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Every Trump voter who was angry at Hillary will of course be angry at Trump for being soft on classified information security.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/06/04/ex-navy-sailor-pardoned-by-trump-says-hes-suing-comey-and-obama.amp.html

A lawsuit of Trumpian proportions.

Le sigh.

More evidence mounts that we are indeed in the stupidest timeline.

 Ustrello wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/06/04/ex-navy-sailor-pardoned-by-trump-says-hes-suing-comey-and-obama.amp.html

A lawsuit of Trumpian proportions.

Question for our resident legal eagles. Could one of the other submariners sue Saucier for possibly endangering there lives because of him taking those pictures?

Probably not. I mean you can sue for just about anything, but whether it does anywhere is another matter. While taking pictures of classified stuff is illegal and puts national security at risk, it would be nearly impossible for those sailors to equate that to putting them personally at risk, especially since people in high risk jobs are generally considered as having accepted certain risks just by having those jobs. A private can't exactly sue the Army because he was put at risk. The circumstances have to be exceptional, usually involving malicious recklessness to beat the burden and Saucier doesn't seem to have been malicious when he took those pictures. Just stupid. Really stupid. Like the kind of stupid that sues someone immune from suit for being treated unfairly under the law while holding up someone who didn't do the thing he's accused of doing as a chief example of that unfair treatment. Some spicy emails on a private server aren't the same thing as taking spicy pictures of classified technology.

 LordofHats wrote:

 Ustrello wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/06/04/ex-navy-sailor-pardoned-by-trump-says-hes-suing-comey-and-obama.amp.html

A lawsuit of Trumpian proportions.

Question for our resident legal eagles. Could one of the other submariners sue Saucier for possibly endangering there lives because of him taking those pictures?

Probably not. I mean you can sue for just about anything, but whether it does anywhere is another matter. While taking pictures of classified stuff is illegal and puts national security at risk, it would be nearly impossible for those sailors to equate that to putting them personally at risk, especially since people in high risk jobs are generally considered as having accepted certain risks just by having those jobs. A private can't exactly sue the Army because he was put at risk. The circumstances have to be exceptional, usually involving malicious recklessness to beat the burden and Saucier doesn't seem to have been malicious when he took those pictures. Just stupid. Really stupid. Like the kind of stupid that sues someone immune from suit for being treated unfairly under the law while holding up someone who didn't do the thing he's accused of doing as a chief example of that unfair treatment. Some spicy emails on a private server aren't the same thing as taking spicy pictures of classified technology.

Honestly that is what I figured, but you can never tell.

 feeder wrote:

More evidence mounts that we are indeed in the stupidest timeline.

Hopefully when I go back in time to save John Conner I can fix this along the way.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 feeder wrote:

More evidence mounts that we are indeed in the stupidest timeline.

Hopefully when I go back in time to save John Conner I can fix this along the way.

If you're going to do that, I beg you to intercept me on July 3rd, 1996. I will be at the cross-county theater in Yonkers, New York.

I went to go see Independence Day, and when the person selling the tickets told me to enjoy the show, I said "you, too".

"you too"


"yooooooou toooooooo"

That memory has haunted me since then on a near-daily basis.

Y'all know how much I love loathe Ted Cruz, so this one just gives me the giggles.
https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2018/06/04/ted-cruz-18-seconds-speechless-trump-pardon-question-ebof.cnn
When asked about Trump's claim that he can pardon himself, Cruz was silent for 18 seconds before answering with "That is not a constitutional issue that I've studied, so I will withhold judgment at this point."

Remember, this is the guy who is supposed to be an expert on the Constitution and is never one for keeping his opinions to himself.

His reasoning doesn't sound despotic at all

he Eagles aren't going to the White House after all. They've been disinvited.

Less than 24 hours before the Super Bowl champions were set to visit the White House for a glorified photo opportunity, President Donald Trump has rescinded their invitation with the following statement:

"The Philadelphia Eagles are unable to come to the White House with their full team to be celebrated tomorrow. They disagree with their President because he insists that they proudly stand for the National Anthem, hand on heart, in honor of the great men and women of our military and the people of our country.

"The Eagles wanted to send a smaller delegation, but the 1,000 fans planning to attend the event deserve better. These fans are still invited to the White House to be part of a different type of ceremony - one that will honor our great country, pay tribute to the heroes who fight to protect it, and loudly and proudly play the National Anthem. I will be there at 3:00 p.m. with the United States Marine Band and the United States Army Chorus to celebrate America."

In the planning leading up to the trip, several notable Eagles, including Malcolm Jenkins, Chris Long and Brandon Graham, said they were not going to attend the White House visit. The team was planning on letting its individual players decide whether or not they wanted to attend the visit to the White House, which was supposed to be just a part of its trip to Washington D.C. The Eagles were presumably planning other parts to their trip.

https://sports.yahoo.com/eagles-white-house-trip-canceled-231632800.html

You must worship at the altar of the state and praise the Glorious Leader!

Nevermind that it's the same state that can't be trusted, the bloated parasite that needs starving and removal, the overreaching tyrrany whereupon no one man can be trusted to rule limitlessly, etc.

I don't know that I've seen the military whored out for so crass and meaningless of a purpose before.

 Vaktathi wrote:
You must worship at the altar of the state and praise the Glorious Leader!

Nevermind that it's the same state that can't be trusted, the bloated parasite that needs starving and removal, the overreaching tyrrany whereupon no one man can be trusted to rule limitlessly, etc.

No no, it's only evil if there's Democrats in it.

Have you done your part and thanked someone for their service today?

I wanted to, but my bone spurs were just too bad.

 Peregrine wrote:
The problem is that some ideas just cross the line and make a person too toxic to deal with. Imagine if you're a black coworker of hers, could you honestly work with someone who has appalling racist opinions about you? It would be a massive workplace disruption even if she only expressed those opinions on twitter. You'd still know all about the whole mess, and know that she's just staying quiet at work to keep her job. Or, to give an even clearer example, imagine your coworker was a literal nazi. Nazi flag waving, Hitler saluting, "kill them all" nazi. Could you set aside that knowledge and work with them? I doubt it. I'd share your point of view if it was about things like punishing someone for being a fan of your favorite football team's rival, but some beliefs are not acceptable in society and the people who hold them are not entitled to economic success.

It's especially a problem in the case of a high-profile employee. This isn't an anonymous janitor or factory worker or whatever, it's someone with a major role as the face of a company. No matter how many PR press releases you put out saying "I don't endorse this" people are still going to believe otherwise, those awful opinions are going to be all over the news, and your other employees are going to know all about it. At that level you just don't have a private life that you can wall off and keep isolated from having any effect on your job performance.

Sure, but the thing is everyone knew Roseanne Barr was a racist, conspiracy mongering, hate filled nutter before she made the planet of the apes tweet. That doesn't mean her tweet was okay, and it doesn't mean all her previous craziness was okay, but it does show people will and are expected to work with racist, conspiracy mongering, hate filled nutter if they're unlikely enough to employed in the wrong place at the wrong time. On the day before the tweet her co-workers knew she was a racist, conspiracy mongering, hate filled nutter. None of that changed with the email that got her fired.

What got her fired wasn't her making work intolerable for co-workers, but because her tweet produced a PR mess for ABC & Disney. That's the issue to me - these sorts of firings aren't driven out of a concern for the rights of co-workers, they're driven by companies wanting a smooth, easy ride. Remember Colin Kapearnick lost his job long before Barr did, he wasn't racist, he was just making political hassle that his employers didn't want. Making offensive tweets isn't taking us towards a place where people are free from racist co-workers, it's taking us to a place where we've got as many racist co-workers as we always had, but also a place where making any kind of waves outside of your work can mean losing your job.


As a note, the freeze on the US politics thread helped my answer here, because I was going to respond by pointing out the Trumper's attempts to respond to Barr's firing first by trying to get Bill Maher fired, then switching to Samantha Bee. It was going to be some kind of answer that you have to be what power you put in moral outrage, because Trumper's and their ilk will cynically manipulate that power for their own political ends. But thinking for an extra day made me realise that answer was junk, because 'Trumper's will respond with a cynical mainpulation to try and throw this on other people' is true of basically everything. Trying to build a set of rules and standards that Trumper's won't try to use in a dishonest, self-serving way is impossible, that's just who those people are. I'm not saying anything about the ban, I'm just making an observation that sometimes it doesn't hurt to have 24 hours between reading a post and giving a reply


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 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
To a certain extent I can see the logic. I mean, this was a journalist who, after I asked him about this view he had, informed me that he hasn't liked a single president since Ford (and even then, he was quick to point out, this was a personality thing, not a policy thing) He had a clear understanding, in covering politics since Nixon, that there were stresses within the Office that most of us will never understand, and as such "should" respect the Presidential Office, even if we don't respect the personage holding said office.

I understand that argument, and I agree up to a point. I was no fan of GW Bush, and spent most of his 8 years critising most of what he did. But I remember at the end of the his presidency they showed before and after images, and it was clear the toll it took on the man. Any one who serves in the role is worn down by the job, and that should be respected.

However, while I think it is possible to show respect for that sacrifice, it is equally important to mock any self-seriousness or other failings of a president. I think not only can both sit side by side, they have to.


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 gorgon wrote:
Self-interest drives many of the choices we make, and there were plenty of people who voted for Trump because they thought he'd do better than Hillary at lowering taxes, creating jobs, helping small businesses, keeping the military strong, etc. And they continue to back him because they still think he's better than the alternative. There's nothing inherently racist, sexist, delusional, or integrity-challenged about those old-school GOP positions and interests.

There isn't anything inherently racist in those positions, but there is something inherently racist and sexist in overlooking Trump's statements in order to get those things.

Think about it like this - instead of Republican candidate Trump saying a Mexico was sending their rapists and criminals, imagine the Republican candidate el Trumpo, a man proud of his Mexican heritage saying Mexican immigrants are great they are lawful people, while the local white population is full of rapists and criminals. You think a majority of white people would vote for el Trumpo, just looking past his racist abuse of white people because they're so excited about maybe getting some more tax cuts? You think a majority of white people would have voted for el Trumpo?

Of course they wouldn't have. But when Trump was saying all his racist stuff, those people might not have agreed, but it didn't bother them in a way it would have bothered them if it was leveled against their own ethnic group. Which isn't the same thing as full blown white seperatist racism, but it is still a kind of racism.

Oh, and before anyone says this is me saying only Republicans are racist, note I didn't say that in any form - that is not my point in the slightest. There is a lot of that kind of unexamined racism everywhere, including in the left. We can just look at Puerto Rico, where the death toll is now 4,600, almost entirely due to the months it took for basic services and utilities to be restored after the storm. Sure, alongside general incompetence there is likely a lot of racism in the response attempted by the Trump administration. But there's also a lot of unexamined racism in how the left has engaged with the issue, it's barely mentioned at all except as a beatstick against Trump. When people read 4,600 Puerto Ricans are dead and their first and only reaction is to use it to attack Trump, they've got some racial issues of their own to work through.


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 BaronIveagh wrote:
Yeah, he's been getting pretty... well, 'liberal' with his pardons. I expect him to pardon himself shortly before the impeachment just to try and muddle things more.

Credit where credit is due. You stated that on June 3rd. On June 4th Trump tweeted that he can pardon himself.

Either you truly, deeply understand the workings of the great Orange One, or Trump is reading the Dakka US politics thread.


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 Disciple of Fate wrote:
He never had 1%, it was always relatively close when taking the margin of error into account. It was basically correct in the predictions though, Clinton did get more votes, Trump just got lucky his votes happened in the right places to win.

The NYT electoral model gave Trump a very low chance of winning, I think it was 5% but maybe it was 1%, I can't quite remember. Since then various Trump supporters have been using that to claim Trump despite no-one thinking he could.

It's a junk narrative though. The NYT model was broadly criticized at the time by a bunch of other older, better credentialed electoral modelers. The NYT model was a bit simple, you see, it assumed that the difference between polling and its election say result was independent of each other state. So if Trump beat his Florida polls by 3%, that wouldn't mean he was more likely to beat his polls in other states. Following that logic, treating each state as independent, you can line up each state Trump has to beat his polls by, calculate the odds of that happening in each state, multiply it out and get a very small percentage as Trump's chance of winning.

The problem is election day results don't work like that. What actually happens is if Trump over-performs in Florida it is due in large part to a higher turn out than expected of white working class voters, which also impacts other states like Michigan. And if Michigan also has a lower than expected black turnout, that will be reflected in other states. So a good model will factor in all those correlations, and work on assumptions about various possible variations to polls among different demographics and see how that impacts turnout in various states.

But of course, that level of complexity, or the fact that most pollsters quite reasonably gave Trump a chance somewhere between 1/3 and 1/4, is ignored by goddardc. There's a reason he picks on the one bad model, and ignores all the ones that were reasonable. He wants to dismiss not just political analysts, but analysts and expertise in general.


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 BaronIveagh wrote:
Seems Trump can officially pardon himself, supposedly. But won't. Honest.

To make my own psychic prediction, before the axe drops Trump will try to pardon himself and everyone else who committed crimes. Trump will claim he is doing this not because any of them are guilty of anything, but to stop the witch hunt.


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 Kilkrazy wrote:
However none of it matters because the Republican "non-swamp" currently will vote through a brain-dead axe-murderer who raped, killed and ate a choirboy (but not in that precise order) as long as he wears a red tie.

At least the axe-murderer has seen the inside of a courtroom, which puts him ahead of many of Trump's judicial nominees.

 Ouze wrote:
I wanted to, but my bone spurs were just too bad.

Hold on, reporting you to the proper authorities, lib scum!

Seems Manafort has been attempting to tamper with potential witnesses.

It's fine, I'm sure he'll get a pardon from Trump, further reassuring everyone that there is absolutely nothing to hide.

German politicians call for expulsion of Trump's Berlin envoy

It hasn't taken long for this chap to make himself very unpopular.

So Trump decided that if you don’t act the right kind of patriotic, and can’t get your friends and coworkers to act the right kind of patriotic, you don’t get to visit the White House.

Yeah, but it's kind of a wash. Going to the White House and meeting the president isn't exactly the high honor it previously was - would you have been excited about it, if it wasn't for something related to a uniformed service?

It's not even a red team / blue team thing. I imagine there are no shortage of Republicans who wouldn't particularly want to meet Orange Foolius* and have their picture taken with him while he makes it about himself in some weird, crass way.



*Or, uh, have him attend their funerals. Snicker.

Germany’s Bayer (BAYGn.DE) will wrap up the $63 billion takeover of Monsanto (MON.N) on Thursday and also retire the U.S. seeds maker’s 117 year-old name.

The German drugmaker had received all required approvals from regulatory authorities, it said in a statement on Monday.

“Bayer will remain the company name. Monsanto will no longer be a company name. The acquired products will retain their brand names and become part of the Bayer portfolio,” it said.

Bayer launched a 6 billion euro ($7 billion) rights issue on Sunday, a cornerstone of the financing package for the deal, shortly after clearing the last major antitrust hurdle in the United States.


The deal is the first of a trio of major U.S.-German merger deals to cross the finish line at a time of harsh criticism by U.S. President Donald Trump of Germany’s trade surplus with the United State

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-monsanto-m-a-bayer-closing/bayer-to-close-monsanto-takeover-to-retire-targets-name-idUSKCN1J00IZ

That feeling when a German company who had a major stake in the production of Zyklon B and used slave labor buys an American company that created another poison gas (Agent Orange) all the while the cheeto is complaining about the EU and Germany

edit: forgot source

I have a theory that the rest of the NFL teams sandbagged the season so they wouldn't have to go to the White House. Nobody told the Eagles.....

 Ouze wrote:
Yeah, but it's kind of a wash. Going to the White House and meeting the president isn't exactly the high honor it previously was - would you have been excited about it, if it wasn't for something related to a uniformed service?

It's not even a red team / blue team thing. I imagine there are no shortage of Republicans who wouldn't particularly want to meet Orange Foolius* and have their picture taken with him while he makes it about himself in some weird, crass way.



*Or, uh, have him attend their funerals. Snicker.

I sure would not. I'd rather get another root canal without anesthesia then meet that guy.

Steelmage99 wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/06/04/ex-navy-sailor-pardoned-by-trump-says-hes-suing-comey-and-obama.amp.html

A lawsuit of Trumpian proportions.

".....But her emails!"

Sigh.

Indeed... her emails.

Also, sailor's case won't go anywhere because of 'qualified immunity' of government officials.


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 Frazzled wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
Yeah, but it's kind of a wash. Going to the White House and meeting the president isn't exactly the high honor it previously was - would you have been excited about it, if it wasn't for something related to a uniformed service?

It's not even a red team / blue team thing. I imagine there are no shortage of Republicans who wouldn't particularly want to meet Orange Foolius* and have their picture taken with him while he makes it about himself in some weird, crass way.



*Or, uh, have him attend their funerals. Snicker.

I sure would not. I'd rather get another root canal without anesthesia then meet that guy.

Word.

I'd rather get another kidney stone...

McConnell cancels Senate August recess over Dem "obstruction"of Trump nominees

Yes, because when Trump isnt sending nominees, and what people he is sending are often odiously unqualified even by GOP standards, and the WH obviously having issues with vetting, to say nothing of the fact that the GOP cant get its own house in order, its all obviously the fault of the Democrats.

It’s the Dems making other republicans vote against some of these people.

I just saw this

Just read through the last page or so, and I have to say guys - can we just agree Trump is not the most unscrupulous person, and move on to talking about something more substantive? Again, as someone who did not (and will not) vote for him, I feel his opponents often fall into the trap of taking his bait. He controls the narrative when people do this, and the media falls for it Every Single Time. Despite popular narrative, I don't think he's stupid - he's pulling the media's strings and they play right into it!

Regarding the cake baker case, I completely agree with the result, and have yet to see Sotomayor take a moderate stance on any ruling. I love justice Kennedy's moderate positions, and the narrow ruling in this case was absolutely the right one, imo. Hopefully, they'll take on another case to make a broader ruling to avoid discrimination, but this is Not a broad ruling - it's specific to that one case, as it should be, imo.

 RiTides wrote:
He controls the narrative when people do this, and the media falls for it Every Single Time. Despite popular narrative, I don't think he's stupid - he's pulling the media's strings and they play right into it!

I do think the media is too busy charging after everything that happens to take stock of whether its a good idea. What I don't agree with is saying he isn't stupid, he most certainly is considering his 'policy' positions and the things he says. A smart man wouldn't wing it when it comes to NK or offend his closest allies for zero gain. Its no substance and all show, that isn't remotely smart in the position he is fulfilling. While the media might go after the more superficial part of his intellect, there really isn't much substance behind it related to the job he has now. He might be good at playing the media, but that doesn't make him smart.

 RiTides wrote:
Regarding the cake baker case, I completely agree with the result, and have yet to see Sotomayor take a moderate stance on any ruling. I love justice Kennedy's moderate positions, and the narrow ruling in this case was absolutely the right one, imo. Hopefully, they'll take on another case to make a broader ruling to avoid discrimination, but this is Not a broad ruling - it's specific to that one case, as it should be, imo.

I think they should have made a broader ruling though. This is leaving the door open to other types of discrimination that are only going to be resolved once another case reaches the SC. How many people in the meantime will not have the willingness or the means to carry what they feel is discrimination against their sexuality to court before the broader case does?

https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1004076757987753984

NBC News' Peter Alexander to Sarah Sanders: "If the White House supports the [Colorado] baker's right of free speech, why doesn't the White House support the [NFL] players' right to free speech?" (via CBS)

Sanders goes on to say that Trump doesn't believe NFL players' right to protest is a matter of free speech. He believes it's a matter of "respect."



uh huh.

... you are all sure it was just Flint's water supply was dodgy right ?

If you challenge the Trump BS you play into the narrative. If you don’t challenge it, you let it stand as the truth.

There is no good option.