All-purpose news and politics thread: Two Steps Beyond!

[Tami]

House and Senate Are ‘Among the Worst’ for Harassment, Representative Says

WASHINGTON — A senior Senate staff member is accused of trying to tug open a junior aide’s wrap dress at a bar; she said he asked why she was “holding out.” A former aide says a congressman grabbed her backside, then winked as he walked away. A district worker said a House member told her to twirl in a dress for him, then gave her a bonus when he liked what he saw.

As the nation at large deals with lurid stories of sexual harassment, Congress is only beginning to grapple with tales of sexual aggression that have long been fixtures of work life on Capitol Hill. On Tuesday, the Committee on House Administration will convene a hearing on harassment in Congress, putting the halls of the Capitol under scrutiny alongside the hotels of Hollywood, the kitchens of New Orleans, the board rooms of Silicon Valley and the suites of New York’s media giants.

In the run-up, about 1,500 former Capitol Hill aides have signed an open letter to House and Senate leaders to demand that Congress put in place mandatory harassment training and revamp the Office of Compliance, the legislative branch’s opaque in-house adjudicator.

[GOLGO 13]

in Alabama

yes, Moore has a good chance of winning

A child molester seated amongst the Republicans in the Senate. Can you imagine the feast the media will have on a daily basis with, "Senator Moore this is your 16th allegation of child molestation..."

While his fellow Republican Senators continue to defend a child molester day after day.

[ZombieHavoc]

More fun news and data:

Does the military have a white nationalism problem?
https://www.salon.com/2017/10/26/doe...alism-problem/

The United States, especially with an overt racist in the White House, has a growing white nationalism problem — and this goes double for the U.S. military, according to a recent poll conducted by the Military Times. Pollsters found that nearly one in four service members — and more than 40 percent of people of color in uniform — had encountered someone espousing white nationalist views in the military. This perception was backed up by the fact that 5 percent of the people polled used white supremacist tactics, such as trying to equate white nationalists with civil rights groups like Black Lives Matter, to distort the situation and minimize the problem.

“This makes starkly clear something that a lot of us have known and has been kind of an open secret within the military for a long time," said Alexander McCoy, a former Marine and the communications director for Common Defense, a progressive organization supporting troops and veterans. "There is a disturbing and dangerous undercurrent of tolerating white nationalism, particularly now with Trump as commander in chief.”

[Tami]

Sessions back in Congress, his defense, 'I don't recall' or 'I don't know'.

Listening to him is cringe-worthy.

edit: Rep Jordan is using his time to attack Comey, Clinton and Muller. Oh, boy.....

At least Sessions is shooting him down somewhat on the issue of Facts.

[ZombieHavoc]

Some pockets of people are so mad that Colin Kaepernick is GQ's Citizen of the Year.

It's pretty hilarious to read some of these comments.

[wjowski]

House and Senate Are ‘Among the Worst’ for Harassment, Representative Says

Big surprise there. Weinstein can only your end career. Someone like Roy Moore, if he wins his seat, can destroy the rest of your life.

[Malvolio]

Some pockets of people are so mad that Colin Kaepernick is GQ's Citizen of the Year.

It's pretty hilarious to read some of these comments.

Like they were readers of GQ to begin with. It would be like liberals getting upset if FOX News named Rush Limbaugh their Citizen of the Year. In other words, par for the course.

[SUPERECWFAN1]

Some pockets of people are so mad that Colin Kaepernick is GQ's Citizen of the Year.

It's pretty hilarious to read some of these comments.

What shuts them down is GQ released a detailed video of charities and more that Kaepernick gives to. From Meals on Wheels to feeding starving people in Somalia. Its pretty eye opening. A few on FB was mocking it til I linked a video and they had no response.

[ZombieHavoc]

Jeff Sessions: 'Not enough basis' for special counsel to investigate Hillary Clinton
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...nton?CMP=fb_gu

Jeff Sessions on Tuesday said there was “not enough basis” to appoint a special counsel to investigate Hillary Clinton, a day after reports surfaced that the attorney general had authorized senior prosecutors at the Department of Justice to evaluate an inquiry into the Clinton Foundation.

Testifying before the House judiciary committee, Sessions also appeared to push back on Donald Trump’s repeated insistence that the FBI should focus on investigating Clinton as opposed to potential collusion between his own presidential campaign and Russia.

“The Department of Justice can never be used to retaliate politically against opponents. That would be wrong,” Sessions said when asked about Trump’s tweets calling on the DoJ to investigate his former rival in the 2016 presidential race.

“The president speaks his mind. He is bold and direct about what he says,” Sessions added. “We do our duty every day based on the facts.”

Trump and Republicans have been clamoring for the DoJ to examine the sale of a uranium company to a Russian agency in 2010. The deal, which was approved by the state department when Clinton was at its helm, has been newly seized upon by Trump and Republicans despite no evidence of impropriety.

Sessions said appointing a separate special counsel to investigate Clinton would require “a factual basis”.

[BeastieRunner]

Another mass shooting, 3 dead, elementary students injured.

EDIT:

- Now 3 dead, a 6 year old injured.
- Began in a home
- Several shootings in neighborhood
- Then gunman opens fire at a school
- At least 3 dead
- Many more reported injured
- Death toll could rise
- Children among those wounded
- Gunman dead and unknown
- Motive unknown

I guess kids getting hurt/killed aren't enough for this to change?

[ZombieHavoc]

****. Maybe this was the plan the whole time:

How the Roy Moore scandal could help President Trump fire Robert S. Mueller III
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.be32e979b9a2

One of the leading candidates to replace Moore, should it come to that, would have to be none other than the person who was last elected to that very seat: Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III. Sessions, of course, is performing another job right now as attorney general of the United States. And while he has taken a wrecking ball to many of the most time-honored principles of the department, it is what he is not doing (and indeed is unable to do) that raises the biggest concern around his possible return to his old job. Sessions recused himself from the Justice Department’s investigation into Russian attempts to interfere in last year’s presidential campaign and handed the matter over to his deputy, Rod J. Rosenstein, after it came out that Sessions had given inaccurate testimony to the Senate about his meetings with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Kislyak. Rosenstein, in turn, despite a very shaky start at the department, appointed Mueller to lead the Russia investigation, including whether President Trump’s campaign colluded with Russian operatives, and has since allowed that investigation to proceed independently.

If Sessions returns to the Senate, however, Trump will nominate another attorney general. And you can imagine what kind of litmus test he’d have for his new choice: Trump would want someone willing to shut down the Russia investigation. The president himself has said that he wouldn’t have made Sessions attorney general if he knew that Sessions would recuse from the Russia investigation.

Notably, a new attorney general would not even need to fire Mueller. Mueller serves under regulations that govern the appointment of a special counsel. I had the privilege of drafting those regulations nearly 20 years ago. We all knew at the time that they were the creation of the attorney general, and could therefore be revoked by the attorney general, too. So a new attorney general could simply repeal the regulations. Mueller would go poof, and his investigation would cease. Any facts, prosecutions, and investigative material that Mueller had uncovered would then lie under the supervision of the new appointee, selected by a president who’s been vocal about his objections to Sessions’s recusal. And if you think firing Mueller or repealing the regulations is too much, consider this: the new attorney general could simply say that he doesn’t have the same conflict of interest as Sessions did and assert that he can do Mueller’s job himself. (Of course, the paradigmatic case for a special counsel’s appointment, as we all understood during the drafting, is the presidentially nominated attorney general being asked to investigate the president. But that understanding won’t stop a willful attorney general.)

[TheInvisibleMan]

I think its already been talked about that Sessions will NOT be replacing Moore

[ZombieHavoc]

Yeah, but you can't believe anything. These people...

[BeastieRunner]

We're up to 5 dead now at the elementary, no children so far.

7 crime scenes and at least 6 children air-lifted already.

And here we are, arguing whether Sessions will takeover for Moore (he can't, that was debunked months ago).

How many dead children is it gonna take for people to do something?

[PaulBullion]

That jives with the "A Trump will miss Thanksgiving" rumors for indictments 4, 5, 6, or 7. We still have yet to see those that were mentioned in the plea of Manafort/Gates and the deal for the Canary.

Don Jr. is the one I think is mostly likely to go on the run. Try to get plastic surgery, grow a mustache.