Lurker > Antifar

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ForestLogic posted...

Yet this still isn't enough to convince me to re-up my Gold subscription.

But you don't need XBL Gold for this
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https://theintercept.com/2018/01/23/dccc-democratic-primaries-congress-progressives/

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In his farewell address, President Barack Obama had some practical advice for those frustrated by his successor. If youre disappointed by your elected officials, grab a clipboard, get some signatures, and run for office yourself, Obama implored.

Yet across the country, the DCCC, its allied groups, or leaders within the Democratic Party are working hard against some of these new candidates for Congress, publicly backing their more established opponents, according to interviews with more than 50 candidates, party operatives, and members of Congress. Winning the support of Washington heavyweights, including the DCCC implicit or explicit is critical for endorsements back home and a boost to fundraising. In general, it can give a candidate a tremendous advantage over opponents in a Democratic primary.

In district after district, the national party is throwing its weight behind candidates who are out of step with the national mood. The DCCC known as the D-trip in Washington has officially named 18 candidates as part of its Red to Blue program. (A D-trip spokesperson cautioned that a red-to-blue designation is not an official endorsement, but functions that way in practice. Program designees get exclusive financial and strategy resources from the party.) In many of those districts, there is at least one progressive challenger the party is working to elbow aside, some more viable than others. Outside of those 18, the party is coalescing in less formal ways around a chosen candidate such as in the case of Pennsylvanias Hartman even if the DCCC itself is not publicly endorsing.

Its happening despite a very real shift going on inside the partys establishment, as it increasingly recognizes the value of small-dollar donors and grassroots networks. In assessing the strength of candidates for Congress this cycle, we have put a greater premium on their grassroots engagement and local support, recognizing the power and energy of our allies on the ground, said DCCC Communications Director Meredith Kelly. A deep and early connection to people in the district is always essential to winning, but its more important than ever at this moment in our history. The committee, meanwhile, has made major investments in grassroots organizing, field work and candidate training, which also represents a genuine change.
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In order to establish whether a person is worthy of official backing, DCCC operatives will rolodex a candidate, according to a source familiar with the procedure. On the most basic level, it involves candidates being asked to pull out their smartphones, scroll through their contacts lists, and add up the amount of money their contacts could raise or contribute to their campaigns. If the candidates contacts arent good for at least $250,000, or in some cases much more, they fail the test, and party support goes elsewhere.

Asked about the process, Kelly, the DCCC communications director, said, Our support for a candidate is not based on the amount of money that their personal network can raise in fact there are many strong candidates that we support with a limited ability to raise money from people that they know.

That emphasis on fundraising can lead the party to make the kinds of decisions that leave ground-level activists furious. Take, for example, the case of Angie Craig, a medical device executive who ran for Congress in Minnesotas second district in 2016 and has thrown her hat in the ring again.

The medical device industry is huge in Minnesota, and its outsized lobbying power is felt acutely in Washington. Despite spending $4.8 million, Craig lost by 2 points. Craig underperformed Clinton by 4,000 votes and even underperformed Democratic state Senate and House candidates by 13,000 and 2,000 votes, respectively.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/22/nyregion/subway-elevators-disabled-terrorism.html

To some, the prospect of adding new subway elevators not far from the World Trade Center is a godsend, a desperately needed portal for the disabled to a subway system that is among the least accessible in the nation.

To a group of neighbors who live beside the proposed site, the elevators seem like something else entirely: a hazard a terrorist could turn into shrapnel.

On one side of a growing skirmish on Broad Street in Lower Manhattan are disabled riders, advocates and a real estate developer building the elevators in exchange for being granted permission by the city to add more square footage to the mixed-use building the developer is erecting at 45 Broad Street.

On the other are tenants of nearby buildings like 15 Broad Street, a high-rise designed by the architect Philippe Starck. It is a pocket of the city that has long been under intense security because of its proximity to prime potential targets like the New York Stock Exchange, and critics say the elevators could pose a threat in an area where police and bomb-sniffing dogs routinely check vehicles driving through.

The idea that people can then ride in on the subway with a bomb or whatever and come straight up in an elevator is awful to me, said Claudia Ward, who lives in 15 Broad Street and was among a group of neighbors who denounced the plan at a recent meeting of the local community board. Its too easy for someone to slip through. And I just dont want my family and my neighbors to be the collateral on that.

Residents of 15 Broad Street hired an independent security analyst who determined the glass and metal elevators could pose a security risk.

We are hypersensitive to the security, said Linda Gerstman, the vice president of the 15 Broad Street board of directors. We live it every day.

Neighbors first raised security concerns late last year after the developer, Madison Equities, sought to take advantage of New York City zoning rules that offers an incentive to real estate developers: the right to enlarge their project in exchange for improvements to the subway station closest to the site. The two elevators will cost about $20 million total and provide access to both ends of the platforms of the J and Z line at the Broad Street station. In exchange, the 80-story office building rising at 45 Broad Street, will include an additional 71,000 square feet.

The elevator project, now in the public comment stage, is facing heavy resistance from residents who say it will put them at risk. The controversy over the elevators was reported by The TriBeCa Tribune.

The fight over the elevators is for some riders who are disabled or who have a hard time negotiating stairs, a painful reminder of the ways in which the citys subway system already fails them. Fewer than one out of every five New York City subway stations is wheelchair accessible, far behind other cities like Chicago and Boston where about 70 percent of stations are compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act, which mandates accessible public spaces. The failure has made the subway the target of two class action lawsuits filed last year.

On the J and Z line trains, in particular, only five of the total 30 stations provide wheelchair access and only one of those is in Manhattan, at Fulton Street, according to data compiled by the Riders Alliance, an advocacy group.
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Edith Prentiss, who relies on a wheelchair to get around, believes the pearl-clutching over security is disingenuous and is really simply an excuse by opponents to keep the elevators from their upscale block. (A one-bedroom apartment at 15 Broad is currently on the market for over $2 million.)

What moron terrorist is going to ride the subway with a bomb and then wait to get off the train before detonating it?
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DoctorVader posted...

Weed id it Reddit

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That's not great
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My guess here is that this is someone giving a fake name for their donation? Because why would the Yankees have a PO Box in Arkansas? And only donate $100?
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thor333 posted...

Use your bing rewards took me 35 days to earn enough for a free month of game pass can have your account almost constantly on.

I like the way you think.
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Like, Cernovich wears dresses and goes into women's bathrooms to make some inane point about trans people (when he isn't "pranking" immigrants by posing as ICE). He's just as hateful as Spencer, even if he wouldn't take the label of white supremacist.
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bump
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s0nicfan posted...

Trey Gowdy of all people thinks there's something serious underneath it all

Isn't he the guy that spent years trying to find something nefarious about Benghazi?
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Nomadic View posted...

and that someone is investigating you,

But they were removed from the investigation months ago.
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That's the weed day
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s0nicfan posted...

So it's totally cool that FBI members were actively colluding to rig the election is cool because Trump won anyway?

What evidence is there that they took steps towards rigging the election? Is there something more than vague texts?
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I mean, two FBI agents texting critical things about Trump doesn't seem like a big deal to me.

s0nicfan posted...

FBI members, looking to stop Trump from winning the presidency "by any means necessary" were literally keeping 'insurance policy' documents to leak to the press should they decide he needs to be stopped

Seems to me that if this were true, they would have done so.
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More like the Jack of Beers
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eston posted...

That's pretty awesome. Still not a great deal for me though, because I spend a lot of time on individual games. I couldn't see myself paying a monthly subscription to play one game for 3 months, I'd rather just buy the game.

I mean, the math works out where you'd be paying $30 instead of $60 (if it was just the three months), but I get where you're coming from. The appeal of the service is still in the quantity and not relying on it for the four games Microsoft makes each year.

Similar in this way to EA Access, which has a bunch of their old games but offers free trials and discounts on the new ones.
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GregShmedley posted...

I bet my account that nothing will come of the Russian investigation that leads to anything incriminating or results in impeachment.

Probably a safe bet. There's no way Trump gets impeached.
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Jack Prilosec is definitely alt-right, though. He spent months pushing Pizzagate shit.
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https://thinkprogress.org/florida-ballot-voting-8b8decc2c7dd/

Florida voters will have a chance to restore voting rights to more than 1 million former felons through a ballot initiative this November.

The proposed constitutional amendment on Tuesday reached the 766,200 petition signatures required to go on the ballot. The Voting Restoration Amendment, which the state is expected to certify soon, would automatically restore rights to citizens convicted of most non-violent crimes who have completed their prison sentence, parole, and probation. Only those convicted of murder or felony sexual offense would be excluded.

If approved with 60 percent of the vote in November, the amendment has the potential to reshape electoral politics in Florida, a critical swing state, and set the example for other states grappling with whether to relax strict laws prohibiting people with criminal convictions from voting. Florida currently has one of the strictest felon disenfranchisement laws in the country only Florida, Kentucky, Virginia, and Iowa permanently bar those with felony convictions from voting for life, unless they seek clemency. In total, roughly 1.6 million Florida citizens about one in four African Americans are barred from casting a ballot.

Sheena Meade, organizing director for the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition which led the initiative to gather more than a million signatures, told ThinkProgress that getting the amendment certified is a huge accomplishment for the people of Florida.

Knowing that weve actually sent in over a million petitions and that people have answered the call to have a more inclusive democracy is just overwhelming, Meade said. People never thought we would get to this place, and now its actually here.

Meades husband, Desmond Meade, hasbeen fighting for changes to the states rights restoration process since he was convicted of a felony over a decade ago. In 2016, Sheena Meade ran for the state legislature and Desmond was unable to vote for his wife.

The certification of the amendment will comes less than a year after the Florida Supreme Court approved the ballot language in April 2017. In the months since, Floridians for a Fair Democracy and other groups supporting the amendment have benefited from over $500,000 in support, including $400,000 from the American Civil Liberties Union.

Currently, Florida citizens with criminal convictions who want to restore their voting rights have to apply for clemency with the governor. During his term, former Gov. Charlie Crist made it easier for former felons to regain their rights, restoring the right to vote to more than 155,000 felons. But current Gov. Rick Scott (R) reversed course in 2011 and mandated a waiting period before felons could even apply for clemency. Just a few thousand people have regained their voting rights since Scott took office in 2010.

The states strict disenfranchisement law dates back to the post-Civil War era when politicians were more overt about wanting to keep black residents from gaining political power. Since then, the law has been used to keep millions of Democratic-leaning voters from participating in the electoral process.

According to the Sentencing Project, approximately 2.5 percent of the total U.S. voting age population 1 of every 40 adults is disenfranchised due to a current or previous felony conviction. The state of Florida alone accounts for 27 percent of the disenfranchised population nationally.

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It's Aaron Sorkin
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https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/01/22/how-the-us-is-making-the-war-in-yemen-worse

Since the war began, at least ten thousand Yemeni civilians have been killed, though the number is potentially much higher, because few organizations on the ground have the resources to count the dead. Some three million people have been displaced, and hundreds of thousands have left the country. Before the war, Yemen was the Middle Easts poorest state, relying on imports to feed the population. Now, after effectively being blockaded by the coalition for more than two and a half years, it faces famine. More than a million people have cholera, and thousands have died from the disease. unicef, the World Food Program, and the World Health Organization have called the situation in Yemen the worlds largest humanitarian crisis.

Yet the U.S. and Great Britain have continued to support the coalition, mainly with weapons sales and logistical help. (A small contingent of U.S. Special Forces fights Al Qaeda militants in the south of the country.) Without foreign assistance, it would be very difficult for the Saudis to wage war. As casualties mount, legislators in the U.S. have begun to question support for the Saudis. Nonetheless, the Administration of Donald Trump has refused to criticize the kingdom.
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In November, 2015, despite American skepticism toward the Saudi war plan and evidence of heavy civilian casualties, the Obama Administration agreed to a giant weapons sale totalling $1.29 billion. The Saudis were authorized to buy seven thousand and twenty Paveway-II bombs. By the end of Obamas Presidency, the U.S. had offered more than a hundred and fifteen billion dollars worth of arms to Saudi Arabia, the largest amount under any President, including warships, air-defense systems, and tanks.

The history of large-scale arms sales to Saudi Arabia dates to the late sixties, when U.S. weapons manufacturers realized that the Arab-Israeli conflicts of the era were being fought with Soviet and French arms. For our defense companies, it was very frustrating, Rachel Bronson, the author of Thicker Than Oil, a 2006 book on U.S.-Saudi relations, told me. The arms manufacturers lobbied the U.S. government, contending that arms sales were good policy. After all, U.S. experts would have to assemble and maintain the weapons, which could theoretically be dismantled if the Saudis were pursuing anti-U.S. policies. It was also good business: in 2016, the maintenance contract for the Royal Saudi Air Forces two hundred and thirty F-15 fighter jets alone was worth $2.5 billion.

The Obama Administration saw Saudi Arabia both as a bulwark against terrorism and as a counterbalance to Iran. In Kings and Presidents, a book on the history of U.S.-Saudi relations, the former C.I.A. officer Bruce Riedel writes that no president since Franklin Roosevelt courted Saudi Arabia as zealously as did Obama. Not only did Obama authorize more arms sales than any other U.S. President; he visited Saudi Arabia more frequently than any of his predecessors. On his first trip to the Middle East, Riyadh was his first stop.
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Senator Murphy told me that the U.S.s support for the coalition will prove detrimental to the countrys interests. Our first job is to protect our citizenry, and, to me, these arms sales put U.S. lives in jeopardy, he said. Dafna H. Rand, a Middle East expert who covered Yemen for the State Department under Obama, said, The longer this war goes on, the longer theres a risk of deep resentment against the United States that will be radicalizing and lead to full-strain extremism. The Yemenis I spoke to expressed frustration with the U.S.s role in the war. We used to love and appreciate the U.S., because a large number of Yemenis live there, Hebari, the chanter, told me. The war has now changed that calculus. What appears to me is that the U.S. is funding and Saudi Arabia is the implementer.

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Buzzfeed's generally alright, but their reporting here was weird at best:
https://twitter.com/thetomzone/status/954906803116048384
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Had to do some digging, but here's what's going on

https://twitter.com/hashtag/PeoplesMonday?src=hash
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I didn't think twice about it until I saw people mad online over it.
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nicklebro posted...

Hitler is on the right. Gary Johnson is also on the right. Stalin was on the left. Bernie Sanders is also on the left. You claim its impossible to categorize these people in the manner I just did. Well, this post literally proves you wrong. Idk how else I can make it simpler for you to understand. Its impossible to break it down any further

This is bad, though. You have made things so simple as to obscure any real meaning in your terms. A description broad enough to include Hitler and Gary Johnson is utterly useless for practical purposes.
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Nothing makes pedants' dicks harder.
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Man, imagine the frat parties at this college for 35 year olds
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Doe posted...

Isn't Senate 50 50 without McCain

50-49, with Pence as a tiebreaker anyways
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Doesn't seem great, IMO
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The New Orleans strike was going to be my example.

The book Subterranean Fire is a really great history of the labor movement in the US, and it's where a lot of my knowledge of this history comes from. It's not specifically about cross-racial organizing, though

I've heard really great things about this book:
https://www.amazon.com/Hammer-Hoe-Alabama-Communists-Depression/dp/1469625482
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Doom_Art posted...

That's... good though, right?

I think he was referring to Democrats' leverage
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NightMarishPie posted...

why does there have to be a victor

Because politics is a material struggle
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Balrog0 posted...

it is clear to me that democrats do not see daca as a winning issue for them electorally

They are very stupid if this is the case!

http://boston.cbslocal.com/2017/12/08/cbs-news-poll-bipartisan-daca-support/

The numbers were startling 84 percent overall supported keeping DACA, 93 percent of Democrats, 82 percent of Independents, and even 74 percent of Republicans.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/368959-poll-most-americans-support-daca

The CBS News poll, released Sunday, shows 70 percent of Americans favor allowing those who benefit from the program, often known as Dreamers, to stay in the country. Congress has in recent days met to work on a long-term fix for the program.

https://www.politico.com/story/2017/09/05/poll-trump-deporting-daca-dreamers-242343

Voters overwhelmingly support allowing undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children to stay in the country, according to a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll, placing President Donald Trumps decision to wind down the controversial Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program at odds with public opinion.

A majority of voters, 58 percent, think these undocumented immigrants, also known as Dreamers, should be allowed to stay and become citizens if they meet certain requirements a sentiment that goes well beyond the existing DACA program. Another 18 percent think they should be allowed to stay and become legal residents, but not citizens. Only 15 percent think they should be removed or deported from the country.

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Quit worrying about who gets blamed for a shutdown. Republicans were overwhelmingly blamed for the 2013 shutdown, and then they won the Senate during the next midterms.
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Fam_Fam posted...

scenario 1: no one cares gop acted in bad faith, and daca doesnt get done. gop wins.

This is far more likely

Balrog0 posted...

to me the obvious reason dems did this was to punt the DACA issue without letting it hurt their party's rising 2020 hopefuls

FWIW, basically all of those with presidential ambitions voted against this, but selling DACA down the river hardly seems like a way to engender trust among voters as a party. There are midterms still between now and 2020.
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https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/01/gop-shutdown/551159/

On Monday afternoon, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer addressed a scrum of reporters in the Capitol to announce that Democrats would provide the votes to keep the government open until February 8, given Mitch McConnells agreement to address Dreamers on the Senate floor next month.

The White House was quick to boast that Democrats had cave[d]. Win for White House; Loss for Schumer, one official who had been involved in the talks texted me. He didnt really get much.

Of course, the reality is that President Donald Trump didnt have much to do with the dealhis last meeting with Schumer to avoid a shutdown was famously unproductive. Yet the official, speaking on condition of anonymity so as to describe confidential conversations, assured me that Trumps legislative affairs team has been on the Hill in the last several days working this and giving regular updates to the president, who, the source added, has been very engaged. The official added that a group of senators supportive of Trumps immigration vision were meeting at the White House on Monday afternoon.

Democrats are already struggling with how to spin this development, especially when, just three days ago, they held a hard line against funding the government, energizing their base with the promise to protect DACA recipients. But one Senate Democratic source, who asked not to be named so as to discuss private conversations with senators, told me that something like reality has shone through in the interim. The Democratic caucus became increasingly uncomfortable with the mixed poll numbers on which side would take the blame should the shutdown continue. And with Democrats edge over Republicans in the upcoming midterm elections softening, continuing the shutdown didnt seem worth the gamble. I asked the source how Democrats would try to frame the day, and the source, whos been on the Hill for over a decade, was at a loss: If you had told me yesterday this is where wed be, I would not have believed it. Yet here we are.

House Republicans are confused as to what Democrats expect to happen on DACA, one senior Republican staffer told me. The staffer, who requested anonymity due to the confidential nature of the discussions, said House Republicans had no clue what legislation to address DACA would even look like in this momenta sign of the flimsiness of the deal to which Schumer assented. Sooner or later well have to vote on something here [regarding DACA], but what that is, I dont know, the source said. I dont know the substance. I dont know the process.

The three-week stopgap bill to fund the government will sail through the House, the staffer said, as fast as they can get the papers turned around. The fate of a bipartisan compromise on DACA, howevernot to mention one that both chambers can agree onis far less promising.

Congressional Democrats are gutless dipshits.
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I can't believe they had the spine, but they promptly reverted to form.
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It's just like Cities Skylines!
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For once, I agree with TC. Ice Ice Baby does what all great art should do, by taking and building off its predecessors to create new works.
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Turbam posted...

I didn't see the "into" at first and was about to call the police.

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The President is 71 and patterns his diet after Super Size Me
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Ganon19 posted...

that would be fucking horrific. shame on you for posting such a terrible idea

Balrog0 posted...

that is a good idea

Getting mixed messages here
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You'd get to hijack some F-Zero cars
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Dat feel when
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BLAKUboy posted...

What did it say?

Something along the lines of "This account has been HACKED by the Turkish people! We have accessed the DMs and found important information!"

And there was a Turkish propaganda video
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lilORANG posted...

it's not a great feature tbh. It's used to artificially restrict how much you can explore.

I hadn't considered this view before. Personally, I think restricting your freedom to explore isn't necessarily a bad thing here. There's something to be said for avoiding the mission overload that comes with opening up the whole map at once. It streamlines the experience, so you always have a good idea of where to go and what you should be doing at a given time.
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Funkydog posted...

..Is the first post even in english?

I assume it's clearer in the original German
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Yeah, they went heavy on RPG elements for Origins. Experience, gear, boss battles...
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