Political Randomness

[Isgrimnur]

I want to see Trump's HQ.

[hepcat]

I don't think there's anybody in the world I dislike as much as I do Trump.
He reminds me of Mussolini.

But at least the trains ran on time when Mussolini was in charge...

[Max Peck]

Wait, we did what now?

U.S. lawmakers expressed doubts on Thursday about Sept. 11 legislation they forced on President Barack Obama, saying the new law allowing lawsuits against Saudi Arabia could be narrowed to ease concerns about its effect on Americans abroad.

A day after a rare overwhelming rejection of a presidential veto, the first during Obama's eight years in the White House, the Republican leaders of the Senate and House of Representatives opened the door to fixing the law as they blamed the Democratic president for not consulting them adequately.

"I do think it is worth further discussing," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters, acknowledging that there could be "potential consequences" of the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, known as JASTA.

House Speaker Paul Ryan said Congress might have to "fix" the legislation to protect U.S. troops in particular.

[Zarathud]

But they passed it anyway just to deny Obama during an election year.

Who isn't running.

Do we really want these idiots in charge?

[Isgrimnur]

But they passed it anyway just to deny Obama during an election year.

Who isn't running.

Do we really want these idiots in charge?

the Senate passed it 97-1. Reid voted no, Kaine and Sanders abstained. This is not a partisan fuck-up.

[Smoove_B]

A bunch of lawyers masquerading as elected officials overturn a vetoed bill that allows other lawyers to sue people on the other side of the planet? People are surprised by this? The fact that it was passed 97-1 is all you need to know about the jokers we've elected to office and where their priorities are.

[Holman]

But they passed it anyway just to deny Obama during an election year.

Who isn't running.

Do we really want these idiots in charge?

the Senate passed it 97-1. Reid voted no, Kaine and Sanders abstained. This is not a partisan fuck-up.

It's theater.

[Smoove_B]

Huh. In doing some digging, apparently lawyers no longer dominate Congress. I stand corrected. They're still a bunch of jokers though.

[Kraken]

But they passed it anyway just to deny Obama during an election year.

Who isn't running.

Do we really want these idiots in charge?

the Senate passed it 97-1. Reid voted no, Kaine and Sanders abstained. This is not a partisan fuck-up.

It's theater.

It's optics. With whom do you stand, Saudi sheiks or 9/11 victims?

[AWS260]

Rodrigo Duterte brings the Godwin.

President Rodrigo Duterte said Friday that he would like to kill millions of drug addicts in the Philippines, defying international criticism of his country’s bloody war on narcotics and escalating his brutal rhetoric with a reference to the Holocaust.

“Hitler massacred three million Jews,” Mr. Duterte said after returning to the Philippines from a trip to Vietnam, understating the toll cited by historians, which is six million. “Now there is three million, there’s three million drug addicts. There are. I’d be happy to slaughter them.”

Killing that number of drug users would “finish the problem of my country and save the next generation from perdition,” he said.

Since Mr. Duterte took office in June promising a grisly campaign against crime and drugs, the Philippines has seen a surge in killings of drug suspects.

[GreenGoo]

He's a thug with the thinking of a thug.

Since I'm not Filipino nor have family that is nor know anyone who is, his near constant rants are starting to become entertaining. He's a gang member (can't even give him the modicum of respect that comes with the gangster label) that somehow has the support of the population while he ravages that population. Presumably he also executes criminals on occasion, but the swath he's cutting through the country is unreal.

The rule of law is for lesser, weaker men. Or sons of whores, apparently.

What a crazy fuck. When I read about him I imagine him standing in for Tony Montana shooting up the place.

[dbt1949]

He might just get his 3 million drug users at the rate he's going. Evidently the Filipinos like him because he thumbs his nose at the world.
Seems to be a growing trend. Putin in Russia and we have Trump.

[Isgrimnur]

I can early vote in three weeks.

[Rip]

Did Assange just Rickroll the world?

[hepcat]

Damn, Biden's taking no prisoners.

On Trump:

"He's not a bad man," Biden told CNN's Chris Cuomo on "New Day." "But his ignorance is so profound, so profound."

I really wish he had run. I would've voted for him in a heartbeat...and not felt like I needed to take a shower afterwards.*

[LordMortis]

Google bans payday lender advertising:

Google announced Wednesday that it will ban all payday loan ads from its site, bowing to concerns by advocates who say the lending practice exploits the poor and vulnerable by offering them immediate cash that must be paid back under sky-high interest rates.

The decision is the first time Google has announced a global ban on ads for a broad category of financial products. To this point, the search giant has prohibited ads for largely illicit activities such as selling guns, explosives and drugs, and limited those that are sexually explicit or graphic in nature, for example. Critics of payday lenders say they hope the move by Google and other tech companies might undercut the business which finds huge numbers of willing customers on the internet.

The move also shows the willingness of big tech companies to weigh in on critical policy issues -- and exert their power as the gateways for the internet. Facebook also does not display ads for payday loans. But others, such as Yahoo, still do.

Consumers will still be able to find payday lenders from a Google search. But the ads that appear on the top and right-hand side of a search results page will not show marketing from the payday lending industry beginning on July 13.
...
Washington regulators, as well as a handful of states, have been trying to limit the activities of payday lenders by capping how much they can charge consumers in an interest rate. But the decisions by tech giants Facebook and Google – the two biggest websites on the planet – might have as much impact as any single regulation in restricting access to payday lenders.

Industry officials, speaking generally of advertising restrictions placed on payday lenders, called the policies “discriminatory,” adding that some consumers may need access to the short-term loans if they can’t get credit them through a traditional bank.

http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/cr ... 23131.html

Federal judge says Leawood payday loan mogul Scott Tucker and others on the hook for $1.266 billion

Tucker and his brother Blaine,started a short-term lending business in 1998 called National Money Service, according to court records. In the following years, the lending business grew into several different business entities. Starting in 2003 and until 2008, court records say, Tucker brought the businesses to three American Indian tribes in Nebraska and Oklahoma, offering the tribes a cut of the lending business revenues if the tribes allowed Tucker to establish offices on tribal land.

In 2012, the FTC brought charges against Tucker, his brother Blaine Tucker and several business entities on claims that the payday loan operations charged usurious interest rates. The federal consumer watchdog also accused Tucker and others of establishing their businesses on American Indian reservations as a way to offer consumer loans while sidestepping state regulations on interest rates.

I had wondered why TV Commercials (which have largely disappeared) always seemed to show clientele as if they were native American.

[Isgrimnur]

Hurricane?! Why should that matter?

Florida Gov. Rick Scott said that he will not extend the deadline for voter registration in the state despite the potential impact from Hurricane Matthew.

"I’m not going to extend it, if you, whether it’s the registration date, you’ve had, everybody has had a lot of time to register," Scott told reporters. "So on top of that we got lots of opportunities to vote, early voting, absentee voting and election day so I don’t intend to make any changes."
...
Earlier the Clinton campaign had called for an extension of the Oct. 11 deadline in light of the storm.

"The voter registration deadline in Florida is October 11th and our hope would be that a little bit more time will be given for people who were expecting to be able to get registered before the election and we certainly expect that the governor and local officials will make that possible," said Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook.

[malchior]

Makes sense with Drumpf's complete lack of a ground game. Either way it'll be an emergency lawsuit so Scott is taking a safe bet standing his ground.

[Max Peck]

Obama Hits Record-High Approval Rating Despite Turning Country Into Jobless Crime-Ridden Hellhole

Republicans on Friday expressed bafflement that President Obama had garnered a record-high second-term approval rating despite having turned the United States into an economically devastated, crime-ridden hellhole.

Appearing on “Fox & Friends,” the Trump surrogate Rudolph Giuliani said he was “dumbfounded” by the disconnect between Obama’s high approval rating and the President’s near-total dismemberment of a formerly strong nation.

“This country used to be a wonderful place to live,” the former New York mayor said. “Today, all you see is a hellscape of smoldering ruins.”

Giuliani blamed the mainstream media for not properly informing the American people about the destruction and havoc Obama has wrought since his first day in office.

“We have an unemployment rate of forty per cent and a murder rate of fifty per cent,” he said. “We are losing a million jobs a day to China and hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees are swarming over our border with Mexico. Those are the facts.”

He also questioned the methodology used to determine the President’s approval rating. “These pollsters are just talking to people who are still alive,” he said. “They’re not talking to all of the people who have been killed.”

Having witnessed their President transform a once-great country into a dystopian nightmare unfit for human habitation, the American people’s decision to give Obama a record-high approval rating filled Giuliani with bewilderment. “Maybe they approve of the job he did founding ISIS,” he said.

[LordMortis]

While that is a satire, I can only imagine fear of November has be driving him toward an all time high approval rating.

[Max Peck]

Colombia's Santos wins Nobel Peace Prize in boost for troubled talks

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos won the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for his efforts to end a 52-year-old war with Marxist guerrillas, a surprise choice and a show of support days after voters rejected a peace deal he signed with the rebels.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee said Santos had brought one of the longest civil wars in modern history significantly closer to a peaceful solution, but there was still a danger the peace process could collapse.

The award excluded FARC guerrilla leader Rodrigo Londono, better known by his nom de guerre Timochenko, who signed the peace accord with Santos in Cartagena on Sept. 26.

Remember the good old days, when all you needed to win the Nobel Peace Prize was simply to be not George W. Bush?

[hepcat]

And now I'd vote for a George W. Bush in a New York minute if he were in the current race.

[GreenGoo]

And now I'd vote for a George W. Bush in a New York minute if he were in the current race.

Exactly.

[Isgrimnur]

Meanwhile, over at Bretibart:

The national unemployment rate in September rose to five percent, as the United States economy added only about 156,000 jobs, according to statistics released by the Labor Department on Friday.
...
The labor force participation rate, however, increased to 62.9 percent, up from from 62.8 percent in August.

A total of 94,184,000 Americans are not in the work force.

OMG, 94.2M out of the labor force!

[Census numbers])

Counting up the 2015 estimates, 61M of those are aged 15 or under. Another 20.2M are aged 75 or over. So that 94.2M, 81.2M are people that most would not have any reasonable expectation of being in the workforce in the first place.

That leaves 13M. I'll leave the 21.2 aged 15-19 and 11.5M aged 70-74 as a thought exercise as to how many of those should be expected to be working.

[Fitzy]

Meanwhile, over at Bretibart:

The national unemployment rate in September rose to five percent, as the United States economy added only about 156,000 jobs, according to statistics released by the Labor Department on Friday.
...
The labor force participation rate, however, increased to 62.9 percent, up from from 62.8 percent in August.

A total of 94,184,000 Americans are not in the work force.

OMG, 94.2M out of the labor force!

[Census numbers])

Counting up the 2015 estimates, 61M of those are aged 15 or under. Another 20.2M are aged 75 or over. So that 94.2M, 81.2M are people that most would not have any reasonable expectation of being in the workforce in the first place.

That leaves 13M. I'll leave the 21.2 aged 15-19 and 11.5M aged 70-74 as a thought exercise as to how many of those should be expected to be working.

Civilian noninstitutional population only includes 16 and up.

[Isgrimnur]

I sit corrected.

[Max Peck]

*Click* goes the ratchet.

Russia has moved nuclear-capable Iskander-M missiles into the Kaliningrad region bordering Poland and Lithuania, the Defence Ministry said on Saturday, adding this was part of routine drills involving such missiles across its territory.

"These missile units have been deployed more than once (in the Kaliningrad region)... and will be deployed as part of military training of the Russian armed forces," ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said in a statement.

A U.S. intelligence official said on Friday that Russia had started moving the Iskander-Ms into its westernmost region in what he said could also be a political gesture to express displeasure with NATO.

Konashenkov said one of the missiles had been deliberately exposed to a U.S. spy satellite. "We did not have to wait for too long - our American partners confirmed it themselves in their revelatory endeavor," he said.

[Pyperkub]

And now I'd vote for a George W. Bush in a New York minute if he were in the current race.

With Dick Cheney as VP? Hell no!

[Holman]

And now I'd vote for a George W. Bush in a New York minute if he were in the current race.

With Dick Cheney as VP? Hell no!

Seriously. We can all sort of smile at GWB in his chastened and humbled ex-presidential state, but his administration did more to fuck up America and the world than any in our lifetimes.

[GreenGoo]

And now I'd vote for a George W. Bush in a New York minute if he were in the current race.

With Dick Cheney as VP? Hell no!

Seriously. We can all sort of smile at GWB in his chastened and humbled ex-presidential state, but his administration did more to fuck up America and the world than any in our lifetimes.

And it would still be miles better than Trump/Pence. That's how awful I think those are. And I'm a guy who thinks Cheney is the actual anti-christ.

[hepcat]

And now I'd vote for a George W. Bush in a New York minute if he were in the current race.

With Dick Cheney as VP? Hell no!

Seriously. We can all sort of smile at GWB in his chastened and humbled ex-presidential state, but his administration did more to fuck up America and the world than any in our lifetimes.

If our lives were ending before this current election process was finished, I'd back 80 percent of that assertion.

[dbt1949]

It just blows me away that millions, probably tens of millions of people in the United States of America are for Trump to be president.
Maybe I just don't belong in this country. Maybe I should move to the Philippines where the leader is more sane.

[Smutly]

It just blows me away that millions, probably tens of millions of people in the United States of America are for Trump to be president.
Maybe I just don't belong in this country. Maybe I should move to the Philippines where the leader is more sane.

I'm amazed how people from both sides say the same thing in this regard. There is very little middle ground to be had anymore.

[Blackhawk]

I think the big difference is that one side is saying it because a candidate is seen as corrupt and dishonest.

The other is saying it because the candidate is seen as hateful and dangerous.

[Enough]

There's a good summary on Hit and Run on why it was cheap natural gas and not "Obama's war on coal" that is killing coal.

"Some people attribute the decline in coal-generated electricity to the EPA's air-quality rules, even calling it 'Obama's war on coal,'" said Mingguo Hong, associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science at Case Western Reserve and co-author of the study. "While we can't say that the EPA rules have no impact -- as, for example, discouraging the building of new coal power plants because of the expectation that tougher air-quality rules will clear the courts -- the data say the EPA rules have not been the driving force."

Hong, co-director of the Electricity Systems Research Lab at Case Western Reserve, and Walter Culver, a founding member of the Great Lakes Energy Institute Advisory Board at the university, say the data show that shale-gas competition is what's been hurting coal as of today. They expect that, as wind and solar sources of electricity continue to improve, they will be tough competitors to coal in the not-distant future. ...

"If you're a power plant operator and you see gas supply is continuing to increase and natural gas can do the job cheaper -- by a lot -- the decision to switch from coal is pretty easy," Culver said. "As we look toward the future, we see no natural mechanisms that will permit coal to recover," Culver said.

[malchior]

Having worked at a power utility - that was what I was hoping HIllary would say. Hydraulic fracturing ended coal. Not green energy. Not policy. You don't have to send teams of men into a mountain to get natural gas. It is just much cheaper. Period.

[Isgrimnur]

I really wish that this election would break the flyover firewall that runs from Texas to the Dakotas. Nate Silver has South Dakota as the likeliest at 17.7% at the moment, with Texas at 13.6%.

[gilraen]

I really wish that this election would break the flyover firewall that runs from Texas to the Dakotas. Nate Silver has South Dakota as the likeliest at 17.7% at the moment, with Texas at 13.6%.

I understand flyover country...what's flyover firewall?

[Isgrimnur]

My own phrase, representing the N-S line of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, and the Dakotas, that are solid red on every political map. Blue comes up against that line on either side, but there's not been any blue in that continental divide that I've ever seen.

[NickAragua]

I really wish that this election would break the flyover firewall that runs from Texas to the Dakotas. Nate Silver has South Dakota as the likeliest at 17.7% at the moment, with Texas at 13.6%.

I understand flyover country...what's flyover firewall?

Red (republican leaning) states, I assume. I agree, that'd be something to see.