US Politics Thread |OT| SAD TRUMP

[benjipwns]

Since I've been activated. Nixon's public persona also wasn't Trumpian in any manner but overly reserved and serious. The "new Nixon" in 1968 was the fact that he now told jokes and smiled.

The "big mouth" came out in private, especially when he was drinking late at night. Which was not an unusual event, most of the inner circle knew to not be shocked getting called at home in the middle of the night from the President to hear him bitch about whatever while drunk.

Trump tweeting is a huge improvement imo, I just think the media could be learning a little faster to not treat every single one as worth their time.

[Nintex]

The nuclear chain of command was wild during the Nixon years. (wilder still than Bill 'misplacing' the nuclear football and all silo codes set to 0000 for 'quick access' or the joint chiefs just randomly ordering planes to fly around with nukes 'just in case' during JFK times and accidently dropping actual warheads instead of dummies during training)

Kissinger was afraid that during one of his drink binges Nixon would order a nuclear strike over bad foreign policy news.
So staff was informed to first call Kissinger in case the President ordered a strike to verify that he was sober or at least sound of mind.

Someone on Twitter is writing a book on Kissinger and posting his notes and transcripts.
The best one so far is during the Vietnam days. The US commander tells Kissinger that the Vietcong have started to show up to the fighting drunk because of some selfmade brew.
And Kissinger responds with something like: "A drunk army fighting one high on drugs. that must be something special. Now tell me, when are the troops coming back?"

[benjipwns]

Neither the United States nor the Soviet Union ever used a system in which the President/General Secretary could launch a nuclear strike alone. To my knowledge, this is still the case in all of our modern nuclear powers.

Stalin may have been an one-time personal exception to this rule.

Also, since I just found out. There NEVER was a phone hotline between the White House and the Kremlin, not even at the start, it was always a text system! I thought for sure there must have been an actual phone at some point. (Oh, and our end has always been in the Pentagon.)

[agrajag]

Love me some encyclopedic Benji

[benjipwns]

https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/09/politics/us-yemen-houthis-missile/

The US will no longer refuel Saudi aircraft conducting strike missions over Yemen, US and Saudi officials said Friday.

The move is expected to have minimal impact on the Saudi effort because the US was only providing refueling for some 20% of Saudi aircraft.

One of the sponsors of that bill signaled support for the decision to stop aerial refueling of Saudi warplanes, calling it a "major victory."

"Congress has won a major victory in convincing the administration to end US refueling in the Saudi-led war in Yemen," Democrat Rep. Ro Khanna of California told CNN in a statement.

freeing up funds to pay for deploying our patriotic troops to stop The Karavan invasion

[benjipwns]

Neither the United States nor the Soviet Union ever used a system in which the President/General Secretary could order a nuclear strike alone.

realized i should edit that to be "launch" they could order whatever they wanted and probably have

[Nintex]

Neither the United States nor the Soviet Union ever used a system in which the President/General Secretary could order a nuclear strike alone. To my knowledge, this is still the case in all of our modern nuclear powers.

Stalin may have been an one-time personal exception to this rule.

Also, since I just found out. There NEVER was a phone hotline between the White House and the Kremlin, not even at the start, it was always a text system! I thought for sure there must have been an actual phone at some point. (Oh, and our end has always been in the Pentagon.)

The President can order a strike and send it down the chain of command and all sorts of checks and balances are in place but if they deem the order 'legal' the strike will happen. And the legality of the order in times of crisis is more or less a formality.
The further down the line you go the harder it gets to stop the strike.

We know of two to four events that could've gone nuclear in recent times.
- During 9/11 the US military went to high alert and the Russians reacted in tandem thanks to their doctrine. They were unable to contact Bush and they didn't know if he was still calling the shots.  Condi Rice on her own accord managed to reach out to the Russians, convinced them they were not a target and persuaded them to stand down
- George Bush considered using nuclear weapons against Afghanistan post 9/11
- Vladimir Putin put his nuclear forces on high alert during the Crimea crisis in case the US would attack Russian forces and/or seal access to the Russian naval base
- Early on in Trump's presidency Kim Jun Un tested yet another nuke. Trump was at the Mar-a-lago having dinner with Abe when Flynn and others rushed into crisis mode and people took selfies with the guy carrying in the nuclear football

spoiler (click to show/hide)

[close]

Anyway a new challenger approaches with a dope ass beat

[benjipwns]

I award you no points and may god have mercy on your soul.

[Nintex]

For those reading, this is how Trump could order a Nuclear attack
http://time.com/5085723/nuke-button-donald-trump-nuclear-weapons-north-korea/

Also, I was wrong on Clinton losing the nuclear football. He lost his ID card called the 'biscuit' that is used to verify that the president is ordering the strike.
So in theory, Clinton wouldn't have been able to identify himself to the Pentagon unless he found some other way. Such as his dope Saxophone skills.

[kingv]

 In practice there are lots of people that could turn off a nuclear strike along the way because there are multiple checkpoints that have two person controls in place.

The most likely person to turn it off, IMO, is actually the guy pressing the button or the guys at STRATCOM.

The more out of the blue the order, the more likely it is to be turned off. If you’re cruising along and the world is at defcon 3 and there is no indication that we are in a nuclear war or about to enter one, the crews are more likely to question the order as being incorrect.

I suspect this is even more true if the people doing these jobs believe the president to have bad judgment or to be erratic but I never did the job under a president widely considered insane so not really sure what the esprit de corps is like these days

Edit: the football just contains paperwork and directions afaik and nothing truly fancy. The contents are highly sensitive, but there’s not like a magic nuke button or anything particularly interesting.

[benjipwns]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alarm_incident

In explaining the factors leading to his decision, Petrov cited his belief and training that any U.S. first strike would be massive, so five missiles seemed an illogical start.

[benjipwns]

he was also reprimanded for improper filing of paperwork with the pretext that he had not described the incident in the military diary.

the incident and other bugs found in the missile detection system embarrassed his superiors and the influential scientists who were responsible for it, so that if he had been officially rewarded, they would have had to be punished. He was reassigned to a less sensitive post

this is perfect

[benjipwns]

For my cowardly friend, Mandark:
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/newt-gingrich-as-democrats-try-to-steal-elections-their-dishonesty-threatens-the-very-fabric-of-our-country

As you watch the long, long, long counts in Florida, Arizona and California, remember the long count which stole Republican Sen. Norm Coleman’s Senate seat for Democrat Al Franken in Minnesota back in 2008.

Remember Democratic candidate for governor in Georgia Stacey Abrams’s assertion that her "blue wave" was made up of both legal and illegal residents. Remember that 22,000 of the applications her voter registration group filed in Georgia were either canceled, duplicative or couldn’t be reconciled (probably because the voters did not exist).

The Democratic supervisor of elections for Broward County, Florida, Brenda Snipes, has a consistent record of breaking the law and trying to steal elections.

When you have the state’s sitting governor and Republican Senate candidate, Rick Scott, filing a lawsuit against "rampant fraud" and saying, "I will not stand idly-by while unethical liberals try to steal an election," you know things have gotten very serious.

As Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel has said, "What’s happening in Broward County should concern every American."

In Arizona, you can bet that many of the 400,000 mail-in ballots still outstanding will turn out to be non-existent or cast by illegal immigrants – or simply made-up by the election officials in two of the state’s most liberal counties. Already, the Arizona Republican Party has alleged that left-wing election officials in one county destroyed evidence related to early voting irregularities.

Watch the next few days unfold. Remember the lies, smears and character assassination Democrats threw at Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

And worry for the very fabric of our country.

[Mandark]

[Great Rumbler]

When you have the state’s sitting governor and Republican Senate candidate, Rick Scott, filing a lawsuit against "rampant fraud" and saying, "I will not stand idly-by while unethical liberals try to steal an election," you know things have gotten very serious.

[Pwnz]

Where the fuck was Trump all day today? In Moscow getting fucked by Putin while wearing a Hillary mask?

[kingv]

I believe he was in his hote room in Paris watching Fox News.

[Great Rumbler]

I believe he was in his hote room in Paris watching Fox News.

He went on vacation to Paris but still did the same thing he does every day?

[kingv]

He’s a typical American.

Anyway, I had a realization about the house today.

Since the house controls the initial budget, they can poison pill the budget resolutions in ways that make them subject to a 60 vote threshold in the Senate by ensuring that the budget has reconciliation instructions that the senate cannot agree on, or at least only the democratic caucus can agree on.

They can put reconciliation instructions in that require raising 500 billion in tax revenue, fully funding Obamacare penalties, or whatever that will make it impossible for the senate to send something back on a Republican Party line vote.

[benjipwns]

Since the house controls the initial budget, they can

[kingv]

I thought that the reconciliation instructions originate in the house budget... but am I wrong? I say that because I vaguely remember it from the “defund Obamacare” and “tax cut” reconciliation fights.

But admittedly, the reconciliation process is extremely confusing, and I’m pretty well convinced that nobody really understands except the Parliamentarians themselves, because the reporting on it is consistently poor, as are any Other articles on it I’ve read.

[Mandark]

When the House sends a bill to the Senate, the Senate can just replace 100% of it with their own stuff and for procedural purposes it's still their version of the same bill.

The real check is that anything that would only pass with Republican votes in the Senate wouldn't even get to the floor of a Democratic House.

[benjipwns]

Yeah, either house can't force anything on the other because they can simply not take it up.

There's not enough radical votes in either party to where they can hold the line in any kind of power play via the budget. The other half of the party will just join up with the other party to pass a continuing resolution. Especially when the leadership isn't held by radicals.

Reconciliation as a process isn't necessary if one side will withdraw and accept the others bill. This is ultimately what they did with Obamacare originally iirc, the House withdrew and simply accepted the Senate bill so as to not have to reconcile. And the Senate bill was originally some bill the House passed for funding some random thing that they erased through amendment.

In theory, you're right, money bills have to originate in the House. But the Court says the Senate amending it by replacing all of the text is close enough.

[benjipwns]

To formally comply with this requirement, the Senate used H.R. 3590, a bill regarding housing tax changes for service members.[176] It had been passed by the House as a revenue-related modification to the Internal Revenue Code. The bill became the Senate's vehicle for its healthcare reform proposal, discarding the bill's original content

House Democrats had expected to be able to negotiate changes in a House–Senate conference before passing a final bill. Since any bill that emerged from conference that differed from the Senate bill would have to pass the Senate over another Republican filibuster, most House Democrats agreed to pass the Senate bill on condition that it be amended by a subsequent bill.[191] They drafted the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act, which could be passed by the reconciliation process.[192][195][196]

Per the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, reconciliation cannot be subject to a filibuster. But reconciliation is limited to budget changes, which is why the procedure was not used to pass ACA in the first place; the bill had inherently non-budgetary regulations.[197][198] Although the already-passed Senate bill could not have been passed by reconciliation, most of House Democrats' demands were budgetary: "these changes—higher subsidy levels, different kinds of taxes to pay for them, nixing the Nebraska Medicaid deal—mainly involve taxes and spending. In other words, they're exactly the kinds of policies that are well-suited for reconciliation."[195]

The remaining obstacle was a pivotal group of pro-life Democrats led by Bart Stupak who were initially reluctant to support the bill. The group found the possibility of federal funding for abortion significant enough to warrant opposition. The Senate bill had not included language that satisfied their concerns, but they could not address abortion in the reconciliation bill as it would be non-budgetary. Instead, Obama issued Executive Order 13535, reaffirming the principles in the Hyde Amendment.[199] This won the support of Stupak and members of his group and assured the bill's passage.[196][200] The House passed the Senate bill with a 219–212 vote on March 21, 2010, with 34 Democrats and all 178 Republicans voting against it
...
Obama signed ACA into law on March 23, 2010.
...
The amendment bill, The Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act, cleared the House on March 21; the Senate passed it by reconciliation on March 25, and Obama signed it on March 30.

[Mandark]

Reconciliation as a process isn't necessary if one side will withdraw and accept the others bill. This is ultimately what they did with Obamacare originally iirc, the House withdrew and simply accepted the Senate bill so as to not have to reconcile.

Pretty sure you're thinking of a conference committee rather than budget reconciliation here.

[benjipwns]

Yeah, though you could probably avoid a need for using reconciliation on a specific bill if the House withdraws and accepts an already passed Senate bill anyway since it's already out of the Senate. Like in the part I quoted that corrects that mistake, that second bill could just be unnecessary. A more hostile Senate could have said take it or leave it. Plus now there's a President who is probably willing to veto.

I guess the main point we've both pointed out to kingv is that it's hard for a single house to control the process as he hypothetically suggested. Especially the House by itself, that's why "opposition" Houses tend to just sit on their hands or just pass symbolic crap like the GOP House recently. That's most of their leverage when they're the odd man out.

[Mandark]

This reminds me, wasn't one of the shutdown crises the result of Ted Cruz telling House Republicans that if they passed Obamacare repeal, he had the votes in the Senate to get it through?

[benjipwns]

While I did not turn up anything regarding that with a cursory search, I did come back across these glowing endorsements of Senator Cruz:

John Boehner described Cruz as "Lucifer in the flesh", while during an interview, Lindsey Graham was quoted as saying "If you killed Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate, and the trial was in the Senate, nobody would convict you."

[Mandark]

I think Franken had the best burn on him.

"I probably like Ted Cruz more than most of my other colleagues like Ted Cruz, and I hate Ted Cruz"

[kingv]

When the House sends a bill to the Senate, the Senate can just replace 100% of it with their own stuff and for procedural purposes it's still their version of the same bill.

The real check is that anything that would only pass with Republican votes in the Senate wouldn't even get to the floor of a Democratic House.

Normally, yes, but I’m specifically talking about the reconciliation process.

One of the caveats is that the Reconciliation bill can only do things that are called for in the original budget resolution.

So like, when the senate and house passed their FY2018 Budget Resolutions, they included language that directed them to reduce revenues by up to $1.5 Trillion. The budget resolutions are subject only to a simple majority vote in both, and it constrains what the senate and House and constrain what can be done through reconciliation.

I believe that the budget resolutions are not subject to a filibuster in the senate as they are not laws, but instructions.

With further reading, though I was wrong about the practical aspect of it originating in the house. Theoretically, I could see the dems jamming the republican caucus with some language about middle class tax cuts that might allow them some wiggle room to relegislate the tax cuts, but they might prefer to just jam up everything for 2 years because they will almost certainly gain seats in 2020.

[benjipwns]

RICHARD OJEDA is running for president. Ojeda, a West Virginia state senator and retired U.S. Army major, lost his congressional bid in the state’s 3rd District on Tuesday, but saw the largest swing of Trump voters toward Democrats in any district around the country — overperforming 2016 by more than 35 points. Still, in a district Donald Trump carried by 49 points, Ojeda, who rose to prominence leading teacher strikes in West Virginia, lost by 12 points.

Ojeda’s case for his candidacy is straightforward: The Democratic Party has gotten away from its roots, and he has a unique ability to win over a white, black, and brown working-class coalition by arguing from a place of authority that Trump is a populist fraud. He’s launching his campaign with an anti-corruption focus that draws a contrast with Trump’s inability to “drain the swamp.”

His authority — and one of his greatest liabilities — would come, in part, from his own previous support of Trump in the 2016 general election. After backing Sen. Bernie Sanders in the primary, Ojeda refused to support Hillary Clinton, seeing her as an embodiment of the party’s drift toward the elite.

“I have been a Democrat ever since I registered to vote, and I’ll stay a Democrat, but that’s because of what the Democratic Party was supposed to be,” he told The Intercept. “The reason why the Democratic Party fell from grace is because they become nothing more than elitist, that was it. Goldman Sachs, that’s who they were. The Democratic Party is supposed to be the party that fights for the working class and that’s exactly what I do. I will stand with unions wholeheartedly and that’s the problem — the Democratic Party wants to say that, but their actions do not mirror that.”

Ojeda turned on Trump early in his term, concluding that the president’s interest in improving the lives of working people like those Ojeda grew up with in West Virginia, or served with in the military, was fake. Now, he wants to break the spell Trump still holds on half the country.

Get ready for Hillary Clinton 4.0. More than 30 years in the making, this new version of Mrs. Clinton, when she runs for president in 2020, will come full circle—back to the universal-health-care-promoting progressive firebrand of 1994. True to her name, Mrs. Clinton will fight this out until the last dog dies. She won’t let a little thing like two stunning defeats stand in the way of her claim to the White House.

...

But after two years of brooding—including at book length—Mrs. Clinton has come unbound. She will not allow this humiliating loss at the hands of an amateur to end the story of her career. You can expect her to run for president once again. Maybe not at first, when the legions of Senate Democrats make their announcements, but definitely by the time the primaries are in full swing.

Mrs. Clinton has a 75% approval rating among Democrats, an unfinished mission to be the first female president, and a personal grievance against Mr. Trump, whose supporters pilloried her with chants of “Lock her up!” This must be avenged.

Expect Hillary 4.0 to come out swinging. She has decisively to win those Iowa caucus-goers who have never warmed up to her. They will see her now as strong, partisan, left-leaning and all-Democrat—the one with the guts, experience and steely-eyed determination to defeat Mr. Trump. She has had two years to go over what she did wrong and how to take him on again.

...

She will hope to emerge as an unstoppable force to undo Mr. Trump, running on the #MeToo movement, universal health care and gun control. Proud and independent, this time she will sideline Bill and Mr. Obama, limiting their role to fundraising.

The generation of Democrats who have been waiting to take over the party from the Clintons will be fuming that she is back and stealing their show. But they revealed themselves to be bungling amateurs in the Brett Kavanaugh nomination fight, with their laughable Spartacus moments. She will trounce them. Just as Mr. Trump cleared the field, Mrs. Clinton will take down rising Democratic stars like bowling pins. Mike Bloomberg will support her rather than run, and Joe Biden will never be able to take her on.

Don’t pay much attention to the “I won’t run” declarations. Mrs. Clinton knows both Mr. Clinton and Mr. Obama declared they weren’t running, until they ran. She may even skip Iowa and enter the race later, but rest assured that, one way or another, Hillary 4.0 is on the way.

Mr. Penn was a pollster and senior adviser to Bill and Hillary Clinton from 1995-2008. Mr. Stein is a former Democratic Manhattan borough president and president of the New York City Council.

WE'RE SAVED 4.0

[benjipwns]

https://twitter.com/LauraLoomer/status/1060751233449951232

https://twitter.com/LauraLoomer/status/1060910228315738112

[BIONIC]

*(((Loomer)))

[Crash Dummy]

wonder if loomer is in urban dictionary

[Joe Molotov]

wonder if loomer is in urban dictionary

An extremely long and skinny french-fry. Like one that is over 7 inches.
Damn that french-fry is HUGE! Its a loomer!

[Great Rumbler]

https://twitter.com/LauraLoomer/status/1060751233449951232

https://twitter.com/LauraLoomer/status/1060910228315738112

 

[Brehvolution]

Her pinned tweet says,

Are you sick of being fed lies by the #FakeNews mainstream media & Deep State?

Then she posts and retweets fake news.

You're right Laura. I am sick of people like you.

[Joe Molotov]

She just asked if you were tired of the lies from the Deep State and Lamestream media, not if you were tired of lies altogether.

[Madrun Badrun]

https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/9w95gi/police_took_my_minor_son_and_questioned_him_alone/

Glad I grew up when I did.  And not in the US. 

[Brehvolution]

https://mashable.com/article/donald-trump-rain-french-army/#d2LbN.61IGqp
https://twitter.com/armeedeterre/status/1061908742999027712

This thread.

[benjipwns]

An outgoing Republican lawmaker on Sunday blamed former Sen. John McCain for the GOP's loss of the House majority in last week's elections, writing in The Wall Street Journal that it was McCain's decisive vote against legislation to repeal and replace Obamacare that led to a wave of Democratic midterm victories.

Jason Lewis, a Minnesota congressman who was unseated last Tuesday by Democrat Angie Craig, claimed in his op-ed that McCain’s thumbs-down vote against a so-called skinny repeal of the Affordable Care Act “prompted a ‘green wave’ of liberal special-interest money” that he said allowed Democrats to hammer Republicans on the issue of pre-existing conditions.

...

Although McCain was one of three GOP lawmakers to vote against the "skinny" repeal, Lewis singled out McCain for his "no" vote — which came after he criticized Republicans for trying to push a repeal bill through and called for the return of regular order — as an unnecessary attempt to slight President Donald Trump.

“The late Arizona senator’s grievance with all things Trump was well known, but this obsession on the part of ‘Never Trump’ Republicans has to end,” Lewis wrote. “Disapprove of the president’s style if you like, but don’t sacrifice sound policy to pettiness.”

[kingv]

Skinny repeal of Obamacare would have thrown insurance markets into turmoil and probably would’ve been good for a few more seats for Democrats.

[Dickie Dee]

An outgoing Republican lawmaker on Sunday blamed former Sen. John McCain for the GOP's loss of the House majority in last week's elections, writing in The Wall Street Journal that it was McCain's decisive vote against legislation to repeal and replace Obamacare that led to a wave of Democratic midterm victories.

Jason Lewis, a Minnesota congressman who was unseated last Tuesday by Democrat Angie Craig, claimed in his op-ed that McCain’s thumbs-down vote against a so-called skinny repeal of the Affordable Care Act “prompted a ‘green wave’ of liberal special-interest money” that he said allowed Democrats to hammer Republicans on the issue of pre-existing conditions.

...

Although McCain was one of three GOP lawmakers to vote against the "skinny" repeal, Lewis singled out McCain for his "no" vote — which came after he criticized Republicans for trying to push a repeal bill through and called for the return of regular order — as an unnecessary attempt to slight President Donald Trump.

“The late Arizona senator’s grievance with all things Trump was well known, but this obsession on the part of ‘Never Trump’ Republicans has to end,” Lewis wrote. “Disapprove of the president’s style if you like, but don’t sacrifice sound policy to pettiness.”

 

[Yeti]

wonder if loomer is in urban dictionary

An extremely long and skinny french-fry. Like one that is over 7 inches.
Damn that french-fry is HUGE! Its a loomer!

You’re thinking of loomster. (I had the same McDonald’s textbook covers growing up)

[El Babua]

[Mandark]

McSally concedes to Sinema.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

https://twitter.com/ComfortablySmug/status/1052015300865089540

https://twitter.com/PatrickRuffini/status/1060028561086693376

[close]

[Tripon]

https://twitter.com/KenTremendous/status/1062192955144859649

[Mandark]

Just posting the tweet is fine.

[kingv]

Our first pawg senator.

 

[Madrun Badrun]

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/11/narcotics-cop-loses-his-daughter-heroin-overdose/575425/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=atlantic-daily-newsletter&utm_content=20181109&silverid=MzEwMTkwMTQ5NDkxS0

[Maiden Voyage]

Amazon to split second HQ between New York, Virginia
https://www.apnews.com/bf0843c9b8a243d7ad90975b41d734b7

The decision ends an intense competition between North American cities to win Amazon and its promise of 50,000 new jobs. Some locations tried to stand out with stunts, but Amazon made clear that it really wanted incentives, like tax breaks and grants. The company received 238 proposals before narrowing the list to 20 in January.
Amazon had stipulated that it wanted to be near a metropolitan area with more than a million people; be within 45 minutes of an international airport; have direct access to mass transit; and have room to expand. It also wanted to able to attract top technical talent and be able to expand the headquarters to as much as 8 million square feet in the next decade.
Set within eyeshot of the nation’s capital, Crystal City is a thicket of 1980s-era office towers trying to plug into new economic energy after thousands of federal jobs moved elsewhere.
Rapidly growing Long Island City, in the borough of Queens, is an old manufacturing area already being reinvented as a hub for 21st-century industry, creativity and urbane living.
In setting off the flurry of interest, Amazon said it could spend more than $5 billion to build its second headquarters over the next 17 years. The two locations combined would be about the same size as the company’s current home in Seattle, which has 33 buildings, 23 restaurants and houses 40,000 employees. The company isn’t leaving Seattle, and Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos has said the new headquarters will be “a full equal” to its current home.

[Maiden Voyage]

Trump is preparing to remove Kirstjen Nielsen as Homeland Security secretary, aides say
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-is-preparing-to-remove-kirstjen-nielsen-as-homeland-security-secretary-aides-say/2018/11/12/77111496-e6b0-11e8-bbdb-72fdbf9d4fed_story.html

The president has grumbled for months about what he views as Nielsen’s lackluster performance on immigration enforcement and is believed to be looking for a replacement who will implement his policy ideas with more alacrity.
The announcement could come as soon as this week, three of these officials said.
Trump has changed his mind on key personnel decisions before, and Chief of Staff John F. Kelly is fighting Nielsen’s pending dismissal and attempting to postpone it, aides say. But Kelly’s future in the administration also is shaky, according to three White House officials.
DHS officials who work with Nielsen declined to address her potential departure Monday. “The Secretary is honored to lead the men and women of DHS and is committed to implementing the President’s security-focused agenda to protect Americans from all threats and will continue to do so,” spokesman Tyler Q. Houlton said in a statement.
Nielsen has been reluctant to leave the administration before reaching the one-year mark as secretary on Dec. 6, but she has been unhappy in the job for several months, according to colleagues. Trump has berated her during Cabinet meetings, belittled her to other White House staff and tagged her months ago as a “Bushie,” a reference to her previous service under President George W. Bush and meant to cast suspicion on her loyalty.
When Nielsen has tried to explain the laws and regulations that prevent the government from drastically curtailing immigration or  closing the border with Mexico, as Trump has suggested, the president has grown impatient and frustrated, aides said.

[kingv]

Well, I hope it was worth it for her to destroy her reputation for Trump.

[chronovore]

What the actual fuck?
APNewsBreak: Georgia election server wiped after suit filed

[kingv]

Bleached actually.

[Great Rumbler]

Amazon to split second HQ between New York, Virginia
https://www.apnews.com/bf0843c9b8a243d7ad90975b41d734b7

The decision ends an intense competition between North American cities to win Amazon and its promise of 50,000 new jobs. Some locations tried to stand out with stunts, but Amazon made clear that it really wanted incentives, like tax breaks and grants. The company received 238 proposals before narrowing the list to 20 in January.
Amazon had stipulated that it wanted to be near a metropolitan area with more than a million people; be within 45 minutes of an international airport; have direct access to mass transit; and have room to expand. It also wanted to able to attract top technical talent and be able to expand the headquarters to as much as 8 million square feet in the next decade.
Set within eyeshot of the nation’s capital, Crystal City is a thicket of 1980s-era office towers trying to plug into new economic energy after thousands of federal jobs moved elsewhere.
Rapidly growing Long Island City, in the borough of Queens, is an old manufacturing area already being reinvented as a hub for 21st-century industry, creativity and urbane living.
In setting off the flurry of interest, Amazon said it could spend more than $5 billion to build its second headquarters over the next 17 years. The two locations combined would be about the same size as the company’s current home in Seattle, which has 33 buildings, 23 restaurants and houses 40,000 employees. The company isn’t leaving Seattle, and Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos has said the new headquarters will be “a full equal” to its current home.

The only choice more boring than this would be just building another headquarters in Seattle.

[Mandark]

Rick Scott throwing around baseless accusations of crime in Florida.
Young Kim (candidate in CA39) says that if ballots counted later favor her opponent that's automatically evidence of "foul play."
Republican candidate in Maine House race is suing after the fact to prevent the state from using ranked-choice voting, which was the rule all along.
McSally conceded without making up some bullshit about fraud and is being commended for how classy she is.


Not great.

[Great Rumbler]

I really, really want to see Governor Skeletor lose.

[Mandark]

post so bad it got a nintex like

[Nintex]

"You better watch out Dimitri once we roll the tanks into Poland the Americans might do a sit-in at the UN because of the emissions."