US Politics January 2018: "You All Just Got A Lot Richer"

his statement is a pretty good description of how the current system works

Does anyone know offhand which kind of irony best describes a xenophobic septuagenarian who can't construct a coherent sentence in his native language?

idk but it's a goddamned plague down here

Oprah sez hell no btw

Oprah once again proving she's smarter than the average legislator

and many Democratic bloggers

It was never a thing anyone was really serious about and that was kind of obvious.

"merit based" is just code for white people,right ?

― (•̪●) (carne asada), Thursday, January 25, 2018 5:55 PM (twenty-six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Merit-based systems are quite popular with racists because they think it's code for 'white people' but it really never is in practice. IT, nursing, STEM, etc - the stuff you get points for in most merit-based systems - means India, China, Philippines, Pakistan, etc.

and renowned artists and entertainers, who possess extraordinary ability, like Momus

I’ve become increasingly Maoist in my old age

Yeah, it’s fun, innit?

Warner's having fun

I’m glad somebody’s hot on the trail of this secret society. As soon as we’re done investigating Russia, we’ll join the hunt for the Illuminati.

— Mark Warner (@MarkWarner) January 25, 2018

Institutional racism is like a robotic battlesuit that's finely-tuned to increase the success rate of dumb and useless old white dudes. It's easy to understand how they might confuse their experience of 'achievement' with legitimate merit.

IT, nursing, STEM, etc - the stuff you get points for in most merit-based systems - means India, China, Philippines, Pakistan, etc.

Very true!! and the irony of it is that with the boomers all getting older and sicker the demand for nursing staff will only be greater .

Oprah sez hell no btw

― ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius), Thursday, January 25, 2018 5:04 PM (fifty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

but isn't that in the running for president playbook? deny the obvious for as long as possible then move to fucking iowa and new hampshire and meet every single voter personally.

lmao the right now making a big deal about the Strzok-Page text messages

it's always something just out of reach for these guys. maybe this will be the one proving the Deep State coup once and for all.

meanwhile the opposition apparently can't do shit with the hundreds of actual crimes Trump and his admin have committed

The fact that Donald Trump was allowed to become and remain president is the most decisive refutation ever of the existence of any kind of secret society running things from the shadows.

jing, "i haven't decided" is the classic script

the president is innocent. it's the rest of us who are guilty, guilty of doubting his word, guilty of not wanting america to be great again :(

they are just insane with this text stuff

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVNNijo_h9s

A+ screen grab

http://30fps.mocksession.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/2017-January-1-18-24-30.jpeg

lol

The Trumps asked to borrow a Van Gogh for the White House. The Guggenheim offered an 18K gold toilet instead.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/the-white-house-wanted-a-van-gogh-the-guggenheim-offered-a-used-solid-gold-toilet/2018/01/25/38d574fc-0154-11e8-bb03-722769454f82_story.html?utm_term=.363a75f8a11a

and they found the fucking texts gaetz is shitting his pants over

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/01/25/missing-text-messages-between-two-fbi-employees-have-been-located-according-to-department-justice-official.html

this is the real bullshit document destruction imo, nobody is talking about it

The National Security Agency destroyed surveillance data it pledged to preserve in connection with pending lawsuits and apparently never took some of the steps it told a federal court it had taken to make sure the information wasn’t destroyed, according to recent court filings.

Word of the NSA’s foul-up is emerging just as Congress has extended for six years the legal authority the agency uses for much of its surveillance work conducted through U.S. internet providers and tech firms. President Donald Trump signed that measure into law Friday.

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/19/nsa-deletes-surveillance-data-351730

That Gaetz goon, it would be fun to move to his district and run against him just to punch him in the face. Then I'd be all, I'm good, he can have the position, I'm going home.

Yam hotel room prices dipping

But more important, how's that plunder working out for you, Donald? https://t.co/axIwmaixLw

— corey robin (@CoreyRobin) January 25, 2018

That Guggenheim story is the greatest thing I've read all week.

"But more important, how's that plunder working out for you, Donald?"

incredibly well.

That Guggenheim story is the greatest thing I've read all week.
― grawlix (unperson), Thursday, January 25, 2018 5:00 PM (fourteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

A+++

Theology!

Jesus said love our neighbors as ourselves but never told Caesar how to run Rome-he never said Roman soldiers should turn the other cheek in battle or that Caesar should allow all the barbarians to be Roman citizens or that Caesar should tax the rich to help poor. That’s our job.

— Jerry Falwell (@JerryFalwellJr) January 26, 2018

Also

Sources tell me Stephen Miller had a pretty feisty conference call just now with immigration hardliners. Lots of them hate the proposal. Seems like the WH has managed to piss off just about everyone!

— Jonathan Swan (@jonathanvswan) January 25, 2018

I can’t parse that Falwell Jr tweet at all. What is our job? To tell Caesar how to do stuff? Or are we Caesar?

Hail us.

i think it is to tell caesar not to tax the rich because we're going to help the poor because jesus probably said to do that somewhere without too much of an escape cause built in

If Prez declines toilet Saatchi Gallery should offer him Damien Hirst formaldehyde shark

Matthew 22:21 "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's; and to God the things that are God's, " alternately "give unto Berkshire Hathaway carried interest deduction, and go fuck yourself"

xp: presenting Jesus as apathetic and tractable. While perhaps true of the Christ of Paul, its wholly unrepresentative of the historical Yeshua. The sanhedrin regularly punished heresy with public stoning, but crucifixion was a Roman punishment reserved for sedition.

"he never said Roman soldiers should turn the other cheek in battle or that Caesar should allow all the barbarians to be Roman citizens or that Caesar should tax the rich to help poor."

what's extra confusing and sad about this is that all of these appear on first glance to be positive things that romans SHOULD do! but when you look closely, it's clear that he's trying to say that these three things are BAD or ridiculous things that caesar never would have been expected to do. falwell might concede that jesus wanted people to turn the other cheek, but that's why he specifies in battle, where turning the cheek would be unreasonable. by "barbarians" he's referring to immigration, insinuating that today's refugees and immigrants from the parts of the world that aren't norway are like the barbarians of caeasar's time, and so it's understandable that we should want to shut them out too.

at least i think that's what he's trying to say? i mean, is jerry falwell jr a strong proponent of pacifism, increased immigration, and taxing the rich to pay the poor? it's disorienting because that's what it seems a christian would be for, but i'm pretty sure the falwell family got to where they are today by adopting their views to fit conservative beliefs, which would be the opposite of all those things, right?

While perhaps true of the Christ of Paul

I don't think so.

He is, rather strangely for a supposed Christian, likening the USA to the Roman Empire, isn't he?

Like back then, there was Jesus and his followers and, although we like them because we're Christians, they were kind of out there and ahead of their time with some of their beliefs and then there were the Romans, who were non-believers but they were in charge and had all the money and power so they must have been good guys to some extent, then there were barbarians, if you catch my drift.

we're all one race - the human race... except for the carthaginians, those guys are freaks man

"no homo" will be in the Bible within the next 3 new editions

https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/25/politics/white-house-immigration-framework/index.html

President Donald Trump is proposing giving 1.8 million young undocumented immigrants a pathway to citizenship in exchange for $25 billion for his long-promised wall and a host of other strict immigration reforms, according to a White House framework proposed Thursday.

In what the White House framed as a "dramatic concession" and "compromise," Trump would accept a path to citizenship not just for the roughly 700,000 undocumented immigrants were covered by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program when it was ended. But the proposal would also cover those undocumented immigrants who meet the DACA criteria but did not sign up and even more who would be newly eligible under the proposal's timeframe requirements -- giving legal status and a pathway to citizenship to about 1.8 million people.

In return, the White House would like to see a $25 billion investment in a trust for border infrastructure and technology, as well as more funds for personnel, and an end to family migration beyond spouses and minor children. The diversity visa lottery would also be abolished, though the visas would be reallocated so that the backlog of people already waiting for family visas and high-skilled immigration green cards would be processed.

In what may end up being the most contentious piece of the proposal, the White House is also looking to close "legal loopholes" that will allow it to deport more immigrants, specifically as it relates to undocumented immigrants from countries that don't border the United States -- which would likely include changes in immigration enforcement authority that would be virtually impossible for Democrats to swallow.
The White House official sold the plan as a "compromise position" that it believes would get 60 votes in the Senate -- a point White House officials underscored multiple times on Thursday -- and then could be "sent over to the House for additional improvement and modification."

oh fuck
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/25/us/politics/trump-mueller-special-counsel-russia.html

...the president began to argue that Mr. Mueller had three conflicts of interest that disqualified him from overseeing the investigation, two of the people said.

First, he claimed that a dispute years ago over fees at Trump National Golf Club...

Him and his stupid fucking golf courses

ha, can mueller cite "you tried to fire me" as evidence of obstruction?

he needs his lawyer to fire somebody for him? whassa matter donald?

xpost yes he can, and will

xp as matt yglesias (sorry) pointed out on twitter, "It seems like Mueller’s job was saved by the fact that Trump isn’t really the president."

Very OT aside to Tom D: I think its likely the "INRI” on the crucifix wasn't mockery, but an accurate description of the historical Yeshua's crime. The canonical gospels date from after the sacking of Jerusalem in 70 AD, and devastation of the early Jesus movement that had been led by James, brother to Jesus. Arguably, the historical Yeshua would have only recognized its remnants in the the Ebionite/Nazarene heresy of the Trans-jordan and Hijaz. The movement that ascended to orthodoxy took its theology from Paul, and Bob Eisenman argues that Paul was a member of the Herodian family (Romans 16:11, parallels with a Saulus who was "kinsman of Agrippa" in Josephus), with its pro-Roman sentiments. One can argue that much of the pro-Roman sentiment in the gospels (presenting Pilate as respectful of local sentiment, blaming the crucifiction on Jews, etc) stems from the influence of Paul, and gentile "God-fearers" that attended synagogues throughout the Empire.

Very OT aside to Tracer Hand: Absolutely. Carthaginians [were monsters](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Carthage#Child_sacrifice).