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friendbot2000
May 1, 2011


Christ. How many seats have Democrats picked up now? It seems to grow with each day

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eke out
Feb 24, 2013



friendbot2000 posted:

Christ. How many seats have Democrats picked up now? It seems to grow with each day

NYT shows 228 democrats (+33) with nine races still undecided. 538 projects D +38 total

EwokEntourage
Jun 10, 2008

BREYER: Actually, Antonin, you got it backwards. See, a power bottom is actually generating all the dissents by doing most of the work.

SCALIA: Stephen, I've heard that speed has something to do with it.

BREYER: Speed has everything to do with it.

Writing absurdly lopsided contract clauses and then watching them actually get adopted is super fun as an attorney

Relentless
Sep 22, 2007

It's a perfect day for some mayhem!


EwokEntourage posted:

Writing absurdly lopsided contract clauses and then watching them actually get adopted is super fun as an attorney

It's less fun as an accountant who has to deal with the billing ramifications of insane salespeople.

The fact that they signed it instead of telling Amazon to gently caress right off should be surprising, but is not.

Bugsy
Jul 15, 2004

I'm thumpin'. That's
why they call me
'Thumper'.


Slippery Tilde
This guy should have been arrested a long time ago, but at least he is off the street now.

https://twitter.com/willsommer/status/1062483476061020160


Jesus loving christ.

https://twitter.com/ApurvaYRawal/status/1062049830262972424

Edmund Lava
Sep 8, 2004

Hey, I'm from Brooklyn. I'm going to call myself Mr. Friendly.

Rinkles posted:

Seems like an exceptional amount of close races that ultimately tip dem this year, or is it not out of the ordinary?

Larger (read urban) districts take longer to count and as of recent history tend to lean Democratic. It just happens that there’s a lot more close races than in recent years and a lot more people tuned into the midterms than usual.

Feinne
Oct 9, 2007

When you fall, get right back up again.

Bugsy posted:

This guy should have been arrested a long time ago, but at least he is off the street now.

https://twitter.com/willsommer/status/1062483476061020160


Jesus loving christ.

https://twitter.com/ApurvaYRawal/status/1062049830262972424

The gently caress kind of person do you have to be to consider an actual mass shooting where a bunch of people actually died a dry run.

Slow News Day
Jul 4, 2007

Feinne posted:

The gently caress kind of person do you have to be to consider an actual mass shooting where a bunch of people actually died a dry run.

Hmm, maybe a... *checks notes*... a monster?

Feinne
Oct 9, 2007

When you fall, get right back up again.

enraged_camel posted:

Hmm, maybe a... *checks notes*... a monster?

I mean obviously but I don't know, that just kinda 'got' me as a description for a mass shooting.

DC Murderverse
Nov 10, 2016

"Tell that to Zod's snapped neck!"

Well if John Kelly is really on the outs, maybe we should get to know the guy everyone says is the best bet to replace him. That article is a few months old but it stuck with me when I read it because this man so clearly does not have a soul to have gotten where he is as young as he is, especially with the people he had to help along the way. Nick Ayers is a fuckhead. (NOTE: Please read the article in full. The clips i have here are juicy, but the full article is a much more thorough takedown of how this man operates. He owns a consulting firm while working in the White House, he works for campaigns and funnels all of the media buying to a firm that he is employed at, he works the dark money and PACs and 501Cs like a magician, and has seemingly ripped off half of the people he's worked with while convincing the other half that he's god's gift to politics. This dude is a federal indictment waiting to happen and it's impressive, in a gross way, to see exactly how his whole thing is set up.)

He's smarmy in the most awful gross DC way:

quote:

In person, Ayers is known to be exhaustingly charming. He has a panache you don’t normally encounter in D.C. Floppy blond hair, wide smile, swift stride, expensive suit. His greatest weapon is a Southern drawl that makes you feel as if everything is happening in slow motion. “If you talk slow, people think you think slow,” said Mark Meadows, the Republican congressman and chair of the House Freedom Caucus. “[Ayers] thinks four times as fast as he talks.”

Despite his age, Ayers is solicitous in the manner of a courtly older gentleman. Sometimes, he will ask permission from reporters to remove his coat or tie with an elaborate politeness. He is given to grandiloquent declarations of integrity. “One thing I am not, is I am not a liar,” was an example recalled by a Republican consultant who has spoken with him often. “I am always truthful. People can call me a lot of things, but one thing I am is a truthful person.” This “Southern Baptist preacher schtick” is the sort of thing GOP donors “swoon over,” the consultant told me, but it doesn’t always go over so well with Ayers’ peers. “Almost every operative that comes across Nick just absolutely cannot stand the guy,” the consultant added. Still, while Ayers’ affect may be cloying, it does place his principal guiding motive—himself—disarmingly in plain sight at all times.

It is a central tenet of politics that you can have money or power, but not the two at the same time. Ayers is a rare exception. He is not shy about showing his wealth—issuing gracious invitations to hunting parties on his estate on Georgia’s Flint River; sending Christmas cards that are fatter than most and wrapped in a bow. He has occasionally been known to lease a private jet—unusual among a crowd of strategists-for-hire who are accustomed to Marriotts and economy class.

He's sleazy and unethical when it comes to conflicts of interest:

quote:

Astonishingly, when Ayers entered the White House, he didn’t immediately sell his lucrative business, C5 Creative Consulting, as previous administrations would have required. He also obtained a broad waiver permitting him to talk to former clients. His ownership of C5 turned his White House job into a minefield of possible conflicts of interest. As chief of staff to the vice president, Ayers’ duties can include advising Pence on which candidates to support—decisions that can have a huge influence on fundraising and, hence, political advertising. In addition, in his private work for the Pence PAC, he is in a position to steer donor dollars into races where the company could potentially benefit. “That’s staggering,” one seasoned Republican operative told me.

In an environment where ethical scandals are spilling into public view on a near-daily basis, each seemingly more flagrant than the last, no one paid much attention to Nick Ayers’ consulting firm. Ayers himself declined to speak on the record and did not respond to a detailed list of questions for this article. After multiple attempts to clarify the status of Ayers’ business, Pence’s office sent a statement just as this story was going to press to say that his next financial disclosure in May “will reflect” the sale of his company. The White House provided no proof that the sale had occurred.

Waiting for so long into his White House tenure to address the issues posed by his ownership of C5 (and seemingly only under pressure) was a characteristic move from Ayers—and one strikingly at odds with the plain-spoken virtue that the vice president seeks to project. But, as is clear to those who have followed Ayers’ rapid ascent to the top of his profession, he has made an art form of skillfully navigating the gray areas in electoral politics. And in the process, he has demonstrated that the real danger in our porous, post-Citizens United campaign-finance regime isn’t always what’s illegal, but what’s been made possible.

He supports creepy gropers by pulling underhanded moves:

quote:

But perhaps his most ambitious venture was an effort to create his own political star—a candidate with the potential to one day go all the way to the White House. Eric Greitens, a candidate for governor of Missouri, was a GOP consultant’s dream. The 41-year-old was an intensely ambitious, chisel-jawed former Navy SEAL and Rhodes scholar turned best-selling author. He had also been a lifelong Democrat until shortly before he entered the GOP primary. Greitens championed transparency in campaign finance. “We’ve already seen other candidates set up these secretive super PACs where they don’t take any responsibility for what they’re funding,” he said in a radio interview. “Because that’s how the game has always been played.”

[...]

Ayers would later give The Missouri Times an insight into the campaign’s strategy. It was important for Greitens not to peak early, he explained, or the other three contenders would have too much time to tear him down. As it happened, a dark money-funded super PAC would play a useful role. In the early summer of 2016, LG PAC started airing negative ads against two candidates in the GOP primary, seemingly on behalf of a third: Peter Kinder, the state’s sitting lieutenant governor, or LG. But LG PAC had nothing to do with Kinder. Near the end of the primary, it would emerge that the group was actually backing Greitens. It was an extremely clever ploy. By giving the impression that Kinder was the source of the attacks, LG PAC made Kinder look sleazy. It also allowed Greitens to maintain a lower profile, not to mention his image as a campaign finance crusader. Kinder told people the episode was the dirtiest political trick he’d witnessed in his career.

After the negative ads started airing, reporters unearthed video footage that captured Greitens talking with the LG PAC treasurer, Hank Monsees, at a May 19 campaign event. People started raising the possibility of illegal coordination. A photograph posted on Facebook showed Monsees on a phone in Greitens’ war room, apparently making calls for the campaign. (Monsees told The Associated Press that he was sitting down by the phones because he has a bad back. Asked why he had a phone to his ear in the photo, he said, “I may have played with the phones or something, but I made no calls.”) The chairman of the Missouri Democratic Party filed a complaint with the state ethics commission, which was dismissed. “The Ethics Commission is formed to be weak and able to do very little, and in this case they did very little,” said Scott Faughn, the publisher of The Missouri Times and a former politician. After Greitens won easily, the controversy over dark money died down. On January 9, 2017, he was sworn in with Ayers and Chambers at his side.

Almost a year later, however, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a government watchdog group, discovered a financial connection between LG PAC and Ayers. LG PAC’s sole funder was Freedom Frontier, a dark money nonprofit based outside Missouri that appears to have operated almost exclusively in the Greitens race that election cycle. On Ayers’ White House disclosure form, Freedom Frontier is listed as a client of C5 that he had personally worked for, during a very similar time frame. In national races governed by the Federal Election Commission, and in most states, it would be illegal for a campaign to coordinate with outside groups on ads. In Missouri, however, the laws on coordination are less explicit.

[...]

IN JANUARY, Eric Greitens’ political future exploded when a local news station reported allegations that he had tied a woman to gym equipment in the basement of his home, blindfolded her, taken a picture and then used it as blackmail. Greitens admitted to an extramarital affair, but denied blackmailing the woman, who had been his hairdresser. On February 22, he was indicted by a grand jury on a felony invasion of privacy charge.

A criminal investigation by the St. Louis Circuit Attorney's Office is underway, as is a separate inquiry by the Missouri House of Representatives. According to CNN, the FBI is also looking into Greitens. Some of these inquiries may be expanding beyond the blackmail allegation. State lawmakers have said that the Circuit Attorney may be looking into donations to A New Missouri, a nonprofit that promotes the Greitens agenda. Ayers has advised A New Missouri, according to his disclosure form. One person who has been interviewed by federal investigators told me that both A New Missouri and LG PAC came up during the conversation.

In other words, he's perfect for Donald Trump. This dead-eyed shark-fucker is gonna worm his way into the core of the Trump administration and try to get as much money for himself as he can before it blows up.

mistaya
Oct 18, 2006

Cat of Wealth and Taste

Speaking of monsters:

Remember that guy that fired his shotgun at a black teen who was asking for directions? He is going to jail!

quote:

Jeffrey Craig Zeigler, 53, apologized in court and had "full remorse and regret" over shooting at 14-year-old Brennan Walker, according to CNN affiliate WDIV.

"I wish I could change something. I can't go back in time," Zeigler said, the station reported.

Zeigler was sentenced to two to 10 years for assault with intent to do great bodily harm and two years for possession of a firearm in the commission of a felony.

tetrapyloctomy
Feb 18, 2003

Okay -- you talk WAY too fast.
Nap Ghost

mistaya posted:

Speaking of monsters:

Remember that guy that fired his shotgun at a black teen who was asking for directions? He is going to jail!

Thank God. I'm exhausted from people getting away with probation and poo poo for egregious acts. It warms my heart to see people punished appropriately every once in a while despite our current hellscape political milieu.

Stickman
Feb 1, 2004

DC Murderverse posted:

quote:

It is a central tenet of politics that you can have money or power, but not the two at the same time.

Since when? I'm guessing they're using different definitions of "money" and "power"...

knox_harrington
Feb 18, 2011

Running no point.

Stickman posted:

Since when? I'm guessing they're using different definitions of "money" and "power"...

Actually $250,000,000 doesn't go that far when you live in Utah.

Skippy McPants
Mar 19, 2009

Stickman posted:

Since when? I'm guessing they're using different definitions of "money" and "power"...

Opportunity cost. It is generally accepted that entering politics as opposed to the private sector is less lucrative, but only by the standards of people who are already wealthy and privileged beyond the ken of us mere mortals.

When he says "money or power," what he means is "corpulently wealthy or powerful with only moderate wealth."

OneTwentySix
Nov 5, 2007

fun
FUN
FUN


I saw a news article on my feed this morning:

https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/416571-wisconsin-company-giving-every-employee-a-handgun-for-christmas

quote:

A Wisconsin company is giving every employee a handgun for Christmas.

The company, BenShot, sells novelty glassware with bullets embedded, according to the Appleton Post-Crescent.

The gift idea is part of an effort to promote personal safety and team building, owner Ben Wolfgram told the newspaper.

"For us, now, we have an entire armed staff," he said. "I think that's pretty good."

All 16 full-time employees will be able to pick their choice of revolver. Wolfgram said most employees, including some who had never shot a gun, were excited about the company's announcement.

Wolfgram said at least two employees initially declined the gift but are reconsidering after taking a gun-safety course that the company required before giving out the guns.

The report comes amid national debate over firearms as mass shootings occur in America with more frequency. A dozen people were recently killed at a bar in California as a result of a mass shooting.

Turns out, it's my best friend from elementary through high school. Very liberal guy, started a company selling shot glasses with bullets in them. No idea why he would think this is a good thing. Jesus, he's smarter than this. At least there's the gun safety course, but come on, Ben.

OneTwentySix fucked around with this message at 13:33 on Nov 14, 2018

Captain Invictus
Apr 5, 2005

Try reading some manga!


Clever Betty
If he's still your friend, sever.

Skippy McPants
Mar 19, 2009

Wow, that is vile. Workplace culture is such that anyone who doesn't take a gun is going to feel derided, and framing it as "team building" only makes that worse.

"Why do you have to be such a downer, Carol. Just take the murder-toy and come pop off a few rounds with the rest of us!"

Shifty Pony
Dec 28, 2004

Up ta somethin'


EwokEntourage posted:

Writing absurdly lopsided contract clauses and then watching them actually get adopted is super fun as an attorney

I feel like as long as there are strong clawback provisions that termination bit could be okay as it would essentially be "Amazon must give Arlington five days notice to get their bank accounts ready for the piles of money that Amazon will be repaying". The real question I have is if there are absolute guarantees for jobs created and how much they pay.

Also there is a question of whether there is the will in Arlington to enforce the guarantees. Here in Austin there wasn't for a long while until suddenly a few years ago the city finally got enough backbone to crack down on downtown construction projects violating the "living wage" terms of the incentive packages. They were either smart or lucky enough to mainly hit the companies after the projects hit the point of no return so it was win-win for the city. Apparently the penalties involved were large enough that one project exited the incentives deal entirely despite the loss of property tax exemptions (iirc repaying and exiting the deal also let them out of their commitment to fund affordable housing).

The whole relocation, construction, and incentives industry probably could support its own thread now that I think about it.

Condiv
May 7, 2008

Sorry to undo the effort of paying a domestic abuser $10 to own this poster, but I am going to lose my dang mind if I keep seeing multiple posters who appear to be Baloogan.

With love,
a mod


OneTwentySix posted:

I saw a news article on my feed this morning:

https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/416571-wisconsin-company-giving-every-employee-a-handgun-for-christmas


Turns out, it's my best friend from elementary through high school. Very liberal guy, started a company selling shot glasses with bullets in them. No idea why he would think this is a good thing. Jesus, he's smarter than this. At least there's the gun safety course, but come on, Ben.

he's arming them so it'll be easier to take him and the rest of management out. how polite

friendbot2000
May 1, 2011

Christ, the new data from the FBI regarding the spikes in hate crimes is loving terrifying. Hate crimes have increased by 17 percent since last year.

quote:

37 Percent Spike in anti-Semetic hate crimes

Also, these numbers are not even accurate(meaning they are higher) because a lot of police departments don't even upload hate crimes to the federal database or label them as something else.

lemonadesweetheart
May 27, 2010

friendbot2000 posted:

Christ, the new data from the FBI regarding the spikes in hate crimes is loving terrifying. Hate crimes have increased by 17 percent since last year.


Also, these numbers are not even accurate(meaning they are higher) because a lot of police departments don't even upload hate crimes to the federal database or label them as something else.

They also commit them.

marshmonkey
Dec 5, 2003

I was sick of looking
at your stupid avatar
so
have a cool cat instead.

:v:
Switchblade Switcharoo
https://twitter.com/APEastRegion/status/1062717004744933376

Taerkar
Dec 7, 2002

kind of into it, really

lemonadesweetheart posted:

They also commit them.

Ahem. I think you'll find that's Hate Self-Defense, not Hate Crime.

evilweasel
Aug 24, 2002

friendbot2000 posted:

So is this the kind of thing that might make a difference in the runoff? We were joking that only if some pedo stuff came out like Roy Moore would it flip....but...referencing lynching? Thats uh...something.

not all white southern republican voters are down with pedophilia, especially pedophiles who target young white girls, but they're all just fine with racism

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound

niiice

evilweasel
Aug 24, 2002


realistically they're going to lose if the white house challenges the subpoena, but good on them for trying

Wistful of Dollars
Aug 25, 2009


:bisonyes:

A good reminder that it's worth fighting the fight even when the odds seem stacked against you.

twice burned ice
Dec 29, 2008

My stove defies the laws of physics!

mistaya posted:

Speaking of monsters:

Remember that guy that fired his shotgun at a black teen who was asking for directions? He is going to jail!

Thank god that fuckwit was so scared of his neighbors that he had a security camera to film his felony!

I doubt the case would have gone very far without that video.

eke out
Feb 24, 2013



https://twitter.com/chrisgeidner/status/1062722628350341121

So they used Eaton, a century-old case where they had to temporarily appoint someone when an ambassador became deathly ill and you had to spend weeks travelling by boat to get someone else that's Senate-confirmed to Thailand, to justify this.

It's a really bad argument.

sean10mm
Jun 29, 2005

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, MAD-2R World

OneTwentySix posted:

I saw a news article on my feed this morning:

https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/416571-wisconsin-company-giving-every-employee-a-handgun-for-christmas


Turns out, it's my best friend from elementary through high school. Very liberal guy, started a company selling shot glasses with bullets in them. No idea why he would think this is a good thing. Jesus, he's smarter than this. At least there's the gun safety course, but come on, Ben.

Promoting accidental gun deaths in the workplace is a bold strategy Cotton, let's see if it pays off for them.

friendbot2000
May 1, 2011

evilweasel posted:

not all white southern republican voters are down with pedophilia, especially pedophiles who target young white girls, but they're all just fine with racism

Logically I knew this, but a man can dream...I guess racism is just this anathema to my own nature so I think that this stuff HAS to matter. It is naive, but I don't want to give in to cynicism.

Drone
Aug 22, 2003

Incredible machine
:smug:


So what stops Trump from just never nominating a successor? Or from intentionally nominating people who are so grossly underqualified that even Senate Republicans wouldn't confirm? (though tbh I literally don't know what that would look like... Trump could nominate Pepe the Frog and the Senate would confirm the fictional cartoon character along party lines).

I mean, I guess the question applies in general, what happens if a President just flat-out doesn't appoint anyone to one of the cabinet-level positions? And refuses to? Does Congress or SCOTUS have any power whatsoever (in this hypothetical scenario) to compel a President to do it, short of impeachment proceedings?

eke out
Feb 24, 2013



lol it must suck to have to try to pretend you believe this argument

https://twitter.com/ryanjreilly/status/1062723523645489153

Drone posted:

So what stops Trump from just never nominating a successor? Or from intentionally nominating people who are so grossly underqualified that even Senate Republicans wouldn't confirm? (though tbh I literally don't know what that would look like... Trump could nominate Pepe the Frog and the Senate would confirm the fictional cartoon character along party lines).

so what stops him from not nominating a successor is that Rod Rosenstein would, by default, act as attorney general. he has to avoid that

To your latter point, this is why this practice should be unconstitutional regardless of whether the Vacancies Reform Act technically allows it. The Constitution is pretty black and white about this, and there's lots of poo poo by Hamilton and Madison and co about how the President being able to nominate anyone he wants without Senate involvement is anathema to good governance and how they wrote it this way to avoid that situation.

Shimrra Jamaane
Aug 10, 2007

Obscure to all except those well-versed in Yuuzhan Vong lore.
Honestly the Mississippi senate election barely matters because even if the Dems somehow pull out a miracle a win they’ll just most likely lose it in 2020 along with Alabama so it won’t contribute to the fight for 50 seats.

Chilichimp
Oct 24, 2006

TIE Adv xWampa

It wamp, and it stomp

Grimey Drawer

Rinkles posted:

Seems like an exceptional amount of close races that ultimately tip dem this year, or is it not out of the ordinary?

A lot of these races weren't even close, they just looked close after precincts reported #'s on election night.

evilweasel
Aug 24, 2002

Shimrra Jamaane posted:

Honestly the Mississippi senate election barely matters because even if the Dems somehow pull out a miracle a win they’ll just most likely lose it in 2020 along with Alabama so it won’t contribute to the fight for 50 seats.

It would matter because the narrower the Senate majority is, the less room there is to slide someone super crazy through. If Republicans had a 55-45 majority I bet you'd see Attorney General Rudy Guliani. With a smaller majority, that sort of nonsense is somewhat less likely.

Chilichimp
Oct 24, 2006

TIE Adv xWampa

It wamp, and it stomp

Grimey Drawer

mistaya posted:

Speaking of monsters:

Remember that guy that fired his shotgun at a black teen who was asking for directions? He is going to jail!

Get hosed. These turds only show remorse when they're finally called out/punished for their behavior.

Like those assholes in GA who were driving around black neighborhoods with giant confederate flags and threatened a birthyday party with a shotgun.

Eat poo poo, "This is not me, this is not who I am". Nah, son, it's EXACTLY who you are, and maybe (JUST MAYBE) you should look into yourself and figure out how you and your entire shiteating white-supremacist rear end in a top hat cadre became radicalized against the color of a persons skin, you simpering flesh golem of animus, ignorance, and goddamn disgrace.

evilweasel
Aug 24, 2002

Rinkles posted:

Seems like an exceptional amount of close races that ultimately tip dem this year, or is it not out of the ordinary?

There's an exceptional amount of seats Republicans barely won as well, they just don't get reported on.

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A GIANT PARSNIP
Apr 13, 2010

Too much fuckin' eggnog


Shimrra Jamaane posted:

Honestly the Mississippi senate election barely matters because even if the Dems somehow pull out a miracle a win they’ll just most likely lose it in 2020 along with Alabama so it won’t contribute to the fight for 50 seats.

Senate seats matter, even if it’s just for 2 years.

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