Murphy seems about as terrible as I would expect.

I was a fan of her during one of those congressional hearings but the more I learned about her. She is just another establishment Democrat that isn't going to do well.

There are like 16 different people even more that are being tossed around. It is still a bit too early to see who will be in the running. I have a feeling the democrat stage will be similar to how many were attempting on the Republican side during 2016.

I feel so much better about him now.

Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price resigns over his use of using private airplanes (Lear Jets). He's promised to right the goverment a reimbursement check for $52K. Problem is his tab to the US taxpayers is over $1 million.

Price is a dude that spent his entire political career prior to being named HHSS railing against excessive goverment spending. And there's a number of other Trump cabinet members in trouble for the same thing.

Drain the swamp indeed.

In other news, Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke spoke at a press conference yesterday and praised the wonderful job US were doing doing in helping the people Puerto Rico recover from Hurricane.

San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz was on TV this morning calling 100% BS and almost crying out of frustration over the lack of aid as well as the mixed message that Duke was sending. The fear being that people would stop donating to the cause if they thought things were going swell.

At least he has the right surname.

Classix Fox News reporting:

That's absurd for Fox to say. We all know that black people and people who work for them can't be corrupt.

Ant? :laughing:

At 6:00 PM I channel surfed to check out the top stories on Fox, MSNBC, CNN, and the three local news affiliates for NBC, CBS, and ABC.

Five out of the six led with Puerto Rico and how dire the situation is down there or Tom Price being fired followed immeidately by Puerto Rico.

One led with a 10 minute piece on how rotten it still is for NFL players to be spitting on our veterans and our flag.

Which leads to a question. The NFL is a private corporation run and managed by the 32 team owners. 28 of the owners (4 have remianed silent), the commisioner, the coaches and staff, and the players are unified in being for the right to protest during the anthem.

Pretty sure there something on the books that states a US president can not meddle in the affairs of private corporations without first going through proper governmental channels. (in case you're wondering, Twitter doesn't count)

:D

Imagine if he did meddle with them. He'd be doing something he's not supposed to do.

Back in reality land, how pathetic has this Trump presidency been? Done basically nothing he ran on.

It's almost like the fact that DT isn't really a Republican nor a Democrat has ultimately isolated him politically to the extent where its impossible to get anything done.

Better luck in 2020 boyz n gurlz...though if you believe Michael Moore it looks like he's a two termer.

Is VERY publically pressuring the owners to fire their employees not meddling?

Nope. It's dumb as **** and a plain-faced distraction though.

:laughing:
-in agreement not snideness

This might apply since Trump is obviously using his partisan base to try and influence the owners.

I appreciate your use of the word might. Here are my thoughts on the law as it applies to this.

If (1) applies to this case, then he's good because he's just saying "well how nice if [lame pandering that doesn't reference legal action]". That's not threatening an act. Easy.

(2) is where it gets tough. The use of the word influence is extremely ambiguous, do you have any cases that establish precedence for that? You yourself have told me that the president is an incredibly influential figure and that people will glob onto his actions regardless of their ethical nature. So according to that law, anything that a president does that causes someone else to do something is illegal, which would put every president in jail which makes me think that there's more to the picture than that. If I had a legal definition for influence that aligned with this case, I would probably agree with you, but I'm too lazy to find it myself.

Imo, it's just a very blatant display of a traditional PR tactic from a person who is not used to being a figure with an almost UNPRECEDENTED(!!!!!!!) amount of scrutiny directed towards every breath he takes on a scale that's large enough for people to not just roll their eyes at it. Not that most of the breaths he takes aren't polluted from the oil companies he takes bribes from etc etc however much qualifying it takes to get you to actually see my point, of course. Either this boilover will fizzle out and be forgotten when the heat is adjusted or it will lead to some actual SCOTUS/Congressional decisions that could put Trump in a pinch. For now, my money's on the former because I gamble on politics like a good citizen.

Trump is urging his republican base to boycott NFL games, by not going to them or not watching them on TV, unless the NFL CEOs do something (fire them or create new workplace rules) in regard to their employees.

People boycotting NFL games would directly affect the CEOs revenue stream (private business income): loss of ticket sales, loss of concession sales, loss of parking fees, loss of souvenir sales, decrease of ad revenue if TV ratings were to go down, etc.

If nothing else, you would think Trump's goverment appointed legal team would be advising him back off with the NFL rhetoric.


UN-FREAKING-BELIEVABLE!

In other news, Trump's trying to deflect the critisism of his handling of the Puerto crisis over to Puerto Rico and their outspoken mayor!!!!!!

Trump attacks San Juan mayor over hurricane response - CNNPolitics

Maybe things would be different if he had a Trump resort on the island???

Do you know of any precedence that establishes a legal definition for what would be considered influence? It's an incredibly slippery slope. For example, this would be illegal under a loose interpretation, but is it really? https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...skins/2927351/

See the difference?

I can't find any precedence because, well, something like this is UN-PRECEDENTED. :D

So you can't establish that it's illegal. Got it.

This is what that legislation was borne from. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/K_Street_Project

Given that precedence because that's the way that law works, it would only be illegal if Trump said something like fans should boycott the NFL because it's full of Democrats because that would be acting solely on political affiliation.

You keep promising nails in the coffin, all I see is staples.

Well, if you **** against a wall it's sure to trickle down, isn't it?

Getting tense in Catalonia now. Police told to shut down the polling booths by 6am tomorrow, guys are occupying them now in advance so they can't be shut down tomorrow. Just seen a guy in a school being asked what they're doing by a reporter, "We're here to celebrate the start of autumn." "Nothing to do with the referendum then?" "No." :D

Catalan referendum: Activists occupy school ahead of vote - BBC News

Seems like there will be trouble tomorrow. Surely it would be better to allow the referendum but make it clear it's not legally binding.

I will trickle down Trump's insufficient chin.

Not gonna fall into your stupid debate-bait traps anymore Frowny.

So, how do you feel about Trump bashing Puerto Rico this morning to deflect critisism away from his ego?

I'm not really disagreeing with you dude, I'm just trying to go deeper.

And of course I think it's incredibly unethical and typical of him.

And you just know any bloodshed is going to be blamed on the Catalans. "We told them, we warned them not to turn up. This was an illegal referendum. We can't be held responsible" etc etc et-****ing-cetera.

You've got to feel for them tbh. Some of the lads I've seen on the articles doing interviews don't even necessarily want independence, just want to have a vote, and they're being silenced, which legitimises the independence movement and the idea that they don't have freedom.

I wonder what the lads in the Basque Country are thinking?

The Republicans still control the house and the senate and they can't get their non sense passed through. It has nothing to do with DT really.

A resurgence in support for the rebirth of ETA?

Not sure but support for independence there must be growing seeing all this?

Mental scenes in Catalonia is anyone watching? Not sure what I was expecting, but wasn't expecting it to be as bad as that. Videos all over Twitter of people bloodied, being thrown around and hit with batons. Rubber bullets as well.

#BREAKING-#Catalan President Carles Puigdemont says "We will declare independence within 48 hours of announcing results of independence vote

Barcelona play later though might be postponed, Las Palmas are planning to wear Spanish flags on their kits, in support of Spain. They just posted a photo on their Twitter.

I respect Spain's sovereignty and understand why they'd be driven to try to stop the vote, but the way they're handling it is awful. Counterintuitive too, this will only drive more people (including formerly neutral Catalonians) to support Catalonia.

That mess in Spain has an uncomfortably authoritatian police state feel to it. It makes me sad to see this kind of thing happen in one of the most stable and peaceful parts of Europe. I thought we were above this kind of thing. Proof that governments are never your friend, honestly. It doesn't even matter whether the Catalan vote has constitutional backing or not, it's how the government tries to shut it down that says everything.

If this were any other forum on the internet the Franco jokes would be flying.

Yeah, who could imagine an authoritatian Spain. Oh wait, that's the Spain my family fled.

I've been reading a book about spanish political and cultural history recently and there's no doubt that Spain has a history with authoritarianism, but still, in 2017? Really makes my heart sink.

How long time ago was it that your familily fled Spain? After WW2 or something like that?

How the **** does anarchist socialism work? Socialism requires structure, anarchism is the lack of agreed upon and enforced structures. Or am I just confused and wrong?

Not at all.

Oxymoron alert.

Kinda like the music genre "un-black metal". :rofl: