All Purpose News and Politics Thread Part IV: The Center Cannot Hold

[4saken1]

It would require a lot of risk to send a message that has to be kept vague enough to be easily denied.

Doesn't seem that vague at all. I've seen plenty of people online who have made that connection.

If it was somebody in the law enforcement community, they likely know that crimes against African Americans are much less likely to be solved, too, and know how to best cover their tracks and leave little or misleading evidence. Revenge could also be a likely motive. Police in many areas don't have the best relation with the black community and probably can't stand that 'those people' won a case against a fellow officer whom most police no doubt believe was wrongly convicted.

[Mister Mets]

Doesn't seem that vague at all. I've seen plenty of people online who have made that connection.

If it was somebody in the law enforcement community, they likely know that crimes against African Americans are much less likely to be solved, too, and know how to best cover their tracks and leave little or misleading evidence. Revenge could also be a likely motive. Police in many areas don't have the best relation with the black community and probably can't stand that 'those people' won a case against a fellow officer whom most police no doubt believe was wrongly convicted.

The reason crimes against African Americans are less likely to be solved don't really apply to the murders of neighbors of white police officers.

Members of the law enforcement community would be aware of this.

[SquirrelMan]

The reason crimes against African Americans are less likely to be solved don't really apply to the murders of neighbors of white police officers.

Members of the law enforcement community would be aware of this.

Why would any police officer feel that the law is as hard on them as on others the week she only got 10 years?

[Tami]

Barr’s Requests for Foreign Help Prompt Backlash in Australia, Italy, U.K.

Opposition lawmakers, intelligence officials question why the attorney general is working outside usual channels in review of Russia-probe origins

[InformationGeek]

In some other bullshit news, a US Diplomat's wife may have caused a fatal crash in the UK... and then proceeded to flee the country after saying she wouldn't. Sounds par for the course with this administration's awful members and family members.

Nick Adderley is the most senior police officer in the Northamptonshire force, which is investigating the death of 19-year-old Harry Dunn.

He died when his motorbike hit a car near RAF Croughton in Northamptonshire.

The diplomat's wife, who is a suspect in the case, left the UK despite telling police she did not plan to.

Mr Adderley was asked on Twitter whether the woman was lawfully entitled to claim diplomatic immunity.

He replied: "The short answer is yes," adding that both he and Northamptonshire Police and Crime Commissioner Stephen Mold had written "in the strongest terms" to the US Embassy, urging that the diplomatic immunity waiver be applied "in order to allow the justice process to take place".

Mr Dunn's mother, Charlotte Charles, has told the BBC the family has been left "utterly devastated" by the death of the teenager, from Charlton, Banbury, on 27 August.

On Saturday the US State Department said that diplomatic immunity was "rarely waived" but Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab urged the US Embassy to reconsider.

Mrs Charles told the BBC: "We're really hoping to try to get her back; from me, as a mum, to her, as a mum, you just hope that he [Mr Raab] can try to get through to her.

"We don't wish her any ill harm, but we don't understand how she can just get on a plane and leave our family just utterly devastated.

"If we don't get any luck over here, then we will go over there."

Under the 1961 Vienna Convention, diplomats and their family members are immune from prosecution in their host country, so long as they are not nationals of that country. However, their immunity can be waived by the state that has sent them.

Police said that the suspect "engaged fully" following the crash near RAF Croughton, a US Air Force communications station, and said "she had no plans to leave the country in the near future".

[Mister Mets]

Why would any police officer feel that the law is as hard on them as on others the week she only got 10 years?

We haven't really discussed what happens if there were evidence that a police officer gunned down the witness to an embarrassing murder trial. The context of the discussion was more about whether hypothetical police officers figure they would not get caught committing murder, so considering what happens if they were to get caught is a slightly different goalpost.

If officers were caught killing an entrepreneur who had testified in a murder trial by gunning him down in a parking lot, we would have a massive shitshow. It would be different from the Botham Jean shooting due to the level of premeditation, and the fact there would have to be some kind of cover-up (the murder of Joshua Brown occurred Friday evening; if he were shot by police we'd expect this to come out by now.)

[SquirrelMan]

We haven't really discussed what happens if there were evidence that a police officer gunned down the witness to an embarrassing murder trial. The context of the discussion was more about whether hypothetical police officers figure they would not get caught committing murder, so considering what happens if they were to get caught is a slightly different goalpost.

If officers were caught killing an entrepreneur who had testified in a murder trial by gunning him down in a parking lot, we would have a massive shitshow. It would be different from the Botham Jean shooting due to the level of premeditation, and the fact there would have to be some kind of cover-up (the murder of Joshua Brown occurred Friday evening; if he were shot by police we'd expect this to come out by now.)

I seriously doubt the police will ever "find" a lot of evidence in this case, no matter how much they "search" for it.

[Tami]

Donald Trump’s Ukraine Scandal Has Its Roots in Russia

President Trump and his allies nearly succeeded in consigning the Mueller report to oblivion. William Barr, Trump’s compliant Attorney General, got a jump on the process when he preëmpted the public release of the report by providing a misleading summary, which minimized the special counsel’s findings on Russian interference in the 2016 campaign. Trump compounded Barr’s distortions by falsely and endlessly repeating that the report found “no collusion, no obstruction.” Congressional Democrats did little for the cause of clarity by using the report as an occasion to debate the semantics of what constitutes an impeachment investigation. And Robert Mueller himself invited a certain measure of confusion by telling his story in dense, legalistic prose. Barely six months after he delivered the report, it had already faded into the mists of Trumpiana: post-Sean Spicer, pre-whistle-blower.

The whistle-blower revealed Trump’s July 25th phone call to Volodymyr Zelensky, the President of Ukraine, in which, according to the official memorandum, Trump said that he wanted a “favor,” then asked Zelensky to look into negative information concerning Joe Biden, at the time the Democratic front-runner for 2020. The request was so plainly an abuse of Presidential power—Zelensky was awaiting delivery of military aid already approved by Congress—that Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House, launched an investigation focussed on impeachment, to be led by Adam Schiff, the chair of the Intelligence Committee. Mueller and Russia are out; Schiff and Ukraine are in.

But the Russia and Ukraine scandals are, in fact, one story. Indeed, the President’s false denials in both of them capture the common themes: soliciting help from foreign interests for partisan gain, followed by obstruction of efforts to uncover what happened. Both, too, share roots in Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Mueller’s two indictments of Russian interests—the first involving the use of social media and the second the hacking of Democratic Party e-mails—are perhaps the most detailed chronicle ever published of foreign interference in a U.S. political campaign. Trump’s team was appreciative. When a public-relations adviser to a Russian oligarch’s family e-mailed Donald Trump, Jr., offering dirt on Hillary Clinton that was “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump,” the candidate’s son gave a straightforward reply: “If it’s what you say I love it.”

[Mister Mets]

I seriously doubt the police will ever "find" a lot of evidence in this case, no matter how much they "search" for it.

It would actually be in their interests to solve the case as a rebuttal to their conspiracy-minded critics.

[worstblogever]

On this date back in 2014, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” had a profile of Lenar Whitney, a former dance instructor who ran for office in Louisiana's 6th Congressional District in 2014, whose political heroes include Michelle Bachmann and Sarah Palin who once created a Youtube video titled simply "CLIMATE CHANGE IS A HOAX!" and when the media reported her stance on the issue, immediately began declaring herself a victim of the liberal media. She also claimed that nations of the Middle East sell the United States oil to raise money to "blow us off the face of the Earth", and was pulled from the room by her aides during her interview with the Cook Political Report after she started to speculate about President Obama's birthplace only to claim the person conducting it was trying to make a "Palin-style interview".


In 2015, 2016, 2017, as well as 2018, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" featured profiles of U.S. Senator John Boozman of Arkansas, who has floated around Washington since 2002, first in the House, and now, a full seven years in the Senate. Boozman has appeared at events hosted by Brigette Gabriel and ACT, an anti-Muslim hate group in Washington, D.C. is an extreme social conservative, having voted for a proposed Constitutional amendment to ban same sex marriage, voting against any and all legislation towards LGBT rights including ENDA, the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", and once tried to bring a bill to the floor with Ted Cruz that would force the federal government to defer to the states on same-sex marriage. He has bought into several GOP conspiracy theories, from ACORN, to the IRS Scandal, to going as far as saying Planned Parenthood has had "a role in harvesting organs from unborn babies." Boozman repeatedly has voted against equal pay for women, against the renewal of the Violence Against Women Act, and to restrict reproductive rights whenever possible. He voted against the renewal of CHIP, against Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform, against raising the debt ceiling, and against the Zadroga Bill. He's a ridiculously radical opponent of gun control, arguing that assault weapon bans are unnecessary because they are too “big and bulky” to be used in criminal acts, participated in a Republican filibuster of the Toomey-Manchin Firearms Background Check Act, and spoke out against banning armor-piercing ammunition, feeling that no ammunition can be banned without violating the Constitution. He's on more than one occasion, voted to protect the right to bear arms of people who end up on the "no-fly list", feeling that while we don't trust them to even get on an airplane, suspected terrorists should be allowed to stockpile guns and ammo.

Boozman won re-election in 2016 with 60% of the vote, so he won't face election again until 2022. His return to the Senate has seen him approve every nominee for Donald Trump's "Cabinet of Horrors". That is EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM. Oh, and he voted to put Neil Gorsuch and accused sexual predator Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court. His voting record also shows that he voted for both of the Senate's attempts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act that would have left about 23-24 million people without health insurance, and in July, Boozman even suggested that he was willing to repeal without a replacement, if that's what it took. Never mind that it would mean tens of thousands more Americans would die ANNUALLY.

That's probably the reason while he's gone the coward's route, and refused to attend town halls with his constituents in person, most of whom he's shocked... SHOCKED to learn don't actually support Donald Trump's policies once they realize they impact themselves negatively, too. You can't accuse Sen. Boozman of being heartless, though, because he didn't host any town halls during the August Congressional recess because he was having follow-up surgery on a tear in his aorta that hospitalized him in 2014. He returned to work in the Senate in 2017 without much further incident.

But what has us a but annoyed at the moment, was that Sen. Boozman was one of the few Republicans to make a statement after the whistle-blower scandal hit and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced House Democrats were launching an impeachment inquiry based on Donald Trump’s decision to ask the Ukrainian president to interfere on his behalf in the 2020 elections. Boozman’s take is… this is just “blatantly partisan tactics”

"Democrats have long sought to weaken the president, appease their base and further divide the country through impeachment. This latest action demonstrates their willingness to blindly follow this obsession regardless of the facts.”

Psst… hey ***hole? The point of the inquiry is to gather facts. And the more the facts come out, the more it looks like you’re propping up a lawless fascist douche-canoe.

What we’re getting at is, we are expecting Boozman to be one of the last holdouts when the impeachment trial inevitably happens in the Senate, and then we’re eagerly await him being booted from office in 2022.

[master of read]

This 18-Year-Old Mass Shooting Survivor Is Running For Office — And Someone Just Tried To Stab Him

i know that starbucks. fucking hell.

[Tami]

Republicans believe Trump will break the party in two, and permanently destroy its political capital in the U.S., if they betray him. What you're seeing from Trump, Barr, Giuliani, diGenova, Graham, McConnell and others is *literally* a global effort to save the Republican Party.

Twitter Thread Link

[worstblogever]

Twitter Thread Link

Trump's bloated carcass is the hill the Republican Party deserves to die on.

[Tami]

THREAD
In 2016, Trump posted a photo of himself that gave away more than he intended. An open desk drawer revealed box after box of Sudafed, piled on top of one another.

Twitter Thread Link

Even stranger, although the photo was taken in New York, the boxes include a type that is only sold in the United Kingdom, with a different box and distinctive ingredients not found in the U.S.

Sudafed is sometimes used for a high that includes increased alertness, but also has a side effect of pupil dilation.

Bottom line, Trump might be an addict. Follow the thread and decide for yourself.

[skyvolt2000]

I seriously doubt the police will ever "find" a lot of evidence in this case, no matter how much they "search" for it.

I live in Dallas. I would NOT want July 7th to happen again here.

It is in the best INTEREST of everybody to get this solved.

It makes the police force look real SUSPECT. So it is on them to get this solved. Because this puts THEM in danger.