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

DingoWalley1 Asgore Adopts Noelle Since: Feb, 2014 Relationship Status: Can't buy me love
Asgore Adopts Noelle
#242976: May 21st 2018 at 8:08:55 AM

[up]x8 I've heard of that recently, but I'm not convinced Republicans are that stupid to do something before the Election; they can't all believe they're going to be voted out, and many of them would know that doing something like that would make every Republican Seat a run for their money. There might be ramblings and rantings from the Teapublican branch, but considering how much of a Chicken Ryan and McConnell both are, I don't think they'd even allow it on their floor. Combine with the Moderate Republican Revolt in the House, and the only 1 Vote Majority in the Senate, it'd fail by the time it reaches the Senate.

sgamer82 Since: Jan, 2001
#242977: May 21st 2018 at 8:13:32 AM

I'm no longer convinced, myself. It always seems that when someone asks Who Would Be Stupid Enough? the answer is inevitably a Republican

M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#242978: May 21st 2018 at 8:18:00 AM

Every time you think the GOP has hit rock bottom, it grabs a shovel.

Disgusted, but not surprised
TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#242979: May 21st 2018 at 8:20:10 AM

This is the kind of shit I’m talking about when I say the GOP knows how to couch their message by marketing their politicians instead. There’s a viral trend going around right now about a soundclip that could either be saying “Laurel” or “Yanney”, sort of like the blue/black or white/gold dress from years back.

Trump’s White House released a video to jump onboard the bandwagon, and while most of it is just “Politicians smile at camera while partaking of viral trend to try and look cool,” there is some legitimately funny self-deprecating humor from Trump and the more well-known pushers of his message, Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Kellyanne Conway.

This is a good political video. Nobody’s going to jump on the Trump Train because they participated in a silly viral activity, but it does make them look more approachable. The willingness to poke fun at themselves with a laugh and give a happy smile conveys the idea that these people are Nice People, playing into the main source of GOP appeal to voters: “This is a person I’d like to get a beer with.”

Democrats try to get elected on the platform of having a good, well-researched, informed opinion of what is best for this country. Republicans try to get elected on the platform of being clean, honest, likable, “moral” folk that you would love to pal around with in your spare time. These are the tools the GOP uses to sell that message, and we desperately need to start integrating them into ours.

I couldn't help but notice Politico's description of him

"West Virginia coal baron and former prisoner Don Blankenship"

Man may be a piece of shit of the lowest order, but that's the kind of thing that immediately makes me unable to take an article seriously because of how it stinks of obvious bias.

To be fair, it's how he markets himself. "Cocaine Mitch" and its follow-up "China Family" got most of the attention, but in his original political ad, he brings up of his own accord that he went to prison for a coal mine explosion.

"They blew up the coal mine and sent me to prison. Then they said the coal mine blew up and I went to prison. No surprise there."

During his concession speech at the primary, he does it again, reminding everyone that he'll be staying at the hotel his event was located at because, "I'm staying upstairs so I don't have to worry about a DUI or anything. But if I did get a DUI before midnight, they'd send me back to prison for thirty days! So I gotta be careful. Thank you!"

Really? They can try even MORE budget nonsense?

Of course, they can. Budget reconciliation is a yearly process.

This is what I was talking about last year: people were breaking out the champagne bottles because the GOP's budget shenanigans had been soundly and thoroughly defeated forever, but like, it was always going to come back around again because that's how time works.

This is exactly why I said we needed Collins and Murkowski to stay through at least the end of 2018. One of them was considered for a governorship, I think? We were talking about the possibility of one of them leaving and the potential to maybe steal her seat for the Dems, and my point was that as long as they're both reliable votes against ACA repeal, we need all hands on deck.

Because it was always going to come back. Republicans made clear their intent to Take 20 on an ACA-repeal in 2017. They're going to keep ramming bills into the brick wall of Congress until either they lose control of one or both houses or something makes it through.

edited 21st May '18 8:23:55 AM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
RainehDaze Nero Fangirl (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
Nero Fangirl
#242980: May 21st 2018 at 8:27:23 AM

Eh, I just forgot that reconciliation was available again after the mess they made of actually passing a budget.

sgamer82 Since: Jan, 2001
#242981: May 21st 2018 at 8:54:56 AM

I thought it was based on the fiscal year, which changes in September

Parable Since: Aug, 2009
#242982: May 21st 2018 at 9:01:58 AM

Blankenship might not be able to run, actually. Turns out West Virginia has a law saying that the dude who loses a primary election can't run as an independent in the general election.

It's nicknamed the "Sore Loser Law."

sgamer82 Since: Jan, 2001
#242983: May 21st 2018 at 9:08:27 AM

An apt title.

Incidentally, and out of curiosity mostly, did Roy Moore ever acknowledge his defeat by Doug Jones?

SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#242984: May 21st 2018 at 9:11:25 AM

I don't think so.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
DingoWalley1 Asgore Adopts Noelle Since: Feb, 2014 Relationship Status: Can't buy me love
Asgore Adopts Noelle
#242985: May 21st 2018 at 9:14:33 AM

[up]x3 Apparently, Sore Loser Laws have been found unlawful in other states that had them. I'm pretty sure they'd be struck down in W.V. too.

Which is better anyways. It helps make Manchin's seat safer then it would've been otherwise (not saying it's 100% safe though; anyone in W.V. better vote for Manchin).

Ramidel Since: Jan, 2001
#242986: May 21st 2018 at 9:25:48 AM

Let them fight! This isn't Alaska 2010, the Democrat will just walk into the seat if Manchin and Blankenship run against each other.

Silasw A procrastination in of itself from A handcart to hell (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
A procrastination in of itself
#242987: May 21st 2018 at 9:26:47 AM

Manchin Is the Democrat.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
KarkatTheDalek Not as angry as the name would suggest. from Somwhere in Time/Space Since: Mar, 2012 Relationship Status: You're a beautiful woman, probably
Not as angry as the name would suggest.
#242988: May 21st 2018 at 9:27:20 AM

...Manchin IS the Democrat.

[nja]

edited 21st May '18 9:27:32 AM by KarkatTheDalek

Oh God! Natural light!
megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#242990: May 21st 2018 at 10:04:20 AM

I came across an old Guardian article from early last year, about Cambridge Analytica, way before all that stuff about them came out, and this stuck out to me.

Afterwards, SCL started winning government contracts, including one from the Foreign Office to help counter violent jihadi propaganda in Pakistan.

As more contracts rolled in, SCL attracted funding from powerful investors including Lord Marland, a trade envoy under David Cameron. Oakes’s ambition for his company grew. In 2007, SCL paid $20,000 to a Washington lobbying company, Global Policy Partners, to promote it in the US. SCL won contracts with the Pentagon to conduct surveys in Iran and Yemen. “Psych-ops was big business and people were just chucking money around,” said one person familiar with the company.

In 2015, it secured a $750,000 contract to help NATO states counter Russian propaganda in eastern Europe.

That's actually kind of hilarious.

Silasw A procrastination in of itself from A handcart to hell (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
A procrastination in of itself
#242991: May 21st 2018 at 10:06:03 AM

Hey now, redirecting the propaganda from Eastern Europe to North America technically counts as a success.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
sgamer82 Since: Jan, 2001
#242992: May 21st 2018 at 10:35:56 AM

https://whatthefuckjusthappenedtoday.com/2018/05/21/day-487/

Day 487: Walking into a trap.

1/ Trump demanded that the Justice Department investigate whether the FBI "infiltrated or surveilled" his presidential campaign under Obama's orders. After accusing the FBI of sending a \ "spy" to infiltrate his campaign on Friday, Trump tweeted Sunday afternoon: "I hereby demand, and will do so officially tomorrow, that the Department of Justice look into whether or not the FBI/DOJ infiltrated or surveilled the Trump Campaign for Political Purposes, and if any such demands or requests were made by people within the Obama Administration!" The FBI opened its counterintelligence investigation into Russia's efforts to influence the 2016 campaign on July 31, 2016. They sent an informant, a retired American professor, to talk to George Papadopoulos, Carter Page, and Sam Clovis after receiving evidence that the pair had contacts linked to Russia during the campaign. (New York Times / Washington Post)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/secret-fbi-source-for-russia-investigation-met-with-three-trump-advisers-during-campaign/2018/05/18/9778d9f0-5aea-11e8-b656-a5f8c2a9295d_story.html

2/ The Justice Department asked the inspector general to review the FBI's counterintelligence investigation of the 2016 Trump campaign hours after Trump demanded that the agency investigate whether his campaign was "infiltrated" by the FBI. Rod Rosenstein said in a statement: "If anyone did infiltrate or surveil participants in a presidential campaign for inappropriate purposes, we need to know about it and take appropriate action." The suspected informant is Stefan Halper, an American who was a foreign policy scholar at the University of Cambridge until 2015. (Washington Post / New York Times) / Wall Street Journal)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/justice-department-calls-for-inquiry-after-trump-demands-probe-into-whether-fbi-infiltrated-or-surveilled-his-campaign/2018/05/20/636a05a0-5c7d-11e8-b2b8-08a538d9dbd6_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.3c20f1aec215

3/ Rudy Giuliani: Robert Mueller will end his investigation into possible obstruction of justice by Sept. 1 if Trump agrees to sit down with investigators for an interview. A source familiar with the probe called the deadline "entirely made-up" and "another apparent effort to pressure the special counsel to hasten the end of his work." Giuliani added information about the FBI informant who approached campaign aides in 2016 needs "to be cleared up before we even approach the idea of doing an interview" because Trump could be "walking into a trap." (New York Times / Reuters / Washington Post / Wall Street Journal)

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia/trump-to-ask-justice-department-to-look-into-campaign-surveillance-claims-idUSKCN1IL0PQ

4/ Three months before the 2016 election, Trump Jr. met with a Gulf envoy that proposed a multimillion-dollar social media manipulation campaign to help elect Trump. The group was comprised of Joel Zamel, an Israeli specialist in social media manipulation, George Nader, an emissary for two wealthy Arab princes, and Erik Prince, the former head of Blackwater. Following the meeting, Nader became a close ally of Trump campaign advisers. While it's illegal for foreign governments or individuals to be involved in American elections, two people familiar with the meetings said Trump campaign officials weren't bothered by the idea of cooperation with foreigners. (New York Times)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/19/us/politics/trump-jr-saudi-uae-nader-prince-zamel.html

5/ Robert Mueller expanded his probe into Joel Zamel's role. Mueller has issued a subpoena for documents related to Zamel's work, but not for Zamel himself. Zamel previously met with Mueller's team to discuss his relationship with George Nader, who paid Zamel $2 million shortly after Trump was elected. The payment has been described as unrelated to the campaign. (Wall Street Journal)

https://www.wsj.com/articles/mueller-probe-expands-to-israeli-entrepreneur-with-u-a-e-ties-1526763816

Notables.

Incoming NRA president Oliver North blamed school shootings on "youngsters who are steeped in a culture of violence" and young boys who have "been on Ritalin" since early childhood. "They’ve been drugged in many cases," North said. North, who is best known for his role in the Iran-Contra "guns for drugs" scandal, told Fox News, "You are not going to fix it by taking away the rights of law-abiding citizens." (Washington Post)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/oliver-north-incoming-nra-chief-blames-school-shootings-on-culture-of-violence/2018/05/20/cb85592e-5c27-11e8-9ee3-49d6d4814c4c_story.html?utm_term=.e2da66759c3e

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick blamed school shootings on violent video games, removing religion from schools, abortion, broken families, too many entrances to schools, unarmed teachers, and irresponsible gun owners. Patrick did not blame guns for school shootings. (CNN)

https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/20/us/texas-lieutenant-governor-dan-patrick-reasons-for-school-shootings/index.html

The Trump administration suspended its plan to impose tariffs on China. Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, said: "We're putting the trade war on hold." (New York Times)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/20/us/politics/mnuchin-kudlow-china-trade.html

The RNC paid roughly half-a-million dollars to a law firm representing former White House communications director Hope Hicks and others involved in the Russia probe. Trout Cacheris & Janis received $451,780 from the RNC after Hicks hired the firm's founder as her personal attorney in September. The money used to pay the firm was originally meant to be used for election recounts and other legal matters, but RNC officials concluded that the money could be used to pay for the president's legal fees. (Washington Post)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2018/05/20/rnc-paid-nearly-half-a-million-dollars-to-law-firm-representing-hope-hicks-and-others-in-russia-probes/?utm_term=.cb59fcd637ad

AmbarSonofDeshar Since: Jan, 2010
#242993: May 21st 2018 at 11:09:16 AM

Politico reports on internal problems in Our Revolution. The short version is that Nina Turner has proven to be very, very bad at her job, and the disarray from those decisions is filtering down through the rest of the group. Fundraising's down, internal dissent is rising, and there's no clear consensus on what to do going forward.

Kaiseror Since: Jul, 2016
#242994: May 21st 2018 at 11:12:02 AM

[up][up] (Looks at the Lieutenant Governor article) Oh goddamn it!

CrimsonZephyr Would that it were so simple. from Massachusetts Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
Would that it were so simple.
#242995: May 21st 2018 at 11:19:08 AM

[up][up]Oh, thank god. The Cult of Personality is eating itself.

"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."
megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#242996: May 21st 2018 at 12:00:22 PM

2/ The Justice Department asked the inspector general to review the FBI's counterintelligence investigation of the 2016 Trump campaign hours after Trump demanded that the agency investigate whether his campaign was "infiltrated" by the FBI. Rod Rosenstein said in a statement: "If anyone did infiltrate or surveil participants in a presidential campaign for inappropriate purposes, we need to know about it and take appropriate action." The suspected informant is Stefan Halper, an American who was a foreign policy scholar at the University of Cambridge until 2015. (Washington Post / New York Times) / Wall Street Journal)

The key words here, and what makes this statement practically meaningless, is "for inappropriate purposes". He's calling Trump's bluff. Expect a report months later saying that there was no evidence of wrongdoing.

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#242997: May 21st 2018 at 12:05:55 PM

Politico reports on internal problems in Our Revolution. The short version is that Nina Turner has proven to be very, very bad at her job, and the disarray from those decisions is filtering down through the rest of the group. Fundraising's down, internal dissent is rising, and there's no clear consensus on what to do going forward.

So, basically, Occupy Wall Street again.

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
RabidTanker God-Mayor of Sim-Kind Since: May, 2014 Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
God-Mayor of Sim-Kind
#242998: May 21st 2018 at 12:16:40 PM

So am I the only one here who thinks that it's kind of bad to claim that religion can stop school shootings? And that violent video games aren't causing them?

Because as much time as I spent GTA, I never felt the urge to actually buy an assault rifle and start killing people. And I'm not really sure if forcing some to have an religion is an good thing. Like, someone could do something wrong and pass it off as,"But God told me to do it!"

Answer no master, never the slave Carry your dreams down into the grave Every heart, like every soul, equal to break
Silasw A procrastination in of itself from A handcart to hell (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
A procrastination in of itself
#242999: May 21st 2018 at 12:17:24 PM

I’d say that Occupy had different problems, it was an anarchistic movement and that meant there wasn’t any real central leadership for issues to filter down from, thing is it also meant the movement to as many different directions as there were members, thus never getting anything done.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
TheRoguePenguin Since: Jul, 2009
#243000: May 21st 2018 at 12:28:14 PM

[up][up]You're not. "More religion" and "less violent video games" have always been methods of dodging the issue.


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