MADISON, Wis. (AP) - The Democratic-backed candidate for Wisconsin Supreme Court defeated a challenger endorsed by President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk on Tuesday, cementing a liberal majority for at least three more years.
Susan Crawford, a Dane County judge who led legal fights to protect union power and abortion rights and to oppose voter ID, defeated Republican-backed Brad Schimel in a race that broke records for spending, was on pace to be the highest-turnout Wisconsin Supreme Court election ever and became a proxy fight for the nation’s political battles.
Trump, Musk and other Republicans lined up behind Schimel, a former state attorney general. Democrats including former President Barack Obama and billionaire megadonor George Soros backed Crawford.
The first major election in the country since November was seen as a litmus test of how voters feel about Trump’s first months back in office and the role played by Musk, [...who] traveled to Wisconsin on Sunday to make a pitch for Schimel and personally hand out to [sic] $1 million checks to voters.
Crawford embraced the backing of Planned Parenthood and other abortion rights advocates, running ads that highlighted Schimel’s opposition to the procedure. She also attacked Schimel for his ties to Musk and Republicans, referring to Musk as "Elon Schimel" during a debate.
Young and right minded. Yes!
Wednesday, April 02, 2025
Elon bought a lemon with million dollar checks.
California Dreaming - I trust Katie Porter to bring it on, Harris to be vapid and empty of policy ideas and ideals, and Republicans to run Steve Garvery. The run to replace Governor Gavin.
NBC has a report with a Porter campaign ad saying she's not an empty vessel.
Here, with this video URL if you, like Chauncey Gardner, prefer to watch.
Porter is well known nationally, and in California as a former U.S. House member who rolled the dice for the Feinstein Senate seat but ending up as third in the primary behind Schiff and Garvey. With top to going to the general election.
Garvey, for Christsakes, good baseball player, short on cause to be taken seriously as a politician, but there to squeeze out Porter.
Schiff not unhappy about it turning out that way.
So Guv race. Expect Harris - Hollywood Harris, to expect it as hers, because.
Crabgrass is 100% behind the Porter candidacy at this point.
Show me something better. You don't have it, so Porter's the one.
“If Vice President Harris were to choose to run, I am certain that that would have a near field-clearing effect on the Democratic side,” Porter told The Orange County Register late last year.
Harris, also a former California senator and state attorney general, will decide whether to run for governor by the end of the summer, according to a source familiar with her planning. Harris is also weighing a possible presidential run in 2028, and the source said she is “keeping all options open.”
The people of California need a Governor, not a dilettante who took a loss head on, and down ticket, to Dondald J. Trump and the red cappers.
So -- Please Kamala, give it up. You blew it big time and there are reasons.
For Governor Kamala -- You're the second best candidate, between you and Porter.
Plain, simple, and true. Clyburn has no real say, in California.
_______________UPDATE_______________
https://katieporter.com/2025/03/consumer-protection-attorney-and-former-congresswoman-katie-porter-launches-campaign-for-california-governor/
Tuesday, April 01, 2025
"Governor Ron DeSantis leads push to loosen child labor laws as immigration crackdown leads to workforce shortage"
Guardian -
Alarm as Florida Republicans move to fill deported workers’ jobs with children: ‘It’s insane, right?’
Beneath the smugness of Ron DeSantis, at Florida leading the nation in immigration enforcement lies something of a conundrum: how to fill the essential jobs of the scores of immigrant workers targeted for deportation.
The answer, according to Florida lawmakers, is the state’s schoolchildren, who as young as 14 could soon be allowed to work overnight shifts without a break – even on school nights.
A bill that progressed this week through the Republican-dominated state senate seeks to remove numerous existing protections for teenage workers, and allow them, in the Florida governor’s words, to step into the shoes of immigrants who supply Florida’s tourism and agriculture industries with “dirt cheap labor”.
“What’s wrong with expecting our young people to be working part-time now? That’s how it used to be when I was growing up,” DeSantis said at an immigration forum with Donald Trump’s “border czar”, Tom Homan, in Sarasota last week.
“Why do we say we need to import foreigners, even import them illegally, when teenagers used to work at these resorts, college students should be [doing] all this stuff.”
Unsurprisingly, the proposal has alarmed immigration advocates and watchdog groups concerned about child labor abuses and exploitation.
They point out that there is nothing “part-time” in the language of the companion senate and house bills currently before lawmakers, which instead will permit unlimited working hours without breaks for 14- and 15-year-olds who are schooled at home or online, and allow employers to require 16- and 17-year-olds to work for more than six days in a row.
Florida. Alternatively, they could use convict labor. If too few convicts, that can be fixed, Florida style.
What's a politician's Town Hall event, without a town, or a hall? One answer, Planned Bullshit. Or Fear of facing the people.
 |
| scardey cat |
title:
House Republicans advised to stop holding in-person town halls after DOGE complaints
https://apnews.com/article/town-halls-musk-doge-trump-gop-749d91ea516284057e4c7bcb1615527e
title:
Speaker Johnson tells GOP lawmakers to skip town halls after an onslaught of protests
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5175061-house-republicans-town-halls-protests/
title:
House Republicans advised to avoid in-person town halls amid protests
*****
As in be gutless, don't face the people in a real town, at a real hall.
Why this focus? My district's Rep. Tom Emmer says he'll do a town hall - But ---
His latest email, hitting the inbox three hours ago, one day's notice. This [images omitted] -
Dear Friend,
As we’ve said for years, Congress is a customer service business. As we continue our work in Washington, D.C., we have announced a telephone town hall to give you an update on our work, hear your input and answer your questions.
The telephone town hall is scheduled for this Wednesday, April 2nd at 5:30 pm. Many of you will receive a call inviting you to participate, but in case you don’t, to join the event call 833-425-1492. Being transparent and accessible to our constituents is always a top priority and we hope you are able join us for this event.
Sincerely,
Sincerely, but what's sincere about it? It's phony to the core. It's an insult.
No town. No hall. Why bother?
To stage a controlled phone-based propaganda fling?
For gulls, to gull them further? BFD
Sorry Tom. NO GUTS. NO GLORY.
[end of story]
Monday, March 31, 2025
Please don't.
If you toggle it on, DuckDuckGo will provide a bot blurb as well as a return list. Here's the bot blurb I got with this search:
Donald Trump has expressed interest in finding ways to serve a third term as president, suggesting there may be methods to bypass the two-term limit set by the US Constitution. However, he has not provided specific details on how this could be achieved.
The bot is telling it like it is. The story presumes he'd be able to run again and be elected. To the extent people fail to see Elon is only doing Trump's dirty work, hating on Elon for it instead of hating on the dirty work itself and its actual father, he could possibly win again, but BLESS THE CONSTITUTIONAL LIMIT TO TWO TERMS when considering how he'd abuse things by doing it if he thought he could get away with it. What a piece of work.
UPDATE: Reading the TOI link, it says:
Speaking to NBC News in a phone interview on Sunday, Trump claimed, “There are methods which you could do it,” while also adding that “it is far too early to think about it”.
The 22nd Amendment of the US Constitution, ratified in 1951 after Franklin D Roosevelt's four-term presidency, explicitly limits a president to two elected terms.
However, when asked by NBC’s Kristen Welker whether one way to bypass this restriction could be through Vice President JD Vance running and later stepping aside, Trump responded, “Well, that’s one. But there are others too. There are others”.
That would be running a ticket JD/Trump, JD top spot, and then winning. Another way, same ticket and throw JD off a tall building once winning. Putin's possibly hellpful on options.
Speaker Johnson if asked, likely would prefer the tall building option.
FURTHER: An Elon/Trump ticket, Elon top spot, would fail because Elon's birthplace is South Africa; foreign birth being a bar, unless Trump could finagle a way to thwart that Constitutional provision too. (It's original text, not by Amendment, so would it be harder to evade?)
16 Tesla EVs are destroyed in a fire in Rome as Italian police investigate possible arson.
Link. Widely reported. Often with this image:
 |
| click the image to read the bumper sticker |
image source: https://www.seattletimes.com/business/16-tesla-evs-are-set-on-fire-in-rome-as-italian-police-investigate-possible-arson/
This other image shows damage, in an update of the same online item:
Crabgrass favors the first of the report's image choices, since it states a theme.
Sunday, March 30, 2025
If you like ambiguity, consider this phrase.
Toast a Tesla.
Are you saying raise a glass in recognition of innovative engineering, or suggesting an unlawful act?
UPDATE:
| of course |
United Health Group. Them again. This time, a litigation settlement where the class action yields tiny settlement per class member.
Collusive litigation is always a worry, as in name a class, get it through, and then sell out the class. Is this an instance of a greatly inadequate settlement amount?
More than 350,000 current and former employees at UnitedHealth Group have been sent notices about a proposed $69 million settlement in a class action lawsuit alleging workers lost millions in investment returns because the company offered low-performing 401(k) plan options from Wells Fargo.
The settlement notices, which were sent by email or regular mail as of March 24, say a federal judge in Minneapolis will decide during a fairness hearing on June 12 whether to grant the settlement final approval.
Each class member’s proportional share of the net settlement proceeds will be based in part on the balance they invested in certain Wells Fargo Target Date Funds at any time since April 23, 2015, according to a website with settlement details.
“Plaintiff filed a class action complaint … alleging that [UnitedHealth Group] violated ERISA’s fiduciary duties of prudence and loyalty,” according to the settlement notice, which used the abbreviation for the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. “Defendants deny all of the claims made in the complaint [and] deny all allegations of wrongdoing.”
Wells Fargo sold off its asset management business years ago.
[...] Judge John Tunheim of the U.S. District Court of Minnesota substantially denied UnitedHealth Group’s motion for summary judgement in the case in March 2024. In his ruling, Tunheim wrote that “a reasonable trier of fact could easily find” the lead plaintiff caught the company “with its hand in the cookie jar.”
The parties announced the $69 million settlement in December.
The fairness hearing is scheduled for June 12 at 10 a.m. at the federal courthouse in Minneapolis.
During the hearing, attorneys representing the class will seek an award of legal fees not to exceed one-third of the $69 million settlement plus their out-of-pocket costs. Legal fees, administrative costs and a proposed incentive award up to $100,000 for the lead plaintiff will reduce total settlement funds available to class members.
Class members don’t need to do anything to receive payment, according to the settlement notice, nor do they need to attend the hearing. Those objecting to the settlement, however, must notify the court and attorneys in writing by May 29 and may speak during the June hearing if they wish.
The calculator says $69,000,000 / 350,000 gives under $200 on average, and that's if attorney fees are $0. It gets lessened while the plaintiffs' law firm makes a killing.
Is the class being sold out? Is UnitedHealth happy to cap the cost and not take a risk of a substantially bigger hit after losing summary judgment; instead not risking a jury award?
Could be.
Would you do anything, if in the class, with those numbers, or shrug and say the lawyers did okay for themselves, and UnitedHealth got off cheap but it's not worth a fight for what, possibly another fifty bucks?
There is cause up front to opt out of class actions and preserve individual rights to sue, but wtf, let it move on without any cost to you then take the pittance and move on? Myself, I'd protest and say take it to trial, get a jury, and roll the dice. You hardly can do worse than two hundred bucks on average.
__________UPDATE________
You look at the lifetime of a 401k and $200 bucks against annual numbers here and here, and a chief/indians difference seems striking. However, in one of those items it is Brian Thompson under discussion, and he cashed in but only until he duly got "Luigied." Win a few, lose a few.
Hate the bastards! And go with Bernie and AOC the crowds they attract and their push to get Medicare for All. It's the only sane thing out there if we can move it past Dem donor money against it, into serious debate, then over the finish line.
Big if. But what's the option?