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

[ed2962]

Might as well bring this up, Greta Van Susteren is out at MSNBC. ...suppose it is time to move up Joy Reid then?


Also, Sarah Huckabee Sanders tried to defend Trump's comments about Mika with the grade school bully excuse, "She started it first!"



Hmmm, no Spicey trying to defend Trumpy. Did he leave yet or is he hiding somewhere until this mess blows over?

Yeah, they thought they elected a fighter, instead they got a crybaby.

I saw somewhere where Sanders compared Joe and Mika to Hollywood elites and it's like...the President used to literally live in a gold plated penthouse and you're going to call other people elitist?

[InformationGeek]

Also, Trump ends LGBT Pride Month the only way he can.

[Mister Mets]

Trump wouldn't be able to end Mitch. If anyone can, it'd be the Freedom Caucus, they have leverage/power & grassroots support.

The Freedom Caucus is a House group. They have limited power in the Senate. Trump's sway in the Senate seems rather limited. His biggest Senate supporter is in the cabinet, so there aren't that many people who would sandbag McConnell because Trump told him to.

One guy's take...

Folks in general are just a lot more stupid these days. I swear I recently saw that a young woman was being charged in her boyfriend's death because a "Phone Book Will Stop A Bullet" stunt for their Youtube channel resulted in the boyfriend's death.

While that was dumb, it's a logical fallacy to assume that stupider things haven't been done by teenagers in the past.

[numberthirty]

While that was dumb, it's a logical fallacy to assume that stupider things haven't been done by teenagers in the past.

While that could be, she was pregnant with their second kid. It's up there.

[numberthirty]

Might as well bring this up, Greta Van Susteren is out at MSNBC. ...suppose it is time to move up Joy Reid then?

Since they cancelled The Reid Report, why would the channel that made that call do so?

[ZuLuLu]

article says that Ari is taking over that slot. I like Ari, but Joy has more seniority and I think she should have gotten it. Not sure why MSNBC seems to be having a problem moving her to the week days.

I've heard that no one really wants the 6 pm time slot as all shows as far in that hour have tanked.

[numberthirty]

I've heard that no one really wants the 6 pm time slot as all shows as far in that hour have tanked.

Exactly.

Why set up a scenario where you might have to bump her from a weekday/weeknight slot for a second time?

[Tami]

I've heard that no one really wants the 6 pm time slot as all shows as far in that hour have tanked.

There aren't many hours left to choose from. I doubt any chances will be made from 7 to midnight. 6 is a tough hour. When I do watch I usually watch Wolf on CNN.

[Tami]

The Man Behind Trump’s Voter-Fraud Obsession

The A.C.L.U. has filed four suits against Kobach since he was elected in 2010. All of them challenge some aspect of his signature piece of legislation, the Secure and Fair Elections Act, or SAFE Act, a 2011 state law that requires people to show a birth certificate, passport or naturalization papers to register to vote. Kobach has long argued that such a law is necessary to prevent noncitizens from registering to vote, a phenomenon that he has repeatedly claimed is both pervasive and a threat to democracy. The A.C.L.U. has countered that the real purpose of the law is not to prevent fraud but to stop the existing electorate from expanding and shifting demographically. The same principle informed the “grandfather clauses” of the Jim Crow era, which exempted most white voters from literacy tests and poll taxes designed to disenfranchise black voters. Even a seemingly small impediment to registration, like a new ID requirement, favors the status quo, and in Kansas, and indeed nationally, the status quo favors the Republican Party.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 outlawed tactics that prevented blacks, Hispanics and other minority groups from voting. But for decades, Republicans have fought to circumvent the law by describing their proposed restrictions — requiring specific forms of identification to vote, preventing early voting, purging voting rolls — as colorblind security measures, even though there is little evidence of any individual voter fraud in the United States. The A.C.L.U. has repeatedly argued that the Kansas law discriminated against minorities, young people and low-income people, all of whom are more likely to be registering for the first time and less likely to have immediate access to citizenship papers, because they can’t afford them or were more transient and don’t have copies of their documents at hand. No state has been as aggressive as Kansas in restricting ballot access, and no elected official has been as dogged as Kobach.

Kobach’s plans represent a radical reordering of American priorities. They would help preserve Republican majorities. But they could also reduce the size and influence of the country’s nonwhite population. For years, Republicans have used racially coded appeals to white voters as a means to win elections. Kobach has inverted the priorities, using elections, and advocating voting restrictions that make it easier for Republicans to win them, as the vehicle for implementing policies that protect the interests and aims of a shrinking white majority. This has made him one of the leading intellectual architects of a new nativist movement that is rapidly gaining influence not just in the United States but across the globe.

[worstblogever]

The Man Behind Trump’s Voter-Fraud Obsession

I've mentioned Kobach. I'll be profiling him for the fourth time here in a couple weeks.

[Carabas]

While that could be, she was pregnant with their second kid. It's up there.

The really stupid thing here of course is having laws that give kids like that easy access to guns.

[numberthirty]

The really stupid thing here of course is having laws that give kids like that easy access to guns.

"Kids" might be a bit of a stretch when it comes to that aspect of this. Nineteen and twenty-two should be old enough to grasp the stupidity of what they were about to do without "You don't plan on firing this at the father of your kids hoping that a phone book will stop the bullet, do you?" needing to be an aspect of current gun laws.

[numberthirty]

Let alone that it was seemingly a .50 caliber handgun. If a law to govern that you need to be able to grasp that a phone book will probably not stop that large of a round needs to be on the books, we should probably just give it up.

[Carabas]

"Kids" might be a bit of a stretch when it comes to that aspect of this. Nineteen and twenty-two should be old enough to grasp the stupidity of what they were about to do without "You don't plan on firing this at the father of your kids hoping that a phone book will stop the bullet, do you?" needing to be an aspect of current gun laws.

Should be is not reality. Do you trust your president with a loaded gun?
Think of the stupid crap the average person will do, and then realise that 50% of the population is dumber than the average person.

[numberthirty]

Should be is not reality. Do you trust your president with a loaded gun?
Think of the stupid crap the average person will do, and then realise that 50% of the population is dumber than the average person.

If it's stupidity, then the issue isn't really "Kids having easy legal access to guns".