This Is Fine

NZ National MP admits to leaking COVID-19 patient details

1:42 AM

> White nationalist @StefanMolyneux has been permanently suspended from Twitter, a week after he was banned from YouTube

folks you love to see it

> A Twitter spokesperson tells me Molyneux's account "was suspended for spam and platform manipulation, specifically operating fake accounts."

ahahahaha

Memor-X

2:17 AM

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not saying if he wasn't meant to get that information but assuming he was he decided to leak it to expose the fact that he got it? that's like saying you leak customers bank account details because you work in the bank

Mithrandir24601

12:41 PM

Boris Johnson continues to astound me. When asked what he'd do about 'modern slavery' (essentially people being paid below min wage, by the sounds of things), instead of saying what he'd do, he blamed a labour mayor... Like, what?

@Jolenealaska good :)

UK Gov just announced they're doing a Groupon to boost economic recovery

Literally, go to a supported restaurant Monday-Wednesday and Her Majesty's Government will pay 50% of the bill.

@Mithrandir24601 Trump playbook.

Mithrandir24601

@fredley Is there a list of these restaurants? - there are a number I'd be delighted to support in this way, but I suspect that they're also not the ones on the list

@Mithrandir24601 Not yet, only announced in Parliament a few minutes ago. I imagine it will be the big chains.

Mithrandir24601

Because y'know, they're not big chains with huge profits, they're the small independents that make amazing food with a relatively small margin

@Mithrandir24601 Yeah donors tho

12:56 PM

@fredley Is this the one that they made that cunning linguistic slogan for? Eat Out to Help Out?

@Nzall Yes indeed

"Eat Out to Help Out" is official UK Gov policy

1:14 PM

I really want Ramen now. Thanks @fredley. Ya jerk.

@TimStone Of course he was. That's how racists and the alt right operate. They try to manipulate platforms to ensure their views no only get seen more, but to also ensure their views looks more popular than the really are. Since they know not only do a lot of people just go "oh jeez a lot of likes on that post! It must be right!", but that by making racism more accepted it makes other more "closeted" racist more comfortable speaking up and acting on their racism.

Just one of the reasons why social media platforms should have zero tolerance policies for hate speech.

Deplatforming the racists is the only thing that works, because they're become extremely effective at exploiting them.

and don't just take my word for it, let's see what milo has to say about it too.

1:46 PM

> In Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and many other countries, SCHOOLS ARE OPEN WITH NO PROBLEMS. The Dems think it would be bad for them politically if U.S. schools open before the November Election, but is important for the children & families. May cut off funding if not open!

twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1280853299600789505

More on-point satire from the Onion:

Trump Slaughters Dozens Of American Troops In Hopes Of Cashing In On Russian Bounties

@MadScientist I mean, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and those other countries don't have 1% of their population suffering or recovering from COVID

Schools aren't actually fully opened here yet, and right now it's holidays anyway. They're planning to reopen, but we don't know yet if that will work. And right now we have ~400 cases a day, not 50000 a day

@MadScientist This will kill people. Its coming from the department of Ed, too:

DeVos demands 'fully operational' schools in the fall: 'Not a matter of if'

I'm taking the RS Archer discussion here because as funny and potentially fake as it may be, it's technically still Brexit

> "People were just walking into England and buying a house where they liked"

"Like you did in France" I said.

"That was different, we're expats"

1:55 PM

Right now it looks like the US is going to actually try herd immunity in some states

@MadScientist by which of course they mean we just want to reopen the economy and don't care who dies.

And we've managed this pandemic so damn poorly the rest of countries are slowly reopening already.

Even economically the only sane option seems to be to suppress the virus enough that you can reopen with masks and strong contact tracing. Once the hospitals are overwhelmed, the economy will stop in any case

nytimes.com/2020/07/07/business/sweden-economy-coronavirus.html

Sweden stayed open and had 40% more deaths per capita than the USA had

@MadScientist The hospitals can't get overwhelmed if your population can't afford to go to the hospital head tap

The US isn't even attempting to do a contact tracing app like other countries, or?

1:59 PM

and their economy STILL crashed

@MadScientist Well, many states have contract tracers, I don't know about apps

Like, regardless of whether you're gonna lockdown or not, the economy still crashes as shown by Sweden, so you might as well lockdown

Because SMART people will still avoid crowds and going to places where other people are, and socially distance themselves, and shop less. In addition, you're still having the same supply issues and problems with foreign companies you work with being closed

> We have the ministerial exception case. SCOTUS holds, 7-2, that teachers at a religious school cannot sue for employment discrimination because it would infringe on the school's First Amendment rights

> Sotomayor's dissent: "This sweeping result is profoundly unfair. The Court is not only wrong on the facts, but its error also risks upending antidiscrimination protections for many employees of religious entities." She condemns the decision for its "inherent injustice."

Unclear if there's a legal test for what constitutes a religious entity, otherwise your bakery could just become a "Christian bakery" and now you don't hire gay people

> “Trump directed the CIA to share intelligence information on counterterrorism with the Kremlin despite no discernible reward, former intelligence officials who served in the Trump administration told Just Security...”

Wouldn't it just be the same test as 501(c)(3)

2:15 PM

@TimStone Honestly, I do get what they're going for. I just don't think a non-natural person should have the same 1st Amendment rights as a human being

Like, corporations do contribute to the debate, but they pretty much contribute the opinion of the people leading them. You have basically no companies that hold other values than the people running them

So this means that their speech is not original

2:30 PM

U.S. Supreme Court allows broader religious exemption to birth control coverage reut.rs/2O7UYkA

> The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday endorsed a plan by President Donald Trump’s administration to give employers broad religious and moral exemptions from a federal mandate that health insurance they provide employees covers women’s birth control.

> The court ruled 7-2 against the states of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, which challenged the legality of the administration’s 2018 rule weakening the so-called contraceptive mandate of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, commonly called Obamacare, that has drawn the ire of Christian conservatives.

How can an employer be religious

@Wipqozn I got into this with my brother-in-law.

Are we going to start having officially sanctioned "Corporate Religion"

He feels it's wrong to force an employer to provide benefits for something that goes against their religious beliefs.

Employers can't have religious beliefs. A corporation isn't a person.

I mean, legally it might be... but it's not.

@Wipqozn constitutionally corporations have 1st Amendment protection because they "contribute to the public debate"

2:34 PM

But the person that runs the company doesn't believe in it!

@Frank At the same time, wouldn't that be the employer forcing their religious beliefs onto the employee?

@Yuuki That's always been fine in the US

@Yuuki Yep. But employees can always go find another job if they don't agree with it.

I asked him exactly that.

It's fine for Christians to force their beliefs on others, and anything different than that is oppressing Christians.

Would it be acceptable if an employer held the religious belief that their workers can only be paid below the minimum wage?

2:40 PM

I'm sure someone will argue that case eventually. Corporations will just use any chance they can to cut their staffing costs.

What a belter. Republicans want to remove the right to sue your employee if you get sick because of a botched reopening

@Unionhawk Maybe? But I'm sure some would like this applied far more broadly a la the birth control ruling

@Wipqozn This is a different case than what @TimStone posted, right?

Yes

Or how about the employer has the religious belief that they should know everything about their employee (e.g. installing cameras in their workplace bathrooms)? Abortion rights descend from the right to privacy.

2:44 PM

@TimStone True, Hobby Lobby is not a religious institution

The decision for @Wipqozn's link

The more relevant bit would be the particulars of ministerial exceptions

RBG dissent with Sotomayor joining this time.

@TimStone Discrimination is fine so long as your Christian (which is the only religion they have in mind). Love me some weaponized religion. Smells like privilege.

@MBraedley thanks

Not surprised in the least that it was those two dissenting in both cases.

2:53 PM

> Lt. Col Alexander Vindman, a key witness in Trump's impeachment inquiry, is retiring from the US Army after more than 21 years of military service, after he determined that his future in the armed forces "will forever be limited" due to political retaliation

I don't know how the Obamacare religious freedom exemption decision survives contact with the ERA, if it ever gets ratified. Unfortunately, that's not the case with the other decision.

Yeah well consider this: the supreme court is awful

the suckpreme court

N.Y.C. Schools, Nation’s Largest District, Will Not Fully Reopen in Fall

@BradC I suppose remote learning isn't even close to being a possibility in the US.

Due to the wealth inequality and all that. Way too many kids would be left behind.

I don't think only opening 3 days a week will help at all. Crowded classroom is still crowded 3 days a week. They should probably do 4 days, with half the class coming in mon/tues, other half wed/thurs.

> Ken Cuccinelli, a top official at the Department of Homeland Security, said on CNN Tuesday that the policy was designed in part to “encourage schools to reopen.” His words are cited in the universities’ lawsuit

3:08 PM

@Wipqozn I heard a statistic (I'll try to find it) that when all the schools closed in March this year, something like a full 1/3rd of students were "lost". Meaning, they never logged in to a remote session, and they were unreachable by teachers/district officials

@Wipqozn Also, republicans don't want it either. Betsy wants in-person learning to be the norm for next year

@BradC I highly suspect that number is significantly higher in some school districts.

@Nzall Of course she does. She wants kids back in school so their parents can go back to work.

@Wipqozn especially in the poorer districts where people can't afford something to actually remote into the remote sessions with

@TimStone lol jfc. "We're not racist, we just don't want them dirty, filthy foreigners spreading the virus!"

@Wipqozn Probably. I found a few links, from different cities: Houston, TX, Los Angeles, CA, Detroit, MI

all about "missing" students

3:11 PM

tbh "dirty, filthy foreigners spreading the virus" is how most of the world views US tourists right now. IRONY.

thank you, governor abbott

> Vallejo Times-Herald reporter John Glidden was fired today. The official cause was for insubordination. Here’s what I know: On July 1, the Vallejo City School board announced publicly that the superintendent was leaving. So Glidden tweeted the news

Imagine a) agreeing to an embargo on a superintendent leaving b) getting mad a reporter tweeted about the literal school board publicly announcing the change, because you agreed to a

@TimStone And without any sort of protections, Glidden gets no severance and no benefits.

3:35 PM

> We negotiated an agreement that secures just cause + grievance clauses in our first contract to protect jobs, locks in 5 days of PTO rollover and allows members to volunteer for producer furloughs, so those who can least afford them are protected and a department isn't targeted

Oh wow, they got Gannett to agree to a just cause clause

Memor-X

@BradC on the plus side, that means schools wont be online only so ICE will have to find another way to be racist to students

thanks 2020 for the choice of fucking people over with a pandemic or fucking people over with racism

@Memor-X My loophole: a once a week, 1 hour in person class with "required" attendance and only offered to international students.

I believe some institutions are doing this

That classic constituency of exclusively people who own boats

3:52 PM

The Coronavirus task force briefing is quite delusional, as expected

At least they had masks, I guess

@TimStone It doesn't look so much a boat parade as a boat gathering.

Like... they're just there.

@Yuuki more of a boat smattering

I don't even think they're facing the same direction.

@TimStone They're highlighting boat as if they need to draw attention to the fact that rich people support Trump

4:48 PM

@Frank I'm sure that's exactly what they're doing

"Rich people are better than you, so if they support Trump, so should you!"

not that you need to be rich to own a boat, but I somehow suspect most of those people are.

5:33 PM

> Columbia and NYU creating a one-credit “in-person” “global course” for all international students to register for so they can’t be deported by ICE: absolutely iconic

Like I said earlier

@Frank tbf I searched for boat because I wanted to make sure the tweet was real

But they also said boat three times, so like

and then made like four more tweets about this

Betsy Devos says because astronauts take risks, children going to school should too

The shocking thing right now is that if you don't know the context, you don't know whether she's referring to COVID or to school schootings

6:24 PM

@Nzall Okay, I feel terrible, but I chuckled at that.

Well done,.

@MBraedley Excellent

@Wipqozn I wanted to post that article to /r/nottheonion, but they don't accept The Daily Beast articles

> Virginia has eliminated a backlog of thousands of untested rape kits, becoming only the seventh state in the country to do so, Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring said. The project to test rape kits — some decades old — began in 2015

7:11 PM

Apparantly Roger Stone was banned from FAcebook?

cnn.com/2020/07/08/tech/roger-stone-proud-boys-facebook/…

> Under pressure to curb hate on its platforms, Facebook announced Wednesday it had shut down pages and accounts linked to Roger Stone and Proud Boys, a far-right group Facebook has banned under its hate policies. Stone's own Instagram account was shut down as part of the takedown.

> The network of more than 100 Facebook pages, accounts and Instagram accounts spent more than $300,000 on Facebook and Instagram ads to promote their posts. Some of the pages and accounts included false personas, an analysis commissioned by Facebook found.

This is why you need to deplatform racists, because they don't play fair.

7:31 PM

This is fucking insane:

Trump Should Yank Federal Funds From Every School That Refuses To Open This Fall

But it is the Federalist, after all

But it appears the White House is all on board:

CDC will issue new guidance on school openings, Pence says, after criticism from Trump

> “We don’t want the guidance from CDC to be a reason why schools don’t open,” Pence said. “I think that every American, every American knows that we can safely reopen our schools. . . .

Fucking bullshit

When Biden gets into office (oh god please), the first thing he needs to do is fire every single person appointed by Trump, no matter where in government

@BradC That happens by default, don't worry

@BradC Unfortunately, he can't for everyone, like SCOTUS.

Like, one of the first things a new president does it fire everyone in any position of power in the government

7:38 PM

@Nzall it doesn't for all positions, actually.

@MBraedley yeah, Federal judges are a problem

@BradC yeah, but technically it's not the president who appoints these, it's Congress. The president just nominates, and usually that's just someone proposed by someone else

But things like the directors of TLAs are usually appointed for more than a presidency term.

All the political appointees will certainly be changed

No, I'm thinking of all the other positions that have longer than 4-year terms (DOJ prosecutors, "independent" investigators, members of the trade board, etc. These won't automatically be retired/re-appointed, without the new President taking the action to do so

Stormblessed

8:06 PM

Trump campaign attacks Univision as "a leftist propaganda machine and a mouthpiece of the Democrat Party"

this is just bizarre

8:17 PM

9:16 PM

DoJ will deploy agents to the streets of Kansas City a part of a new program called "Operation Legend" and naturally I have questions

9:36 PM

Judge Dredd (film)

Judge Dredd is a 1995 American science fiction action film, based on the comic book character of the same name, directed by Danny Cannon, produced by Edward R. Pressman, Charles Lippincott and Beau E. L. Marks, and written by William Wisher Jr. and Steven E. de Souza. The film stars Sylvester Stallone, Diane Lane, Rob Schneider, Armand Assante, and Max von Sydow. The film takes place in 2080 and depicts a dystopian world and the crime-ridden metropolis Mega-City 1. Following an unspecified disaster that turned Earth into a "cursed" wasteland, the survivors established a corps of Judges whose role...

Linking this for no reason at all

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