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

M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#244426: Jun 4th 2018 at 6:36:35 PM

@Larkman

Yet people are still going "this is great!" and attributing it to Trump because... reasons?

Racism. The reason you were looking for is racism.

Let's face it. This was never really about the economy for these people. It was always about voting for a President who didn't make them feel stupid and pandered to their prejudices. Heck, we've had studies more or less confirming this.

edited 4th Jun '18 6:37:23 PM by M84

Disgusted, but not surprised
ironballs16 Since: Jul, 2009 Relationship Status: Owner of a lonely heart
#244427: Jun 4th 2018 at 7:03:52 PM

Manafort messaged and called one of the witnesses the day after his co-defendant and business partner, Rick Gates, pleaded guilty and continued reaching out over the next several days, according to a sworn affidavit filed by an FBI agent in the case.

Yeah, I'm guessing they had taps on Manafort's phones as part of the house arrest, and if that's the case, Manafort's goose is thoroughly cooked.

"Why would I inflict myself on somebody else?"
RedSavant Since: Jan, 2001
#244428: Jun 4th 2018 at 7:31:08 PM

Did that earlier headline about Trump dictating his son's lie about the Russian ambassador go anywhere?

It's been fun.
Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#244429: Jun 4th 2018 at 7:40:01 PM

Rudy is desperately trying to convince everyone that omitting that fact was just a mistake.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/04/politics/rudy-giuliani-trump-tower-cnntv/index.html

edited 4th Jun '18 7:43:47 PM by Rationalinsanity

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#244430: Jun 4th 2018 at 7:49:24 PM

Nevermind

edited 4th Jun '18 8:03:01 PM by megaeliz

RedSavant Since: Jan, 2001
#244431: Jun 4th 2018 at 9:21:44 PM

I swear, Giuliani joining the team has to be one of the best things that's happened to Mueller in months. He's like a fountain of stupid mistakes, which is par for the course, but his are potentially legally actionable ones.

It's been fun.
TacticalFox88 from USA Since: Nov, 2010 Relationship Status: Dating the Doctor
#244432: Jun 4th 2018 at 9:41:16 PM

Man if governing wasn’t so exceptionally difficult if you’re genuinely trying to be good at it I’d be a politician just for the job security if these morons can get elected

New Survey coming this weekend!
AngelusNox Warder of the damned from The guard of the gates of oblivion Since: Dec, 2014 Relationship Status: Married to the job
Warder of the damned
#244433: Jun 4th 2018 at 9:49:55 PM

[up][up]That is one of the reasons why Government Conspiracy theories are rather hard to believe in, outside of circular logic that is. Too many totally incompetent people running around for something like that to effectively work.

Inter arma enim silent leges
sgamer82 Since: Jan, 2001
#244434: Jun 4th 2018 at 9:58:00 PM

I swear, Giuliani joining the team has to be one of the best things that's happened to Mueller in months. He's like a fountain of stupid mistakes, which is par for the course, but his are potentially legally actionable ones.
As I've been saying, Trump picks people actively hostile to their own positions. In this case, Gulianani's position is defending Trump.

LSBK Since: Sep, 2014
#244435: Jun 4th 2018 at 10:00:38 PM

Fivethirtyeight.com had an article about that awhile ago. Trump's first and foremost priority when picking his people, is their loyalty/how much they're wiling to praise him. That takes precedence over experience, qualification for the role, conflicts of interests, and even whether the person actually even agrees with Trump on whatever issue he has them dealing with.

edited 4th Jun '18 11:16:18 PM by LSBK

megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#244436: Jun 4th 2018 at 10:05:40 PM

[up] That's what Narcissists do.

They get validation from surrounding themselves with people who are loyal to them or praise them no matter what, and then blame them when everything inevitably goes wrong.

So then they exchange those people out for a fresh batch of yes-men, because they think that will get rid of the problem, which explains why trump has done a purge of his advisors twice now. I'm telling you, Bolton, Guiani, and the rest of them will be thrown out eventually, just like Bannon, and everyone else.

edited 4th Jun '18 10:09:00 PM by megaeliz

AlleyOop Since: Oct, 2010
#244437: Jun 4th 2018 at 10:26:55 PM

So Trump hired Guliani because he makes an overt display of supporting Trump even when his actions are constantly undermining him in practice. It checks out.

tclittle Professional Forum Ninja from Somewhere Down in Texas Since: Apr, 2010
Professional Forum Ninja
#244438: Jun 5th 2018 at 12:10:16 AM

Reuters: Mexico set to impose a 20% tariff on US pork legs and shoulders.

"We're all paper, we're all scissors, we're all fightin' with our mirrors, scared we'll never find somebody to love."
M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#244439: Jun 5th 2018 at 12:39:06 AM

China, Canada, the EU, and now Mexico.

Guess Puerco Pibil will be a bit pricier in the states.

edited 5th Jun '18 12:39:34 AM by M84

Disgusted, but not surprised
CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#244440: Jun 5th 2018 at 12:49:32 AM

I almost buy into a lot of Government Conspiracy theories because of the apathy on display to so much going on.

But better incompetent but loyal than actually have a shred of personal integrity or ideology.

edited 5th Jun '18 12:50:42 AM by CharlesPhipps

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#244441: Jun 5th 2018 at 2:10:26 AM

Welp, it's June 5th, the day to vote in California's primaries. Hope the rest of the Cali tropers who are of voting age are registered and have plans to go to the polling place or have already mailed a ballot.

Disgusted, but not surprised
Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#244442: Jun 5th 2018 at 4:31:04 AM

Here's hoping those damn jungle primaries and overcrowded Democratic fields don't come to haunt the party.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
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
#244443: Jun 5th 2018 at 5:00:09 AM

For people in California it’s basicly a two round run off election, with this being the first round and the run off being in November. Calafnoria effectivly doesn’t have a primary, because you never actully nominate party candidates.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#244444: Jun 5th 2018 at 5:17:35 AM

Which means that too many Dems running in a swing district in the first round can lead to unopposed Republicans if the vote splits and two of them come up the middle.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
sgamer82 Since: Jan, 2001
#244445: Jun 5th 2018 at 5:21:51 AM

How likely is that though? Has it ever actually happened?

CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#244446: Jun 5th 2018 at 6:23:09 AM

UN considers Trump's immigrant child policy to be a crime.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jun/05/un-says-us-must-stop-separating-migrant-children-from-parents

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
TheWanderer Student of Story from Somewhere in New England (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: Wishfully thinking
Student of Story
#244447: Jun 5th 2018 at 6:42:03 AM

[up][up] I'm pretty sure it has, and Democrats are significantly worried that they've fucked up their chance to take a shot at Dana Rohrabacher, AKA "Putin's favorite representative", because of it. Link

“We’re likely going to get locked out in June,” a Democratic campaign aide told Vox of the CA-48 race, six days before the election. California has an unusual “top two” primary system, in which candidates from all parties run against each other and the first- and second-place finishers run in the general election, allowing for the possibility of a matchup between two Republicans in November.

On the surface, Democrats face a basic math problem. In California’s 48th District, there are four frontrunners competing for two slots in the general. Incumbent Republican Dana Rohrabacher is expected to come in first. Democrats hoped to pick up the second slot, but for months they’ve squabbled over who should be the party’s main contender. And they never coalesced around a single candidate.

Instead, there are two candidates: an ex-Republican business executive with the backing of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and the nation’s largest progressive group, and a California Democratic Party-endorsed stem cell scientist, who has spent a lot of time denying allegations that he drunkenly punched a female student in bar fight.

That’s left room for a Republican, Rohrabacher’s longtime friend and political protégé Scott Baugh, to mount a formidable challenge.

The story of a party grappling with unity is a classic political tale — and the divided party often loses. As Democrats try to take back the House this fall, they’ll need to be united across the country, and specifically in California, where they need to make big gains.

Losing this one race won’t ruin Democrats’ chances of taking back the House outright, but it is a test for a party trying to win in much more Trumpian districts than this one. If they can’t win where Hillary won, where can they?

...

His district, anchored by Huntington Beach, spans about 40 miles of California’s southern coastline. It is one of the seven Republican-held districts that went for Clinton in 2016. Cook’s Political Report rates it as a toss-up. It’s the kind of wealthy, majority-white, suburban, and not-so-Trumpy district Democrats think they can win over.

And Rohrabacher, the former Ronald Reagan speechwriter, has represented California’s 48th District since 1988. He sits on the House Committees on Science, Space, and Technology, and chairs the Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia, and emerging threats. Ironically, he doesn’t believe in the scientific consensus around climate change and is one of the most pro-Russia voices in the Republican Party. So much so that he brags about the time he drunkenly arm-wrestled Putin in the 1990s to decide who won the Cold War.

His positions on Russia have hit a particular flashpoint during Trump’s presidency and the adjacent investigations into Russia’s conduct during the 2016 election. The New York Times reported that the Kremlin even had a code name for Rohrabacher as a possible intelligence source.

While he had no official role in the Trump campaign, Rohrabacher met with Wiki Leaks’ Julian Assange in August 2016, and special counsel Robert Mueller is reportedly interested in his relationship with Michael Flynn, Trump’s shady former national security adviser. All of this has made Rohrabacher a prime candidate to challenge.

Enter Scott Baugh, an established name in Orange County’s Republican politics and a longtime ally of Rohrabacher’s. Baugh unexpectedly filed as a Republican challenger, catching Democrats by surprise. In past election cycles, he’s raised money but stayed clear of actually stepping on Rohrabacher’s toes.

...

His district, anchored by Huntington Beach, spans about 40 miles of California’s southern coastline. It is one of the seven Republican-held districts that went for Clinton in 2016. Cook’s Political Report rates it as a toss-up. It’s the kind of wealthy, majority-white, suburban, and not-so-Trumpy district Democrats think they can win over.

And Rohrabacher, the former Ronald Reagan speechwriter, has represented California’s 48th District since 1988. He sits on the House Committees on Science, Space, and Technology, and chairs the Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia, and emerging threats. Ironically, he doesn’t believe in the scientific consensus around climate change and is one of the most pro-Russia voices in the Republican Party. So much so that he brags about the time he drunkenly arm-wrestled Putin in the 1990s to decide who won the Cold War.

His positions on Russia have hit a particular flashpoint during Trump’s presidency and the adjacent investigations into Russia’s conduct during the 2016 election. The New York Times reported that the Kremlin even had a code name for Rohrabacher as a possible intelligence source.

While he had no official role in the Trump campaign, Rohrabacher met with Wiki Leaks’ Julian Assange in August 2016, and special counsel Robert Mueller is reportedly interested in his relationship with Michael Flynn, Trump’s shady former national security adviser. All of this has made Rohrabacher a prime candidate to challenge.

Enter Scott Baugh, an established name in Orange County’s Republican politics and a longtime ally of Rohrabacher’s. Baugh unexpectedly filed as a Republican challenger, catching Democrats by surprise. In past election cycles, he’s raised money but stayed clear of actually stepping on Rohrabacher’s toes.

After all, Baugh and Rohrabacher have deep family ties: In the 1990s, Rohrabacher’s wife pleaded guilty to two felony charges for recruiting and installing a decoy Democratic candidate to split the vote and get Baugh elected to the California Assembly.

“We weren’t expecting Scott Baugh,” Aaron Mc Call, the head of Orange County’s Indivisible chapter, told me. “Scott Baugh was a protégé of Dana Rohrabacher. Scott Baugh has worked with Dana Rohrabacher’s wife on election fraud.”

Baugh, who served in the California Assembly from 1995 to 2000, briefly as the minority chair, went on to chair the Orange County Republican Party.

In an environment where Trump is unpopular but registered Republicans outnumber Democrats 41 percent to 30 percent, Baugh is neck and neck with Democrats Harley Rouda and Hans Keirstead in a heated race to claim the No. 2 spot on the November ballot. According to early May polling released by Rouda’s campaign, all three are hovering around 13 percent of the vote, while Rohrabacher leads with 30 percent. In the days before Election Day, exit polling surveying 317 early voters had Baugh slipping behind Keirstead and Rouda.

“Scott Baugh being in this race presents a serious threat that Democrats could get locked out of this race,” Keirstead told Vox. “If he was not in, the surety of a Democrat challenging Rohrabacher would be there, but now it is in threat.”

But Democrats have already been dealing with a mess of their own making: The party is split between two candidates.

One is Rouda, a millionaire real estate investor and former Republican who has adopted the now-standard progressive Medicare-for-all, free college platform. The second is Keirstead, a stem cell researcher and neuroscientist, who fancies himself as a more “practical” progressive Democrat.

“We are not having an airy-fairy, ‘wave your wand’ notion of getting billions or hundreds of billions of dollars new into the system by fighting against defense or fighting against the tax code,” he said of his plan to make the health care system more efficient. “We are actually getting it from the very system where the money is: health care.”

Rouda, for what it’s worth, told Vox he thinks Congress should fix Obamacare first, too, before pursuing a public option. On paper, there is not much daylight between his and Keirstead’s platforms. Both have outraised Rohrabacher’s $1.5 million war chest, with Rouda outpacing Keirstead by $300,000 with $1.9 million.

But there’s some party infighting playing out. Last year, the DCCC encouraged Keirstead to get into the race. But in May, the national campaign arm threw its support behind Rouda, adding him to the infamous Red to Blue list and partnering with Rouda on a TV ad buy. By election day, the DCCC will have poured nearly $1.7 million into the race supporting Rouda and bashing Baugh.

Keirstead’s campaign has been mired in allegations about his conduct at the University of California Irvine, where he was accused of sleeping with graduate students and getting into a drunken bar fight in 2009. A university investigation found those allegations to be unsubstantiated, and it later came to light that the whistleblower had a personal feud with Keirstead over patenting rights to some of Keirstead’s innovations. Rouda, however, continues to push on the issue.

...

To complicate matters further, there will be eight Democrats on the ballot on Tuesday. Nearly half of them have unofficially dropped out of the race and several are encouraging voters to get behind Rouda, but not in time to get their names removed from the list. And without a clear Democratic frontrunner, anything could happen Tuesday.

It's also the same basic principle (if a different election process) behind why Greg LePage got elected and then reelected governor in Maine despite having less than 40% of the vote the first time and less than 50% the second.

edited 5th Jun '18 6:44:37 AM by TheWanderer

| Wandering, but not lost. | If people bring so much courage to this world...◊ |
RainehDaze Nero Fangirl (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
Nero Fangirl
#244448: Jun 5th 2018 at 6:49:13 AM

I still hold that is a terrible system, regardless of the intentions. Runoff voting would solve a lot of its stupidity.

Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#244449: Jun 5th 2018 at 6:53:12 AM

Yeah, the California electorate dropped the ball when they moved to non-partisan primaries.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
CrimsonZephyr Would that it were so simple. from Massachusetts Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
Would that it were so simple.
#244450: Jun 5th 2018 at 7:26:34 AM

"bUt We NeEd tO vOtE oUr CoNsCiEnCe, GuYs!" —the California electorate as they voted for this insane jungle primary system.

Honestly, what part of "Eleven Democrats lose the first round with less than five percent apiece leaving the actual election contested between two Republicans" seemed great to the people of the California? Why do they think bloc-splitting will encourage third party electoral success? It never does!

edited 5th Jun '18 7:28:53 AM by CrimsonZephyr

"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."

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