Wednesday Open Thread

Posted on April 19, 2017 by rikyrah

Happy HUMP Day, Everyone!

Democrat Jon Ossoff and Republican Karen Handel will face off, following a race that had 18 candidates.
Ossoff faces an uphill battle in the district that has voted reliably Republican for years. Runoff in June.

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94 Responses to Wednesday Open Thread

    • eliihass says:
      April 19, 2017 at 9:06 pm

      Someone ought to tell Roger Stone that besides seeing him led away in handcuffs, nobody cares…and body

      Reply
    • eliihass says:
      April 19, 2017 at 9:09 pm

      🙄🙄Someone ought to tell Roger Stone that besides seeing him led away in handcuffs, nobody cares…and nobody is scared of his impotent a*rse or his veiled threats…

      His Russian-sponsored jig is up…and it’s only a matter of time now…

      Reply
  8. rikyrah says:
    April 19, 2017 at 8:55 pm

    Scott Detrow
    ✔
    @scottdetrow

    And the DNC rally ends with someone grabbing the mic after Sanders left stage and kicking off a “Bernie Would have won!” cheer.
    8:00 PM – 19 Apr 2017

    Reply
    • eliihass says:
      April 19, 2017 at 9:17 pm

      Hopefully the buffoon and his cohorts get evicted sooner than later…before desperation really sets in and he begins to borrow a leaf from his beloved idol and mentor…

      Reply
  15. rikyrah says:
    April 19, 2017 at 8:41 pm

    Travon Free
    ✔
    @Travon

    Serena Williams won a grand slam while she was pregnant so every man should probably shut up about everything forever.
    10:43 AM – 19 Apr 2017

    Reply
  18. rikyrah says:
    April 19, 2017 at 8:36 pm

    The Wall Street Journal is reporting today:

    In South Korea, Hong Joon-pyo, the presidential candidate from former leader Park Geun-hye’s ruling party, said it was inappropriate to judge before receiving final confirmation of the Carl Vinson’s whereabouts. But, in an interview, he said: “What Mr. Trump said was very important for the national security of South Korea. If that was a lie, then during Trump’s term, South Korea will not trust whatever Trump says.”

    Reply
  20. rikyrah says:
    April 19, 2017 at 8:32 pm

    A Russian thinktank controlled by Vladimir Putin’s government crafted a written plan “to swing the 2016 U.S. presidential election to Donald Trump and undermine voters’ faith in the American electoral system,” reports Reuters, citing three current and four former U.S. officials.

    Snip:

    They described two confidential documents from the think tank as providing the framework and rationale for what U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded was an intensive effort by Russia to interfere with the Nov. 8 election. U.S. intelligence officials acquired the documents, which were prepared by the Moscow-based Russian Institute for Strategic Studies, after the election.

    The institute is run by retired senior Russian foreign intelligence officials appointed by Putin’s office.

    The first Russian institute document was a strategy paper written last June that circulated at the highest levels of the Russian government but was not addressed to any specific individuals.

    It recommended the Kremlin launch a propaganda campaign on social media and Russian state-backed global news outlets to encourage U.S. voters to elect a president who would take a softer line toward Russia than the administration of then-President Barack Obama, the seven officials said.

    A second institute document, drafted in October and distributed in the same way, warned that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was likely to win the election. For that reason, it argued, it was better for Russia to end its pro-Trump propaganda and instead intensify its messaging about voter fraud to undermine the U.S. electoral system’s legitimacy and damage Clinton’s reputation in an effort to undermine her presidency, the seven officials said.

    And later in Reuters’ report:

    Neither of the Russian institute documents mentioned the release of hacked Democratic Party emails to interfere with the U.S. election, according to four of the officials. The officials said the hacking was a covert intelligence operation run separately out of the Kremlin.

    The overt propaganda and covert hacking efforts reinforced each other, according to the officials. Both Russia Today and Sputnik heavily promoted the release of the hacked Democratic Party emails, which often contained embarrassing details.

    Reply
  21. eliihass says:
    April 19, 2017 at 7:56 pm

    LOL..

    “…Supermodel and philanthropist Gisele Bündchen tweeted a link to an April protest against President Trump and his climate policies at the same time Wednesday that her husband, NFL quarterback Tom Brady, was missing the New England Patriots’ visit to the White House.

    On April 29th in Washington- D.C. – March for climate, jobs, and justice. To change everything, we need everyone. https://t.co/dZaRiXQV46

    — Gisele Bündchen (@giseleofficial) April 19, 2017
    The tweet links to a video promoting the People’s Climate March, a Washington, D.C., protest planned to coincide with Trump’s 100th day in office.

    Brady, a longtime friend of Trump’s, missed the Patriots’ Super Bowl victory celebration at the White House to attend to “personal family matters.”

    http://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/329603-gisele-buchanan-tweets-support-of-climate-change-march

    Reply
    • rikyrah says:
      April 19, 2017 at 8:30 pm

      uh huh
      uh huh

      Reply
    • eliihass says:
      April 19, 2017 at 9:00 pm

      The ubiquity of deeply-engrained, subtle and not so subtle, casual racism…

      I bet these folks don’t even begin to consider themselves even remotely of like mind with the racist white nationalism running rampant through France…

      I bet each consider themselves to be…and hold themselves up as ‘high-minded’, ‘open-minded’, ‘progressive’, ‘liberal’…’all-embracing’…

      I bet they can boast …even show and tell of their great ‘love’ for President Obama…I bet they might even be able to pull out a copy or two of his books and other related keepsakes…I bet their social media pages are filled with love notes to President Obama…

      Like this very ‘progressive liberal’ lady from Monaco who posts endlessly and angrily about how badly ‘the racists in America treat President Obama…’

      But in the very next posts, writes about how much she hates Africans…specifically black South Africans who she insists are ‘jealous’ of ‘wealthy Dutch farmers’….

      She wants black Africans permanently banned from entering the EU…

      But she luuuuurves President Obama …And curiously, completely missing from her daily love notes to him, is any mention of his black wife…

      LOL..

      ‘All-embracing, open-mindedness’ in the age of effusive counterfeit ‘progressivism’…

      Reply
  23. Liza says:
    April 19, 2017 at 5:02 pm

    Yeah, I’d say it’s suspicious, might suspicious.

    BREAKING: NYPD treating death of Muslim judge found in Hudson River as 'suspicious' https://t.co/qfMJLp2kXq pic.twitter.com/HdXHApmm09— New York City Alerts (@NYCityAlerts) April 19, 2017

    //platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    Reply
  27. Ametia says:
    April 19, 2017 at 3:25 pm

    RUSH-“RASH Limpballs” LIMBAUGH is another sick puppy that needs to be put down, ALSO TOO!

    Reply
  28. SouthernGirl2 says:
    April 19, 2017 at 3:22 pm

    Bill O’Reilly OUT…

    It was a long time coming

    https://youtu.be/3Nua5klb4Os

    Reply
  29. Ametia says:
    April 19, 2017 at 3:05 pm

    O’LIE-LY OUT!

    Reply
  30. SouthernGirl2 says:
    April 19, 2017 at 2:29 pm

    Bill O’Reilly forced out at Fox News! GONE! Sowing & Reaping is a LAW!

    Reply
  31. SouthernGirl2 says:
    April 19, 2017 at 1:35 pm

    Cops bullying a little 10 year old and taking him to jail. People have lost their damn mind. Something is seriously wrong with the adults.

    https://twitter.com/washingtonpost/status/854760779052142593

    Reply
  33. SouthernGirl2 says:
    April 19, 2017 at 12:05 pm

    Barbara Starr: Russian bombers spotted off Alaska coast for 2nd time in 24 hours.

    Reply
  35. rikyrah says:
    April 19, 2017 at 11:34 am

    Like this piece of advice when talking to parents trying to get them to think anti-GOP:

    DO NOT say “anti-science”. “Anti-STEM” will have the parents breaking out torches and pitchforks. They understand that “anti-STEM” is “anti my kid having a good job”.

    They don’t understand “science” and don’t care.

    Reply
  36. SouthernGirl2 says:
    April 19, 2017 at 11:32 am

    ADIOS MOFO! I don’t care if the doorknob hits you on the way out.

    https://twitter.com/MSNBC/status/854733873757999104

    Reply
  37. rikyrah says:
    April 19, 2017 at 10:41 am

    Serena is pregnant!!! Congratulations!!!

    Reply
  38. rikyrah says:
    April 19, 2017 at 10:38 am

    Their own kids, if given the chance, get out and never come back, and it chafes them.
    Forever clinging to the Whiteness…..
    I hope the refugees leave and the town dies.

    Tired of these people finding excuses for their racism.
    Phuck ’em.

    ……………………………

    How a largely white community that was saved from a ‘death spiral’ by refugees came to embrace Trump
    THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
    Wednesday, April 19, 2017, 5:06 AM

    LEWISTON, Maine — Richard Rodrigue stood in the back of a banquet hall, watching his blond-haired, blue-eyed daughter mingle among her high school classmates. These teenagers speak dozens of languages, and hail from a dozen African nations.

    They fled brutal civil war, famine, oppressive regimes to find themselves here, at a pre-prom fete in this once-dying New England mill town, revived by an influx of some 7,500 immigrants over the last 16 years. Rodrigue smiled and waved at his daughter, proud she is a part of it.

    “It will help her in life,” he said. “The world is not all white.”

    Rodrigue believes the refugees resuscitated his town — plugging the population drain that had threatened to cripple it, opening shops and restaurants in boarded-up storefronts. But he also agrees with Donald Trump that there should be no more of them, at least not now.

    ………………….

    In early 2001, a few refugee families struggling to afford housing in Portland ventured 30 miles north and found a city in retreat. Empty downtown stores were ringed by sagging apartment buildings.

    The refugees saw possibility in Lewiston’s decay. Friends and families followed. The town morphed in a matter of months into a laboratory for what happens when culture suddenly shifts. Maine’s population is 94 percent white, and its citizens were abruptly confronted with hundreds of black Muslims, barely able to speak English.

    Ardo Mohamed fled Mogadishu in the 1990s, when militiamen burst into her home and started shooting. She watched her father die, as the rest of the family escaped into the woods. They wound up in refugee camps, separated for years, then finally Atlanta, then Lewiston in 2001.

    …………….

    When the refugees began arriving, Tabitha Beauchesne was a student at Lewiston High School. Her new classmates were poor, but Beauchesne was poor, too. It felt to her then, and it still feels to her now, that the refugees got more help than her family.

    “They just seemed to take over,” she said.

    ………………………….

    Maine’s immigrants from Sub-Saharan Africa made $136.6 million in income in 2014, and paid $40 million in taxes, according to one report from a bipartisan think-tank. But Besteman said they work invisible jobs: they take out trash at hotels, do the laundry at the hospital. People don’t see them working, so it’s easy to assume they are living off handouts.

    Republican leaders — from the president to the governor to the local GOP — have seized on the resentment that breeds. The county Republican party routinely rails against what it calls “the refugee racket,” and complains that the school system is forced to accommodate 34 languages.

    Lewiston School Superintendent Bill Webster acknowledges that does cost money. But he has a statistic he likes to share with critics.

    An average of 78.3 percent of immigrant students graduate from his district within five years, compared to an average of 73.3 percent of native-born students. And now some of those immigrant kids are going off to college to get degrees, as teachers, doctors, engineers. Two years ago, immigrant children led the high school soccer team to win the state championship — a moment heralded as a triumph of cultural cooperation.

    “If the immigrant population hadn’t happened,” Webster said, “Lewiston would be a community that was contracting, and potentially in a downward death spiral.”

    Yet many on the outskirts of Lewiston have quietly stewed over the change in their county — and Trump’s “America First” message rings especially true with them.

    Reply
  39. rikyrah says:
    April 19, 2017 at 10:17 am

    DA PHUQ?!?!?!?

    All-Male Panel Fails to End Maryland Law that Forces Women to Share Custody with Their Rapists
    Maryland is one of seven states without a law allowing women to terminate parental rights for their rapists, but for some inexplicable reason a panel of only men let the clock run out before doing something about it.
    Kelly Weill
    KELLY WEILL

    04.16.17 4:43 PM ET
    Five Maryland legislators could have ended a policy that forces women to share child custody with their rapists. Instead the five legislators, all men, buried the bill.

    Maryland is one of seven states without a law allowing women to terminate parental rights for their rapists, if their child was conceived as a result of sexual assault, according to reproductive rights organization NARAL. The state’s current policy forces survivors to negotiate child custody and adoption issues with their attacker. In a bid to update the draconian policy, Maryland Delegate Kathleen Dumais introduced legislation that would allow a woman to cut her rapist’s parental rights.

    But while the bill passed both Maryland’s House and Senate, the bill’s text varied between the two legislative bodies. On Monday, the last day of legislative session, a five-person negotiating group was set to decide on the bill’s final text, the Baltimore Sun reported. Instead, the five-man group let the bill fall by the wayside, running out the legislative session’s clock without finalizing the bill’s text.

    Reply
  40. rikyrah says:
    April 19, 2017 at 9:57 am

    Going It Alone
    By: Rahawa Haile
    Apr 11, 2017

    What happens when an African American woman decides to solo-hike the Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine during a summer of bitter political upheaval? Everything you can imagine, from scary moments of racism to new friendships to soaring epiphanies about the timeless value of America’s most storied trekking route.

    It’s the spring of 2016, and I’m ten miles south of Damascus, Virginia, where an annual celebration called Trail Days has just wrapped up. Last night, temperatures plummeted into the thirties. Today, long-distance Appalachian Trail hikers who’d slept in hammocks and mailed their underquilts home too soon were groaning into their morning coffee. A few small fires shot woodsmoke at the sun as thousands of tent stakes were dislodged. Over the next 24 hours, most of the hikers in attendance would pack up and hit the 554-mile stretch of the AT that runs north through Virginia.

    I’ve used the Trail Days layover as an opportunity to stash most of my belongings with friends and complete a short section of the AT I’d missed, near the Tennessee-Virginia border. As I’m moving along, a day hiker heading in the opposite direction stops me for a chat. He’s affable and inquisitive. He asks what many have asked before: “Where are you from?” I tell him Miami.

    He laughs and says, “No, but really. Where are you from from?” He mentions something about my features, my thin nose, and then trails off. I tell him my family is from Eritrea, a country in the Horn of Africa, next to Ethiopia. He looks relieved.

    “I knew it,” he says. “You’re not black.”

    I say that of course I am. “None more black,” I weakly joke.

    “Not really,” he says. “You’re African, not black-black. Blacks don’t hike.”

    ………………………

    It will be several months before I realize that most AT hikers in 2016 are unaware of the clear division that exists between what hikers of color experience on the trail (generally positive) and in town (not so much). While fellow through-hikers and trail angels are some of the kindest and most generous people I’ll ever encounter, many trail towns have no idea what to make of people who look like me. They say they don’t see much of “my kind” around here and leave the rest hanging in the air.

    The rule is you don’t talk about politics on the trail. The truth is you can’t talk about diversity in the outdoors without talking about politics, since politics is a big reason why the outdoors look the way they do. From the park system’s inception, Jim Crow laws and Native American removal campaigns limited access to recreation by race. From the mountains to the beaches, outdoor leisure was often accompanied by the words whites only. The repercussions for disobedience were grave.

    “For me, the fear is like a heartbeat, always present, while at the same time, intangible, elusive, and difficult to define,” Evelyn C. White wrote in her 1999 essay “Black Women and the Wilderness.” In it she explains why the thought of hiking in Oregon, which some writer friends invited her to do, fills her with dread. In wilderness, White does not see freedom but a portal to the past. It is a trigger. The history of suffering is too much for her to overcome. This fear has conjured a similar paralysis nationwide. It says to the minority: Be in this place and someone might seize the opportunity to end you. ­Nature itself is the least of White’s concerns. Bear paws have harmed fewer black bodies in the wild than human hands. She does not wish to be the only one who looks like her in a place with history like this.

    Perspective is everything.

    Reply
  41. rikyrah says:
    April 19, 2017 at 9:52 am

    Trump’s inauguration fundraising adds to his disclosure troubles
    04/19/17 10:02 AM
    By Steve Benen

    In late November, Donald Trump’s inaugural committee started selling “exclusive access” to the president-elect and his team “in exchange for donations of $1 million and more.” Apparently, some folks took advantage of the opportunity.

    President Trump raised twice as much money for his inauguration festivities as any previous president-elect in history, pulling in tens of millions of dollars from wealthy donors and large corporations eager to woo the nation’s new chief executive in the days after his unexpected victory.

    Disclosures filed with the Federal Election Commission on Tuesday showed the contributions from corporate executives, lobbyists and businesses, as well as small donors, totaled $107 million. The previous record was held by President Barack Obama, who raised $53 million for his 2009 inauguration.

    As the New York Times’ report added, Trump’s inaugural committee has not disclosed how the money was spent, how much was unspent, or where those funds may end up. The committee said yesterday it’s “still identifying charities toward which it would direct leftover money.”

    The Washington Post’s David Fahrenthold noted that the inaugural committee’s members “said they’d tell us about their donations when they released fundraising numbers. They didn’t.”

    When we talk about Team Trump’s transparency troubles, the problem isn’t limited to tax returns and White House visitor logs.

    As for the inaugural committee, as we discussed in January, Trump’s allies generally respond to reports like these by arguing that every modern president, from both parties, has raised millions through his inaugural committee. There’s quite a bit of truth to that.

    But Trump did run on a platform of ending special-interest influence in Washington – selling access to corporate donors for $1 million a pop is quite a departure from the Republican’s campaign rhetoric – and as the New York Times’ has reported, Trump’s donors were “given greater access and facing fewer limits on donations than those in other recent inaugurations.”

    Reply
    • Liza says:
      April 19, 2017 at 9:52 am

      Just another jackass carrying Trump’s slop jar. All that amazes me at this point is how many of them there are.

      Reply
    • Liza says:
      April 19, 2017 at 9:56 am

      “…the truth surrounding his untimely death” is that Hernandez couldn’t do the time and he knew it. He was never getting out.

      Reply
  45. rikyrah says:
    April 19, 2017 at 9:35 am

    The wrong messenger for a ‘Buy American, Hire American’ message
    04/19/17 09:22 AM
    By Steve Benen

    ………………….

    President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday aimed at reducing the number of lower wage foreign hires in the U.S. workforce and bringing job opportunity back to American employees – a key campaign promise.

    The signing of this order, Trump told the Kenosha, Wisconsin crowd, will “defend our workers, protect our jobs, and finally put America first.”

    That’s pleasant sounding rhetoric, and it’s possible the president actually believes he’s just done something of great significance, but his executive order really just asks various agencies to look for fraud in guest-worker programs, while beginning “an interdepartmental review” of the H-1B visa program.” At some point in the future, various agencies will report back to the White House with some suggested changes.

    Groundbreaking, this isn’t.

    What stood out as important, though, was just how poor a messenger Trump is for this specific message.

    The Washington Post highlighted the “remarkably hypocritical position” the president is taking, in light of the fact that Trump has “sold foreign-made products under his name for years”; Ivanka Trump’s business continues to do the same; Trump “buys foreign products for his hotels and properties”; and he’s “consistently sought to hire foreign workers” for many Trump enterprises.

    The president and his allies will likely say this is not hypocrisy, because his executive order is focused on H-1B visas, not workers hired through H-2A and H-2B visas, who tend to be the foreigners Trump hires for his various ventures. That’s true, but it’s not a great argument because it adds fine print to the White House’s message. It’s as if Trump is effectively saying, “American businesses should hire American workers, except in those cases where I find it easier to do the opposite.”

    This came up during the campaign, too, when Trump declared, “My administration will follow two very simple rules: buy American and hire American.” Asked about his own hiring of foreign workers employed in the United States, Trump said, “It’s very, very hard to get people.”

    In other words, the principle is, “Hire American, unless it’s difficult, in which case, don’t worry about it.”

    Reply
  46. rikyrah says:
    April 19, 2017 at 9:32 am

    THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 4/18/17
    Political favor backfiring on newly appointed Alabama senator
    John Archibald, columnist for the Birmingham News, talks with Rachel Maddow about the newly re-scheduled election to fill Jeff Sessions’ old Senate seat, currently held by Luther Strange whose appointment many see as inappropriately tied to disgraced former governor Robert Bentley.

    Reply
  47. rikyrah says:
    April 19, 2017 at 9:31 am

    THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 4/18/17
    Trump military confusion risks sending dangerous mixed message
    Michael Beschloss, NBC News presidential historian, talks with Rachel Maddow about how, unlike Donald Trump, past U.S. presidents made it a point to keep coordination with the military tight to avoid sending mixed signals that could trigger war.

    Reply
  48. rikyrah says:
    April 19, 2017 at 9:30 am

    @bemused:

    THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 4/18/17
    Trump foreign policy antics raise question, Stupid or nefarious?
    Rachel Maddow looks at recent awkward behavior by the Trump administration and the difficulty foreign policy experts are having determining whether the administration is woefully incompetent or deliberate and calculating.

    Reply
  50. Liza says:
    April 19, 2017 at 9:24 am

    Aaron Hernandez found dead after hanging in prison cell

    BOSTON — Former NFL star Aaron Hernandez, who was serving a life sentence for a murder conviction and just days ago was acquitted of a double murder, died after hanging himself in his prison cell early Wednesday, Massachusetts prisons officials said.
    ….
    Hernandez was moved to tears on Friday after he was acquitted of the 2012 fatal shootings of Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado in Boston. Just before his acquittal, Hernandez was seen blowing kisses to the little girl he fathered with fiancée Shayanna Jenkins-Hernandez. Cameras captured the tender exchange.

    He was still serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole for his conviction in the 2013 shooting of Odin Lloyd, who was dating Jenkins-Hernandez’s sister.

    Hernandez was tried but acquitted in the slayings of de Abreu and Furtado, whom prosecutors contended were gunned down after one of the men accidentally spilled a drink on Hernandez in a Boston nightclub. The jury in that case found Hernandez not guilty of first-degree murder but convicted him of unlawful possession of a gun, and the judge sentenced him to an additional four to five years in prison — separate from his existing life sentence.
    …
    http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/19191248/former-new-england-patriots-te-aaron-hernandez-found-dead-hanging-prison-cell

    Reply
  56. rikyrah says:
    April 19, 2017 at 8:45 am

    Trump celebrates after his unpopularity puts red seats in play
    04/19/17 08:40 AM—UPDATED 04/19/17 09:23 AM
    By Steve Benen
    Georgia’s 6th congressional district has long been a GOP stronghold, represented in recent decades by a pair of high-profile, far-right Republicans Tom Price and Newt Gingrich. When Price gave up the seat to join Donald Trump’s cabinet, the question wasn’t whether he’d be replaced by a Republican, but rather, which one.

    And yet, in the first round of balloting, a first-time Democratic candidate very nearly took the seat – and still might.

    ………………….

    Obviously, Ossoff and his allies hoped to cross the 50% threshold yesterday and avoid a runoff, but the fact that he earned 48% of the vote is an impressive feat for a Democrat in a Republican district in a Republican state. What’s more, with another round of balloting on the way, Ossoff still has a chance to flip the seat from red to blue.

    A GOP state senator in Georgia recently said the 6th district’s lines “were not drawn” to elect a Democrat, and yet, there was Ossoff, forcing Republicans to spend millions of dollars they didn’t expect to invest in order to barely keep him below 50%. Yesterday was emblematic of a fact that should make much of the right quite nervous: if Democrats can seriously compete in Georgia’s 6th, it opens up all kinds of opportunities nationwide.

    All of which makes it kind of ridiculous to see Trump pat himself on the back.

    Reply
  57. rikyrah says:
    April 19, 2017 at 8:42 am

    Hillary Clinton’s Inconceivably Big Losses
    by Martin Longman April 18, 2017 4:01 PM

    During the afternoon of the presidential election, I exchanged emails with a friend in the White House to try to assess how things looked on their end. I heard back that they were cautiously optimistic about the presidential race but increasingly concerned about the prospects for winning the Senate. I told my friend that things looked good in Pennsylvania from everything I could observe. Turnout was very high in my suburban Philadelphia precinct, and reporting from friends in the city indicated excellent voter participation. There was no sign in the southeastern part of the state that Clinton was about to suffer a 10 percent or greater drop-off of Obama’s 2012 support in 23 counties, and a 10 percent or greater drop-off on Obama’s 2008 support in 45 counties.

    The Clintons got the news first that something was desperately wrong from an operative in Florida.

    Around 7:45 on election night, when Hillary Clinton and her aides still thought they were headed to the White House, troubling news emerged from Florida. Steve Schale, the best vote-counter the Democrats had in the state, told campaign officials they were going to lose the biggest battleground in the country. Yes, Clinton was doing well in some places, but Donald Trump’s numbers in Republican areas were inconceivably big.

    “You’re going to come up short,” Schale said, stunning aides in Brooklyn who were, until that moment, comfortably cradled in the security of their own faulty analytics.

    People talk a lot about “the faulty analytics,” but it’s important to realize that Clinton met reasonable targets in her areas of strength. Compared to Obama’s 2012 performance, she netted about 400 more votes out of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia combined, and in the Philly suburbs, she netted 5,796 more votes out of Delaware County, 26,097 more votes out of Chester County, and 34,376 more votes out of Montgomery County than Obama had in 2012. This compensated for her modest 1,243 net underperformance in the more working class Bucks County suburb.

    Reply
    • rikyrah says:
      April 19, 2017 at 8:43 am

      Is Hillary’s loss really applicable to any other election? I mean, these people voted for a phucking liar. And now that he’s going to screw them over, and pretty much destroy this country, is it too much that they will learn a lesson?
      Dunno.

      Reply
  58. rikyrah says:
    April 19, 2017 at 8:35 am

    DeVos Is Set to Reinvigorate the School-to-Prison Pipeline
    by Nancy LeTourneau April 19, 2017 7:00 AM

    Perhaps you remember the stories. But in case you’ve forgotten, Carimah Townes offers a reminder.

    An eighth grader was locked up for throwing skittles on a schoolbus. A 6-year-old girl was handcuffed for taking candy from a teacher’s desk. An officer slammed and dragged a high school girl, because she wouldn’t put her phone down. A Texas cop choked a 14-year-old boy over a shoving match in school. A middle school student was suspended and charged for allegedly stealing a carton of milk from a cafeteria — even though he didn’t do it.

    There was a time when we were hearing these stories on a regular basis. The problem wasn’t that students were being disciplined for bad behavior — it was that teachers and other school personnel were increasingly turning that job over to law enforcement rather than handling it themselves. The problem was particularly acute for students of color — especially black boys who are criminalized from a very early age. That is what led to the creation of the school-to-prison pipeline.

    Demonstrating how oblivious she is to what some have called the civil rights issue of our time, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos said that she couldn’t think of any civil rights issues in education that would necessitate federal intervention. Then DeVos hired Candice Jackson to be the acting head of the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights — someone who once claimed that she had experienced discrimination because she is white.

    The pivotal role played by the person in that position was demonstrated by the change that occurred from the George W. Bush administration to the Obama years. The Office for Civil Rights quit the long-standing practice of requiring school districts to report data on achievement and disciplinary measures by race under Bush. Obama reinstated the requirement.

    ……………………..

    During her confirmation hearing, DeVos refused to commit to collecting data on civil rights matters and it is clear that AG Sessions will have no problem with police officers criminalizing the behavior of students in school. As we’ve seen in the past, this will disproportionately impact students of color, and will be another way that the Trump administration criminalizes black and brown bodies, starting at a very early age.

    Reply
  59. rikyrah says:
    April 19, 2017 at 8:32 am

    No Dem has won Georgia’s 6th Congressional District for 37 years. Tonight, Dems got 49.41%. On June 20th, they’ll add .6% and WIN THIS SEAT. pic.twitter.com/bV3GcYALOl

    — Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) April 19, 2017

    Reply
  60. rikyrah says:
    April 19, 2017 at 8:31 am

    If not a lie, then the White House lost the location of an entire carrier group during an international crisis with a nuclear armed state https://t.co/XdPHwH0xuG

    — David Frum (@davidfrum) April 19, 2017

    Reply
  61. rikyrah says:
    April 19, 2017 at 8:30 am

    The best news for Democrats?

    23 House Republicans currently hold districts where Clinton got more votes than Trump.

    GA-6 wasn’t 1 of them.

    — LOLGOP (@LOLGOP) April 19, 2017

    Reply
  62. rikyrah says:
    April 19, 2017 at 8:29 am

    How can you be disappointed with what happened in Georgia last night?

    This is the equivalent of a Republican coming close to winning in Nancy Smash’s District.

    Flip it like that, and realize what happened.

    And, these are NOT R+1 districts here.

    Keep the faith, people.

    Reply
  63. rikyrah says:
    April 19, 2017 at 8:26 am

    Good Morning, Everyone 😄😄😄

    Reply

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