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

[numberthirty]

And...

Didn't mean to lose my cool on anyone just now.

Sorry.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

dumb Americans who thought attitude = leadership

we need a Constitutional amendment after he's out of office

"If you haven't held some sort of elected office, you can't run for POTUS"

I’m all for that. We need to eliminate the notion that any idiot with buckets of money, a shitty attitude and a loud mouth can run for the highest office in the land.

[Kusanagi]

So...

While they're saying Trump is fine, he's having a physical next year?

Huh.

Out of all the various ways Trump might be out of office before 2020, I honestly think it will be health reasons that do it. His age, his diet, and his stress levels? Yeah...

[numberthirty]

Out of all the various ways Trump might be out of office before 2020, I honestly think it will be health reasons that do it. His age, his diet, and his stress levels? Yeah...

Maybe.

It just feels like another gopher rodeo waiting to happen.

[Mister Mets]

So...

While they're saying Trump is fine, he's having a physical next year?

Huh.

They've been pretty evasive about medical info in the past. There isn't much reason to believe them on this.

My guess is they ignore it or BS about it (IE- Have some doctor come out and say Trump has the health of a man half his age.)

Though if this is some kind of setup to Trump resigning, I'd be all for it.

dumb Americans who thought attitude = leadership

we need a Constitutional amendment after he's out of office

"If you haven't held some sort of elected office, you can't run for POTUS"

This might be fighting the last war, since God knows what'll happen in the future.

I could see this amendment passing, especially with exceptions for military leaders and cabinet members (who have historically been elected President.)

There would be the loophole that anyone interested could get elected to some minor office first, although it might give national voters an opportunity to see how they handle the post, and give the political outsider a bit more experience.

The one thing this would prevent is a situation where someone who had never held office enters a race relatively late. If Trump had run for Congress in some rural New York district, people would have known he was serious about his presidential ambitions.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Out of all the various ways Trump might be out of office before 2020, I honestly think it will be health reasons that do it. His age, his diet, and his stress levels? Yeah...

Not to mention the only exercise Dolt45 gets is when he plays golf, and even then, he probably rides a cart around the course. The man is a coronary just waiting to happen.

[Old Man Ollie 1962]

A 2700 to 3000 calorie a day diet isn't helping. Mr. Clinton had a weight problem during his first term. He cut Big Macs and large fries from his menu and started jogging as I recall.

[Mister Mets]

The story of the Arizona congressman resigning gets a bit weird. He had asked two female employees to be surrogates and bear his child.

WASHINGTON — Representative Trent Franks of Arizona, one of the House’s most ardent social conservatives, said Thursday night that he would resign after the House Ethics Committee began an investigation into complaints that he had asked two female staff members to be a surrogate to bear his child.

In a statement, Mr. Franks said the discussion about surrogacy came up with “two previous female subordinates” because he and his wife, who have struggled with fertility, wanted to have a child. He said he regretted that the conversations had “caused distress.”

“Due to my familiarity and experience with the process of surrogacy, I clearly became insensitive as to how the discussion of such an intensely personal topic might affect others,” Mr. Franks said.

Mr. Franks denied that he had ever “physically intimidated, coerced, or had, or attempted to have, any sexual contact with any member of my congressional staff.”

Speaker Paul D. Ryan was briefed a week ago on “credible claims of misconduct” and presented them to Mr. Franks, according to a separate statement from his office. When the congressman did not deny them, the speaker referred the matter to the Ethics Committee and told him to resign. Mr. Ryan’s statement did not detail the behavior in question.

The Ethics Committee released a statement late Thursday saying it had opened an investigation into whether Mr. Franks “engaged in conduct that constitutes sexual harassment and/or retaliation for opposing sexual harassment.”

Mr. Franks, whose strident social conservatism and adamant opposition to abortion in all forms have defined his tenure, said he would step aside at the end of January rather than wait for the outcome of the investigation.

[worstblogever]

The story of the Arizona congressman resigning gets a bit weird. He had asked two female employees to be surrogates and bear his child.

That won't do much for his party's reputation as only thinking of women as fetus incubators, of which, he was a front-liner.

[PaulBullion]

Dare you to supply a quote.

Here you go, you manly man:

I’m a warm person; I hug people. I’ve learned from recent stories that in some of those encounters, I crossed a line for some women — and I know that any number is too many.

“Some women have found my greetings or embraces for a hug or photo inappropriate, and I respect their feelings about that. I’ve thought a lot in recent days about how that could happen, and recognize that I need to be much more careful and sensitive in these situations. I feel terribly that I’ve made some women feel badly and for that I am so sorry, and I want to make sure that never happens again.

http://deadline.com/2017/11/al-frank...nt-1202214355/

“But I want to say something else, too. Over the last few months, all of us—including and especially men who respect women—have been forced to take a good, hard look at our own actions and think (perhaps, shamefully, for the first time) about how those actions have affected women.
“For instance, that picture. I don't know what was in my head when I took that picture, and it doesn't matter. There's no excuse. I look at it now and I feel disgusted with myself. It isn't funny. It's completely inappropriate. It's obvious how Leeann would feel violated by that picture. And, what's more, I can see how millions of other women would feel violated by it—women who have had similar experiences in their own lives, women who fear having those experiences, women who look up to me, women who have counted on me.

“Coming from the world of comedy, I've told and written a lot of jokes that I once thought were funny but later came to realize were just plain offensive. But the intentions behind my actions aren't the point at all. It's the impact these jokes had on others that matters. And I'm sorry it's taken me so long to come to terms with that.
“While I don't remember the rehearsal for the skit as Leeann does, I understand why we need to listen to and believe women’s experiences.
“I am asking that an ethics investigation be undertaken, and I will gladly cooperate.

“And the truth is, what people think of me in light of this is far less important than what people think of women who continue to come forward to tell their stories. They deserve to be heard, and believed."

https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article...t-men-who-dont

Now, I double dare you to provide a picture that proves that you are not a Russian spy.

[PaulBullion]

"Jobs" President, eh?

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money...uts/929888001/

It was originally reported as cuts to GE staff in Europe, so Trump fans on twitter where spinning that as "those jobs coming home." Because energy produced in a coal plant in Birmingham, UK, can instead be produced in Birmingham, Alabama.

[PaulBullion]

Fox just lost the deadbeat dad support:

[aja_christopher]

What specific policies do you want to see on racial profiling that are important enough to make being a single issue voter the only moral decision.

I'm not even going to get into this with you again, Mets, since you know as well as I do that racial profiling is not the only "single issue" I have with the Republican party as a whole: we could just as easily discuss many other issues where the Republican party not only fails to protect the rights of "minorities" but also attempts to legislate said discrimination into law (gay marriage, abortion, gerrymandering, etc).

I brought up racial profiling, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, and many other "single issues" the last time we went in-depth on this matter, which are all issues that are so traditionally connected with the Republican party to the point that Trump boldly embraced them as part of his Republican "platform", and he was still nominated by said party.

It's not about racial profiling being a "single issue" matter -- it's about racial profiling being only one of many "single issues" where "minorities" are treated like second-class citizens by the Republican party as a whole.

Apparently none of those issues are "dealbreakers" for the Republican party in general, and you are no exception in that respect.

[aja_christopher]

Please explain, in detail, how not voting in a state HRC carried enabled Trump.

Please explain in detail how not voting against Trump shows you "care" about the issue of sexual harassment and assault.

I voted in California -- a state I knew would carry HRC -- because those kind of issues mean enough for me to take a stand against them, regardless.

You can spin it however you like -- but if you really cared to take a stand on this matter, you would have "voted against" the candidate who advocated sexual assault during the campaign, if only to do your part to make sure he didn't win the Presidency: all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good people do nothing.

Unfortunately, far too many Americans thought like you do, and now all of us have to deal with the consequences of said inaction.

[Darkspellmaster]

So not to pull away from this discussion, but I find it telling that Larry Nassar got 60 plus years in prison for doing what Roy Moore has been doing for years.

http://www.espn.com/olympics/story/_...-federal-judge