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As if you dont have enough spam, Google has been given the green light to give you even more. This month, the Federal Elections Commission gave the company the right to send those annoying pleas for campaign contributions directly to your Gmail inbox, circumventing the spam filter altogether.

The effort to clog your inbox with endless all-caps cries to separate you from your money was the culmination of a push by you guessed it Republicans. In their endless effort to work the refs, Republicans had long complained that anything that reined them in was totally unfair. Of course, they have been screaming about Silicon Valley doing them dirt for years and happily fundraising off of that complaint.

The right believes that Big Tech is too liberal, or to use its favorite expression too woke. Of course, the platforms are neutral and turned out to be a handy tool for organizing the insurrection on January 6. What the right objects to is that the platforms, as private entities, have the right to regulate speech and deny people like Donald Trump a megaphone for their lies.

When it comes to the fundraising emails, Republicans cited a study claiming that Google unfairly diverted more Republican fundraising emails to spam than it did Democratic emails. Thats true. Its also true that Yahoo and Microsoft sent more Democratic emails to spam than Republican emails. You wont hear Republicans complaining about that.

Nothing that Big Tech can do will ever satisfy the right, short of turning the servers over to the Trumpists. Should Republicans take control of the House, you can expect to see all kinds of hearings meant to browbeat Google, Facebook, and every other Silicon Valley company into submission.

Big Tech is in the crosshairs, Mike Howell of the right-wing Heritage Foundation told Axios. Theyre going to be subject to document requests and subpoenas and depositions.

Meantime, Republicans will keep hammering away at Big Tech, complaining that it is censoring them. In her disastrous campaign for California governor, Caitlyn Jenner declared because she beat the Soviet team at the 1976 Olympics, she could beat Big Tech.

Silicon Valleys mono-culture seems to espouse the same values, Jenner said, presumably referring to the values of the entire Soviet Union and not its track and field team.

That wasnt a winning argument for Jenner, but as a whole, it is a winning argument for the GOP.

Its not just because Silicon Valley is situated in the very progressive Bay Area. Its because, for a lot of the partys demographic and a lot of its leadership, technology is a mystery. When Google sat down with Republican senators to explain how its spam filtering system worked, the company was met with fury.Of course, most of the senators present had no interest in learning about the system and couldnt tell the difference between an algorithm and an ashcan.

So now your inbox will become the ashcan. If you want to get off the mailing list, you will have to unsubscribe from each message individually. Thats great for Republicans, who have done an excellent job out of fleecing unsuspecting donors with bogus platinum status promises.For the rest of us, its just another message to send to the trash where it belongs.

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Republicans have found a way to bypass your Gmail spam filters - LGBTQ Nation

Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) on Sunday sought to distance himself from those in his party calling to defund the FBI following the agencys search of former President Trumps Mar-a-Lago estate.

Oh yes, its crazy, Crenshaw responded when CNNs Jake Tapper asked him about recent GOP rhetoric on State of the Union.

Many in the GOP have portrayed the search, which was connected to an investigation into the former presidents handling of classified documents, as politically motivated. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) filed impeachment articles against Attorney General Merrick Garland and called for the FBI to be defunded.

Those demands have been met with condemnation from some in the GOP, drawing comparisons to the defund the police movement that has been promoted by progressive lawmakers including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.).

It makes us seem like extremist Democrats, right? Crenshaw said on Sunday. And so Marjorie and AOC can go join the defund the law enforcement club if they want. Ninety-nine percent of Republicans are not on that train.

Despite separating himself from those calls, Crenshaw on Sunday did call for accountability and transparency from the FBI and Department of Justice (DOJ) following the search, saying it was automatically political.

A federal judge last week signaled openness to releasing a redacted version of the affidavit to support the search warrant application, but the DOJ has opposed the move, citing concerns for witness safety.

The criticisms that were leveling against the FBI and DOJ are fully warranted, Crenshaw told Tapper. It is not those criticisms that lead to a crazy person attacking an FBI.

An armed man attempted to breach the FBIs Cincinnati field office in the days following the Mar-a-Lago search, and the intelligence community cited the incident in a recent bulletin warning of increased threats to federal law enforcement.

The FBI arrested a Pennsylvania man following the search for allegedly threatening to kill the agencys personnel.

Thats completely wrong, but thats not where 99 percent of Republicans are at, of course, Crenshaw said on CNN.

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Crenshaw denounces crazy GOP rhetoric on FBI: 99 percent of Republicans are not on that train - The Hill

As inflation surged earlier this year, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and other progressives began hammering away at corporate greed, accusing monopolies and huge industries of making record profits while claiming that they had no choice but to drive up prices and noting that gas prices were higher than underlying oil prices suggested they should be.

Initially, some in the Biden administration wanted to push this message too, using as their backup their strong record on antitrust and corporate greed, thanks to the Federal Trade Commissions Lina Khan and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureaus Rohit Chopra.

Some White House economists, however, fretted that the academic foundation behind the talking point that greed and price gouging were significantly behind the rising prices wasnt sound enough.

For many on the left, that the White House was getting in its own way by splitting hairs was another example of the asymmetric warfare between Democrats and Republicans, who wouldnt let trivialities such as whether it was true get in the way of their messaging.

Even while the White House was pushing back, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee the furthest thing on the planet from an anti-corporate populist organ began asking pollsters to test some of that messaging, according to people familiar with the DCCCs planning.

Starting around the middle of June, pollsters began testing versions of messaging that played off a bill House Democrats passed in May to crack down on price gouging. A DCCC aide put it simply: House Democrats voted for a bill that would prevent gas companies from price gouging. Every single Republican in the House of Representatives voted against it. DCCC Chair Sean Patrick Maloney of New York was a sponsor of the legislation.

The message tested in polling goes like this: With gas prices going up, Republican X voted against cracking down on gas price gouging. Meanwhile, they took X thousands of dollars from the oil and gas industry.

It tested well, said one person involved, who was not authorized to speak to the press. No.1, everyone is pissed off at gas prices. No.2, you can connect it very easily to oil and gas, and all these assholes have taken from oil and gas. Well, frankly, so have many Democrats.

Tying Republicans to Big Oil is very credible, so theres a foundation to work with.

Making the link between inflation, corporate corruption, and price gouging was also tested, though the oil and gas industry makes an easier villain than, say, Big Meat or Big Bread. The link between Republicans and Big Oil is strong enough in the publics imagination already. Ben Tulchin, of Tulchin Research, which did the polling for Sanderss 2016 and 2020 presidential campaignsas well as for Eric Adamss New York mayoral run, said that hitting the GOP for itscoziness with oil companies was a smart move backed up by data. Economic messaging is challenging, so its the best option available to Democrats, he said. Tying Republicans to Big Oil is very credible, so theres a foundation to work with.

The DCCCs willingness to dabble in populist politics suggests a broader path forward for Democrats in the wake of the signing of the Inflation Reduction Act, which included the biggest investment in climate spending in history. The bill was watered down by Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., who profits handsomely from his own coal company. Yet it was opposed by every single Republican in both chambers of Congress. As the clean energy industry grows, those corporations will continue funneling money into the political system. If more Democrats swore off oil and gas money, the party would have more of an opportunity to paint Republicans as the party of Big Oil, yoking them with high gas prices and the ever-worsening consequences of the climate crisis.

Instead, though, Democratic primaries are suddenly becoming contests between nuclear-powered super PACs, with deep-pocketed groups like theAmerican Israel Public Affairs Committeeand Democratic Majority for Israel, billionaire Reid Hoffmans interventions, and proliferating cryptocurrency super PACs all coming in to boost centrist candidates and beat back progressive ones. The result means that the party has fewer candidates who can credibly make the populist critique of corporate profiteering.

In Rhode Islands 2ndCongressionalDistrict, state General Treasurer Seth Magaziner has dabbled in the populist gas price rhetoric, but it lands flat in the face of his more temperate tenure in the treasurers office and the moderate hue of his campaign.

His opponent David Segal, on the other hand, has spent his career challenging corporate interests, both as a local elected official and as a federal advocate for the group Demand Progress, though he trails in public polls. Confronting the power of corporate special interests has been a throughline in my work, from my first run for office as part of a movement [for]fairer wages for workers in Providence to more recent national efforts to help revive the anti-monopoly movement and push back against revolving-door corruption in the federal government, he said. We wont see sufficient action on the other major issues of the day unless we are willing to take on these impediments to progress.

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DCCC Tests Ads Linking Republicans to High Gas Prices - The Intercept

CHESTERTON A leading advocacy organization for small businesses in Indiana is encouraging Hoosiers this year to reelect the state's incumbent U.S. senator and send to Washington the Republican hoping to represent Northwest Indiana in the U.S. House.

The Indiana chapter of the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) enthusiastically endorsed U.S. Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., and Jennifer-Ruth Green, of Crown Point, during a brief ceremony Monday at Joe's Bread in Chesterton.

"Senator Todd Young has been a steadfast advocate of small businesses during his time in Congress, maintaining a strong voting record and earning NFIBs Guardian of Small Business award in all his terms. We are confident Jennifer-Ruth Green will be a valuable small business supporter in the U.S. House," said Natalie Robinson, NFIB Indiana state director.

"They both have committed to focusing on small business issues such as inflation, workforce shortages and supply chain disruptions, and to oppose any new taxes or mandates on small businesses. Indianas small businesses will benefit with them in Congress," she added.

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Young told the gathering of a half-dozen small business owners and NFIB members that he aims to get the federal government back to clearing away business obstacles and regulations to restore the optimism of entrepreneurs and their confidence in the future.

"I measure success and the growth of our economy by my interactions with small business leaders as I travel the highways and byways of the state of Indiana. They've seen better times than they're seeing now, and they've seen better times just in recent years," Young said.

Young said the COVID-19 pandemic, high inflation and federal spending increases have many small business owners questioning whether to risk new capital or continue investing in their companies amid such uncertainty, and that's not good for Hoosiers or the economy.

"We have to be very cautious at the federal level. When we're spending money in a particular area, if that money is not being used to increase productivity in areas, we ought to think several times before offering our support," Young said. "The last thing we want to do is put ankle-weights on those who help drive our economy."

Green likewise said if she gets the opportunity to represent Lake, Porter and northwest LaPorte counties in Congress, she will help small businesses by lowering taxes, opposing federal regulations, supporting American energy production and minimizing the enforcement powers of the Internal Revenue Service.

"I will fight the reckless spending that is crushing workforce participation, our supply chains and ultimately leading to this 40-year high inflation because small businesses are paying the price while big government, big business and union bosses benefit," Green said.

Joe Grossbauer, a Chesterton native who's operated Joe's Bread at 225 S. Calumet Road for the past five months, said he can relate to some of those concerns, especially price swings related to the baked goods, coffee and teas he sells in his shop.

"Changing food costs, changing prices and supply chain issues impact us,"Grossbauer said. "Changing costs make things a little unpredictable for any small business."

At the same time, Grossbauer said his bakery cafe and event space isn't taking sides in the upcoming elections "We are apolitical. We have a local mill that we'll endorse, but that's about it."

RDA President and CEO Sherri Zillerexpects the Region will see upwards of $2 billion in private investment and thousands of new jobs and residents.

Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb addresses a celebration of the start of the South Shore Double Track Project on Monday in Michigan City.

Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb prepares to hammer in a spike at a celebration of the start of the South Shore Double Track Project on Monday in Michigan City.

Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb said of the Double Track groundbreaking, This is truly a Hoosier moment in history like few others.

Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb addresses a celebration of the start of the South Shore Double Track Project on Monday in Michigan City.

U.S. Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., addresses a celebration of the start of the South Shore Double Track Project on Monday in Michigan City.

Former U.S. Rep. Pete Visclosky, U.S. Rep. Frank J. Mrvan, D-Highland, and Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb chat before the start of a celebration of the start of the South Shore Double Track Project on Monday in Michigan City.

Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb takes questions following a celebration of the start of the South Shore Double Track Project on Monday in Michigan City.

Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb addresses a celebration of the start of the South Shore Double Track Project on Monday in Michigan City.

NICTD President Mike Noland, left, takes a photo of Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb and Executive Director of the Dean and Barbara White Family Foundation Bill Hanna.

Mike Smith speaks at a celebration of the start of the South Shore Double Track Project on Monday in Michigan City.

U.S. Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., said credit for the project also belongs to those elected officials who came before and led the way.

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Republicans win endorsement of Indiana small business advocacy organization - The Times of Northwest Indiana

Poor Gary Franks! He paints Democrats as all being socialists without knowing anything about either group (Socialists/Democrats is there a difference?, Aug. 12, TribLIVE). Hes just trying to accuse Democrats of doing the very things his own GOP is doing.

The GOP tries to control every state government and every decision. After Donald Trump lost in 2020, Republicans began to create laws to prevent undesirables from voting or having a fair vote count, trying to eliminate drop boxes and mail-in ballots .

The GOP majority on the Supreme Court overturned Roe v.Wade, seemingly without considering the arguments of the pro-choice people and based on the religious view of a minority of the religious spectrum. In my opinion, their decision ignored that Roe v. Wade was settled based upon actual amendments in the Bill of Rights. All conservative justices, when they were interviewed by the Senate, agreed Roe v. Wade was settled law.

It seems that todays modern GOP has adopted the amorality of Trump and Sen. Mitch McConnell. Franks tries to accuse Democrats of packing the Supreme Court. It wasnt us, Gary. It was the GOPs own morally bankrupt McConnell and Donald Trump.

Leo Nagorski

Shaler

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Letter to the editor: Republicans aim to control everything - TribLIVE