American politics 2016: Lawyers, Guns, and D-Money

he's running against TPP! vaguely trumpist, i guess? more autocannibalism to look out for

GET YOUR DUMP RYAN
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It seems there is a liberal challenger to Debbie Wasserman Schultz. That would probably be a fine way to spend a couple of bucks if anyone is looking for anyone to donate to. http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/florida/2016/05/8598873/wasserman-schultzs-liberal-challenger-set-announce-1m-haul

meanwhile in my state Alan Grayson and Harry Reid get nasty.

Reid’s animosity for Grayson’s bid to fill Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R-FL) open seat is well-documented, and Grayson appeared at the Progressive Caucus meeting with a copy of a February statement from Reid slamming him as having “no moral compass.”

Each member took their chance to speak to Reid, who was invited to appear at Wednesday’s meeting. When Grayson had the floor, he asked Reid if he was aware of who he was. Two anonymous sources in the room told Politico Grayson demanded: “Say my name, senator. Say my name."

Then caucus chair Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) tried to intervene, saying, “Why are you doing that? This is so stupid,” as quoted by The Hill.

Grayson was reportedly undeterred and waved the copy of Reid’s statement, which also branded the congressman “disgraceful” and called for him to leave the Senate race over an ongoing ethics probe into allegations that he used his office to boost a hedge fund based in the Cayman Islands.

Politico reported that Grayson said the statement was false and asked Reid, “Why’d you say that?”

The disruption caused Ellison and other members to end the meeting early.

The thing about Alan Grayson is that he is the Democratic equivalent to Chris Christie.

No shortage of machine-born grifters in either party really.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/05/11/it-is-true-and-i-want-you-to-lose-feisty-harry-reid-lays-into-alan-grayson-in-closed-door-meeting/

The encounter took place after Grayson stood up and criticized Reid for calling on him to drop out of the Senate race over the ongoing ethics investigation.

“Shame on you. It’s not true,” Grayson reportedly told Reid, referring to the ethics allegations. “It is true, and I want you to lose,” Reid fired back.

lmao awesome

I initially liked Grayson for his combativeness but Reid is otm here

cool Pierce nick for Paul Ryan: "zombie-eyed granny starver"

Pierce has some good nicknames but sometimes I think he leans on them too heavily to get extra content by repeating the same phrases over and over.

yeah they're an annoyance, a vestige of his Hunter Thompson love. I like Big Chicken and Aqua Buddha but The Clinton Guy Shocked by Blowjobs and He, Trump are eh. We should poll them.

the bob schieffer digs are kinda mean considering its mostly 'lol he old' and that he's not even the host on that show on cbs anymore

I liked 'Merovingian Dynasty herald" best

I've never paid any attention to pierce and couldn't pick him out of a police line, but bob schieffer has a nasty streak in him as wide as a two lane road, so being mean to bob seems like fair dinkum to me.

Schieffer is a real schiethead

he's gotta be close to 90 too

Pierce is one of my favorite political columnists and despite the puns funnier than Dennis Perrin.

i was disappointed when he jettisoned Libidinous Visitor for He, Trump

libidinous visitor was a++

also hard to explain the reference to someone who's not a regular reader

i love how trump is just like focus grouping his policy positions but not to a literal focus group just irl throwing policies out there and seeing what kinda reaction it gets

kind of a huge deal here imo

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/05/13/477896804/obama-administration-to-offer-schools-guidance-on-transgender-bathrooms

good move imho

NPR had some pedantic fundie lawyer on this morning talking about the trauma of a frightened girl having to wear her gym clothes all day ("getting nasty") so she wouldn't have to risk a "biological boy" intruding into the changing room.

posts very much out of character.

I know this "isn't about bathrooms" but I hope a side effect of this is more general thoughtfulness when it comes to the maintenance of public school bathrooms. When I was a high school student with IBD it was frustrating to me that important things like stall doors and soap dispensers were routinely broken or missing.

yeah Sotosyn i hate every single move the Administration makes yup yup yup why don't you join Anarchists for Clinton

Didn't say that, Morbs! But you're not apt to mention what you agree with.

Ahem. Yeah I'm like stunned and pleased by how strongly DOJ is making its point with this.

When I was a high school student with IBD it was frustrating to me that important things like stall doors and soap dispensers were routinely broken or missing.

In my high school, I thought the stall doors were missing because it made it more difficult for kids (and teachers) to secretly do drugs/have sex in them.

^^ this

http://i.imgur.com/C30COIb.jpg

That's Mister White from the Bond films, right?

In my high school, I thought the stall doors were missing because it made it more difficult for kids (and teachers) to secretly do drugs/have sex in them.

― i like to trump and i am crazy (DJP)

ts: american public high schools vs. the zoom club

@thedailybeast
The CIA has "mistakenly" destroyed the sole copy of a massive Senate torture report

https://www.yahoo.com/news/senate-report-on-cia-torture-1429636113023030.html

@ggreenwald
This is the most honest agency within The Most Transparent Administration Ever™, so nobody should suspect bad faith

The incident was privately disclosed to the Senate Intelligence Committee and the Justice Department last summer, the sources said. But the destruction of a copy of the sensitive report has never been made public. Nor was it reported to the federal judge who, at the time, was overseeing a lawsuit seeking access to the still classified document under the Freedom of Information Act, according to a review of court files in the case.

I think I just heard Feinstein's head explode

lmao at the thought of a 'sole copy' of anything in 2016.

cia probably still has telephone records from the calls i made to my parents from germany in 2004 but somehow there's only one copy of an important senate document.

man, someone better get the inspector general on this

oh wait

it wasn't the sole copy, notwithstanding that dailybeast tweet

The CIA inspector general’s office — the spy agency’s internal watchdog — has acknowledged it “mistakenly” destroyed its only copy of a mammoth Senate torture report at the same time lawyers for the Justice Department were assuring a federal judge that copies of the document were being preserved, Yahoo News has learned.

Although other copies of the report exist, the erasure of the controversial document by the CIA office charged with policing agency conduct has alarmed the U.S. senator who oversaw the torture investigation and reignited a behind-the-scenes battle over whether the full unabridged report should ever be released, according to multiple intelligence community sources familiar with the incident.

The story's good but that "sole copy" line followed by the second paragraph threw me off such that I had to reread them.

it's the only copy of a report with other extant copies

it seems they tipped off South Africa on the only Nelson Mandela in '62 tho

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-36296551

heh

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/5/16/1527124/-Conservative-congressional-candidate-shares-screenshot-forgets-to-close-porn-windows

That's in my district. So great, we've been chuckling about it all day.

The guy's "response" post is completely unhinged and incomprehensible, which almost ruins the fun.

lol

Whew! False alarm. Turns out he was just _researching_ porn sites, because viruses interfered with his FEC filing, and it must have been a malicious operator lurking in the world of porn.

https://www.arlnow.com/2016/05/17/webb-i-was-testing-porn-sites-for-viruses/

Oh holy shit, the actual repub candidate in that race used to work for me! That's a bizarre thing to suddenly realize.

Not the porno dude.

you weren't kidding about "unhinged"

I don't know if you were searching this morning for the notorious post that has now nominated me as Tab Webb, I was just as confused when I signed on this morning and found our page suspended pending approval for deletion of a the notorious post, not for the content of two tabs you needed a magnifying glass to see, but because of the comments from critics that failed to observe the social media guidelines. "See how dirty you are?"

Besides the inanity of the suggestion that someone in a world of confusion is waiting on an illicit website for a congressional candidate to infect his FEC data file, and throw in 4800 viruses to boot, there is the ludicrous claim of hypocrisy for a Christian who might be found there. Perhaps it is just my reading of the Gospels, but the only perfect person who ever lived was named Jesus, and if you check ARL Now, I am Jebus, with a B--yet another ludicrous claim.

"Now, I am Jebus, with a B--" now available as a DN

dude's too hard on himself, I'd give him a solid B, maybe a B+

Business as usual in Congress

http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/16/politics/zika-congress-funding/

Republican-controlled House and Senate are on a collision course about how to deal with the spread of the Zika, pushing separate proposals for federal funding to combat the virus, and complicating efforts to deliver emergency money quickly to agencies hoping to develop a vaccine and head off new cases.

The Zika virus causes microcephaly and other birth defects, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and can be spread through mosquito bites.

House Republicans unveiled a $622 million proposal on Monday -- about half of the $1.1 billion that a bipartisan Senate group is pushing, and far short of the initial $1.9 billion request from the White House that President Barack Obama and many congressional Democrats are pressuring Republicans to approve.