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

Raptorslash Since: Oct, 2010
#239201: Apr 18th 2018 at 12:21:29 AM

IIRC, Putin found a loophole in the constitution and runs for his alloted term, swaps out with a stooge who he rules through, and then runs again and wins.

BlueNinja0 The Mod with the Migraine from Taking a left at Albuquerque Since: Dec, 2010 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
The Mod with the Migraine
#239202: Apr 18th 2018 at 3:36:53 AM

Did he write this tweet you think?

Pastor Andrew Brunson, a fine gentleman and Christian leader in the United States, is on trial and being persecuted in Turkey for no reason. They call him a Spy, but I am more a Spy than he is. Hopefully he will be allowed to come home to his beautiful family where he belongs!

I've seen defenses of Brunson from people I trust, so whether or not Trump wrote the tweet, for once it's not something I'm inclined to bash the guy for.

I read a brief synopsis about a radio show detailing a town in Michigan where it is literally against the law for a non-Christian to own property. Honestly surprised Pence or Trump himself haven't tweeted in support of the town or bashed the ACLU for challenging it. Full article text 

The resort community of Bay View is nestled on the shore of Lake Michigan.

It is picturesque, but divided.

Bay View requires that to own a home there, you must be a practicing Christian and that a pastor or church leader must verify that you are a church-goer.

That rule has resulted in a lawsuit that argues it's discriminatory and violates the First Amendment, the Federal Fair Housing Act, along with Michigan's Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act.

Sarah Prescott, a founding partner at Salvatore Prescott & Porter, and Dick Crossland, a longtime Bay View resident, joined Stateside to bring us both sides of the issue.

Prescott filed the civil rights and religious discrimination lawsuit on behalf of the Bay View Chautauqua Inclusiveness Group against the Bay View Association of the United Methodist Church. Crossland is seeking to preserve the membership rules.

Here are some facts on each side of this case:

  • Prescott said some of her clients on this case have shared stories of being unable to pass down their Bay View homes to non-practicing children or spouses in their wills. This is an “obvious First Amendment problem," she said.
  • Crossland said Bay View residents joined the community "knowing that those were the requirements and that they're very important requirements." Residents, he said, are familiar with the Christian mission and bylaws of the town.
  • Prescott said the town is currently operating as both a state and religious entity. "You can't have both," she said.
  • Crossland said if the town becomes a "quasi-government entity," then they'll have to end religious programs. "The religious program area, which a lot of us consider to be the strongest and most important of the four program areas, would completely be gone, and I think that is throwing the baby out with the bathwater," he said.
Full conversation via the link.

That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - Silasw
NoName999 Since: May, 2011
#239203: Apr 18th 2018 at 3:59:53 AM

So Russian crime bosses ran operations from Cohen's uncle's club for decades

In today’s podcast, we look into the background of Michael Cohen. TPM first reported last year that Cohen was actually a childhood friend of Felix Sater, whose father was himself a reputed capo in the Mogilevich organized crime syndicate, said to be Russia’s largest and most dangerous. Filling out this picture of how Cohen fell into this milieu we’ve always been focused on the fact that Cohen’s uncle, Morton Levine, owned and ran a Brooklyn social club, El Caribe, which was a well-known meeting spot for members of Italian and Russian organized crime families in the 1970s and 1980s. (Levine, a medical doctor has never been charged with a crime.) But now it turns out there’s a bit more to this story.

I came across this in a January AP article about Boris Nayfeld, one-time organized crime boss in Brooklyn who now wants to go home to Russia to start a new life. Nayfeld is 70 and he just finished his latest prison sentence. The whole story is a bit low energy and a sad sack in a nonetheless menacing and predatory way.

According to published reports, in the 70s and early 80s, the boss of the Russian mob in New York (and for practical purposes the whole U.S) was a man named Evsei Agron. Things ended badly for Agron when was gunned down in a mob hit in 1985. After Agron was assassinated, his organization was taken over by under-boss Marat Balagula. Authorities believed Balagula was behind Agron’s killing. But he was never charged with the crime. Balagula ran things until 1991 when he was convicted of gasoline bootlegging. Nayfeld had been the bodyguard and enforcer for both Agron and Balagula, one would say more successfully in the latter case than the former. He took over the organization when Balagula went to prison.

What I didn’t realize until now is that both Agron and his successor Balagula ran their operations out of an office in the El Caribe social club. So the El Caribe wasn’t just a mob hangout. From the 70s through the 90s at least, the bosses of the Russian mafia in the U.S. literally ran their crime organization out of the El Caribe.

So Michael Cohen’s uncle Morton Levine’s social club was the headquarters of Russian organized crime in the U.S.

BlueNinja0 The Mod with the Migraine from Taking a left at Albuquerque Since: Dec, 2010 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
The Mod with the Migraine
#239204: Apr 18th 2018 at 5:11:52 AM

We've discussed it before, but the GOP is trying harder to get coal baron Blankenship to drop out of the West Virginia primary. Full article text 

Fearing another Alabama-like disaster, Republicans are upping their efforts to prevent an ex-con coal baron from becoming their Senate nominee in West Virginia next month—going from silence and snubs to barely concealed subterfuge.

A newly formed super PAC with ties to the GOP establishment is spending nearly $700,000 on attack ads against Don Blankenship, the former Massey Energy CEO who spent a year in prison in connection with an explosion that killed 29 men at one of his West Virginia mines in 2010. Republicans are afraid that conviction will be enough to tank Blankenship in a general election, spoiling the party’s chances of defeating Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin this fall in a state Trump won by more than 40 percentage points in 2016.

The 30-second spots, which began airing in the state late last week, accuse Massey Energy of contaminating local drinking water with “toxic coal slurry,” all while Blankenship pumped clean water into his own mansion. “Isn’t there enough toxic sludge in Washington?” the narrator says. (The company reached a settlement with hundreds of West Virginia residents in 2011, but it did not admit any wrongdoing as part of the settlement.)

Notably, the GOP tried to put some distance between itself and the attack. The group behind it, Mountain Families PAC, was created late last month as a standalone entity. But it didn’t take reporters long to connect the dots. The Charleston Gazette-Mail noticed almost immediately that the address the group gave to the FEC was a P.O. Box in Arlington, Virginia, and that its treasurer previously worked for the National Republican Congressional Committee. Politico then reported additional ties to Senate Republicans over the weekend.

The covert attack comes as Republicans have spent months trying to figure out how to derail Blankenship’s campaign. They fear that if they attack him directly, they’ll only boost his anti-establishment bona fides in a possible repeat of what happened in Alabama last year, when Donald Trump and national Republicans tried and failed to stop Roy Moore from getting the nomination. Moore won anyway, and then promptly lost the general election after damning allegations about his conduct with teenage girls.

Earlier this month, the White House attempted to thread the needle in West Virginia by having the president snub Blankenship during an official visit to the state. Flanked by Blankenship’s two rivals—state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey and U.S. Rep. Evan Jenkins—Trump praised both men but made sure to not to mention Blankenship. Passive-aggressive attacks might not be enough to derail Blankenship, who is spending big on campaign ads that pledge allegiance to Trump and also offering a similar conspiracy- and persecution-themed pitch to voters.

Blankenship maintains that he was merely a “political prisoner” in the Obama administration’s war on coal and an innocent victim of a Benghazi-style cover-up. When he first jumped into the race last fall, many wondered whether his motivation was less about the Senate and more about rehabbing his image after getting out of prison. But with only three weeks to go until the primary, Blankenship has emerged as a top contender in a race that could help decide control of the Senate. He’s also proven willing to take covert action of his own. He recently launched a campaign website masquerading as an independent fact-checking organization, one that claims Blankenship was “unfair[ly]” convicted for his role in the mine explosion while simultaneously claiming he was “never even charged for anything related” to it.

And I don't remember how much we discussed the sudden resignation of Farenthold (R-Texas) but apparently he did it just to make sure the House Ethics Committee investigation into his sexual harrassment would be sealed. Full article text 

When Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-Texas) abruptly resigned nearly two weeks ago, the exact reason for the Texas congressman’s sudden departure wasn’t altogether clear. Farenthold essentially disappeared, taking down his public social media pages on Twitter and Facebook, as he resigned effective immediately. Farenthold had already announced in December he would not run again for his seat after facing intense scrutiny for a previously undisclosed $84,000 taxpayer-funded sexual harassment settlement with a former-aide who sued Farenthold in 2014 for gender discrimination, sexual harassment, and a hostile work environment. But why bolt now?

The answer came from Huff Po Tuesday, which reported that Farenthold’s accelerated timeline, tendering his immediate resignation, came after he was tipped off that the House Ethics Committee was about to rule against the Texas congressman in its months-long probe, which would lead to the disclosure of its presumably unflattering findings. But now?

From Huff Po:

The committee issued a statement last week announcing that its probe into Farenthold was over since he resigned, but indicated it had informed him on March 30 that it had scheduled a vote on a “Statement of Alleged Violation” to occur on April 11. Farenthold resigned on April 6. If he hadn’t quit, the committee would have voted to approve its document outlining the charges against Farenthold and then created a new subcommittee to hold a public hearing on the alleged violations. It’s not clear what Farenthold’s penalty would have been if the committee finished out its process. It might have required him to pay back the $84,000 in taxpayer money he spent to settle a previous sexual harassment lawsuit brought by a former female aide.

“His departure, which was weird and involved him immediately deleting his Twitter and Facebook accounts, means an ongoing probe into his behavior by the House Ethics Committee was cut short,” Huff Po reported last week. “Whatever his colleagues may have found in their investigation to date is now locked away in a vault.” Farenthold has maintained his innocence, but the settlement paid on his behalf by the Office of Compliance, once uncovered, sparked national outrage over how sexual harassment allegations against members of congress are handled and, ultimately, paid for.

edited 18th Apr '18 5:24:00 AM by BlueNinja0

That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - Silasw
megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#239205: Apr 18th 2018 at 7:04:18 AM

On California and his wall;

There is a Revolution going on in California. Soooo many Sanctuary areas want OUT of this ridiculous, crime infested & breeding concept. Jerry Brown is trying to back out of the National Guard at the Border, but the people of the State are not happy. Want Security & Safety NOW!

On a police Sketch of the man who allegedly threatened Stormy Daniels:

A sketch years later about a nonexistent man. A total con job, playing the Fake News Media for Fools (but they know it)!

On North Korea (and may I remind you that Pompeo has not been confirmed as Secretary of State yet, and may not be.).

Mike Pompeo met with Kim Jong Un in North Korea last week. Meeting went very smoothly and a good relationship was formed. Details of Summit are being worked out now. Denuclearization will be a great thing for World, but also for North Korea!

And Comey:

Slippery James Comey, the worst FBI Director in history, was not fired because of the phony Russia investigation where, by the way, there was NO COLLUSION (except by the Dems)!

edited 18th Apr '18 7:04:55 AM by megaeliz

TroperOnAStickV2 Call me Stick from Redneck country Since: Dec, 2009 Relationship Status: is commanded to— WANK!
Call me Stick
#239206: Apr 18th 2018 at 8:05:24 AM

... so Trump has settled on his nickname for Comey?

Hopefully I'll feel confident to change my avatar off this scumbag soon. Apologies to any scumbags I insulted.
DrDougsh Since: Jan, 2001
#239207: Apr 18th 2018 at 8:33:32 AM

I feel like if he'd really put his mind to it, he could have come up with a nickname that rhymed. Or at least had an alliteration.

FluffyMcChicken My Hair Provides Affordable Healthcare from where the floating lights gleam Since: Jun, 2014 Relationship Status: In another castle
My Hair Provides Affordable Healthcare
#239208: Apr 18th 2018 at 8:37:13 AM

"Crooked" is probably reserved for Hillary in his mind.

Also, California's "breeding concept"? [lol]

What, is this self-claimed pussy grabber also panicking about the purity of white women who have non-white male partners? Granted, he claimed that Mexico produces rapists and exports them to the US, but now he's really fellating the white supremacist victim hood talking points.

edited 18th Apr '18 8:38:54 AM by FluffyMcChicken

FyodorDose Since: Mar, 2018
#239209: Apr 18th 2018 at 9:12:46 AM

I've never really gotten why certain cities are allowed to turn a blind eye to immigration laws or illegal immigration. Does the federal government actually not have the power to enforce those laws, or is it a judicial exception?

NativeJovian Jupiterian Local from Orlando, FL Since: Mar, 2014 Relationship Status: Maxing my social links
Jupiterian Local
#239210: Apr 18th 2018 at 9:15:53 AM

The federal government is allowed to enforce all the federal laws they want. What's going on is states and cities are refusing to enforce federal law for them.

Same thing with the states that have legalized marijuana.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#239211: Apr 18th 2018 at 9:16:11 AM

Neither. Cities and states are not part of the federal government and thus are under no obligation to aid in the enforcement of federal law. It's a federalism issue.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Ultimatum Disasturbator from the Amiga Forest (Old as dirt) Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Disasturbator
#239212: Apr 18th 2018 at 9:17:15 AM

The states may all be part of the same union but they're allowed a certain amount of freedom from Washington,so it depends on state the city is in

ninjaed ah well

edited 18th Apr '18 9:18:45 AM by Ultimatum

have a listen and have a link to my discord server
FyodorDose Since: Mar, 2018
#239213: Apr 18th 2018 at 9:22:44 AM

[up] Ah, I see. This is why our governmental system is the best- if the federal government does something absolutely ridiculous, like repeal the 2nd or something equally horrifying, i can guarantee my police, and probably the police of many other regions would turn a blind eye to their community.

archonspeaks Since: Jun, 2013
#239214: Apr 18th 2018 at 9:24:50 AM

The federal government is still free to enforce the law how they see fit though. Even if you live in a sanctuary city ICE can still show up and arrest you.

They should have sent a poet.
Ultimatum Disasturbator from the Amiga Forest (Old as dirt) Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Disasturbator
#239215: Apr 18th 2018 at 9:28:13 AM

I'm reminded of prohibition,I think it was Kansas City that didn't enforce it

have a listen and have a link to my discord server
Parable Since: Aug, 2009
#239216: Apr 18th 2018 at 10:02:45 AM

Historically, this is what allowed Free States to not follow the Fugitive Slave Act. Their own personal liberty laws kept local law enforcement from having to help slave catchers that wanted to deputize them to enforce the federal law.

sgamer82 Since: Jan, 2001
#239217: Apr 18th 2018 at 10:37:26 AM

https://whatthefuckjusthappenedtoday.com/2018/04/18/day-454/

Day 454: This Russia thing.

1/ Defense Secretary James Mattis wanted to seek Congressional approval before bombing Syria last week but Trump overruled him. Trump wanted his tweets to be supported by action, despite warnings that an overly aggressive strike could spark a larger dispute with Russia. A limited airstrike on three targets was the compromise. (New York Times)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/17/us/politics/jim-mattis-trump-syria-attack.html

2/ Mike Pompeo met with Kim Jong Un over Easter weekend for a top-secret visit to lay the groundwork for direct talks between Trump and the North Korean leader. Pompeo was nominated as secretary of state shortly after the meeting. Trump is expected to meet with Kim by June. While meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday, Trump said his administration has "had direct talks at very high levels, extremely high levels with North Korea." (Washington Post / New York Times)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/us-china-trade-dispute-looms-over-trump-summit-with-japans-abe/2018/04/17/2c94cb02-424f-11e8-bba2-0976a82b05a2_story.html?utm_term=.d3892562bdff

3/ Sarah Huckabee Sanders said "the administration does not comment on the CIA director's travel." Hours later, Trump tweeted that "Pompeo met with Kim Jong Un in North Korea last week. Meeting went very smoothly and a good relationship was formed." (Reuters)

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-japan/trumps-cia-chief-in-secret-meeting-with-north-korean-leader-u-s-officials-idUSKBN1HO0GS

4/ Nikki Haley: "I don't get confused." The comment by the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations comes in response to a White House official blaming her statement that Trump would impose sanctions on Russia as "momentary confusion." Larry Kudlow, the president's national economics adviser, said Haley "got ahead of the curve." Later, Kudlow called Haley to apologize, saying "she was certainly not confused." He added: "She was basically following what she thought was policy. The policy was changed and she wasn't told about it, so she was in a box." The White House sent out a document – titled "White House talking points" – to surrogates on Saturday letting them know that Trump had decided to take punitive action against Moscow. (New York Times / Politico / CNN)

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/04/17/haley-sanctions-confused-trump-531517

5/ Trump denied that he fired James Comey because of the Russia investigation, directly contradicting his own comments on Comey's dismissal. In May 2017, Trump told NBC's Lester Holt that his decision to fire Comey was "this Russia thing" that he called "a made up story" and "an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should have won.'" Today, Trump tweeted that "Slippery James Comey, the worst FBI Director in history, was not fired because of the phony Russia investigation," adding the requisite all-caps "NO COLLUSION (except by the Dems)!" (CNN / Washington Post / Axios)

https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/18/politics/trump-comey-russia-investigation/index.html

6/ Trump dismissed the sketch of the person that Stormy Daniels claims threatened her years ago on Trump's behalf, calling the person a "nonexistent man" and said the sketch was a "total con job, playing the Fake News Media for Fools (but they know it)!" (ABC News / New York Times)

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-dismisses-sketch-alleged-stormy-daniels-attacker-con/story?id=54552304

7/ Trump is still "apoplectic" about the FBI raids on Michael Cohen's hotel room, office and home, a source close said. Trump's concerned that the FBI has everything, including everything he's told Cohen, and doesn't feel protected by the FBI "taint team" that's supposed to separate information subject to attorney client-privilege. (CNN)

https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/18/politics/donald-trump-michael-cohen-comey-north-korea-japan/index.html

Notables.

Barbara Bush died at the age of 92 after a series of recent hospitalizations. Bush had recently refused to seek any further medical treatment. (NBC News)

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/barbara-bush-wife-mother-presidents-dies-92-n699106

Bob Corker said Trump governs in a state of "constant chaos" and denounced the attacks on the FBI and the media. The Senate Republican who once described the White House as an "adult day-care center." (Washington Post)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/corker-decries-trumps-constant-chaos-denounces-his-attacks-on-media-and-fbi/2018/04/18/527929d4-430e-11e8-bba2-0976a82b05a2_story.html

Trump's trade representative Robert Lighthizer is spending nearly $1 million on new furniture. He blamed the Obama administration for the costs. (New York Post)

https://nypost.com/2018/04/17/trumps-trade-rep-spends-1m-on-new-furniture-blames-obama/

Madeleine Albright: Trump is "the least democratic president of modern history." The former secretary of state said the modern world provides a "petri dish" for fascism. (The Atlantic)

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/04/madeleine-albright-conversation-fascism/558254/

megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#239218: Apr 18th 2018 at 10:38:40 AM

Since this got lost, James Comey's interview with Steven Cobert on the Late show is worth a watch.

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.
#239219: Apr 18th 2018 at 10:39:57 AM

@fyodor

So you question it when its about unregistered immigrants but you'd be totally okay when its about your guns. Priorities I guess?

Also, even if the 2nd Amendment got repealed it would only mean State level gun laws would be the law of the land, which would mean every state (and its voters) could decide on what amounts to 'gun rights'

That'd be totally horrifying, yeah. Not having ready and easy access to a firearm, this must be a truly terrifying prospect.

edited 18th Apr '18 10:40:11 AM by 3of4

"You can reply to this Message!"
Fourthspartan56 from Georgia, US Since: Oct, 2016 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#239220: Apr 18th 2018 at 10:41:20 AM

[up]Quite right.

The funny thing is that growing up I've been rather pro-gun but because of the mindless extremism of the pro-gun side my support for gun-control is much less moderate then it might've been otherwise.

"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang
Grafite Since: Apr, 2016 Relationship Status: Less than three
#239221: Apr 18th 2018 at 10:50:49 AM

[up][up] And it's not like the police would lose their authorisation to own a gun, that's unthinkable even in countries with the strictest gun laws, same goes for professional hunters.

Life is unfair...
Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#239222: Apr 18th 2018 at 10:52:40 AM

Repealing the 2nd would still leave large portions of the US with some of the most lenient gun laws in the world. There is some middle ground between it and being as restrictive as say Japan is.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
Mio Since: Jan, 2001
#239223: Apr 18th 2018 at 10:54:35 AM

Yeah, the lack of second amendment wouldn't practically change things too much from how they are now.

Even if say, Illinois banned all firearms there really isn't anything stopping someone from going to say, Kentucky where firearm sales are still legal and loading up on rifles and ammo. This is pretty much what already happens and one of the reasons why Illinois/Chicago's attempts and gun-control haven't really panned out.

megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#239224: Apr 18th 2018 at 11:27:20 AM

I just stumbled upon this!

The NRA Sing-Along!

edited 18th Apr '18 5:04:26 PM by megaeliz

TheWildWestPyro from Seattle, WA Since: Sep, 2012 Relationship Status: Healthy, deeply-felt respect for this here Shotgun

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