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

[Ship]

Former CBC broadcaster Jian Ghomeshi not guilty

Former CBC radio host Jian Ghomeshi has been acquitted on four counts of sexual assault and one count of overcoming resistance by choking.

Judge William Horkins announced his ruling today in the Ontario Court of Justice. After the judge announced his decision, Ghomeshi hugged his mother and sister.

In a chaotic scene outside the courthouse after the ruling, a topless protester rushed the podium while the Crown prosecutor was speaking to reporters. She was handcuffed by police and led into the back of a police cruiser.

The 48-year-old Ghomeshi had pleaded not guilty to all of the charges, related to three complainants, who alleged incidents occurred in 2002 and 2003.

In a decision that was scathing of the three complainants, Horkins repeatedly pointed to inconsistences in their stories that he said ultimately undermined their credibility and raised the issue of reasonable doubt. ​

[Malvolio]

I have to disagree. I don't think it's the responsibility of the parties to allow non-party members to vote in their primary. They may allow it, but it's up to them. It's not the general, these people are not running for President, they're running for their party's nomination. If you're not part of that party, you really don't have any "rights" to vote.

Frankly, I'm an actual independent (although I don't register as such...I don't register as anything). Michigan has open primaries and I don't vote in them because I'm not a member of those parties (in fact, hate the very concept of political parties). It's not my call to tell them who to run, just to vote on whoever they actually run.

The only reason I register as a Democrat is so that I can vote in Democratic primaries in New York, where the primaries are closed. If I lived in an open primary state, I would register as an Independent.

[Malvolio]

It's a "fact" Clinton isn't challenging the Arizona result because she won. She got what she wanted from a particular group of voters and now she's moving on. Get used to seeing that sequence of events, America.



I have no doubt that she has a policy written down on a website somewhere that endorses the VRA, but where's the guarantee it isn't just more patented Clinton flip-flop flim-flam? How come Clinton isn't taking legal measures to ensure that all those who could vote did so and why is it left to a pinko to do it?

Because you don't argue a bad call when it goes your way. If you know you were tagged out as you slid into second base, but the umpire called you "safe," you don't argue. You stand up, brush yourself off, and hope no one on the other team decides to argue the call.

[JBatmanFan05]

Interesting article on Bernie or Bust:

Excerpt: You can call adopting such a stance naïve. Ultimately, though, it won’t help to tell the Bernie or Busters that they’re wrong. They want change, not the status quo that the Clinton camp more or less offers. The Bernie Sanders campaign is plainly saying “enough is enough” to the way things are; it’s no good for the Democratic establishment to take a position of presumed superiority and urge Sanders supporters to hand their vote to Hillary Clinton despite their misgivings, when this is exactly the kind of attitude that the Bernie or Busters are rebelling against. After Sanders’ stunning defeat last Tuesday, his voters are now being told they can’t possibly refuse Clinton in a general election. In reality, these supporters have every right to say “Bernie or Bust.”

Firstly, and obviously, they do literally have the right. The right to vote is not also an obligation to vote, despite what some may say. The core principle of democracy is freedom of choice, in who you vote for, and in whether you decide to vote at all. (Just as a side-note, voting numbers have been going down for a long time. It’s not like we can exclusively berate Bernie or Busters for refusing to vote Democrat when for years voters have increasingly been too disillusioned to turn out for either side.) With academics contesting that the US is not really a democracy but an oligarchy, it can be difficult for some to even find the point in voting. Unless, of course, an apparent agent of change offers them a good reason to.

http://www.salon.com/2016/03/23/hear...ernie_or_bust/

[Tami]

If the GOP is forced to have Trump as their Nominee, they might as well throw in the Towel

GOP ads give Democrats anti-Trump playbook

Washington • "Bimbo. Dog. Fat pig," disgusted women say, looking straight into the camera. Another explains, "Real quotes from Donald Trump, about women."

Flip the channel. "I know words. I have the best words," Trump says. That commercial proceeds with a 30-second, bleeped-out tour of his coarsest comments.

Both ads — and dozens more that portray Trump as a selfish, deceptive buffoon — are sponsored by fellow Republicans trying to derail the political outsider from capturing their party's presidential nomination.

But these ads are also providing Democrats with attacks that could be recycled verbatim for the general election and slapped with the tagline, "Hillary Clinton approves this message."

The GOP is doing the work of the Democrats for them.

[Tami]

Lindsey Graham, who endorsed Cruz, says Kasich would be best president

During an interview this morning on MSNBC, Graham said John Kasich would make a better president than Cruz.

"I think Ted would make it a competitive race," said Graham, who later said Cruz "would make a better president than Donald Trump, for damn sure, and I think he'd take the country in a new direction other than (Hillary) Clinton.

"Would he make the best president? No, I don't think so. Of all the people running. John Kasich wins by 11 points against Hillary, so he's absolutely out," Graham said, joking. "Nobody wants a loser like that."

The Political Party that cried Wolf one too many times. Now no one listens to them anymore.

I hear hints of desperation.

[Tami]

Megyn Kelly ignores Donald Trump’s taunts. Except when he talks about women.

With a single word, Fox News Channel star Megyn Kelly weighed in Thursday on Donald Trump’s latest juvenile antic — this one involving a photo illustration that the Republican presidential front-runner retweeted just before midnight.

I know I said I was tired of Trump, but I have to agree with Kelly..."Seriously?"

And Megan Kelly, you know you want to be a crusader for Women's rights against male bullies like Trump, so, just do it.

[Paradox]

Tami sees fate in action:

The GOP is doing the work of the Democrats for them.

At least they've finally found something they can actually work together on.

[Paradox]

Tami gives me a twitch:

I know I said I was tired of Trump, but I have to agree with Kelly..."Seriously?"

And Megan Kelly, you know you want to be a crusader for Women's rights against male bullies like Trump, so, just do it.

Frankly, Trump's animosity has done her nothing but good. But she SOOO wants to be Fox's Rachel Maddow and she SOOO isn't.

The new haircut was so transparent...

[Iron Maiden]

Interesting article on Bernie or Bust:


http://www.salon.com/2016/03/23/hear...ernie_or_bust/

Yeah, but I think you still have the vote particularly for this election year. Staying home on election day will get you Trump in the White House and the stakes were raised when Scalia kicked the bucket.

The GOP started out with everyone snickering about Trump entering the field. They're not laughing now. His army of wackos will show up at the polls.

[Tami]

Karadzic guilty of Bosnia genocide, jailed for 40 years

Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic was convicted by U.N. judges of genocide for the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, the worst war crime in Europe since World War Two, and sentenced to 40 years in prison.

Karadzic, 70, the former president of the breakaway Bosnian Serb Republic, was found guilty on 10 out of 11 charges brought by war crimes prosecutors at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague. He would appeal the decision, his legal adviser said.

"The accused was the sole person within Republika Srpska (the Bosnian Serb Republic) with the power to prevent the killing of the Bosnian Muslim males," said presiding judge O-Gon Kwok, in a reference to the 8,000 killed at Srebrenica.

"Far from preventing it, he ordered they be transferred elsewhere to be killed," the judge said.

40 years doesn't seem nearly long enough, but at his age I guess it's as good as a life sentence.

[Brigonos Chomhgaill]

Them goal posts keep moving.

No, they're still wrapped firmly around issues of disenfranchisement. There will be follow-up questions, connecting issues, and general drift as with any debate, but if you want to address a particular point again, there's literally nothing stopping you from doing so.

[Tami]

How North Carolina’s controversial ‘bathroom bill’ could backfire on Republicans

With the business community at their backs, Democrats can argue this new law won't just hurt LGBT residents, but that it will hurt North Carolina's economy -- just like evidence shows it hurt Indiana's. A survey found Indiana's largest city, Indianapolis, was estimated to have lost $60 million in economic investment in the aftermath of a religious freedom bill that passed the state last year. The business community was already in action in nearby Georgia, where Disney and Marvel are threatening to pull out of filming in Georgia if the state's Republican governor signs a religious liberty bill into law aimed at protecting clergy who don't want to perform same-sex weddings.

So, how many times will the GOP's Over-reactive and Excessive Government reach does it take to put the poor SOB's out of their misery? It's like the GOP is flying a 747 straight into a Mountain, a Mountain they refuse to see and refuse to listen to warnings about.

[Tami]

Another case of GOP Insanity

Dems protest subpoenas seeking names of fetal tissue researchers

Democrats on the committee investigating Planned Parenthood are denouncing Republicans for issuing a new round of subpoenas, some of which call for the names of fetal tissue researchers.

Democrats warn that revealing the names of those researchers puts their safety at risk.

The chairwoman of the committee, Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), on Wednesday informed the ranking member, Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), of her plan to issue 17 new subpoenas, Democrats say.

Some of the subpoenas are for organizations that redacted names in previously submitted documents, according to Democrats.

“There is no legitimate need for the names of researchers, students, clinic personnel and doctors; and amassing a database that could be released publicly at any time is a threat to anyone whose name might be on that list,” Schakowsky said in a statement Thursday.

Democrats say they were not told which organizations are covered in the new subpoenas.

A previous round of three subpoenas went to Stem Express, a fetal tissue procurement firm; the University of New Mexico, which conducts medical research using fetal tissue; and Southwestern Women’s Options, an abortion clinic in New Mexico.

Republicans are on a witch hunt. Sounds like they are afraid that the end (of the GOP) is near and this is their last gasp.

[The Velour Fog]

chalk wars
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...article-350649