USCE Winter 2023: change thread titles constantly, almost on a daily basis

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Captain Oblivious: Oct 12, 2007; I'm not like other posters

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

- 10% of American Buddhists also believe in Hell (?!?)

https://www.pewresearch.org/religio...hic-information

That�s not really odd at all. Shinto-Buddhism has a concept of hell even though neither Shinto nor Buddhism do.

Look syncreticism does weird poo poo sometimes.

# ? Jan 26, 2023 17:15

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# ? Jun 8, 2024 20:42

Paracaidas: Sep 24, 2016; Consistently Tedious!

https://twitter.com/ddayen/status/1618354915218436098

For today's edition of Paracaidas' Prospect RSS feed we have meaty piece about the White House approach to competition. It's long as gently caress.

Setting the scene

quote:

On July 9, 2021, President Joe Biden signed one of the most sweeping changes to domestic policy since FDR. It was not legislation: His signature climate and health law would take another year to gestate. This was a request that the government get into the business of fostering competition in the U.S. economy again.

Flanked by Cabinet officials and agency heads, Biden condemned Robert Bork�s pro-corporate legal revolution in the 1980s, which destroyed antitrust, leading to concentrated markets, raised prices, suppressed wages, stifled innovation, weakened growth, and robbing citizens of the liberty to pursue their talents. Competition policy, Biden said, �is how we ensure that our economy isn�t about people working for capitalism; it�s about capitalism working for people.�

The executive order outlines a whopping 72 different actions, but with a coherent objective. It seeks to revert government�s role back to that of the Progressive and New Deal eras. Breaking up monopolies was a priority then, complemented by numerous other initiatives�smarter military procurement, common-carrier requirements, banking regulations, public options�that centered competition as a counterweight to the industrial leviathan.

It�s been a year and a half since Biden signed the executive order; its architect, Tim Wu, has since rotated out of government. Not all of the 72 actions have been completed, though many have. Some were instituted rapidly; others have been agonizing. Some agencies have taken the president�s urging to heart; others haven�t. But the new mindset is apparent.

Seventeen federal agencies are named specifically, tasked with writing rules, tightening guidelines, and ramping up enforcement. I wrote to each agency, asking how they have complied with the order; all of them answered but one (the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, whose role is admittedly tangential). Even Cabinet departments that weren�t mentioned wrote in to explain their approach to competition. Clearly, agencies are aware of the emphasis being put on reorienting their mission.

Bringing change to large bureaucracies is often likened to turning around a battleship. One way to get things moving is to have the captain inform every crew member of the intention to turn the battleship around, counseling them to take every action from now on with that battleship-turning goal in mind. The small team that envisioned and executed the competition order put the weight of the presidency behind it, delivering a loud message to return to the fight against concentrations of power. It�s alarming and maybe a little disconcerting that you have to use a high-level form of peer pressure to flip the ship of state. But that battleship is starting to change course.

The origins of a new mindset

quote:

The competition order was released four months after Wu�s appointment, but in reality, it was laid out over the previous five years. In that time, a collection of policymakers, journalists, lawyers, politicians, and experts, sometimes known as the New Brandeis movement, warned of the dangers of economic concentration. Wu, Khan, and Kanter were part of this crusade, and prior to the 2020 election, they and others strategized about how to reinvigorate competition policy if Democrats took the presidency.

In this magazine, Sandeep Vaheesan of the Open Markets Institute outlined an anti-monopoly framework for our Day One Agenda series. It included revitalizing rulemaking authority at the FTC, rewriting merger guidelines to reverse laissez-faire bias at the antitrust agencies, restoring consumer rights to repair their own electronic equipment, and completing rules that protect farmers and ranchers from agribusiness exploitation. But even Vaheesan was surprised that the Biden administration embraced all of his recommendations and much more. �I wasn�t really thinking of an executive order when I wrote the piece,� he told me.

Vaheesan mildly questioned the wisdom of including so many action items. �It tries to do everything and maybe ends up doing nothing,� he said. But in its breadth as much as its particulars, the order informed officials across agencies that the White House was supremely attentive on this issue, and would have their backs on the tough decisions. �When we were going around and talking to agency staff, I would say, �Why don�t you do this,�� Wu told me. �They�d say, �That�s a land mine.� Our idea was, let�s step on all the land mines at once. We will take your land mines, we will stand on them for you. And if industry complains, we would say, �Get in line.��

Organizational mechanics

quote:

A new White House competition council, led by the NEC, was established to monitor implementation of the 72 actions, as well as legislative and administrative efforts outside the order. There are nine core agencies on the council, each with a senior-level designee on competition policy. The order requires regular council meetings for members and other invited agencies.

That created a kind of show-and-tell dynamic: Agencies needed to display some forward motion on competition at consistent intervals. Wu and his small team�mainly deputy NEC director Bharat Ramamurti, senior policy official Hannah Garden-Monheit (who will take over for Wu as he returns to teaching at Columbia), and a couple of others�created a workshop for designees on how to best work together. There are regular check-ins and happy hours. A �happy news� email group has bred a kind of competition within the competition council, as designees fight to highlight their victories to the White House.

Perhaps most important, Biden has shown up to two of the three council meetings. Nobody wants to come to the chief executive empty-handed. �We wanted the president personally involved,� Wu said. �If you have an agency that feels all alone, their friends become industry. It�s about getting into the heads of agencies and making them feel supported to do things they might not like.�

The successes (publishing, poultry processing, others) have been well covered but are in the story as well. Some of the struggles:

quote:

The order actually called for a number of Section 5 rules, including on unfair competition in prescription drug patents, internet marketplaces, occupational licensing, and real estate listings. But FTC spokesperson Doug Farrar told me there�s nothing imminent in those areas. �If you asked me a year ago, I would have thought FTC would have done more by now,� Vaheesan said. One problem was that, having abandoned rulemaking long ago, the FTC had no staff with expertise. When commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter was acting FTC chair before Khan�s appointment, she set up a rulemaking group in the general counsel�s office. But administrative procedure for new rules takes an eternity, especially if starting from scratch.

gently caress the USDA and the farm animal it rode in on:

quote:

But when DOJ Antitrust sued to block the merger of sugar giants U.S. Sugar and Imperial, USDA chief economist Barbara Fesco testified for the sugar industry in the case, stating that the merger would benefit consumers despite admitting to having no data confirming that. �Knowing these people as long as I have, �I had high faith that [the deal] was good,�� Fesco said at the trial. The judge ruled against DOJ last September, explicitly stating that Fesco was a credible witness.

The testimony seemed to violate USDA and DOJ�s shared commitment to promoting competition, even though Fesco stated that she was operating in her �personal capacity.� USDA took no official position on the merger, and in a statement, a spokesperson said, �USDA remains committed to the vigorous application of the antitrust laws in every sector of agriculture, including sugar.� The agency also noted that Fesco was compelled to testify by a subpoena. Still, Fesco�s appearance angered lawmakers who saw an administration at odds with itself, and an agency bureaucratic structure still in thrall to big business.

Frustration has also arisen in USDA�s hesitations on rulemaking. One of Lina Khan�s first votes as FTC chair finalized a rule targeting imitation �Made in the USA� labeling on products made outside the country. But though the competition order called for a companion rule on food items with �Product of USA� labeling, a USDA official would only say it was engaged in a �comprehensive review,� seeking information on whether consumers are confused. Joe Maxwell of Family Farm Action, an anti-monopoly organization, said that officials have told him something I heard too, that USDA wants to tread carefully and make �legally durable� rules. �But FTC just did it,� Maxwell said. �We feel it�s delay, delay, delay.�

Delays have similarly plagued a desperately needed rewrite of Packers and Stockyards Act regulations, which outline anti-competitive violations. Under Obama, Vilsack failed to get the rules finalized after eight years; Trump�s USDA then threw them out. But instead of just picking up what was already written, Biden�s USDA is moving deliberately. Two rules have been proposed, one on discrimination, deception, and retaliation, and another to increase transparency in poultry contracting. The key rule would clarify that USDA doesn�t need to demonstrate harm to the entire industry to establish a violation, a hurdle for many Packers and Stockyards cases. That rule, though asked for in the executive order, has yet to be released.

The rule on poultry contracting is instructive. The notorious tournament system pits chicken farmers against one another, forcing them to work exclusively for and abide by the precise instructions of large processors. Farmers who grow the biggest chickens win, but their bonuses come out of the pay of their neighbors. The USDA rule only affords transparency to poultry farmers who already know they�re getting screwed. By contrast, the Justice Department paired approval of a merger between chicken processor Cargill and Sanderson Farms with a consent decree that essentially banned the tournament system, by calling it a deceptive practice under the Packers and Stockyards Act

This is maybe a quarter of the text from the article which I cannot recommend enough for those with the time to read it (or to listen to the 42 minute audio version). The closer:

quote:

Just about everything on competition has been hard-fought. But there�s plenty of evidence of real movement. Agencies like the Department of the Interior, Department of Education, and the Small Business Administration, none of which are mentioned in the order, told the Prospect about their efforts to maximize competition in procurement and support small business. The lead agencies have gone beyond the order, reinvigorating dormant anti-monopoly laws like the Robinson-Patman Act (which prevents chain retail stores from gaining unfair advantage) or Section 8 of the Clayton Act (which bars directors and officers from sitting on the corporate boards of multiple competitors). Congress chipped in with the first new antitrust law in nearly a half-century, which gives state attorneys general a better chance to win antitrust cases.

Mergers and acquisitions slowed sharply in the second half of 2022, and while a lack of cheap money from the Federal Reserve is partially responsible, so is an enforcement team that is more undaunted than it�s been in decades. And aggressive antitrust agencies translate across government. For example, the FTC�s definition of unfair or deceptive acts and practices is used by other agencies; when the FTC tightens its guidelines, other agencies follow.

Corporate power won�t concede without a fight. And there are more hearts and minds to win inside the government. But once a course has been corrected, it�s hard to switch back. The engineers of this shift in competition policy have done more than change a policy; they�re changing the country�s direction.

To add a bit more text: One of the reasons I love The American Prospect is because few outlets bother to dive into rulemaking at all, fewer followup on impacts, and fewer still bring together the various bits of news into a cohesive whole. Wu, Khan, and Kanter show some of the power of what can be accomplished despite a dysfunctional congress. Sohn and Vilsack show the importance of appointees and the risks of corporate intransigence and capture. The USDA in particular (and to lesser degrees Justice and the FTC) show the importance of maintaining executive power.

It's not buzzy or sexy or typically even newsworthy, but a lot is being done and it exceeds the (admittedly low) expectations I had after Biden won the nomination. Hopefully, future primaries will focus more heavily on "assuming congress continues to suck, what will your administration accomplish through nonlegislative means?"

# ? Jan 26, 2023 17:40

Bar Ran Dun: Jan 22, 2006; war crimes enthusiast

That religion pool isn�t granular enough. Some of the categories have pretty widely varied denominations inside. A lot of the weirdness is going to be because of that. An example is �Lutheranism� that will catch ELCA and Missouri Synod which is a lot of variance. Several of the categories are going to have poll weird because the categories have too much variance inside.

It�s like the poll was set up by somebody working off a list rather than actually knowing about the denominations.

There is also weird location specific almost esoteric things that affect it. Like some of the Sikh low numbers approval numbers are probably due to drayage trucking in the west coast.

# ? Jan 26, 2023 17:50

mastershakeman: Oct 28, 2008; by vyelkin

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

The White House and Department of Housing and Urban Development are implementing new rules for landlords and protections for renters. They include:

- A policy to guarantee renters the right to an attorney during eviction proceedings.

- A mandatory grace period on late rent payments.

- Multiple federal agencies that will gather information on unfair housing practices and make their reports public.

- A �Blueprint for a Renters Bill of Rights� that, while not binding, sets clear guidelines to help renters stay in affordable housing.

- A program called the �Resident-Centered Housing Challenge,� that will assist state and local jurisdictions with policy analysis and legal aid to make changes to housing rules at the state and local level. It will also work with private entities to make it easier to find affordable housing.

As part of the �Resident-Centered Housing Challenge,� announcement, they announced several partnerships that have already been agreed to:

1) Pennsylvania and Wisconsin announced they will cap annual rent increases on publicly subsidized housing.
2) Realtor.com will implement a system that highlights and filters rental units that accept housing vouchers or other subsidies.
3) The National Apartment Association will revamp its process for reporting to credit bureaus and offer free programs/waive reporting to help renters build credit.

- Some requirements and incentives for landlords to accept Section 8 vouchers.

- The Justice Department will look at competition issues in the rental market (no firm commitments to do anything, though).

- There is also a proposal to limit rent increases on houses bought with government-backed mortgages, but that is likely already dead due to concerns about legality.

Affordable housing advocates say that some of these steps could be very significant, but they expressed concern that by doing this executively without money appropriated by congress, it won't do anything to address the supply of housing and that few of these policies will have an impact right now because they won't kick in until later this year or early next year. Also, many of the largest housing issues happen at the state and local level, so they will need to be onboard.

Advocates for landlord and apartment groups say these rules may make it much more complicated and burdensome to rent, which could hurt the rental market and incentivize landlords to be even stricter about who they select as tenants.

https://twitter.com/kentrmoore/status/1618284462927908865

are there any draft rules anywhere because i dont see how the right to counsel is going to work; and i'm curious what the grace period is that isn't a 5 day notice or whatever that already exists in major cities

# ? Jan 26, 2023 18:01

Judgy Fucker: Mar 24, 2006

Bar Ran Dun posted:

That religion pool isn�t granular enough. Some of the categories have pretty widely varied denominations inside. A lot of the weirdness is going to be because of that. An example is �Lutheranism� that will catch ELCA and Missouri Synod which is a lot of variance. Several of the categories are going to have poll weird because the categories have too much variance inside.

It�s like the poll was set up by somebody working off a list rather than actually knowing about the denominations.

There is also weird location specific almost esoteric things that affect it. Like some of the Sikh low numbers approval numbers are probably due to drayage trucking in the west coast.

The problem with making the poll more granular is respondents are going to be less and less likely to have an opinion on these extremely niche denominations. How many people are going to have an opinion on the Missouri Synod, let alone even know it exists?

This is a general problem with polling. The more specific and scientific you try to make them generally, the less likely you're going to get meaningful data, unless you're surveying some very specific population about very specific things.

# ? Jan 26, 2023 18:01

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

mastershakeman posted:

are there any draft rules anywhere because i dont see how the right to counsel is going to work; and i'm curious what the grace period is that isn't a 5 day notice or whatever that already exists in major cities

I don't think they have the actual draft rules written out anywhere yet.

The announcement and "Renters Bill of Rights" summary pages are here:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing...-affordability/
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/White-House-Blueprint-for-a-Renters-Bill-of-Rights-1.pdf

Looks like they have $33 billion in allocated money from the stimulus bill in 2021 and HUD budget to give to states and local governments on the condition that they provide attorneys during eviction. No info on how long that money will last or if they have to scale it back when they are left with just the normal annual budget in the summary page.

Pretty sure the grace period is exactly what you are talking about, but expanding it to everywhere instead of just most major cities.

# ? Jan 26, 2023 18:11

Kale: May 14, 2010

https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/26/politics/cnn-poll-house-gop-leadership/index.html

I figured the numbers wouldn't be in Kevin and Friends favor but I figured it'd be the usual 54-46 splits or whatever not 75-25" you're not getting it Kevin". This is sort of a positive sign that perhaps not as many Americans are into culture war bullshit as it always seems. Will it matter much? Probably not but I'll take any encouragement that Western society isnt totally and utterly broken. Those numbers for Jeffries versus Kevin are something too.

The thing is the GOP house leadership hasnt even leaned as heavy into the culture war poo poo as its probably going to over the coming months so theres still time for the split to grow.

# ? Jan 26, 2023 18:12

single-mode fiber: Dec 30, 2012

Captain_Maclaine posted:

And then mainly because BYU's football team was going to get kicked out of the NCAA over it, if I remember right.

That may have been a partial factor but I think the most important one was the threat to 501(c)3 status

# ? Jan 26, 2023 18:17

Bar Ran Dun: Jan 22, 2006; war crimes enthusiast

Judgy Fucker posted:

How many people are going to have an opinion on the Missouri Synod, let alone even know it exists?

It depends geographically. Most people in let�s say WI would. And this is the other issue. These opinions are intensely geographic for some of the denominations.

A national level poll is very much the wrong tool to look at this with and produces incorrect conclusions. To do it right they�d almost have to do a lot of regional polls

# ? Jan 26, 2023 18:17

Madkal: Feb 11, 2008; Fallen Rib

The Baha'i thing is very weird but maybe some bigots found out it started in Iran and figured they all must be terrorist or some such crazy thinking. I'm sure the people polled probably don't know much about Baha'i or the fact that the Iranian government isn't too friendly and welcoming of people that follow the faith. It is such a weird side religion to get up in arms about or have a strong opinion about.

# ? Jan 26, 2023 18:30

Meatball: Mar 2, 2003; That's a Spicy Meatball; Pillbug

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

https://twitter.com/kentrmoore/status/1618284462927908865

"I demand other people pay my mortgage" is a very landlord thing to say.

# ? Jan 26, 2023 18:33

Bar Ran Dun: Jan 22, 2006; war crimes enthusiast

Madkal posted:

The Baha'i thing is very weird but maybe some bigots found out it started in Iran and figured they all must be terrorist or some such crazy thinking. I'm sure the people polled probably don't know much about Baha'i or the fact that the Iranian government isn't too friendly and welcoming of people that follow the faith. It is such a weird side religion to get up in arms about or have a strong opinion about.

Some of the denominations are going to have been refugees resettled to specific places. I don�t know about the Baha�i specifically but think about the Hmong. They were placed and concentrated in specific mid western cities as they fled Vietnam. So those specific cities have opinions affected by that and had an encounter with relatively large communities, where the rest of the country encounters individuals or dispersed communities.

Thinking back again, I do know something about the Iranians, there is a big Iranian expat population in Great Neck on Long Island, that�s where a bunch fled to when the revolution happened. So I�d think it�s this same phenomenon.

# ? Jan 26, 2023 18:45

Bar Ran Dun: Jan 22, 2006; war crimes enthusiast

This relates to a larger general issue. There is a prioritizing of data like this poll as �scientific� when it is very much not and and that label implies that it is more valid for informing opinions, even though it�s garbage.

# ? Jan 26, 2023 18:50

mastershakeman: Oct 28, 2008; by vyelkin

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

I don't think they have the actual draft rules written out anywhere yet.

The announcement and "Renters Bill of Rights" summary pages are here:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing...-affordability/
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/White-House-Blueprint-for-a-Renters-Bill-of-Rights-1.pdf

Looks like they have $33 billion in allocated money from the stimulus bill in 2021 and HUD budget to give to states and local governments on the condition that they provide attorneys during eviction. No info on how long that money will last or if they have to scale it back when they are left with just the normal annual budget in the summary page.

Pretty sure the grace period is exactly what you are talking about, but expanding it to everywhere instead of just most major cities.

some quotes from that

quote:

If an eviction is filed, tenants should be given 30 days� notice of an eviction action and the right to counsel during an eviction proceeding. The eviction proceedings should be fair and provide:
protection from extrajudicial evictions and lockouts; a hearing in a language the tenant understands or with qualified interpreters; a trained, competent, and independent hearing officer; due process protections, including a written record and the ability to present evidence, cross examine, and conduct discovery; and the ability for a tenant to appeal an eviction judgment without bond requirements.

even without a right to counsel that's pretty big. of course, judges are gonna be petty tyrants and do whatever they want, but if this becomes commonplace it'll massively bog down eviction proceedings. Conducting discovery is very rare in residential evictions but I've seen some defense attorneys who judges trusted do it routinely, as it's very effective at delaying the case.

The other thing is that a 30 day notice period is big, because you can't file until the notice is up. For 0 day notice, 3, 5 day it's not a huge deal, but a lot of the notice issues don't come up until the case is actually in front of a judge, so if you do a bad notice, wait 30 days, then find out you have to start over, lol

This becomes an even bigger issue when the notice statutes are poorly written and no one, including the judges, know how a landlord gives notice to someone on vacation and it often boils down to whether the judge likes the attorney.

edit but maybe this will all just be HUD only

quote:

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development will publish a notice of proposed rulemaking that would require public housing authorities and owners of project-based rental assistance properties to provide at least 30 days� advanced notice before terminating a lease due to nonpayment of rent.

from the fact sheet

One thing the CFPB might actually be able to help with is to have people with sealed cases actually be able to get the cases pulled off credit agency lists. Last I looked, the cases go online, then get sealed after, and there's a window where the credit agencies can scrape them and then no way to have them removed.

mastershakeman fucked around with this message at 19:29 on Jan 26, 2023

# ? Jan 26, 2023 19:20

Jaxyon: Mar 7, 2016; I’m just saying I would like to see a man beat a woman in a cage. Just to be sure.

Kavros posted:

At present estimation, Ensign Peak Advisors (as the church's private internal investment group) manages over 100 billion in investments, over twice the entirety of the entire catholic church.

I'd bet that the Catholic Church is vastly more wealthy but yes their open investments are smaller than the LDS.

But it's impossible to know.

# ? Jan 26, 2023 19:21

cat botherer: Jan 6, 2022; I am interested in most phases of data processing.

Turns out the Biden administration granted more oil and gas drilling permits on BLM land in their first two years than the Trump administration:

https://news.yahoo.com/biden-granted-more-oil-and-gas-drilling-permits-than-trump-in-his-first-2-years-in-office-190528616.html

quote:

Meanwhile, Biden has handed out drilling permits at an even faster pace than his predecessor. The new federal drilling permits are overwhelmingly in the West � nearly 4,000 in New Mexico, followed by more than 1,000 in Wyoming and hundreds each in California, Colorado, Montana, North Dakota and Utah.

Data from September, the most recent month available, shows that in the previous 12 months, the BLM approved the vast majority of drilling permit applications. Between Oct. 1, 2021, and Sept. 30, 2022, the agency approved 3,010 of the 3,400 drilling permit applications it processed.

Environmental activists are unhappy with the Biden administration for giving the green light to so many drilling permits, arguing that doing so is at odds with the president�s efforts to slash greenhouse gas emissions causing climate change.

�Two years of runaway drilling approvals are a spectacular failure of climate leadership by President Biden and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland,� said Taylor McKinnon of the Center for Biological Diversity in a statement about the permitting data. �Avoiding catastrophic climate change requires phasing out fossil fuel extraction, but instead we�re still racing in the opposite direction.�

Yet another piece of evidence that no major party treats the climate crisis with any kind of seriousness. Really nothing is happening beyond performative nonsense as we barrel towards oblivion.

# ? Jan 26, 2023 19:29

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019

cat botherer posted:

Turns out the Biden administration granted more oil and gas drilling permits on BLM land in their first two years than the Trump administration:

https://news.yahoo.com/biden-granted-more-oil-and-gas-drilling-permits-than-trump-in-his-first-2-years-in-office-190528616.html

Yet another piece of evidence that no major party treats the climate crisis with any kind of seriousness. Really nothing is happening beyond performative nonsense as we barrel towards oblivion.

This is being framed as a good thing.

WH Chief of Staff:
https://twitter.com/whcos/status/1618377482700476417

WH Deputy Press Sec:
https://twitter.com/andrewjbates46/status/1618365198250946560

WH Deputy Comms Director:
https://twitter.com/kateberner46/status/1618364327488290817

Rep Garamendi (D-CA):
https://twitter.com/repgaramendi/status/1618398938402533377

# ? Jan 26, 2023 19:38

cat botherer: Jan 6, 2022; I am interested in most phases of data processing.

mawarannahr posted:

This is being framed as a good thing.

Sure, civilization is going to collapse and billions will die, but there's an election coming up!

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

# ? Jan 26, 2023 19:40

VorpalBunny: May 1, 2009; Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog

Paracaidas posted:

https://twitter.com/ddayen/status/1618354915218436098

For today's edition of Paracaidas' Prospect RSS feed we have meaty piece about the White House approach to competition. It's long as gently caress.

I have been hearing schlubs on the radio discussing the recent action against Google monopolizing the online ad game, and this ties right into that. Who knew government could be...effective?

The problem with modern politics is we all have goldfish brains. Remember how Biden was DONE when his classified docs thing was happening, and we were talking about his 2024 replacement? Then both Carter and Pence admitted they had docs as well? Thank goodness the adults are in charge and some actual good things are happening, slowly but surely.

# ? Jan 26, 2023 19:42

Jaxyon: Mar 7, 2016; I’m just saying I would like to see a man beat a woman in a cage. Just to be sure.

Goldfish can remember things for up to 6 months.

# ? Jan 26, 2023 19:44

Fister Roboto: Feb 21, 2008

Meatball posted:

"I demand other people pay my mortgage" is a very landlord thing to say.

Ah, but you see, landlords provide a valuable service. Without someone to lord over them, the properties they own would literally vanish into nothingness. Such is the power of a lord.

# ? Jan 26, 2023 20:05

World Famous W: May 25, 2007; BAAAAAAAAAAAA

ive been renting the same house for years, i refuse to look at how much all the rent i paid could have gone to a mortgage instead lest i die of anger

# ? Jan 26, 2023 20:13

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

The Justice Department has concluded that the state of Louisiana was violating the constitutional rights of nearly a quarter of the inmates in the state prison system and may need to release up to 27% of them and turn over control of the system to the federal government if they can't implement reforms.

The whole story is completely insane. The state has been keeping people eligible to be released in prison past their deadline for over 10 years.

They kept people for an average of 44 extra days and some of them for more than 90 days past their sentence.

Most states process their prisoners release in a few hours.

Louisiana wasn't even doing it for any specific reason. They were taking so long just because they were understaffed, overincarcerated, and didn't really care to fix it.

https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1618374424851517445

quote:

Louisiana �Deliberately Indifferent� to Keeping Inmates Past Release Date, Justice Dept. Says

The department, citing evidence uncovered by lawyers representing incarcerated people, concluded that the state has known about the problem for at least a decade and done little to address it.

WASHINGTON � The Justice Department has found that Louisiana�s longstanding practice of detaining more than a quarter of inmates beyond their court-ordered release dates violates the Constitution and accused state officials of ignoring repeated calls to overhaul the unjust system.

The Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections �is deliberately indifferent to the systemic overdetention of people in its custody,� according to a report on a yearlong investigation, released on Wednesday, that examined incarceration patterns of inmates held in state facilities and jails run by parishes, the state equivalent of county governments.

From January 2022 to April 2022, 27 percent of the people who were legally entitled to be released from state custody, some for minor crimes or first-time offenses, were held past their release dates. About 24 percent of those improperly detained had been held 90 days or longer past their release days, the Justice Department found.

Louisiana officials, who cooperated with federal investigators, are discussing a possible agreement with the Justice Department to overhaul the system. But the department, citing evidence uncovered by lawyers representing incarcerated people, concluded that the state has known about the problem for at least a decade and has done little to address it.

 �There is an obligation both to incarcerated persons and the taxpayers not to keep someone incarcerated for longer than they should be,� Brandon B. Brown, a U.S. attorney for the Western District of Louisiana, said in a statement accompanying the report. �Timely release is not only a legal obligation, but arguably of equal importance, a moral obligation.�

Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke, who leads the department�s civil rights division, added that Louisiana�s system also contributed to chronic racial disparities in the state�s criminal justice system.

�In Louisiana, Black people represent 65 percent of the adult correctional population, while only representing 33 percent of the overall state population,� she added.

A spokesman for the official who runs the system, James M. Le Blanc, said the state corrections department was reviewing the report and was continuing to work with the Justice Department.

�Without a full review of the report�s findings and documentation supporting said findings, it would be a challenge to provide a comprehensive response at this time,� the spokesman said in an email.

In December, The Times reported that about 200 inmates are held beyond their legal release dates on any given month in Louisiana, amounting to 2,000 to 2,500 of the 12,000 to 16,000 prisoners freed each year.

The average length of additional time was around 44 days in 2019, according to internal state corrections data obtained by lawyers for inmates. Until recently, the department�s public hotline warned families that the wait could be as long as 90 days.

In most other states and cities, prisoners and parolees marked for immediate release are typically processed within hours � not days � although those times can vary, particularly if officials must make arrangements required to release registered sex offenders. But in Louisiana, the problem known as �overdetention� is endemic, often occurring without explanation, apology or compensation � an overlooked crisis in a state that imprisons a higher percentage of its residents than any other in most years.

The practice is also wasteful. It costs Louisiana taxpayers at least $2.8 million a year in housing costs alone, according to the Justice Department.

A coalition of prisoners� rights groups has sued the state on behalf of prisoners who have been held past their release dates. Those suits are continuing on a separate track.

�We have known for a long time that the Louisiana D.O.C. is deliberately indifferent to the systemic overdetention of people in its custody,� said Mercedes Montagnes, the executive director of the Promise of Justice Initiative, a nonprofit in New Orleans that has sued the state. �It�s egregious.�

Casey Denson, who is representing Johnny Traweek, a former prisoner in Orleans Parish who served 20 days past his release date, said the Justice Department action makes it more likely Louisiana will change its practices.

�It is clear that the state is unwilling, and unable, to fix it on its own,� she said.

# ? Jan 26, 2023 20:13

cat botherer: Jan 6, 2022; I am interested in most phases of data processing.

You�d think it would take less work overall to release prisoners as soon as they can, but I guess the cruelty is the point.

# ? Jan 26, 2023 20:28

Staluigi: Jun 22, 2021

How much of this is private prisons being private prisons and how much of this is lovely red state governments being lovely red state governments (ignore for the moment that allowing institutional capture of prisons is itself lovely govt)

# ? Jan 26, 2023 20:30

projecthalaxy: Dec 27, 2008; Yes hello it is I Kurt's Secret Son

cat botherer posted:

You’d think it would take less work to release prisoners as soon as they can, but I guess the cruelty is the point.

The fact that Black Louisianans are three times more likely than others per capita to be incarcerated in state prisons is also, I'm sure, not a factor.

# ? Jan 26, 2023 20:30

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

Staluigi posted:

How much of this is private prisons being private prisons and how much of this is lovely red state governments being lovely red state governments (ignore for the moment that allowing institutional capture of prisons is itself lovely govt)

They were state prisons. It wasn't even necessarily a "red state" thing because only Louisiana was doing it.

cat botherer posted:

You�d think it would take less work overall to release prisoners as soon as they can, but I guess the cruelty is the point.

It's even less work to just attempt to fix anything and not care. It doesn't seem to be a case of cruelty is the point, but that they just really didn't care and didn't want to spend any time trying to fix their process because the prisoners' time wasn't worth it and "the majority of them are getting out on time."

# ? Jan 26, 2023 20:36

Judgy Fucker: Mar 24, 2006

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

It's even less work to just attempt to fix anything and not care. It doesn't seem to be a case of cruelty is the point, but that they just really didn't care and didn't want to spend any time trying to fix their process because the prisoners' time wasn't worth it and "the majority of them are getting out on time."

Negligence is cruelty, too. It's why neglecting children (as opposed to actively abusing them) is a crime.

# ? Jan 26, 2023 20:39

Harold Fjord: Jan 3, 2004; Can't post for 44 hours!

Judgy Fucker posted:

Negligence is cruelty, too. It's why neglecting children (as opposed to actively abusing them) is a crime.

Yeah but "The negligence is the point" sounds weird

# ? Jan 26, 2023 20:41

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

Judgy Fucker posted:

Negligence is cruelty, too. It's why neglecting children (as opposed to actively abusing them) is a crime.

Yeah, but the "cruelty is the point" slogan is about going out of your way to inflict pain as a matter of intentional policy.

# ? Jan 26, 2023 20:42

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019

Democratic messaging today is a bit different from yesterday�s boasting of record oil:

quote:

https://twitter.com/nrdems/status/1618681254836330496
https://twitter.com/usrepkcastor/status/1618681577470365696
https://twitter.com/repyvetteclarke/status/1618682041364807681
https://twitter.com/repmikequigley/status/1618694386459578368?s=46&
https://twitter.com/repbillfoster/status/1618693963225141248?s=46&t=5Y_

There are many more of these, phrased identically.

# ? Jan 26, 2023 20:46

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

mawarannahr posted:

Democratic messaging today is a bit different from yesterday�s boasting of record oil:

There are many more of these, phrased identically.

They aren't opposed to the concept of drilling for oil. The Republican bill specifically requires:

A) That the President is unable to withdraw from the SPR unless is comes from new American extraction.
B) That the U.S. government has to act quickly to refill the SPR and can't reject an oil company's bid to sell oil to refill the SPR because the oil company was asking too high of a price.

That is what they are referring to as the "give away to big oil."

# ? Jan 26, 2023 20:52

James Garfield: May 5, 2012; Am I a manipulative abuser in real life, or do I just roleplay one on the Internet for fun? You decide!

mawarannahr posted:

Democratic messaging today is a bit different from yesterday�s boasting of record oil:

There are many more of these, phrased identically.

Based on your post further up the page where you complain that White House staff tweeted favorably about increased domestic oil production, I suppose you think these tweets from different people are good and you're presenting them as an example of what Democrats should be tweeting?

(also if energy usage isn't increasing, increased domestic oil production only means less is imported from countries that dismember American journalists)

# ? Jan 26, 2023 20:54

Dick Trauma: Nov 30, 2007; God damn it, you've got to be kind.

An auspicious start to the Presidential campaign by Rollan Roberts, a state senator from West Virginia. Good thing he didn't pull a muscle rushing to the aid of his wife!

https://twitter.com/santiagomayer_/status/1618456994381467648?s=20&t=D3NXkHH5uUep8ZcKUGY0sg

# ? Jan 26, 2023 20:57

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

Adam Schiff has announced he is officially running for Senate in California for 2024. That makes two official non-Feinstein candidates.

Diane Feinstein has registered a 2024 campaign account and still hasn't decided if she will be running for re-election.

# ? Jan 26, 2023 20:58

Automata 10 Pack: Jun 21, 2007; Ten games published by Automata, on one cassette

cat botherer posted:

Turns out the Biden administration granted more oil and gas drilling permits on BLM land in their first two years than the Trump administration:

https://news.yahoo.com/biden-granted-more-oil-and-gas-drilling-permits-than-trump-in-his-first-2-years-in-office-190528616.html

Yet another piece of evidence that no major party treats the climate crisis with any kind of seriousness. Really nothing is happening beyond performative nonsense as we barrel towards oblivion.

Didn't we have a nearly empty reserve?

# ? Jan 26, 2023 21:06

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

They aren't opposed to the concept of drilling for oil. The Republican bill specifically requires:

A) That the President is unable to withdraw from the SPR unless is comes from new American extraction.
B) That the U.S. government has to act quickly to refill the SPR and can't reject an oil company's bid to sell oil to refill the SPR because the oil company was asking too high of a price.

That is what they are referring to as the "give away to big oil."

Interesting, thanks for additional context. If Biden
granted more oil and gas drilling permits in 2 years, is that new extraction?

I found this October CNN story that blames oil companies for not exploring new places much, and says the GOP is intentionally ignoring this. I�m not sure what to make of this relative to permitting � so they�re getting the permits for new sites but holding off?

https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/09/politics/us-oil-drilling-opec-gas-prices-biden-climate/index.html

quote:

. . .
But energy experts tell CNN recent attempts to open up new parts of the US to oil drilling have failed mainly because of the lack of interest from oil companies themselves, rather than Biden�s �green� policies.

New exploration for oil and gas has fallen sharply worldwide this year. Still bruised by an oil-price crash prolonged by the Covid pandemic, fossil fuel companies are now focusing on areas they know will make money, and far less on exploring for new locations to drill.

�I would say it�s 60% financial markets are telling them �no,�� said Robert McNally, president of energy consulting firm Rapidan Energy Group and an energy adviser to former President George W. Bush. �It�s 30% they�re still fearful of another bust, and then 10%, �the politicians, they�re not going to make it easy for me.��

There is perhaps no better evidence of this shift than in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which for decades had been a Republican focus for new oil drilling. Congressional Republicans successfully reopened ANWR to oil drilling in a 2017 bill, but when the lease sale happened in the final days of the Trump administration, only three companies offered bids � one of which was Alaska�s state-owned energy corporation. The other companies that bid ended up canceling their leases this year.

The ANWR sale �was a total bust,� said Erik Grafe, an attorney for environmental law firm Earthjustice. �There were no oil majors who bid on leases.�

. . .

Grafe said big banks and insurance companies are also warning oil and gas companies that drilling in the Arctic could be seriously risky � and in some cases flat out refusing to fund or insure the projects.

�There is a lot of recognition by financial institutions that it�s a bad bet to be trying to get oil out of the Arctic in particular,� Grafe said. Part of that is social and political pressure, he said. The other part is that permafrost is melting, making the terrain more unstable and more difficult to drill on.
. . .

If this market force is enduring � and it eeens sure as climate change � is today�s messaging fearmongering about something that won�t happen?

James Garfield posted:

Based on your post further up the page where you complain that White House staff tweeted favorably about increased domestic oil production, I suppose you think these tweets from different people are good and you're presenting them as an example of what Democrats should be tweeting?

(also if energy usage isn't increasing, increased domestic oil production only means less is imported from countries that dismember American journalists)

It was informative to me of the different groupings in this field, the overlap they have, and the unity in their messaging. I�m fascinated by studying messaging in general. The Democrats are specifically leaning into unity as this moment:
https://twitter.com/senschumer/status/1618049694101344257

Personally I am opposed to any and all granting of oil drilling, and indeed, mass overturning of existing ones. I have some doubt this will happen though.

# ? Jan 26, 2023 21:15

Main Paineframe: Oct 27, 2010

Staluigi posted:

How much of this is private prisons being private prisons and how much of this is lovely red state governments being lovely red state governments (ignore for the moment that allowing institutional capture of prisons is itself lovely govt)

It's mostly the latter, with the caveat that even publicly-run prisons still have a certain level of profit motive.

Here's what the Times wrote last month, which goes a bit more into the specific causes and motives:

quote:

NEW ORLEANS � The judge told Johnny Traweek he had served his time, seven months, for hitting someone with a saucepan in a drunken fight, then suggested he could be released from the Orleans Parish prison by midnight.

Mr. Traweek began giving away his jailhouse comforts � a blanket, two orange sweatshirts, ramen, soda. Then he waited out the final hours of May 2, 2018, his last legal day behind bars.

Midnight came, midnight went. Around 4 a.m., Mr. Traweek was lying in bed, eyes open, when the staff summoned inmates for predawn breakfast. He would repeat that routine, including the sleepless nights, 19 more days because the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections did not process his paperwork in a timely manner.

�It�s a bad, bad feeling,� said Mr. Traweek, now 70. �Every day, I�m getting up and thinking I�m going to get out. And it doesn�t happen. I knew I wasn�t in there for any charge, and still I have to sit there.�

Mr. Traweek�s case was neither atypical nor the worst of its kind: Roughly 200 inmates are held beyond their legal release dates on any given month in Louisiana, amounting to 2,000 to 2,500 of the 12,000 to 16,000 prisoners freed each year. The average length of additional time was around 44 days in 2019, according to internal state corrections data obtained by lawyers for inmates � and until recently, the department�s public hotline warned families that the wait could be as long as 90 days.

In most other states and cities, prisoners and parolees marked for immediate release are typically processed within hours � not days � although those times can vary, particularly if officials must make arrangements required to release registered sex offenders. But in Louisiana, the problem known as �overdetention� is endemic, often occurring without explanation, apology or compensation � an overlooked crisis in a state that imprisons a higher percentage of its residents than any other in most years.

The practice is also wasteful. It costs Louisiana taxpayers about $2.8 million a year in housing costs alone, according to department estimates.

�The state has not made liberty, or taxpayer money, a priority in how they run their prisons,� said William B. Most, a lawyer based in New Orleans who has filed two class-action lawsuits on behalf of overdetained inmates.

�To our clients, it is an extremely scary experience because they do not know why they are being held, when they will be free or how they can get free,� he added. �All they know is they should not be behind bars.�

In December 2020, the Justice Department opened an investigation into the practices the state used to determine the release of its prisoners, particularly those, like Mr. Traweek, who remained behind bars despite being eligible for immediate release. The investigation, according to people with knowledge of the situation, is expected to find widespread violations of a federal law that guarantees imprisoned people their �rights, privileges or immunities.�

State officials have been cooperating with the investigation, so it is possible it could result in an agreement. Such a deal would probably require an overhaul of procedures used to calculate time served, according to people who have spoken to investigators, and mandate the replacement of the state�s outdated corrections computer system known as CAJUN. (Its error message is a pixelated pop-up of a bunny behind bars.)

Prisoners� rights groups say that federally mandated changes, while welcome, would do little to overcome the core problem that defines Louisiana�s troubled criminal justice system: an entrenched belief that an inmate�s freedom is worth less than everyone else�s.

�We exist in a space between malice and incompetence,� said Jamila Johnson of the Promise of Justice Initiative, a nonprofit in New Orleans that has sued the state for unlawful detention and poor treatment of prisoners.

A spokesman for Louisiana�s corrections department declined to discuss overdetention or even provide basic information about how the system operates and declined to respond to specific claims by inmates, citing the continuing litigation.

But in a deposition taken in January, James M. Le Blanc, who has run the agency for 14 years, acknowledged that the state has �had a problem with immediate releases� since at least 2012. He said the department had halved waiting times in recent years, from an average of more than 70 days a decade ago, and claimed that parish prison officials were also responsible for the drawn-out releases.

�We�re not where we need to be,� he added.

The problem crops up sporadically in other states, including neighboring Mississippi, and in the federal Bureau of Prisons. New York City recently agreed to pay out as much as $300 million to thousands of current and former inmates at local jails who had been kept hours or a few days after they were supposed to be released. But those waiting times are relatively short compared with what prisoners in Louisiana endure.

The state routinely sends prisoners with sentences under 20 years (and those with serious physical or mental conditions) to jails or prisons run by governments in local parishes, which are the equivalent of county governments elsewhere. That means parish prisons serve not only as traditional jails, but also as officially designated extensions of the state prison system.

It is a jumbled and sluggish system with tangled lines of communication and jurisdiction � and many of the prisoners who have been kept past their release dates fell into the chasm between dysfunctional state and parish bureaucracies.

A judge freed Brian Humphrey from the jail in Bossier Parish in northwest Louisiana on April 16, 2019, after he had served three years for an offense related to assault. He prepared to leave that night. Instead, he languished.

The corrections department, for reasons that remain unclear, waited 10 days to even begin processing his paperwork, according to records obtained in a 2021 class-action lawsuit his lawyers filed against the state. Instead of freeing Mr. Humphrey, as he was legally bound to do, the parish sheriff transferred him to a state-run work camp outside Shreveport, where he stayed until he was released on May 13, 2019.

That was 27 days beyond his release date.

Louisiana has one of the most overcrowded prison systems in the country, yet parish sheriffs are often reluctant to release people they believe are at high risk of committing new crimes. Some even view inmates housed in local facilities as worth holding onto as free labor.

In October 2017, Sheriff Steve Prator of Caddo Parish, which includes Shreveport, told reporters he was concerned that a recent criminal justice effort in the state was bad for parish governments. Not only would it result in higher crime rates among the �bad� former prisoners, but it would also deprive his staff of free labor provided by the �good ones.�

�They�re releasing some good ones that we use every day to wash cars, to change oil in our cars, to cook in the kitchen, to do all that, where we save money,� Sheriff Prator said.

There are few incentives for rushing an inmate out the door, especially if the state is picking up the tab: Reimbursement rates for state prisoners are a significant source of income in the parishes, and a handful of parish facilities have eagerly accepted migrants detained at the border, which offers even higher federal reimbursement rates.

Even well-intentioned corrections officials must navigate the state�s complex web of sentencing statutes and time calculation rules before signing off on the release of a prisoner.

Over the past several decades, formulas for sentencing guidelines have shifted, and record keeping has been spotty. Those documents can span multiple decades and cover several facilities, making it hard to nail down a precise accounting of time served � which is often the cause of snags.

Sarah O�Brien, a supervising lawyer with the public defenders� office in Orleans Parish, has tried to take a more proactive approach. She reviews court records for prisoners around the state, typically those serving longer sentences, who might be entitled to immediate release because of errors in their time calculations.

She is constantly consulting a photograph on her phone. A cheat sheet she put together, written in fastidious longhand, lists all the relevant state laws and their dates of passage. It covers a full page of graph paper.

She also cultivates relationships with court and corrections workers. Recently, she moved up an inmate�s release date by a year after tracking down a juvenile detention record believed to have been lost in the flooding after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Ms. O�Brien found a back-office worker who had access the paperwork, and the woman responded, �If there are records, I got �em!�

She found them, and the man was freed.

Just as often, the opposite is true, lawyers and inmates say. Officials in the system can hold up a release on little more than a whim, sometimes because they have interpreted a judge�s decision in their own way.

One former inmate from New Orleans served more than 18 months beyond his three-year plea agreement because a staff member in his state-run prison in Homer, La., noticed a glitch in the document signed by his trial judge � the order the charges were listed in was incorrect � that should have had no bearing on his release.

The prisoner, a man in his late 40s who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was incarcerated for a sexual offense, wrote letter after letter to state officials. After a few months, he had what he assumed to be a breakthrough. The prison official who had blocked his release promised she would personally walk him out of prison if he was able to retrieve a missing document from the court.

It took him weeks to do so. When he turned it over, he instead waited for months before his case was finally sorted out.

He withdrew from the inmates he had befriended, fearful that his growing anger would spill over into physical aggression, and threw himself into his job as an orderly, sweeping up his cellblock and collecting garbage. Only during weekly Bible study sessions would he engage.

�How do I describe what it�s like?� he said. �It�s like you�re pretty much a nobody. You can write. You can request to speak to this person or to that person. But you�re at their mercy � why? � because they don�t want to be bothered.�

# ? Jan 26, 2023 21:30

AtomikKrab: Jul 17, 2010; Keep on GOP rolling rolling rolling rolling.

Dick Trauma posted:

An auspicious start to the Presidential campaign by Rollan Roberts, a state senator from West Virginia. Good thing he didn't pull a muscle rushing to the aid of his wife!

https://twitter.com/santiagomayer_/status/1618456994381467648?s=20&t=D3NXkHH5uUep8ZcKUGY0sg

Someone had already grabbed the wife, you can literally see his brain desperately trying to flip from "give speech" to "what is..." to "oh shiiiit."

# ? Jan 26, 2023 21:53

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Jun 8, 2024 20:42

Seph: Jul 12, 2004; Please look at this photo every time you support or defend war crimes. Thank you.

Well, it seems like we'll get to see which is a stronger force in the justice system: incarcerating black people, or letting cops go free:

https://twitter.com/FOX13Memphis/status/1618684394411016193?cxt=HHwWgoCyxa243PYsAAAA

# ? Jan 26, 2023 23:01

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > USCE Winter 2023: change thread titles constantly, almost on a daily basis

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