Just incomprehensible, and the “assistance” for this BS from the NY Times is abominable.
“Nikki Haley Just Defended Donald Trump as a Paragon of Truth and Virtue on National Television
The argument that this president is merely committed to rooting out corruption is insulting.
It’s a complete avalanche of bullshit now. The president has graciously offered to release the “transcript” of a different call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky—an April call that no one took issue with, and which is unrelated to the impeachment inquiry at hand, but which some adult human political journalists are already treating as a savvy political Move. As usual, folks at The Paper of Record seem to be under the impression that they play no role in whether a ludicrous ploy like this will be successful.
On another front, the president’s Republican allies in Congress have staked out a defense strategy for him that is predicated on ignoring all the hard evidence on the record. That’s convenient when a parade of witnesses have confirmed that Donald Trump sought to extort the leader of a foreign country into ratfucking his domestic political opponent, thereby turning American foreign policy into a vehicle for his personal political gain—an abuse of power and a betrayal of his oath of office. The first “transcript” he released, which is not a transcript but is also not exculpatory, is old news. So is The Whistleblower. Witnesses are on the record confirming the president’s misconduct. The new transcript on the way is even less relevant. So Republicans in Congress will apparently argue the president wasn’t in a “culpable state of mind” when it all went down, so it’s not impeachable….
But Haley wasn’t done. She also had the nerve to suggest Donald Trump Is Very Concerned About Corruption.
Haley granted the call wasn’t “good practice”—something of an understatement—and then seemed to channel the president’s directive to read the transcript!!! But we don’t just have the transcript anymore. It’s not just about this one call. We have witnesses attesting to what was going on all around this call now, with “the three amigos”—Rudy Giuliani, Gordon Sondland, and Rick Perry—making it clear to the Ukrainians via backchannels what was required of them. We have Sondland himself admitting there was a quid pro quo—that there was extortion. The call does not exist in some magical vacuum of perfection.
But that was just a prelude to what has been among the most offensive suggestions from Trump defenders, in that it insults the intelligence of anyone even vaguely familiar with Donald Trump. This is a guy who spent his entire “business” career screwing contractors and suing his way out of various obligations. He participated in a multi-generational family tax fraud scheme. His administration is The Great American Heist. The guy fucking loves corruption, and yet Haley is going to say he was just trying to root it out in Ukraine? It doesn’t pass the laugh test. And besides, we already know that the Ukrainians offered to make an announcement about a renewed anti-corruption push in general terms, but Rudy Giuliani insisted on a mention of Burisma, the company affiliated with the Bidens, specifically. Nobody, including the Republicans pushing it, believes this was about Trump’s sincere concern about corruption. It was a ratfuck.”
Have a nice day, Susan Sarandon. And everyone else who ignored the future of the Supreme Court when they stayed home and/or voted 3rd party because Clinton. You all own a part of this disaster.
“How the Roberts Court Abandoned Bipartisan Consensus
Under the chief justice, 73 decisions have been decided 5–4 along partisan lines. And 73 times, the big Republican donor interest won.
By Dahlia Lithwick
Nov 12, 201911:14 AM
Dahlia Lithwick: Are we just surrendered to this?
Sheldon Whitehouse: We’re surrendered to it if we do nothing, but there are things that we can do.
The first thing is to look at patterns on the court. If you try to prove a discrimination case in court, you can bring into evidence patterns. And patterns can be probative of bias, and so patterns matter. What we have done as Democrats is to bemoan the ghastly Citizens United decision, to regret Shelby County’s disassembly of a key part of the Voting Rights Act, to become angry about Janus taking a shot at labor unions. But we’ve not focused on the pattern at the court. And the pattern under Chief Justice Roberts is that they’re now up to 73 5–4 decisions.
Seventy-three of these decisions are marked by a few characteristics: One, it’s 5–4, they haven’t tried to get a real majority, just a bare majority. Two, the 5–4 breaks along partisan lines. And three, there’s a big Republican donor interest at stake. There are 73 of those cases, and 73 for 73, the big Republican donor interest won. And I do think that calling out the emperors as having no clothes might create just a little bit of shame on their part and a little bit of caution about what they are doing to the reputation of the court. So we’ve got to be more analytic and thoughtful about this……
Dahlia Lithwick: Are you mad that the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society are so, so good and effective at channeling dark money toward effectuating outcomes at the court? Or are you just mad that progressives are so bad at it? I mean, one of the things that is so interesting to me is there is no equivalent Federal Society, there is no equivalent Heritage Foundation. There is no machinery that is analogous. And I wonder if—and a little bit goes to your point about being played for suckers—is the solution here for progressives to get huge money, start pouring it into the court, create a machinery that builds 36-year-old wild-eyed advocates and then there would be parity? Is that the answer?
Sheldon Whitehouse: That’s one answer. It’s not the answer that I would prefer or would propose. What makes me angry is that all of us, Democrats and progressives, have kind of sat this out while the apparatus that you described was developed by the right. And we haven’t called it out. We haven’t systematically called it out. Take a look at the situation right now. United States Supreme Court justices are selected based on a Federalist Society operative, on his recommendations, while the Federalist Society is taking large amounts of dark money from big donor interests. So there’s dark money behind the selection of justices. Then when the selection is made, the confirmation battles for those nominees are fought with dark money. The Judicial Crisis Network took two $17 million–plus contributions, one to push Garland out and Gorsuch in, and one to push Kavanaugh through and onto the court.
There’s every likelihood that the donor in those two $17 million contributions was the same donor, which, if that were true, means that somebody paid $35 million–plus to influence the composition of the United States Supreme Court. And we have no idea who that person is and what their interests are before the court. That’s not a good place to be. If you look at the amicus curiae array, the so-called friends of the court who come in and file briefs hoping to direct the judges what to do, they are crawling with dark money–funded front groups who don’t reveal to the court who the real partying interest is behind the brief.”
Colin Kaepernick hasn’t played in an NFL game since 2016. In the intervening three years, the 32-year-old former San Francisco 49ers quarterback hasn’t even been able to get an NFL workout. That’s set to change this weekend, though it remains unclear if this weekend’s event is a legitimate tryout or a league-orchestrated PR move.
On Tuesday, the NFL informed all 32 teams that Kaepernick—who’s been effectively blacklisted from the league on account of the protest movement he started by kneeling during the national anthem—will perform for talent evaluators this Saturday in Atlanta. Kaepernick confirmed the news himself on Twitter: ….
Given the logistics of the workout and the backstory behind it, however, there is reason to wonder how genuine an opportunity this is going to be.
As Kaepernick noted in his tweet, he only learned of the workout proposal on Tuesday. A source familiar with the process told Slate that the league had no prior communication with Kaepernick or his representatives before floating the workout plan on Tuesday. As ESPN reported, the league rejected a request to move the workout to a different day:
When notified, the quarterback’s reps asked for the workout to be on a Tuesday, which typically is when all NFL workouts take place, since head coaches and general managers can more easily attend. This Saturday, almost half of the NFL teams will be traveling to games, and most of the rest of the coaches and players will be heading to their team hotels to prepare for their games the next day.
The source told Slate that the NFL declined a request to move the date of the workout to either Tuesday or next Saturday. Kaepernick was then given two hours to respond to the offer, the source said, at which point the quarterback accepted the NFL’s terms….
Rodger Sherman
✔
@rodger
· 9h
Colin Kaepernick has the 23rd highest career passer rating in NFL history, the 17th highest career adjusted yards per attempt in NFL history, the 2nd best interception rate in NFL history and the 9th most rushing yards per game of any QB in NFL history
Rodger Sherman
✔
@rodger
The 16 players above Colin Kaepernick in career adjusted yards per attempt:
—10 are current NFL starting quarterbacks
—4 are in the Hall of Fame (Otto Graham, Steve Young, Kurt Warner, Joe Montana)
—2 are Peyton Manning and Tony Romo”
“In an interview with MSNBC, Julián Castro made the perfectly reasonable argument that the order of the states in the Democratic primary is demographically “not reflective of the U.S. as a whole, certainly not reflective of the Democratic Party,” and that “we do need to change the order of the states” in the primary process. Days later, he elaborated in an interview with Vogue:
“We can’t go around thanking black women for powering Democrats to victory all over the country, and then at the same time hold our first caucus and our first primary in states that have almost no African-Americans,” Secretary Castro told Vogue. “We’re right to call Republicans out when they suppress the votes of African-Americans or Latinos, but we’ve also got to recognize that this 50-year-old process was created during a time when minority voices had zero power in the party.” …
It is remarkable that the entitled residents of these two states—Warren said their positions in the primary process are “what Iowa and New Hampshire are all about,” whatever that means—have such sway over the Democratic primary process and, by extension, America and the world. Around 171,000 people participated in Iowa’s 2016 Democratic caucuses, and about 250,000 people voted in the New Hampshire primary. A group of people roughly the size of Minneapolis has immense influence over an election in which 30 million Americans voted in 2016….
It is nevertheless the case that if you were tasked with designing a Democratic presidential primary from scratch, with no weight of tradition or precedent and no previous privileged positions to consider, there is absolutely no reason why you would pick Iowa and New Hampshire to go first. They are, as Goodman pointed out, extremely white and very rural; New Hampshire has the second oldest population in the country, after Maine. They have nothing to recommend them over any other state. Why Iowa and not Indiana? Why New Hampshire and not New Jersey? Why, more importantly, these states instead of larger, more representative, more diverse, more urban states? Why not California, the biggest state in the union, one of the most progressive states, and a state under urgent and desperate threat from climate change? Why not Texas, a state that could vote for a Democratic president in the next decade with genuine investment from the national party and has one of the youngest populations? Why not North Carolina, which at least has good food?”
Back when Kerry was running for the Presidency, Michigan (which has a large population of African Americans) attempted to move it’s primary up. Michigan was penalized for doing so by Donna Brazile for forcing the issue. You are right,; but then, Democrats would be accused of ignoring rural American.
Since the numbers of EC delegates are locked into 435 and more populous states are under represented by the EC (Wyoming versus California [CA should have 13 more EC votes]), should we piss them off some more? Repeal the 1929 Reapportionment Act as it is unconstitutional and use a lower number of citizens per district to determine EC delegates by population. Bring the House back to what it was supposed to do . . . represent by population. And the EC will follow and primaries can be adjusted.
Anywhere but Iowa and NH would be better. Though I have great doubts about Ohio. Anyplace that can put Jim Jordan in Congress is very questionable.
Personally I like the idea of a National Primary election on the same day. Let’s get it over as soon as we can. From that link:
“The primary could be held nationally, all on one day—you know, like a presidential election? If the national primary was late enough, it might have the blessed effect of shortening the length of the campaign. Opponents of such a scheme have a complaint they’ll cheerfully offer: A national primary brings with it the downside of increasing the already ridiculous (and democratically damaging) amount of money that candidates have to raise if they have to compete nationally in expensive television markets. This, critics say, will maximize the advantages of the candidates most able to tap the veins of riches on offer from wealthy donors. Nevertheless, the supposed advantages of the status quo, in which less-affluent candidates can overcome their skint campaign coffers by excelling at “retail politics” at diners in Iowa, doesn’t offer much to a Texan without Medicaid who never gets a chance to question the candidates.
Interestingly enough, what America’s primary process problem suggests is that we have an excellent argument for the total public financing of elections staring us right in the face. And this is why some bolder thinking is welcome, because any path to remaking the country in a more just and equal image must involve reinvigorating the stated values of the Democratic Party as well. Dispensing with this antiquated system can be viewed as part of an overall mission to foster more democratic equality. Julián Castro is onto something: A party that supposedly prides itself on diversity, economic equality, and the representation of marginalized communities can’t really defend leaving Iowa and New Hampshire to dictate its future. Besides, everyone involved can stand to eat fewer corn dogs. “
You knew this was going to be a clustf!ck with Nunes involved.
“The Opening Statements from Devin Nunes and Adam Schiff at the Impeachment Hearing Said Everything
It was a complete contrast: one dealt in the evidence provided by witnesses under oath. The other spouted Fox News conspiracies.
It isn’t news that we live in a siloed information environment. The experiences left- and right-leaning folks have on social media are radically different thanks in part to algorithms crafted to serve people what they want—that is, what reinforces their preexisting viewpoint. But to suggest there are equal levels of epistemic closure, to say that the bubbles are equally impervious to outside information, is nonsense. It is clear now that the world constructed by Fox News and a raft of conservative outlets online is scarcely tethered to observable reality at all.
In fact, it’s become so severe that watching, say, Sean Hannity’s show—or reading the president’s enraged tweets—can be like trying to decipher another language. There is an entire glossary of terms in this Fox News Conspiracy Universe, a whole set of precepts and dogmas and characters that are near-incomprehensible to the uninitiated. Crowdstrike. Strzok and Page. Nellie Ohr. The Dirty Dossier. And incredibly, at the start of the open hearings of the impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump, American president, on Wednesday, we were treated to a lesson in the form by the Ranking Member of the House Intelligence Committee. Try to decode what Devin Nunes is saying here, particularly after the 1:14 mark.
Nunes treats the Mueller Report as a punchline, even though it documented as many as 10 instances where the President of the United States obstructed justice. It also found at least 140 contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian figures, all of which it attempted to cover up, including the small issue of Trump’s campaign chief, Paul Manafort, meeting with an operative linked to Russian intelligence to share campaign information on key battleground states. The Report did not charge any Americans with conspiracy—the legal offense in question—but it seems to have found plenty of collusion (not a legal term). However, No Collusion is an article of faith in Nunes’ informational world. And then he brought up Wikileaks while a trial is in progress across town looking at whether longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone lied under oath about his work with Wikileaks to publicize dirt on Democrats. The dirt, of course, was in the form of emails that Russian intelligence hacked and gave to Wikileaks.
But none of that seems relevant to Nunes, who dismissed Russia’s attack on the 2016 election to get Trump elected as old news. He also took it as gospel that this was separate from the Ukraine extortion, which involved holding up military aid the Ukrainians needed to combat Russian aggression. (Let’s wait and see on that one.) In general, this was a dive into the Fox News Conspiracy Universe, not a discussion of any of the issues at hand. To the extent Nunes mentioned the president’s behavior with respect to Ukraine, he didn’t spend much time actually defending it on the merits. His time was devoted to shadowy conspiracies and dark insinuations that laymen listening probably struggled to understand. I struggled, and I pay a lot of attention to Fox News. It was a sign that either the Republican members are getting high on their own supply, or that they’re well aware that all that matters for their own political futures is how all this plays on Fox News.”
Each time I see something like this, I go back and read a letter. This part of it always catches me,
“It is true that we are completely under the saddle of Massachusetts and Connecticut, and that they ride us very hard, cruelly insulting our feelings, as well as exhausting our strength and subsistence. Their natural friends, the three other Eastern States join them from a sort of family pride, and they have the art to divide certain other parts of the Union, so as to make use of them to govern the whole.
This is not new, it is the old practice of despots; to use a part of the people to keep the rest in order. And those who have once got an ascendancy and possessed themselves of all the resources of the nation, their revenues and offices, have immense means for retaining their advantage.
But, our present situation is not a natural one.
But still I repeat it, this is not the natural state.
Be this as it may, in every free and deliberating society, there must, from the nature of man, be opposite parties, and violent dissensions and discords; and one of these, for the most part, must prevail over the other for a longer or shorter time. Perhaps this party division is necessary to induce each to watch and delate to the people the proceedings of the other.
But, will the evil stop there?
A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolved, and the people recovering their true sight, restoring their government to its true principles. It is true, that in the meantime, we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war, and long oppressions of enormous public debt. … If the game runs sometimes against us at home, we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost. For this is a game where principles are the stake.”
“We move along to Ohio, where the state legislature is considering one of those bills that Republicans love to try to pass because they sense their power is at risk and they want to embed as much of their signature crazy in the law before the roof caves in. From WKRC in Cincinnati:
‘The Ohio House on Wednesday passed the “Student Religious Liberties Act.” Under the law, students can’t be penalized if their work is scientifically wrong as long as the reasoning is because of their religious beliefs. Instead, students are graded on substance and relevance.’
How can a student in biology class be graded on “substance and relevance” if their answer is “scientifically wrong”? It’s like saying an English student must be graded on substance and relevance if the student claims that Jesus told him that Shakespeare was written in Tagalog.
Every Republican in the House supported the bill. It now moves to the Republican-controlled Senate.
The appalling disregard of the separation of church and state is mind numbing. Their interpretation of the desires of a giant space daddy is frightening.
The only thing remaining is who is going to throw whom the furthest under the bus.
“Earlier Friday evening, CNN’s congressional reporter Manu Raju scooped a copy of the statement that David Holmes delivered to the House Intelligence Committee in a closed session on Friday. Holmes is the aide to whom Ambassador Bill Taylor referred on Wednesday as the guy who overheard the cellphone conversation between the president* and his go-between, Ambassador Gordon Sondland, in a Ukrainian restaurant. Holmes’s statement is detailed and damning. It’s also faintly hilarious that the whole case may be broken because two old men talked too loudly on their cellphones. From CNN:
‘ “Sondland told Trump that Zelensky ‘loves your ass,’ ” Holmes said, according to a copy of his opening statement. “I then heard President Trump ask, ‘So, he’s gonna do the investigation?’ Ambassador Sondland replied that ‘he’s gonna do it,’ adding that President Zelensky will do ‘anything you ask him to.’”…”Even though I did not take notes of those statements, I have a clear recollection that these statements were made,” he added.
Holmes also confirmed Taylor’s testimony about the President’s thoughts on Ukraine, saying he had asked Sondland “if it was true that the President did not ‘give a s— about Ukraine.” Holmes said Sondland had responded that Trump cares only about “big stuff.” When Holmes said that the Ukraine war was big, Sondland responded, ” ‘Big stuff’ that benefits the President, like the Biden investigation that Mr. Giuliani was pushing,” Holmes said.’
Holmes’s statement does several things. First, it puts Sondland squarely back on the hook for having once told Congress that he’d had no contact with anyone at the White House on these matters. Sondland’s already had to reupholster that one once, and now, it’s plain that he remains legally vulnerable. Sondland is supposed to testify publicly next week. He must be quivering with anticipation.
Second, it’s another nail in Rudy Giuliani’s coffin. If Sondland folds, which now seems likely, Rudy is the next sucker standing, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and White House Chief-of-Staff Mick Mulvaney lined up behind him like a row of dominoes leading into the Oval Office.
Third, it makes even stronger the testimony of the three witnesses who testified in public this week.
And fourth, and last, it leaves the president*and his enablers with no defense left except to say that, yes, the president* did it, but it’s not impeachable. Not sure how that squares with all the effort the White House put into burying this whole episode, but that’s all they’ve got left. If there’s a gun left here that isn’t smoking, I can’t find it.”
Just incomprehensible, and the “assistance” for this BS from the NY Times is abominable.
“Nikki Haley Just Defended Donald Trump as a Paragon of Truth and Virtue on National Television
The argument that this president is merely committed to rooting out corruption is insulting.
It’s a complete avalanche of bullshit now. The president has graciously offered to release the “transcript” of a different call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky—an April call that no one took issue with, and which is unrelated to the impeachment inquiry at hand, but which some adult human political journalists are already treating as a savvy political Move. As usual, folks at The Paper of Record seem to be under the impression that they play no role in whether a ludicrous ploy like this will be successful.
On another front, the president’s Republican allies in Congress have staked out a defense strategy for him that is predicated on ignoring all the hard evidence on the record. That’s convenient when a parade of witnesses have confirmed that Donald Trump sought to extort the leader of a foreign country into ratfucking his domestic political opponent, thereby turning American foreign policy into a vehicle for his personal political gain—an abuse of power and a betrayal of his oath of office. The first “transcript” he released, which is not a transcript but is also not exculpatory, is old news. So is The Whistleblower. Witnesses are on the record confirming the president’s misconduct. The new transcript on the way is even less relevant. So Republicans in Congress will apparently argue the president wasn’t in a “culpable state of mind” when it all went down, so it’s not impeachable….
But Haley wasn’t done. She also had the nerve to suggest Donald Trump Is Very Concerned About Corruption.
Haley granted the call wasn’t “good practice”—something of an understatement—and then seemed to channel the president’s directive to read the transcript!!! But we don’t just have the transcript anymore. It’s not just about this one call. We have witnesses attesting to what was going on all around this call now, with “the three amigos”—Rudy Giuliani, Gordon Sondland, and Rick Perry—making it clear to the Ukrainians via backchannels what was required of them. We have Sondland himself admitting there was a quid pro quo—that there was extortion. The call does not exist in some magical vacuum of perfection.
But that was just a prelude to what has been among the most offensive suggestions from Trump defenders, in that it insults the intelligence of anyone even vaguely familiar with Donald Trump. This is a guy who spent his entire “business” career screwing contractors and suing his way out of various obligations. He participated in a multi-generational family tax fraud scheme. His administration is The Great American Heist. The guy fucking loves corruption, and yet Haley is going to say he was just trying to root it out in Ukraine? It doesn’t pass the laugh test. And besides, we already know that the Ukrainians offered to make an announcement about a renewed anti-corruption push in general terms, but Rudy Giuliani insisted on a mention of Burisma, the company affiliated with the Bidens, specifically. Nobody, including the Republicans pushing it, believes this was about Trump’s sincere concern about corruption. It was a ratfuck.”
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a29771604/nikki-haley-today-show-trump-truthful-ukraine-corruption/
Have a nice day, Susan Sarandon. And everyone else who ignored the future of the Supreme Court when they stayed home and/or voted 3rd party because Clinton. You all own a part of this disaster.
“How the Roberts Court Abandoned Bipartisan Consensus
Under the chief justice, 73 decisions have been decided 5–4 along partisan lines. And 73 times, the big Republican donor interest won.
By Dahlia Lithwick
Nov 12, 201911:14 AM
Dahlia Lithwick: Are we just surrendered to this?
Sheldon Whitehouse: We’re surrendered to it if we do nothing, but there are things that we can do.
The first thing is to look at patterns on the court. If you try to prove a discrimination case in court, you can bring into evidence patterns. And patterns can be probative of bias, and so patterns matter. What we have done as Democrats is to bemoan the ghastly Citizens United decision, to regret Shelby County’s disassembly of a key part of the Voting Rights Act, to become angry about Janus taking a shot at labor unions. But we’ve not focused on the pattern at the court. And the pattern under Chief Justice Roberts is that they’re now up to 73 5–4 decisions.
Seventy-three of these decisions are marked by a few characteristics: One, it’s 5–4, they haven’t tried to get a real majority, just a bare majority. Two, the 5–4 breaks along partisan lines. And three, there’s a big Republican donor interest at stake. There are 73 of those cases, and 73 for 73, the big Republican donor interest won. And I do think that calling out the emperors as having no clothes might create just a little bit of shame on their part and a little bit of caution about what they are doing to the reputation of the court. So we’ve got to be more analytic and thoughtful about this……
Dahlia Lithwick: Are you mad that the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society are so, so good and effective at channeling dark money toward effectuating outcomes at the court? Or are you just mad that progressives are so bad at it? I mean, one of the things that is so interesting to me is there is no equivalent Federal Society, there is no equivalent Heritage Foundation. There is no machinery that is analogous. And I wonder if—and a little bit goes to your point about being played for suckers—is the solution here for progressives to get huge money, start pouring it into the court, create a machinery that builds 36-year-old wild-eyed advocates and then there would be parity? Is that the answer?
Sheldon Whitehouse: That’s one answer. It’s not the answer that I would prefer or would propose. What makes me angry is that all of us, Democrats and progressives, have kind of sat this out while the apparatus that you described was developed by the right. And we haven’t called it out. We haven’t systematically called it out. Take a look at the situation right now. United States Supreme Court justices are selected based on a Federalist Society operative, on his recommendations, while the Federalist Society is taking large amounts of dark money from big donor interests. So there’s dark money behind the selection of justices. Then when the selection is made, the confirmation battles for those nominees are fought with dark money. The Judicial Crisis Network took two $17 million–plus contributions, one to push Garland out and Gorsuch in, and one to push Kavanaugh through and onto the court.
There’s every likelihood that the donor in those two $17 million contributions was the same donor, which, if that were true, means that somebody paid $35 million–plus to influence the composition of the United States Supreme Court. And we have no idea who that person is and what their interests are before the court. That’s not a good place to be. If you look at the amicus curiae array, the so-called friends of the court who come in and file briefs hoping to direct the judges what to do, they are crawling with dark money–funded front groups who don’t reveal to the court who the real partying interest is behind the brief.”
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/11/john-roberts-court-abandoned-bipartisan-consensus-dark-money-republican-donors.html
More trumpism at work.
“Is the NFL’s Colin Kaepernick Workout a Sham?
Colin Kaepernick hasn’t played in an NFL game since 2016. In the intervening three years, the 32-year-old former San Francisco 49ers quarterback hasn’t even been able to get an NFL workout. That’s set to change this weekend, though it remains unclear if this weekend’s event is a legitimate tryout or a league-orchestrated PR move.
On Tuesday, the NFL informed all 32 teams that Kaepernick—who’s been effectively blacklisted from the league on account of the protest movement he started by kneeling during the national anthem—will perform for talent evaluators this Saturday in Atlanta. Kaepernick confirmed the news himself on Twitter: ….
Given the logistics of the workout and the backstory behind it, however, there is reason to wonder how genuine an opportunity this is going to be.
As Kaepernick noted in his tweet, he only learned of the workout proposal on Tuesday. A source familiar with the process told Slate that the league had no prior communication with Kaepernick or his representatives before floating the workout plan on Tuesday. As ESPN reported, the league rejected a request to move the workout to a different day:
When notified, the quarterback’s reps asked for the workout to be on a Tuesday, which typically is when all NFL workouts take place, since head coaches and general managers can more easily attend. This Saturday, almost half of the NFL teams will be traveling to games, and most of the rest of the coaches and players will be heading to their team hotels to prepare for their games the next day.
The source told Slate that the NFL declined a request to move the date of the workout to either Tuesday or next Saturday. Kaepernick was then given two hours to respond to the offer, the source said, at which point the quarterback accepted the NFL’s terms….
Rodger Sherman
✔
@rodger
· 9h
Colin Kaepernick has the 23rd highest career passer rating in NFL history, the 17th highest career adjusted yards per attempt in NFL history, the 2nd best interception rate in NFL history and the 9th most rushing yards per game of any QB in NFL history
Rodger Sherman
✔
@rodger
The 16 players above Colin Kaepernick in career adjusted yards per attempt:
—10 are current NFL starting quarterbacks
—4 are in the Hall of Fame (Otto Graham, Steve Young, Kurt Warner, Joe Montana)
—2 are Peyton Manning and Tony Romo”
https://slate.com/culture/2019/11/colin-kaepernick-nfl-workout-anthem-protests.html
Way past time for this.
“In an interview with MSNBC, Julián Castro made the perfectly reasonable argument that the order of the states in the Democratic primary is demographically “not reflective of the U.S. as a whole, certainly not reflective of the Democratic Party,” and that “we do need to change the order of the states” in the primary process. Days later, he elaborated in an interview with Vogue:
“We can’t go around thanking black women for powering Democrats to victory all over the country, and then at the same time hold our first caucus and our first primary in states that have almost no African-Americans,” Secretary Castro told Vogue. “We’re right to call Republicans out when they suppress the votes of African-Americans or Latinos, but we’ve also got to recognize that this 50-year-old process was created during a time when minority voices had zero power in the party.” …
It is remarkable that the entitled residents of these two states—Warren said their positions in the primary process are “what Iowa and New Hampshire are all about,” whatever that means—have such sway over the Democratic primary process and, by extension, America and the world. Around 171,000 people participated in Iowa’s 2016 Democratic caucuses, and about 250,000 people voted in the New Hampshire primary. A group of people roughly the size of Minneapolis has immense influence over an election in which 30 million Americans voted in 2016….
It is nevertheless the case that if you were tasked with designing a Democratic presidential primary from scratch, with no weight of tradition or precedent and no previous privileged positions to consider, there is absolutely no reason why you would pick Iowa and New Hampshire to go first. They are, as Goodman pointed out, extremely white and very rural; New Hampshire has the second oldest population in the country, after Maine. They have nothing to recommend them over any other state. Why Iowa and not Indiana? Why New Hampshire and not New Jersey? Why, more importantly, these states instead of larger, more representative, more diverse, more urban states? Why not California, the biggest state in the union, one of the most progressive states, and a state under urgent and desperate threat from climate change? Why not Texas, a state that could vote for a Democratic president in the next decade with genuine investment from the national party and has one of the youngest populations? Why not North Carolina, which at least has good food?”
https://newrepublic.com/article/155727/julian-castro-right-democratic-primary-process
EM:
Back when Kerry was running for the Presidency, Michigan (which has a large population of African Americans) attempted to move it’s primary up. Michigan was penalized for doing so by Donna Brazile for forcing the issue. You are right,; but then, Democrats would be accused of ignoring rural American.
Since the numbers of EC delegates are locked into 435 and more populous states are under represented by the EC (Wyoming versus California [CA should have 13 more EC votes]), should we piss them off some more? Repeal the 1929 Reapportionment Act as it is unconstitutional and use a lower number of citizens per district to determine EC delegates by population. Bring the House back to what it was supposed to do . . . represent by population. And the EC will follow and primaries can be adjusted.
Morning Emike:
I have been complaining about the bizarre primary system for a couple of decades of no one care what I think.
Iowa and NH are thinning populated overly white states. Lots of cows and trees.
Very few politicians have the guts to discuss the issue though.
Why not Michigan and Ohio?
Rusty,
Anywhere but Iowa and NH would be better. Though I have great doubts about Ohio. Anyplace that can put Jim Jordan in Congress is very questionable.
Personally I like the idea of a National Primary election on the same day. Let’s get it over as soon as we can. From that link:
“The primary could be held nationally, all on one day—you know, like a presidential election? If the national primary was late enough, it might have the blessed effect of shortening the length of the campaign. Opponents of such a scheme have a complaint they’ll cheerfully offer: A national primary brings with it the downside of increasing the already ridiculous (and democratically damaging) amount of money that candidates have to raise if they have to compete nationally in expensive television markets. This, critics say, will maximize the advantages of the candidates most able to tap the veins of riches on offer from wealthy donors. Nevertheless, the supposed advantages of the status quo, in which less-affluent candidates can overcome their skint campaign coffers by excelling at “retail politics” at diners in Iowa, doesn’t offer much to a Texan without Medicaid who never gets a chance to question the candidates.
Interestingly enough, what America’s primary process problem suggests is that we have an excellent argument for the total public financing of elections staring us right in the face. And this is why some bolder thinking is welcome, because any path to remaking the country in a more just and equal image must involve reinvigorating the stated values of the Democratic Party as well. Dispensing with this antiquated system can be viewed as part of an overall mission to foster more democratic equality. Julián Castro is onto something: A party that supposedly prides itself on diversity, economic equality, and the representation of marginalized communities can’t really defend leaving Iowa and New Hampshire to dictate its future. Besides, everyone involved can stand to eat fewer corn dogs. “
Run,
Good suggestions. No chance this Congress will do that. Doubtful if ever.
I’m up for six regional primaries, in six consequtive weeks, rotated in a different order every four years.
As predicted(not a big deal).
You knew this was going to be a clustf!ck with Nunes involved.
“The Opening Statements from Devin Nunes and Adam Schiff at the Impeachment Hearing Said Everything
It was a complete contrast: one dealt in the evidence provided by witnesses under oath. The other spouted Fox News conspiracies.
It isn’t news that we live in a siloed information environment. The experiences left- and right-leaning folks have on social media are radically different thanks in part to algorithms crafted to serve people what they want—that is, what reinforces their preexisting viewpoint. But to suggest there are equal levels of epistemic closure, to say that the bubbles are equally impervious to outside information, is nonsense. It is clear now that the world constructed by Fox News and a raft of conservative outlets online is scarcely tethered to observable reality at all.
In fact, it’s become so severe that watching, say, Sean Hannity’s show—or reading the president’s enraged tweets—can be like trying to decipher another language. There is an entire glossary of terms in this Fox News Conspiracy Universe, a whole set of precepts and dogmas and characters that are near-incomprehensible to the uninitiated. Crowdstrike. Strzok and Page. Nellie Ohr. The Dirty Dossier. And incredibly, at the start of the open hearings of the impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump, American president, on Wednesday, we were treated to a lesson in the form by the Ranking Member of the House Intelligence Committee. Try to decode what Devin Nunes is saying here, particularly after the 1:14 mark.
Nunes treats the Mueller Report as a punchline, even though it documented as many as 10 instances where the President of the United States obstructed justice. It also found at least 140 contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian figures, all of which it attempted to cover up, including the small issue of Trump’s campaign chief, Paul Manafort, meeting with an operative linked to Russian intelligence to share campaign information on key battleground states. The Report did not charge any Americans with conspiracy—the legal offense in question—but it seems to have found plenty of collusion (not a legal term). However, No Collusion is an article of faith in Nunes’ informational world. And then he brought up Wikileaks while a trial is in progress across town looking at whether longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone lied under oath about his work with Wikileaks to publicize dirt on Democrats. The dirt, of course, was in the form of emails that Russian intelligence hacked and gave to Wikileaks.
But none of that seems relevant to Nunes, who dismissed Russia’s attack on the 2016 election to get Trump elected as old news. He also took it as gospel that this was separate from the Ukraine extortion, which involved holding up military aid the Ukrainians needed to combat Russian aggression. (Let’s wait and see on that one.) In general, this was a dive into the Fox News Conspiracy Universe, not a discussion of any of the issues at hand. To the extent Nunes mentioned the president’s behavior with respect to Ukraine, he didn’t spend much time actually defending it on the merits. His time was devoted to shadowy conspiracies and dark insinuations that laymen listening probably struggled to understand. I struggled, and I pay a lot of attention to Fox News. It was a sign that either the Republican members are getting high on their own supply, or that they’re well aware that all that matters for their own political futures is how all this plays on Fox News.”
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a29785590/adam-schiff-opening-statement-impeachment-hearing-devin-nunes/
EM:
Each time I see something like this, I go back and read a letter. This part of it always catches me,
“It is true that we are completely under the saddle of Massachusetts and Connecticut, and that they ride us very hard, cruelly insulting our feelings, as well as exhausting our strength and subsistence. Their natural friends, the three other Eastern States join them from a sort of family pride, and they have the art to divide certain other parts of the Union, so as to make use of them to govern the whole.
This is not new, it is the old practice of despots; to use a part of the people to keep the rest in order. And those who have once got an ascendancy and possessed themselves of all the resources of the nation, their revenues and offices, have immense means for retaining their advantage.
But, our present situation is not a natural one.
But still I repeat it, this is not the natural state.
Be this as it may, in every free and deliberating society, there must, from the nature of man, be opposite parties, and violent dissensions and discords; and one of these, for the most part, must prevail over the other for a longer or shorter time. Perhaps this party division is necessary to induce each to watch and delate to the people the proceedings of the other.
But, will the evil stop there?
A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolved, and the people recovering their true sight, restoring their government to its true principles. It is true, that in the meantime, we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war, and long oppressions of enormous public debt. … If the game runs sometimes against us at home, we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost. For this is a game where principles are the stake.”
Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor
Yep, both parties are the same.
“We move along to Ohio, where the state legislature is considering one of those bills that Republicans love to try to pass because they sense their power is at risk and they want to embed as much of their signature crazy in the law before the roof caves in. From WKRC in Cincinnati:
‘The Ohio House on Wednesday passed the “Student Religious Liberties Act.” Under the law, students can’t be penalized if their work is scientifically wrong as long as the reasoning is because of their religious beliefs. Instead, students are graded on substance and relevance.’
How can a student in biology class be graded on “substance and relevance” if their answer is “scientifically wrong”? It’s like saying an English student must be graded on substance and relevance if the student claims that Jesus told him that Shakespeare was written in Tagalog.
Every Republican in the House supported the bill. It now moves to the Republican-controlled Senate.
That explains it.”
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a29802391/student-religious-liberties-act-ohio-second-amendment/
The appalling disregard of the separation of church and state is mind numbing. Their interpretation of the desires of a giant space daddy is frightening.
Game. Set. Match.
The only thing remaining is who is going to throw whom the furthest under the bus.
“Earlier Friday evening, CNN’s congressional reporter Manu Raju scooped a copy of the statement that David Holmes delivered to the House Intelligence Committee in a closed session on Friday. Holmes is the aide to whom Ambassador Bill Taylor referred on Wednesday as the guy who overheard the cellphone conversation between the president* and his go-between, Ambassador Gordon Sondland, in a Ukrainian restaurant. Holmes’s statement is detailed and damning. It’s also faintly hilarious that the whole case may be broken because two old men talked too loudly on their cellphones. From CNN:
‘ “Sondland told Trump that Zelensky ‘loves your ass,’ ” Holmes said, according to a copy of his opening statement. “I then heard President Trump ask, ‘So, he’s gonna do the investigation?’ Ambassador Sondland replied that ‘he’s gonna do it,’ adding that President Zelensky will do ‘anything you ask him to.’”…”Even though I did not take notes of those statements, I have a clear recollection that these statements were made,” he added.
Holmes also confirmed Taylor’s testimony about the President’s thoughts on Ukraine, saying he had asked Sondland “if it was true that the President did not ‘give a s— about Ukraine.” Holmes said Sondland had responded that Trump cares only about “big stuff.” When Holmes said that the Ukraine war was big, Sondland responded, ” ‘Big stuff’ that benefits the President, like the Biden investigation that Mr. Giuliani was pushing,” Holmes said.’
Holmes’s statement does several things. First, it puts Sondland squarely back on the hook for having once told Congress that he’d had no contact with anyone at the White House on these matters. Sondland’s already had to reupholster that one once, and now, it’s plain that he remains legally vulnerable. Sondland is supposed to testify publicly next week. He must be quivering with anticipation.
Second, it’s another nail in Rudy Giuliani’s coffin. If Sondland folds, which now seems likely, Rudy is the next sucker standing, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and White House Chief-of-Staff Mick Mulvaney lined up behind him like a row of dominoes leading into the Oval Office.
Third, it makes even stronger the testimony of the three witnesses who testified in public this week.
And fourth, and last, it leaves the president*and his enablers with no defense left except to say that, yes, the president* did it, but it’s not impeachable. Not sure how that squares with all the effort the White House put into burying this whole episode, but that’s all they’ve got left. If there’s a gun left here that isn’t smoking, I can’t find it.”
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a29816407/david-holmes-ukraine-testimony-gordon-sondland-trump-phone-call/