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megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#239801: Apr 24th 2018 at 10:55:41 AM

Page 3 in the court filing by the Office of the Special Counsel is kind of hilarious.

violations of approximately ten criminal statutes arising from three sets of activities (“the Subject Offenses”). Aff. ¶ 3; see (Rest of paragraph redacted)

First, the Affidavit (rest of sentence redacted). In particular, (rest of paragraph redacted)  Second, the Affidavit (rest of paragraph redacted)

Third, the Affidavit (rest of paragraph redacted) .

edited 24th Apr '18 10:56:30 AM by megaeliz

GameGuruGG Vampire Hunter from Castlevania (Before Recorded History)
Vampire Hunter
#239802: Apr 24th 2018 at 10:57:49 AM

You know, I wonder if it's actually possible to be an worse President than Trump without starting an unnecessary war, getting impeached, or being involved in illegal activity.

I should point out that James Buchanan is the president under which the United States collapsed into the American Civil War. I'm not joking or exaggerating. James Buchanan was indeed the president immediately preceding Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War started on Buchanan's watch.

Wizard Needs Food Badly
TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#239803: Apr 24th 2018 at 11:41:55 AM

Trump with more competence would be horrifying.

Trump with more competence probably wouldn't have won the election, paradoxical though it might sound. His dim-witted bungling is part of his charm. He's the ultimate extension of anti-intellectualism; the same traits that make him awful at everything he does also make him into the champion of Joe Average.

Rural right-wing voters cling to him because he's just some asshole with no idea what he's doing, rather than a brilliant politician. But he is absolutely terrible at governing, even at maliciously governing, because he's just some asshole. He was elected to be President Homer Simpson. So far, he's delivered on that.

Trump's relatability is his biggest strength. If he actually knew what he was talking about, he wouldn't be Joe President. He'd be another informed politician.

This is what decades of anti-intellectual rhetoric gets you.

edited 24th Apr '18 11:44:05 AM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
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
#239804: Apr 24th 2018 at 11:45:33 AM

So there's at least one pessimist voice who thinks that SCOTUS is going to have Trump a win and uphold the whole Muslim Travel Ban executive order, despite multiple lower courts ruling against it in numerous ways. Full article text 

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will, at long last, hear arguments on the legality of President Donald Trump’s travel ban. In its current iteration, the executive order prohibits almost 150 million people, almost all of them Muslim, from entering the United States on the basis of their nationalities. Opponents of the ban argue it exceeds the president’s authority under immigration law and violates the Constitution’s bar on religious discrimination. Lower courts have repeatedly blocked the order and its predecessors, though the Supreme Court has indicated it may well uphold the current version in its entirety. No matter how the justices rule, their decision in Trump v. Hawaii will have sweeping consequences for presidential power, judicial review, and constitutional equality.

This week’s showdown at the Supreme Court has been inevitable since the president issued his first travel ban on Jan. 27, 2017, a week after he took office. That executive order suspended refugee resettlement and temporarily prohibited citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries—Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen—from entering the United States. The hastily crafted, poorly drafted order took effect immediately, and federal agents promptly canceled tens of thousands of visas and even took aim at green card holders, though the administration later attempted to exempt them.

The ban spawned chaos across the country and the world. Customs and Border Protection agents detained, deported, and abused immigrants at airports, many of whom were midflight to the U.S. when the ban came down. Multiple federal courts swiftly began freezing parts of the ban, though a report issued by the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security later found that CBP agents violated court orders in their zeal to enforce it.

On Feb. 3, 2017, a federal judge blocked the whole order, and an appeals court affirmed its decision. The administration then issued a new, very similar travel ban, which the lower courts froze before it could take effect. In June, the Supreme Court allowed the government to implement this order but exempted individuals who had a “bona fide relationship with a person or entity” in the U.S.

In September, the government issued its third iteration of the ban, which permanently excluded citizens of Chad, Libya, Iran, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, and North Korea, as well as government officials from Venezuela. (Chad was included for an astoundingly silly reason—it ran out of passport paper—and was dropped from the list in April.) Predictably, the lower courts froze this third ban. But in December, by a 7–2 vote, SCOTUS let the order fully take effect while its challengers fought against it in court. That means citizens from those countries cannot currently enter the U.S. unless they obtain waivers, which are essentially impossible to acquire. Even those with close personal ties to the U.S. cannot get in.

Trump’s various efforts to prevent millions of immigrants from entering the country have run afoul of the law in a multitude of ways. The January 2017 order was particularly troubling because it took effect without warning and seemed to ensnare lawful permanent residents. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals relied upon this flaw to block the policy, explaining that the lack of “notice and a hearing” for those affected infringed upon due process.

Trump’s subsequent travel ban remedied its predecessor’s most glaring due process defects, as the White House delayed its implementation to avoid a repeat of airport detentions and deportations. This time around, the ban’s opponents raised two key arguments. First, they argued that Trump’s order exceeded his authority under the Immigration and Nationality Act. That law allows the president to exclude a “class of aliens,” but only after finding that their admission would be “detrimental to the interests of the United States.” It also declares that “no person shall … be discriminated against in the issuance of an immigrant visa because of … nationality.” The plaintiffs argued that Trump failed to find that citizens of the blacklisted countries would harm the U.S. and that his ban openly denies them visas on the basis of their nationality.

Second, the plaintiffs claimed that the new travel ban ran afoul of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause. The Supreme Court has held that “the clearest command” of this clause “is that one religious denomination cannot be officially preferred over another,” requiring government neutrality with regard to religion. Opponents of the ban argue that it impermissibly disfavors one religion, Islam. To support this claim, the plaintiffs cite Trump’s promise throughout his presidential campaign to implement a “Muslim ban.” They also point to his comments in office, promulgated mostly through Twitter, disparaging Islam and complaining that the ban isn’t discriminatory enough. These words and actions, they assert, taint the order with anti-Muslim animus.

The second travel ban was litigated in two federal appeals courts: the 9th Circuit and the 4th Circuit. In May, the 4th Circuit blocked the ban on constitutional grounds, ruling that it “drips with religious intolerance, animus, and discrimination.” The next month, the 9th Circuit blocked the same ban on statutory grounds, holding that Trump had “exceeded the scope of the authority delegated to him by Congress” through the INA.

In September, the administration issued its third stab at the order, and both federal appeals courts again weighed in. This time, the 4th Circuit froze it as an Establishment Clause violation, while the 9th Circuit struck it as a transgression of the INA. Now the Supreme Court will weigh in to decide whether the order, in its current form, passes legal muster. It will also consider whether district court judges’ injunctions, which proscribed the government from implementing the various bans anywhere, were too broad.

While opponents of the travel ban have enjoyed a lengthy winning streak in the lower courts, the smart money has the Supreme Court upholding most or all of the current order.

There are several reasons to doubt that a majority of the justices are willing to invalidate Trump’s policy. First, a head count yields bleak results for the plaintiffs. When the Supreme Court allowed the second ban to take effect only in part last June, three justices dissented: Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch. In his dissent, Thomas asserted that the government’s “compelling need to provide for the Nation’s security” justified implementing the ban. Those three justices dissented again when the court swatted down the government’s effort to narrow the scope of the ban’s exemptions.

These two decisions suggested Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Anthony Kennedy had brokered a compromise with the liberal wing, Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan. But this compromise appeared to fall apart after Trump issued his third travel ban. When the court let that order take effect, only Ginsburg and Sotomayor dissented. Whatever agreement the justices had reached over the second travel ban seemed to have collapsed.

There’s a second reason to doubt a majority of the court will strike down Trump’s order: His administration may have dressed it up in sufficient pretext to persuade at least Roberts and Kennedy that it complies with the law.

As Elie Mystal has explained, the third ban presents itself as an evenhanded, carefully devised executive policy instead of a dashed-off memo that emerged from the fever swamps of Stephen Miller’s mind. Executive order No. 3 was purportedly reviewed by multiple federal agencies, which determined, in tandem with Trump, that the individuals affected may be “detrimental to the interests of the United States.” It adds Venezuela and North Korea—which do not have Muslim majorities—to the list of banned countries, even though neither addition has any practical effect. And it allegedly allows countries to get off the list by complying with U.S. standards. Those changes, combined with the ostensible deliberation process, may undermine the plaintiffs’ statutory and constitutional objections.

Finally, there is a small but real chance that the Supreme Court could conclude that the travel ban isn’t subject to meaningful judicial scrutiny. From the start, Trump’s Department of Justice has argued that the courts have exceeded their authority by closely examining the bans’ purpose and effect. It claims the president’s broad constitutional authority in matters of national security precludes the judiciary from questioning, let alone invalidating, the executive branch’s exclusion of certain immigrants. That argument might be too radical for Roberts and Kennedy, but it’s on the table, and the troika of far-right conservative justices may push for it.

If the Supreme Court strikes down Travel Ban 3.0 on statutory grounds, the ruling’s immediate effect will be to bolster the separation of powers. After all, it’s Congress, not the president, that holds plenary power over immigration law; the president is only tasked with enforcing it. If SCOTUS reads the INA narrowly and finds it does not permit Trump to exclude 150 million immigrants on the basis of rather suspect classifications, it will enforce Congress’ authority to make policy in this field.

On the other hand, if the Supreme Court rules that Travel Ban 3.0 violates the Establishment Clause, it will deliver a stinging rebuke to the president and his defenders. The justices can’t reach this conclusion without finding that Trump tainted the policy with anti-Muslim animus. Never before has the court accused a sitting president of malign discriminatory intent. Such a ruling would dramatically strengthen the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious neutrality, preventing government officials—from the president on down—from disfavoring religions under the pretense of impartial lawmaking.

And if the court upholds the ban? No matter its reasoning, its decision would be devastating for the millions of people, mostly Muslims, who are now indefinitely barred from entering the U.S. It would also indicate that a majority of the court is too credulous to see Trump’s bigoted motivation for the ban, or too timid to acknowledge it. And it would empower Trump to continue revising immigration law via executive order without serious fear of judicial intervention. In short, a Supreme Court decision in favor of Trump would telegraph to the world that our highest court is unwilling to protect the constitutional command of religious equality when millions of Muslims have nowhere else to turn.

That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - Silasw
TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#239805: Apr 24th 2018 at 12:02:19 PM

I wouldn't be surprised. We've had to rely on technicalities and flaws in the order's execution to block previous iterations. We've never been able to provably assert that the basic premise of the thing, prohibiting travel to the United States from foreign nations, is unconstitutional or not within the President's power to do.

If Trump can legally do it, then it was only a matter of time before his typewriter monkeys figured out a version of the order that can actually pass the courts. He's taking 20 on his travel ban.

edited 24th Apr '18 12:02:58 PM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
rmctagg09 The Wanderer from Brooklyn, NY (Before Recorded History) Relationship Status: I won't say I'm in love
The Wanderer
#239806: Apr 24th 2018 at 12:06:10 PM

Supreme Court says corporations can’t be sued under centuries-old law for overseas human rights abuses:

The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that foreign corporations cannot be sued under a centuries-old law for complicity in human rights atrocities that occur overseas.

The 5 to 4 ruling split the court along ideological grounds, and was the second time the court had cut back the reach of the 1789 Alien Tort Statute.

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the court’s conservatives.

“Courts are not well suited to make the required policy judgments that are implicated by corporate liability in cases like this one,” he wrote, adding, “Congress, not the Judiciary, must decide whether to expand the scope of liability under the ATS to include foreign corporations.”

He was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr. Jr and Neil M. Gorsuch.

The court has attempted before to give a 21st century interpretation to the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), which was enacted by the first Congress. The justices have limited the kind of actions that can be brought but in 2013 declined to decide whether corporations were immune from suits under the statute.

The case at hand involved 6,000 foreign citizens who allege that the Arab Bank provided financial services to terrorists who engaged in attacks against Israelis in 2000. The bank is a multinational corporation based in Jordan with a federally chartered branch in New York.

The plaintiffs said the suit was authorized by the ATS, which was largely ignored for 200 years before human rights organizations began filing suits seeking relief for abuses overseas. The statute allows federal courts to hear “any civil action by an alien for a tort only, committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States.”

Hugging a Vanillite will give you frostbite.
Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#239807: Apr 24th 2018 at 12:21:54 PM

Trump might be tossing Ronny Jackson under the bus.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/24/politics/ronny-jackson-donald-trump-veterans/index.html

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
PhysicalStamina i'm tired, my friend (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Coming soon to theaters
i'm tired, my friend
#239808: Apr 24th 2018 at 12:25:48 PM

Question: what does adding your name to the DNC do?

i'm tired, my friend
danime91 Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
#239809: Apr 24th 2018 at 12:29:45 PM

[up]You mean like registering officially with a party? It allows you to vote in the party primaries, but other than that I don't really know.

megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#239810: Apr 24th 2018 at 1:12:06 PM

If anyone's interested this last week tonight piece about Corporate Tax Evasion is interesting.

So apparently, one of the few good things about the GOP Tax Scam is that it forces companies to pay taxes on overseas assets, but that rate is lower than the average amount they pay under the old law.

sgamer82 Since: Jan, 2001
#239811: Apr 24th 2018 at 1:17:49 PM

So they're forced to pay less than what the old law would have required, but it was easier to avoid paying at all under the old law?

megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#239812: Apr 24th 2018 at 1:35:31 PM

[up] Pretty much.

Officially, the old rate top tax rate was 35 percent, with an actual average tax rate in the mid-twenties, with several companies being able to get away with paying less, or even nothing. The new one is at 21 percent, but the assets being held overseas are taxed at a lower rate, around 8-15 percent.

edited 24th Apr '18 2:29:34 PM by megaeliz

rmctagg09 The Wanderer from Brooklyn, NY (Before Recorded History) Relationship Status: I won't say I'm in love
The Wanderer
#239813: Apr 24th 2018 at 2:41:46 PM

Arizona voters to pick new member of Congress to replace Trent Franks:

Arizona voters will elect a new member of Congress Tuesday, with Republicans cautiously optimistic that they’ll hold on to a conservative seat vacated last year by former congressman Trent Franks.

Republican Debbie Lesko, a former state lawmaker, is favored to win against Hiral Tipirneni, a Democratic physician making her first run for office. Even though President Trump won Arizona’s 8th Congressional District by 21 percentage points in 2016, the GOP took nothing for granted, investing more than $500,000 and tapping Trump for robo-calls to voters.

The president made a last-minute appeal for Lesko on Tuesday.

“Arizona, please get out today and vote @DebbieLesko for Congress in #AZ08. Strong on Border, Immigration and Crime. Great on the Military. Time is ticking down - get out and VOTE today. We need Debbie in Congress!” he said via Twitter.

Tipirneni closed out her campaign at a rally Monday night with former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.).

“Do you have the courage to fight?” Giffords asked Democrats at Tipirneni’s rally. “On Election Day, please join your voice with mine.”

edited 24th Apr '18 2:42:03 PM by rmctagg09

Hugging a Vanillite will give you frostbite.
megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#239814: Apr 24th 2018 at 5:28:15 PM

This Maddow Segment about the Civil Lawsuit the DNC filed, alleging collusion between Russia and Trump campaign, and it's connection to Watergate is well worth a watch.

It goes into a lot of detail into the logic behind the DNC's lawsuit against the Nixon Re-election Committee, and it's importance in the Watergate Scandal, and what that could affect their strategy today.

edited 24th Apr '18 5:43:11 PM by megaeliz

ironballs16 Since: Jul, 2009 Relationship Status: Owner of a lonely heart
#239815: Apr 24th 2018 at 6:37:30 PM

So this long post got shared in another forum, and I found it interesting enough to re-share it here. Unfortunately, the original thread got shut down there due to the "article" that prompted it declaring that Conservatives seek to self-improve, while Liberals want to change society to match them. The post came to a similar conclusion, but a hell of a lot more flattering for both ends.

     Long post ahoy! 
It's not a matter of conservatives being better at personal growth than liberals, it's just that their difference in temperament makes them go about it in very different ways.

-Speaking in generalizations applicable to groups, not necessarily to individuals.-

Conservatives score higher in 'conscientiousness' while liberals score higher in 'openness'-near universally so.

When it comes to personal growth and development, this fundamental trait difference translates itself with conservatives seeking to perfect themselves, to an ever greater degree, to a value structure that's familiar to them, and the pursuit to attempt to approximate the 'ideal' virtue that value structure values as closely as possible. It's a valuable way of going about things, but also a rather rigid one, as the end results will only be as useful as the 'ideal' of the value structure originally chosen. (Pick neo-Nazism as your value structure, and approximating the 'ideal' might not be such a good thing after all... pick 'the emulation of Christ', and through the same mechanisms, you might attain heights of moral conduct most people have a hard time imagining.)

Conservatives have a hard time giving up their value structures once selected. Their conscientiousness will drive them to strive for refinement within a structure, not to attempt to remedy or change it. Again this has pros and cons, depending on your goal, and the value structures selected.

Liberals, on the other hand, have their openness drive them to seek new ways of looking at things. They test new ideas and are constantly looking for value structures that are superior to the ones they already have. They're open to changing their value structures to new ones when they figure out their previous ones were wrong. And they're constantly engaging in value comparisons between what they know, and what they're just learned, easily substituting the new for the old when they find out it's 'better'.

This is also a constant path of self-improvement, but a very different one from the conservative path. It's a path that seeks the meaning of what is valuable in and of itself, instead of continuously striving to perfect an ideal already chosen. It's a rejuvenating, and exploratory approach towards personal self-improvement.

The problem with your article is that, instead of understanding and acknowledging those differences in approach, it's focussing on dividing people into two camps and ascribing virtues to one camp, and a lack of virtue to the other.

The world doesn't work that way. Half of mankind isn't virtueless because they have a different approach to virtue than you do. We need both approaches.

Without conservative conscientiousness, we can't refine the things we already have. Without liberal openness, we won't explore new ideas.

Without both, we'll get nowhere.

It's a decidedly NSFW forum, which is why I'm not crediting the author publicly.

"Why would I inflict myself on somebody else?"
rmctagg09 The Wanderer from Brooklyn, NY (Before Recorded History) Relationship Status: I won't say I'm in love
The Wanderer
#239816: Apr 24th 2018 at 7:16:00 PM

Apologies for double post:

How Devin Nunes Turned the House Intelligence Committee Inside Out

It's long, but it basically details Nunes' rise to power and how his distrust for people considered experts goes way back.

Hugging a Vanillite will give you frostbite.
JBC31187 Since: Jan, 2015
#239817: Apr 24th 2018 at 7:16:38 PM

But... do American conservatives seek to self-improve? I mean, they say they do, but a lot of it seems more like "Fuck you, got mine." Or: "If things get bad enough, I can take what I want." Or some tedious variation of the "Just World" crap, where their food stamps and unemployment checks were earned, but those darker-hued people are stealing it somehow.

MrAHR Ahr river from ಠ_ಠ Since: Oct, 2010 Relationship Status: A cockroach, nothing can kill it.
Ahr river
#239818: Apr 24th 2018 at 7:32:34 PM

If you assume morality is tied to profits then they are improving by becoming richer.

Read my stories!
rmctagg09 The Wanderer from Brooklyn, NY (Before Recorded History) Relationship Status: I won't say I'm in love
The Wanderer
#239819: Apr 24th 2018 at 7:34:03 PM

We Don’t Need No Education:

Matt Bevin, the conservative Republican governor of Kentucky, lost it a few days ago. Thousands of his state’s teachers had walked off their jobs, forcing many schools to close for a day, to protest his opposition to increased education funding. And Bevin lashed out with a bizarre accusation: “I guarantee you somewhere in Kentucky today a child was sexually assaulted that was left at home because there was nobody there to watch them.”

He later apologized. But his hysterical outburst had deep roots: At the state and local levels, the conservative obsession with tax cuts has forced the G.O.P. into what amounts to a war on education, and in particular a war on schoolteachers. That war is the reason we’ve been seeing teacher strikes in multiple states. And people like Bevin are having a hard time coming to grips with the reality they’ve created.

To understand how they got to this point, you need to know what government in America does with your tax dollars.

The federal government, as an old line puts it, is basically an insurance company with an army: nondefense spending is dominated by Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. State and local governments, however, are basically school districts with police departments. Education accounts for more than half the state and local work force; protective services like police and fire departments account for much of the rest.

So what happens when hard-line conservatives take over a state, as they did in much of the country after the 2010 Tea Party wave? They almost invariably push through big tax cuts. Usually these tax cuts are sold with the promise that lower taxes will provide a huge boost to the state economy.

This promise is, however, never — and I mean never — fulfilled; the right’s continuing belief in the magical payoff from tax cuts represents the triumph of ideology over overwhelming negative evidence.

What tax cuts do, instead, is sharply reduce revenue, wreaking havoc with state finances. For a great majority of states are required by law to balance their budgets. This means that when tax receipts plunge, the conservatives running many states can’t do what Trump and his allies in Congress are doing at the federal level — simply let the budget deficit balloon. Instead, they have to cut spending.

And given the centrality of education to state and local budgets, that puts schoolteachers in the cross hairs.

Hugging a Vanillite will give you frostbite.
Parable Since: Aug, 2009
#239820: Apr 24th 2018 at 8:01:08 PM

That hits home, considering the Democrat running in my district is a school teacher.

Just got back from canvassing with her actually.

CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#239821: Apr 24th 2018 at 8:04:45 PM

I'm a Kentuckian and our government is insane because the state government is just a sideshow to the use of the Republican party to work stuff on a Federal level. It's basically a war chest and the massive failure of basic social services, opiod crisis, and worse have the place falling apart.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
DingoWalley1 Asgore Adopts Noelle Since: Feb, 2014 Relationship Status: Can't buy me love
Asgore Adopts Noelle
#239822: Apr 24th 2018 at 8:15:00 PM

So, the Special Elections in New York and Arizona are over, the Results so far are very promising:

  • The Democrats technically gain the majority of the New York State Senate (although due to one Democrat caucusing with the Republicans, they don't actually have it)
  • The Democrats technically flipped 2 New York Assembly Seats; 1 with a Republican who's a Registered Democrat and has pledged to caucus with them. The Democrat who flipped a Seat flipped it by 36% swing from it's usual Republican Voting Streak.
  • The Early Votes in the House Election in Arizona has Debbie Lesko (R) the lead, but only by a 6% lead against Hiral Tipirneni (D). That is a 19% swing from 2 years ago. Although the NYT has already declared Lesko the winner, it is possible for Tipirneni to win.

Overall, this has been good, but it could've been better; if Tiperneni wins, then it will indeed be great!

Gilphon (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#239823: Apr 24th 2018 at 8:22:07 PM

That's actually a very good result from Arizona; it's a district that's solidly Red and the GOP poured a bunch of money into that race, and it leans ~14% redder than the state as a whole.

Which, considering Arizona is where one of the most plausible 2018 Senate pick-ups for the Dems is and this is our first indication of where things are at there since 2016... it's a promising sign.

megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#239824: Apr 24th 2018 at 8:24:05 PM

[up] And having an near majority in he New York state senate is incredibly important as well. It will make it easier to get a bill closing the presidential pardon loophole, and allow Mueller to prosecute to the full extent of the law, without having to worry about presidential pardons.

And here's the page of the senator that caucuses with the Republicans, for any New York folk here. Does anyone know anything about the New York State Republican Party?

edited 24th Apr '18 8:39:53 PM by megaeliz

Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#239825: Apr 24th 2018 at 8:58:39 PM

Tiperneni probably never stood a chance of winning, barring a Moore level scandal hitting her opponent in the 11th hour, but the degree of the swing is the important stat here. If that kind of vote shift occurs in more competitive districts, or state wide, that will translate into substantial gains.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.

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