[News] Post a Political News Story

Ongoing discussion of the political news of the day. This thread is for 'smaller' stories that don't call for their own thread. If a story blows up, please start a new thread for it.

Yes, you're thinking of Brett Ratner, who has a section of his wikipedia page titled "sexual harassment allegations".

In light of the Walter Scott verdict...

The police officer who shot Daniel Shaver in 2016 was found not guilty today.

If you haven't seen the video, you can find it (I won't link it), but be warned, it's graphic, and it's awful. There's more from The Atlantic if you're too squeamish to watch it (which is fair), but again, it's just awful. The fact that the officer who shot Shaver won't see a moment of jailtime is...

...it's truly, truly awful.

Buzzfeed News: Private War: Erik Prince Has His Eye On Afghanistan's Rare Metals

Controversial private security tycoon Erik Prince has famously pitched an audacious plan to the Trump administration: Hire him to privatize the war in Afghanistan using squads of "security contractors." Now, for the first time, Buzzfeed News is publishing that pitch, a presentation that lays out how Prince wanted to take over the war from the US military — and how he envisioned mining some of the most war-torn provinces in Afghanistan to help fund security operations and obtain strategic mineral resources for the US.

https://twitter.com/SimonMaloy/statu...

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Fox News talking heads pull a 180, suddenly become anti-law enforcement because the FBI dared arrest someone of their tribe. Now they are the secret police! They are the KGB! NEVER IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES HAS THE FBI BROKE DOWN SOMEONE'S DOOR AND ARRESTED SOMEONE! This is not hyperbole, apparently.

Like, these idiots still realize that the FBI reports to ultra-conservative Jeff Sessions, right? And that Sessions reports to lawless moron Donald Trump? It's amazing how far Trump's supporters will go to defend him.

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Quintin_Stone wrote:

Like, these idiots still realize that the FBI reports to ultra-conservative Jeff Sessions, right? And that Sessions reports to lawless moron Donald Trump? It's amazing how far Trump's supporters will go to defend him.

It looks like I wasn't pessimistic enough and we're ahead of schedule.

I'm reminded of how right before the election Fox News and other rightwing sites were breathlessly reporting that the FBI's New York office was pushing hard for to investigate Clinton Foundation donations.

Then it turned out that the "FBI" really meant a couple of jabronis in the New York office who read the 2015 book "Clinton Cash" and wanted to kick off an actual investigation based on it. Never mind that the book was full of inaccuracies and completely unsubstantiated claims, like the once again popular claim that Clinton sold uranium to Russia for donations to the Clinton Foundation.

Prederick wrote:

In light of the Walter Scott verdict...

The police officer who shot Daniel Shaver in 2016 was found not guilty today.

If you haven't seen the video, you can find it (I won't link it), but be warned, it's graphic, and it's awful. There's more from The Atlantic if you're too squeamish to watch it (which is fair), but again, it's just awful. The fact that the officer who shot Shaver won't see a moment of jailtime is...

...it's truly, truly awful.

I watched that video, and yeah, it's pretty bad. I haven't done more that a small bit of reading around it, but it seems like what happened, spoilered in case you don't want to read:

Spoiler:

- Police responded to reports of someone pointing a gun out of a hotel window
- Police find this couple exiting a room in the area, and immediately suspect they're the one with the gun, turn their response up to 10
- Police start screaming semi-contradictory orders at the couple, and tell them two or three times that any failure to obey perfectly will result in them getting shot
- The woman manages to follow directions (lie face down, then kneel and crawl* toward them with her hands in the air), and then she was cuffed.
- Police tell the man to do the same thing, and say "if your hand reaches toward your lower back, you'll be shot." Man is visibly and audibly weeping at this point, begging not to be shot.
- He kneels, then starts crawling on all fours. A after a few feet, he seems to realize they might have meant for him to kneel. His arm goes back, and the police interpret this as reaching for a gun, and they shoot him. It could easily have been him trying to get up into a kneeling position like the woman did, but it's not 100% clear.

I'm sure the argument the defense made was that the only thing that mattered was that the officers told him not to reach toward his lower back, and he did, so the officers had a reasonable fear for their life, and were justified in shooting him. In isolation, that argument makes sense. The problem is that it ignores the totality of the situation, where they had no actual evidence that these people were the people they were looking for, or armed, and both had been completely compliant the whole time, and the guy was literally crying and begging.

It reads much more like this cop was hyped up on adrenaline and the power trip of ordering these kids around like dogs, and had an itchy trigger finger. The fact that his weapon had "YOU'RE f*ckED" written on it says something about his mindset, I think. But that wasn't entered into evidence.

*The officers kept saying crawl, but seemed to mean to walk on your knees, since they said to put both hands in the air just before ordering them to crawl. I can see how they were confused.

There was just an episode of More Perfect that is super applicable to this, talking about the "reasonable man" argument, and how it's used in these kinds of police shooting situations. Mr. Graham and the Reasonable Man

Gremlin wrote:

Buzzfeed News: Private War: Erik Prince Has His Eye On Afghanistan's Rare Metals

Controversial private security tycoon Erik Prince has famously pitched an audacious plan to the Trump administration: Hire him to privatize the war in Afghanistan using squads of "security contractors." Now, for the first time, Buzzfeed News is publishing that pitch, a presentation that lays out how Prince wanted to take over the war from the US military — and how he envisioned mining some of the most war-torn provinces in Afghanistan to help fund security operations and obtain strategic mineral resources for the US.

All of this has happened before/all of this will happen again.

Prederick wrote:

In light of the Walter Scott verdict...

The police officer who shot Daniel Shaver in 2016 was found not guilty today.

If you haven't seen the video, you can find it (I won't link it), but be warned, it's graphic, and it's awful. There's more from The Atlantic if you're too squeamish to watch it (which is fair), but again, it's just awful. The fact that the officer who shot Shaver won't see a moment of jailtime is...

...it's truly, truly awful.

I saw that earlier and wish I hadn't watched it.

TRENT FRANKS WYD?!?!?

Arizona Rep. Trent Franks allegedly made unwanted advances toward female staffers in his office and retaliated against one who rebuffed him, according to House GOP sources with knowledge of a complaint against him.

The allegations, which reached Speaker Paul Ryan and top GOP leaders in recent days, led to Franks' sudden resignation this week. Franks originally announced that he would resign on Jan. 31, 2018. But just hours after POLITICO inquired about the allegations, he sped up his resignation and left office Friday.

The sources said Franks approached two female staffers about acting as a potential surrogate for him and his wife, who has struggled with fertility issues for years. But the aides were concerned that Franks was asking to have sexual relations with them. It was not clear to the women whether he was asking about impregnating the women through sexual intercourse or in vitro fertilization. Franks opposes abortion rights as well as procedures that discard embryos.

A former staffer also alleged that Franks tried to persuade a female aide that they were in love by having her read an article that described how a person knows they’re in love with someone, the sources said. One woman believed she was the subject of retribution after rebuffing Franks. While she enjoyed access to the congressman before the incident, that access was revoked afterward, she told Republican leaders.

The Latest: Ex-aide: Franks offered $5m to carry his child

Surrogates cost like 40 grand dude!

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Meanwhile, Iowa's Steve King discarded the dog whistle again on Twitter today, opting instead for the airhorn.

Chaz wrote:

The fact that his weapon had "YOU'RE f*ckED" written on it says something about his mindset, I think.

The second that guy did that to his weapon he lost his right to be a police officer in my mind. The 'warrior cop' idea is flaming toxic garbage and needs to be stomped into the earth.

Fox News falsely declares that Roy Moore's accuser "forged" part of Moore's inscription.

Fox News has updated a report that initially said a woman accusing Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore of sexual assault had forged his entry in her yearbook.

Beverly Young Nelson has accused the Republican Senate nominee of sexually assaulting her nearly 40 years ago when she was 16 years old.

She told Tom Llamas, of ABC News, in a Friday interview that she made notes underneath Moore's entry.

...

A since-deleted tweet on the official Fox News twitter account had read, “BREAKING NEWS: Roy Moore accuser admits she forged part of yearbook inscription attributed to Alabama senate candidate.”

Fox News has since updated the story with a note at the bottom of the piece while removing any references to “forgery” in it.

...

Breitbart News also called the additions a forgery but has not updated its lead story.

She never claimed she wrote everything on that page, the place and date were clearly in a different handwriting from Moore's.

But the rabid Trump supporters and Russian signal boosters are spreading the "forgery" story far and wide.

qaraq wrote:
Chaz wrote:

The fact that his weapon had "YOU'RE f*ckED" written on it says something about his mindset, I think.

The second that guy did that to his weapon he lost his right to be a police officer in my mind. The 'warrior cop' idea is flaming toxic garbage and needs to be stomped into the earth.

It's a major issue in policing, I think.

Uranium firm urged Trump officials to shrink Bears Ears National Monument

A uranium company launched a concerted lobbying campaign to scale back Bears Ears National Monument, saying such action would give it easier access to the area’s uranium deposits and help it operate a nearby processing mill, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and top Utah Republicans have said repeatedly that questions of mining or drilling played no role in President Trump’s announcement Monday that he was cutting the site by more than 1.1 million acres, or 85 percent. Trump also signed a proclamation nearly halving the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, which is also in southern Utah and has significant coal deposits.

“This is not about energy,” Zinke told reporters Tuesday. “There is no mine within Bears Ears.”

But the nation’s sole uranium processing mill sits directly next to the boundaries that President Barack Obama designated a year ago when he established Bears Ears. The documents show that Energy Fuels Resources (USA) Inc., a subsidiary of a Canadian firm, urged the Trump administration to limit the monument to the smallest size needed to protect key objects and areas, such as archeological sites, to make it easier to access the radioactive ore.

Of course it's about money. Everything is.

(Gallup) Data: Republican Party ID drops after Trump election

NBC wrote:

From November 2016 to November 2017 there was a 5-point drop in the number of people who call themselves Republicans, from 42 percent to 37 percent, according to Gallup. In that same time, the number of people identifying as Democrats stayed flat at 44 percent.

...

But perhaps just as concerning for the GOP may be how widespread the party defections have been. The numbers have dropped across a wide range of demographic groups — all age groups, different education levels and most racial and ethnic groups.

Among 18- to 34-year-olds, there was a 4-point drop in people identifying as Republicans. With 35- to 55-year-olds the drop was 4 points. And among those older than 55, the drop was 5 points.

College graduates saw a 4-point decline in Republican ID and those without a bachelor’s degree saw a 5-point dip.

White, non-Hispanic respondents saw their GOP share drop 5 points. Hispanics saw a 3-point decline. African-Americans actually saw a 1-point increase in their self-identifying Republican population, but the number, 10 percent, is still remarkably low.

...

The data also suggest there is one group, in particular, that is a problem for GOP in the Trump era: women, especially white women.

Among women overall, the number identifying as Republican has declined 5 points, to 32 percent from 37 percent, but among white, non-Hispanic women, the drop has been an especially precipitous 7 points, to 41 percent this November from 48 percent in November 2016.

That drop among white, non-Hispanic women coincided with an increase in the same group who now identify as Democrats, and when you put those numbers together you see a flip in the partisan lean of that group.

In November 2016, white women were more likely to identify as Republican than Democrat by 5 points, 48 percent to 43 percent. By November of this year they were more like to say they were Democrats by 5 points, 46 percent to 41 percent.

Of course this also means that Trump's current 78% support among Republicans--which isn't great heading into an election year--is very likely much softer than the numbers show: fewer folks from a shrinking pool of people who identify as Republicans support Trump.

Eh, I'd remember the lesson of the last election, when a lot of people who told polls that they weren't voting for Trump.... voted for Trump.

Prederick wrote:

Eh, I'd remember the lesson of the last election, when a lot of people who told polls that they weren't voting for Trump.... voted for Trump.

Other polls besides Gallup are seeing the same thing.

And people aren't going to be voting for Trump next year. They're going to be voting for Republican Representatives and Senators. Anything that depresses Republican voter turnout is good for America at this point.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/Yd2Y61z.png)

Prederick wrote:

Eh, I'd remember the lesson of the last election, when a lot of people who told polls that they weren't voting for Trump.... voted for Trump.

To add that: where is the Republican party losing voters? One of the great lessons of 2016 was that the Republicans could shed every R voter in, say, California, and it wouldn't have made a damn bit of difference.

I think people forget that the national polls were pretty much spot on. They showed Clinton winning the popular vote by... the margin she won the popular vote. Individual state polls were the problem, and I'm hesitant to even use the word problem.

ClockworkHouse wrote:
Prederick wrote:

Eh, I'd remember the lesson of the last election, when a lot of people who told polls that they weren't voting for Trump.... voted for Trump.

To add that: where is the Republican party losing voters? One of the great lessons of 2016 was that the Republicans could shed every R voter in, say, California, and it wouldn't have made a damn bit of difference.

You have a couple million dollars laying around? Because then you could ask the same questions at the Congressional district level and see exactly where the loses were happening.

Otherwise the methodology shows the respondents are weighted to gender, age, education, race, Hispanic origin and nativity and region, and population density estimates from the US Census.

That means it's not the case of every Republican in California turning their back on the GOP (which would never happen because places like inland California are a red as the Deep South).

But given how thin Trump's margin of victory was both the Gallup and the Pew surveys are showing that he could not replicate those wins today. The large decreases in support among women (white women, really), Evangelicals, and white non-college educated voters--all his core supporters in 2016--would mean he would lose if the 2020 election were held today.

And if you look at historic surveys of party affiliation you can see some pretty huge swings in Republican identification. The current surveys show that the percentage of white evangelicals identifying as Republican has decreased to 1992 levels. White non-college educated voters are back to mid-90s levels. That's quite something considering how those groups massively shifted towards the GOP over the years, especially after 2008.

So will Roy Moore win tomorrow?

Alabama race epitomizes the turbulence of the Trump era

A Jones victory would trim the GOP's Senate majority to only one seat, and improve his party's chances of an upset seizure of the chamber in 2018. But Democrats are in a "heads I win, tails you lose situation."

That's because having purged their own ranks of lawmakers like Sen. Al Franken and Rep. John Conyers who are facing allegations of sexual misconduct, they can make Moore the poster boy for the Republican party they argue has ditched ethics and morality in the pursuit of power.

I say no, but it'll be a squeaker.

CBS: Explosion rocks NYC commuter hub in attempted terror attack - live updates
Attempted bomber was the main injured party, three other minor injuries reported.

Gremlin wrote:

CBS: Explosion rocks NYC commuter hub in attempted terror attack - live updates
Attempted bomber was the main injured party, three other minor injuries reported.

He should have just brought a short-barrel AR in with a bump stock. Dozens dead, at least.

/s .... maybe?

Trump accusers say it was ‘heartbreaking’ to see him elected despite sexual misconduct allegations

As the country grapples with a national reckoning over sexual misconduct allegations against powerful men from Hollywood to Capitol Hill, three women who accused the most high-profile man in the country again questioned Monday why their claims did nothing to stop him from winning the presidency.

It was “heartbreaking” for women to go public with their claims against President Trump last year, only to see him ascend to the Oval Office, said Samantha Holvey, a former Miss USA contestant who in October 2016 said Trump inappropriately inspected pageant participants.

“I put myself out there for the entire world, and nobody cared,” Holvey said on NBC's “Megyn Kelly Today” show, appearing for an hour alongside Jessica Leeds, a New York woman who said Trump groped her on a plane, and Rachel Crooks, who said Trump kissed her on the lips after she introduced herself to him at Trump Tower.

The women also called for Congress to investigate the allegations against Trump, highlighting the dramatic shift happening nationwide in response to charges of sexual misconduct. Claims have erupted across industry after industry, against lawmakers and movie stars alike, while the country has shown a sudden, newfound willingness to take such accusations seriously.

I assume his cult will just ignore it, or blame her, or do that "why did they wait" schtick. Whatever it takes to believe they are right.

Why not both? Throw in an extra dose of "well, it's just he said she said, we couldn't possibly punish anyone without hard evidence, and we probably don't need an investigation either, since there's no evidence."

Then they'll go back to yelling about investigating Clinton for Benghazi and emails, and about how all the terrible abusers on the left need to get arrested.

I mean, a lady at his Cincinnati rally came in wearing a shirt that said Trump could grab her anytime with an arrow pointing towards her crotch.

Why ignore it when you can mock the victims of sexual assault instead?

Chaz wrote:

Why not both? Throw in an extra dose of "well, it's just he said she said, we couldn't possibly punish anyone without hard evidence, and we probably don't need an investigation either, since there's no evidence."

Then they'll go back to yelling about investigating Clinton for Benghazi and emails, and about how all the terrible abusers on the left need to get arrested.

How could you have forgotten about how they are taking Merry Christmas away?