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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM

DrunkenNordmann from Exile Since: May, 2015
#263426: Dec 3rd 2018 at 9:04:11 AM

[up] "Lobster Daddy" sounds like something his fans (who often call themselves lobsters) might call him.

And also vaguely sexual, so no thanks. :/

We learn from history that we do not learn from history
smokeycut Since: Mar, 2013
#263427: Dec 3rd 2018 at 9:05:27 AM

...I'm just waiting for someone to link a Contrapoints video at this point. We've just covered three of her recent video topics (Shapiro, climate change, and Jordan Peterson) in about one page.

MrHellboy The Shadow from A world of my own Since: Dec, 2017 Relationship Status: Yes, I'm alone, but I'm alone and free
The Shadow
#263428: Dec 3rd 2018 at 9:20:46 AM

Well, how can you not love Contra Points? She is amazing

It was her that put me on the path from approaching anti-SJW to full blown social justice warrior

The hardest thing in this world is to live in it.
Ultimatum Disasturbator from the Amiga Forest (Old as dirt) Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Disasturbator
#263429: Dec 3rd 2018 at 9:33:38 AM

Out of interest,has it been established why those in the Migrant caravan decided to charge the boarder?I assume there's a reason anyway

Edited by Ultimatum on Dec 3rd 2018 at 9:35:40 AM

have a listen and have a link to my discord server
kkhohoho (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#263430: Dec 3rd 2018 at 10:10:32 AM

[up]Mostly it was because their applications were taking too long to be processed and they just couldn't take it anymore.

Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#263431: Dec 3rd 2018 at 10:40:15 AM

[up][up] And while they were waiting, Mexico started to deport them. So....Yeah, they were basically caught between a rock and a hard place.

3of4 Just a harmless giant from a foreign land. from Five Seconds in the Future. Since: Jan, 2010 Relationship Status: GAR for Archer
Just a harmless giant from a foreign land.
#263432: Dec 3rd 2018 at 10:48:09 AM

Rudy Giuliani made a tweet that may get him fired.

"Mueller filed an indictment just as the President left for http://G-20.In July he indicted the Russians who will never come here just before he left for Helsinki.Either could have been done earlier or later. Out of control!Supervision please?"

For why? http://G-20.In leads to a black page just saying 'Donald J Trump is a traitor to our country.'

"You can reply to this Message!"
Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#263433: Dec 3rd 2018 at 10:50:03 AM

I mean, it could just be a mistake, and it happened Friday. Trump's impulsive firings are usually pretty quick, as opposed to the planned ones he has Kelly do.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
Deadbeatloser22 from Disappeared by Space Magic (Great Old One) Relationship Status: Tsundere'ing
#263434: Dec 3rd 2018 at 10:50:07 AM

More likely someone spotted he'd made that typo and Twitter auto-created the link and sniped the domain name.

"Yup. That tasted purple."
Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#263435: Dec 3rd 2018 at 10:52:25 AM

Also that. Still, someone out there deserves a beer.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
Ultimatum Disasturbator from the Amiga Forest (Old as dirt) Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Disasturbator
#263437: Dec 3rd 2018 at 11:18:51 AM

> [up][up] And while they were waiting, Mexico started to deport them. So....Yeah, they were basically caught between a rock and a hard place.

Could have sworn Mexico was deporting them after the charge took place

Edited by Ultimatum on Dec 3rd 2018 at 11:19:06 AM

have a listen and have a link to my discord server
TheRoguePenguin Since: Jul, 2009
#263438: Dec 3rd 2018 at 11:20:06 AM

I found it funnier that he quoted the "sound and fury" line, but forgot the last word.

CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#263439: Dec 3rd 2018 at 12:35:09 PM

Any good place to get a objective (as in not Trump) view of the caravan, it's history, and what's going on with it?

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Friendperson Since: May, 2018
#263440: Dec 3rd 2018 at 1:59:06 PM

[up] CNN, Wa PO, NYT, maybe a Texas or other border state news platform.

ironballs16 Since: Jul, 2009 Relationship Status: Owner of a lonely heart
#263441: Dec 3rd 2018 at 2:04:06 PM

Incidentally, Wednesday has been declared a National Day of Mourning for George H.W. Bush, and as such a lot of government services will be shut down for the occasion.

"Why would I inflict myself on somebody else?"
SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#263442: Dec 3rd 2018 at 2:15:03 PM

How many folks of the "GI Generation" are left?

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Parable Since: Aug, 2009
#263443: Dec 3rd 2018 at 3:37:55 PM

A little under 500,000 in the US. At the rate they're leaving us, the Greatest Generation will be gone by 2025.

MarqFJA The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer from Deserts of the Middle East (Before Recorded History) Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
#263444: Dec 3rd 2018 at 4:43:54 PM

The CIA, like every other federal agency, does good ever day by keeping our government stable and running.
I feel like this statement needs to be qualified by "from foreign threats", because otherwise it assumes the CIA is doing the job of several other government bodies and services.

Edited by MarqFJA on Dec 3rd 2018 at 3:44:33 PM

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.
archonspeaks Since: Jun, 2013
#263445: Dec 3rd 2018 at 4:56:55 PM

[up] Is protection from foreign threats not part of keeping the government stable and running? I'm not sure where there's an implication the CIA is doing other agency's jobs.

They should have sent a poet.
Protagonist506 from Oregon Since: Dec, 2013 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
#263446: Dec 3rd 2018 at 5:00:32 PM

@archonspeaks: To be fair, "keeping the government stable" is the job of a lot of agencies. The CIA is the agency which keeps the government stable by protecting it from foreign threats (and even more specifically, by providing intel on said threats).

Leviticus 19:34
wisewillow She/her Since: May, 2011
She/her
#263447: Dec 3rd 2018 at 5:02:26 PM

The CIA also has a long and glorious history of doing very, very nasty things to prop up or install dictators. See: Iran-Contra, South and Central American politics in general in the 1900s.

Edited by wisewillow on Dec 3rd 2018 at 8:04:02 AM

sgamer82 Since: Jan, 2001
#263448: Dec 3rd 2018 at 5:04:35 PM

https://whatthefuckjusthappenedtoday.com/2018/12/03/day-683/

     Day 683: Compromised 
1/ Trump called for a "full and complete" sentence for Michael Cohen after his former lawyer asked to not be sent to prison. Cohen's lawyers argued that his cooperation with Robert Mueller warranted a sentence of "time-served." Cohen was also in "close and regular contact" with White House staff and Trump's legal team while preparing his statement to Congress about Trump's efforts to build a Trump Tower in Moscow during the 2016 campaign. In seeking leniency, Cohen's attorneys claim his false statement to Congress was based on Trump and his team's attempts to paint interactions with Russian representatives "as having effectively terminated before the Iowa caucuses of February 1, 2016." Cohen's attorneys, however, say he had a "lengthy substantive conversation with the personal assistant to a Kremlin official following his outreach in January 2016, engaged in additional communications concerning the project as late as June 2016, and kept [Trump] apprised of these communications." Cohen is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 12 after pleading guilty to tax evasion, making false statements to a bank, campaign finance violations, and lying to Congress. Trump tweeted that all of those charges were "unrelated to Trump." (Reuters /Politico / Washington Post / Bloomberg)

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-idUSKBN1O222F

Cohen believed Trump would offer him a pardon if he stayed on message during conversations with federal prosecutors. That was before Cohen implicated Trump under oath in the illegal hush-money scheme with Stormy Daniels, which could be used as part of Mueller's obstruction of justice probe in determining whether Trump tried to illegally influence a witness in the investigation. (CNN)

https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/30/politics/michael-cohen-pardon-expectation-donald-trump/index.html

Trump's lawyers want Stormy Daniels to pay their $340,000 legal bill they claim they earned after successfully defending Trump against her frivolous defamation claim. (Associated Press)

https://apnews.com/83f9bb9ee60c490cbcc840c9592562b0

2/ Trump praised Roger Stone for not cooperating with Mueller, tweeting that it's "nice to know that some people still have 'guts!'" Stone said Sunday that there's "no circumstance in which I would testify against the president." Stone has denied multiple times that he knew Wiki Leaks was going to release hacked emails from Hillary Clinton's campaign. (Politico / Axios)

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/12/03/trump-roger-stone-has-guts-1038787

3/ Kellyanne Conway's husband accused Trump of witness tampering after Trump praised Stone for vowing to never testify against him. "Witness tampering: File under '18 U.S.C. §§ 1503, 1512,'" George Conway wrote, listing the federal criminal statute about "tampering with a witness, victim, or an informant." (New York Post)

https://nypost.com/2018/12/03/trump-accused-of-witness-tampering-over-roger-stone-tweet/

4/ The top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee said the committee has made "a number of referrals" to Mueller's office for prosecution. Sen. Mark Warner added that while he doesn't know whether Cohen was instructed to lie to Congress, Cohen's plea contradicts Trump's multiple denials during the campaign that he did not have any business links to Russia. Warner called it a "very relevant question that the American people need an answer to." (CBS News)

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mark-warner-on-face-the-nation-says-the-senate-intelligence-committee-has-made-a-number-of-referrals-to-mueller/

The incoming chairman of the House Judiciary Committee: Cohen's cooperation is proof that Russia had "leverage" over Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign. "The fact that he was lying to the American people about doing business in Russia and the Kremlin knew he was lying gave the Kremlin a hold over him," Rep. Jerry Nadler said. "One question we have now is, does the Kremlin still have a hold over him because of other lies that they know about?"(NBC News)

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/first-read/incoming-house-judiciary-chair-says-cohen-cooperation-proof-russian-leverage-n942711

The leading Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee: Cohen's cooperations confirms that "the president and his business are compromised." According to Rep. Adam Schiff, "there is now testimony, there is now a witness, who confirms that in the same way Michael Flynn was compromised, that the president and his business are compromised." Cohen admitted to misleading investigators about the Trump Organization's efforts to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. "[W]hat the president was saying," Schiff added, "what Michael Cohen was saying and others were saying about when this business deal ended was not true. And what's more, the Russians knew it wasn’t true." He continued: "It means that the president, whether he won or lost, was hoping to make money from Russia, was seeking at the same time to enlist the support of the Kremlin to make that money." (ABC News)

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/top-house-intel-committee-democrat-trump-business-compromised/story?id=59546876

James Comey agreed to testify to Congress about the FBI's investigations during the 2016 campaign as long as lawmakers release the full transcript of his testimony within 24 hours. Comey and his attorney filed a legal challenge last week to the Republican-led effort to compel him to testify. His attorney argued that the legal action was "to prevent the Joint Committee from using the pretext of a closed interview to peddle a distorted, partisan political narrative about the Clinton and Russian investigations through selective leaks." As part of the deal, Comey will be free to make all or part of his testimony available to the public. (NBC News / Reuters / ABC News / New York Times)

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-congress-comey-idUSKBN1O10LY

5/ The CIA has "medium-to-high confidence" that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman "personally targeted" Jamal Khashoggi and "probably ordered his death." Prince Mohammed sent at least 11 messages to his closest adviser, Saud al-Qahtani, who supervised the 15-man team that killed Khashoggi, in the hours before and after the journalist's death in October. The leak of the intelligence report has infuriated Gina Haspel, the CIA director. In August 2017, Prince Mohammed told associates that if he couldn't persuade Khashoggi to return to Saudi Arabia, then "we could possibly lure him outside Saudi Arabia and make arrangements," according to the CIA assessment. (Wall Street Journal / New York Times)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/02/us/politics/crown-prince-mohammed-qahtani-intercepts.html

poll/ 46% of voters approve of Trump's job performance – up from his October numbers, when 44% approved of the job Trump was doing as president. 54% don't approve. (The Hill)

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/419470-president-trumps-approval-rating-improves-slightly-to-46-percent-poll

Notables.

Trump intends to formally notify Canada and Mexico of his intention to withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement in six months in order to force Congress to pass his new trade deal. Trump is using the threat of disrupting the entire North American economy to get the deal passed. (Politico)

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/12/02/trump-trade-canada-mexico-1006164

The U.S. and China agreed to hold off on new tariffs. Trump agreed to postpone a plan to raise tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods, while the Chinese agreed to an unspecified increase in their purchases of American industrial, energy and agricultural products. Trump and President Xi Jinping, however, remain far apart on basic trade policy issues and neither show signs of backing down on their demands. (New York Times)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/01/world/trump-xi-g20-merkel.html

All of the world leaders at the G20 Summit in Argentina — except for Trump — released a joint statement reaffirming their commitment to fighting climate change. The U.S. did join a separate portion of the communique that focused on energy and the role it plays in shaping the future of the planet. (Axios)

https://www.axios.com/g20-leaders-pledge-fight-climate-change-except-trump-39bd120b-ae64-422e-b563-d8424a88a19e.html

The House and Senate plan to vote this week to push the government shutdown deadline back two weeks and delay a fight over Trump's border wall until right before Christmas. Congress has until Friday to approve a funding extension before funding for the federal government runs out. (Politico / CNBC / CNN / Washington Post)

https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/03/politics/government-shutdown-congress-border-wall/index.html

Trump and Putin had an "informal" meeting at the G20 Summit. "As is typical at multilateral events," said Sarah Huckabee Sanders, "President Trump and the First Lady had a number of informal conversations with world leaders at the dinner last night, including President Putin." Trump previously canceled a formal meeting with Putin over Russia's recent seizure of Ukrainian ships and the detention of their crews. "I answered his questions about the incident in the Black Sea," said Putin. "He has his position. I have my own. We stayed in our own positions." (The Hill / Fox News)

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/419274-white-house-trump-had-informal-conversation-with-putin-at-g-20?__twitter_impression=true

Protagonist506 from Oregon Since: Dec, 2013 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
#263449: Dec 3rd 2018 at 5:07:32 PM

The CIA is a (rightly) controversial-and mysterious-organization. It's done a considerable amount of good and bad. IIRC it's actually done some pretty nice work with things like helping dissidents in North Korea find places where they're safe from their government's view.

So the actual morality of the CIA is probably something like Lawful Neutral. It depends on who's running what at which time.

Leviticus 19:34
archonspeaks Since: Jun, 2013
#263450: Dec 3rd 2018 at 5:10:02 PM

[up][up][up][up] I mean, ultimately every agency serves the goal of government stability, from a big one like the CIA right down to a municipal sanitation department. The whole thing wouldn't work without all of them.

The point of that post was to illustrate that the CIA serves a purpose just like every other government agency.

Edited by archonspeaks on Dec 3rd 2018 at 5:11:20 AM

They should have sent a poet.

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