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

ILoveDogs Since: May, 2010
#116076: Mar 16th 2016 at 8:09:09 AM

He's not-he's a moderate, leaning liberal. He is, however, sixty-three years old, a full decade older than the usual appointees.

CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#116077: Mar 16th 2016 at 8:10:30 AM

[up][up] Nope. He's a moderate democrat.

edited 16th Mar '16 8:10:49 AM by CaptainCapsase

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#116078: Mar 16th 2016 at 8:10:54 AM

I think it's one of those testing-the-waters offers. "Hey, here's a liberal leaning guy, but he's old enough that you might be able to replace him by whoever you elect in 2024. If you elect someone in 2024."

edited 16th Mar '16 8:11:22 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#116079: Mar 16th 2016 at 8:12:14 AM

[up] Maybe, or maybe Obama's given up on trying to compromise and intends to continue nominating candidates for the GOP to shoot down in order to highlight their obstructionism in the hopes that it'll cost them in the general election.

edited 16th Mar '16 8:12:55 AM by CaptainCapsase

darksidevoid Anti-Gnosis Weapon from The Frontiers (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: Robosexual
Anti-Gnosis Weapon
#116080: Mar 16th 2016 at 8:14:46 AM

(Rolling Stones) How the 'New York Times' Sandbagged Bernie Sanders: Online, we see both faces of the Gray Lady

Basically, NYT editors took an article that was a reasonably facts-oriented assessment of Sanders, and turned it into a series of back handed insult-compliments saying he's a basically a gadfly who doesn't actually get things done. After the article was already published.

Goddamnit, NYT, you're supposed to be a respectable journalistic institution, not the perpetrators of this kind of garbage. I feel awful for the original author of the article itself, though. Not that I'm highly versed in professional journalistic ethics, but aren't the reporting and opinion sections of newspapers supposed to stay separate, in the sense of not being able to interfere in one another's work to this extent?

GM: AGOG S4 & F/WC RP; Co-GM: TABA, SOTR, UUA RP; Sub-GM: TTS RP. I have brought peace, freedom, justice, and security to my new Empire.
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#116082: Mar 16th 2016 at 8:18:42 AM

[up][up][up] Obama is nothing if not a master at forcing Republicans to eat dirt for their own obstructionism.

[up][up] The days when journalistic integrity meant not spinning a story to suit your editorial preferences are basically imaginary, never having been reality except for a few rare cases.

edited 16th Mar '16 8:20:22 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
TheHandle United Earth from Stockholm Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
United Earth
#116083: Mar 16th 2016 at 8:21:06 AM

He had 8 years to develop the skill.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Hodor2 Since: Jan, 2015
#116084: Mar 16th 2016 at 8:28:39 AM

Funny RE that Sanders story- I remembered being confused since when I saw it on my feed in the morning, it was a positive story and then later on in the day, a negative one.

Demonic_Braeburn Yankee Doodle Dandy from Defective California Since: Jan, 2016
Yankee Doodle Dandy
#116085: Mar 16th 2016 at 8:38:14 AM

Donald Trump Announces He Will Skip Upcoming Fox News Debate: ‘Haven’t We Had Enough?’

John Kasich Won’t Attend Fox Debate If Trump Won’t.

Any group who acts like morons ironically will eventually find itself swamped by morons who think themselves to be in good company.
TotemicHero No longer a forum herald from the next level Since: Dec, 2009
No longer a forum herald
#116086: Mar 16th 2016 at 8:39:25 AM

So, wait, Ted Cruz will debate...himself?

Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)
CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#116087: Mar 16th 2016 at 8:44:15 AM

[up] They'll presumably retool the event into a town hall-esque sitdown event with Cruz, or just flat out cancel it.

Demonic_Braeburn Yankee Doodle Dandy from Defective California Since: Jan, 2016
Yankee Doodle Dandy
#116088: Mar 16th 2016 at 8:44:58 AM

[up][up] My money is on Cruz still somehow losing.

Any group who acts like morons ironically will eventually find itself swamped by morons who think themselves to be in good company.
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
SolipsistOwl Since: Jan, 2016
#116090: Mar 16th 2016 at 9:10:32 AM

Clinton ahead in Missouri, but race in limbo pending decision on a recount

Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton was ahead by a slim margin in Missouri on Wednesday, but the race remained in limbo pending word on whether rival Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont would seek a recount.

The delay postponed a definitive answer to whether Clinton had made a clean sweep of five big primaries on Tuesday night. Even if she does not prevail in Missouri, her other victories push her closer to the Democratic presidential nomination even as the considerably weakened Sanders vowed to press on with his insurgent campaign.

Clinton won big in Florida, North Carolina and Ohio, while claiming a narrower victory in Illinois. In Missouri, with 100 percent of precincts reporting, Clinton was ahead 310,602 votes to 309,071. With a difference of less than 1 percent, state officials held off calling the race. A recount is not automatic, but Sanders could request one.

An adviser to the Sanders campaign said that the senator plans to meet with top aides later Wednesday to discuss a number of issues, including the Missouri results. "As of now, there are no plans to to challenge anything," said the adviser, who requested anonymity to speak more freely about a decision that hasn't been finalized.

Medinoc from France (Before Recorded History)
#116091: Mar 16th 2016 at 9:15:30 AM

[up][up] and upwards: I guess this makes the "master debater" joke funnier.

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."
Kayeka (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#116092: Mar 16th 2016 at 9:23:04 AM

I guess it's smart for Trump to not do any more debates. He's already winning by a long shot, so debates would be nothing but an opportunity to stick his foot in his mouth someway.

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#116093: Mar 16th 2016 at 9:23:51 AM

Eh. He has demonstrated a total immunity to foot-in-mouth disease, so it's more a case of conserving his energy. The campaign trail has got to be taxing for a man who's not used to such things.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
TheWanderer Student of Story from Somewhere in New England (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: Wishfully thinking
Student of Story
#116094: Mar 16th 2016 at 9:32:02 AM

Unnoticed among all the other hullabaloo: Black Lives Matter had an effect at elections yesterday, by throwing out two prosecutors who were widely seen as mishandling police shootings of black men

There were two little-known but stunning upsets during the Super Tuesday II elections on March 15: Anita Alvarez lost her bid for reelection for state's attorney of Cook County, Illinois, and Tim McGinty lost his reelection bid for county prosecutor in Cuyahoga, County.

At face value, Alvarez's loss to Kim Foxx, a fellow Democrat, and McGinty's loss to Michael O'Malley, also both Democrats, may not seem like a huge deal. But both of the incumbents lost, in part, because the Black Lives Matter movement criticized them for mishandling and neglecting high-profile police shooting cases over the past few years.

Moreover, it's very rare for an incumbent prosecutor to actually lose a bid for reelection. About 95 percent of incumbent prosecutors won reelection, and 85 percent ran unopposed in general elections, according to data from nearly 1,000 elections between 1996 and 2006 analyzed by Ronald Wright of Wake Forest University School of Law.

Yet prosecutors are enormously powerful in the criminal justice system. They decide which laws will actually be enforced, with almost no checks on that power outside of elections. For instance, in 2014 Brooklyn District Attorney Kenneth Thompson announced that he will no longer enforce low-level marijuana arrests. Think about how this works: Pot is still very much illegal in New York, but the district attorney has flat-out said that he will ignore an aspect of the law — and it's completely within his discretion to do so.

...

Alvarez drew a serious challenge to her reelection bid after she failed for more than a year to prosecute the Chicago police officer who in October 2014 shot and killed 17-year-old Laquan McDonald. Only after a court forced authorities to in November 2015 release a video of the shooting did Alvarez, facing serious protests, decide to file charges.

McGinty, meanwhile, was challenged after he didn't land criminal charges against the Cleveland police officer who in 2014 shot and killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice or a conviction against a Cleveland police officer who in 2012 shot and killed Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams.

But as much as Alvarez and McGinty's records on police shootings mattered, they also played a big role in their local criminal justice systems during their time in office. Alvarez, for example, had an unusually tough-on-crime record for a Democrat — to the point that the Cook County Board president described her as "one of the people who had to be dragged kicking and screaming through this [criminal justice] reform process," as Jessica Pishko explained for the Nation.

Still, voters and lawmakers very rarely force prosecutors like Alvarez and McGinty to answer for their records — even as they play a key role in perpetuating the kind of mass incarceration that criminal justice reformers now want to end. But if the justice system is to really change, America will likely need more upsets like those in Cook and Cuyahoga counties.

edited 16th Mar '16 9:33:53 AM by TheWanderer

| Wandering, but not lost. | If people bring so much courage to this world...◊ |
SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#116095: Mar 16th 2016 at 9:37:55 AM

Well, about time. The way the race issue is being handled by law enforcement is an utter joke.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#116096: Mar 16th 2016 at 9:40:03 AM

[up][up] Interesting. I'm glad to see that happening.

edited 16th Mar '16 9:40:08 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
GameGuruGG Vampire Hunter from Castlevania (Before Recorded History)
Vampire Hunter
#116097: Mar 16th 2016 at 9:56:42 AM

[up] In effect, it gives huge ammo for elected attorneys to tell police who commit racially motivated killings where they can take and shove it. When it is a choice between the police's job on the line or the attorney's, the attorney is naturally going to favor their own job security over the police's.

edited 16th Mar '16 9:58:29 AM by GameGuruGG

Wizard Needs Food Badly
TheWanderer Student of Story from Somewhere in New England (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: Wishfully thinking
Student of Story
#116098: Mar 16th 2016 at 10:08:05 AM

Regardless, to my mind, the system as it exists now is blatantly stacked against the people. Prosecutors work with police every single day as part of their job, and in some cases will even know or have experience working with the cops who are getting grand juried in these cases. Furthermore, they know that they are almost certain to face blowback from police for aggressively prosecuting police misconduct. There's a massive conflict of interest built into the system right there, and in an ideal world I'd want to see it removed, perhaps by having a special Federal Unit of prosecutors whose only function is to review and investigate cases of police misconduct and shootings.

But at least this shows that citizens are willing to turn out to the polls and act as some sort of check on the actions of prosecutors.

| Wandering, but not lost. | If people bring so much courage to this world...◊ |
Luminosity Since: Jun, 2012 Relationship Status: Lovey-Dovey
#116099: Mar 16th 2016 at 10:09:31 AM

So what you're telling me is that Ace Attorney is actually semi-accurate in displaying just how much power and privilege prosecutors have over defense attorneys.

Ramidel Since: Jan, 2001
#116100: Mar 16th 2016 at 10:09:49 AM

Nice one.

And I think Garland was definitely a case of Obama strategically picking someone for maximum flipped bird value. Obama does have to give fucks where it may help Hillary inherit his throne - reminding the public that the Democratic Party is running against Congress too is a good move.

Still, I'd be kinda disappointed to see the guy on the Court in place of the better candidates.

@Luminosity: Here's a nice thought: Bernie probably strengthened Hillary a lot by challenging her in the primary, because now the Republicans can't run against her purely because her primary was a coronation. She had the odds in the bag going in, but Sanders made her work and sweat and fight for the nomination in such a way that she came out tested and without much new mud on her. (And most of us don't blame her for Schultz' antics, because she did her best to fight the DNC - if only because she knew she couldn't afford to be tainted by association with their bullshit.)

EDIT: And yeah. Defense counsel are seriously the prosecutor's bitches most of the time. Anecdotally, I once spoke with a former public defender who got fired because he took a case to trial and won the case, which embarrassed the prosecutor and thus pissed off his boss. Last I heard, he was still working defense counsel when he could, but he had to pick up a divorce practice because pro bono work doesn't pay the bills.

edited 16th Mar '16 10:13:05 AM by Ramidel


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