Uggh it’s so reductive I’m tired of it. There’s so much more wrong with us than just capitalism but nobody likes being called out or needing to take themselves down a few pegs so, let’s blame it all on capitalism yeah!
The greed and selfishness rotting at our societal core is bigger than just capitalism, and we need to stop pretending we don’t all need to change in some BIG ways, if things are going to start improving. Capitalism or not.
What I don’t get is why they don’t just hire a mathematician to make a map that looks fair, meets all court requirements, but still wins them the elections? Alphaphoenix did a pretty clear video showing how it’s basically always possible: youtu.be/Lq-Y7crQo44?si=8Y6b7xblWm6FhcFc
I mean, I’m happy they aren’t getting away with it. I prefer my enemies to be stupid and incompetent. It just befuddles me that they are.
Because it doesn’t matter whether the map “looks” fair. It needs to have two majority Black districts to comply with the court order. And those two districts are probably not going to elect Republicans.
A map can almost assuredly be constructed that gives those two districts, even with democrat representatives, and yet maintains overwhelming republican power in the state regardless. Two districts against however many others.
Again, I’m not advocating for this. Gerrymandering is a disgusting practice. But it’s still something I’m pretty sure they could have done.
This is a Congressional map. Nobody in this lawsuit is trying to flip the state legislature. They are trying to enforce the Voting Rights Act, which is about race not party affiliation.
According to the SCOTUS, the number of Black-majority Alabama districts should be proportional to the number of Blacks in Alabama. Alabama has seven Congressional representatives, of whom one is Black. The state is roughly one quarter Black, so the goal of the lawsuit is to make sure it has two Black-majority districts in Congress. Nothing more. The other five will surely be Republican-controlled, and everyone knows that the courts cannot change that. Two out of seven is our best-case scenario, for now at least.
Other lawsuits have tried to force various maps, at the state and congressional level, to match the number of Democratic-leaning districts to the proportion of Democrats in the state. Any such efforts have no support from the SCOTUS and no chance of success in Alabama.
Ah, I see what you are saying now. Basically, the thing I was hung up on was that I figured they would get what they could and leave it at that. But basically, they aren’t satisfied with getting what they could and simply want to get it all, court order be damned. And there’s no way to comply with the court order AND get it all, so violating the court order was the only option.
Expect that now, with an independent organization drawing the next map, they might lose even more than the paltry two majority congressional districts. Good.
Isn’t this effectively illegal by many other anti-descriminate laws?.. Seems a bit silly. As with most discrimination laws the problem is proving and enforcing it.
RICO prosecution requires multiple acts wherein members set up an "illegal coordinated scheme or operation (a "racket") to repeatedly or consistently collect a profit" through coercion, fraud or extortion.
How in the hell is this going to apply to loosely organized voluntary protesters who are unarmed in the face of heavily armed police?
They were organized enough to form a 503c charity and then funnel money in and out of it, track expenses and receipts, and perform reimbursements for supplies for conducting what amounts to traditional terrorism. They also established both on-grid and off-grid communication networks to organize and strategize. They also created and internally published their own educational materials to indoctrinate new recruits to the inner core of the cause.
You and I have very different definitions for “loosely”.
You and I have very different definitions for “illegal coordinated scheme,” " repeatedly or consistently collect a profit through coercion, fraud or extortion," and also “conducting what amounts to traditional terrorism”
a 503c charity and then funnel money in and out of it, track expenses and receipts, and perform reimbursements for supplies
You mean a 501c3 charity. Those are all required activities for a 501c3. That is not an criminal enterprise.
conducting what amounts to traditional terrorism
Do you actually support our democratic government powers being corrupted into authoritarianism sprinkled with fascism?
They also created and internally published their own educational materials to indoctrinate new recruits to the inner core of the cause.
That’s what all organizations do, be they religious, charitable, or political.
The entire indictment reads like propaganda piece, carefully crafted as to focus on political ‘anarchist militant’ rhetoric like this is the late 1960s and 70s, to create a false narrative bubble so that it includes any and all of the community organizers involved.
This is an egregious abuse of power through the use of RICO, and it’s not the first time GA has employed it against activist types.
They created booby traps on public property and took at least one completely innocent nonrealted person hostage at gunpoint. Get the fiuck out of here with “egregious abuse of power”. Right to protest doesn’t give you a blank check to maim other people or hold them at gunpoint and it doesn’t threaten democracy to indict them for that.
The RICO case is literally targetting everyone it can and certainly will affect everyone willing to protest. Its called the chilling effect and its a common strategy of authoritarians in government. It’s not actually prosecuting the explicitly henious criminal activity you are trying to reference to justify your support of an obvious egregious abuse of power.
Your position is sophmoric cognitive dissonance, you are demanding to shrink the context of the discussion to justify your pitchfork waving.
RICO is intended to prosecute wealthy and powerful puppeteers who hide behind their disposable pawns to do their dirty work. If this case was only about lawful protest, you have a reasonable argument, but it wasn’t, and you don’t. The fact that they broke laws and harmed innocent bystanders and took action that could have harmed more is OK for you because they did it in the name of a cause you happen to support. Call me whatever you want, you aren’t going to be able to justify the coordinated misdeeds when it infringes on the rights of the innocent.
RICO is intended to prosecute any group of individuals attempting to profit from running a criminal enterprise. The charged individuals as a group having a 501c3 with verbose open records and a verbose paper trail of spending in the first place may even been seen as a possible mitigating factor against finding a RICO conspiracy.
Yes, the case is not about lawful protest, it’s about criminality, and in that context it’s being used to prosecute more than just criminality as it sweeps in leaders among the protestors not involved in criminality. It amounts to suppression of protestors and is a dangerous precedent to support from any level of government prosecution. This RICO case ends up being used in a way to prevent people from exercising First Amendment rights, a public protest is a form of petitioning the Government for a redress of grievances. What specific evidence has put all of these people into a category of criminality that isn’t just a sweeping catch all attempt using ‘anarchist’ activity (which is protected speech activity until acts occur, acts that are criminal activities done for protest are individually prosecuted)?
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Who would or is actually profiting from the alleged criminal activity? That alone makes the RICO charges dubious.
You have no basis in support of prosecution beyond conjecture, and/or you are intentionally ignoring any larger context that doesn’t support your pitchfork desire for prosecution. There is nothing you have put forth that has any forethought or consideration of anything but the prosecutorial indictment claims alone.
I called out your position as bullshit, I didn’t call you an idiot asshole as a person. Learn to recognize the difference, and do better.
Your entire argument hinges on whether the organization had a role to play in the illegal activities vs whether the illegal activities were done by individuals in the organization. If someone in my company does something illegal, there should not be a RICO case against me unless I conspired with them to specifically do that illegal thing.
Your entire argument hinges on whether the organization had a role to play
Well, let’s be real here. It’s the prosecution’s argument. And they obviously believe the organization played a role or they wouldn’t have named those individuals in the indictment.
After reading through it, it does appear that the prosecution believes that senior individuals inside the organization were promoting the illegal behavior without actually getting their hands dirty.
I’m simply pointing out that the ADL are not paragons. They throw their weight around for their own political purposes. Just because bad guys say things you don’t like doesn’t mean they should not be allowed to say anything.
I agree, the ADL should be shut down for saying bad things about a job creator like Elon. Also, all the businesses that decided to stop buying ads on Elons site should also be shut down, it’s a blatant violation of the law for them to do that.
I’m on your side, sheesh. I’m sick of this woke cancel culture nonsense where businesses stop giving money Elon just because he “platforms Nazis”. They should be forced to keep giving him money. Now he has no choice but to take down the ADL.
If you want to run a troll account then great, whatever, but maybe actually look at what you’re responding to and gauge what you’re going to write instead of blanket assuming you know what the comment says without actually reading it first.
Terrible article. They provide no concrete examples, only empty platitudes. And it’s clear they’re extremely biased:
“The national ADL, like the ACLU, the NAACP, and other formerly “apolitical” civil rights groups, is now merely a tax-exempt cadre of the national Democratic Party. Anyone paying any kind of attention knows this. And as the Democratic Party has moved further into the fringes of Left-wing lunacy, the ADL has moved with it—whether a Jewish “antidefamation” issue is at stake or not. The party requires it.”
He calls every group defending civil rights “actually anti free speech” and suggests the ADL doesn’t do enough for Orthodox Jews, without again any evidence, because of “assimilated Jews”. This sentiment comes up again when he says that most Jews “reciprocate” the ADL’s supposed detestation of Judaism.
He’s just another religious conservative detached from reality. It’s actually quite concerning when a lawyer makes baseless claims about an anti defamation organization. I don’t know if it meets the legal definition of defamation, but it certainly gets the common usage for it. Anyone who’s ever been represented by this guy should get another trial, because this guy seems likely to prove your role in the murder in the process of trying to prove your innocence blaming liberals and judges for your arrest.
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