All-purpose news and politics thread: Two Steps Beyond!(Part II)

[Tami]

Missouri GOP gov seeks to overturn will of the people, admits that doesn't look great

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — When then-Missouri state Sen. Mike Parson didn't agree with a voter-approved law imposing tough regulations on dog breeders, he led a legislative effort to repeal the measure and replace it with a tamer version.

Now eight years later as governor, Parson believes a similar repeal-and-replace effort is necessary for a new voter-approved constitutional amendment revising the way Missouri's legislative districts are drawn. Beyond that, Parson said in an interview with The Associated Press, it may also be time to raise the bar for initiative petitions to appear on the ballot.

The Republican governor acknowledges that neither of those things may sound good to voters.

"Fundamentally, you think when the people vote you shouldn't be changing that vote," Parson told the AP. "But the reality of it is that is somewhat what your job is sometimes, if you know something's unconstitutional, if you know some of it's not right."

Parson, who ascended to chief executive after Republican Gov. Eric Greitens resigned in June, will be participating in his first legislative session as governor in 2019. It's a position that gives him a more powerful voice in shaping state policy, even though he no longer is directly involved in drafting details as he was during his tenure in Legislature, from 2005 to 2017.

[Tami]

House leader says Democrats won't seat candidate in unresolved North Carolina race

RALEIGH, N.C. — The dissolution of North Carolina's elections board Friday injected further uncertainty into a still-undecided congressional race as a U.S. House Democratic leader rejected the idea of filling the seat until an investigation of ballot fraud allegations is complete.

Gov. Roy Cooper was met with Republican resistance after announcing he would appoint an interim Board of Elections after a three-judge state court panel ruled Thursday that the current board should disband at noon Friday.

The Democrat's move would fill the gap — and allow the board to proceed with a Jan. 11 evidentiary hearing about the 9th District congressional race — until a new law governing the statewide elections panel can take effect Jan. 31.

Amid the turmoil, incoming U.S. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer issued a statement saying House Democrats won't allow Republican Mark Harris to be sworn in next week because of the ongoing investigation.

He said he would appoint both Democrats and Republicans to comply with pre-2016 state elections law he says is temporarily back in force.

"All of these members have election law experience and an awareness of the circumstances around the allegations involved in the Ninth Congressional District election," Cooper said in his letter to state party heads.

But state GOP Chairman Robin Hayes said the dissolving board's four GOP members "will not accept appointments to an unconstitutional, illegal sham Roy Cooper creation." Republicans instead will withhold GOP nominees until the new law takes effect, he said.

The outgoing state board refused a last-minute formal request by Harris to certify him the winner.

Last week, elections board chairman Josh Malcolm said in an affidavit to the three-judge panel that investigative staffers — who can continue working through any reorganization — had collected more than 182,000 pages of materials in response to 12 subpoenas.

Malcolm said Friday that the elections board issued "numerous additional subpoenas" before disbanding. In a letter to Harris' attorney, Malcolm wrote that the GOP candidate had turned over only about 400 pages of subpoenaed documents and had yet to produce another 140,000 documents. Harris also had so far failed to arrange a requested interview with agency staffers, Malcolm said.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

White House to Freeze Pay for Federal Workers in 2019

So, on top of being furloughed because Trump shut down the government after he didn’t get his way over his goddamn wall, he’s cut workers like me off at the knees with this dick move. Deplorable.

[Tami]

Migrant Baby Contracted Pneumonia After Five Days in a ‘Freezing’ Holding Cell

When A. Portillo, a 23-year-old woman from Honduras, was taken into custody by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in California earlier this month, her five-month-old was sick. The woman, who spoke to BuzzFeed News and asked to be identified by only her first initial and last name, was giving her baby an antibiotic but said she wasn’t allowed to keep the medication after she was detained.

Her baby got sicker as they were held in “freezing” cells — migrants refer to these as hieleras, or iceboxes — and when she pleaded with CBP agents for a doctor, she says they refused. “The agents told me I wasn’t in a position to be asking for anything and that they didn’t tell me to come to the United States,” she said. They also called her an “invader,” she told NBC News.

After being transferred to San Diego and then flying to North Carolina to be with family, Portillo was finally able to get her child to a hospital. The baby had a fever and at one point stopped breathing. Doctors said she had pneumonia. “If I had been able to keep the drugs, maybe they would have made my baby better,” she said.

[Tami]

How Mark Burnett Resurrected Donald Trump as an Icon of American Success

A few years later, Burnett was in Brazil, filming “Survivor: The Amazon.” His second marriage was falling apart, and he was staying in a corporate apartment with a girlfriend. One day, they were watching TV and happened across a BBC documentary series called “Trouble at the Top,” about the corporate rat race. The girlfriend found the show boring and suggested changing the station, but Burnett was transfixed. He called his business partner in L.A. and said, “I’ve got a new idea.” Burnett would not discuss the concept over the phone—one of his rules for success was to always pitch in person—but he was certain that the premise had the contours of a hit: “Survivor” in the city. Contestants competing for a corporate job. The urban jungle!

He needed someone to play the role of heavyweight tycoon. Burnett, who tends to narrate stories from his own life in the bravura language of a Hollywood pitch, once said of the show, “It’s got to have a hook to it, right? They’ve got to be working for someone big and special and important. Cut to: I’ve rented this skating rink.”

In 2002, Burnett rented Wollman Rink, in Central Park, for a live broadcast of the Season 4 finale of “Survivor.” The property was controlled by Donald Trump, who had obtained the lease to operate the rink in 1986, and had plastered his name on it. Before the segment started, Burnett addressed fifteen hundred spectators who had been corralled for the occasion, and noticed Trump sitting with Melania Knauss, then his girlfriend, in the front row. Burnett prides himself on his ability to “read the room”: to size up the personalities in his audience, suss out what they want, and then give it to them.

“I need to show respect to Mr. Trump,” Burnett recounted, in a 2013 speech in Vancouver. “I said, ‘Welcome, everybody, to Trump Wollman skating rink. The Trump Wollman skating rink is a fine facility, built by Mr. Donald Trump. Thank you, Mr. Trump. Because the Trump Wollman skating rink is the place we are tonight and we love being at the Trump Wollman skating rink, Mr. Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump.” As Burnett told the story, he had scarcely got offstage before Trump was shaking his hand, proclaiming, “You’re a genius!”

[Tami]

New Jersey AG has obtained evidence of possible crimes at Trump's golf club — and Mueller, FBI are involved in probe

New Jersey prosecutors have collected evidence that supervisors at President Trump’s Garden State golf club may have committed federal immigration crimes — and the FBI as well as special counsel Robert Mueller have played part in the inquiry, the Daily News has learned.

Anibal Romero, a Newark attorney who represents several undocumented immigrants who used to work at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, said Friday he recently met with investigators from the state attorney general’s office and handed over fraudulent green cards and Social Security numbers that management at the club allegedly procured and gave his clients, Victorina Morales and Sandra Diaz.

Before he met with the state prosecutors, Romero said he reached out to Mueller’s office because, while he wanted to contact federal authorities, he was concerned about looping in the Justice Department, which was headed by Jeff Sessions at the time.

“I wasn’t sure, one, if they’d take me seriously and, two, if this could backfire on my clients,” Romero told The News, referencing the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration agenda.

Mueller’s office, which is separately investigating Trump’s campaign for possible collusion with Russians during the 2016 election, made contact and informed Romero the matter was not within their jurisdiction.

A few weeks later, an FBI agent in New Jersey called Romero.

“He said to me that he had received a referral from Robert Mueller’s office and that he already knew the specifics and that he wanted to meet with me in person,” Romero said.

[Mecegirl]

I swear... now days just before I click this thread some form of the thought "Lets see who fucked up now." pops into my head. And it never fails with this administration.

No administration is perfect, most have people in them with the skills to mitigate the damage (or hide it but that's another conversation). These guys **** up in plain sight and then act like you are in the wrong for calling them on it. It can't be January soon enough, we really need some oversight.

[Tami]

I swear... now days just before I click this thread some form of the thought "Lets see who fucked up now." pops into my head. And it never fails with this administration.

No administration is perfect, most have people in them with the skills to mitigate the damage (or hide it but that's another conversation). These guys **** up in plain sight and then act like you are in the wrong for calling them on it. It can't be January soon enough, we really need some oversight.

I get the feeling that, even if Trump leaves office and a Democrat became President, we have enough material here to be talking about the Trump Administration for years.

[shooshoomanjoe]

Lemme see if I have this one straight...

A tape that a Russian agent made is a trustworthy source now? Never mind that a phone conversation where you say "I am in Ohio." has to actually mean that you were in Ohio.

Which still has nothing to do with if the bit you posted has a leg to stand on. Two things that can both be true at the same time are clearly going on there. Nothing that is a "Black"/"White" contradiction in that second part. If you were in Ohio for an afternoon in the winter fourteen years ago, you can truthfully state that you have no idea if Ohio is nice in the summer.

For a political party that purports to hate "fake news" you all love to disseminate misinformation.

[Jack Dracula]

For a political party that purports to hate "fake news" you all love to disseminate misinformation.

This statement requires some clarification.

[PaulBullion]

This statement requires some clarification.

If the inmate in cel #30 has any evidence that Russians taped their own cell phone conversations about Cohen, I'd like to see it.

[Tami]

As a grocery chain is dismantled, investors recover their money. Worker pensions are short millions.

Marsh Supermarkets, founded in 1931, had at last filed for bankruptcy.

“It was a long, slow decline,” said Amy Gerken, formerly an assistant office manager at one of the stores. Sun Capital Partners, the private-equity firm that owned Marsh, “didn’t really know how grocery stores work. We’d joke about them being on a yacht without even knowing what a UPC code is. But they didn’t treat employees right, and since the bankruptcy, everyone is out for their blood.”

The anger arises because although the sell-off allowed Sun Capital and its investors to recover their money and then some, the company entered bankruptcy leaving unpaid more than $80 million in debts to workers’ severance and pensions.

For Sun Capital, this process of buying companies, seeking profits and leaving pensions unpaid is a familiar one. Over the past 10 years, it has taken five companies into bankruptcy while leaving behind debts of about $280 million owed to employee pensions.

The unpaid pension debts mean that some retirees will get smaller checks. Much of the tab will be picked up by the government’s pension insurer, a federal agency facing its own budget shortfalls.

“They did everyone dirty,” said Kilby Baker, 70, a retired warehouse worker whose pension check was cut by about 25 percent after Marsh Supermarkets withdrew from the pension. “We all gave up wage increases so we could have a better pension. Then they just took it away from us.”

[Malvolio]

How Mark Burnett Resurrected Donald Trump as an Icon of American Success

So we basically have Mark Burnett to blame for the Trump Presidency. Without the Apprentice, Trump would not have made it out of the Republican Primaries, if he even ran at all.

[Mecegirl]

I get the feeling that, even if Trump leaves office and a Democrat became President, we have enough material here to be talking about the Trump Administration for years.

We already have the title for the netflix series : Individual one.

[Kirby101]

So we basically have Mark Burnett to blame for the Trump Presidency. Without the Apprentice, Trump would not have made it out of the Republican Primaries, if he even ran at all.

And more, since Burnett knew he was a barely literate doofus and kept silent he is doubly at fault.