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
Not a good news Christmas story by any means; an 8-year old Guatemalan boy died in US Customs and Border Protection custody.
From initial details; looks like the kid had some sort of cold, and possibly had a reaction to the antibiotic he was given.
Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
Reading tropes such as You Know What You Did
Hello here there everywhere, Merry Christmas to all, Happy Holidays, Happy Hannukah, Happy Quanza, Navi Ramadan, if you don't get fanatical about the day take part anyone for friends and family who do. Have fun, be safe.
A little something like Christmas does not mean people slow down though, like Donald Trump saying the funniest thing I heard in a long long time by mentioning his voters and revolt: it's true, some think his voters are revolting, and he didn't even give us time to wonder how he could top it before he was the immature one in a phone call with a 7 year old.
Christmas doesn't mean Farron Cousions on the Burnin Ring O' Fire slows down either as there is a video, trigger warning for Trump supporters, and there's a transcript in the folder below. Just see if I remember how to embed again and let's a go.
"The second thing he's worried about in regards to low morale is that they're disloyal." (transcribers note: he's right to be concerned, been there done that, a Bad Boss will have their staff turn on them every day of the week) "Now, right there, you lost any goodwill you may have had about worrying about their morale and worried about your employees not liking their jobs, because you're not worried about them not liking their jobs because, oh, there's a human being suffering. No, you're worried about how it affects you and the future of your White House." (transcribers aside: no wonder he hates Christmas, they don't make this big a fuss over the story of baby Donald at the Trump House...then again they do, every day)
"That's what you're concerned about. You're concerned. People are disloyal. And third, according to the Wall Street Journal, he's also upset about the fact that all the coverage about him in the press is negative. Listen, buddy, no one in this country is entitled to positive press. If you want good reports on you, go do good things. Maybe stop using the military as a political prob, maybe stop pushing for a multibillion dollar wall that will do nothing to solve our immigration issues." (point of order from the transcriber: teargassing babies and throwing them in cells may make the likes of Stephen Colbert back off, just throwing it out there) "Maybe, just hear me out on this one, stop taking the sides of dictators who say climate change isn't real and start listening to scientists. That's another thing you did this week too, you took the side of Putin and Mohammed bin Salman and said, no, we don't agree with the harsh language in this climate change report. You took their side over the side of scientists you moron, but yeah, I understand why you are upset over low staff morale."
"First and foremost, you don't have enough staff to properly do the job and that's been the case since day one. The number of staffers in the White House is inadequate because they had not been able to find enough people, even low level people, and I don't mean that offensively, to just go there and do things and keep the day to day operations going. Now you're losing your chief of staff and you cannot find anyone to replace him. And really, can you blame him? Really? Who would want to walk into this? You know, let's even look at the best case scenario at this point for you. Not for your country obviously, but let's say you didn't actually do anything wrong. You did not break any laws. Let's say the Mueller report comes out and says you're squeaky clean. You've never done anything illegal in your life, Michael Cohen is lying about you being Individual One and you are free to go. Even if that were the case, who in their right mind hates themselves that much they would come into work as your Chief of Staff while you're sitting there screaming witch hunt, screaming at Democrats, insulting people on Twitter, insulting people in real life, working with two of the biggest liars in Washington including Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Kellyanne Conway, who wants to jump into the fray, not to mention that mustachioed John Bolton in your ear saying, war, war, war, war, war." (transcribers question: Does Trump wish the two weeks off will mean he can beat Kim Jong at golf were the game rigged or if he were real then maybe Ramsey Bolton could work as a Crooked Hillary supporter Hunter Killer?)
"Nobody wants to do that and can you blame them? Even some of the most horrible people you can imagine, they don't even want that job, because you're uncontrolable, you're irrational, and most important of all that best case scenario I just described, that has basically a zero chance of ever happening. Things in the White House are going to get so much worse in the White House and no one wants to captain the ship as it's going down."
Edited by tsstevens on Dec 26th 2018 at 1:40:44 AM
Currently reading up My Rule Fu Is Stronger than Yours![]()
That's kinda incorrect. Staffing will be cut by 95%. Most of the programs have enough money to last through January or February, while some only have a certain amount of money.
Here's the relevant passage:
As of Tuesday, the department website displayed a message stating, "Due to a lapse in federal funding, this USDA website will not be actively updated. Once funding has been re-established, online operations will continue."
Eligible households will still receive monthly SNAP benefits for January. But other domestic nutrition assistance programs such as the Commodity Supplemental Food Program, WIC, and the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations will only be operational based on available resources. Additional federal funds and commodities will not be provided during the shutdown.
Child nutrition programs including School Lunch, School Breakfast, Child and Adult Care Feeding, Summer Food Service and Special Milk will continue through February.
Edited by tclittle on Dec 25th 2018 at 12:24:23 PM
"We're all paper, we're all scissors, we're all fightin' with our mirrors, scared we'll never find somebody to love."![]()
![]()
While that is true, the lack of staffing will affect the ability for new applicants to be processed in a timely fashion. Having the funds available doesn't do much good if the workers aren't there to grant you access to it. (I'm not sure how much those workers also do related to ongoing cases, outside of renewal periods; I know most of it is automated once established, but surely there are workers involved somewhere, and if they happen to not be in that remaining 5%...)
In any event, this is going to generally slow things down a lot at the offices, and speaking from experience it's pretty slow there to begin with.
It's one of those things that illustrates Trump's claim of having the American poor behind him is false.
The poor know the Republicans are straight up trying to kill them all.
It's why ACA (despite all their efforts) is something no one wants to give up. Even the racist jackass murderhobo voters want to keep it.
They just want to keep it for white people.
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.Something potentially interesting, if neither groundbreaking nor even unexpected:
Did a Queens Podiatrist Help Donald Trump Avoid Vietnam?
The office where Dr. Larry Braunstein practiced podiatry in Jamaica, Queens. His daughters say he came to Donald J. Trump’s aid with a diagnosis of bone spurs during the Vietnam draft.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/26/us/politics/trump-vietnam-draft-exemption.html
For 50 years, the details of how the exemption came about, and who made the diagnosis, have remained a mystery, with Mr. Trump himself saying during the presidential campaign that he could not recall who had signed off on the medical documentation.
Now a possible explanation has emerged about the documentation. It involves a foot doctor in Queens who rented his office from Mr. Trump’s father, Fred C. Trump, and a suggestion that the diagnosis was granted as a courtesy to the elder Mr. Trump.
A unnecessarily alarmist, but still somewhat valid, op-ed in CNN on Global Instability -
https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/25/opinions/nic-robertson-2019-opinion-intl/index.html
With the 8-year-old who died in CBP custody, there is one Hope Spot as a result - the CBP will now be conducting mandatory medical checkups for every child (10 and under) in their custody
. So at least it seems they're taking the matter seriously, so... well, prize for basic decency there, though with the shutdown still ongoing it'll be "interesting" to see how it gets paid for.
And have a timeline of what occurred in this case
. As mentioned before, it seems likely that the culprit was an allergic reaction rather than maltreatment, and CBP even got the kid to a hospital before things went hard south. I doubt anything can be proven without an autopsy, though, and I can understand if his parents are none-too-keen on allowing it. And keep in mind that not every agent working in the CBP are monsters - those tend to be towards the top of the chain (e.g. Kirstjen Nielsen deciding to Blame The Victim by saying that it was the risk people ran crossing illegally) - and I wouldn't be surprised if the agent who drove the father and sick son to the hospital was torn up over it.
Edited by ironballs16 on Dec 26th 2018 at 3:30:47 PM
"Why would I inflict myself on somebody else?"And in other news, Russia has apparently successfully tested another hypersonic weapon
, this one capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. So I can't help but wonder if, given their focus on sonic weaponry of late, if they weren't the likely culprits for the Cuban embassy ailments.
We've tracked and confirmed the failure of one of their hypersonic missile tests before and the success of this one has yet to be confirmed by Western sources to my knowledge.
Regardless as a tool for use in strategic level nuclear warfare it's completely irrelevant. MAD remains unaffected.
Oh really when?
One of the major affiliates (I think CBS) had been informed of reports from May 2016 in which the Russian government tested the same (or similar) weapon successfully.
Edit: Ah, from an embed in the article, CNBC was informed back in May
that Russia had conducted two successful tests of a similar weapon back in 2016. So I conflated a few bits of information. The most recent weapon, though, has only just succeeded - it failed in October 2017.
Edited by ironballs16 on Dec 26th 2018 at 4:17:55 AM
"Why would I inflict myself on somebody else?"School shootings so common that one place has sympathy cards made for said shootings.
This was done to bring awareness, but still, I am not even surprised anymore.
Remember, these idiots drive, fuck, and vote. Not always in that order.

Please move on from this. In the future, if you feel that someone is trolling the thread, then the appropriate thing to do is holler a mod, not discuss in-thread and engender a derail.