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Nissin Cup Nudist posted:Wait, 16 felony counts results in community service? Well yeah, it's a face saving lie. HOTLANTA MAN posted:Its absolutely possible (and very likely imo) that Chicago police are both You're leaving out the step that explains why status as a famous gay black man would do anything to cause a DA to run like hell from their own charges. What is plausible is the police weren't just corrupt, but were so incompetent that burying the case was preferable to revealing what the DA would be obliged to disclose to defense counsel. But at this point, there's no reason not to give Smollett the benefit of the doubt. And every reason to deny it to the Chicago PD. 
eviltastic fucked around with this message at 16:55 on Mar 26, 2019 |
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Mar 26, 2019 16:51
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So speaking of anything else: The Tax Policy Center has a paper up on alternatives to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. 9,216 of them. The paper's as much about them showing off as it is analysis, but it's still very interesting. quote:We find many plans that cost less than the TCJA but provide greater benefits (in terms of after-tax incomes) to tax units in the bottom four quintiles. For any given quintile, we find plans that raise average after-tax income more than the TCJA while costing less,although these plans are easier tofind for the bottom four quintiles than for the top quintile. And although many plans cost less than the TCJA while benefitting tax units in each of the bottom four quintiles, we find no plan that benefits the top quintile more than the TCJA while benefitting any of the bottom four quintiles more than the TCJA. If you need a source for the tax cut being about a (poorly executed) handie for the rich and absolutely nothing else, this is a pretty exhaustive demonstration. 
eviltastic fucked around with this message at 17:21 on Mar 26, 2019 |
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Mar 26, 2019 17:17
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Pablo Nergigante posted:Some of the first articles mentioned deferred prosecution but his lawyers came out and said there was no deferred prosecution deal, just the charges dropped outright. I think the Chicago Sun-Times had an inaccurate byline and corrected it without stating they did. Rolling Stone, for example, describes the piece as quote:Prosecutors in Chicago dropped all criminal charges against Jussie Smollett and the actor will have his record wiped clean as part of a deferred prosecution deal, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. quote:Smollett lawyer Patricia Brown Holmes said there was no deal with prosecutors.
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Mar 26, 2019 17:32
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Also, reading through the source reporting, lol at the Chicago PD getting the Comey treatmentquote:The hearing lasted less than 5 minutes. Judge Steven G. Watkins sealed the case file.
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Mar 26, 2019 17:39
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Koalas March posted:I want to hear more from the furious pig unaware the case was getting dumped and sealed. Reading up on him, his handling of this is pretty disappointing. I'd have hoped for more, even if he's a handpicked Rahm guy: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/29/us/eddie-johnson-new-chicago-police-leader-has-deep-roots-in-a-city-adrift-in-turmoil.html
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Mar 26, 2019 18:33
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Radish posted:I was just joking about this pages ago but is he legit having a public meltdown? Brace yourself https://twitter.com/tictoc/status/1110598686524895233
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Mar 26, 2019 18:58
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Kinda funny in a sad way seeing right all the right wing dipshits going "wha? I agree with Rahm???" when the most credible accusation of corruption in the process (to Smollett's purported benefit, that is) is through a close friend of Rahm's wife. (also yeah, no poo poo a bunch of people with no moral compass wind up agreeing with Rahm all the time, ofc)
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Mar 26, 2019 19:34
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The Tax Policy Center did a neat thing, if you like playing with numbers. I mentioned that they'd done a simulation of thousands of different alternatives to the big tax bill. They made an interactive tool where you can see the distributional effects across different households and income brackets. https://apps.urban.org/features/tax-cuts-and-jobs-act-alternatives/ Ravenfood posted:What the gently caress is this poo poo. The eventual Freespace 3 is gonna be the nostalgia franchise-bilking cashgrab that finally breaks me.
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Mar 27, 2019 17:04
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FlamingLiberal posted:Space flight sims as a genre are dead outside of scams like Star Citizen The X series isn't dead, it just goes through phases where it smells like that for a while.
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Mar 27, 2019 17:13
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exploded mummy posted:guess who has decided to be the face of transparency and turn over FOIA requests with a same day turnaround ...so has anyone found something new here? All I'm finding is outlets like Fox mentioning it and reiterating the Obama conspiracy thing that the Chicago PD union was pushing.
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Mar 27, 2019 18:12
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eviltastic posted:the Obama conspiracy thing that the Chicago PD union was pushing This is worth diving into because holy crap does it sound dumb when you lay it out. This starts with state attorney Kim Foxx, who was approached by Tina Tchen during the initial investigation. Tchen was Michelle Obama's chief of staff and is a close personal friend of Rahm Emanuel's wife. She claimed to be acting on behalf of the family. Foxx was subsequently in touch with a relative of Smollett. Per released emails, Foxx was apparently persuaded to pass the request up the chain that the FBI take over the investigation, and the superintendent of police subsequently made that request. Foxx recused herself when Smollett became a suspect. So to sum it up, the conspiracy theory here that outfits like Fox or the Chicago police union are rolling with is: Smollett actually faked the attack, and before Smollett was a suspect, his family pulled strings to cover it up, before the narrative turned against Smollett, by trying to make a federal case out of it, with the acquiescence at the highest level of the very same police department now calling for a corruption investigation of this loving process. Because when you're actually criming and haven't been caught yet, what you really want is to twist arms of the cops to get the FBI investigating. Not like there's any other reason minorities might not want an investigation of a hate crime handled at the state level. Koalas March posted:They didn't have a case Thanks, I figured that was about the size of it.
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Mar 27, 2019 18:38
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LostRook posted:No, he wasn't sentenced, but the 16 hours of community service and forfeiting of the bond were specifically cited as part of a deal with the prosecutors. That's a tacit admission of guilt. Still probably only done because of a conspiracy by the police. Of course. Your use of the passive voice is doing a lot of work here. It was cited by the prosecutors as evidence of a deal existing and an explanation for their decision. Smollett's side has been quite specific in stating that there was no deal. If you want to talk about a tacit admission of guilt, you can explain the decision by the prosecution to ask the judge to expunge the charges and seal the file.
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Mar 27, 2019 19:02
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STAC Goat posted:I don't know if I subscribe to the full "cops set him up" theory but I don't see how your post makes any sense at all. In the hypothetical scenario where the cops set up Smollett to go to jail he should gamble on going to jail to expose them on the hopes that the clearly corrupt system doesn't fail? Yeah, the thing to do under those circumstances is exactly what he did, then try to tag them in civil court for some more of the settlement funds they keep having to shell out. Plenty of other reasons that they'd bail on the charges that don't involve wholesale fabrication, though. At this point, it seems like the most likely avenue for something indicating one way or the other is the postal investigation.
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Mar 27, 2019 19:47
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Y'all giving me whiplash, here.
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Mar 27, 2019 22:09
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It's pretty plausible that the sealing of the case / expungement of the charges is relevant to stuff like morals clauses in Smollett's extant or anticipated contracts (or second there are second or third order consequences that relate to IP like Empire) such that he'd want that done, even if the court filings made him look good and the cops look bad. Although with Terrence Howard's history seemingly going unremarked, I guess that parenthetical is less likely. e: welp, nevermind eviltastic fucked around with this message at 22:29 on Mar 27, 2019 |
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Mar 27, 2019 22:27
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That sounds weird. Everyone knew the prosecution's decision would be under a microscope. Smollett's lawyers were crowing about stuff being sealed the day the charges were dropped. The prosecutor's office had a public statement ready to go. IIRC someone upthread posted something about the prosecutor's office being pissed that stuff that was supposed to be sealed made it into the released stuff from the cops. And now it's just, whups, didn't mean it? That's, uh, quite a fuckup.
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Mar 27, 2019 22:52
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ABC News Chicago posted:FBI reviewing circumstances of Jussie Smollett's charges being dropped, sources confirm https://abc7chicago.com/5219838/
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Mar 27, 2019 23:36
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Silver Nitrate posted:Last night, the Oklahoma Democratic Party office in Oklahoma City got a bunch of really awful nazi poo poo painted on it. And the sidewalk around it. For fucks' sake. "Where are all the loving white people?" Really? I mean yeah, dumb nazis and all, but you could loving walk to Nichols Hills from there, and it's a straight shot to Edmond. e: For those who aren't familiar with the locale, the nazi(s) are doing the white genocide rant in a city where the vestiges of redlining are really obvious and not too far from the very place the nazi vandalized. eviltastic fucked around with this message at 18:32 on Mar 28, 2019 |
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Mar 28, 2019 18:28
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:If your family has any assets at all, MAKE A RETIREMENT PLAN WITH AN ELDER LAW ATTORNEY. Hey do this even if the situation's already gotten bad and you're looking at a medicaid spend down or something similar, an attorney may still be able to help.
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Mar 28, 2019 19:21
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Angry_Ed posted:You'd think after 2 years and 3 months of Trump people would realize that Executive Orders aren't unstoppable but I guess it's time for a refresher. Gun regulations often get into weird crazypants procedural territory due to heavy reliance on (often strained) administrative interpretation of really outdated statutes that Congress is afraid to tinker with. It's not readily analogous to areas where congress is regularly taking an active hand like appropriations. As Rent-A-Cop said upthread, a ton of stuff happens in this area without congressional input.
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Mar 28, 2019 19:52
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Mantis42 posted:uh is she conflating transpeople with transhuman? No, her guest did 
eviltastic fucked around with this message at 22:39 on Mar 28, 2019 |
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Mar 28, 2019 22:35
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BigBallChunkyTime posted:If he wasn't done before, he is now.
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Apr 1, 2019 23:15
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Yates posted:This is the correct way to use Paul Ryan's "advice" Let's talk about people who didn't: I missed it yesterday and this is a big deal. Ron Wyden is going to be pushing for a mark to market, tax as ordinary income approach to investment income. https://www.finance.senate.gov/ranking-members-news/wyden-to-unveil-plan-to-ensure-wealthy-pay-their-fair-share- quote:Everyone needs to pay their fair share and the best approach to achieving that goal is a mark-to-market system that would require the wealthy to pay taxes on their gains every year at the same rates all other income is taxed. It's as dead on arrival as single payer at the moment. The reason this is exciting is that it's Ron Wyden pushing it. Wyden was previously the chair of the Senate Finance Committee, and is currently the ranking member. He'd likely be the chair if the Dems get the Senate again. Wyden's not Cory Booker, but he's closer to that camp than Elizabeth Warren. He's an Obama-era believer in bipartisanship, an aisle-crossing dealmaking guy who was ready to work with one Paul (loving) Ryan on a joint healthcare proposal to "strengthen" Medicare during the runup to the 2012 election. Blue Cross is right there in his donor list where you'd expect them to be, and the finance industry spends plenty of money on him. When he got that chairmanship at the tail end of Obama's term, there were articles about how pleased GOP lobbyists and senators were that he got the nod. I mention all this because, looking at him as a bellweather, this is very good news for what kind of policy the party might back. Wyden both has a safe seat and absolutely stomped a primary challenge from the left in 2016. He doesn't have a need or apparent inclination to pander to the left. If he's pushing policy like this, I read it as because it reflects where the party is headed. He knows that floating this now means that primary candidates might be asked about it, and I sure hope they will be. Locking in cap-gains-as-ordinary-income plus mark-to-market as a main party plank would be huge. eviltastic fucked around with this message at 17:53 on Apr 3, 2019 |
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Apr 3, 2019 17:51
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plogo posted:Honestly, that seems like a horrible idea. Just means that less companies will go public because private companies are market to market, contributing to what is already a potential time bomb considering current private equity valuations. It's not at all clear to me that this proposal is limited to publicly traded securities.
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Apr 3, 2019 17:58
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plogo posted:Ok, then how do you value the illiquid securities for tax purposes? What is the market they are marking to? Your guess is as good as mine, since we don't have the whitepaper yet. Wyden's a wonk, so presumably he'd be going off of extant fair value valuation requirements. Diving into issues with mark-to-model vs mark-to-market, level 3 valuation and lessons from the financial crisis would be his jam. I'm in over my head in terms of policy here, but I'd think there would already be plenty of stuff to go on because hedge funds and the like can elect to have this kind of treatment anyway, and so presumably do so when advantageous. A GIANT PARSNIP posted:Is mark to market supposed to be an alternative to a wealth tax? Does someone get to claim a giant loss for the year just because their stocks are worth less? Mark to market would be an alternative to a wealth tax, I guess, in the sense that it stops the wealthy from deferring their tax burden. Yes, someone would claim a big loss if the market tanks. I would prefer a wealth tax as well.
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Apr 3, 2019 18:47
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OddObserver posted:Is there a good reason for losses to be claimable, anyway? To the extent we're taxing on the basis of income, there is in principle. We use income as a basis because (ideally) it's a fair proxy for ability to pay. Say two people walk into a casino - the first has losses totaling 10k but gets lucky and has winnings of 15k, so walks out 5k ahead. The second has losses of 35k and winnings of 25k, and walks out 10k in the hole. Intuitively, it makes sense to tax on net rather than gross because the first person, and not the second, is the one that seems like they should fairly bear the greater burden. (That's just an illustration, I'm not trying to use the analogy to defend the fairness of the tax code as it stands).
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Apr 3, 2019 19:17
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Lemming posted:Don't fall for propaganda The authority cited there for the success of Prop 65 is apparently a piece written by the author of Prop 65. I'm unfamiliar with the data, but given the time period, I'd be more inclined to look to the secondary effects of the drastic measures required to handle California's nonattaining CAA areas for criteria pollutants.
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Apr 4, 2019 23:21
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On the subject of white nationalists, the person vandalizing lots of stuff in Oklahoma with nazi poo poo got caught. You guys could probably use a chuckle:quote:At one point, Johnson asked the judge to explain the count of malicious intimidation or harassment. In the count, Johnson is accused of "maliciously defacing the driveway belonging to James Galey and Conrad Galey, with the specific intent to intimidate James Galey and Conrad Galey because of their native origin."  it was just a swastika https://newsok.com/article/5628133/graffiti-vandal-wanted-to-scare-jewish-people-also-hit-two-churches eviltastic fucked around with this message at 17:02 on Apr 9, 2019 |
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Apr 9, 2019 16:56
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Flip Yr Wig posted:My entire point is that I don't understand these types of charges and I'm waiting until some actual attorneys who practice federal criminal law of this type can analyze them for the public. This fact pattern looks concerning. https://twitter.com/Popehat/status/1116343038782033920
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Apr 11, 2019 17:12
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mcmagic posted:IDK what's funnier, these charges against him or Avanatti on the debate stage. It's fun to see a blowhard get their comeuppance, but the underlying facts really aren't humorous at all. He had a client who was left a paraplegic after an assbeating from the cops. Avenatti not only stole the settlement money and left the guy destitute, he apparently deliberately hosed up the guy's access to social services in order to hide the crime. That's vile.
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Apr 11, 2019 17:32
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VH4Ever posted:Boy if anyone could ever mouth breathe in a picture, this guy is it. Brutal interview, but gah was it deserved. I can fathom the perspective of some douche who doesn't want to give a poo poo and is annoyed that they can't go about their life of privilege without hearing about what's wrong with the world. I can't get my head around being so devoted to not giving a poo poo that you write a book about it.
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Apr 11, 2019 18:13
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Groovelord Neato posted:not just write a book - he has a podcast that;s mostly about politics. Yeah, I got that from the interview and have the same reaction ... why? He obviously feels it a tedious subject to address. Like, if it were just rhetorical slight of hand while doing Trump apologetics, I'd get it. But he really does seem to be striving in defense of apathy. eviltastic fucked around with this message at 18:31 on Apr 11, 2019 |
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Apr 11, 2019 18:27
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mdemone posted:Because he's a self-absorbed rear end who believes that he has Special Knowledge the undeserving world must hear. The infuriating thing is that someone like that can also be the caliber of writer that he is. Found a book review indicating that these talents were not exactly on display this time around: https://www.bookforum.com/inprint/026_01/20825 also, yikes quote:After the break, Ellis asks his guest, the writer Dennis Cooper, a “stupid question [that] has been nagging me for the last few years”—that is, if growing up white, wealthy, and comfortable in Southern California has influenced Ellis’s work. “Though, of course, I guess, I mean, I don’t know, class doesn’t necessarily affect what you write,” he ventures, “but I wonder if it does.”
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Apr 11, 2019 18:57
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Mooseontheloose posted:Like Dukakis in the tank or John Kerry's Swift Boat Veterans for Truth? You have to respond to these things because they have a way of growing and becoming innuendo that grows. She made the right call by tying to diffuse it, ignoring it was not really an option. She blindsided the most obvious impacted group instead of working with them to neuter the line of attack among people who actually care. Racists excited to keep giggling about "Fauxcahontas" or whatever were already a lost cause, but screwups like this also have a cost through depressing enthusiasm and cutting off your best options for washing your hands of an issue. Like, you get that native activists actually have good reason to doubt that she is sensitive to their concerns because of how she handled this, right? And that there's a meaningful difference between the impact of bad faith concern trolling and the impact of criticism from the actual Cherokee Nation? The latter is gonna be gleefully seized upon as ammo by the former. eviltastic fucked around with this message at 20:41 on Apr 12, 2019 |
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Apr 12, 2019 20:19
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They'd have attacked Sanders for having any measure of wealth (just like last time) right down to the point where it flips and the attack is that he's a socialist because he doesn't have money.
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Apr 13, 2019 05:35
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Stickman posted:There's a big difference between "Nate constructs an election model that makes predictions from data" and "Nate spouts off bullshit centrist generalizations about groups of voters without presenting any data". Yeah, any take on Nate Silver takes grounded in his model having a larger chance for Trump to win than others also has to take into account his laughable punditry during the primary season.
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Apr 24, 2019 19:05
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theflyingorc posted:in 2015/16, he added a dumb thing to his models where he used more than the polling - the "endorsement primary", where cleary Trump wasn't going to win, because he wasn't endorsed by anybody I agree, with the caveat that his punditry sins went well past the endorsement tally. And unless I missed something, his take that Sanders has severely limited growth potential because there aren't enough angry Dem primary voters, which is definitely a spicy one, was not supported by reference to any polling.
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Apr 24, 2019 19:36
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The guy's not on the street yet. The judge ordered another hearing to determine what conditions he might have to meet in order to be released.
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Apr 25, 2019 21:13
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dunno the reporter, just quoting a tweet so it doesn't look like I pulled that out of my rear end: https://twitter.com/MikevWUSA/status/1121507551047241729 That is being confirmed by other local news, if you dig a bit.
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Apr 25, 2019 21:19
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Eltoasto posted:The judge may be right if all he has been charged with is drug and weapon charges (depending what those are) Which, it's worth noting, the judge basically told them to go build their case for while the guy was being held without bond. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/crime-courts/judge-denies-request-free-coast-guard-officer-accused-mass-murder-n973946 You don't tell a judge that what you've got is the tip of the iceberg, then come back two weeks later with a shrug.
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Apr 25, 2019 21:37
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