US Politics Thread |OT| SAD TRUMP

[BisMarckie]

A second woman has accused Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax of sexual assault. Meredith Watson said through her attorney Friday that Fairfax raped her when they were students at Duke University in 2000.

northam out for blood

I envy you for all the juicy scandals you have in America, the last big one I can remember over here was a minister faking his PhD-thesis

[benjipwns]

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/darrensands/virginia-gov-ralph-northam-survival-plan

Advisers are in the midst of negotiations with major networks for a nationally televised interview they hope will humanize him. Additionally, his advisers have assigned the governor homework: He’s begun to read Alex Haley’s “Roots”, and “The Case for Reparations,” the seminal essay in The Atlantic by Ta-Nehisi Coates.

i can't

[CatsCatsCats]

I know, just watch the Geordi LaForge version

[Mandark]

Become governor of Virginia and then have people explain to you why blackface is bad.

This is the American equivalent of when some six year old becomes king and you hope he picks it up as he goes along.

[shosta]

just got a new job as an aide in klobuchar's office, wish me luck!

[BisMarckie]

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/02/senator-klobuchar-temper-rumors

"Terrified Aides Say Amy Klobuchar Is Just Like Trump"

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Or was that a joke that went over my head?

[close]

[shosta]

I just found the worst twitter account ever and will post images from it periodically, sorry dogmod

[benjipwns]

In the emails seen by BuzzFeed, often sent between 1 and 4 in the morning, Klobuchar regularly berated employees, often in all capital letters, over minor mistakes, misunderstandings, and misplaced commas.

[Mandark]

There's a ton of chatter in DC/media twitter about how the juicier stuff hasn't come out yet.

Seen allusions to her hitting someone in the head with a phone or some other office equipment, and ditching an aide on the side of a highway.

[Nintex]

That sounds worse than Trump. 

[shosta]

not that politicians are universally rational actors but why would you run for president if you had ever hit one of your employees in the head

[Mandark]

My boy John Edwards was apparently planning to hide a second family while he served as president of the United States.

[agrajag]

meh, she was never a top contender anyway. I gave Andrew Yang better odds than her


#Yang2020

[Nintex]

"So that's right Amy. You have to talk to Xi, my best friend Kim and Putin. Do you know, how tough you have to be with the Chinese, are you tough Baby Amy?"
 
*Amy hits Trump on the head with her phone*

"ooowww stop it. Help! I'm being presidentially harassed!"

[Mandark]

Real talk: I don't think Trump becomes president if Jeb would've just decked him at one of the debates.

[kingv]

Dude i went to grad school with worked on one of the government planes that fly congressmen around and had interesting stories.

He really didn’t like Maxine Waters, apparently she was really demanding about having peeled grapes on the plane.

He was kind of conservative, so I take that with a grain of salt, but it’s always in the back of my mind when I see her on tv. Peeled grape eating ass bitch.

[agrajag]

Real talk: I don't think Trump becomes president if Jeb would've just decked him at one of the debates.

I wanna live in that timeline

[shosta]

this is the first time I've ever heard of peeled grapes being a preference, that's so abnormal

[agrajag]

I've heard of it

 

[BisMarckie]

In the emails seen by BuzzFeed, often sent between 1 and 4 in the morning, Klobuchar regularly berated employees, often in all capital letters, over minor mistakes, misunderstandings, and misplaced commas.

If you say that you never wanted to do that while grading/reviewing something (preferably after a couple of glasses of wine), you are a dirty liar.

[benjipwns]

Wrong. I don't expect anything worthwhile from them.

[Nintex]

The Bezos thing is pretty crazy.

But I do like to note that I was right that Bezos was completely fucked. 

[benjipwns]

Dude i went to grad school with worked on one of the government planes that fly congressmen around and had interesting stories.

He really didn’t like Maxine Waters, apparently she was really demanding about having peeled grapes on the plane.

He was kind of conservative, so I take that with a grain of salt, but it’s always in the back of my mind when I see her on tv. Peeled grape eating ass bitch.

Sheila Jackson Lee usually is the one who wins this anonymous infamous award. She had 11 different chiefs of staff over eleven years at one point.

The original 1998 story, note that Jackson Lee was first elected in 1994: https://web.archive.org/web/20000106123229/http://www.houstonpress.com/1998/051498/insider1-1.html

Sheila Jackson Lee's (aka curly) parade of horrors

Lee immediately called Burruss and chewed her out for not getting a similar arrangement. Lee wondered aloud about whether the white congressman had gotten the VIP treatment because of his race and then, Burruss says, yelled at her over the phone, "You don't understand. I am a queen, and I demand to be treated like a queen."

Burruss recounts another incident where she had scheduled Lee to appear at an 8:30 a.m. Washington breakfast sponsored by the Houston Housing Authority. Shortly after 10 a.m., a furious Lee called Burruss at the office and accused her of making "a fatal error," by embarrassing her in front of constituents. Lee claimed when she arrived at 8:45 the breakfast was already over, and therefore the aide had listed the wrong time.

Burruss later talked to Lee's staff driver, Matt Eggers, and learned the congresswoman hadn't left her apartment until after 9 a.m. that day, and was nowhere near the scene of the breakfast until well after that time. When Burruss complained to Lee's chief of staff Leon Buck, she says he shrugged and commented: "I told you she lies."

In early March, Burruss got a phone call from Rebecca Cox, a Continental Airlines governmental affairs vice president at the airline's Washington office. According to Burruss, Cox bluntly declared, "We have been dealing with the congresswoman for three years now, and we are tired of her bad behavior. Something has got to happen."

...

According to Burruss, Cox claimed Lee declared, "Don't you know who I am? I'm Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee. Where is my seafood meal? I know it was ordered!"

...

The airline was fed up with the arrangement, and began reducing the reservations to coach class, a development that infuriated Lee when staffers told her they could not guarantee her first-class seats. That conundrum had led to the resignation of Burruss's predecessor, and it contributed to Burruss's own departure as well on March 23.

"I told her I was not able to guarantee her the three first-class reservations," says Burruss, and Lee responded by suggesting that if she couldn't, she should consider alternative places of employment.

"That won't be necessary," answered Burruss, who then uttered what must be one of the most frequently used two-word sentences in Lee's congressional office: "I quit."

From a Weekly Standard story: https://www.weeklystandard.com/sam-dealey/sheila-jackson-lee-limousine-liberal

It's about 200 paces from the awning of Jackson Lee's Capitol Hill apartment to the marbled steps of the Cannon House Office Building, where her office is. Most people think the walk is a pleasant one. Red-brick townhouses give onto tree-lined streets; crossing guards ensure no one is run over. It's the kind of neighborhood where you might expect to find the Republican party's headquarters--and do. They're right next door to Jackson Lee's building. In a city that consistently ranks among the nation's worst for commuting, Jackson Lee would seem to have it made. But apparently it's not convenient enough. Jackson Lee is routinely chauffeured the one short block to work--in a government car, by a member of her staff, at the taxpayers' expense. And apparently in violation of House rules.

...

Take, for example, the morning of December 6, a balmy Thursday when the temperature in Washington would climb to 73 degrees. At 8:43, a blue Ford Contour with government plates--the car Jackson Lee's office has leased--pulled up to her building. For the next 23 minutes, the aide impeded traffic on one of Capitol Hill's busiest streets, pulling in and out of alleys and reserved parking spaces. Finally, at 9:06, Jackson Lee appeared. The aide jumped from the car and hurried to help the congresswoman.

First she opened the rear door so Jackson Lee could deposit a bag and sheaf of papers; then she opened the passenger door. But Jackson Lee took this opportunity to place a phone call, and the aide stood patiently by. After a minute or so of this, Jackson Lee determined she was ready to climb in. But something was wrong. An uncomfortable moment passed as the congresswoman and aide stared at each other. Of course! Jackson Lee's coat and shawl were still on! The aide sprang to remove the garments, and Jackson Lee gave an exasperated look. After Jackson Lee climbed in, the aide gently closed the door, scurried around the rear of the car to the driver's seat, and they were off to the office, a block away. It was such a short trip, Jackson Lee didn't even bother to fasten her seatbelt.

On December 12, on the other hand, Jackson Lee was in a hurry. She shot out of her building at 9:10 (the car and driver had idled for 22 minutes), ignored a well-wisher on the street, and jumped into the car as it executed a harrowing five-point turn. With hazard lights flashing, the car then ran two red lights. While lawmakers are generally allowed to flout traffic laws to get to the Capitol if a vote is in progress, on this day the first vote wasn't for another hour.

The next day, I asked Jackson Lee's driver about the possible ethics violations of using a government car for commuting. The aide declined to comment and instead flagged down a Capitol Hill police officer to report that her boss was being "stalked" and that Jackson Lee "feels very threatened."

https://dailycaller.com/2011/03/02/congressional-bosses-from-hell-sheila-jackson-lee/

Yet another staffer remembers requesting a meeting early on in her tenure to ask how best to serve the congresswoman. Jackson Lee’s response: “What? What did you say to me? Who are you, the Congresswoman? You haven’t been elected. You don’t set up meetings with me! I tell you! You know what? You are the most unprofessional person I have ever met in my life.” With that, Jackson Lee hung up the phone.

According to the same staffer, Jackson Lee “would always say, ‘What am I a prostitute? Am I your prostitute? You can’t prostitute me.’”

Later that day, a skinny young black man with his hair pulled back in a ponytail walked into Miller’s office and asked Stephens for a favor. Could he borrow a knife to cut a birthday cake?

Stephens, who’d seen the man working in Jackson Lee’s office, was happy to help, with only the request to “make sure you bring it back, that’s our only one.”

He laughed. “We would never leave a knife around when the congresswoman was here,” he said.

“You worked really, really, really late for her. When she was in town, you were in the office. So that meant, two, three, four o’clock in the morning – we were there,” one former staffer said.

“She liked to hold her staff meetings — she would individually pull in the deputy chief of staff, myself and some other people individually to go over different parts of her day. But she would literally wait until super late at night. None of us could go home, because she wouldn’t tell when she was coming back or if she wasn’t. And if she called and you didn’t answer, it was like World War III,” the source said.

Jackson Lee’s designated driver picks her up at her apartment one block from her office each morning and waits for her outside wherever she goes throughout the days and nights.

“Whatever time she told me to be there, I would always show up at least 20 minutes late, and expect to wait at least 45 minutes,” said one of Jackson Lee’s drivers. By the end of this person’s tenure, “She was making me wait in the car, sometimes upwards of five to seven hours per day.” With the car running for heat in the winter and air conditioning in the summer, it began to wear down the car’s engine. “My mechanic friend said, you know, your car looks like you’ve driven it twice the miles you have,” the source said.

Another former aide added that the congresswoman would clock her on how long it took her to run an updated schedule print-out from Jackson Lee’s office in the Rayburn building to the House floor. “She would actually physically time you in terms of from office to getting to the [House] floor and finding her, hunting her down,” the staffer said. Then Jackson Lee would demand, “what took you so long?”

Her former drivers say the congresswoman demanded they run red lights and drive on highway shoulders around traffic. This caused at least one accident. As Jackson Lee was yelling at a staffer to drive faster she turned too sharply, smashing the side of her car into a wall.

Jackson Lee’s requests don’t stop at the end of a normal working day. “In the middle of the night, people had to go get her garlic. She’ll call you at two in the morning for garlic because she takes them as supplements,” a former staffer said. Jackson Lee’s garlic runs were confirmed by other staffers, too, though no one could remember the exact brand of the supplement. The deputy chief of staff “would have to go get it, and he would have to go drop it off. It was some kind of a multi-vitamin,” another former staffer said.

On Christmas Eve, one staffer was at a midnight mass ceremony at her church. When the boss called, the staffer didn’t answer. “She got so irritated that I wasn’t answering her call on Christmas Eve. So she called me every minute for 56 minutes,” the source recalled.

A former staffer recalls one revealing episode during the height of the financial crisis in the waning months of the Bush administration. Jackson Lee demanded a meeting with a top Treasury aide, even though she did not sit on any of the committees with jurisdiction over financial matters. As her car pulled up outside the Treasury, Jackson Lee told her driver to park directly outside the door.

Due to the proximity of the Treasury Department’s headquarters to the White House, Secret Service officers told the driver not to park there. After an argument with the agents, who kept telling the driver to back off, Jackson Lee finally emerged from the building.

As the car drove away, a Secret Service van flashed its lights behind them. “Keep driving,” Jackson Lee told her staffer. Ultimately, the driver pulled over in defiance of the boss’s wishes. At this point, Jackson Lee emerged from the car, screaming, “I’m Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee! Who do you think you are?” to a team of Secret Service agents.

Jackson Lee accused the “white” agent at the gate of racism, claiming she wouldn’t have to deal with “this stuff” when Barack Obama became president. She then filed a formal complaint with the Secret Service, which prompted an investigation.

Staffers describe Jackson Lee as a hoarder. For example, she keeps over twenty boxes of the book “Black Americans in Congress” in her office, hundreds of copies in all. From time to time, she adds new copies of the same book to her collection.

Aides who’ve worked for Jackson Lee for years will call her on her cell phone and, despite the caller ID on her blackberry, she invariably answers, “This is Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee.” When getting into the car in the morning, she will give her aide directions to the Rayburn building one block away, even if the aide has been driving her there every morning for months or years.

...

Not surprisingly, Jackson Lee has one of the highest staff turnover rates in Washington. Over the last ten years, at least 39 staffers have left within one year. Over that time, Lee has employed at least nine chiefs of staff, eight legislative directors, and 18 schedulers or executive assistants, according to records of federal disclosure forms published by the website Legistorm. Nine staffers left within two months, 25 within 6 months.

Each year, an average of half of Mrs. Jackson Lee’s staff quits, and one year, all but six of 23 staffers left.

Mentioned another famous one with high turnover:

Rep. Michele Bachmann, the Minnesota Republican who mounted a bid for the presidency, had an average annual staff turnover rate of 46 percent over four years. From 2007 to 2008, 10 of 15 staffers left, even though none of them had an alternate job lined up on the Hill.

[close]

[curly]

well if the Daily Caller and Weekly Standard say so then it must be legit

[benjipwns]

wow you just doxxed yourself Sheila

[Joe Molotov]

Real talk: I don't think Trump becomes president if Jeb would've just decked him at one of the debates.

I wanna live in that timeline

Here's what it would have looked like...

spoiler (click to show/hide)

[close]

[benjipwns]

Rep. Tim Ryan Is Heading To Iowa And New Hampshire As He Considers Running For President

Rep. Tim Ryan, an Ohio Democrat who has made waves by challenging Speaker Nancy Pelosi, will visit Iowa and New Hampshire in the coming weeks as he considers a presidential run.

Ryan represents an area where President Donald Trump converted many longtime Democratic voters and he has shown mild interest in a White House bid since 2016. The upcoming travel, which he confirmed Friday to BuzzFeed News, suggests an escalation as he nears a decision.

“I’m concerned about the country falling behind, not being able to compete, and large swaths of the country — two-thirds, probably — not plugged into any of the growth,” he said in a telephone interview. “I don’t know how much longer we can fall behind before we can’t catch up.”

Ryan’s perch in the Youngstown area could make him attractive among the longshot prospects in a crowded primary. Trump was the first Republican presidential candidate to win Ryan’s home county since 1972. (Ryan also has a history of being a more conservative Democrat — he was anti-abortion until 2015, when many suspected he was thinking about a run for higher office.)

...

Lately, though, Ryan has been seeding more chatter. He told the Washington Post that he recently discussed 2020 with Dick Gephardt, the former House Democratic leader and past presidential candidate. And Fox News’ Neil Cavuto pressed Ryan on Tuesday during a pre-State of the Union interview. “Yes, I will [consider running], and I have, and I am,” Ryan said, before unleashing a rant about China’s increased stature in the global economy.

Fox News, known for right-leaning anchors and punditry, is loathed by many on the political left. (Brown’s wife, Connie Schultz, has said several times that she doesn’t want her husband talking to the cable network.) Asked Friday about his willingness to appear on the channel, Ryan questioned those in his party who dismiss Fox News as a communication outlet.

“I think you have to be on Fox News,” he said. “I don’t see how you can run for president of the United States and not go on Fox News. When you go to airports and you sit in restaurants and random places, especially in the the Midwest, they have Fox News on.”

WE'RE SAVED

[benjipwns]

i gotta admit, i did not see Warren's campaign flopping so hard out of the gate like this and these aren't very encouraging answers:

Yet when asked if there were more documents like the one recently released, Warren did not directly answer the question.

“This is who I grew up believing, with my brothers. This is our family story. And it’s all consistent from that point in time,” she said.

When asked a second time, she failed the clarify.

“All I know is during this time period, this is consistent with what I did,” Warren said. “Because it was based on my understanding from my family stories. But family stories are not the same as tribal citizenship. And this is why I have apologized.”

the President has been calling you Pocahontas on Twitter for four years, like wtf at Northaming into it like this

spoiler (click to show/hide)

no word on if staff have given her Disney's Pocahontas to watch as homework

[close]

[benjipwns]

yes, i did pause to reflect after typing "the President has been calling you Pocahontas on Twitter for four years"

[Trent Dole]

FOUR MORE YEARS

[kingv]

The dna test was a mistake.

Especially because... it actually does prove her case to the extent that these things can even be proven.

But even if it said 0.0% it doesn’t really mean anything. All that Ancestry stuff is basically pseudo science.

[Mandark]

Does the registration card actually contradict what she's been saying on the topic?

Haven't been following it at a granular level, but I'm under the impression that the whole thing is ostensibly a potential scandal because of accusations that she was 1) deliberately lying about her ethnic background 2) for personal gain. Is there something I'm missing about why this card's significant, or is the coverage just slipping towards treating it all like an undifferentiated miasma of "controversy"?


edit: From a practical perspective it doesn't matter if it's legit or not. But I see some people outside of the rightwing fever swamps looking at that card like it's a big "a-ha!" moment and I'm trying to figure out if there's something I'm missing.

[shosta]

It doesn't matter if she got a personal gain from it or not, you don't get to claim membership of a minority, especially a historically subjugated one, just because you heard you had a little bit of American Indian in you up the line somewhere.

[Mandark]

don't be dumb

[shosta]

No, I need her to apologize for this before I even consider supporting her again.

[Mandark]

that's fine but nobody cares about you

[shosta]

You probably don't understand because you're not a non-white minority.

[Mandark]

haha that ain't gonna work mr. hitchens stan

[benjipwns]

she was listed as a minority member of Harvard's faculty or something, they said it was a mistake and she said it was a family tale she believed but had never used it for advantage or whatever

so essentially it was a conservative claim of affirmative action, only extra unjust, only there was no documents either way... but it still clearly ate at her because she went and had the DNA test done to try and prove it, that blew up in her face and she weirdly apologized to Native Americans and the Cherokee

now there's a form where she had no reason to put anything but white and put American Indian, and she's basically all but admitting there's more documents out there like this

it's one of those situations where rather than kill this years ago quietly, she threw it out front right as she launched a Presidential campaign, and it only got worse because now she's been exposed as lying about it and there might be worse out there? who wants to touch a campaign with that potentially hanging over it?

it's one of those stupid things where a person just can't stop picking at it, getting it infected, making it worse than the original injury ever would have been, etc.

[shosta]

Not sure how being a Hitchens-stan matters here, he's not some Herrenvolk enthusiast, and most importantly he's not an Israeli apologist.

Not that you are, either, I just don't know how it's relevant.

[Mandark]

now she's been exposed as lying about it

This is the part I'm asking about. In what way does the card show she was lying?

[benjipwns]

Her story was that she never tried to claim she was a Native American, the card has her listing her race as American Indian?

edit: maybe i have this wrong, and her defense is that she's actually claimed this all along despite not being Native American, so the lying would be her lying about being a Native American for 35 years

[shosta]

For someone as wedded to DC culture as Mandark is, of course it makes sense that the most important thing is whether she was technically incorrect in her carefully crafted statement, not whether she ever posed as a minority.

[curly]

In other dem candidate news I've seen talk about rumors that Klobuchar forced an aide to shave her legs. Not sure if that means the aide was forced to shave her own legs or the aide shaved Klobuchar's legs. Will update as the situation develops.

[benjipwns]

next week will be time for all the Bill Weld stories before his announcement

[Mandark]

Shosta, I'm talmabout the media treatment of this as a scandal. Which is 1% the media caring about the dignity of indigenous people and 99% GOP accusations that this boosted her career and was a deliberate deception. It's cool if anyone doesn't fuck with her cause of cultural appropriation but that's a separate issue from (the vast majority of) the story's coverage.


benji: My impression is that she claimed the heritage (which she conceded was wrong only after getting yelled at post-DNA test) but said never benefited materially from it, in which case I don't really get the bar card being a smoking gun. But like I said I haven't been in the weeds on this.

[Nintex]

https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1094018805322387462

https://twitter.com/RealCandaceO/status/1093944620025663488

LMAO 

[Tripon]

Candance Owens is a example of a person falling for her own bit.

[El Babua]

Just like our friend Benjipwns

[agrajag]

that's fine but nobody cares about you

holy shit shosta got obliterated out of our solar system

 

[agrajag]

I am not sure we should be getting distrqcted with Pocahontas when Liam Neeson is still free to roam the streets ot Northern Ireland looking to blindly lynch any black person he comes across and Amy Klobber-my-intern-with-a-phone is allowed to continue hazing her staff unfettered.

[Tripon]

I am not sure we should be getting distrqcted with Pocahontas when Liam Neeson is still free to roam the streets ot Northern Ireland looking to blindly lynch any black person he comes across and Amy Klobber-my-intern-with-a-phone is allowed to continue hazing her staff unfettered.

Somebody is going to make a porn parody of that exact scenario with Amy Klobuchar.

[kingv]

I think the reason the Warren thing is so damaging is not that anybody actually thinks she was put to scam anyone. Even the gop doesn’t really believe this. It’s just a convenient thing for them to say.


It’s bad because it proves she’s a goddamn weirdo who claimed to be native American for 40 years based on a pinky swear from her mom.

My grandfather had an actual no shit tribal affiliation and federal construction contracts stemming from it in the early days of AA.

But my mother wasn’t really raised that way and neither was I, and he was only like an eighth Native American, so I didn’t go through life claiming I was Seminole warrior because it would be fucking weird.

[Nintex]

I am not sure we should be getting distrqcted with Pocahontas when Liam Neeson is still free to roam the streets ot Northern Ireland looking to blindly lynch any black person he comes across and Amy Klobber-my-intern-with-a-phone is allowed to continue hazing her staff unfettered.

Somebody is going to make a porn parody of that exact scenario with Amy Klobuchar.

Russian Pawnshop - Poll Fucking Reloaded
Classy American daughter again sold by billionaire father and sleazy lawyer to Russian studs for political favors

All American Blackmail: Ssshhh He's Sleeping!
Jeff Taboozos CEO of online retailer is secretly filmed slamming massive dick into mistress while son sleeps in the next room

Oh my Amy! Fuckfest Primary
Amy Fuckblacher, Joe Liden, Bernt Fanders, Lizzy Barren, Cory Cooker, Yeto 'O Cork and Yamala Parris enjoy a wild fuckfest backstage at political debate

Dreamy Tee-Pee
MILF Lizzy Barren dreams of native american golden showers

"something for the LGTBQ+ community

The Foe Mogan Podcast!
Alex Phones rims Foe Mogan and cums in his ass after intense debate heats up

I did na-zi that cumming
Kelly Ponway and Kucker Parlson punish Mandace Cowens for being racist in interview

[close]

"something for our boi filler"

National BBC Association: Shootin' Loads on broads
Lomi Fahren takes on eight BBC's at NBBCA meet-up

[close]

You can purchase these scripts for $300 each.

[Nola]

There is an obvious advantage in having a base of support with well honed cognitive dissonance, a propaganda ecosystem to prop you up 24/7, a natural instinct for dominating the news cycle, and theatrically demonstrating how you don't feel shame.

Warren has none of those genes and none of those luxuries.

So Trump can brag about grabbing pussy's and risk little and Warren is going to likely have this stupid thing anchor her down through her entire campaign.

[Joe Molotov]

https://mobile.twitter.com/dansinker/status/1094054573856247809

[team filler]

 

[BisMarckie]

yes, i did pause to reflect after typing "the President has been calling you Pocahontas on Twitter for four years"

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1094368870415110145

[team filler]

annihilated 

[shosta]

the president making a trail of tears joke is up there for most classless thing he's done.