Nov 2023 Mod notice:
There may be other, more specific, threads about some aspects of US politics, but this one tends to act as a hub for all sorts of related news and information, so it's usually one of the busiest OTC threads.
If you're new to OTC, it's worth reading the Introduction to On-Topic Conversations
and the On-Topic Conversations debate guidelines
before posting here.
Rumor-based, fear-mongering and/or inflammatory statements that damage the quality of the thread will be thumped. Off-topic posts will also be thumped. Repeat offenders may be suspended.
If time spent moderating this thread remains a distraction from moderation of the wiki itself, the thread will need to be locked. We want to avoid that, so please follow the forum rules
when posting here.
In line with the general forum rules, 'gravedancing' is prohibited here. If you're celebrating someone's death or hoping that they die, your post will get thumped. This rule applies regardless of what the person you're discussing has said or done.
Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
That basically summarized my entire point, Thank you!
The awful things he says and does are burned into our cultural consciousness like a CRT display left on the same picture too long. -Fighteerhttps://whatthefuckjusthappenedtoday.com/2018/10/18/day-637/
Day 637: Personal commitments.
1/ Mike Pompeo said the U.S. will give Saudi Arabia "a few more days" to investigate the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi while the Trump administration and the Saudi royal family look for an explanation that doesn't implicate Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Pompeo said the Saudis could be trusted to "conduct a complete, thorough investigation," because they "made a personal commitment to me, and the Crown Prince also made a personal commitment to the president." Asked if his administration was trying to give the Saudis room to come up with an explanation absolving Mohammed, Trump said: "I'm not giving cover at all. They are an ally." (NBC News / Washington Post / Politico / CNN)
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/10/18/pompeo-trump-khashoggi-investigation-912530
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will not attend next week's investment conference in Saudi Arabia after talking with Trump and Pompeo. (CNBC / Wall Street Journal / Politico / Washington Post / New York Times)
Republican lawmakers are threatening to sanction and end arms sales to the Saudis, despite Trump's objection to canceling a $110 billion arms deal. He claims the deal would create 500,000 U.S. jobs. Additionally, a bipartisan group of senators have invoked the 2016 Magnitsky Act, giving the administration 120 days to respond to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about potential sanctions against officials responsible for human rights violations. (Bloomberg)
The U.S. received $100 million from Saudi Arabia the same day Mike Pompeo arrived in Riyadh to discuss Khashoggi's disappearance. Saudi Arabia publicly pledged the payment to support U.S. stabilization efforts in northeastern Syria in August, but the timing of the transfer raised questions about a potential payoff as Riyadh tries to manage the fallout over Khashoggi's disappearance. (Washington Post)
2/ U.S. intelligence agencies are confident that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was involved in the disappearance and murder of Jamal Khashoggi. While spy agencies haven't been able to collect direct evidence about whether Mohammed ordered the killing of Khashoggi or if his intention was to have Khashoggi captured and taken back to Saudi Arabia, circumstantial evidence points to the prince's involvement. (New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/17/world/middleeast/pompeo-khashoggi-murder.html
3/ A frequent companion of Saudi Arabia's crown prince entered the country's consulate in Istanbul hours before Khashoggi arrived. Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb was also seen outside the Saudi consul general's home, leaving a Turkish hotel with a large suitcase, and leaving Istanbul — all in the same day. (New York Times)
One of the 15 suspects in the alleged murder of Khashoggi died in a "suspicious traffic accident." Mashal Saad al-Bostani was a member of the Saudi Royal Air Force and one of the 15 suspects who landed in Istanbul on Oct. 2 – the day that Khashoggi disappeared – and left the same day after visiting the Saudi consulate. (Yeni Safak / Business Insider / New York Post)
At least nine of 15 suspects identified by Turkish authorities worked for the Saudi security services, military or other government ministries. (New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/16/world/middleeast/khashoggi-saudi-prince.html
4/ Aras Agalarov formed a U.S. shell company a month before the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Trump Jr. and Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Kremlin-linked Russian attorney offering damaging information about Hillary Clinton. The Russian billionaire moved almost $20 million to a U.S. bank account 11 days after the meeting using a company he formed anonymously with the help of an accountant who has had clients accused of money laundering and embezzlement. (The Guardian)
📌 The Re-up: Day 601. Federal investigators are looking into a series of suspicious financial transactions involving people who attended the 2016 Trump Tower meeting. The transfers reveal how Aras Agalarov, a Russian billionaire with strong ties to Trump and Putin, used overseas accounts to distribute money through a web of banks to himself, his son, and at least two people who attended the meeting. Investigators are focusing on two bursts of activity: one occurring shortly before the Trump Tower meeting and one immediately after the 2016 election. (Buzz Feed News / The Hill)
Notables.
Don Mc Gahn is out as White House counsel. Mc Gahn planned to leave the White House this fall, but his exit was expedited after Trump announced Patrick Cipollone as his successor. Cippollone served as a Justice Department lawyer under the George H.W. Bush administration. (CNN / New York Times)
https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/17/politics/mcgahn-leaving-white-house-council/index.html
👋 Who The Fuck Has Left The Trump Administration. A timeline of all the departures so far… (WTF Just Happened Today Community Forum)
https://talk.whatthefuckjusthappenedtoday.com/t/who-the-fuck-has-left-the-trump-administration/908
Trump threatened to deploy the military to the U.S.-Mexico border and upend the reworked trade deal with Mexico and Canada if Central American countries don't stop a convoy of Honduran migrants making its way toward the U.S. (Bloomberg / The Guardian / Washington Post)
Robert Mueller is pushing Paul Manafort to provide information about Roger Stone, who may have communicated with Julian Assange or Wiki Leaks about releasing hacked emails from Hillary Clinton's campaign. Manafort agreed to cooperate with the special counsel as part of pleading guilty to two counts of conspiracy. He is also awaiting sentencing on 18 counts of financial crimes. (ABC News)
Trump's lawyers called a sexual assault lawsuit by a former "The Apprentice" contestant "meritless" and "politically-motivated." Summer Zervos alleges that Trump groped and kissed her without her consent in 2007. (ABC News)
The Trump Organization sued the estate of a man who died in a Trump Tower apartment fire for $90,000 in unpaid maintenance fees. (NBC News)
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/trump-organization-sues-dead-man-s-estate-90-000-n921586
![]()
I’ll note that there is some question of exactly how bad gentrification is for people. In New York City and Oakland some studies have shown that low income people in gentrifying neighborhoods are actually less likely to move than those in regular low income neighborhoods, though it seems to depend on the neighborhood. Another noteworthy point is that if a low income family is able to stick it out in a gentrifying neighborhood they seem to do much better financially afterwards.
Edited by archonspeaks on Oct 18th 2018 at 12:36:58 PM
They should have sent a poet.In sad news, the illegal immigrant whose body was found and son went missing in NY back in June? They recently found a shallow grave with a 1-year-old's remains nearby
, which was overlooked because of vegetation and a cow carcass confusing the tracking hounds.
And the reason it's worth mentioning here is best summarized in this article
, which points out that 911 calls regarding domestic violence from illegal immigrants have an unfortunate tendency to get ICE called in instead, leaving the abused to weigh the options of quietly accepting the abuse or run the risk of getting arrested and deported. While the Wayne County sheriff, Barry Virts, has been open about how his office does not pull that shit, there are documented cases where an abuse victim had ICE show up even before the cops do - and yes, in New York State.
From a couple pages back:
Well, even the most recent game was pretty on-the-nose with it. Aside from the advertising, there was this exchange in Area 52 between two Nazi soldiers about how the violent resistance was just making things worse and how it'd be better if they just talked things out - before gleefully mentioning that they hope to serve in a New Orleans eradication unit together.
Edited by ironballs16 on Oct 18th 2018 at 3:52:03 PM
"Why would I inflict myself on somebody else?"
Though it averts the whole neo-nazi crisis we have and focuses more on the traditional German/Germanic Nazis that we all know and fought in all those World War II shooters. They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot, indeed.
Most Americans in a pretty specific geographic area were of Germanic descent in a specific timeframe.
Germanic heritage is nowhere near the majority even among white people. I'm not even sure it's plurality at this point given how intermixed everyone is.
Also no, German was never considered to be any sort of official language in any capacity.
Shit I don't even think that happened at a local level.
Edited by LeGarcon on Oct 18th 2018 at 4:21:50 AM
Oh really when?https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/18/politics/jason-chaffetz-warren/index.html
Former GOP rep poses with wooden Native American statue to mock Elizabeth Warren
"At Disneyland today with Senator Elizabeth Warren," Chaffetz, now a Fox News contributor, wrote in a post on Twitter and Instagram.
x11 I don't know if it's the same one in the article, but Mexico already stopped a convoy a couple days ago after Trump made his initial round of threats. Though the President-in-Waiting has pledged not to 'do the U.S. Presdident's dirty work.'
Just checked. Pretty sure it's the same one.
Edited by kkhohoho on Oct 18th 2018 at 3:44:53 AM
There were areas with large German immigrants populations in the 1800's, enough so that there were German language newspapers in some cities and towns. During the Civil War whole regiments were formed from these immigrants that spoke mostly German all the time.
In one of those odd twists of history, many of these people had been driven out of Germany after supporting the failed republican revolutions of the 1840's. So when a bunch of aristocratic slavers down south tried to destroy the Union, they weren't about to let history repeat itself and signed up en masse to defend the "New Fatherland."
It's a myth, but the immigration wave from Germany was overall so large, most Americans should have some German ancestors somewhere in their blood line. Remember, there was one big wave in the early days of America, due to Germans being a really poor peasant folk (how times can change), so poor, that sometimes whole villages went to the "new world",and then there was a second wave by liberals and people of Jewish decent (if they were let in the country) before and during and even shortly after WWII.
So, yeah, originally there were large pockets of German speakers in the US. They mostly "vanished" because it wasn't really a good idea to show off your "germaness" during WWI and WWII.
Re that ICE story, that's been a concern for some time although Bush and Obama kept much tighter rein on that lot. If memory serves, in Switzerland a lot of immigrants who became victims of sexual assault don't go to the police out of such fear as well so it ain't just the US.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard FeynmanBreaking: Apparently Bolton and Kelly got into a shouting match (over the border and those dreaded migrant caravans) in the West Wing, and there are fears that a resignation may be coming.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/18/politics/john-kelly-john-bolton-immigration/index.html
Trump took Bolton's side, which is bad because Bolton is one of the worst insiders in the entire GOP realm.
Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.I’m using the NYT mobile app, so I’m not sure how to get a link, but apparently, Trump finally acknowledged that Khashoggi was assassinated. His statement was surprisingly cohearant, actually, even if he stopped short of blaming the Prince.
It's pretty sad for someone else who is a minority like Chaffetz (he's Jewish) to make fun of someone else for their ethnicity like Warren. The Republicans' capacity for being intimidated by an "other" is vast. Which is ironic considering all the harping they do about "safe spaces" and people being too easily offended (dog whistle for people being offended at all) when some of them are the most butthurt and overly sensitive people around today.
Do not obey in advance.

On the balance, gentrification is good for cities but bad for people. The issue now is finding a way to get the benefits without the drawbacks.
Edited by archonspeaks on Oct 18th 2018 at 12:24:33 PM
They should have sent a poet.