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

lol http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/paul-ryan-conservative-coup_us_57c4c63ae4b0664f13ca3715

“How can you have a gang, and have one in your gang get stabbed, and do nothing?” another member asked. “You got to stab somebody, or else what’s the point of having a gang?”

The answer lies within your curiously unstabbed face, I think.

john boehner just uploaded a 7 sec youtube of himself driving an RV

http://www.youtube.com/user/JohnBoehner/videos

(via charles pierce)

gop should nominate a cool dog to be speaker

cool dog speaker uploads 5s video of him riding a lawn mower

http://i.makeagif.com/media/7-13-2015/jEpk0j.gif

never more otm

angela corey out as jacksonville-area state attorney

i read about that asshole today in the Times Magazine, good news

Scott Walker's a real dirt bag eh:

Among the documents are several court filings from the case, as well as hundreds of pages of email exchanges obtained by the prosecutors under subpoena. The emails involve conversations concerning Walker, his top aides, conservative lobbyists, and leading Republican figures such as Karl Rove and the chair of the Republican National Committee, Reince Priebus.

Trump also appears in the files, making a donation of $15,000 following a personal visit from Walker to the Republican nominee’s Fifth Avenue headquarters.

In addition to Trump, many of the most powerful and wealthy rightwing figures in the nation crop up in the files: from Home Depot co-founder Ken Langone, hedge-fund manager Paul Singer and Las Vegas casino giant Sheldon Adelson, to magnate Carl Icahn. “I got $1m from John Menard today,” Walker says in one email, referring to the billionaire owner of the home improvement chain Menards.

Among the new material contained in the documents are donations amounting to $750,000 to a third-party group closely aligned to Walker from the owner of NL Industries, a company that historically produced lead paint. Within the same timeframe as the donations, the Republican-controlled legislature passed new laws making it much more difficult for victims of lead paint poisoning to sue NL Industries and other former lead paint manufacturers (the laws were later overturned in the federal courts).

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/14/corporate-cash-john-doe-files-scott-walker-wisconsin

Jesus Christ

Sometimes I wish I knew any hardcore conservative Republicans or Christian conservatives, because I dearly want to know how they can be okay with that.

how they can be okay with that

the usual: the ends justify the means, even when those means (e.g. corrupt contributions) deliver ends (e.g. corporate indemnity against lead poisoning lawsuits) that are entirely remote from the ends you desired (e.g. abortion ban or school prayer).

It's not just hardcore conservative Republicans and Christian conservatives who vote for Scott Walker, it's regular old Wisconsin Republicans, who think there are too many lawsuits in this country and etc etc lady sued mcdonalds because coffee was hot etc etc they shut down a town's factory because of an endangered turtle etc etc.

and I mean I'm sorry but as a guy who would vote for just about anyone over scott walker, this is pretty weak sauce. what's scummy about walker isn't that he takes big donations from right-wing people and corporations -- why wouldn't he? what's scummy is his habit of using state workers and state resources in his campaigns, which either steps right up to the edge fo the law without going over or actually goes over. this was the issue. and this leak doesn't deliver anything new on that score. he made it harder to sue companies that poisoned kids? sure, but it was no secret that he did that, and he would have done that even for a company that didn't contribute to his campaign. that's just who he is.

I don't think the Guardian story was establishing a sliding scale of summonses, eephus.

er, scumminess

he made it harder to sue companies that poisoned kids? sure, but it was no secret that he did that, and he would have done that even for a company that didn't contribute to his campaign.

dude has principles!

only rich white dudes like lawsuit millionaire and TX Gov Greg Abbott can sue.

That Walker's act wasn't particularly scummy is precisely the point - it's the wholesale ability to purchase political favors that I want them to defend. It shouldn't be acceptable to anyone that if you want to make lawsuits go away you buy off a politician at a deep discount (which is the other horrifying thing - the ROI on buying politicians is incredible, particularly at the local level).

Granted, you could turn that around on Democrats on various things but it's generally much less egregious.

it's the wholesale ability to purchase political favors

but that's what i'm saying. i don't think people are really purchasing political favors. i think walker is just one of these guys who thinks environmentalism is mostly hysteria and lawsuits are a drag on job creators and these are the kind of laws he's going to pass whether somebody contributes to him or not. he didn't pass the laws because he got money from those guys, he gets money from those guys because he passes those laws.

walker is just one of these guys who thinks environmentalism is mostly hysteria and lawsuits are a drag on job creators

the difference is that when this is just an idea you think is true, you may be open to changing your mind based on new information, whereas when holding this idea leads directly to "donations amounting to $750,000", your openness to new information that contradicts your idea is diminished to effectively zero, unless the new information comes with a similar sum attached to it.

OK, fair point.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/09/14/and-now-a-case-of-really-bad-republican-timing/

Paul Ryan and The CFPB vs Wells Fargo action

Indeed, Ryan's budget would give less money to the market cops at the Securities and Exchange Commission. It would also get rid of the CFPB's independent funding — right now it gets its money from the Fed so that it's free from influence from members of Congress who might not be free from influence from bank lobbyists — and replace its independent director with a five-person bipartisan committee. His anti-poverty plan, meanwhile, would make it legal for financial advisers to once again recommend things that are in their own — but not their clients' — best interests. (Believe it or not, that was changed only in the past year). And on top of that, House Republicans want to make it easier for penny stock companies — which, the SEC has warned, are a veritable playground for scammers and other assorted manipulators — to issue shares without as much oversight.

I might argue John Boehner is the happiest man alive since leaving Congress

Former Speaker–and unabashed smoker–John Boehner (R-OH) was elected to the board of directors of tobacco company Reynolds American, Inc., according to a press release from the company on Wednesday.

like this must be his dream job

what does Prince of Darkness pay i wonder? 100k and bennies?

That's low by a few hundred K, I'd guess.

The lowest-paid officer for which they're required to disclose compensation made $5.3 million last year. I can't imagine the BOD makes less than half a million each.

crazy that they can get the demons of hell to disclose tax returns but not trump

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1275283/000119312516514595/d62669ddef14a.htm#rom62669_18

director pay, while quite lush, is orders of magnitude lower than exec pay. Being a director is not even a part-time job and many people are on multiple corporate boards.

yeah you basically show up to posh ass board meetings, sometimes held at a resort, sit around for a bit, flip through a packet of presentations and vote on whatever the ceo tells you to.

Sounds like a sweet gig, where do I apply?

Just get yourself a cabinet position or something, you'll be a shoe-in once you leave public office

or be married to one like former enron board member and wife of phil, wendy gramm

basically just find your way into respectable elite circles somehow. partnership at a white shoe law firm, political success, executive position in a major corporation, etc.

I wonder if they still smoke in their offices/cube space at that building. How nicotine discolored must the cubical walls and drop tile ceiling must be after all these years, or do they just have to pony up extra dough to get building maintence to swap shit out at a more frequent clip than other companies?

according to a friend who has done some work for them they absolutely still smoke inside the offices at RAI. there are 'smoking areas' now (right out in the open - not like those gross little booths at airports), as opposed to ppl just smoking at their desks or wherever the hell they want to, which probably happened right up until this century.

but apparently it's also v mod and beautiful so i guess they keep it painted and re-upholstered on the reg

But do they get a health insurance premium discount if they quit smoking?

good question. i wonder if they get free or significantly reduced cigs

in other news:

http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-pence-syria-refugees-appeals-20160914-snap-story.html

Indiana Solicitor Gen. Thomas Fisher repeatedly cited in court FBI directors' past comments about less information being available on Syrian refugees compared with those from other countries.

The judges, in sharp exchanges at times, were skeptical.

When Fisher interrupted a judge, another on the bench issued a rebuke. Later, when Judge Richard Posner launched into queries about how Indiana had determined Syrians were more dangerous than other refugees, he appeared unsatisfied with Fisher's response.

"Honestly, you are so out of it," Posner said.

snap story indeed

Posner is a national hero

In July 2012, Posner stated, "I've become less conservative since the Republican Party started becoming goofy."

I admit I feel a certain amount of tribal-related satisfaction in seeing a conservative Jew stand up for the rights of displaced Muslims

(I mean I'm not certain he's Jewish but it seems likely)

My friend the Capitol Hill aide took me on a tour of congressmen's offices and he said that Boehner still smoked in his office. This was 2009.

the rules dont apply to some people.. harvey weinstein used to smoke cigars in my old firm's lobby in california. nobody said shit to him.

RIP Frank Barbaro, a quality NYC liberal who ran a mayoral campaign vs the vile Koch in '81

In the Legislature, Mr. Barbaro was a fierce advocate for organized labor, tenants and minorities. He later served for six years as a State Supreme Court justice.

Mr. Barbaro took on Mr. Koch in the 1981 Democratic primary when New York’s political establishment was embracing the mayor’s re-election bid after he had restored the city to fiscal stability. Mr. Koch was all but assured of the Republican nomination, too.

Outspent by a ratio of nearly 10 to 1, Mr. Barbaro nonetheless ran a spirited campaign, vowing to “liberate the legend of Fiorello La Guardia from an impostor.” Far from being an heir to the progressive Mayor La Guardia, he said, Mr. Koch was a union buster, an apologist for President Ronald Reagan, a racial polarizer and a “pipsqueak.” He derided him as “shifty Ed.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/15/nyregion/frank-barbaro-dead.html

This can probably go into any number of threads, but I'm going to put it here:

"In Jim Cooley’s open-carry America, even a trip to Walmart can require an AR-15"

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/guns-and-sodas/2016/09/17/805e0db4-79e9-11e6-bd86-b7bbd53d2b5d_story.html

As Maria goes ahead, Jim veers to the right, where he climbs into a complimentary electric scooter, repositions his AR-15 so its barrel points toward the scuffed vinyl floor, and rolls into the store.

Photo of Jim Cooley carrying his AR-15 ran prominently on cover of Washington Post newsprint (likely causing rightwingers to rant about radical Islamists could be anywhere)