US Politics December 2018: ~very legal and very cool~

jesus christ

hard to believe thats whats in store for ye after chelsea

I kinda love that for all the chest-beating the GOP may not simply have enough people in town to do anything.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/16/us/politics/congress-trump-shutdown.html

i missed this important photo from back in february

I saw this image of Rep. Mike Bost delivering Trump a bag of 'thoughts and prayers' and thought it was satire or The Onion.

Nope, this really happened. pic.twitter.com/bYWgwsnGiW

— Austin Braun (@AustinOnSocial) February 19, 2018

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/12/16/new-report-russian-disinformation-prepared-senate-shows-operations-scale-sweep/

A report prepared for the Senate that provides the most sweeping analysis yet of Russia’s disinformation campaign around the 2016 election found the operation used every major social media platform to deliver words, images and videos tailored to voters’ interests to help elect President Trump — and worked even harder to support him while in office.

The report, a draft of which was obtained by The Washington Post, is the first to study the millions of posts provided by major technology firms to the Senate Intelligence Committee, led by Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), its chairman, and Sen. Mark Warner (Va.), its ranking Democrat. The bipartisan panel hasn’t said whether it endorses the findings. It plans to release it publicly along with another study later this week.

The research — by Oxford University’s Computational Propaganda Project and Graphika, a network analysis firm — offers new details of how Russians working at the Internet Research Agency, which U.S. officials have charged with criminal offenses for interfering in the 2016 campaign, sliced Americans into key interest groups for targeted messaging. These efforts shifted over time, peaking at key political moments, such as presidential debates or party conventions, the report found.

it’s pretty impressive tbh

They’ve done a great job out there

Yeah, just imagine all of that effort and strategy and manpower being put into something beneficent, or even just something not actively malignant. Imagine that world for a minute, won't you.

some interesting stuff with giuliani tonight:
https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/16/politics/rudy-giuliani-trump-tower/index.html

(CNN)President Donald Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani suggested on Sunday that Trump had spoken with his former attorney Michael Cohen past January 2016 about a Trump Tower in Moscow.

On ABC's "This Week," Giuliani seemed to reference Trump's written responses to special counsel Robert Mueller, saying the conversations about the proposed Moscow project might have gone as far as the tail end of the general election period.

"According to the answer that he gave, it would have covered all the way up to November of -- covered all the way up to November 2016," Giuliani said. "Said he had conversations with him -- but the President didn't hide this."

Asked about the difference between that comment and the previous claim that Trump's discussions about the project ended in January 2016, Giuliani said, "Until you actually sit down and answer the questions and you go back and you look at the papers and you look at ... you're not going to know what happened."

so, trump told mueller the trump tower/moscow shit could have kept continuing a long time, until election day. which is already quite a bit later than people were thinking. but then,

CNN has previously reported that Trump's lawyers balked at answering any questions that ran past the election because they believed they could argue the transition period after Trump's victory was covered by executive privilege.

so that means they indicate the discussions might have kept going all the way to election day, but that the only reason they give that as an end date it's because they're not answering questions about after the election, period. so, uh...if the whole executive privilege gambit doesn't work this could get interesting

not only does 33-year-old stephen miller share the views of brainwormed white men twice his age, he also shares their love of home shopping network hair-in-a-can

Stephen Miller went on @FaceTheNation with spray on hair and looks ridiculous. (I suspect the make-up person hates him.) pic.twitter.com/B3ut9TmsbQ

— Cornelia (@PaladinCornelia) December 16, 2018

It's not the crime, it's the cover-up.

(not my joke but A+)

baldness is not a crime

*balding-man defensiveness intensifies*

Re: baldness, the cover-up is almost always a crime.

(Adjusts very normal-looking toupee man hair.)

I also heard his fake hairline described as a nest of angry ants.

That whole twitter thread above is actually full of good stuff.

The first thing I thought of:

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/simpsons/images/5/5a/Black.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20071203233349

https://freeform.azureedge.net/showms/2018/10/00373eb9-02da-404d-98de-781e480f6c70.jpg

jesus god wtf is that

pointillist hair, what a time to be alive

good morning!

Joey Lawrence's forthcoming work: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade_(film)

He has been married to Chandie Yawn-Nelson since July 3, 2005

chandie... yawn-nelson

THat's the old Sabrina grown up innit?

Or taht is to say Melissa is.

It is.

So glad I could help nudge the US politics thread in this direction, towards the important issues.

yea on one hand talking about Stephen Miller's hair is yet another dumb dIsTrAcTiOn like typos or Melania's jacket but on the other hand holy shit how do you go on national TV looking like that

I'm just a dumb Canadian, but if you're an American of similar ilk to me - big on Gillibrand, down on Harris or Booker, somehow unable to buy into Warren or Sanders - I'd point you to Pete Buttigieg, who just announced that he won't run for re-election as mayor of South Bend. (IE, he's probably running for president.) I was really impressed by his appearance on The Axe Files, and when it comes to ideas and vision, he's by far my favourite of the portended "progressive white guy" candidates. (Sorry Beto.)

xpost It's trivial, sure, but I often try to imagine how people who didn't live through it will view this era, and tiny details that seem like NBD in the moment might well present themselves down the road as glaringly obvious signs that some profoundly unwell people once ran the country. Imagine the horror of a young child in 2023 getting their first glimpse of Steve Bannon in their social studies textbook.

or the necronomicon

However you first encounter him, I suppose reckoning with the concept of Tsathoggua is a rite of passage all children must eventually experience.

Lmao

One indirect cause of no-shows for House votes: Many have nowhere to live during lame duck.
Nearly 100 members are retiring, probably a couple dozen who slept in their offices. They lost those offices a few weeks ago. No bed, no DC, no vote.https://t.co/MX7TTz4dMR

— Paul Kane (@pkcapitol) December 17, 2018

An entire subset of people who have no ability to exist on their own in the Real World and yet we can’t speak of eugenics in polite company, no.

i wonder how many of those transients were snide about AOC's housing woes

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2018/12/17/i-voted-trump-now-his-wall-may-destroy-my-butterfly-paradise/

this kind of story is never not hilarious

I don’t need more than the URL slug for that one

I agreed to let a sewage disposal company empty a septic truck into my home, now my house is ruined. Halp.

People have asked me, “Didn’t you listen to Trump when he said that he would build a wall?” I didn’t take the idea seriously during the campaign. I knew he couldn’t get Mexico to pay it — that’d be like asking Hurricane Harvey to foot the bill for rebuilding Houston

hmm is it now

"And let's be honest, if he does build a wall, well...I'm already here"

"I mean all politicians lie, whereas Trump tells the truth. He tells it like it is. Except for the Wall, I totally didn't think he meant that. Or the Muslim ban."

USA Today reports:

After roughly a quarter century in elected office, Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee will retire after 2020. The former Republican governor, who has served in the Senate since first being elected in 2002, said Monday that he will not seek a fourth term in the upper chamber.

I mean he’s 78 he might not last that long

I'd point you to Pete Buttigieg, who just announced that he won't run for re-election as mayor of South Bend. (IE, he's probably running for president.)

Well, I suppose so. https://t.co/gaY1qLIfXp

— Richard M. Nixon (@dick_nixon) December 14, 2018

Trump only needs to call that guy Pete Buttplug once and he's toast xp

Lamar! rest in retirement big man. heaven needed a spineless turd. i hope you choke on a school voucher

Never forget

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/Lamar-Alexander-red-plaid-1996-blog.jpg

lamar's red plaid was the santorum sweater vest of 1996. enuff said.

That's where Jeb! got the idea for the exclamation point.

nah. in 1992, the extremely flaccid personality of the Republican Oregon governor running for re-election chose the slogan of "Atiyeh!" for all his bumper stickers and lawn signs. The political 'hype-ostrophe' has to predate this use, because consultants steal these ideas far more often than they originate them

Oh yeah BTW

This will be big.
Judge in Flynn case says that the memo, written by FBI agents following their interview with Michael Flynn at the White House, should be made public, with some redactions allowed, and will be relevant at his sentencing. This memo had only been filed under seal.

— Shimon Prokupecz (@ShimonPro) December 17, 2018