DML Morning Briefing Wed. Feb 10: The swamp, the circus, and the cancel culture
By Team DML
Today is February 10 and I am Dennis Michael Lynch. Below are my opinions on the stories grabbing headlines this morning. I hope you share this briefing as doing so will make you the smartest person in the room, in my opinion.
1 – CLAIM: McConnell signals to GOP Trump conviction is a conscience vote
Bloomberg reports: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is signaling to fellow Republicans that the final vote on Donald Trump’s impeachment is a matter of conscience and that senators who disputed the constitutionality of the trial could still vote to convict the former president, according to three people familiar with his thinking.
The Kentucky Republican has also suggested that he hasn’t made up his mind how he’ll vote, two of the people said, even though he voted Tuesday to declare it unconstitutional for the Senate to hear the case against a former president.
That position is starkly different than McConnell’s declaration at the start of Trump’s first impeachment trial last year, that he did not consider himself an impartial juror.
It’s highly unlikely that the Senate will convict Trump of the House’s single impeachment charge of inciting an insurrection, which cited the former president’s actions surrounding the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
DML: Drain the swamp!
2 – Dems Play Trump’s Remarks at Impeachment Trial But Leave Out Call to ‘Peacefully and Patriotically Make Your Voices Heard’
Breitbart reports: Democrats played a deceptively edited video of former President Donald Trump’s speech on January 6, 2020, at the beginning of the impeachment trial on Tuesday, leaving out his call for supporters to “peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”
The video was edited to make it l0ok as if Trump had urged supporters to go and violently breach the Capitol building. The video shows Trump saying, “We’re going to walk down and I’ll be there with you. We’re going to walk down…to the Capitol.”
The video then cuts to supporters yelling, “Let’s take the Capitol!” and “We are going to the Capitol!” It then cuts to people trying to get past fence barriers, and then to an earlier part of Trump’s speech where he said in regards to his fight against the election results, “we fight like hell.”
The video then says: “President Trump ends his speech and urges his mob to move toward the Capitol.”
Here’s what Democrats left out:
DML: Well, of COURSE they left that out! Despicable!
3 – GOP senator flips on impeachment trial, rips Trump lawyers
The Associated Press reports: Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana joined Democrats in voting against ending Donald Trump’s impeachment trial Tuesday, a surprise reversal that Cassidy said was a response to the former president’s lawyers doing “a terrible job” of arguing their case.
Cassidy was among six Republican senators who sided with Democrats on the question of whether a former president can be tried after leaving office. The Louisiana senator’s position was a switch from January, when he voted to end the proceedings on the grounds that they were unconstitutional.
The vote drew swift criticism from Republicans in the senator’s deeply conservative state. But Cassidy said Trump’s attorneys didn’t make their case. While the Democrats’ impeachment managers were “focused, they were organized,” relying on precedent and legal scholars, Trump’s team “was disorganized, random, had nothing,” he said.
The list of Republicans who have sided with Democrats now stands as follows:
- Maine Sen. Susan Collins
- Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski
- Utah Sen. Mitt Romney
- Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse
- Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey
- Lousiana Sen. Bill Cassidy
DML: Again, drain the swamp!!
4 – Psaki says schools with in-person classes ‘one day a week’ count as reopened
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki was asked Tuesday to clarify President Joe Biden’s plan to reopen K-8 schools within 100 days of his presidency.
At an afternoon press conference, a reporter asked Psaki to “help us understand” the White House’s or the president’s definition of “open school.”
“Does it mean teachers in classroom teaching students in classrooms or does it just mean kids in classrooms with a remote screen? Help us understand,” he asked.
Psaki replied, “His [Biden] goal that he set is to have the majority of schools, so more than 50%, open by day 100 of his presidency, and that means some teaching in classrooms. So, at least one day a week. Hopefully it’s more.”
DML: I have no words… just no words. Are we living in a circus?
5 – Boeing to Outsource 600 U.S. Tech Jobs While Expanding Production in India
Breitbart reports: The Boeing Company is outsourcing 600 American information technology (IT) jobs to Dell Technologies, which regularly imports foreign visa workers, while expanding its production base in India.
This month, Boeing executives announced that they would be outsourcing hundreds of IT jobs to Dell Technologies — about 10 percent of the company’s IT employees — as it intends to lay off 11,000 of its employees this year after laying off 20,000 last year.
Dell, which will absorb some of Boeing’s IT work, has a record of outsourcing American jobs to imported foreign visa workers through the H-1B visa program. Through one of its many subsidiaries, Dell sought to bring 600 H-1B foreign visa workers to the U.S. this year to take American jobs at an average salary of $119,000.
Between 2018 and 2020, Dell sought to import nearly 1,700 H-1B foreign visa workers to take American jobs at average salaries ranging from $109,000 to $119,000.
While Boeing outsources hundreds of jobs to Dell, the company is expanding its production capacity in India after one of its manufacturers in China was put on a U.S. blacklist for its ties to the Chinese Communist Party.
DML: There goes more American jobs. Thanks a lot, Joe Biden.
6 – Mark Cuban confirms Mavericks are no longer playing national anthem at home games
Fox News reports: Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban confirmed to The Athletic that it was his decision to no longer play the national anthem prior to home games at American Airlines Center. The Mavericks haven’t played the national anthem prior to home games this season, and the team doesn’t plan on playing it for the foreseeable future.
The Mavericks, who have an 11-14 record, have played 12 games at their home arena this season. They haven’t played the national anthem in any of their 13 preseason games, as well as those 12 regular-season matchups, including Monday’s game against the Minnesota Timberwolves, which was the first game with a small number of fans in the stands.
The Mavericks, who have an 11-14 record, have played 12 games at their home arena this season. They haven’t played the national anthem in any of their 13 preseason games, as well as those 12 regular-season matchups, including Monday’s game against the Minnesota Timberwolves, which was the first game with a small number of fans in the stands.
DML: Tell us what you think of this in the comments section at the end of this report!
7 – Google Quietly Escalates Manual Search Censorship
Breitbart reports: Google has quietly escalated censorship of its market-dominating search engine, adding a range of new topics where human moderators are allowed to manually penalize websites, suppressing them in search results.
If a website is affected by one of these manual acts of censorship, “some or all of that site will not be shown in Google search results,” according to the tech giant.
The list, published in full on Google’s support website, includes the following:
- Discover policy violation: Adult-themed content
- News and Discover policy violation: Dangerous content
- News and Discover policy violation: Harassing content
- News and Discover policy violation: Hateful content
- News and Discover policy violation: Manipulated media
- News and Discover policy violation: Medical content
- Discover policy violation: Misleading content
- News and Discover policy violation: Sexually explicit content
- News and Discover policy violation: Terrorist content
- News policy violation: Transparency
- News and Discover policy violation: Violence and gore content
- News and Discover policy violation: Vulgar language and profanity
Publishers who have been hit with a manual action by Google will be able to appeal the decision by “fixing” whatever issue violated the policy and then submitting their website to Google for a review. Google states that it could take “several days or a week” for the tech giant to reach a final decision.
DML: What next?!
