@knittingknots2

Rand Paul is from Kentucky. The Kentucky distillery industry was hit hard by retaliatory tariffs.

Rand Paul & Mitch McConnell managed to get reelected by arranging payoffs to placate them.
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/06/12/politics/tariffs-trump-biden-whiskey

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/06/bourbon-eu-tariffs-trade-war/563726/

https://www.lex18.com/news/covering-kentucky/senators-paul-mcconnell-seek-removal-of-retaliatory-tariffs-on-bourbon-and-spirits

https://www.lex18.com/we-follow-through/kentucky-distillers-association-present-on-bourbon-success-discuss-tariffs

https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/politics/2019/07/25/mitch-mcconnell-rand-paul-propose-tax-break-bourbon-producers/1825609001/

@knittingknots2

Trump does not want to quash art nonprofits.

He wants to quash pro-democracy nonprofits like Indivisible and the Soros Foundations.

Trump wants to keep insurrection planners like the Claremont Institute and Federalist Society.

@randahl

Musk can always resort to inciting riots & blockades by his followers.

The ones Musk triggered in the UK caused millions in damage.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/elon-musk-uk-far-right-riots-us-election-2024-1235148476/

The ones he promoted in Canada caused billions in economic losses to his competitors Toyota & Ford.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/joe-rogan-elon-musk-trucker-anti-vaxxer-convoy/

Musk's interference in Ukraine is undermining the security of the EU.
https://apnews.com/article/spacex-ukraine-starlink-russia-air-force-fde93d9a69d7dbd1326022ecfdbc53c2

The fascist movements Musk fostered in Brazil & the USA led to coup attempts.
https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/former-brazil-military-chiefs-implicate-bolsonaro-coup-conspiracy-2024-03-15/

@dbsalk

Google the word "billionaires" under "news".

How many results are reports shilling stock, crypto, or a hedge fund?

How many results are about the enormous damage they're causing to democracy, the environment, and society?

If folks wanted news about toxic positivity they'd join a cult, not subscribe to a mainstream news source.

I get the same 12 results each time listed first.

@gregggonsalves

Billionaires like Musk, Griffin, Mellon, Uihlein, and Winklevoss spent $20 billion to get Trump's fascist party into public offices to enrich themselves

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-megadonors-2024-election/

277,000 votes in 3 swing states got a criminal back into the presidency

Hope the CIA has hidden classified documents & intelligence assets better this time

NATO allies should withhold intelligence from their US counterparts too
https://abcnews.go.com/US/court-pauses-appeal-trumps-classified-documents-case/story?id=115935246

https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2023/12/politics/missing-russia-intelligence-trump-dg/index.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/05/us/politics/cia-informants-killed-captured.html

@ChrisMayLA6

Brexit was incited by Russian disinformation & right wing elites weaponizing anti-migrant bigotry.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-racism-immigrant-prejudice-major-factor-leave-vote-win-study-a7801676.html

https://www.vox.com/2016/6/25/12029786/brexit-uk-eu-immigration-xenophobia

https://tmg-uk.org/news/brexit-anti-immigrant-prejudice-and-voting-patterns

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-37193140

As Heather McGhee's book "The Sum of Us" describes, bigots are willing to give up a lot to keep something as useful as bigotry alive.

Give up the bigotry & Russia's "divide & conquer" lies loses its efficacy.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/21/russian-meddling-brexit-referendum-tories-russia-report-government
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_2016_Brexit_referendum
https://www.csis.org/blogs/brexit-bits-bobs-and-blogs/did-russia-influence-brexit

@rysiek

Wall Street's insatiable appetite for web sites with weaponizable Kompromat ...

Does it function as a money laundering vehicle for Russian intelligence services via Israeli gaming & cryptocurrency interests?
https://www.newsweek.com/ashley-madison-woos-wall-street-192

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashley_Madison

https://thelogic.co/news/the-big-read/inside-the-battle-for-wonderfis-control/

https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/ashleymadison-com/company_overview/overview_timeline

https://www.forbes.com/sites/monicamercuri/2024/05/20/where-is-noel-biderman-now-what-happened-to-ashley-madisons-former-ceo/

https://www.reuters.com/article/business/major-ashley-madison-investor-stays-faithful-to-embattled-company-idUSL1N10W2F5/

https://icelandmonitor.mbl.is/news/news/2015/08/31/finance_minister_on_ashley_madison/

https://offshoreleaks.icij.org/stories/bjarni-benediktsson

If only this was a harmless plot on a HBO comedy ...
https://padailypost.com/2019/11/04/silicon-valley-season-6-episode-2-a-billion-dollars-to-violate-your-principles/

@amydiehl

The Republican billionaires funding MAGA don't want a prosperous democracy, they want a 3rd world economy of general immiseration, while a tiny minority loot the national treasury.

https://theconversation.com/us-is-becoming-a-developing-country-on-global-rankings-that-measure-democracy-inequality-190486

@aram

Slave labor is back.

The industries currently built on slave labor:
1. Retail monopolies like Amazon, Walmart, and Target
https://apnews.com/article/prison-to-plate-inmate-labor-investigation-c6f0eb4747963283316e494eadf08c4e

2. Music distribution monopolies like Spotify
https://www.billboard.com/business/publishing/spotify-sued-mlc-bundling-cutting-songwriter-royalties-1235684122/

https://www.musicweek.com/publishing/read/mechanical-licensing-collective-files-legal-action-against-spotify-alleging-unpaid-royalties-in-us/089821

3. Social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, Reddit
https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2022/05/unpaid-social-media-moderators/

https://omr.com/en/daily/eddit-google-affiliate-spam

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/unpaid-moderators-internet-reddit-facebook-1.7267817

4. Browser & search monopolies like Google
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/sep/10/google-underpaid-workers-illegal-pay-disparity-documents

5. Societal
https://www.bmj.com/content/374/bmj.n1972

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@markgurman

#TranslatedFromTheRepublican

"The Saudis have funded Apple to re-engineer the surveillance capitalism devices that failed to succeed in the market last time.

The lackluster user adoption of Siri is now being coupled with coercive implementation techniques like Microsoft's.

Embedding spyware features into the operating system with no way to shut it off."
https://english.alarabiya.net/News/gulf/2018/04/07/Saudi-Crown-Prince-discusses-joint-projects-with-Apple-s-Tim-Cook-

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-16/saudi-crown-prince-is-said-to-plan-meetings-with-apple-google

https://www.vox.com/2018/4/6/17206358/saudi-crown-prince-visit-tech-silicon-valley

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/18/nso-spyware-used-to-target-family-of-jamal-khashoggi-leaked-data-shows-saudis-pegasus

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jan/21/amazon-boss-jeff-bezoss-phone-hacked-by-saudi-crown-prince

@JoshuaHolland

We can hope.

However, Musk's investors run Musk, Trump, & Vance. The investors are the glue keeping this marriage from hell glued together.

The 100 Twitter investors own & operate the US federal government now.
https://www.newsweek.com/full-list-investors-elon-musks-x-revealed-court-filing-1942970

https://www.newsweek.com/will-truth-social-merge-elon-musks-x-rumors-swirl-1982993

@msbellows

If I may make a suggestion. Feel free to ignore it if it's untenable

Encourage GOP insiders to document crimes against humanity that donors & their minions will conduct

Nazis dutifully kept minutes of the Wannsee Conference & the Final Solution plans. That kind of documentation came in handy during the Nuremberg Trials

Several Nazis saved their own skins by becoming informers with their evidence

If democracy & the planet survives long enough, that evidence can be used in trials

@alexwild

Slavery takes many forms...

One of the first things to be established after a concentration camp is formed...
https://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyle/new-book-reveals-horror-of-nazi-camp-brothels-idUSTRE57G45X/

https://www.dw.com/en/new-book-reveals-horrors-of-brothels-in-nazi-concentration-camps/a-4581173

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_military_brothels_in_World_War_II

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_camp_brothels_in_World_War_II

And remember evangelicals voted for this, the mass dehumanization of people for personal profit.

@arstechnica

This genetic analysis shows that the Roman Empire relied on a citizenry that was an admixture of people from around the Mediterranean world and Europe.

Hybrid strength for a civilization that lasted a thousand years. Hmmm...

Tell that to Trump and his bigots.

(Yes, it was a civilization built on slavery too, but the ruling class did not come from an inbred elite or from a single-source population lacking in genetic diversity.)

@WagesOf @draftexcluder

Not yet.

Housing stock in Europe & North America is headed that way, but the billionaires aren't there yet.

@draftexcluder

The game of Monopoly is only interesting if you want something that a billionaire is selling.

Don't want railway stocks. Or banking stocks. Or expensive real estate.

That's how you win, by not getting into debt to billionaires and not buying from billionaires.

Start with avoiding buying fossil fuels as much as possible. Fossil fuel interests fund fascism.

@draftexcluder

What people overlook in wargames (and Monopoly is a war game):

Sometimes the only winning strategy is not to play the game.

"[after playing out all possible outcomes for Global Thermonuclear War]

Joshua: Greetings, Professor Falken.

Stephen Falken: Hello, Joshua.

Joshua: A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.

How about a nice game of chess?"

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0086567/quotes/?item=qt3692563

@stickus @dansinker

There's a reason why Republicans are paid to attack libraries.

I read most paywalled material through my public library. Mine uses PressReader.

Lots of people use the Internet Archive too.

Enjoying the pleasures of literacy while it's still permitted.

@QasimRashid

The new generation of the dispossessed so their land can enrich the corrupt, cruel, & callous. Bribes for genocide.

https://www.salon.com/2024/06/12/it-appears-to-be-a-payoff-expert-says-kushners-saudi-cash-an-egregious-national-security-worry/

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/19/jared-kushner-gaza-waterfront-property-israel-negev

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/jared-kushner-israel-gaza-waterfront-property

https://www.politico.eu/article/gaza-better-monaco-donald-trump/

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/03/jared-kushner-sure-seems-excited-about-very-valuable-beachfront-properties-in-gaza/

A new seaside playground for the ultra wealthy?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_International_Golf_Links,_Scotland

Or oil field drilling & pollution?
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/3/6/israel-is-pillaging-not-just-gazas-cities-but-also-its-waters

https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/01/26/how-is-gaza-offshore-gas-development-tied-to-the-israeli-invasion/

The perennial dilemma of the fossil fuel industry's real estate interests.

@jeff @Joe_Hill @QasimRashid

Republicans want to dismantle the ACA, give tax cuts to the rich, deregulate pollution, thwart the phase out of fossil fuels, force women to boost the birth rate for economic reasons, suppress wages & voting, create slave labor camps for detainees, end federal agencies, end all social safety net programs, privatize & loot all federally owned assets, protect the gun lobby, reward megadonors using tax dollars, raise drug prices, adopt crypto,..

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