Always strive to learn something useful. --Sophocles

The RNC filed a lawsuit against Google for Gmail sending RNC fundraising mail addressed to Gmail users directly to spam folders, saying that they had an anti-conservative bias. Of seven claims they made, the judge thoroughly squashed five of them, and is letting the RNC amend two. However, the basic underpinnings of the two claims were knocked away and they'll have to be significantly readdressed to be refiled.

Here is perhaps my favorite utterance from the judge. The RNC claimed that Google committed fraud, I guess for failing to deliver the solicitation mail to the mailing list inboxes? The judge said: "The RNC lacks standing to bring the fraud claim because it is not a Gmail user, ... The RNC uses Salesforce and a separate email-delivery platform called Everest."

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Plus, Gmail is a free service! How could Google defraud me if I'm not a business-class customer paying for it? Yes, they do have a business tier.

Why do I have a sneaking suspicion that Google might buy a business-class subscription and start spraying their Google email address base direct that way?

Oh, and here's another beauty of a quote: Google previously ran a pilot program that let political emails bypass the Gmail spam filter. Google said in a January 2023 court filing that "the RNC has chosen not to participate in Google's FEC-approved Pilot Program."

And here's a comment for the article from a mail server administrator: "Speaking as a mailserver admin: more GOP fundraiser emails wind up in the spamtrap because the GOP uses more spammer tactics, more aggressively. I've seen everything from spoofed to and from lines to entire messages in the subject line to white text on white background to bayes poison to substituting letters for numbers to try to evade money-related spam filters to you name it.

A brand new install of spamassassin with default filters only will also block far more Republican fundraiser emails than DNC ones, for exactly this reason... And the disparity only gets worse if you let it train its Bayes filter (which, quick reminder, the GOP sometimes attempts to poison)."

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/08/judge-tears-apart-republican-lawsuit-alleging-bias-in-gmail-spam-filter/

“Now, what I want is Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts; nothing else will ever be of any service to them.”

There's also one about "Lies, damned lies, and statistics".

And then there's the Trump Train.

In my state - actually he's a County Commissioner somehow, we have Couy! Couy founded a group called Cowboys For Trump, which he created as a non-profit but it was investigated and declared to be a lobbying group and had to pay taxes and file paperwork accordingly and retroactively fined. He appealed but it was a lost cause.

And then Couy was captured on video and photographs at the January 6 freedom Lover's Capital Lynching Rehearsal Barbecue last year. And he was banned from setting foot in the Mescalero Apache Reservation, which is a part of Otero County for his participation in said event. He recently was convicted of his participation and sentenced to time served, a $3,000 fine (IIRC), and pretty hefty amount of community service. He loudly announced that he was going to take guns to DC and was shown on video loading (IIRC) a rifle, shotgun, and revolver - standard cowboy gear - into his car as he left for DC. Fortunately he left them at a friend's house before he crossed into the jurisdiction or he would have been arrested for additional violations and lost some very expensive pieces.

We had our primary election a couple of weeks ago, my wife worked at our local polling place. And the three member Otero County Commission initially refused to certify the election.

Here's Couy on the election. I don't know if it's from the day after the election, when they decided not to certify the results, or from when the Commission finally decided to certify the election. I'm guessing the latter.
"My vote to remain a no isn't based on any evidence, it's not based on any facts, it's only based on my gut feeling and my own intuition, and that's all I need."
-- Couy Griffin, Otero NM County Commissioner, on refusing to certify results of June 7th primary despite lack of evidence of voting fraud

The Secretary of State threatened to sue them and have them arrested. Monday they buckled when threatened with jail and in a two to one vote they approved the results so preparation for the November general election could go ahead.

And here's a lovely one from Rudy:
"We've got lots of theories, we just don't have the evidence."
-- Rudy Giuliani, urging AZ state Speaker of the House Rusty Bowers (R) to help overturn 2020 election results

Teach them facts! And it won't make a bit of difference as they will make up their own fictions to justify their own existence. Let's just ignore the fact that around 90-95% of the cases they put up in court they had to withdraw because they couldn't present any evidence showing valid claims.

I have a lot of theories, too, about Donald Trump, Rudy, and all of his family and cronies. Most of them are not fit for polite company.

With him leaving office at the start of next year when the new House will be sworn in, the House will be 100% Christian (assuming no big surprises in the November elections). Eric was the only Jew. And with the exception of one appointed black man, the House is 100% white. There are a few women, but for the most part, it's a sausage-fest.

"Right now, Jesus himself couldn't be the Speaker and get 218 Republicans behind something."
—Rep. Patrick J. Tiberi

I read an interesting pair of articles on a recent debate between Bill Nye, Science Guy, and the guy who opened the Creationism Museum in Kentucky on evolution versus creationism. The part that I found to be the biggest takeaway was the line that religious fundamentalists aren't just cherry-picking the bible for the choicest bits to support their positions, but they are weaponizing the bible.

"They asked a long list of Republicans to come and to a man and woman they said 'no.'"
—Julian Bond on Wednesday's ceremony marking the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington

Fox News got in a snit because there were no Republicans on the podium making speeches for the anniversary. George HW Bush and George W Bush had good excuses, the former is in very poor health and the latter just had health surgery, but all the rest? Jeb Bush declined to appear, so did the Republican Congressional leadership. They all declined. They were invited, they just had better things to do than to mark perhaps the seminal civil rights moment in the United States.

It will be interesting to see if this affects them in the mid-term elections next year.

"If another Republican man says anything about rape other than it is a horrific, violent crime, I want to personally cut out his tongue."
—former George W. Bush adviser Karen Hughes

Rachel Maddow started calling the Republican candidates who blew it talking about rape the Rape Caucus, and none of them were elected. Akin, the 'woman's body has a way to shut that down' was on the House Science Committee.

"What she said was offensive...It was so offensive, I don't even want to say it in front of women. I would not say that in mixed company."
-- Michigan state Rep. Mike Callton, on Rep. Lisa Brown being banned from speaking on the House floor for saying the word "vagina"

"It wasn't about body parts...It was the 'No means no' comment. A step too far...It's like giving a kid a time out for a day."
-- state Rep. Wayne Schmidt, defending the ban

Callton has a degree in biology, served in the Army, is the Vice Chair of the House Health Policy Committee, and is a practicing chiropractor. And he has problems with the proper anatomical reference to a woman's reproductive organ?

This is partial conjecture, but not unreasonable. A professor was asked to write an oped piece on what went on in Wisconsin with the attempt at union-busting by the governor, and as he researched this piece, he posted snippets of what he found on his blog. The Republican party filed a Freedom of Information Act request for his email with many key words, such as Scott Walker. The prof thinks that this is an attempt to silence people trying to reveal the machinations of the RNC, I think he might have a valid point.

And I didn't know you could FOIA a university, I guess you could if it's a public uni but not one that's privately funded (good luck funding that!).

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/28/opinion/28mon3.html?_r=4&pagewanted=print

http://politics.slashdot.org/story/11/03/27/0154213/Using-the-Open-Records-Law-To-Intimidate-Critics

"Women sometimes need a little more handholding, or they need their friends to help them make a decision."
-- RNC co-chair Jan Larimer, on GOP efforts to recruit and train more women candidates

I think nothing more need be said.