Politics | 2017 | Decent human being defeats literal pedophile and piece of shit in a close senate election, signaling hope to America

In Alabama, any town of more than 5,000 residents can vote to form its own school system, and over the years, members of Focus watched covetously as the neighboring white communities did just that.

“I think not having the estate tax recognizes the people that are investing, as opposed to those that are just spending every darn penny they have, whether it’s on booze or women or movies," Grassley told the newspaper.

By Fenderputty Go To Posthttps://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/06/magazine/the-resegregation-of-jefferson-county.html

Interesting article about communities forming smaller (whiter) districts from large districts.

John Dowd, President Trump's outside lawyer, outlined to me a new and highly controversial defense/theory in the Russia probe: A president cannot be guilty of obstruction of justice.

The "President cannot obstruct justice because he is the chief law enforcement officer under [the Constitution's Article II] and has every right to express his view of any case," Dowd claims.

Dowd says he drafted this weekend's Trump tweet that many thought strengthened the case for obstruction: The tweet suggested Trump knew Flynn had lied to the FBI when he was fired, raising new questions about the later firing of FBI Director James Comey.

Dowd: "The tweet did not admit obstruction. That is an ignorant and arrogant assertion."

Why it matters: Trump's legal team is clearly setting the stage to say the president cannot be charged with any of the core crimes discussed in the Russia probe: collusion and obstruction. Presumably, you wouldn't preemptively make these arguments unless you felt there was a chance charges are coming.

One top D.C. lawyer told me that obstruction is usually an ancillary charge rather than a principal one, such as aquid pro quo between the Trump campaign and Russians.
But Dems will fight the Dowd theory. Bob Bauer, an NYU law professor and former White House counsel to President Obama, told me: "It is certainly possible for a president to obstruct justice. The case for immunity has its adherents, but they based their position largely on the consideration that a president subject to prosecution would be unable to perform the duties of the office, a result that they see as constitutionally intolerable."
Remember: The Articles of Impeachment against Nixon began by saying he "obstructed, and impeded the administration of justice."

By Laboured Go To PostWhat a cracking u-turn that is.

https://twitter.com/guardian/status/937684614558175232

When he married, his parents gave his wife 800 yuan, which seemed like a lot. Twelve years ago one of Mr Ren’s sons married. His bride got 8,000 yuan. Recently another son married, and Mr Ren had to stump up 100,000 yuan ($15,000). He is likely to be mixing cement well into his 60s

The cause, as Mr Ren explains, is a shortage of women. Without human intervention, about 105 boys will be born for every 100 girls: boys and men are slightly more likely to die, so by the time they reach reproductive age the number of men and women should be roughly equal. But many Chinese couples have tipped the scales. Driven partly by China’s now-abandoned one-child policy, they have used ultrasound scans to determine the sex of fetuses and then aborted some of the girls. By 2010 there were 119 boys under five years old for every 100 girls. Two demographers, John Bongaarts and Christophe Guilmoto, estimate that China is missing more than 60m women and girls.

In the province of Shandong, in eastern China, the child sex ratio skewed early and drastically. It was highly unbalanced by 1990, and by 2010 had reached 123:100….

When he married, ten years ago, bride prices in the village were between 2,000 and 3,000 yuan. Now they run between 200,000 and 300,000 yuan, although Mr Deng hears that as much as 500,000 has been handed over (50,000 yuan would be a respectable annual salary thereabouts).

China’s growing sex imbalance is driving boys’ parents to desperate lengths. Some add another storey to their houses, not because they need the space but because a woman might be impressed. They give money to their sons to buy gold jewellery and pay for extravagant wedding photo shoots. They start saving early, then go into debt. China has a sky-high household saving rate: couples squirrel away 38% of disposable income, compared with 10% in notoriously frugal Germany. Two academics, Shang-Jin Wei and Xiaobo Zhang, estimate that half the increase in China’s saving rate between 1990 and 2007 can be attributed to the rising cost of marriage in a society with too many men.

By DY_nasty Go To Postits like the rkelly episode of boondock come to life

and worse

"the liberals don't want you to roy moore to be free because they don't want YOU to be free. they don't want ME to be free. roy moore may have molested those girls, but they molested the constitution of america first"

By Laboured Go To Post

https://twitter.com/BBCBreaking/status/937713405581934593

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By Fenderputty Go To PostIs there a timetable for this? Shit feels like purgatory

By Fenderputty Go To PostGet married in China breh

https://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21731495-shortage-brides-bending-chinese-society-out-shape-distorted-sex-ratio

Wow

By Laboured Go To PostWell, technically they have until like March 2019.

*laughs forever*

Although they are now trying to desperately install some flimsy kind of transition period buffer of 2 further years

By Nelo Ice Go To PostGOP still taking an L.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/12/senate-gop-accidentally-killed-all-corporate-tax-deductions.html

By TheHunter Go To Post

https://twitter.com/hsu_spencer/status/937800163808210944

Manafort fucking worked with Russia while being investigated.

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By MrKENnedDY Go To Posthttps://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-allows-full-enforcement-of-trump-travel-ban-while-legal-challenges-continue/2017/12/04/486549c0-d5fc-11e7-a986-d0a9770d9a3e_story.html

I saw this breaking from my phone. Had to do a double take.

By reilo Go To PostI'm reading this New Yorker exposé on Nicolás Maduro and the most striking thing about that article is that Maduro is 6'5 and 270lbs?!

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/12/11/nicolas-maduros-accelerating-revolution

I got money on him in a leaders of the world fighting tournament.

By NinjaFridge Go To Post#crudwasrightallalong

By FreezePeach Go To Postsurprised they havent started throwin punches in the senate, some seem real pissed off.

By YungMagus Go To PostDawg if the wwf royal rumble happened on the senate floor then thats the only way I can see this bein worthwhile

Mueller has demanded that Germany’s largest lender share data on its client relationship with Trump, according to a person briefed on the matter. The subpoena, received several weeks ago, obliges the bank to submit documents detailing its business with Trump and his family, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the action has not been announced publicly. Deutsche Bank declined to comment.

By Laboured Go To PostHere comes the pivot to soft Brexit.

https://twitter.com/faisalislam/status/938013971562549248

https://twitter.com/faisalislam/status/938015254352670721

Thing is the DUP won't accept this and will then stop propping up the Conservative government, which will then mean another General Election.

And that's when I start to get quite worried about Labour's position on Brexit.

ANGLO-SAXON capitalism has had a bad decade. It is accused of stoking inequality and financial instability. A relentless pursuit of shareholder value has led big firms to act in ways that often seem to make the world a worse place. Aeroplane seats get smaller, energy firms pollute the air, multinationals outsource jobs and Silicon Valley firms avoid tax. Some people think that governments should exert more control over private enterprise. But what if the answer to a deficit of corporate legitimacy was to give shareholders even more—not less—power?

That is the intriguing possibility raised by a new paper by Oliver Hart of Harvard University and Luigi Zingales of the University of Chicago. Their argument has two parts. First, the concept of shareholder capitalism should be expanded, so that firms seek to maximise shareholders’ welfare, not just their wealth. Second, technology might allow firms to make a deeper effort to discover what their true owners want.

The authors envision shareholders guiding the broad direction of company strategy. They do not elaborate on the details, but imagine 100m Americans pressing a “shareholder democracy” app on their phones. Grannies from Grand Rapids and cowboys from Colorado might vote for Delta Air Lines to provide more legroom, Exxon to assume a higher carbon price when it drills for oil, IBM to move some jobs from Delhi to Detroit and Apple to pay a higher tax rate than its current 18%. It would be a plebiscitary shareholder democracy, more in tune with what many Americans think, but more dangerous, too.

U.S. President Donald Trump informed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Jordan's King Abdullah that he plans to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem on Tuesday, according to Abbas' spokesman and Jordanian reports.

Abbas warned Trump that the action will have "dangerous consequences."

Abbas spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh said "The Palestinian stance is determined and steadfast - there will not be a Palestinian state without East Jerusalem as its capital according to decisions by the international community. Abu Mazen [Abbas] is now holding an emergency meeting in his bureau following the phone conversation with Trump.”

By Fenderputty Go To Posthttps://www.economist.com/news/business/21731848-digital-technology-makes-true-shareholder-democracy-more-feasible-what-if-unwashed-masses

Great read. I don’t think compete democratic guidelines for a corporation would be the most efficient but the article doesn’t seem to claim it would be, but rather recognizes this as a potential danger. The article says corporations should fulfill shareholders desires and not just wealth. It argues, like most here would agree, that stock ownership is mostly ran by people who’s main goal is to maximize wealth and that this should change.