@Ash person in charge of it

@Ash It's kinda like the President pro tempore of the Senate. :P

speaker of the house is 2nd in line of succession for the presidency, after the vice president

that should give you an idea of how powerful it is

Given the way they're chosen and how they function, Speaker of the House is kinda sorta like Prime Minister.

Except take out the parts where they represent the country to the world.

except that most countries with a prime minister have the PM do all the presidenty kinda role model things, right

Yes, but the Speaker leads/directs the legislative body, much like the Prime Minister.

In the domestic matters only, the two are fairly similar.

lol

I can't remember if the Penguin (the least insane of all of Batman's rogues gallery) was ever housed in Arkham Asylum.

@Yuuki yes, i agree

Please note this man is senior editor at DC Comics so this is canon now

@TimStone i though arkham was for leaders, blackgate was for minions

@GodEmperorDune Arkham is an asylum.

Blackgate is a prison.

Therefore, Arkham Asylum and Blackgate Prison.

It just so happens that Gotham has a lot of super-crazy villains, possibly because they have a quasi-crazy superhero.

Oh, I forgot that one of Batman's villains is a Russian operative who goes by "KGBeast".

Weird Mike has on the back of Trump caving called Pelosi an alpha and Trump "Commander-in-Soy", in case you were wondering how that segment of the internet was taking things

@TimStone commander-in-cel ducks

I would argue that is in fact funnier than his version

i think i've heard #resistance use "commander in cheat"

@GodEmperorDune That's often how it works out, but that's just due to what makes up batmans rogue gallery (aka the ones leading the gangs).

But not all of his enemies. The penguin for example goes to black gate

@Wipqozn replies say that penguin goes to arkham

He has in several animated adaptations. Most of those seem to combine Arkham and Blackgate.

@MadScientist wat

rubs eyes Ann Coulter said that?

Trump and his base turning on each other is going to be interesting to watch

@Yuuki i'll wait for the troll reply

she's done this type of thing before

@GodEmperorDune It does seem like the kind of thing she does, say something unbelievable to get attention.

@MadScientist pretty sure they will pivot back to dems soon enough

Oh yeah, nobody posted context.

> Trump to agree on three-week deal sans wall funding to re-open the government

So... we're kicking this can three weeks down the road.

@MadScientist How will it be interesting to watch? We literally just did this shit.

Literally just did it!

Congress passed a clean CR Trump planned to sign, Coulter and company mocked, Trump vetoed, shutdown, today.

Will not be in any way interesting - it will in fact be incredibly dumb and 2016!

@puzzlepiece87 the last time Trump immediately caved to the pressure and it lead directly to the shutdown. That's not something that can repeat forever, so he might have to react in a different way

@MadScientist Hopefully! Betting on things to be less dumb post-2016 seems risky but I sincerely hope so.

Okay, this was kinda amusing, tbh.

Would not be surprised if the way that we go is in fact declaration of national emergency that is then immediately tied up in and eventually defeated in court after wasting everyone's time and money.

@Yuuki Loool thanks for that

Trump bet everything on retaining the fanatic base, and now he is endangering that. He keeps the base by going ever more extreme, standing down now could actually hurt him with them

@Yuuki :/

@MadScientist Yeah but if he doesn't re-open the government, Pelosi won't let him talk in front of all the cameras.

And Donnie wants his cameras.

@MadScientist I don't agree with this but you could be right.

He has 90% approval among all Republicans, hardly someone who bet on a specific subgroup.

And who else is his base going to turn to?

@puzzlepiece87 not voting

@Yuuki state of the union will be done before the CR expires tho

And they're going to turn on him now over something they reportedly don't even care about in a literal sense?

And they're going to remember this in 2 years?

I'm extremely doubtful.

depends what rush limbaugh, sean hannity, and such remind them of

@MadScientist Same reaction, this is plausible and you could be totally right but I'm very doubtful.

@GodEmperorDune Doesn't look like there will be any serious kind of primary so I expect zero trouble from the rabble. Can you give a good scenario where they'd be talking about 2 year old wall failures when they could be talking about buttery males? I can't.

@puzzlepiece87 they will talk about whatever makes them the most ratings and thus money

@GodEmperorDune Now I'm 100% with you again xD

@puzzlepiece87 Incidentally, someone was finally arrested in connection to Hillary's e-mails.

@GodEmperorDune So basically Princess Diana JFK Clintons Trump in a dying affair disease baby bump preggers marriage.

And it wasn't Hillary. Or any Democrat.

So lol.

ha

@Ash US hospitals have absurdly high default fees because they assume that people are going to try and fight them, or at least that's what I heard

🤔

"central role" involving withholding information during Congressional inquiry into Iran-Contra

@TimStone ugh

@Yuuki do you know what this is?

> 24. A police robot tank patrols the waiting hall on the first day of the Spring Festival travel rush at Shenzhen North Railway Station on January 21, 2019, in China's Guangdong province.

I don't get it.

@puzzlepiece87 bastion's ultimate?

@GodEmperorDune Probably. I wonder what they have loaded inside for the guns.

My reaction is 20% yes this is China, 40% yes this is incredibly dumb, 20% thinking that thing is an incredibly expensive, ineffective, ground-based security camera that is otherwise not capable of real deterrence, 20% wondering if they put live bullets in it

rubs temples

@puzzlepiece87 ... huh?

@Yuuki I'll take that as a no. I've never seen them in Shenzhen before, I don't know what they are.

I've been in the airport, subway, and even that train station before.

> Ojeda drew criticism for voting for Donald Trump for president in 2016 then repeatedly criticizing him.

bruh wut

West Virginia is a land of poor decisions

@puzzlepiece87 Is that the rail station? It's honestly reminding me of an airport I've been to before.

@TimStone Imagine thinking as Richard Ojeda that anybody wanted you to run for President. Then imagine thinking that you made a final decision to run. Then imagine giving up before Feb 2019.

@Yuuki According to the caption, that's Shenzhen North Rail Station.

@TimStone Without the likes of Cotton et al on here who will be the voice for the pit full fo spikes?

It was just an entirely dumb exercise on his part

@Yuuki It looks quite a bit like the airport to me as well.

@TimStone I'm trying to decide between humor and politeness here.

> Believing that the messaging service WhatsApp was shielded from government surveillance, Stone texted

Imagine being so dumb that you not only put your crimes in writing but think using Facebook-owned anything is safe from government surveillance

My word these people are ****ing dumb

@puzzlepiece87 .... yes

@puzzlepiece87 I'm reasonably sure they didn't break the encryption or asked Facebook to do that. They probably just got access to one of the phones involved

@MadScientist I'm sure you're exactly right about what happened, but it's also hilarious if someone trusts anything owned by Facebook for privacy purposes.

Literally the WhatsApp founder forfeited like $250M or something like that because he quit early without an NDA because he didn't like that FB was clawing holes in WhatsApp's encryption.

@puzzlepiece87 especially when they themselves were stealing data via facebook

The same thing goes for Telegram, a bunch of WH staffers were using it to keep their messages secret. Hilarious if you think a half-proprietary, roll-your-own, two-man-team encryption scheme is going to be a relatively tough nut to crack.

Not to mention that Telegram chats aren't even encrypted by default.

how did these people not google for secure chat app and find signal?

Exactly.

> Huseyin Yurtseven, a dentist, is seen covering a stray dog with a blanket in Istanbul, Turkey, on January 21, 2019. Yurtseven, accompanied by friends, travels around the surrounding neighborhoods and covers sleeping stray animals with blankets to keep them warm during freezing nights on the streets.

cc @Ash @GodEmperorDune

@puzzlepiece87 good job for good bois

The Newseum (journalism museum in DC) sold their building - they're struggling.

> I continue to be in development for Red Sonja and Bryan Singer continues to be attached. The over $800 million Bohemian Rhapsody has grossed is testament to his remarkable vision and acumen. I know the difference between agenda driven fake news and reality, and I am very comfortable with this decision. In America people are innocent until proven otherwise.

Grossssssssssss

> What Lerner’s defense of Singer does not mention is that Millennium Films, the company, is facing its own allegations of misconduct. Avi Lerner is listed as a defendant. (“It’s all lies,” Lerner told Deadline in response to the suit. “It’s all a joke.”)

@puzzlepiece87 yeah both these bros can go into the sea

lmao

Imagine being someone the Nixon Foundation wants to distance itself from

@TimStone can't escape that tattoo tho

HELLO FROM WRIGHT STATW

Energy is strong and optimistic, "all we need to do is last one day longer than our chairs". Intel seems to point to a struggle to fill classes with scabs (apparently the university president is "teaching" something?). The operation is robust, with a headquarters in a hotel across the street. Faculty will return to the picket line Monday morning. I may try to get up here sometime next week too but idk

"taking attendance is not teaching" was a real good sign from today

(they're doing mandatory attendance for all classes, with just an in writing 15 minute rule, with threat of cancelled scholarships)

@Unionhawk so only people with scholarships have to break the line?

(hot take: free college education so universities can't use threat of financial ruin as a cudgel)

(that's how Dayton operates, every single student has some scholarship, most likely)

@GodEmperorDune I don't know what the % is at wright state

If I had to guess, it's close to 100 so they can pull this like every other university

i really wish the media would stop talking about trump's "cave", it's going to make him more stubborn next time and probably lash out before that

@GodEmperorDune yes but

@GodEmperorDune Not sure if Trump is capable of being more stubborn tbh

@puzzlepiece87 he is capable of great cruelty and every time i think it's peaked they do something worse

@Yuuki yeah but trump watches the news media, he doesn't read wikipedia

@Ash Wright State University trying to crush professor union strike by forcing students to go to class by threatening to revoke their scholarships (money)

Unionhawk is at Wright State now reporting the realities on the ground to us - looks like Wright State is having a hard time sustaining the illusion that class will continue as usual

@Ash Wright State faculty (AAUP-WSU) is on strike. I believe their demands are furloughs and healthcare cuts related (they can't say workload but that was originally a demand)

(workload is apparently not a thing that you are allowed to strike about in the united states, legally)

@Unionhawk thats a weird flex by the labor code

m.facebook.com/…

Also apparently the shutdown is over or soon to be?

@Unionhawk federal or there is a local shutdown there?

I'd cc someone but that may be a code of conduct violation so I won't

i forgot that stone did that

as far as federal shutdown goes, the bill is passed in the senate, next to house, then to trump's desk to sign

@GodEmperorDune what are we looking at, clean 3 weeks?

plus back pay for full timers?

@Unionhawk until feb 15th is my understanding

@Unionhawk yeah that was already passed iirc

let me try to find the thing on twitter, google is not being helpful

@Ash yeah. I welcome this pressure release, speaking as someone who literally has a flight next week, but yeah, it's going to be a mess again

This is not a weapon any elected body should have

Let alone an inherently undemocratic one such as the senate

@Ash yes

but then senate and house can override the veto

@GodEmperorDune But McConnell can refuse to do so, right?

@SaintWacko yes

it is very unlikely but not impossible that this collapses

there's no money in this for the wall, is there?

Our "including a rose garden speech" ducks are in a row so?

@SaintWacko correct

Technically he can indeed still say "haha tricked you"

Good

We don't negotiate with terrorists, even when they're holding the whole damn country hostage

Senate approves bill to reopen the government, the first step to ending the nation’s longest shutdown(incognito mode to avoid paywall)

@Ash chances are it would cause a lot of confusion and not really result in any construction stuff by the time the courts intervened

but you never really know with this stuff

@Ash yes

its also not like the materials for the wall are sitting on site and waiting to be dropped into place or w/e

because 1) construction is extremely slow in general, 2) much of the land for new wall is private property and also would start lawsuits 3) other parts of the border that don't have wall on them yet are extremely inaccessible, so they would first need to build roads and infrastructure out to the wall site before building a wall

so this was always going to be an extremely slow process