I was never into football to begin with. Baseball and Basketball are way more fun to watch.
American Politics thread: No Nazis Allowed
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I was never into football to begin with. Baseball and Basketball are way more fun to watch.
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Pfffft. Says you.
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Also on the Late Show=
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4/ Trump said he constantly bashes the press in order to "demean" and "discredit" journalists so the public won't believe "negative stories" about him. Lesley Stahl says she asked Trump, "Why are you doing it over and over?" She continued: "And he said: 'You know why I do it? I do it to discredit you all and demean you all so that when you write negative stories about me no one will believe you.'" (Yahoo! Finance
Straight up abusive partner tactics.
I loved the video from Michelle Beadle saying "You don't care." To the NFL CEOs. I hope she doesn't lose her job because of it. But she's dead on right and lays it out that the kneeling was never about the flag or troops.
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I treat that Lesley Stahl story with a little skepticism. Sounds too clever and on-the-nose for Trump. Also odd it's coming out a year later.
Also, for as dumb and petty as it is, Trump's Eternal War on the NFL has its share of schadenfreude. NFL owners suck.
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lol
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Well there goes his nobel prize and the stupid coin is worhtless now.
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Afew moderate Republicans are willing to work with Democrats to force a floor vote on legislative proposals to protect Dreamers. Fearless Leader might be inclined to support said proposals on one condition.
“Unless it includes a wall, and I mean a wall, a real wall, and unless it includes very strong border security, there’ll be no approvals from me. Because I have to either approve it or not,” the president said in a Fox News interview that was taped Wednesday and aired Thursday morning. “There are bills going through. I'm watching one or two of them. We'll see what happens, but I can tell you there is a mood right now for border security.”
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I read that letter before I read the cancelation news and I totally thought it was fake. Nuke boasting? NUKE BOASTING? It was such a Trump-esque thing to do that I couldn't believe it was actually real. Man, you do realize that the great majority of North Koreans have no clue what's going on outside their borders and who are innocent.
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Today's https://whatthefuckjusthappenedtoday.com/2018/05/24/day-490/ is up, but it's still early so I'll hold off on the full news dump in case there's more ''to'' dump later. In the meantime, though, there were a couple stories I wanted to share early:
1/ Trump said migrant children entering the country at the southern border are "not innocent," and warned that letting them in exposes the nation to increased gang crime. "They look so innocent," Trump said at a roundtable meeting at the Morrelly Homeland Security Center. He added: "They're not innocent."
2/ Trump insisted that he will not sign any immigration bill that emerges from Congress unless it includes "a real wall" on the southern border. Trump was responding to an ongoing effort in the House to force a vote on certain bills aimed at protecting young undocumented immigrants from deportation. Factions of the House GOP are at odds over certain provisions in the various bills under consideration, including whether or not to provide permanent legal status for "dreamers" and those covered under DACA.
House Republicans holds last-ditch immigration talks as internal showdown looms. House GOP leaders have temporarily halted an internal rebellion to force votes next month on protecting young undocumented immigrants from deportation while they negotiate with the GOP renegades to find a different path forward.
On looking at this last one, I'm once again struck by how every picture of Paul Ryan is either "Smug as Fuck" or "Sad Clown", like there's no middle ground with him.
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Odds of the pull out from the summit being used as a pretext for military engagement went up.
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I've been trying to buy one of those coins but apparently so are a lot of other people. I still regret not buying the "Make Trump Trumpf Again" hat from John Oliver when I had the chance :(
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lol
Somebody please tell me that this - THIS - thing isn´t real!
It sounds like one gigant slap in the face mashed up with a threat…. I mean... "You talk about your nuclear capabilities, but ours a so massiv and powerful that I pray to God they will never have to be used." How dump do you have to be, to write something like this in a letter were you cancel a meeting a better part of the world was fussing over??? -
Today in Nothing Matters: the president's chief of staff and his personal lawyer were present in a Republican-only DoJ briefing on a confidential FBI informant and potentially the Russia probe.
Somebody please tell me that this - THIS - thing isn´t real!
It sounds like one gigant slap in the face mashed up with a threat…. I mean... "You talk about your nuclear capabilities, but ours a so massiv and powerful that I pray to God they will never have to be used." How dump do you have to be, to write something like this in a letter were you cancel a meeting a better part of the world was fussing over???It's real.
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Today in Nothing Matters: the president's chief of staff and his personal lawyer were present in a Republican-only DoJ briefing on a confidential FBI informant and potentially the Russia probe.
What's John Kelly's deal nowadays, anyways?
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John Kelly's sole reason to exist is to prevent a DACA deal from being made and to get dunked on by his boss whenever something doesn't go his way.
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It's real.
Should I facepalm, cry or laughing??? (At the moment i tend to facepalming)
[Hide] [/Hide]
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I really wonder where we go from here. This seems like the kind of thing that Trump shouldn't be able to do so easily, but he did it. Like this whole administration, it's really stupid, and possibly destroying the country.
I mean, it seems like he just made up a conspiracy and asked the DOJ to investigate it. It really seems like that's all he did.
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I really wonder where we go from here. This seems like the kind of thing that Trump shouldn't be able to do so easily, but he did it. Like this whole administration, it's really stupid, and possibly destroying the country.
I mean, it seems like he just made up a conspiracy and asked the DOJ to investigate it. It really seems like that's all he did.
While yes it's insane fevor dream of Two Scoops, the general consensus is he's mostly trying to find a reason to fire Rosenstein… and then replace him with a loyal lackey that'll fire Mueller.
Rosenstein would have been completely in the right to deny that insane request, (he already knows what the results of the investigation will be, nothing) but if he'd refused an order Trump would have had pretense to fire him, or in theory, he should have quit on principle because.... well, in a sane presidency that's what you'd do to make a point.
The hope is the only reason he acquiesced to this insanity (which sets a terrible precedent) is because 1)no harm comes from this and 2)buying time for Mueller to finish his work.
Rosenstein knows more than anyone except Mueller exactly where the investigation is, so the hope is he's just trying to buy the extra month or two needed. Because at some point in the very near future there may be an even more drastic red line crossed where he'll HAVE to resign in protest. Hopefully when that'll make the most impact and do the most damage.
Or, as I've seen it said elsewhere
The only conceivable justification for law enforcement allowing a president to abuse his power (an impeachable offense since Watergate) in the way Donald Trump did over the past 2 days is if you know that in the end Trump will be one of the most infamous villains in U.S. history.
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Agreed, and that idea on Rosenstein is somewhat relieving amongst all this troubling news. Also, relieving, apparently John Kelly and Flood didn't actually attend the meeting? Reports seem to indicate they only met with the group before the meeting took place. It's still odd though.
Semi-related, apparently Mitch McConnell came out and said he supports the Mueller investigation. Actions would be better, but at least this suggests that Mitch thinks he can say this without losing anything. It's something.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told NPR in an interview that he continues to support the Mueller Russia investigation — and that nothing in Thursday's hotly anticipated secret briefing on the Russia probe to congressional leaders changed his mind.
"The two investigations going on that I think will give us the answers to the questions that you raise — the [inspector general] investigation in the Justice Department and the Mueller investigation," McConnell said. "I support both of them, and I don't really have anything to add to this subject based upon the Gang of 8 briefing that we had today, which was classified."
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"I support it… I just won't allow a motion to go forward where we vote on actually protecting it."
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btw, for as much as I ranted about it at the time, Rosenstein's official pretext for firing Comey is actually ringing truer by the day. Not saying it should have happened then, but if his point was the politicization of the bureau in a way that harmed Hillary, then yeah, seems like that happened under his watch.
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North Korea has that they're still willing to meet up any time and any way
https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/24/asia/north-korea-donald-trump-summit-intl/index.html
You know this country's in bad shape when North Korea is the one that comes off as being more mature.
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This post is deleted!
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This outrageous. Not only has ICE been separating kids from their parents but they've been destroying records of sexual abuse by their agents and they've already lost track of 1 in 5 kids they separated from their parents. Why is this not a national headline!!???!! Why are there not protests in the street!??!! (I know the answers and they do not make me happy!!!)
The next democrat candidate that promises to abolish ICE and prosecute these motherfuckers will get my vote in the primaries.
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Shameful that Dems refuse to speak up about this.
“But what can they do?! They’re in the minority!!”
Republicans spent every day screaming that Obama was setting up death panels while in the minority. And it worked.
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^ To be fair it worked because Obama to many gullible white (and some confused minorities) was a suspicious looking black dude with a foreign looking name who didn't deserve to be where he was.
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Two thirds of Americans now believe that the country has a duty to take in refugees, while Trump's approval stands at a whopping 42%. Doesn't take a very stable genius to realize that tying the two together is going to do well for your support. But not a single Democrat has spoken out yet, not even on Twitter. Were they too busy deregulating banks and praising Israel's crimes to give a shit about 1500 missing kids, taken in by child traffickers and never to be seen again?
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Here's an update on what the current plan is in regards to the EPA drinking water situation.
Pruitt convened a summit this week with state officials, industry representatives, environmental advocates and others to discuss the presence of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in the water supply. He labeled the issue a “national priority” and promised certain steps toward potentially regulating the chemicals' presence in water.
Among other steps, Pruitt said EPA would formally consider whether to set national limits on the drinking water concentration of two of the thousands of chemicals in the family: perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS).
Pruitt made four pledges on behalf of EPA. He said the agency would evaluate whether to set maximum PFOS levels for drinking water, develop recommendations for cleaning the chemicals out of groundwater, consider whether to designate some of them as “hazardous substances” for environmental cleanup purposes and do research on toxicity levels for some of the compounds.
“I’m very concerned about Pruitt’s leadership on this issue,” said Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.).
Boyle said he’s particularly worried about the revelation last week that an unknown White House aide predicted a “public relations disaster” from a federal health study about the substances. The email was uncovered by a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the Union of Concerned Scientists and first reported by Politico.
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The FBI has obtained secret wiretaps collected by Spanish police of conversations involving Alexander Torshin, the Putin ally who met Don Jr. at the NRA convention.
Back in 2013.
A top Spanish prosecutor said: “Mr. Trump’s son should be concerned.”
Guess what Jr. was working on in mid-/late 2013? A Trump Tower Moscow deal with the Agalarovs. If there are taps from that period authorities think Jr. should be worried about, it'd be a game-changer. Torshin once said he'd been friendly with the Trumps for years.
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As if a Trump would take advice from someone who speaks español. Such chutzpah.
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Especially as Trump (as we already know) doesn't even trust his own people
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Left-wing hardcore populist candidate is way too high in polls, as of now he's pretty much the next president of Mexico.
With Trompo over there and Mexican Hugo Chavez here, things are gonna get odd. -
The thing with chavez is that it wasn't an overnight mess, if he doesn't corrode institutions, and get his "oligarchy" or "empire" enemies, the strangehold shouldn't take place. I hope.
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Concerned by Trump, Some Republicans Quietly Align With Democrats
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/05/24/us/politics/republicans-democrats-coalition-trump.html
Since Donald J. Trump began dominating American politics more than two years ago, Democrats concerned about his policies and behavior have taken solace in a group of influential Republicans who have consistently assailed the president as anathema to the values of their party, and the country more broadly.
In the past year, however, influential liberal donors and operatives have gone from cheering these so-called Never Trump Republicans to quietly working with — and even funding — them. Through invitation-only emails and private, off-the-record meetings, they have formed a loose network of cross-partisan alliances aimed at helping neutralize President Trump, and preventing others from capitalizing on weaknesses in the political system that they say he has exploited.
While this network has mostly eschewed electoral politics, some involved see the potential for it to help form an ideological — and possibly financial — platform to back candidates, including a centrist challenge to Mr. Trump in 2020, possibly from within the G.O.P. or even a third party.
The network — composed of overlapping groups led by Democrats such as the donor Rachel Pritzker and several veteran Obama administration operatives, as well as leading Never Trump Republicans like Evan McMullin, Mindy Finn and William Kristol — aims to chart a middle path between a Republican base falling in line behind Mr. Trump and a liberal resistance trying to pull the Democratic Party left.
“If you’re a Republican who is concerned about the health of the liberal order and alarmed over the destruction of the norms of American democracy, there’s no reason you shouldn’t be willing to work with a Democrat who is equally concerned about those same matters,” said Jerry Taylor, a Republican who is president of the Niskanen Center, a moderate think tank that grew out of the libertarian Cato Institute.
While a slew of initiatives raised big money for cross-partisan bridge-building and even presidential campaigns in 2012, the current effort is different. It involves more players who are more actively involved in politics from across the spectrum, many of whom bring their own constituencies, making it less centralized and, in some ways, less organized.
Yet they are arguably more united than past efforts by their concern over threats to democracy they contend are embodied by a single politician: Mr. Trump.
It’s an amorphous, somewhat secretive effort, partly because some participants fear Mr. Trump and his allies would brand Never Trump Republicans as pawns of Democrats. Meeting locations, agendas and attendees are mostly kept quiet, while political intelligence is privately shared between participants on opposite sides of the political spectrum.
But some of the collaboration is becoming more overt.
Over the last couple of months, network members filed amicus briefs accusing Mr. Trump of overstepping his authority on matters ranging from immigration to his administration’s efforts to block a merger between AT&T and Time Warner. And last month, the Senate Judiciary Committee passed a bill to protect the special counsel investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election, for which network members had lobbied.
“It was a kumbaya moment,” said Lisa Gilbert, an official at the left-leaning watchdog group Public Citizen, which helped coordinate lobbying by groups across the political spectrum.
A coalition involving many of the same groups is working to quickly mobilize mass protests across the country if Mr. Trump acts to impede the special counsel investigation. And next month organizers of a group of leading donors and operatives from the right and left called Patriots and Pragmatists are expecting their biggest turnout yet at a meeting in San Francisco, according to people familiar with the planning.
The Niskanen Center hosts a semimonthly invitation-only gathering of Trump critics called the Meeting of the Concerned, which attendees are asked to keep confidential. While it is attended primarily by a rotating cast of Never Trump Republicans — including the pundit Mr. Kristol and the former Representative Mickey Edwards — meetings sometimes include a Democrat or two presenting research or analysis on relevant issues. Attendees have included Ian Bassin, a former Obama White House lawyer who founded a watchdog group, Protect Democracy, that has sued the Trump administration and that has brought on staff members and advisers — including Mr. Taylor — from conservative or Republican backgrounds.
Other Republicans have been wary to get involved, Mr. Bassin said. “There is a troubling dynamic happening where anytime a conservative expresses concerns, they get branded a Never Trumper and are excommunicated from the American right.”
But Mr. Edwards, a Republican representative from Oklahoma from 1977 to 1993, said he was not worried about stigma. “Party identity really is being set aside. We have bigger fish to fry,” he said. He has become involved in a number of cross-partisan coalitions challenging Mr. Trump in recent months, including working with the former Obama administration lawyers Neal Katyal and Joshua Geltzer to file a legal brief in March in a court case opposing Mr. Trump’s proposed restrictions on travel from predominantly Muslim countries. “It’s really a much more free-form kind of resistance. It’s a movement more than an organization.”
Arguably the most intriguing of the cross-partisan gatherings are those convened by Patriots and Pragmatists, an informal coalition started in 2017 by Ms. Pritzker in response to the political polarization inflamed by the 2016 election.
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The republicans are currently stripping children away from their parents, putting them in camps where they sleep in cages like an animal shelter, allowing all sorts of horrors to occur, and has completely lost track of thousands of them.
This is just…. what the fuck.
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Lost thousands of them to sex traffickers.
But did you know about Hillary's pedophile pizza dungeon????
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The republicans are currently stripping children away from their parents, putting them in camps where they sleep in cages like an animal shelter, allowing all sorts of horrors to occur, and has completely lost track of thousands of them.
This is just…. what the fuck.
Maybe they can some sort of ID….like gold star badges.
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@S.C.:
Maybe they can some sort of ID….like gold star badges.
Yellow bracelets actually.
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@S.C.:
How much is it to immigrate to Canada?
Fun fact: The day after the election so many people looked at Canada's "how to immigrate" page that it crashed.
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After traveling a bit I'm kinda digging Amsterdam lol. Japan is still on my list of places to go run away to though.
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Having lived in Japan for 10 months I can tell you: living in Japan is nice for a while, but I ultimately preferred home. Surprisingly.
Then again this was like 10 years ago so it was before we turned into this shithole.
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Fun fact: The day after the election so many people looked at Canada's "how to immigrate" page that it crashed.
Just hearing about these poor children is literally making me ashamed to be an American.
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Canada is one of the hardest places to immigrate to. Unless you're from China then you need tons of credentials and people who can vouch for you. Easiest way to become a citizen is to just marry someone.
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@S.C.:
How much is it to immigrate to Canada?
If you get married the paperwork to become a permanent resident is about a grand, (plus FBI checks) but its a super long process with a lot of paperwork that takes years.
Without getting married I have no idea but probably even more expensive and time consuming.
Easiest way to become a citizen is to just marry someone.
"Easiest" is still expensive and time consuming. I've been doing it for like 2 years now.
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It depends on the migration goals I guess, I heard express entry is pretty quick tho.
Cannot confirm anyway. -
@S.C.:
Just hearing about these poor children is literally making me ashamed to be an American.
I'm rather ashamed myself, but moving to Canada or England or wherever would also feel like running away.
It's very tempting though.
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Never feel ashamed from running away from messes that you didn't create.