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

[WestPhillyPunisher]

I'm seeing half of the die-hard BernieBros are angry at him, and the other half are coming up with a bizarre conspiracy theory where evil Hillary finally cornered him with some dirt to bring him to heel, and it's all her fault still.

Y'know, stuff that qualifies at best as "unreasonable" and at worst "paranoid".

How about both? Now that the "Bernie or bust" crowd have been rendered irrevocably butthurt by their candidate's so-called "betrayal", it'll be interesting to see if they'll bring their anger and vitriol to Philly and stir up trouble in two weeks when the DNC kicks off.

[BeastieRunner]

Radio Recording Suggests Disturbing Reason Philando Castile Was Pulled Over: Report

The reason? Mr. Castile had a "wide set nose". Yeah, really. Meanwhile, the lawyer for the cop who shot Castile had this to say in the officer's defense:



Now, stop me if I'm mistaken, but isn't Minnesota an open carry state? Wasn't Mr. Castile well within his rights to carry a firearm? Oh, yeah, I forgot, Mr. Castile was black, so he had no rights. Tsk! Silly me. I wonder if the NRA will come to Mr. Castille's defense as a "good guy with a gun"? Yeah, I know, fat chance.

The NRA base is spilt on the issue.

[JBatmanFan05]

A sad day as I lose what little respect I had for Bernie.

Trump on Twitter:

I am somewhat surprised that Bernie Sanders was not true to himself and his supporters. They are not happy that he is selling out!

Bernie Sanders endorsing Crooked Hillary Clinton is like Occupy Wall Street endorsing Goldman Sachs.

Bernie sanders has abandoned his supporters by endorsing pro-war pro-TPP pro-Wall Street Crooked Hillary Clinton.

As Susan Sarandon said on July 9th:

This [Democratic] party is done. Warped into the party of the rich. No longer represents working people.

[Shawn Hopkins]

Berne Bro. reacts to the news by wishing minorities weren't allowed to vote.

http://m.imgur.com/w2hXRio?r

[WestPhillyPunisher]

The NRA base is spilt on the issue.

Unless there's been fresh news, I'm going to assume the NRA has remained mum on this not so little matter, so I'll advance a reason as to why. I suspect Wayne LaPierre and the higher ups at the NRA are actively afraid to publicly support Mr. Castile (whom they never referred to by name in the Washington Post article) because if they were to actively support the gun rights of black men, the more intolerant members of the organization, of which a decent percentage probably thinks of blacks as subhuman might well get it in their pointed little heads that the NRA were disrespecting police, and the NRA damn sure doesn't want that sort of headache. So, I think the organization will remain silent and hope the issue goes away.

Meanwhile, people should never have access to social media if they're going to say abominably stupid ****. Case in point:

Former Miss Alabama Suspended From TV Gig for Calling Dallas Sniper a ‘Martyr’

Lord have mercy on fools like her, because I damn sure have none.

[InformationGeek]

As Susan Sarandon said on July 9th:

This [Democratic] party is done. Warped into the party of the rich. No longer represents working people.

Seriously Sarandon? I think you're thinking of the other party.

[Trey Strain]

Whites find blacks who act ghetto "entertaining," and they find blacks who act like everyone else "boring." This is the biggest single factor that perpetuates ghetto culture.

[Mister Mets]

Right, six months ago she had the email stuff still hanging over her head and she has been cleared by now. Also, people pretty much stopped speaking about her Goldman Sachs speeches since she beat the Socialist. Who just endorsed her.

The conclusion of the investigation was that she shouldn't be prosecuted, not that she did everything appropriately. Under ordinary circumstances, that's not a ringing endorsement of someone's ability in office.

[JediMindTrick]

Radio Recording Suggests Disturbing Reason Philando Castile Was Pulled Over: Report

The reason? Mr. Castile had a "wide set nose". Yeah, really. Meanwhile, the lawyer for the cop who shot Castile had this to say in the officer's defense:

Way to cherry pick one line out of the actual story in order to make it sound like something it wasn't. There was an armed robbery a few days earlier. The officer thought that Castile resembled the robber and mentioned that part of his reasoning was the wide set of the nose. Other parts are that like the robber he's black and had a similar hair style. If you look at the picture of the robber, taken from the side, its difficult due to the resolution to say definitively yes or no that it was Castille. So the officer decided to do an investigatory stop to identify Castile. This is perfectly legal by the way so long as there is a valid reason for the stop which there was: the taillight. The officer's goal was to find out who Castille was via his driver's license and then send him on his way. Then the officer sends the info to the investigators so they can further look into it. The officer isn't going to mention the robbery because if he is the robber he doesn't want to tip him off and if he isn't he doesn't want to accuse someone wholly innocent. Things go way sideways after this as we all know. But don't change the facts that led up to this to suit a narrative.

[BeastieRunner]

Trump/Flynn

vs.

Clinton/Stavridis

That could be entertaining. Pro-choice General vs. the pro-life Admiral. On opposite sides of the norm.

Awful lot of hawkish picks vetted so far on both sides.

What does the hawk say?

[Tami]

Freedom Caucus threatens end run around Ryan on IRS impeachment

Conservatives say Koskinen lied to Congress and failed to turn over subpoenaed documents critical to their investigation, rising to the level of breached duty. Senior Republicans, however, don't believe Koskinen acted with ill intent; incompetence, they argue, is not an impeachable offense.

The IRS asserts that Koskinen was not trying to stonewall or mislead Congress and does not deserve impeachment.

The move is just the latest show-of-force from the influential group of roughly 40 conservatives who've prodded the House Republican Conference further to the right.

The group has proved to be as much of a thorn in Ryan's side as it was for Boehner. The caucus effectively blocked Ryan, a former chairman of the House Budget Committee, from passing a budget, the top priority of his early tenure. Its members were also part of a larger group of conservatives that protested Ryan's legislative response to the Orlando massacre. The speaker scuttled a vote on the matter last week.

Ultra Conservative is synonymous with Ultra-Pains-in-the-Country's-Collective-Asses.

[Mister Mets]

Trump/Flynn

vs.

Clinton/Stavridis

That could be entertaining. Pro-choice General vs. the pro-life Admiral. On opposite sides of the norm.

Awful lot of hawkish picks vetted so far on both sides.

What does the hawk say?

Is there any indciation Stavridis is pro-life? The only links I get looking up this stuff is articles mentioning him and Flynn, in the context of Flynn's conflicting statements.

[skyvolt2000]

A recently indicted congresswoman (D-FL) claims that she is persecuted because she is black.

http://www.mediaite.com/online/congr...-for-her-race/

She is accused of using a charity meant to give scholarships to poor students as a personal slush fund.

LOL We had that same thing happen here in Dallas with another black female congresswoman.

In the next 4 elections after that incident where she gave scholarships to her friends kids instead of the poor black kids in her district. She wins by 80% of the votes.

You can steal from your voters and they still reelect you in landslides.

[BeastieRunner]

Is there any indciation Stavridis is pro-life? The only links I get looking up this stuff is articles mentioning him and Flynn, in the context of Flynn's conflicting statements.

There's a remark in the Accidental Admiral (his book) and one Stavridis made during his NATO exit that led many to believe he was pro-life. But nothing formal. A lot of spitballing with that, IMHO. If Flynn or Stavridris are picked I'm going to assume they tow the party lines. The abortion issue is actually the least entertaining aspect of a Clinton/Stavridis & Trump/Flynn combo. They seem to be repping the wrong parties at times.

Stavridris went Lindsey Graham on the ISIS situation a few weeks ago. He's made pro-Iraq invasion stances, too.

Stavridris is very critical of the Iran deal.

Stavridris is pro-NATO, though, so the should keep the Trump camp happy so they can argue about something. That's kind of a given, since he was heavily involved in NATO.

Meanwhile, Flynn thinks Iraq was a huge mistake.

Flynn also thinks the failures in Afghanistan are in large part due to US intelligence not being able to answer “fundamental questions" about why or what was going on.

Flynn is pretty unapologetic when it comes to terms for enemy combatants, so we'd have fun debates for that at least.

So, yeah, there's a chance if both get picked we'll be seeing some interesting policy stances. Pro-life vs. pro-choice would just be the coup de grâce.

[Tami]

I'm thinking either would be a bad idea. Not that I care one way or another for what Trump does.