I DON'T KNOW WHERE THE BOTTOM IS • US presidential elections part VIII

cool revolution, bro: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/25/us/politics/bernie-sanders-our-revolution-group.html?_r=0

Huh, that may be the first time I saw a plane hit the towers.

The announcement of the group, which will be livestreamed Wednesday night, also comes as the majority of its staff resigned after the appointment last Monday of Jeff Weaver, Mr. Sanders’s former campaign manager, to lead the organization.

jeff weaver obv a very popular boss

uncucked and hellbent

“I left and others left because we were alarmed that Jeff would mismanage this organization as he mismanaged the campaign,” she said, expressing concern that Mr. Weaver would “betray its core purpose by accepting money from billionaires and not remaining grass-roots funded and plowing that billionaire cash into TV instead of investing it in building a genuine movement.”

I thought people were supposed to resign in protest over things that had actually happened, not in protest over things you projected happening at some unspecific future time. So, yeah, he's probably just a really crappy boss.

Paul Waldman cautions everyone to get ready for what'll happen in the Senate with President Clinton:

And what about the Supreme Court? We’ve all but forgotten that there’s still an open seat, since Republicans refused to consider the nomination of Merrick Garland. Some have suggested that if Clinton wins, they’ll quickly confirm Garland during a lame duck session, since he’s a moderate who’ll turn 64 years old just after the election and would thus be better for them than whoever Clinton were to nominate in his place. But Mitch McConnell has ruled that out.

There’s another possibility to consider: Don’t be surprised if Republicans suddenly decide, once Clinton makes her nomination, that the Court is functioning perfectly well with eight members, and we should really wait until President Ryan gets elected before we fill that seat. That might sound absurd, but every time people have said, “Republicans would never go that far” in recent years, Republicans have replied, “Hey, that sounds like a good idea.”

But since in our scenario Democrats control the Senate, that would mean Republicans would need to take the almost-unprecedented step of filibustering a Supreme Court nominee. My guess is that if they were about to try, new majority leader Chuck Schumer would pull McConnell aside and say, “If you do this, we’re just going to change the rules to eliminate filibusters for Supreme Court nominations,” which is something Democrats already did in 2013 for some other executive branch appointments. McConnell would say, “You’d better not!”, Schumer would say, “I’m gonna!” and then Republicans would proceed in retaliation to be even more obstructionist than ever, perhaps even shutting down the government (again) and threatening to default on the United State’s debt (again). Sounds like fun, right? And that’s not to mention the investigations. Republicans will impanel so many special committees they won’t be able to keep track of them all. I fully expect them to begin drawing up articles of impeachment before Clinton even takes the oath of office.

sounds pretty accurate lol

i've been thinking for a while that they might just not meet w/ any SC nominee

why even have a supreme court really

there's no fucking way they budge on the supreme court. this is how the republic is gonna go down in flames.

like you can't have the second of two parties basically declare the president illegitimate for 16 of the last 24 years and have no reprocussions

I think the lockstep discipline of the Obama-era GOP, partially founded on fear of Tea Party primary threats, might very well evaporate after November. Waldman's prognostications sound plausible but it could also happen that the whole GOP "coalition" no longer coalesces in the wake of the Trump

holy shit that video, kingfish

i thought it was a joke, but then looked at american renaissance's other videos and...no it's not

odds of Clinton winning and Senate staying GOP seem p low to me but idk. If she doesn't have a Senate majority she's in for a world of hurt and obstruction, no doubt about that.

No one posted about the lesbian-farmer invasion yet? Could become an important election issue soon.

xp With a Republican-controlled House she's in for a world of obstruction, regardless. Luckily, the House has no say in executive branch appointments, but the Senate has showed itself more than willing to obstruct those for years, if necessary.

OTM. And there has always been a world of hurt and obstruction from the Senate no matter who POTUS is, it's only in the past 20 years that the Internet has added a small amount of transparency to the proceedings and handjobbing.

right re: the House, but Waldman's scenarios about impeachment and judicial appointments all hinge on the Senate.

I'm assuming a Clinton presidency will basically pass no legislation (and possibly not even budgets) with a GOP controlled House. But if she has the Senate than she should at least be able to get SC appointments, avoid impeachment, etc.

the lockstep discipline of the Obama-era GOP, partially founded on fear of Tea Party primary threats, might very well evaporate after November.

dunno what you're basing this on. You think all of a sudden Ryan's gonna start bringing bills to the floor without a GOP majority + Dem votes? I don't see it.

it'll take a larger contingent of forward thinking republicans than exists on earth at this time to gather sufficient momentum to push the party away from obstruction-as-platform before any meaningful changes can come to the gop approach to governance.

I just think it could very well be every GOP rep for themselves. There won't be any control. Deals with individual reps might be possible.

Dems can't bring a bill to the floor without the Speaker, so idk where these deals would happen. Ryan has two options: 1) jettison the Tea Party/Freedom Caucus and rely on Dem votes to get a majority for compromise bills or 2) attempt to keep his caucus unified with an explicitly osbtructionist policy with the goal of cementing his rep as the sole defender of freedom against the evil socialist feminazi matriarchy for the 2018 midterms and the 2020 Prez election, for which he wants the nomination.

Which of these do you really think is more likely, cuz it isn't even a contest in my mind

even if the GOP coalition falls apart as a national party apparatus, rules of the House are still going to be in place, and they invest all the power in the Speaker for the majority party. There's no Speaker-less (or majority-less) version of the House.

Just going to leave this here..

UKIP's Nigel Farage to speak at Donald Trump rally

CALL HIM MR BREXIT (for some reason)

Farage is an appropriate speaker. Good model of Trump's intention: start a ruckus, fuck up the country, (wipes hands) 'Welp...looks like my job is done here!'

whole lotta talk about the clinton foundation(S) today

this one's hard to summarize but it's festooned with links and the subheads are grim-funny enough:

http://www.ibtimes.com/political-capital/clinton-foundation-investigation-update-key-details-about-financial-political

will bunch summarizes:

http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/attytood/What-does-Hillary-have-to-do-for-it-to-be-corruption.html?mobi=true

this twitter thread (don't know who it is) gets pretty messy but there's links throughout

https://twitter.com/ActualFlatticus/status/767871619213692928

seems p clear to me that a president can't have a fundraising institution of any kind up and running. that goes for someone running for president too. and a secretary of state, if u think abt it

CF defenders sound a bit like Nixon fans in the '70s snarling "They all do it!"

Nixon broke the law.

I took four years of Latin in high school. I'm pretty sure that's what quid pro quo means.

whew! I was worried.

to quote Mr Bumble, "the law is a ass"

that's your funeral

(I prefer the musical version of Oliver)

Been in Alaska, no election presence. What's new?

Morbz has endorsed Hillary

I searched on "conscious capitalism" and it isn't what I thought, but it's balls all the same.

no, balls has endorsed Morbz

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/25/us/politics/donald-trump-black-voters.html

a few eye-popping things in here

“He doesn’t understand that people aren’t stupid, and they can clearly see what he’s doing and saying,” Mr. White said. “Whether or not I have an issue with how Democrats have dealt with the black community, or with Hillary, I’m still not stupid.”

Ooo, Elon James White got quoted

'You're living in poverty, whole families crammed into small high rise apartments, JJ off doing whatever the hell it is JJ does. Shameful. When I'm president, you'll all be moving up to the east side.'

disappointingly, Farage appears to have shaved his moustache off

It's funny how the Clinton Foundation "no aspiring POTUS should ever help run a charity - especially not that bitch" line seems to be exclusively the territory of Bernie dead-enders and Stein Baraka types, but the Trump camp has been trying to stick with the "she can't climb a ladder without taking a nap" or whatever the health shit is supposed to be about is all the rage in Trump Country.

My hypothesis is that the CF charity / corruption angle hasn't made it to the white supremacist cesspools Trump's "oppo research" teams hang out in so they're just a bit behind

lol trying to do dad shit while simulposting to ILX makes for really bad run-ons

Clinton's social media team is fucking on it. This image started making the rounds today; it's from Maine:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CqpYO0TWIAAw0Vj.jpg

http://vagendaofmanocide.com redirects to the Clinton donation page.

lolz vagenda of manocide

too good to pass up

mar-a-lago vagenda est

lol (local journo):

https://twitter.com/mbrodkorb/status/768620720620498944

Michael Brodkorb
‏@mbrodkorb

UPDATE: Total confusion among #MNGOP officials on process for Trump being on MN ballot - absolutely possible they could've missed deadline.