US Politics: I Say a Little Prayer for You!

[Zorral]

Like Melania 

Bloomie's a plagiarist, like Melania, showing once again that billionaires think more alike than they don't even if one of them didn't start as a gen-oo--wine billionaire, he probably is by now with all these years of plundering left right center and abroad.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/02/man-who-owns-news-outlet-guilty-of-plagiarism.html

Quote

 

...The Intercept reported on Thursday that large portions of Bloomberg’s policy proposals had been lifted directly from a variety of news sources. The theft was extensive: “[A]t least eight Bloomberg plans or accompanying fact sheets were direct copies of material from media outlets including CNN, Time, and CBS, a research center at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, the American Medical Association, Everytown for Gun Safety, Building America’s Future Educational Fund, and other organizations.” Two of those organizations — Everytown and Building America’s Future — are organizations that Bloomberg himself co-founded.

Among Bloomberg’s least original ideas are his green infrastructure proposal, which the Intercept says has now been removed entirely from the campaign’s website. (In an email to New York, Julie Wood, a spokesperson for Bloomberg, said the proposal is now back online.) Bloomberg also plagiarized his “All-In Economy” fact sheet, portions of his LGBTQ rights fact sheet, and nearly an entire section of a fact sheet on women’s health. Bloomberg’s team told the Intercept that many of the plagiarized documents “were fact sheets that went out via MailChimp, which doesn’t support footnote formatting.” Creative! Jayson Blair probably wishes he’d thought of that one.

A spokesperson for Bloomberg told the Intercept that the policies it didn’t remove have been edited to include links and citations. And Bloomberg isn’t the only Democratic candidate for president to inspire a small plagiarism scandal. Joe Biden reportedly plagiarized portions of his climate speech. Nor was that the first time the former vice-president got in trouble for lifting the work of others. His first plagiarism scandal occurred before I was born, when he admitted to improperly citing a law-review article. So Bloomberg has some company. He is unique, though, for being the only presidential candidate who actively employs people who would get fired for making the same mistake he did. Billionaires! They’re just lovable forgetful oafs.

 

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Ormond said:

If Trump would actually refuse to leave the White House after losing the election, I would hope that they would be wise enough NOT to try to physically remove him. The power of the Presidency is not determined by who is living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in DC. The new president can set up his or her office someplace else, and you can use the Capitol Police or whoever to prevent food deliveries or even cut off electricity and water to the White House. Trump is not someone who is going to "rough it" in such a situation and I'm sure would actually physically leave on his own in a week or so. If you use physical force to bodily remove him, you make him more of a martyr with his base. 

Why would it be wise to not remove him physically? Seems like a terrible precedent to set., and plus, I suspect there will be some unsealed indictments that would compel his physical removal.

[Zorral]

1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Not good news an emoluments suit has been dismissed for lack of standing.  I'd like to see the actual text of their holding so I can better understand the reason they are rejecting this on standing grounds. The three judge panel issuing the ruling was Henderson (appointed by GHW Bush on the bench since 1990) Tatel (Clinton appointee on the bench since 1994) and Griffith (appointed by GW Bush on the bench since 2005) it was a unanimous ruling:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/07/politics/emoluments-lawsuit-trump/index.html

ya -- you can just jolly well betcha the judicial branch of our system will do anything to thwart anything he wants or demands.

[butterbumps!]

21 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

I wouldn't use Iowa as a bellwether for youth turnout.  The nature of a caucus doesn't exactly make it a convenient form of civic engagement to anyone with kids or who works nights, plus, it's Iowa.  Sanders could have won Iowa by +10 and all the centrist Dem pundits would still be saying "Sanders wins Iowa but does he have enough of a following to best Trump?". 

Agreed- I’m being cautious about that, but I was under the impression that the caucus format already kind of skewed things in favor of Sanders target base of 18-35 because they’d be more likely to have schedules and the energy to go through such a process.   So not generating extra turnout despite that advantage isn’t inspiring hope right now, though I’m not seeing it as a sign he definitively can’t make it happen.  

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

10 minutes ago, Zorral said:

ya -- you can just jolly well betcha the judicial branch of our system will do anything to thwart anything he wants or demands.

Here's the thing, standing matters.  I want them to reach things but a Judiciary unrestrained by standing has a huge amount of power.  I like courts be hesitant to just jump into issues with both feet if they do not have proper standing to do so.

[sologdin]

yeah, think of it going the other direction.  say sanders wins big in november, increases the dem hold on the one chamber and flips the other. an insurgent group of GOP senators files a suit to enjoin the president under one or another article of the constitution that they will inexorably claim he is violating--this decision is stare decisis to prevent that.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

6 minutes ago, sologdin said:

yeah, think of it going the other direction.  say sanders wins big in november, increases the dem hold on the one chamber and flips the other. an insurgent group of GOP senators files a suit to enjoin the president under one or another article of the constitution that they will inexorably claim he is violating--this decision is stare decisis to prevent that.

Absolutely.  

[Ormond]

38 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Why would it be wise to not remove him physically? Seems like a terrible precedent to set., and plus, I suspect there will be some unsealed indictments that would compel his physical removal.

I think marching in with police to bodily remove him would set a much worse precedent than forcing him out by less drastic means such as cutting off the electricity. I don't see using more violent methods as setting a good precedent for how I think American society should operate. 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

1 minute ago, Ormond said:

I think marching in with police to bodily remove him would set a much worse precedent than forcing him out by less drastic means such as cutting off the electricity. I don't see using more violent methods as setting a good precedent for how I think American society should operate. 

Silly question, given that it is the White House we are discussing, wouldn't it have fairly robust back up generators and supplies of food?

[sologdin]

Absolutely.  

unless of course the most dissociated conspiracisms are correctly prognosticated insofar as a trump-appointed bench may invariably distinguish the cases by stating We ruled that a minority of the House lacks standing to enforce the emoluments clause regarding President Trump but President Sanders is a communist so all redblooded Christian capitalists have standing to stand their ground with proactive exercise of second amendment rights.

[Ormond]

5 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Silly question, given that it is the White House we are discussing, wouldn't it have fairly robust back up generators and supplies of food?

Interesting point, but I would think backup generators could also be turned off? 

My impression was that in case of major attack on the US that the President would be moved to another site -- are there really "bunker type" facilities at The White House itself? I'm sure the White House has a big pantry, but I've never assumed they stored food for a long term emergency immediately on-site.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

4 minutes ago, sologdin said:

Absolutely.  

unless of course the most dissociated conspiracisms are correctly prognosticated insofar as a trump-appointed bench may invariably distinguish the cases by stating We ruled that a minority of the House lacks standing to enforce the emoluments clause regarding President Trump but President Sanders is a communist so all redblooded Christian capitalists have standing to stand their ground with proactive exercise of second amendment rights.

The DC Circuit only has 2 Trump appointees.  The Chief Judge of the DC Circuit is Merrick Garland.  7 of the 11 Active Judges were appointed by Democratic Presidents.  

[sologdin]

they are secret deep-trump appointees. obviously.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

2 minutes ago, sologdin said:

they are secret deep-trump appointees. obviously.

Double Secret Appointees.

[maarsen]

34 minutes ago, Ormond said:

Interesting point, but I would think backup generators could also be turned off? 

My impression was that in case of major attack on the US that the President would be moved to another site -- are there really "bunker type" facilities at The White House itself? I'm sure the White House has a big pantry, but I've never assumed they stored food for a long term emergency immediately on-site.

Backup generators need fuel and tanks run dry. Food also runs out. What may work is having the Dems mail in pink dildos. It worked before. 

[Kalbear]

4 hours ago, Darryk said:

Wow, wasn't expecting that. Dinner table conversations in your household really want to avoid politics.

Not in the least. We talk politics all the time, openly and directly. With the older kids and the younger ones. And iirc, the main reason that my wife voted Sanders was that she felt clinton wasnt left enough - and that a woman couldn't win. 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

1 minute ago, maarsen said:

Backup generators need fuel and tanks run dry. Food also runs out. What may work is having the Dems mail in pink dildos. It worked before. 

I'm simply wondering how long that would give Trump.  The longer he holds out the more difficult it becomes for the US.

[maarsen]

12 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I'm simply wondering how long that would give Trump.  The longer he holds out the more difficult it becomes for the US.

We had backup generators at the hospital I worked at. The tanks held about 40,0000 litres of diesel fuel. I think he had four or five days and then the generators would run dry. The simple solution is to switch the fuel pumps to manual and let the day tanks run dry. Then they can't be refilled as they need the generators to run the pumps to refill the day tanks. Depending on your building automation system, one can easily hack in and make life miserable for any occupant with minimal effort as a second solution. Most are designed to let them be operated remotely. 

One major US company does a lot of building automation. All their techs use the same password as they travel to many different sites to fix and troubleshoot. I am sure at least one is a Sanders supporter. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

55 minutes ago, Ormond said:

I think marching in with police to bodily remove him would set a much worse precedent than forcing him out by less drastic means such as cutting off the electricity. I don't see using more violent methods as setting a good precedent for how I think American society should operate. 

So it’s best to turn the WH off? That seems illogical and makes us look like a joke. If he refuses to leave he’s trespassing and should be taken out in cuffs to set a precedent that this is never going to be allowed.

[sologdin]

if trump continues to befoul the white house after his ejectment from office, it will not affect the operativity of the united states, which defeated the british even after the white house burned in 1814.  i am aware that i have assumed that trump's foulness is not worse than complete destruction by fire; i am open to reconsideration if warranted.