Tootfinder

⏰ The new engine of voting: Out-party hostility outpaces in-party loyalty across established democracies
https://phys.org/news/2025-09-voting-party-hostility-outpaces-loyalty.html

The new engine of voting: Out-party hostility outpaces in-party loyalty across established democracies
A new study led by Professor Diego Garzia of the University of Lausanne, published in Public Opinion Quarterly, reveals a major shift in electoral motivation. In many Western democracies, voters are now more driven by opposition to their political adversaries than by support for their own side. This phenomenon marks a move away from ideological disagreement toward an emotionally charged dynamic rooted in rejection and hostility, an evolution that may ultimately weaken the very foundations of de…

How the US democracy is designed to avoid representation
Right now in the US, a system which proclaims to give each citizen representation, my interests are not represented very well by most of my so-called representatives at any level of government. This is true for a majority of Americans across the political spectrum, and it happens by design. The "founding fathers" were explicit about wanting a system of government that would appear Democratic but which would keep power in the hands of rich white landowners, and they successfully designed exactly that. But how does disenfranchisement work in this system?
First, a two-party system locked in by first-post-the-post winner-takes-all elections immediately destroys representation for everyone who didn't vote for the winner, including those who didn't vote or weren't eligible to vote. Single-day non-holiday elections and prisoner disenfranchisement go a long way towards ensuring working-class people get no say, but much larger is the winner-takes all system. In fact, even people who vote for the winning candidate don't get effective representation if they're really just voting against the opponent as the greater of two evils. In a 51/49 election with 50% turnout, you've immediately ensured that ~75% of eligible voters don't get represented, and with lesser-of-two-evils voting, you create an even wider gap to wedge corporate interests into. Politicians need money to saturate their lesser-of-two-evils message far more than they need to convince any individual voter to support their policies. It's even okay if they get caught lying, cheating, or worse (cough Epstein cough) as long as the other side is also doing those things and you can freeze out new parties.
Second, by design the Senate ensures uneven representation, allowing control of the least-populous half of states to control or at least shut down the legislative process. A rough count suggests 284.6 million live in the 25 most-populous states, while only 54.8 million live in the rest. Currently, counting states with divided representation as two half-states with half as much population, 157.8 million people are represented by 53 Republican sensors, while 180.5 million people get only 45 seats of Democratic representation. This isn't an anti-Democrat bias, it's a bias towards less-populous states, whose residents get more than their share it political power.
I haven't even talked about gerrymandering yet, or family/faith-based "party loyalty," etc. Overall, the effect is that the number of people whose elected representatives meaningfully represent their interests on any given issue is vanishingly small (like, 10% of people tops), unless you happen to be rich enough to purchase lobbying power or direct access.
If we look at polls, we can see how lack of representation lets congress & the president enact many policies that go against what a majority of the population wants. Things like abortion restrictions, the current ICE raids, and Medicare cuts are deeply unpopular, but they benefit the political class and those who can buy access. These are possible because the system ensures at every step of the way that ordinary people do NOT get the one thing the system promises them: representation in the halls of power.
Okay, but is this a feature of all democracies, inherent in the nature of a majority-decides system? Not exactly...
1/2
#uspol #democracy

Hundreds of ex-DOJ staffers demand oversight ahead of Pam Bondi hearing (Josephine Walker/Axios)
https://www.axios.com/2025/10/06/doj-trump-pam-bondi-criticized-political-bias-loyalty
http://www.memeorandum.com/251006/p138#a251006p138

20 year DOJ vet lead counsel on critical terrorism case,
fired b/c he once worked in career role for Lisa Monaco.
They are simply strangling the DOJ.
1/3 of leadership has left.
And the cost here has to be reckoned in public safety.
Everything gets sacrificed to absurd views of loyalty and revenge.
…

Harry Litman (@harrylitman.bsky.social)
20 year DOJ vet lead counsel on critical terrorism case, fired b/c he once worked in career role for Lisa Monaco.They are simply strangling the DOJ. 1/3 of leadership has left. And the cost here has to be reckoned in public safety. Everything gets sacrificed to absurd views of loyalty and revenge.

Is Cowboys owner Jerry Jones starting to question Micah Parsons' loyalty to team? https://www.si.com/nfl/cowboys/news/is-dallas-cowboys-owner-jerry-jones-starting-question-micah-parsons-loyalty-team

Secret 'scorecard' kept by White House to grade companies' loyalty to Trump - Raw Story
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-loyalty-2673887663/

My local supermarket keeps changing how the product offers work...
Buy 4 for 3, cheapest item free
Buy 2 for some random reduced price
Buy 1 for some price that's reduced from whatever it was previously offered at.
Then there's loyalty card prices, which only apply to some items.
Why can't they just offer slightly lower prices across the range so everyone benefits without jumping through hoops?!

ReliableSite #hosting provider (#AS23470):
"Effective August 10th, 2025, the loyalty rewards points program will discontinued. Any unused points not utilized by August 10th, 2025 will be forfeited."
A new, as of yet unspecified, program will replace it.

It is amazing how much of MAGA hangs on personal loyalty to a decaying corpse. But history is full of the bones of narcissistic sociopaths who thought they'd live forever. What's next? President Eyeliner? President Naziferatu? Sure, the sickness in American society is widespread, but who steps in when he's gone?

Got an email from Verizon Wireless that my loyalty discount is going away on September 1. With a link to get info. The link showed a page about this but it then immediately popped to my overview page.
So I called. The out of country representative stated that they will be sending another email before September 1 with what the NEW discounts are, and to wait. Then he tried to upsell me an additional line.

Lyft rolls out letting riders "favorite" or block drivers to enhance loyalty from riders and drivers; favorites get priority for future scheduled rides (Natalie Lung/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025…

Lyft Will Let You ‘Favorite’ or ‘Block’ Your Rideshare Driver
The update is part of a larger effort to get riders and drivers to stay on the platform.

Has anyone made a hegseth generals meeting bingo card.
- they pray
- loyalty test
what else?

Rupert Murdoch's media empire is playing both sides of the Trump-Epstein scandal, with the WSJ breaking bombshell news that Fox News is largely ignoring (Axios)
https://www.axios.com/2025/07/26/trump-rupert-murdoch-wsj-fox

Trump-Epstein saga splinters the Murdoch empire
For President Trump, Murdoch's loyalty to his business goals has been both helpful and harmful.

20 year DOJ vet lead counsel on critical terrorism case,
fired b/c he once worked in career role for Lisa Monaco.
They are simply strangling the DOJ.
1/3 of leadership has left.
And the cost here has to be reckoned in public safety.
Everything gets sacrificed to absurd views of loyalty and revenge.
…

If you love Marshal Kim Jong Un, the so-called "beloved" dictator of North Korea, where people are forced to bow down not out of respect but because the regime literally outlaws standing upright for more than three seconds to prevent neck strain then I see you as enforcers of authoritarian misery not my comrade.
Real solidarity means rejecting all hierarchies and authoritarian rule, dismantling the capitalist states that oppress workers under the pretense of loyalty, and buil…

Series C, Episode 11 - Moloch
SERVALAN: All very clever, Section Leader. But now, perhaps, I should tell you something. Shortly before he died, Colonel Astrid sent me a report. What it said gave me serious doubts about your loyalty. Serious enough for me to leave precise instructions with my Supreme Command. If you persist with this treachery, this planet will be blasted into outer darkness where it belongs.
GROSE: Madam President, if your reconstituted Federation was worth a...…

Oklahoma Demands Doctors Sign Anti-Abortion Loyalty Oath to Keep Medicaid Funding
https://jessica.substack.com/p/kevin-stitt-oklahoma-abortion-oath

Just finished "Thief of the Heights" written by Son M. and illustrated by Robin Yao. It's a very cool graphic novel about the illusions of meritocracy and loyalty to one's roots, with an interesting setting and better politics than most stuff out there, even if the plotting is a little rough and perhaps a bit too straightforward. The neat ending and reliance on heroism are themes I don't love in these kinds of tales, but I'm grateful for more stories in this category to exist in the first place, so I can't complain too much.
It's got disability, queer, and POC representation and some of that is #OwnVoices, which is cool, although those dimensions of the work aren't its focus.
#AmReading

'Loyalty Enforcer' Laura Loomer Targets Additional Officials (New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/30/us/politics/laura-loomer-trump.html?unlocked_article_code=1.ak8.WrQ2.GKudRgC2udDR&smid=url-share
http://www.memeorandum.com/250731/p29#a250731p29

Vocalize: Lead Acquisition and User Engagement through Gamified Voice Competitions
Edvin Teskeredzic, Muamer Paric, Adna Sestic, Petra Fribert, Anamarija Lukac, Hadzem Hadzic, Kemal Altwlkany, Emanuel Lacic
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.20730

Vocalize: Lead Acquisition and User Engagement through Gamified Voice Competitions
This paper explores the prospect of creating engaging user experiences and collecting leads through an interactive and gamified platform. We introduce Vocalize, an end-to-end system for increasing user engagement and lead acquisition through gamified voice competitions. Using audio processing techniques and LLMs, we create engaging and interactive experiences that have the potential to reach a wide audience, foster brand recognition, and increase customer loyalty. We describe the system from a …

The Senate on Tuesday confirmed Emil Bove,
a top justice department official and former defense attorney for Donald Trump,
to a lifetime seat on a federal appeals court,
despite claims by whistleblowers that he advocated for ignoring court orders
“Like other individuals President Trump has installed in the highest positions of our government during his second term,
Mr Bove’s primary qualification appears to be his blind loyalty to this president,”
Dick Dur…

Weak Supervision Techniques towards Enhanced ASR Models in Industry-level CRM Systems
Zhongsheng Wang, Sijie Wang, Jia Wang, Yung-I Liang, Yuxi Zhang, Jiamou Liu
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.16843

Weak Supervision Techniques towards Enhanced ASR Models in Industry-level CRM Systems
In the design of customer relationship management (CRM) systems, accurately identifying customer types and offering personalized services are key to enhancing customer satisfaction and loyalty. However, this process faces the challenge of discerning customer voices and intentions, and general pre-trained automatic speech recognition (ASR) models make it difficult to effectively address industry-specific speech recognition tasks. To address this issue, we innovatively proposed a solution for fin…

JD.com: sales of the iPhone 17 series in the first minute after pre-orders opened in China surpassed the first-day pre-order volume of 2024's iPhone 16 series (Coco Feng/South China Morning Post)
https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article

Strong appetite for new iPhone in China as pre-orders break record
The numbers underscore Apple’s brand loyalty in China despite growing competition from the likes of Huawei, analysts say.

Pay the Price: Micah Parsons wants what he’s earned https://www.sportingnews.com/us/nfl/news/pay-price-micah-parsons-wants-what-hes-earned/787b3ac52ad19b2766ff7b83

The nomination of Emil Bove III to a federal appeals court
suggests that Donald Trump has a new prototype and a new agenda when it comes to the law:
Out with the eggheads and in with the street fighters.
His first-term judicial appointments transformed constitutional law on a range of subjects, like abortion and affirmative action.
In his first term, he served the conservative movement;
this time, the movement must serve him.
The president has staffed the…

Opinion | Trump’s Plans to Put Emil Bove on the Supreme Court
Trump wants his people calling the shots. And Bove has proved, above all, that he belongs to the president.

In the dishy new book
“2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America,”
Josh Dawsey, Tyler Pager and Isaac Arnsdorf describe how
Sergio Gor, a Trump aide who rose by publishing Trump’s coffee table books, created draconian loyalty tests during the transition.
It’s Trump's paradox:
If you choose your cabinet based on looks, you are likely to end up with a cabinet that makes you look bad.
Running government is harder than bloviatin…

Opinion | Trump’s Cabinet of Incompetents
Putting talking heads in charge — not the best idea.

#Drumpf demands US #AttorneyGeneral show loyalty to tyranny instead of #Constitution and prosecute his personal political foes in #DJT