a mistake for the first time getting many years for a one time poor decision. Has anyone asked him if he's looking into any of these other cases? Or is he only interested in changing the sentences for Trump buddies? I'd really like to hear his answer to that

Happy Valentine's Day DU. Thank you to all that gave me hearts!

The pain of stop and frisk

I grew up in NYC. I am getting a bit annoyed about how people are talking about this issue. People talk about this in abstract terms without realizing the damage that it was causing to real people. This was and is still happening to OUR CHILDREN. My child was in junior high school when he " fit the description" and was stopped and harassed. I was waiting for my child to walk home from school as he did every day, time went by and I did not see him. I went looking for my child, only to find out he was being delayed by police for simply being a child walking home from junior high school. I don't think most people understand what this actually looked like. If you grew up in a minority neighborhood, you see your loved ones thrown up against the wall, laid out on the ground.
People were afraid to go outside!!!
I am not here to tell people to not support Bloomberg. But please understand that there will be many scarred by this policy that will not support him. I have not spoken to any of my friends back home in NY that say they will support him.

Here are some of facts

By now it’s well known that stop-and-frisk disproportionately targets Black and Latino communities. But the policy is even more destructive than you think. To see how stop-and-frisk was implemented, we looked at the raw NYPD data on stop-and-frisk in 2011. That was the peak year for stop-and-frisk in New York City, when police made 685,724 stops—almost 2,000 stops every single day. Our analysis shows that the police used physical force in almost a quarter of stops—and that their use of force is also racially discriminatory.

The most commonly cited rationale is “furtive movements,” which could mean almost anything. Officers testifying in Floyd v. City of New York gave examples like “walking in a certain way” and “changing direction.” Unsurprisingly, “furtive movements” was more often cited as the reason for the stop for Blacks and Latinos than for Whites. This all suggests that when officers are dealing with White people their police work is much more careful. It apparently takes a lot less for an officer to consider Black or Latino people “suspicious”.
][link:https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/stopandfrisk.html|



It’s important to fully understand the bad taste stop-and-frisk left in many people’s mouths, because this is a psychological issue: It affected how people lived their lives, the extent to which they felt comfortable simply hanging out in their own neighborhoods,
][link:https://www.thecut.com/2016/09/what-are-the-psychological-effects-of-stop-and-frisk.html|

Two powerful mini documentaries - about victims and the toll it takes
on families

][link: