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

[Tendrin]

3rd District Congressman Clay Higgins has just over $50,000 in the bank for a re-election bid and still needs to repay some $7,000 in debt from his 2016 campaign. Political analyst Bernie Pinosnat says even though Higgins is well liked in southwest Louisiana, he'll a lot more money to get re-elected.

"You never know who's going to run to you. You could have someone jump up and run and if they have enough money to write a check out of their back pocket, you really got to work hard."
Higgins has the fewest campaign dollars out of Louisiana's Congressional delegation and the mid-term elections are in November. For comparison's sake, Republican Mike Johnson is in his first term and has bankrolled $451,000.

May this be his only term in office.

http://www.wwl.com/articles/rep-clay...nal-delegation

[WestPhillyPunisher]

The failing New York Times has hired blogger Quinn Norton, who has repeatedly posted online that she is friends with several neo nazis.

About that hiring....never mind!

NY Times Abruptly Fires Its New Nazi-Befriending Editorial Board Hire

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One Week Into The Rob Porter Saga, The White House Is A Train Wreck

The Trump administration continues to derail its story on its disastrous handling of domestic abuse allegations against the former staff secretary. What a clusterfuck. Par for the course with this administration.

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ICE Lawyer Charged With Trying To Defraud Immigrants By Stealing Their Identities

Raphael A. Sanchez allegedly targeted seven people whose cases were being processed by the agency. I can't wait for Trump, the hateful Hobbit and/or Faux News to comment on this story. Yeah, I know, I'm in for a long wait.

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Trump Attorney Michael Cohen: I Paid Porn Star Stormy Daniels

He did not explain what the payment was for. He didn't have to explain, we can pretty much figure that out on our own.

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Sean Hannity Tweets, Then Deletes, Weirdly Specific Sexual Stuff About Obama Portrait

Fox News host’s post claimed there was something hidden in the image, then he quickly backtracked. Hmm! Could it be that Sean Hamhocks has a crush on Obama?

[TheInvisibleMan]

24 departures from this administration since the Idiot took office

nearly TRIPLE after Obamas first year

[Kirby101]

24 departures from this administration since the Idiot took office

nearly TRIPLE after Obamas first year

And with Obama it was not such senior staff positions.

[Tami]

Russia is threatening to block YouTube and Instagram over video of oligarch

Russia has threatened to block access to YouTube and Instagram if the sites do not remove video and photographs that show a senior government official sailing on a yacht with a billionaire oligarch, who has links with the former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort.

Russia’s state-controlled media watchdog, Roskomnadzor, on Saturday ordered that 14 Instagram posts and seven YouTube videos be deleted that show metals magnate Oleg Deripaska on a yacht with a Russian deputy prime minister, Sergey Prikhodko, and a woman who has described herself as an escort.

The watchdog listed the posts on its register of banned sites after Deripaska won an injunction from a court in his hometown Ust-Labinsk, which ruled they violated his privacy. Roskomnadzor said it had informed the sites that they must delete the images within three days.

The images are at the heart of the public battle between Deripaska and the anti-corruption activist Alexey Navalny, who first drew attention to the posts in an investigative video piece he released last week. In the report, he accused the oligarch of bribing Prikhodko by hosting him on the yacht in August 2016.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

It's glaringly ironic that a bloated buffoon like Trump who regularly dines on KFC and Mickey D's wants to kill the Food Stamp program and send the poor their food in boxes instead. Just imagine the four alarm nightmare in terms of logistics, red tape and bureaucracy, never mind the potential for theft and graft that would be on a monumental scale. Of all the fantastically moronic ideas that's come out of this White House of horrors since Donnie Doughboy took office last January, this lunacy is right at the very top.

[Tami]

It's glaringly ironic that a bloated buffoon like Trump who regularly dines on KFC and Mickey D's wants to kill the Food Stamp program and send the poor their food in boxes instead. Just imagine the four alarm nightmare in terms of logistics, red tape and bureaucracy, never mind the potential for theft and graft that would be on a monumental scale. Of all the fantastically moronic ideas that's come out of this White House of horrors since Donnie Doughboy took office last January, this lunacy is right at the very top.

And the harm it woudl do to the economy when poorer people can't spenmd their money as they need to, including using it at smaller, local stores. Bascially, it woudl not only be harmful as you describe, WPP, it could lead to the closing of many stores that serve the poorer populations.

Smaller markets, corner stores, grocery stores and bodegas. Small resturants, local fast food and diners. A number of business woudl see a major drop in customers if people didn't have the money.

[kidfresh512]

Who are these liars kidding with these OBVIOUS lies? Who in their right minds is going to pay your bosses hooker $130k with YOUR money? WTF? I mean his supporters buy anything but that's pushing it. My boss just gave me an 11k bonus and I still would expense a Snickers bar if I bought him one.

That isn't even getting to the hypocrisy of basically admitting he cheated on Melania after she was just had the baby. Then tried to cover it up. All the while bashing the media who once again uncovered it all.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

And the harm it woudl do to the economy when poorer people can't spenmd their money as they need to, including using it at smaller, local stores. Bascially, it woudl not only be harmful as you describe, WPP, it could lead to the closing of many stores that serve the poorer populations.

Smaller markets, corner stores, grocery stores and bodegas. Small resturants, local fast food and diners. A number of business woudl see a major drop in customers if people didn't have the money.

The snowball effect from all that would inevitably result in such stores going out of business, and those impoverished communities they served devolving into food deserts, heightening the already entrenched poverty. As bad as that would be in big cities with struggling urban populations, it would catastrophic in small towns, most of which tend to skew Republican in terms of voters. Those same ignorant voters who gleefully elected Trump and the bad actors from the GOP because A) they hated Hillary, B) fell for Trump's snake oil bullshit, or C) wanted to stick it to those big city liberals would end up suffering just as much as everyone else, if not worse.

[TheInvisibleMan]

maybe theyll starve to death

maybe their kids will grow up malnourished

maybe whole rural areas will just decay because people move out and we will have whole sections of the country just rotting

[Tami]

The snowball effect from all that would inevitably result in such stores going out of business, and those impoverished communities they served devolving into food deserts, heightening the already entrenched poverty. As bad as that would be in big cities with struggling urban populations, it would catastrophic in small towns, most of which tend to skew Republican in terms of voters. Those same ignorant voters who gleefully elected Trump and the bad actors from the GOP because A) they hated Hillary, B) fell for Trump's snake oil bullshit, or C) wanted to stick it to those big city liberals would end up suffering just as much as everyone else, if not worse.

It was 10, maybe 20 years or more that I rememeber being made aware of soem communities that had no easy access to food becasue it was impossible to get larger supermarkets inot the areas. So the peopel relied on the smaller stores fro basic food, milk, bread, and so on.

Things in NJ have improived, but there are still areas liek this. Loss of smaller stores ... it's like a poverty circle.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

GOP women frustrated by Trump's approach to abuse charges

The Trump White House's handling of abuse charges against men in its midst is frustrating prominent Republican women as the party's yearslong struggle to attract female voters stretches into the 2018 midterm elections.

"It's the mixed signals. They've just got to be stronger, more consistent, clearer in the message" to women, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., said Tuesday. "It's difficult being a Republican woman to have to fight through that all the time."

"I'm extremely disappointed in this situation. Abuse is never OK," Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, said on CNN Tuesday.

"The party and party leadership has had so many opportunities to try to right its wrongs, and Donald Trump's wrongs, with women, to take a stand ... and they haven't," said Meghan Milloy, co-founder of Republican Women for Progress, previously called Republicans for Hillary. The GOP, she said, "is going to start losing women."

Jennifer Horn, former New Hampshire Republican chairwoman, added, "Every single time the president tries to excuse a man who has assaulted women, it makes it harder and harder for our candidates to run credible campaigns."

NOW Republican women are frustrated with Trump? Jesus H. Christ! What took them so goddamn long? Didn't they hear all the horror stories about Herr Gropenfuhrer during the campaign, including the infamous "Grab 'em by the p***y" tape? You mean to tell me they're just getting wise to the realization that a thrice married caveman who cheated on his first two wives and abused over a dozen women wasn't going to sell out his fellow abusers or come to the defense of the women those scumbags mistreated? What in the hell did Republican women expect from Trump other than what they're getting on this matter, which is a big fat chunk of nothingburger?

[kidfresh512]

GOP women frustrated by Trump's approach to abuse charges







NOW Republican women are frustrated with Trump? Jesus H. Christ! What took them so goddamn long? Didn't they hear all the horror stories about Herr Gropenfuhrer during the campaign, including the infamous "Grab 'em by the p***y" tape? You mean to tell me they're just getting wise to the realization that a thrice married caveman who cheated on his first two wives and abused over a dozen women wasn't going to sell out his fellow abusers or come to the defense of the women those scumbags mistreated? What in the hell did Republican women expect from Trump other than what they're getting on this matter, which is a big fat chunk of nothingburger?

I will believe it when I see it manifest in their voting patterns. You can be "frustrated" all you want but if you continue voting and supporting him and his enablers it means ****.

[Overhazard]

It's glaringly ironic that a bloated buffoon like Trump who regularly dines on KFC and Mickey D's wants to kill the Food Stamp program and send the poor their food in boxes instead. Just imagine the four alarm nightmare in terms of logistics, red tape and bureaucracy, never mind the potential for theft and graft that would be on a monumental scale. Of all the fantastically moronic ideas that's come out of this White House of horrors since Donnie Doughboy took office last January, this lunacy is right at the very top.

He eats all that junk because he's afraid of being poisoned. This food box program is kicking someone in the ribs while their down with a steel toed boot. What about people with dietary restrictions, food allergies and the like? This speaks nothing but a deep seated, pathological hatred of the poor.

[Iron Maiden]

It was 10, maybe 20 years or more that I rememeber being made aware of soem communities that had no easy access to food becasue it was impossible to get larger supermarkets inot the areas. So the peopel relied on the smaller stores fro basic food, milk, bread, and so on.

Things in NJ have improived, but there are still areas liek this. Loss of smaller stores ... it's like a poverty circle.

Someone told me once that the profit factor is pretty narrow with grocery stores and convenience stores and they sometimes make only pennies on the items. There was a post here about being followed by convenience store clerks. I've never seen a convenience store that can spare someone to just follow you around. Any Dollar General I've stopped in has just one person working. Most likely they will have cameras though.

I lived in Gary for many years and I really don't go back there much. But I remember when Jewel built a new store on the west side and it was a big deal at the time. It closed in less than 10 years because of "inventory shrinkage". I was told that not only was there shoplifting it was given an assist by the staff. If your friend came through the check out line with a basket full, they'd only ring up a few items.

You still have shoplifting in the "better" neighborhoods and sometimes it's some brats who do it for kicks. But the latest figures put the loss due to theft at 50 billion dollars. If you're in retail in any form it's a pretty big deal....and sometimes the loss does come from within. I can't say that I would blame a shop owner for being a bit too suspicious. And it's why store close in certain neighborhoods.....they can't afford the losses from shoplifting.