In March 2021, media reported that Lindell was launching an alt-techsocial media platform, which he described as a cross between YouTube and Twitter, that would be different from Gab and Parler. Originally called “Vocl,” a dispute from a company that owned a web site called “Vocal” led Lindell to rename his site “Frank”.[22] Frank launched on April 19, 2021, experiencing many technical issues which Lindell ascribed to a “massive attack”.[23] Frank has no social networking features[24] and primarily offers embedded video streams, including Absolute Interference , a two-hour video promoting conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election.[25][26][27]
Lindell has said he has spent millions of dollars developing Frank.[28] According to invoices published by a Salon writer, obtained from a leaked video conference with Lindell’s IT team, Lindell spent about $936,000 on hardware, labor, and services to launch Frank.[29] Jared Holt, an extremism and far-right media researcher at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab opined that Lindell was “being had by the people around him… All the various products and ventures Lindell has going on, whether it’s a pseudo-documentary film or a social media platform, are very expensive endeavors. Someone is taking Lindell’s money from him to produce this stuff.”[30]
On April 28, Lindell told Steve Bannon on a podcast that Frank would launch again at a rally at the Corn Palace on May 10, 2021.[31] The rally filled about half of the Corn Palace’s 3,000-person capacity[32] and did not include any substantive announcements about Frank, which continues to lack social networking features.[33]
Frank, based on its error messages, is written in Drupal. Several Drupal experts have criticized the way in which Frank was developed and deployed, including one who observed that Drupal is not designed to handle a large amount of user-generated content typically found on social media sites.[34] One journalist observed that Frank was using Amazon Web Services for video hosting despite Lindell’s frequent criticism of “Big Tech”.[29]
In most states having tires extending substantially beyond the fender or fender flare is illegal. Not sure about Texas, but did find a Texas LEO forum where officers argued about this (and the weak consensus seemed to be they could pull over a driver for this). Throwing up debris at highway speeds is dangerous - why do you think semis have mud flaps?
It seems I catch a rock on my windshield here on Colorado mountain highways causing enough damage to need a new windshield every other year or so. This sort of vehicle drives me nuts.
And sadly, I live in Boebert’s CO 3, but in one of the counties that voted heavily blue. Mesa County put her over the top (she lost in her home county, Garfield). It was encouraging to see a couple months back that all of the Boebert-friendly Grand Junction city council candidates lost, badly, but the rest of that county probably loves the Lindell/Peters hijinks.
The basement of Comet Ping Pong and PIzza? There, she felt remarkably at ease chewing the fat with Hillary and participating in rituals which, in her days before going on the lam, she had ignorantly condemned.
I share your depression and low opinion of these 74 million. And my opinion may very well be much lower than yours, to boot. But I caution everyone, don’t be shortsighted enough to believe that the difference between us and them is about color or race only. And don’t fall for any trope that thinks only white people can be tribal or race driven.
So my point is these Chump fuggos and RW idiots are driven by much more than race. They just hate anything any Lib stands for. If we came out FOR something that we previously weren’t espousing and they had no opinion on…they would be hating it by nightfall.
They are against peace. Against decency, knowledge, science, rule of law, health, medicine, tolerance, gays, cities, college, millenials, you name it. If you could slice in and remove their racist bone it wouldn’t change them enough to make a difference, and I am super alarmed at how many POC have found ways to be FOR the Easy Way Out party. Anyone who can’t handle nuance and grey areas seems vulnerable. Anyone who doesn’t want to do the hard work of thinking straight, taking responsibility, and actually doing the work necessary is vulnerable. Anyone who’s lazy thinking impulse is to destroy or tear down is already on board.
Exactly! He didn’t make them racist or misogynistic either. He convinced them to say it with their chests, to be open and bold with their bigotry. Instead of saying that they fear immigrants will take all the good jobs because they provide cheaper labor, they say, “Mexicans are sending rapists and murderers.”
I fear, however, that if the proposed redistricting map stands, CO3 will be firmly R for the foreseeable future. I think it’s a fair map (more compact, Eagle County is no longer split, more geographical cohesion with respect to the continental divide), but it’ll lean a bit more R. Getting rid of Boebert will likely require a primary loss for her, rather than a D win in the November election.
Republican Governor’s across this country shut them all down back in the Reagan era to recruit new candidates to run for office. Their message was budget cuts, and incompetent government officials. As we can see, this was clearly a winning combination for them.
And in doing so, I think every non-vaxxer who is in one should be charged as an accessory to murder. His doctor said this should have been a simple 30 minute procedure.
Saw that. Ton of preventable deaths right now because some people are idiots. Things like cancer treatments delayed, heart attack victims not getting care in time, surgical delays…
We really need to start moving to a triage system. Unvaxxed and eligible for a vaccine, no bed for you.
It’s about a litany of things, but I assure you race is ultimately the driving force behind it all. Race is where all roads meet. Their aversion to decency, knowledge, science, rule of law, health, medicine etc. all stems from the same place. Their aversion to all of those things is ultimately about rage at elites, the elites who are telling them that they must be inclusive, that diversity is a good thing and something to be embraced and sought, that saying the N-word is bad, that they can no longer be THE culture in this country. They’re not really against science, otherwise, they wouldn’t go to the doctor or seek medical care when they’re sick. There’d be no hospital bed shortage if that were true. They’re against what they see as a growing elite class that won’t let them be as openly nasty and offensive as they wish to be, an elite class that keeps telling them that white supremacy is wrong and that this isn’t a white country.
As for POC who side with the GOP, that’s nothing new either. There have always been house N(clang)s who desperately desired acceptance and love from white people and believed that Black people were truly lesser. I’ve personally known Black folks who didn’t like other Black folks. It really shouldn’t be all that surprising as it is to so many liberals, not when there are so many white women who side with the party that clearly hates women, but the Phyllis Schlaflys of the world have always existed. Also, the reason some male POC side with the GOP is because they desperately want a new patriarchy, one in which they’ll be at the head of the table, and they see the GOP is the vehicle for achieving that goal.
But if you removed race as a factor, I’d argue that a significant portion of the GOP would have little to get excited about. At least not in the same way they do now. For instance, if George Floyd had been white, I guarantee there’d have been no controversy at all about trying and convicting Chauvin. They’d have been demanding his head on platter too. Same with Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman. There are but few issues that don’t go back to race. Even abortion. Deep down, the real issue there is white women not having enough babies to keep white people in the majority. Name an issue and I can tell you how it ultimately connects back to race.
