apparently mike bloomberg is now claiming that nobody asked him about stop and frisk until he started running for president which, uh
is extremely easily proven as a lie my man
like even setting aside Floyd, et al. v. City of New York, et al. 2013
can't believe mike bloomberg has been running for president for 6 years now
(SDNY held the city liable for violating plantiffs' Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights, and ordered a series of remedies including immediate reforms to the program)
Also can we talk about how absolutely dumb the sentence "you're not free if you don't have health care, but you should have the freedom to choose whether you want it" is
"by jove, if i want to fork over my entire life savings to a faceless corporation because i sneezed twice in five minutes, the government shouldn't stop me"
Just astronomically stupid. At least the premise "if you like your current health plan" makes even little sense
(it doesn't in actuality because anyone who thinks they like their current plan mostly just doesn't have to deal with it, but it's less stupid than "well if you don't want to be able to afford to go to the doctor that's ok")
@Unionhawk Yep, literally every adult in the US, even those like me with "good" plans, worries about health care details all the fucking time
Did I meet my deductable yet? What's my copay? Is this cough bad enough to see a doctor? What if it isn't gone by next week? Do I make an apt with my GP, or hit the clinic? Wait, is the clinic in my network? Wait, is the doctor that works in the clinic in my network??
How bad is this broken arm, really? Can I drive to the hospital with one hand? Bet I could
oh wow, that's a deep cut. Probably too much for just a band-aid, but I'll bet I have some super-glue in my junk drawer
(Real example, not at all made up. I have a friend that patches up his own cuts with superglue instead of getting stiches)
@Unionhawk Yep. Or, as I'm doing this year, "I've exhausted my HSA funds, but haven't yet my deductible this year. Time to push all appointments to 2020 and hope I don't get his by a bus"
> Making this narrative “true,” via the triumph of disinformation, is at the core of this entire scandal.
> Meanwhile, Giuliani is literally producing a fake “documentary” that will “prove” these theories. Trump’s attorney general, William P. Barr, is traveling the world to try to validate parts of the Ukraine-2016 lie, and he’s even preparing to dispute the Justice Department inspector general’s conclusion that it’s nonsense.
> You cannot watch House Republicans, or Sean Hannity, rant about this bundle of theories without concluding we’re witnessing something very different from routine political lying here.
Telangana Police: All four people accused in the rape and murder of woman veterinarian in Telangana (India) have been killed in an encounter with the police.
> This is not the first time Telangana cops have done it. I remember a similar outrage against the accused who killed a girl with acid which resulted in an encounter. This was may be 8-9 years ago.
> We, the undersigned legal scholars, have concluded that President Trump engaged in impeachable conduct.
Over 500 signatories, with names, titles, and institutions
Interesting, but I'm not entirely convinced of the value of stuff like this; how easy would it be to come up with a "we, a vast collection of Trump sycophants who happen to also work in the legal profession, disagree"
> More than 100 members of Congress have now visited at least one of the properties that President Trump owns and profits from while in office, according to tracking by CREW.
> That’s especially problematic now, as members of Congress are tasked with considering how to perform their constitutional duty as the impeachment process moves forward. In fact, 50 members of Congress have visited a Trump property since the impeachment inquiry was announced, and some key figures in the impeachment inquiry are some of Trump’s best customers.
@Rohan what you do now is make sure you aren't interrupting rooms with giant walls of text with no context or regard for room topic or active conversation.
Also builds on this DefenseNews article, from when Congress extended the expiration date for the Ukraine aid
But the new info, according to Ari, is in Schiff's impeachment report, that appears to confirm that still not all the money has been distributed. He's a bit vague about if the committee's report is simply confirming the LA times article, or if its something further
Ok, found it. It's in the full 300-page PDF report, found here
Page 145, in a section titled "After the Hold was Lifted, Congress was Forced to Pass a Law to Ensure All of the Military Aid Could Be Distributed to Ukraine", here's the quote that appears to be new info:
> As of November 2019, Pentagon officials confirmed that the $35 million in security assistance originally held by the President and extended by Congress had still yet to be disbursed. When asked for an explanation, the Pentagon only confirmed that the funds had not yet been spent but declined to say why.
Ha, lol.
The footnote (1016) in the Committee's report leads back to the LA times article
So, while it still seems relevant to the "the funds were dispersed" defense, its old-new (Nov), not new-new news.
@TimStone I mean, she's not wrong. "Service" is just a really strong euphemism for "slavery". And slaves sacrificed their lives because white Confederate slave owners were brutal. And the status of being a slave was inherited from parent to child.
(that IP does resolve to New York, NY, not Washington, DC which would be funnier)
to be fair I don't know how to check an IP talk page, mainly because I don't care about IP talk since I should be exempt from IP blocks (but if not I think I can make a request to become so if needed)
@TimStone People were annoyed with the light bulb thing at the time, and maybe it took a little while to get better products than the early compact fluorescent bulbs, but we have some pretty awesome LEDs coming along now, at pretty darn reasonable prices
Which there's not a compelling reason to avoid now, the prices have become competitive enough that the lifetime savings and efficiency savings and the "I don't have to worry about changing the lighbulb" savings are more than enough
@TimStone Yep. Although I still find myself sufficiently annoyed when I do have to replace one of my newer bulbs. Had a 100-watt (equivalent) LED bulb burn out in my garage, had to climb up 2 stories to replace it. Lasted a couple of years, probably shortened due to the extreme heat and cold cycles in my unheated midwest garage
we got some variety of vibration resistant bulb or something that has worked well so far after just leaving a burnt incandescent and burning a LED in it
> I think this is what the party is. I don’t think we will see a reversal the day Trump leaves office. I’m curious who follows Trump because the politics aren’t going to change so dramatically. I don’t think it’s Mike Pence’s party when Trump’s gone. Anyone who wants to win in this party will have to appease the Trumpist base one way or the other.
Hmm, it's a little unclear to me what that would actually look like. Right now, "appease the Trumpist base" literally just means "never say anything bad about Trump and defend everything he does", but when Trump is out of the picture, what does it mean?
Just... defending Trump's legacy? Or his policies (to whatever degree you can retroactively identify any consistency)? Or maybe just his "screw the libs" attitude?
@GodEmperorDune maybe. Its unclear whether that'll really work, or whether it'll just make you look like a Nazi (in a.. bad way? Do I need to clarify that?? I mean, in a way that even turns off the right-wing)
Lots of people have tried to dissect what makes Trump so attractive to his base, and I don't know that we have definitive answers, nor is it clear to what degree later candidates can tap into that same vibe
the end of the interview with a former GOP congressman:
> The Republican Party is in long-term trouble. The demographics of the nation are shifting away from hardcore Republican conservatism and they’re basically doubling down on that while relying on these rigged elements of the system to help them keep power. That’s not a good place to be in.
> The reason Trump won was because he brought in populism, not conservatism. I don’t see who follows that. Who’s the populist in the Republican Party that comes next? I don’t see one. I think it’s a return to conservatism and largely white male flyover state conservatism, which statistically just isn’t going to put Republicans in office a decade from now.
My working theory outside of Popehat's more reasonable assertion that the jury instructions may have made them shy away from being sure it wasn't protected is that they just all knew Elon would have 100% gotten online and called them pedo jurors
And honestly is it worth it at that point to make him liable? (Yes generally, but)
Also there's apparently the issue that the plaintiff asked for really high damages and maybe couldn't demonstrate that he actually experienced damages of that magnitude
Or, from Popehat "Well, I think if a key issue in the case is whether a particular statement was fact or wild hyperbole, you should probably steer well clear of wild hyperbole in trying the case."
