Writer, PR, public policy persuader in SoCal. logos: The appeal to reason. pathos: The appeal to emotion. ethos: The persuasive appeal of one's character.
Southern California
Joined August 2007
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Trump and Musk will pull out all the stops to bury Joe Biden’s economic triumph, including arresting Biden and his top economic aides. But even against Musk’s corrupt spending, facts are stubborn things.
John W Stodder Jr retweeted
The story keeps getting crazier. To recap everything that has been reported so far:
- The US intelligence community discovered that Jensen Huang, the CEO of the largest company in the world, was sleeping with Alice Huang, a Chinese spy and an executive at Megaspeed. (FT)
- Multiple independent investigations have concluded that Megaspeed is likely a Chinese cutout, which helps Chinese companies access AI chips or circumvent export controls. (NYT and Bloomberg)
- The US intelligence community also concluded that Alice Huang’s goal was to convince Jensen to lobby the U.S. government to loosen export controls on advanced AI chips. (NYT)
- The intelligence community relayed this information to “a small group of top US government officials” earlier this year. (FT)
- Over the last year, Jensen Huang has repeatedly lobbied the U.S. government to loosen export controls on advanced chips. @BISgov has done so, not only by permitting the export of H200 chips to China, but also not enforcing export controls that would have required a license for exports of the most advanced Blackwell chips to Megaspeed and Southeast Asia.
- Although @CommerceGov leadership was presumably briefed on this information by the U.S. intelligence community, @BISgov has taken no actions to tighten controls on Megaspeed or Southeast Asia.
- Megaspeed remains a preferred cloud partner of Nvidia, and continues to receive Nvidia Blackwell chips despite employing a Chinese spy who reportedly is romantically engaged with the CEO of Nvidia.
- Tens of billions of dollars worth of AI chips have been exported to Southeast Asia this year alone, and Malaysia and Singapore are now two of the four largest importers of AI chips in the world.
What is going on here??? We need answers. The question of who gets the most advanced AI chips in the world is literally the defining strategic question of our time. And not only does it seem like the MSS may be directly influencing the debate on export controls in the United States, but also @CommerceGov is refusing to listen to the warnings of the IC on this issue. What is a POSSIBLE good explanation for why Megaspeed is still receiving chips? Why is there not a license requirement for AI chip shipments to all of Southeast Asia? This is beyond strange at this point.
The fallout from this story will be massive. Obviously, the motivations underpinning Nvidia’s policy views opposing export controls must now all be questioned. But also, how did @BISgov sit on this information and has still taken no actions? We need answers.
US intelligence agencies believe @Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang had romantic relationship with alleged Chinese spy
as.ft.com/r/97c2f9f7-ad2e-44…
John W Stodder Jr retweeted
No, the issue here is that Morris Katz is getting glazed as some kind of electoral genius. Morris Katz helped cover up Platner's range of psychopathic behavior, thus endangering a seat in Maine + the Dem party writ large. Morris Katz's continued prominence makes this a story.
John W Stodder Jr retweeted
While the @DemSocialists were attacking mainstream Democrats, @RepJeffries was lining up candidates in red-to-bluedistricts that included ministers, combat veterans, farmers, prosecutors, and other centrists from blue-collar backgrounds.
nymag.com/intelligencer/arti…
John W Stodder Jr retweeted
I have known Chuck Schumer for 16 years. I worked closely with him and his staff when I worked for Harry Reid. I have a lot of respect for him and have also had my differences over the years.
The job of leader happens mostly behind the scenes. The traits that make a good leader are not the same as what makes you good at social media, etc. Reid was famous for saying off-message stuff—lord knows how he would have fared in the age of social media.
When you’re in the majority, the job is about setting the agenda and passing bills that help people. When you’re in the minority, you’re at the mercy of the majority in terms of the agenda, so the job is mainly to get back in the majority.
By that measure, Schumer succeeded wildly on Tuesday.
He oversaw the biggest Democratic sweep in the Senate since Watergate, recruiting candidates who fit their states and putting them in position to win states many had written off long ago. He was an early believer in Mississippi, for example.
You can litigate this or that decision, and I certainly didn’t agree with them all—but when you step back and look at the big picture there’s simply no way to argue with this historic achievement.
To me, the question of whether Schumer deserves to be reelected as leader after the most dominant performance by Senate Democrats in more than half a century is straightforward, and the answer is clearly yes.
Just desserts for standing with Trump.
The tragedy of Tuesday is that, owing to President Trump’s second-term descent, a generation of conservative state reform is in peril and young political leaders are out of office.
on.wsj.com/4AhZ4M9
John W Stodder Jr retweeted
Last Sunday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries traveled to Montgomery to appear with Figures just before mid-term elections. Before he left, the New York Times reports, Jeffries stopped at the Sculpture Park where we had taken the students.
On Tuesday, 2nd District voters thwarted the Republican plan by re-electing Figures. Surging Democrats recaptured the House with a large majority, which soon will make Jeffries America’s first African-American Speaker.
/4
John W Stodder Jr retweeted
If Jeffries wasn’t black, this unserious attack on him would never be posted.
DSA’s chase clout this way, picking apart every Jeffries sentence as if he’s constantly “missing the moment.”
But in fact it’s the left missing the moment with its childish sulking & finger pointing.
John W Stodder Jr retweeted
Guy said to me yesterday, “Why would I read an old book when we have the Star Wars prequels?” and I’m telling you, the problems you’re having were already addressed by Austen, Dickens and Cervantes. For the good of your own soul, you have to read old books.
John W Stodder Jr retweeted
I have been holding my tongue about something that happened during the Ohio gubernatorial race. I refused to speak while the election was underway because I did not want my words mistaken for an attempt to influence anyone’s vote.
But now that the election is over, I have something to say.
For nearly twenty years, my ministry has taken me among the homeless, the abused, the exploited, and the forgotten. I have sat with victims of sexual violence and witnessed the lifelong wounds of childhood trauma.
What Vivek Ramaswamy’s campaign did to Amy Acton was among the most morally repulsive things I have witnessed in American politics.
They took a woman whose stepfather was indicted for raping her when she was twelve years old and featured her mother, from whom she had been estranged for nearly fifty years, in a political advertisement attacking her credibility.
The advertisement challenged Acton’s account of her childhood without mentioning the sexual abuse allegations or the circumstances of that estrangement. When people expressed their horror, the campaign defended it.
Imagine examining another person’s childhood suffering and fractured family relationships, then deciding those wounds might help win an election.
Anyone who has worked with survivors of childhood sexual abuse understands the painful realities of denial, betrayal, shame, and estrangement. A child growing into a successful adult does not erase what happened. Nor does a parent’s denial make that suffering disappear.
I find it equally disturbing that an elderly mother, whom Acton herself described as unwell, was brought into this spectacle. Whatever her own struggles or responsibility for the past, exploiting that fractured relationship was grotesque.
To everyone who defended this, consider the message you sent to survivors. To the young woman whose family refuses to believe her. To the man who has carried the shame of childhood abuse for forty years. To the frightened child who has yet to tell anyone.
What did you teach them about the value of their suffering?
I am a priest. I believe in repentance, forgiveness, and redemption. But none of those things requires me to pretend that deliberate cruelty is anything less than a grave moral failure.
Your political allegiance does not absolve you of moral responsibility. You do not get to set aside your conscience during an election and retrieve it afterward.
If your loyalty requires you to defend the exploitation of a childhood sexual abuse survivor, your loyalty has become an idol. And if your conscience cannot recognize the wrong here, examine what political tribalism has done to it.
This is not about Republicans or Democrats. We have a choice as a people: continue excusing cruelty from our preferred political camp, or summon the courage to condemn it wherever it appears.
Amy Acton deserved better. Every survivor who watched this unfold deserved better.
And God help us if we have reached the point where winning an election matters more than protecting the dignity of a wounded human being.
John W Stodder Jr retweeted
Statement from DNC Jewish American Council Leadership regarding @AbdulElSayed
John W Stodder Jr retweeted
I know @HaleyforMI way better than most people on X. She and I came into Congress together in 2018. She was co-Prez of our freshman class. She was incredibly kind to me when my late partner died; she organized a big group of our class to come to the House floor to support me when I spoke about his suicide. We were roommates in 2023, after my wonderful first roomie lost her election; both my adult kids know Haley well and are on a texting basis with her. We’ve socialized and we have good friends in common. While she and I differ on one impt issue, specifically Israel and AIPAC support, I’ve never publicly challenged her on those things, because I felt that her good points outweighed the issues I disagreed with her on. Today, that changes. 👇
Haley’s endorsement of Rogers in the MI senate race is appalling. Not because he’s a Republican, but because what he stands for is what she, and I, and our caucus has fought so hard against. Rogers is a 100% anti-choice politician. He is a Trump loyalist. He’s shown his Islamophobia in his many remarks against @AbdulElSayed, and with this endorsement, Haley has shown that she agrees with his positions. I’m shocked by Haley’s endorsement. I’m terribly sad and disappointed. I’m furious and will be more so if we lose the MI senate race. So many people in the Democratic Party have shown so much support to Haley over the years, and she has betrayed them all. If this is because of her new relationship (about which many of us were so happy for her after she lost the primary), all I can say is that any woman who abandons her friends when a new guy comes along is no friend at all. The fallout for Haley won’t just be in Dem politics; she will be a pariah among her friends in the Democratic caucus in Congress. Only she will be able to decide whether it was worth it.
John W Stodder Jr retweeted
Here’s Hasan days before the 2024 election saying that Kamala and Trump are “one to one the exact same”. Listen to how passionate he was, he believed this to his core and wanted all of his listeners to believe it too
John W Stodder Jr retweeted
Injured NBA players 11 days into the season:
Anthony Edwards (knee)
Kawhi Leonard (knee)
Tyrese Haliburton (hamstring)
Chet Holmgren (knee)
Jalen Williams (leg, ankle)
Paolo Banchero (ankle)
Jalen Duren (hamstring)
Jaren Jackson Jr. (MCL)
Ja Morant (hamstring)
Kon Knueppel (hamstring)
Ivica Zubac (ankle)
Kristaps Porzingis (health issue)
Coby White (calf)
Jalen Suggs (knee)
Tobias Harris (calf)
Jusuf Nurkic (toe)
Cason Wallace (shoulder)
Mark Williams (shoulder)
Nic Claxton (hamstring)
Ben Simmons (Achilles)
Bradley Beal (knee management)
Keegan Murray (ankle)
Egor Demin (leg)
Max Strus (foot)
Shaedon Sharpe (knee)
Steven Adams (calf)
Dominick Barlow (back)
Dylan Cardwell (knee)
Justin Champagnie (foot)
Sergio de Larrea (knee)
Mouhamed Gueye (foot)
Ariel Hukporti (Achilles)
TJ McConnell (hamstring)
Noah Penda (hamstring)
Maxime Raynaud (knee)
Ben Sheppard (knee)
Julian Strawther (knee)
Nae'Qwon Tomlin (back)
Henri Veesaar (ACL)
Tristan Vukcevic (hip)
Grant Williams (hamstring)
Jimmy Butler (ACL)*
Brandon Ingram (heel)*
Dereck Lively II (foot)*
Donte DiVincenzo (Achilles)*
Moses Moody (knee)*
Johnny Furphy (ACL)*
Yanic Konan Niederhauser (foot)*
Jayden Quaintance (knee)*
Thomas Sorber (ACL)*
Nikola Topic (back)*
This guy’s on board with Hasan Piker calling out Jews as Klan members.
That’s why they call them Blue MAGA. It’s a freaky deaky cult of bigots just like Red MAGA.
What the fuck @ElissaSlotkin?
You’re losing your job next. You just couldn’t help yourself, could you?
John W Stodder Jr retweeted
Hasan Piker's latest online rant targeting Michiganders in West Bloomfield Township, comparing the community to the KKK, should be condemned loudly. It is anti-semitic, divisive and deeply offensive.
I get that this is what he does for attention. But flippantly attacking a proud, diverse community — not to mention a political organizer doing the most American of things in our democratic process — reveals how misguided and uninformed he actually is about Michigan.
John W Stodder Jr retweeted
Over the past few months, I’ve had folks—most often complete strangers—reach out and ask me some version of the following question:
“This Democratic candidate took an anti-trans position. Should I still vote for them?”
Folks, I acknowledge that you want to be thoughtful about all this. I appreciate that you want to get a trans person’s opinion. I understand that y’all take allyship seriously, and I’m grateful for that. I truly am.
Fortunately for all of us, the moral and ethical calculus here are very simple.
An election cycle is split into two parts: the primary season and the general election.
The primaries are over. A lot of candidates across the political spectrum stepped up, offered their ideas, and pitched the voters. The ballots were cast, and some of those candidates won and most of those candidates lost.
We are now in the general election portion of the cycle, and almost every U.S. Senate and U.S. House race offers a straightforward choice: there is a Republican and there is a Democrat.
One of those two candidates will win, and ONLY one of those two will win.
There is no third potential outcome.
On the Republican side, you have a political party led by a sociopathic pedophile who has dismantled critical federal agencies, gutted health care for tens of millions of American working class families, engaged in widespread corruption that would make Richard Nixon blush with secondhand embarrassment, hobbled our economy with deeply asinine and self-serving financial incompetence, alienated all of our longstanding diplomatic relationships with other countries, involved us in an array of irresponsible and dangerous and unnecessary military actions, lost a stupid and pointless war with the theocratic, human rights quagmire that is the Iranian government, made it clear he’s oblivious to the consequences of data centers and other unaccountable bullshit carried out by AI companies, raised our gas prices, raised our food prices, raised our housing costs, raised our childcare costs, raised our health care costs, and continues to cover-up his role in a massive child sex trafficking operation by keeping millions of files hidden from the public.
On the Democratic side, you have a party led by national leaders who are somewhat uninspiring but nevertheless deeply committed to stopping all the above and building a brighter future for working class families in our country.
On the Republican side, you have an entire political party being held hostage—some of them more than likely through blackmail—to the fleeting whims and temper tantrums and probable dementia of the aforementioned sociopathic pedophile.
On the Democratic side, you have a party that is often at each other’s throats but also the furthest thing from a cult, which, ironically, is a sign of very good health and embodying enduring faith in the democratic (small d) process.
You ask me for my thoughts on anti-trans ads or comments put out by Democratic candidates and whether you should still vote for them against Republicans?
Yes. Of course you should vote for them.
Not only should you vote for them but you should get your family and your friends and your neighbors and your colleagues and your mailman and the door-to-door salesperson currently waiting patiently on your front porch to vote for them.
For example, I am not a fan of Congresswoman Marie Gluesenkamp Perez. I do not like her. I think she’s very cynical. Among other things, she has taken unnecessary votes that harmed trans service members and veterans and our families in order to pander to moderates.
Guess what? Her Republican opponent is 10x worse for trans rights. If I lived in her congressional district—WA-03—I would vote for her without hesitation and get everyone I know to vote for her, too. Because I’m not an idiot.
Or take James Talarico, who is running for the U.S. Senate in my beloved home state of Texas. In an interview with Fox News, he stated his conditional opposition to trans youth in sports and pandered to anti-trans social conservatives about opposing already non-existent surgeries for trans youth.
Guess what? His Republican opponent, Ken Paxton, is easily 100x worse for the trans community. Paxton is an anti-trans exterminationist. He does not want the trans community to exist. He would gladly support criminalizing the existence of trans people. He has spent the past four years using his position in the state government to harass and terrorize the parents of trans youth.
Not only am I supporting James Talarico, but if God opened up the clouds above and offered me a deal of exchanging my left arm for the guarantee of Mr. Talarico beating Paxton, I would agree to the deal in a heartbeat.
This is not a complicated decision.
I feel the exact same way about Dr. Annie Andrews, who has spent her career serving working class families in South Carolina and is now tantalizingly close to flipping that U.S. Senate seat currently held by Darline Graham, sister of the late Lindsey Graham.
Do I care that Dr. Andrews put out an ad opposing trans youth in sports and already non-existent surgeries for trans youth? No, I do not care. I do not give a shit.
Because Darline Graham has made anti-trans extermination her entire political brand and seems to spend every waking moment obsessed with how to make the lives of trans people miserable, not the least due in part to her lack of any policy ideas to help working class families in South Carolina and needing a scapegoat to conceal her own strident mediocrity.
You’re goddamn right I support Dr. Andrews for that U.S. Senate seat. I would gladly vote for her if I lived there, and I’d be canvassing every day in support of her, too.
This is not complicated.
Pick any U.S. Senate race and U.S. House race, and my opinion is gonna be the same every damn time. Because the primaries are over, this is the general election, and there are only two choices: either an imperfect Democrat with whom I disagree on a handful of issues or a Republican currently subscribed to a death cult that wants people like me to cease existing entirely.
Some of y’all will bring up that there are trans people who disagree with me. I’m sure there are. That’s their prerogative. They have a constitutional right to express their opinion that certain Democratic candidates should be boycotted. We do, after all, for the moment, live in a free country.
But they’re wrong. They’re dead wrong. They could not be more wrong. Their curious sense of aimless and flailing political strategy honestly makes me wonder if they have a shred of survival instinct in their bones.
Again: this is not complicated. If you care about the future of trans equality in this country, you will march your happy ass to your polling location and fill in the bubble next to every name on that ballot with a (D) next to the name.
Then you will make sure your family and friends and neighbors and colleagues and mailman and door-to-door salesperson still waiting on the front porch have all done the same.
The past two years are all the proof you need that sitting out an election because the better candidate happens to not be perfectly to your liking is completely stupid and self-destructive.
On Election Night, I am going to celebrate Democrats taking back Congress and saving democracy from the anti-trans fascists of the GOP. I will sleep-in the next morning. Then, I will wake up and get to work being an insufferable pain-in-the-ass on the importance of trans equality for the Democrats who were just elected.
God love democracy.
Do not complicate an easy decision. Go vote for Democrats.
John W Stodder Jr retweeted
Much easier for the media to lock in on faux Cheesecake Factory outrage than a House Dem report indicating Todd Blanche basically told Ghislaine Maxwell "stop talking" when she was about to discuss a girl that could more closely tie Trump to Epstein
