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In other news; Trey Parket and Matt Stone have announced that poking fun at Trump isn't funny anymore.

 whembly wrote:
Holy gak that's a lot of bull caca there seb.

There's a distinct difference from legal lobby groups/US citizens donating/lobbying a political party/elected officials to curry favors. That's de jour in politics.

And of course, there's a vast difference between giving money to a Foundation that will be spent on sick kids in Africa, and money given to a campaign fund to get someone elected.

In Clinton's case, it's about Clinton's abuse of her OFFICE to accept favors from FOREIGN NATIONALS in lieu of Foundation donations.

The whole point of currying favour is to cash in that favour once a person wins office. What a bizarre argumetn you just made.

If you can't see the difference... I can't even...

Indeed.

One of the biggest beefs I have, and it's not unique to Obama/Trump, is that many of the ambassadorships are fraught with political cronies who contributed to the party/President.

Absolutely. And nothing will change because too many people only worry about this when the other team is in office.

But to chaulk this up as, "why you no mad at devo when you mad at clintoon?!?!?!?".... is simply partisan haranguing.

Yes, pointing out right wing hypocrisy is a partisan attack. But that doesn't make it untrue.

Oh, and for what it's worth I don't think the DeVos appointment is compromised by the money she gave. I think Trump and most Republicans are behind her because they're supportive of her vision of school vouchers. The issue is that DeVos understands little of the current private school sector, never mind the public school sector. The second issue is that her lack of knowledge about education is not just an unhappy side factor, she is clueless because it is not possible to be informed about the sector and think her plan makes a lick of sense.


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 whembly wrote:
I'm not absolving the blame on Trump/GOP Senators.

But, merely pointing out that Harry Reid nuking the filibuster is the reason *why* we're getting appointees like DeVos...

You're still missing the first step, where Republicans made a tactical choice to filibuster appointments regardless of merit. Once a party has taken that choice then the 60 vote requirement was always going to get booted.

Similarly, Democrats recently tried a strategy of not turning up to committee meetings. Standing rules said in order for legislation to pass through committee at least one person of each party had to be present. So of course Republicans changed the rules and made it possible to pass legislation with no-one present. Democrats have tried to make that in to an issue, 'omg Republicans removing democratic safeguards' but what happened is that Democrats tried to abuse a procedural rule, and the majority then stopped that abuse.

The same happened with the filibuster on appointments. Republicans tried to abuse a procedural rule, and so Democrats changed the rule to prevent the abuse. If you're very concerned about maintaining those kinds of procedural rules, then as a first step you have to ask that no-one looks to abuse the rule.

 sebster wrote:
If you're very concerned about maintaining those kinds of procedural rules, then as a first step you have to ask that no-one looks to abuse the rule.

Nah. He's only concerned about it when D's are doing it. R's are never abusing rules after all.

No No No. When the R's abuse the rules its only because the D's made them do it. Just like the R's didn't pass a series of lunatics to top government posts. The D's did.

All praise to the party of personal responsibility!

 AdeptSister wrote:
I never got the "new" issue with "Trigger Warnings." We have had them in media in the USA for decades. I remember in the 80s and 90s when they would warn you if it was going to be a "very special episode." Or they would say "viewer's discretion is advised."

Heck, the MPAA is a whole organization dedicated to trigger warnings. You can ignore it if you want, but they can be useful for people to know what they are getting into.

"The following programme contains violence and bad language from the beginning.

"YOU HAVE BEEN fething WARNED."

Seems OK for a Trigger Warning. I don't get what the fuss is about.


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Prestor Jon wrote:

 Ustrello wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
I'm pretty sure there's this sweet section of the constitution that forbids unwarranted search and seizure, which is something we've been happily ignoring with civil forfeiture law, and that's before getting into the nonsense that a cop can pull me over, confiscate my money on the flimsy argument that "only a criminal would have $5000 in cash" charge me with no crime, and then never give me my money back.

Funny that most people who bleat about the sacristy of the 2nd amendment happily forget the 4th

You really think so? It was pro2A citizens that brought the ATF's Always Tink Forfeiture scandal to light. All the gun owners I know are vehemently opposed to asset forfeiture programs. Of course that's anecdotal and social circles will vary.

Maybe Trump and this Sherrif aren't gun owners.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/08/sarah-palin-touted-as-us-ambassador-to-canada

Sarah Palin touted as US ambassador to Canada? You betcha!
Canadians have expressed dismay on social media after the White House press secretary refused to rule out the ex-Alaska governor as our woman in Ottawa

..epic trolling.




I add that up to 101% of Americans.

..what were you guys saying about your education sector ?

Not to mention that the graph doesn't support the claim that it's his most popular order, just that's its popular with the majority of voters

 LordofHats wrote:
No No No. When the R's abuse the rules its only because the D's made them do it. Just like the R's didn't pass a series of lunatics to top government posts. The D's did.

All praise to the party of personal responsibility!

That's been my favourite thing in this whole election. When the party of personal responsibility nominated and then voted in a terrible president, they blamed the Democrats for it.

 reds8n wrote:
I add that up to 101% of Americans.

They're obviously including illegal aliens from Canada in the sample.

 LordofHats wrote:
Not to mention that the graph doesn't support the claim that it's his most popular order, just that's its popular with the majority of voters

Maybe everything he's done has been unpopular, making this 55% popular EO his most popular

 reds8n wrote:
I add that up to 101% of Americans.

..what were you guys saying about your education sector ?

It's just a common rounding error in polls, where everything is rounded to even percentages and sometimes the rounded numbers add up to something other than 100%. It's not newsworthy.

 jasper76 wrote:
[…]
And here we are comparing "exposure to potentially upsetting material" to being drugged first, then raped.
[…]
And here we are comparing "exposure to potentially upsetting material" to torture and murder of one's daughter.

This once again sounds very dismissive. It feels like the message is “exposure to potentially upsetting material is no big deal”. If that's not what you meant, then please explain what you meant.

 jasper76 wrote:
Just know that if you ever come work with or for me, there will be no trigger warnings, and we have to deal with potentially upsetting stuff on the daily and sometimes hourly.

And I'm also willing to admit that my distaste for trigger warnings is likely heavily influenced by the harsh realities I deal with as part of my chosen occupation.

I have no idea what your job is. If you are a coroner, then it's fine. The “trigger warning” is basically part of your job description so you don't need to add more. If you are working in retail… not fine.
Also not sure why you focus on trigger warning in a college setting. It's another weird alt right thing.

 reds8n wrote:
..epic trolling.

Spoiler:

I add that up to 101% of Americans.

Just like Peregrine said, here the real news is that 55% of US voters support this terrible, terrible EO. You need to fix your country asap. Seriously, instead of laughing at that non-error, you should be focused on the real error that is US voters.
“Hey, look, this poll that shows 80% of American think we should reinstate slavery adds up to 101%! Let's focus on the 101% because it's the part that's actually relevant!”

 reds8n wrote:

I add that up to 101% of Americans.

..what were you guys saying about your education sector ?

I think we need to be more concerned about the UK education sector. Tell me, what's 54.6 plus 37.7 plus 7.7? Okay.... now round all those numbers to the nearest integer, what do you get? 55 + 38 + 8 = 100, magic!

@HSOO: I'm not going on any further about trigger warnings, I've gone on about it much longer already than I actually care about it. I'm actually restricted from identifying my job on the internet, I don't work in Intel or anything spooky like that, but there are good reasons for the restriction, and anyways I agree to that rule as a stipulation for employment.

FWIW, the way I read reds8n post was he was poking fun at Trump for being a bit of a dummy, and trolling Canada by threatening to appoint aour symbol of national pride, Sarah Palin, as ambassador to Canada.

But honestly if they MUST appoint Palin to something, our relationship with Canada is so good (on the whole and IMO) that I don't think she'd be capable of doing much harm.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Fraz, where in your law are the police given the right to forcibly inject prisoners with anything which is not required for lifesaving treatment (or the death penalty)?

And what will happen when someone who you just forcibly injected has an allergic reaction to it?

According to WHO estimates, Mexico has a 99% measles vaccination rate while the USA is only 92%. If there is a growing measles problem in the USA it is caused by anti-vaxxers not getting their children vaccinated.

I used to think this was a problem that would solve itself. Anti-vaxxer children would catch measles and possibly die, which is sad but inevitable. At least the vaccinated children are protected. But vaccination is not 100% effective. Some vaccinated children would also die in an epidemic.

The western anti-vaxxing movement started in the UK and was promoted by the Daily Mail (a right wing newspaper.) The doctor who did the study linking the MMR vaccine to autism was so badly discredited that he was barred from the British Medical Council years ago.

Only the uneducated would think the illegal immigration population here is Mexican.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
. Tell me, what's 54.6 plus 37.7 plus 7.7?

100

Okay.... now round all those numbers to the nearest integer, what do you get? 55 + 38 + 8 = 100, magic!

101.

Is anyone exercised about Mitch McConnell shutting down Elizabeth Warren in her speech against the Sessions appointment? I can't escape this issue on news and social media. #NeverthelessShePersisted and so forth.

It did sort of backfire. I wish people would just let people speak and hear them out. Everybody's trying to shut everybody up these days. What happened to "I disagree with what you're saying, but I'd die for your right to say it"?

 LordofHats wrote:
I'm pretty sure there's this sweet section of the constitution that forbids unwarranted search and seizure, which is something we've been happily ignoring with civil forfeiture law, and that's before getting into the nonsense that a cop can pull me over, confiscate my money on the flimsy argument that "only a criminal would have $5000 in cash" charge me with no crime, and then never give me my money back.

Indeed, the so called drug war has been an abominable plague on our Bill of Rights.


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 jasper76 wrote:
@HSOO: I'm not going on any further about trigger warnings, I've gone on about it much longer already than I actually care about it. I'm actually restricted from identifying my job on the internet, I don't work in Intel or anything spooky like that, but there are good reasons for the restriction, and anyways I agree to that rule as a stipulation for employment.

FWIW, the way I read reds8n post was he was poking fun at Trump for being a bit of a dummy, and trolling Canada by threatening to appoint aour symbol of national pride, Sarah Palin, as ambassador to Canada.

But honestly if they MUST appoint Palin to something, our relationship with Canada is so good (on the whole and IMO) that I don't think she'd be capable of doing much harm.

Canada is between America and Alaska. She can see it from her house.

Plus she's from Idaho, so she already speaks Canadian fluently.

On a related note, Sandpoint, Idaho should forever change its name to Whodaho.

 jasper76 wrote:
Is anyone exercised about Mitch McConnell shutting down Elizabeth Warren in her speech against the Sessions appointment? I can't escape this issue on news and social media. #NeverthelessShePersisted and so forth.

It did sort of backfire. I wish people would just let people speak and hear them out. Everybody's trying to shut everybody up these days. What happened to "I disagree with what you're saying, but I'd die for your right to say it"?

Oh, it definitely is an antiquated rule. Goes back to our history of political rivals, you know, killing each other in duels. http://www.artofmanliness.com/2010/03/30/famous-duels-from-american-history/ Even our furious, honor conscious ancestors realized that if you can kill your opponent when a vote is about to go down, our political houses would dissolve into a murderfest, with the last Senator standing casting their vote. Now I'd watch that entire series in a night- but that's why you can't impugn the honor of a senator.

It would seem Elizabeth Warren's only honorable recourse is to meet her opponent on the field of honor. She'll need two pistols, a second, and an oil painter.

Really, if we're not worried about that anymore, then the rule doesn't have any place in our books. And frankly, when the Senator in question is being evaluated for a higher position it would seem that technically no other Senator can say anything bad about them. That really makes me wonder about the fidelity of the interview process.

edit- ooh! I'm Canadian now! Did we lose another war with them while I was asleep last night?

Would Palin even be interested in the job anyway ?

Believe one or other of her reality type show(s) were cancelled but one would imagine she does alright $$$ wise anyway.

https://www.ft.com/content/239d378e-ee20-11e6-ba01-119a44939bb6

Academic touted as Trump’s EU envoy embellished autobiography
Malloch book’s dubious details include Emmy nomination and being ‘knighted’ by Queen

TBF everyone polishes their CV up a wee bit.

 reds8n wrote:
Would Palin even be interested in the job anyway ?

Believe one or other of her reality type show(s) were cancelled but one would imagine she does alright $$$ wise anyway.

From her recent speeches, I think she'd be more interested in a drunken slam poetry gig.

 Frazzled wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Fraz, where in your law are the police given the right to forcibly inject prisoners with anything which is not required for lifesaving treatment (or the death penalty)?

And what will happen when someone who you just forcibly injected has an allergic reaction to it?

According to WHO estimates, Mexico has a 99% measles vaccination rate while the USA is only 92%. If there is a growing measles problem in the USA it is caused by anti-vaxxers not getting their children vaccinated.

I used to think this was a problem that would solve itself. Anti-vaxxer children would catch measles and possibly die, which is sad but inevitable. At least the vaccinated children are protected. But vaccination is not 100% effective. Some vaccinated children would also die in an epidemic.

The western anti-vaxxing movement started in the UK and was promoted by the Daily Mail (a right wing newspaper.) The doctor who did the study linking the MMR vaccine to autism was so badly discredited that he was barred from the British Medical Council years ago.

Only the uneducated would think the illegal immigration population here is Mexican.

True, Trump is fairly uneducated.

To get back to the point though, a large proportion of the illegal immigrant population is Mexican. However, if you want to solve the problem of US citizen anti-vaxxing by bringing in lots of already vaccinated foreigners, you will need to import at least 16 million to establish a herd immunity level of >95%.

 Gitzbitah wrote:

 jasper76 wrote:
Is anyone exercised about Mitch McConnell shutting down Elizabeth Warren in her speech against the Sessions appointment? I can't escape this issue on news and social media. #NeverthelessShePersisted and so forth.

It did sort of backfire. I wish people would just let people speak and hear them out. Everybody's trying to shut everybody up these days. What happened to "I disagree with what you're saying, but I'd die for your right to say it"?

Oh, it definitely is an antiquated rule. Goes back to our history of political rivals, you know, killing each other in duels. http://www.artofmanliness.com/2010/03/30/famous-duels-from-american-history/ Even our furious, honor conscious ancestors realized that if you can kill your opponent when a vote is about to go down, our political houses would dissolve into a murderfest, with the last Senator standing casting their vote. Now I'd watch that entire series in a night- but that's why you can't impugn the honor of a senator.

It would seem Elizabeth Warren's only honorable recourse is to meet her opponent on the field of honor. She'll need two pistols, a second, and an oil painter.

Really, if we're not worried about that anymore, then the rule doesn't have any place in our books. And frankly, when the Senator in question is being evaluated for a higher position it would seem that technically no other Senator can say anything bad about them. That really makes me wonder about the fidelity of the interview process.

edit- ooh! I'm Canadian now! Did we lose another war with them while I was asleep last night?

I think a real-deal duel between Mitch McConnell and Elizabeth Warren is precisely the kind of thing this country needs right now.

 jasper76 wrote:

 reds8n wrote:
Would Palin even be interested in the job anyway ?

Believe one or other of her reality type show(s) were cancelled but one would imagine she does alright $$$ wise anyway.

From her recent speeches, I think she'd be more interested in a drunken slam poetry gig.

.. who wouldn't be ?

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Fraz, where in your law are the police given the right to forcibly inject prisoners with anything which is not required for lifesaving treatment (or the death penalty)?

And what will happen when someone who you just forcibly injected has an allergic reaction to it?

According to WHO estimates, Mexico has a 99% measles vaccination rate while the USA is only 92%. If there is a growing measles problem in the USA it is caused by anti-vaxxers not getting their children vaccinated.

I used to think this was a problem that would solve itself. Anti-vaxxer children would catch measles and possibly die, which is sad but inevitable. At least the vaccinated children are protected. But vaccination is not 100% effective. Some vaccinated children would also die in an epidemic.

The western anti-vaxxing movement started in the UK and was promoted by the Daily Mail (a right wing newspaper.) The doctor who did the study linking the MMR vaccine to autism was so badly discredited that he was barred from the British Medical Council years ago.

Only the uneducated would think the illegal immigration population here is Mexican.

True, Trump is fairly uneducated.

To get back to the point though, a large proportion of the illegal immigrant population is Mexican. However, if you want to solve the problem of US citizen anti-vaxxing by bringing in lots of already vaccinated foreigners, you will need to import at least 16 million to establish a herd immunity level of >95%.

The Majority are from Central America, with growing numbers from Asia, Africa, and the ME. We have Afghanis crossing the Rio Grand now. They are not vaccinated.

 reds8n wrote:

 jasper76 wrote:

 reds8n wrote:
Would Palin even be interested in the job anyway ?

Believe one or other of her reality type show(s) were cancelled but one would imagine she does alright $$$ wise anyway.

From her recent speeches, I think she'd be more interested in a drunken slam poetry gig.

.. who wouldn't be ?

You know I'd pay good money to see a drunk Sarah Palin vs. a tweaking Ashley Judd in an hour-long, no-holds-barred, slam poetry showdown.

Neither are 24 million US citizens.

Except for Mexico with its vaccination rate of 99%, the central American nations are too small to contribute a large number of immigrants. Any way, most of them have better vaccination rates than the USA.

The much larger populations in S America also mostly have better vaccination rates than the USA.

The fact is, you need to import many millions of Afghanis, Somalians etc to make the problem caused by your own huge mass of recalcitrant anti-vaxxers much worse.

OTOH if you can get the vaccination rate of immigrants up to 100%, you need to bring in 16 million or more to offset the problem of your 24 million unvaccinated citizens.

 Frazzled wrote:
[Canada is between America and Alaska. She can see it from her house.

I'm not sure if you are trying to be funny here or not. You'd be surprised how many people think that is an actual Palin quote. It's not, it came from an SNL skit staring Tina Fey. Now, I'm not trying to fanboy Palin (she's and idiot), but aim for something real.

Does anyone else think that maybe the best course for the Dems is to let Trump have what he wants in the cabinet positions? Seriously, just stand aside and say hey, it's on you buddy. Want a billionaire donor for ed secretary? A disgraced hack who couldn't even fill her term as governor for ambassador to our northern neighbor? Whatever. You guys have the votes.

Although fighting and showing that the Repubs will happily silence even token resistance may have it's benefits. "The bottom line is, it was long overdue with her," Lindsey Graham said. "I mean, she is clearly running for the nomination in 2020." Because screw that debate stuff. Not like Repub supporters care, of course. The Trumpistos seem to prefer imprisonment or execution....

And in other news, Sebastian Gorka, deputy assistant to President Donald Trump, said Monday that the administration will continue using the term "fake news" until the media understands that their "monumental desire" to attack the President is wrong. Because screw accountability.

This all seems very healthy.