@Memor-X John Oliver is back

@Stormblessed i know, watched it last night

my mum was going to watch it too but she's in hospital right now so missed it because hospital doesn't have Pay TV and thus no Comedy Channel

@Memor-X oh that sucks :(

Downing street adviser hired by Cummings resigns after comments surface that, among others, compare forced use of contraceptives to vaccination, attempt to place a racial bias on intelligence, compare women's sports to Paralympics and say that one dead child per year is worth it when using a new health drug

Bloomberg qualifies for next Democratic debate

This particular article doesn't address it, but instead of griping that he "bought his way into the debates", I'm more inclined toward some of the opinions I've seen that this is a good thing, since he will be subject to (hopefully) difficult questions from the moderators and from his opponents

And we'll be better able to contrast him against the other candidates than from just his commercials

Federal judges' association calls emergency meeting after DOJ intervenes in case of Trump ally Roger Stone

Homeland Security waives contracting laws for border wall

@BradC ooh we get a bad guy now

I don’t get his deal

But it is cool that he’ll support whoever the nominee is

mike bloomberg retire

@Stormblessed Yeah, when you really dig into his policy positions, past and current, he pretty easily could have run as a centrist Republican.

The man is pretty much just jeb bush

Trump suggests he may sue over Mueller investigation

> It's unclear on what grounds the president could sue over Mueller's findings, which were released by the Justice Department last April.

Hmm, methinks that could have been worked into the headline, somehow.

@BradC yeah seems like the kind of guy who would inexplicably be elected in Vermont

or Massachusetts

@Stormblessed it would be nice if he'd stop throwing his money around though

for reasons other than "billionaires should stop being politicians"

He's adversely affecting non-federal campaigns through the gravitational vortex of his wealth.

ooh nice Kenan Thomspon and Hasan Minhaj will be at the White House Correspondents' Association DInner

what good is it trump loses the presidency but his... ideals? (that can't be the right word) survive on the local and state level

Good that they decided to have a comedian again

@Yuuki true

but in the general Trump and the Republicans have such a totally unfair amount of money already made due to basically every other billionaire throwing their money at them

@Yuuki I've seen a take that he is sweeping up all of the climbers and grifters, which allows left candidates to have just all true believers, but then again that also assumes that climbers and grifters are an expendable resource in democratic party politics

it's certainly a new strategy that nobody has ever done

@Yuuki wait they're running out of them? That's not good

I'm pretty sure studies have shown that as far as canvassing goes, sheer numbers works far better than a much smaller amount of true believers.

@Unionhawk well didn't trump do this?

Or at least that's something I recall.

@Stormblessed no I mean hiring every climber and grifter you can find

Spend a ton of his own money to get attention and nominated?

o

which has also definitely been done but maybe not "every"

@Stormblessed Yeah, it's definitely a concern.

no

Ok Buttigieg is not my favorite by far, but why on Earth would anyone follow John DeLaney? He is an extremely annoying health care shill

It's really funny to me that probably the last question John Delaney was ever asked before dropping out by anyone resembling the media was "what's your workout routine" and "should we get a peloton for our office" ("I'm just an active guy idk" and "I like a peloton" respectively)

oh no this is how social media will destroy democracy: with John DeLaney being recommended

Kickstarter Employees Win Historic Union Election

Ah, saw the headlines about the bankruptcy, but not the reasons behind it:

Boy Scouts File For Bankruptcy Due To Sex-Abuse Lawsuits

> The Chapter 11 filing in federal bankruptcy court in Wilmington, Delaware, sets in motion what could be one of the biggest, most complex bankruptcies ever seen. Scores of lawyers are seeking settlements on behalf of several thousand men who say they were molested as scouts by scoutmasters or other leaders decades ago but are only now eligible to sue because of recent changes in their states’ statute-of-limitations laws.

Trump pardons ex-San Francisco 49ers owner DeBartolo Jr.

I'm confused by this line in the story:

> The White House announced the surprise decision on Tuesday, along with NFL greats Jerry Rice, Jim Brown, Ronnie Lott and Charles Haley.

Does this mean, "Trump stood alongside (list of NFL greats) and announced he was pardoning DeBartolo"?

Or "Trump announced he was pardoning DeBartolo and (list of NFL greats)"?

Checked a couple of other articles, none mentioned anyone except DeBartolo being pardoned, so I think its the former interpretation

Ok, definitely the former. The Fox News article gives more complete context

> NFL greats including Jerry Rice, Ronnie Lott, Charles Haley, and Jim Brown were on hand at the White House, expressing their support for DeBartolo, who was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2016.

Trump says he's commuted the sentence of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich

First pardon for contestants of The Apprentice

But, I dunno, something about his approach tells me this really isn't about compassion, per se:

> "You have drug dealers that get not even 30 days, and they’ve killed 25 people. They put him in jail for 18 years, and he has many years left. And I think it’s very unfair."

Ah.

Weinstein's Lawyer Wrote an Article Addressing Jurors. The Judge Is Livid.

@BradC Also this

@BradC Person currently in jail for multiple decades on marijuana possession: i.imgur.com/IH4fZyx.gif

Don't get suckered, Democrats: Of any current candidate, Bloomberg would be the easiest for Trump to beat

Fully agree with this ^^^^. The "electability" argument for Bloomberg is a sham.

> Yes, it's really rich of Trump to accuse anyone else of being racist or corrupt or sexist, since he's a gold medalist in all three events. But that ultimately doesn't matter.... Rather, the point of these accusations is to convince some number of potential Democratic voters that Trump's opponent is just as bad as he is and there's no point in participating at all.

> With Bloomberg, this strategy will be laughably easy to pull off. Unlike the false accusations that are being lobbed at the other Democratic candidates, the claims that Bloomberg is a racist and a sexist are all too true. Even if it's intellectually irrational, it's emotionally understandable that many progressives will be so uncomfortable voting for Bloomberg that they won't do it, even if refusing to do so means Trump will be re-elected.

Point is, Bloomberg is Trump just not as blatantly public about it.

And Trump's already captured his voters, they're not going to switch to Bloomberg.

@BradC looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool

Righteous rant thread about Bloomberg, if that's your jam: Among many issues, nominating Bloomberg would be one hell of a way for the Democratic Party to say a complete and thorough "fuck you" to everyone who knocked a door in 2018.

> Bloomberg is a despair choice. He is a capitulation to despair and fear. Do I feel fear? Yeah. Do I despair sometimes? Yeah. But there are at least two candidates running who are not driven by despair. They are not looking at the shitshow and saying "eh, good enough."

He pardoned Safavian too? Amazing

@BradC I'm fairly certain that the DNC is not only driven by despair, they have a major contract with Dysper, a new morally agonizing Silicon Valley rideshare company.

hmmm still too many vowels

and capitalization

dspr

> I'm fairly certain that the DNC is not only driven by despair, they have a major contract with Dysper dspr, a new morally agonizing Silicon Valley rideshare company start-up.

nominating a republican would certainly be a lesson from 2016

of sorts

@TimStone This article says there were 11 pardons or clemencies (is that the plural?) announced today, but I can't find a list of all 11

Posthumously pardoning Timothy Mcveigh to own reality itself

> A corrupt governor can be "more damaging than any other office in the United States, except that of the president," Judge Zagel said before announcing the sentence

> And Michael Milken, arguably the biggest of 3 pardons today —the investment banker who was known in the 1980s as the “junk bond king.” Rudy Giuliani was head of federal prosecutors’ office that prosecuted Milken

Just incredible

> Trump's pardons make sense as a dominance display toward Republicans: "You spent the last few months publicly humiliating yourselves claiming I care about corruption. Here's how little I care. But you'll still defend me when I demand it, because you live in fear of me."

@TimStone On the one hand, I suppose that makes sense. On the other hand, my gut reaction is that that's still too subtle for Trump.

But who knows, maybe he'll actually tweet that tomorrow morning.

Furiously typing out an email to Susan Collins that's just "can't stop won't stop" and a link to the articles

@BradC The WH published one

@TimStone Thanks.

So, should we read anything into the crimes that's he's pardoning here? Extortion, public corruption, tax fraud/tax evasion? No? Just me?

Nope, not just me: The president pardons other people for doing things Trump doesn’t think he should have to go to jail for.

> “Corruption that’s been proved beyond a reasonable doubt to an American jury isn’t a crime. But if there’s a borderline frivolous claim that someone I’m running against did something sketchy in another country, that’s another matter.” - @steve_vladeck

Ha. I won't link it, but @MuellerSheWrote on twitter is calling this "lubing the pardon"; softening the blow for when he pardons Stone/Flynn/Manafort

@BradC Honestly makes more sense than some kind of psychological manipulation of the GOP.

Except for the assumption that Trump would think "I don't think I have to go to jail for this so no one else should have to go to jail for it".

@Yuuki Wouldn't even need to be fully thought through; just more of a "this is my kind of a guy" comradery

> It’s a shame Mike Bloomberg can buy his way into the debate. But at least now primary voters curious about how each candidate will take on Donald Trump can get a live demonstration of how we each take on an egomaniac billionaire. - @ewarren

And that's why I follow Elizabeth Warren on twitter

@BradC Shouldn't that be "billionaire egomaniac" or "egomaniacal/egotistic billionaire"?

"mike all of us up here have moved past 'improve obamacare' even pete over there what the hell are you doing here"

It might all be simpler than we realize:

Trump Grants Clemency to Another Round of Crooks He Saw on Fox News

> “I watched his wife on television,” Trump said of his decision to pardon Blago after seeing his spouse on Fox. The network seems to have influenced several of Tuesday’s pardons.

@BradC if it's like almost every other time he's been in court, he'll loose and settle out of court

@BradC so going back to stealing land....again

@Unionhawk Being transphobic, apparently

Whoa, missed this in the "crooks he saw on Fox News" link above:

> For those who didn’t receive the Fox News treatment, it appears that in at least one case, cold hard cash did the talking. Paul Pogue, a construction company owner who pleaded guilty to underpaying his taxes by $473,000 and received three years probation, was issued a full pardon and clemency by the president.

> According to FEC filings, Pogue’s family has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars in direct contributions and in-kind air travel to the Trump Victory Fund. Beginning in August 2019, Ben Pogue—CEO of Pogue Construction and son of Paul Pogue—and his wife Ashleigh made over $200,000 in contributions to the campaign.