A.M. Links: Super Tuesday, Trump vs. Cruz vs. Rubio, Sanders vs. Clinton

• 

  CNN

  Super Tuesday: Voters in 12 states head to the polls today.

• On the Republican side, Donald Trump is expected to prevail over rivals Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, with remaining GOP candidates John Kasich and Ben Carson bringing up the rear.

• On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton is expected to beat rival Bernie Sanders.

• According to a new poll, both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders "easily top Republican front-runner Donald Trump in hypothetical general election match-ups."

• Libertarian law professor Randy Barnett: "If Donald Trump gets the Republican nomination, then a new third party will be an imperative—and the time for organizing it is now."

• The privacy fight between Apple and the FBI heads to Capitol Hill today as FBI Director James Comey and Apple general counsel Bruce Sewell will each testify before the House Judiciary Committee.

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Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

Super Tuesday: Voters in 12 states head to the polls today.

AKA March Fools Day

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Hello.

[Lord Humungus]

Don't you have an igloo to build, you canuck?

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

I ran out of snow.

[EMD]

CLIMATE CHANGE!!!11!!11!

[Bee Tagger]

Super Tuesday: Voters in 12 states head to the polls today.

Poles to the head would be better.

[Princess Trigger]

No that's 'heads on poles'.
Or is that for the day after Pro-Cosul Trump's ascension?

[Fist of Etiquette]

On the Republican side, Donald Trump is expected to prevail over rivals Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio...

It's a Trumpernaut. Trumpalanche. Shotgun full of Trump!

[Longtorso, Johnny]

The Trumpening

[Citizen X]

Ragnarump!

[pan fried wylie]

*Tragnarump

[Rich]

"Trumpling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored!"

[Citizen X]

Trumpocalypse!

[CE]

Trumpageddon.

[Lord Humungus]

Google's Self-Driving Car Caused Its First Accident

In an accident report made public on Monday, Google disclosed that its self-driving car had caused a crash earlier this month ? the first known crash caused by one of its fleet. One of the autonomous Lexus SUVs that Google has been testing on the streets of Mountain View, California, hit a bus when it tried to change lanes.

According to the account the crash was minor ? the car was traveling at 2 mph when it sideswiped the public bus. However, with Google pushing to have its self-driving cars consumer-ready in the next few years, this is the first accident that finds fault with the autonomous vehicle. While Google's cars have been in accidents before, this is the first one where another driver was not at fault.

In the report, Google blamed sand bags in the road as the underlying cause for the accident. They were placed around a storm drain, and when the car detected them, it moved one lane over, hitting the bus in the process.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Looks like Google just threw its AI...

[dons sunglasses]

...under the bus.

[Private Chipperbot]

Looks like Google is...

(dons sunglasses)

...searching for answers.

[Fist of Etiquette]

They r-u-n-n-o-f-t.

[Charles Easterly]

Heh.

[CE]

They nicked the city bus!

[Chipper Morning Wood]

Yep, between this and those Boston Dynamics guys kicking the shit out of their robots, it's pretty safe to say there will be a robot uprising in the near future.

[Juice]

If you watch what robots are currently capable of, you realize that autonomous robots roaming around the real world making their own decisions won't be with us for quite a while. Maybe in the next 30 years, but not soon.

[CE]

More like 30 months.

[CE]

Someone destroy that video before Skynet awakens. If it's not too late already.

[LynchPin1477]

Well, that's it. We need sensible sandbag legislation.

[The Last American Hero]

It was so busy checking out the caboose on that cute little Segway it didn't see the bus. Could happen to anybody.

[Florida Man]

That doesn't make me feel better.

Google rep:" It was trying to avoid a sandbag, so the AI decided to ram a bus instead."

[LynchPin1477]

Look, I'm sure they'll update the AI to just hit the sandbag next time.

But if you happen to be injured in the middle of the street, it's probably best to make yourself look as unsandbag-like as possible.

[Certified Public Asshat]

It's hard to get sand out of all of your various crevices. The car made a good choice.

[Florida Man]

Then you're just irritable with all that sand in your whatever.

[CE]

Never assume the bigger vehicle will yield.

[Mr Lizard]

Hey Florida Man! How long do you think these cars will operate in Florida before one of our neighbors opens fire on it?

[Florida Man]

*racks shotgun*
As soon as one shows up!

[Mickey Rat]

I wonder if the sandbag registered as a possible person in the road and the program decided sideswiping the bus was the least worst option.

[Florida Man]

If so, he should have said that. Not great, but less bad.

[OneOut]

If it was only going 2 mph why didn't it just stop ?

[R C Dean]

Perhaps it "saw" the sandbag as a person/body?

[CE]

Hey, it's AI runs on silicon. The sandbag may have been a relative.

[Suthenboy]

Sandbagged!

[Bee Tagger]

"If Donald Trump gets the Republican nomination, then a new third party will be an imperative?and the time for organizing it is now."

Cleary there are a lot of great candidates to head up this 3rd party.

[Derp-o-Matic 5000]

I'd vote for Barnett or probably any candidate who promised to appoint Barnett to Scalia's seat.

[Irish ?s ESB]

They'd never try and appoint a law professor. It's pretty much always an appellate judge.

Janice Rogers Brown would be the more likely libertarian judge who we could happily cheer for as the Senate refused to confirm her.

[Derp-o-Matic 5000]

Yeah, Brown would be great. And she would bring out all of the worst racism and misogyny of the left, since, as a libertarian black woman, she doesn't count as "black" or "woman."

[Tonio]

SCOTUS was the first bench appointment for both Thomas and Kagan. All the others were on federal courts of appeals before SCOTUS. But remember that Sotomayor is the only current justice who has ever served as a trial judge. The normative career arc for these folks is law professor to federal court of appeals before SCOTUS, with an optional detour as prosecutor.

[Derp-o-Matic 5000]

Wasn't Thomas briefly on the DC Circuit?

[Tonio]

Oops, yes, you are correct.

[DJF]

They should call it the Libertarian Party, I don't think anyone is using that name.

[Derp-o-Matic 5000]

The No Donalds Club

[Jerryskids]

The GOP is already the No Donalds Club, isn't it? It says "No Donaldsss", we're allowed to have one.

[Tejicano]

Yeah, that would probably be that moment I've been hearing about.

[Rich]

Get this party started!

[Clich? Bandit]

I can not explain it but I would let Pink scar me multiple times.

I think she is smoking hot.

[Jerryskids]

Cleary there are a lot of great candidates to head up this 3rd party.

Two words: Cait lyn.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Eat Pray Love: Where are they now?

Alpha Game Plan: In defense of arranged marriages
...Over the last year, I've grown to love this boy ? who sits before me now with his head in his hands, looking for advice as to how to win her back ? as a son. My husband feels the same way. Alex, also 18, is kind, hard-working, respectful and good-looking. He adores our daughter and wants to keep her happy and safe.

What more could you want for your girl? But for Katie, what he offers isn't enough. Safe is for later. For now she wants excitement and freedom. However much we adore him, for her he isn't 'The One'....

[R C Dean]

So your daughter wants to bang bad boys. I gather its a rather large club.

[Brett L]

I'm confused. I thought the whole point of parenting was to try to impress upon your children that romantic ideas often are not as fun as they seem in the child (or young adult's) mind.

[sasob]

Of course! Women love bastards; haven't you heard?

[Citizen X]

+1 Bastard of Bolton

[OneOut]

All the good boy has to do is wait for her to get knocked up by one of the bad boys and then he will find himself with a wife AND a new baby on the way.

Especially if he makes good money when he is working hard.

[Fist of Etiquette]

On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton is expected to beat rival Bernie Sanders.

Finally, the coronation is back on track.

[Jerryskids]

Bernie is only the first name on a very long list of people Hillary expects to beat. Not that she'll do all the beating herself, she'll have most of it out-sourced, but there are a few she's going to take care of personally.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Rational Male: Assurances
...If this doubt ensuring requires men's sacrifices or special dispensations in order to accommodate women's naturalistic realities or individual deficiencies, those requirements are simply means to an end.

Furthermore, the Feminine Imperative makes exhaustive effort in social, personal and political spheres to assure women that even when their Hypergamous choices prove debilitating or damaging that they have the prerogative to reset their chances at optimization proactively or retroactively.

Whether this is realistic or not is irrelevant to the messaging. This messaging is couched in the social expectation that men are required to afford women this forgiveness of past indiscretions (single motherhood, Alpha Widows, etc.), but again, the purpose of this reset is to provide women with the maximum amount of leeway in consolidating on an optimized Hypergamy.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

In Nursing Power I outlined the power dynamic behind women's drive to maintain the primacy of a feminine defined social order, but it's too easy to simply think that women's ultimate end of attaining power is for the sake of power alone. That want for power is driven by the obsessive hindbrain need to quell the doubt that Hypergamy instills in women. All we need do is look at the societal changes women will push to legislate for once they have even marginal degrees of power...

...Thus, with all the Beta security/provisioning aspects of Hypergamy being met by men (either directly or indirectly) the Alpha sexuality/breeding aspect of Hypergamy is the only thing not directly or immediately available to women without their own qualification for it....

[Crusty Juggler]

I know you post this drivel just to get a reaction, but I am glad you do because it is so funny.

[Juvenile Bluster]

If by "funny" you mean "you get to wonder what kind of pathetic mind could actually believe this drivel", then yeah.

[LynchPin1477]

You were able to figure out what he was saying? I've seen sociology theses make less of an attempt to sound smart by dressing up the papers with utter nonsense.

[Irish ?s ESB]

You sound like a mincing beta male who is just upset because hypergamy guarantees you will not get a valuable women for breeding purposes. /sarc

[Charles Easterly]

If by "funny" you mean "you get to wonder what kind of pathetic mind could actually believe this drivel", then yeah.

Who are you to decide what is funny and what is rambling drivel, JB? Perhaps we male types should leave that up to a woman who knows better than you or I.

[Irish ?s ESB]

"...Thus, with all the Beta security/provisioning aspects of Hypergamy being met by men (either directly or indirectly) the Alpha sexuality/breeding aspect of Hypergamy is the only thing not directly or immediately available to women without their own qualification for it...."

Cool story bro.

Why are these Red Pill idiots always babbling about 'hypergamy' when women are actually less likely to marry rich men than they were in the past and people are much more likely to marry within their social class?

It's like they write massive, long-winded diatribes based on mating patterns that don't actually exist anymore.

[Lee G]

Based on that excerpt, I'll classify their bullshit along with intersectionality and privilege.

[Crusty Juggler]

It's like they write massive, long-winded diatribes

They do write massive, long-winded diatribes! That is part of what makes them hilarious.

[Lord Humungus]

'Love struck' turkey lays claim to parked Honda Civic in New Jersey

Experts said the turkey is displaying what's known as "Crazy Jake Behavior," which is named for adolescent male turkeys, or Jakes.

The experts said turkeys in the mating mindset will often become attracted to shiny objects and will sometimes show an interest in their own reflections.

DiGiacomo said Patrick wouldn't let anyone else approach the car.

"When I banged the pots and pans he came towards me. And I'll be honest, I got a little scared and I ran in the house."

[Overt]

Proof that Thanksgiving was really a federal government program to remove these wretched creatures from the face of the earth.

[OneOut]

Domestic turkeys are so stupid they have been known to drown in a heavy rain.

[Citizen X]

Wild turkeys, on the other hand, are fast, intelligent, and surprisingly vicious.

[straffinrun]

I thought we were supposed to be for Civic Unions.

[commodious spittoon]

First gay marriage, now turkeys and sedans. You were warned!

[Jerryskids]

But no comment on the guy who admits to banging pots and pans, I see. I should have guessed from your handle that you're not averse to the banging of plus-size vessels.

[R C Dean]

"Crazy Jake" would be an awesome commenter name.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Idiocracy Is a Cruel Movie and You Should Be Ashamed For Liking It
Remember that 2006 movie Idiocracy? The one where Luke Wilson plays an average underachiever who wakes up 500 years in the future, only to realize that he's now the smartest person on Earth? And everyone else is dumb ? like, really dumb? Well, that movie is cruel and terrible and you should be ashamed for liking it. Seriously....

[Lee G]

Never

*kicks self in balls*

[straffinrun]

Impressive.

[Free Society]

Go away, I'm 'batin.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

"...It's clear from the film that the intelligent people are wealthy, while the uneducated people are poor. So we're starting from a position of believing that wealthy people are inherently more intelligent and, by extension, deserve their wealth..."

"...If only we could get rid of the uneducated Americans (read: redneck poors)..."

But enough about progressive policies.

"..The problem is that we aren't living up to the ideals and promises we've given to each generation of Americans that have come before us. A livable wage, paid maternity leave, proper funding of scientific research ? these are the things a functional, civilized society are built upon; "

They are?

[Overt]

Evidently Civilized Society is a platonic ideal never before reached in human history.

Well, except for the shining examples of Cuba and North Korea, of course.

[Drake]

Sure - The Roman Republic was founded on the idea of paid maternity leave. And when they fought the Greeks in the Macedonian Wars, livable wages won the battle for them.

[Citizen X]

Johnny, this one of the dumbest things you've linked to, which is saying something.

[Suthenboy]

Anytime someone points out something that contradicts the progressive narrative the bitching and whining from progressives is epic and epically stupid. The closer to reality it is the more it hits a nerve and the more they squall.

[Mickey Rat]

The assumption that dumb is synonymous with poor and uneducated is a prime mistake. We have plenty of rich, supposedly well educated stupid people in society right now. What is worse, is that they think they are elite intellects.

[Citizen X]

Some of them even write for Gizmodo!

[Brett L]

Credentials have become increasingly less correlated with intelligence. College graduation numbers say little about underlying intelligence. Or whatever you want to call the set of traits that allow one to integrate information and take action that produces a desired effect on your environment.

[DEATFBIRSECIA]

You see, a pimp's love is very different from that of a square.

[Fist of Etiquette]

...Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders "easily top Republican front-runner Donald Trump in hypothetical general election match-ups."

Those poll respondents are not good to listen to, frankly. They're boring.

[WTF]

Jesus titty-fucking Christ, naional polls are meaningless, the President is not elected on a popular vote. Only the state-by-state vote means anything.

[WTF]

"national"

[R C Dean]

Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders "easily top Republican front-runner Donald Trump in hypothetical general election match-ups.

Yeah, yeah, grain of salt, but its interesting to look at the head-to-heads:

http://www.realclearpolitics.c....._race.html

Sanders beats every Republican by larger margins than Hillary. Hillary beats only Trump.

[John]

And the Republicans win every poll of likely voters except for Sanders beating Cruz. When you consider the huge intensity gap, the registered voter polls are meaningless. It only matters who shows up at the polls not what people tell pollsters.

[CE]

And five months ago, all the polls and pundits were telling us that Donald Trump had no chance to win the Republican nomination. Don't underestimate his voodoo debate powers.

[Lord Humungus]

Vietnamese man tries to kill rat, burns down house

The man from Hai Ha District told police that the rodent had been driving him crazy, so after catching it on Thursday, he decided to set it on fire.

The burning rat reportedly ran and hid under his car, which was parked inside the house.

Everything started catching fire after that and soon later the whole house was engulfed in flames.

When firefighters arrived, the house had been completely burnt down.

Police said no one was hurt. The damage has been estimated at billions of dong.

[Rich]

Permit me: Hai Ha!

[Animal]

"The damage has been estimated at billions of dong."

Phrasing! BOOM!

[pan fried wylie]

Sploosh.

[CE]

If it had burned down a week later, the damage would have been tens of billions of dong.

[ant1sthenes]

But did he kill the rat?

[R C Dean]

his car, which was parked inside the house.

Dude, just because your water buffalo used to live in the house, doesn't mean your car needs to.

[Free Society]

Lit the poor thing on fire? He deserved to lose billions of dongs if you ask me. Reattached and then severed again over and over.

[Bee Tagger]

FBI Director James Comey and Apple general counsel Bruce Sewell will each testify before the House Judiciary Committee.

If Apple doesn't send a ventriloquist's dummy in Sewell's place with a man wearing an FBI t-shirt with a hand in the dummy's backdoor making him speak, then I've lost all respect for Apple as a company.

[Charles Easterly]

Nice.

[Lord Humungus]

Angry Americans: How the 2008 Crash Fueled a Political Rebellion

The one story about the U.S. economy that has virtually no traction among American voters right now is that it's doing OK.

Anyone inclined to tell that story, as President Barack Obama did in his final State of the Union address in January, can find headline data to back it up. But primary-season revolts -- the Donald Trump mutiny against the Republican establishment, and the fiercer-than-expected challenge from Bernie Sanders against a Democratic frontrunner with all the advantages -- are driven by fed-up Americans saying it isn't so. And looking behind the headlines, the numbers might be on their side.

Unemployment at an eight-year low? Yes, but by most measures of the labor force, participation is down. More than six years of almost uninterrupted growth? Better than much of the industrialized world, for sure, but at a pace that won't see the economy closing its output gap until 2026 at the earliest. Wage growth finally edging higher? Maybe so, in the aggregate, but not by much -- and anyway, whose wages?

[Lee G]

People are finally wising up to the gamed metrics that the government likes to use.

They just can't agree on what to do about it.

[Catatafish & Woodchips]

Don't tell AmSoc that wages are stagnant, record numbers have left the work force and that this has been the slowest economic recovery in 70 years. It's ALL good.

[John]

He is the same kind of person who listens to Bernie and Hillary make those points and gets all motivated to go out and do something about those damned Republicans. When we are talking about the sorry state of the country, these people seem to think Bush was elected to four terms and is still in office.

[Suthenboy]

The unemployment numbers the govt puts out are completely meaningless. A total lie. The minute I hear someone tossing those numbers about I stop listening to them.

The economy is in the shitter and as long as we have an out of control regulatory state it is going to stay there.

[jarflax]

Heresy! Obviously the way to calculate unemployment is to take 90% of the adults without jobs or private means out of the pool of 'workers' and then divide the remaining 10% by the pool defined as that 10% plus those with jobs.

[Overt]

So someone was telling me that the labor force participation figures aren't indicative of a poor economy. Instead they reflect a retiring Boomer generation and a young generation that is in college. They say when you correct for these numbers, the labor participation rate isn't at all bad.

Set aside whether Boomers are retiring early to disability or kids are staying in college longer because they can't find work (this would be difficult to prove) is there any source for that data?

[Lee G]

It's utter bullshit. Labor force participation for older workers is actually up as boomers are choosing not to retire (gee, I wonder why?)

http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_table_303.htm

[jarflax]

"choosing" verb : To be forced to do something by government policy

[Lord Humungus]

I work with someone who is 72 - he hasn't retired since he doesn't have enough money saved up for a "comfortable" retirement.

One of our Ohio plants just hired a 58yo system analyst... who doesn't know jack... and she was retired for three years before getting the job. She took a big cut in pay from her last place. I tried to get a young college guy for the job, but the company didn't listen to me since it is easier to hire someone with "experience" (no matter how bad) instead of a young beginner.

[R C Dean]

They say when you correct for these numbers, the labor participation rate isn't at all bad.

Most people know older folks who haven't retired when they wanted to, and younger folks who cannot get any traction in the labor market.

Hell, I work around doctors, executives, well-paid and well-positioned folks, and we all know people in this situation.

So that claim is going to have a hard time getting any traction. Among the 10% who know or care what the participation rate is.

[Fist of Etiquette]

...FBI Director James Comey and Apple general counsel Bruce Sewell will each testify before the House Judiciary Committee.

And we'll see, under oath, which one is for America and which is for the terrorists.

[Derpmaster General]

Haven't been able to keep up here much lately, did John and Cytotoxic fuck yet?

[Lee G]

I figured they would cohabitate and adopt a refugee baby instead.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Sugarfree hasn't finished writing the story yet.

[Hamster of Doom]

NO SPOILERS.

[SugarFree]

Not even John would sleep with a Canadian.

[John]

That is true. No matter how badly I want him, eventually I remember he is a Canadian.

[Citizen X]

And he's like 12 years old. The age of consent is lower in Canada, but not THAT low.

[Mickey Rat]

Then where do Canadians come from? Do they just congeal from the permafrost?

[SugarFree]

Canadians sleep with Canadians, or so I've heard. I don't really want to know that much about them, honestly.

[Lord Humungus]

something something hockey stick

[Citizen X]

What did you think "poutine" meant?

[Catatafish & Woodchips]

Libertarian law professor Randy Barnett: "If Donald Trump gets the Republican nomination, then a new third party will be an imperative?and the time for organizing it is now."

IF ONLY THERE WAS SOME ALTERNATIVE.

No, seriously, isn't this really going to result in the third party being the Trumpeters? It will just be a U.S. Pegida, won't it?

[Rich]

IF ONLY THERE WAS SOME ALTERNATIVE.

LIKE "NONE OF THE ABOVE".

[Catatafish & Woodchips]

Certainly if the choice was between Evil, Stupid and Stupevil. It would be awfully nice if the Berners forced a similar split. Then maybe there'd be a popular psychological break from this belief that it's one party or the other and the LP could swoop in to offer a true alternative. Of course, that would require significant money to identify a bevy of candidates, the creation of a national political infrastructure and a massive marketing campaign. And for us to give two fucks.

So, "none of the above."

(sigh)

[John]

For a law professor, that guy doesn't seem to know much about government. His complaint is that the Presidency is too powerful and he is right about that. The problem is he seems to think the solution is to put the right top man as President who will "respect the constitution" and not use the power a negligent Congress has given him. Yeah, good luck with that.

The only solution to the out of control executive is for the Congress to reassert itself. All the power is with Congress. A determined Congress can crush the President. I am not sure how you get Congress to do that, but I am sure that electing the usual party hack like Hillary or Rubio who will command total loyalty from their own party is not the way to do it.

[WTF]

^This. The President cannot be stopped unless his own party is willing to hold him accountable.

[Catatafish & Woodchips]

I think that's a fair point but I also give Prof. Barnett credit: he may see this as an opportunity to re-distill "conservatism" into the "constitutionalism" that you correctly point out Congress needs to be adhering to. I hate to paraphrase that fuckwit Rahm Emanuel but this may be a crisis worth taking advantage of, even if it's for the long-play.

[John]

When the founders wrote the Constitution there was no such thing as political parties. The founders assumed the members of Congress would represent their respective states' and districts' interests not a particular party's interest. If a President got out of control, he would eventually piss off enough of the country Congress would unite and put a stop to it. The founders never counted on congressman being loyal to their party and by extension the President if he is from their party. They system of checks and balances doesn't work if half or close to half of the Congress is effectively working for the President. And that is what we have today.

[CE]

But the political parties started right after that any way. By the time Jefferson was elected the third US president, he had to reunite the Federalists and the Republicans.

[John]

We have to restore some kind of incentive structure. We can't just say "we will elect people who will respect the bounds of power". That never works. We have to have a system where people work at cross purposes such that no one branch of government can ever get control. That is what we used to have and have now lost. I am not sure how you fix it but saying "just elect people who respect the Constitution" is not a realistic solution.

[R C Dean]

It will just be a U.S. Pegida, won't it?

If only. Pegida is actually pretty reasonable on immigration. Its only if you take the "open the borders to barbarian migrants" position as "moderate" that it looks extreme.

[Rich]

Sanders -- who enjoys the most positive favorable rating of any presidential candidate in the field, according to the poll -- tops all three Republicans by wide margins: 57% to 40% against Cruz, 55% to 43% against Trump, and 53% to 45% against Rubio. Sanders fares better than Clinton in each match-up among men, younger voters and independents.

*** rubs eyes ***

Wow.

[WTF]

Socialism will work THIS TIME!!11!!!

[CE]

Other people's money.... socialists are the greediest among us.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Indonesian Mayor: Instant Noodles Causes Gay Babies

Awesome, now I can reinact my Batman/Blanche shashfic:
GOLDEN GIRLS FUNKO POP! VINYL FIGURES ARE OFFICIALLY COMING

[Fist of Etiquette]

"If Donald Trump gets the Republican nomination, then a new third party will be an imperative?and the time for organizing it is now."

EVERYONE SIGNED A PLEDGE

[straffinrun]

And then polished their knobs.

[Lord Humungus]

N.H. lawmakers think nipples are bad for tourism

Lawmakers backing a New Hampshire bill to criminalize women exposing their breasts in public say that failing to pass it could hurt the state's tourism industry and lead to rampant nudity.

Reps. Brian Gallagher and Peter Spanos are co-sponsors of legislation that would make it a misdemeanor for women to show their breasts or nipples in public with "reckless disregard" for whether it would offend someone. It's partly a response to a "Free the Nipple" movement that led to two women being cited for going topless at a Gilford beach.

Heidi Lilley, 54, said she wanted to prove the Gilford ordinance is unconstitutional and that women should be allowed to expose their upper bodies. Lilley and 28-year-old Barbara MacKinnon were ticketed on Sept. 6 of last year for their lack of shirts.

[WTF]

They say rampant nudity will hurt tourism?

[Tonio]

^This. Also, given that it's NH, that will only be a "problem" for like three months out of the year, max.

[Restoras]

Most nudists aren't 20 year old female yoga instructors.

[WTF]

Damn you!

[DEG]

Dammit.

[R C Dean]

True, but it only takes a few of them to make it worthwhile for us.

[Free Society]

Until you see Mrs Muffintop going for a jog, somethings you can't unsee.

[Lord Humungus]

Can She Do This?

[Suthenboy]

Bluenoses are blue.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Conman Blair's cynical conspiracy to deceive the British people and let in 2million migrants against the rules: Explosive new biography lays ex-PM's betrayal bare
Tony Blair presided over a silent conspiracy to change the face of Britain for ever with mass immigration, an explosive book reveals.

He ordered his Labour government never to discuss in public the supposed 'advantages' of the unprecedented influx.

But behind the scenes ministers were instructed to wave tens of thousands of asylum seekers into the UK under cover of their being 'economic migrants'. Astonishingly, the minister Mr Blair put in charge of borders ruled against deporting failed claimants because it would be too 'emotional'.

The main aim of allowing in millions of people was to make the country 'see the benefit of a multicultural society'. The Blair government did not see its job as being to 'control immigration'. The policy is revealed today in a Daily Mail serialisation of an authoritative biography of the former prime minister by Tom Bower, an internationally-acclaimed investigative journalist....

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Labour's 'secret plan' to lure migrants
The release of a previously unseen document suggested that Labour's migration policy over the past decade had been aimed not just at meeting the country's economic needs, but also the Government's "social objectives".

The paper said migration would "enhance economic growth" and made clear that trying to halt or reverse it could be "economically damaging". But it also stated that immigration had general "benefits" and that a new policy framework was needed to "maximise" the contribution of migration to the Government's wider social aims. ...

[DJF]

"economically damaging"

Just think how it would hurt the British curry market!

[Lee G]

Nevermind altering the balance of power between Labour and the Tories

[John]

Don't worry Johnny American elites are enlightened. They would never do anything like that here.

[CatoTheChipper]

The main aim of allowing in millions of people was to make the country 'see the benefit of a multicultural society'.

Multiculti for multiculti's sake has wrought ruin in the West. Multiculti simply does not work with a welfare state that is erected on a foundation of traditional Western values of family, work ethic, reason, etc. The simple fact is that many people align with cultures that do not share those values. There's some irony here: intentional multiculti is a malignant growth on the corpus of Western ideas; it is entirely self-inflicted. In Europe multiculti has ruined local, regional, and national cultures. In the US it has largely displaced assimilation and integration.

Blair and his predecessors have been so successful that the UK is probably past the point of no return (This didn't start with Blair: Enoch Powell famously predicted in the 1960s that the day would come that "for reasons which they could not comprehend, and in pursuance of a decision by default, on which they were never consulted, [the English] found themselves made strangers in their own country".)

US elites -- both blue and red -- have moved the US so far down this road that it has inspired a wicked populist backlash in the candidacy of The Donald.

[Free Society]

I just marvel at the narciscistic audacity of some politician who ascends to power and takes it upon himself to socially engineer his nation, society and culture out of existence. Thousands of years of history and heritage, and all it takes to irrevocably change and destroy those things is a politician with an idea passing whim.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Police conspired to protect Rotherham child sex abusers
Corrupt police and an influential politician fuelled a culture of impunity that allowed three brothers to "own" the town of Rotherham and abuse children until their crimes were exposed by The Times.

One officer had sex with under-age girls, passed drugs to the sex-grooming gang and tipped them off when colleagues were searching for missing children, a court was told.

Another helped to broker a deal in which one brother returned an abused girl to police after receiving an assurance that he "wouldn't get done"...

[Lord Humungus]

About 100 Workers Walk Out at Tesla Battery Plant Building Site

At least 100 workers at the construction site for Tesla Motors Inc.'s battery factory near Reno, Nevada, walked off the job Monday to protest use of workers from other states, a union official said.

Local labor leaders are upset that Tesla contractor Brycon Corp. is bringing in workers from Arizona and New Mexico, said Todd Koch, president of the Building and Construction Trades Council of Northern Nevada.

"It's a slap in the face to Nevada workers to walk through the parking lot at the job site and see all these license plates from Arizona and New Mexico," Koch said in an interview. Those who walked out were among the hundreds on the site, he said.

[Overt]

It's a Koch brothers conspiracy to keep E-Cars off the market!

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

WHO KILLED THE TESLA CAR AND RAPED ELON MUSK?

[Free Society]

Todd Koch, the lesser known Koch brother and operative.

[Tonio]

Ha, ha...

[Harun]

Nevada must think its a country or something.

Also, no California plates?

[Longtorso, Johnny]

'I loved her, I wanted children. Then she started reading the Koran': Cuckolded husband of female prison guard on the run with migrant who raped 15-year-old girl fears they are going to Syria
Hassan Kiko has escaped from jail after seducing a female prison guard
The 27-year-old was serving a sentence for raping a 15-year-old schoolgirl
He received asylum in Switzerland in 2010 after fleeing his native Syria
Police are now hunting for Kiko as well as prison officer Angela Magdici
Husband says she was fascinated with Syria and fears the pair will go there

[Libertarian]

If I were a cuckolded husband, the fact that my wife was running away to Syria would not exactly rank high on my list of fears.

[Brett L]

In fact, I would be thanking whatever diety I believed in that she had not only left, but done so in such a way that not even American courts would think she deserved alimony. Plus I could probably keep all of our stuff.

[R C Dean]

If she wants to be a sex toy for maniacs, who is he to say no?

[ant1sthenes]

If there was some quasi-Dexter out there who hunted down girls who fell in love with serial killers, and killed them before they could breed, it would be a great service to human evolution.

[Lord Humungus]

Marco Rubio Pushed for Immigration Reform With Conservative Media

Their mission was to persuade Rupert Murdoch, the owner of the media empire, and Roger Ailes, the chairman and chief executive of its Fox News division, to keep the network's on-air personalities from savaging the legislation and give it a fighting chance at survival.

Mr. Murdoch, an advocate of immigration reform, and Mr. Ailes, his top lieutenant and the most powerful man in conservative television, agreed at the Jan. 17, 2013, meeting to give the senators some breathing room.

But the media executives, highly attuned to the intensifying anger in the Republican grass roots, warned that the senators also needed to make their case to Rush Limbaugh, the king of conservative talk radio, who held enormous sway with the party's largely anti-immigrant base.

So the senators supporting the legislation turned to Mr. Rubio, the Florida Republican, to reach out to Mr. Limbaugh.

[Lord Humungus]

Merkel defends open borders for migrants amid German rift

"Sometimes, I also despair. Some things go too slow. There are many conflicting interests in Europe," Merkel told state broadcaster ARD. "But it is my damn duty to do everything I can so that Europe finds a collective way."

Merkel spelled out her motivation to keep Germany's borders open without limits on refugees, a goal many in her own country and coalition government openly disagree with.

"There is so much violence and hardship on our doorstep," she said. "What's right for Germany in the long term? There, I think it is to keep Europe together and to show humanity."

Merkel, once highly popular, has seen her ratings plummet because of her handling of the migrants issue. The majority of those surveyed by public broadcaster ARD earlier in February were dissatisfied with her.

[DJF]

"But it is my damn duty to do everything I can so that Europe finds a collective way."

So in order to find a collective way she does not consult the public before inviting millions to move to Germany.

[WTF]

You know what other German wanted to find a collective way via dictatorship?

[Charles Easterly]

Herbert Hoover?

[Suthenboy]

That stupid bitch is going to end up at the end of a rope.

[ant1sthenes]

Europe is definitely going far-right-wing, it's just a question of which right wing will prevail.

[Free Society]

"far right" of course being the nomenclature applied to all non-socialist weasels in Europe. My attention drops to zero when someone in Europe starts lamenting the rise of the "far right" like their media tells them to.

[Lord Humungus]

First VW?

Mercedes receives request for information on emission levels from U.S. authorities

Daimler says the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has requested information from its luxury car brand Mercedes-Benz to explain diesel emissions levels in some of its cars.

A spokesman for Daimler said it was fully cooperating with the request for information on Sunday, and that Mercedes cars conformed with all rules and norms.

Daimler said the EPA request for information came in response to a class-action lawsuit filed by law firm Hagens Berman on Feb. 18, 2016, in U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey.

The suit accuses Mercedes of deceiving consumers with false representations of its BlueTEC vehicles, which it marketed as "the world's cleanest and most advanced diesel."

[Lee G]

I guarantee VW was not the only one gaming their tests.

[John]

I agree. The fix was too obvious and too ingenious for other companies not to have also done it.

The problem is not VW. The problem is totally unrealistic emissions and fuel consumption standards. You can't build a car anyone would want to own and meet those standards.

[Griffin3]

Time to start up Spartacus Motor Co. ?

[Charles Easterly]

Will their first car be named the Gladius?

[Private Chipperbot]

They will all be named Spartacus...

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Absolutely there weren't the only ones.

[Jerryskids]

If we ask nicely, do you think Mother England might take us back?

Amid all the over-hyped discussion of Brexit, there is actually a far more powerful force at work, and one that will have a far bigger impact on the global economy. The painfully uncompetitive American tax system is starting to trigger a steady exodus of companies.

When the freaking UK starts licking its chops over grabbing some of the bounty fleeing the US, is it not time to start wondering what the hell we're doing wrong?

[WTF]

Those fleeing companies are not doing their patriotic duty by not letting Uncle Sam fleece them! We need to close this loophole!!1!!!

[Lord Humungus]

Fears of Trump as Fascist Echo Similar Warnings Against Ronald Reagan

Democratic Rep. William Clay of Missouri charged that Reagan was "trying to replace the Bill of Rights with fascist precepts lifted verbatim from Mein Kampf." The Los Angeles Times cartoonist Paul Conrad drew a panel depicting Reagan plotting a fascist putsch in a darkened Munich beer hall. Harry Stein (later a conservative convert) wrote in Esquire that the voters who supported Reagan were like the "good Germans" in "Hitler's Germany."...John Roth, a Holocaust scholar at Claremont College, wrote: "I could not help remembering how 40 years ago economic turmoil had conspired with Nazi nationalism and militarism?all intensified by Germany's defeat in World War I??to send the world reeling into catastrophe. . . . It is not entirely mistaken to contemplate our postelection state with fear and trembling."

Second, Mr. Trump hasn't even won the presidency yet. There's a reasonable chance that Hillary Clinton would defeat him in a general election, vanquishing Trumpism for a generation to come and sending the Republican Party a clear message that if it wants to win the White House it will have to jettison the anti-immigrant platform.

[John]

Not all populism is fascism. Were William Jennings Bryan or Andrew Jackson fascists? And some dose of populism is healthy for a republic. You can't have a republic where the ruling elites completely disregard and screw the population. A healthy fear of the public on the part of elites is a good thing for the Republic. Our current elites seem to have lost their survival instincts.

[Juice]

Were William Jennings Bryan or Andrew Jackson fascists?

Yes. Most definitely.

[John]

No they were not. At least not by any definition most people would find reasonable.

[WTF]

It seems completely lost on these people that Fascism is a form of socialism. To them, "Fascism" is just whatever they don't like politically.

[Mr. Flanders]

Pure fascists actually favor a mixed economy. You're referring to the Nazi brand of fascism, which had a socialist economic structure.

[Rich]

North Texas Police Chief Offended By School's Black History Program

In closing, the Black History program was a success! The cultural exchange was embraced by the staff, students and community members that attended. I hope this apology finds everyone in the best of spirits. Have a great weekend!

"Cultural exchange"?

[Hyperbolical]

Grievance holidays FTW!

[John]

This link is down, so sorry for the long post. From the Weekly Standard today. My God are these people scum.

The news last week was that The New Republic had been sold. After the magazine's turbulent tenure under Facebook mogul Chris Hughes, it was purchased by Win McCormack, an Oregon resident.

Yet McCormack has a bit of an unsavory past.

In the 1970s, Portland, Oregon, mayor Neil Goldschmidt started sleeping with his kids' babysitter. She was 14 when it started. It didn't become public, but it also wasn't a well-guarded secret. Goldschmidt took her to parties with other power brokers in the state, but no one said anything. As Multnomah County Sheriff Bernie Giusto put it, "You could argue that I had an ethical responsibility to do something." Goldschmidt went on to be Carter's secretary of transportation and was elected governor of Oregon in 1986. In 1990, Goldschmidt stunned Oregon when he announced that he wasn't running for a second term.

[John]

That Goldschmidt raped a babysitter didn't become public until 14 years later later in the wake of a scandal involving Goldschmidt and his lobbying clients, as well as some dogged Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting from Willamette Week that brought it to light. They were referred to as the "light rail mafia" because Goldschmidt was exploiting all of the transportation rules and development restrictions that he himself had put in place when he was in office. The story was that Goldschmidt's victim had threatened to go public and one of the conditions of the settlement was that he would leave public life. So he became the state's top lobbyist, not that the move would necessarily prevent him from doing less political damage. (I wrote about all of this in more detail in my dissection of Portlandia a few years ago.)

When Goldschmidt's indiscretions finally became public, Willamette Week did a big autopsy of the scandal titled, "Who Knew?" Well, Win McCormack knew:

Currently the publisher of the literary quarterly Tin House, McCormack has a lengthy journalistic background. In the '60s, he co-founded the San Francisco magazine Mother Jones, which built its reputation on investigative journalism. After moving to Portland in 1976, McCormack published the well-respected Oregon Magazine (which closed in 1988), as well as Oregon Business magazine, where he remains a board member.

[John]

In addition, McCormack has long been a large contributor to statewide and national campaigns. In October, for example, he gave what the Oregon Follow the Money Project says is the biggest single political contribution in the state's history: $1 million to America Coming Together, a Democratic get-out-the-vote operation.

McCormack told WW he learned of Goldschmidt's secret not long after the governor's surprise announcement in 1990. "The brother of a friend of mine was dating [Susan] when Goldschmidt said he wasn't going to run again," recalls McCormack. "He said, 'Let me tell you the real reason he isn't running.'"

With his journalistic experience, McCormack knew what a huge story he had been handed. Still, he chose to do nothing. "I didn't feel like it was my business, and even though I don't like Neil, I didn't want to destroy him," McCormack says.

McCormack says he never shared the secret, even though Goldschmidt's surprise decision remained perhaps the greatest mystery in Oregon politics over the past 15 years.

By the time Goldschmidt's crimes were revealed, the statute of limitations had expired so he was immune from criminal prosecution. And a parade of Oregon's most influential came to Goldschmidt's defense and predicted, correctly it turns out, that he would survive this scandal. For the full litany, read this harrowing and damning op-ed by Fred Leonhardt on what happened. Unlike the Willamette Week piece, it didn't win a Pulitizer. But it should have.

[John]

And the cherry on top is how the whole thing ended

In 2008, a few years after admitting he didn't go public with his knowledge that Oregon's Democratic governor was a rapist, McCormack wrote a book a called You Don't Know Me: A Citizen's Guide to Republican Family Values. According to the cover blurb from Arianna Huffington, "Win McCormack reveals the true hypocrisy and depravity of those who love to quote the bible but act like Caligula."

In 2011, Elizabeth Lynn Dunham, Goldschmidt's teenage victim, died in hospice at age 49. She spent most of her life battling addiction and mental illness. Neil Goldschmidt is still with us. When he's not in Oregon, he lives on an estate in the South of France.

If there is a hell, wow do these people belong there.

[Juvenile Bluster]

This kind of story makes me wish I was a religious person who believed in Hell, to know there'd be some kind of punishment for these people.

[John]

It is not even so much the horrible behavior that infuriates you, though that should make you plenty angry. What really makes you wish for eternal damnation of these people is their smug conviction that they are morally superior to everyone else and therefore the rules shouldn't apply to them. No one involved in that story except for the poor woman who was raped, ever felt in any way bad or like they had done something wrong.

[Drake]

I don't believe in the Devil.

John Constantine: You should. He believes in you

[Florida Man]

Good movie, because Shia LaBeef dies.

[Homple]

"The devil's finest trick is to persuade you that he does not exist."
...Baudelaire

[Suthenboy]

Same here JB. Believing in hell is a good coping mechanism for dealing with the horrible injustice of the world. Unfortunately I just can't make myself do it.

[Catatafish & Woodchips]

"With his journalistic experience, McCormack knew what a huge story he had been handed. Still, he chose to do nothing. "I didn't feel like it was my business, and even though I don't like Neil, I didn't want to destroy him," McCormack says."

Them's some good journalistic ethics you got there, boy.

[John]

All he did was rape a 14 year old girl catafish. Its not like he became a Republican or something.

That is actually how these creatures think. That is how much deriving your slef worth from your politics corrupts you.

[Mickey Rat]

I guess you can act like Caligula as long as you Do not quote the Bible from McCormack's and Huffington's point of view.

[Pope Jimbo]

A local cop gets a Get Out of Jail Free card.

Cops find a drunk in a running car next to some empty beer cans with his cock hanging out. Fails all sobriety tests and is cuffed and stuffed in the cruiser. When cops go through his wallet they discover he is a cop. Surprisingly their body mikes stop working and the next thing you know the guy is uncuffed and they find a ride home for him.

[Juvenile Bluster]

This is news? This is standard operating procedure, isn't it?

[CatoTheChipper]

The term of art for this is "professional courtesy".

[Crusty Juggler]

The police dash camera captures the moment when Officer Norby and his partner, Officer Brandon Fettig, examine Monberg's wallet.

"Oh crap!" one of them exclaims.

Then, without saying a word, both pull out and turn off their body microphones and step out of view of the patrol car cameras.

In the back seat of the squad car, though, another police camera is still recording video and audio of what happened next.

They were such douchebags until they saw the badge, too.

[Lord Humungus]

A new GOP is born
Pat Buchanan: Regardless of nominee, Trump surge marks 'death rattle' of establishment

We hear wails that the nomination of Trump would mean the end of the conservative movement. But how so?

If Trump won and conducted a conservative government, it would validate the movement. If Trump won and turned left, it would inspire an insurgency like Ronald Reagan's in 1976, when the Ford-Rockefeller-Kissinger administration moved too far toward detente.

If Trump ran and lost, the conservative movement would have President Clinton to unite and rally the troops against.

One recalls Barry Goldwater's historic wipeout in 1964. But, in 1966, Republicans made the greatest gains in a generation, and went on to win the presidency for 20 of the next 24 years.

Undeniably, a Trump presidency would mean an end to the Bush and establishment policies on trade, immigration and intervention.

[Juvenile Bluster]

Trial between Hulk Hogan and Gawker over sex tape set to begin

Oh, please let this bankrupt Gawker. Pretty pretty please.

[Brett L]

Give it to the Hulkster, he knows how to entertain.

[John]

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/20.....sian-joke/

Racism is bad, except when you are making fun of Asians.

[Rich]

Oh, I thought the Minions joke was the making fun of Asians offender.

[Lord Humungus]

National Review: The Rats Are Scurrying: Republican Officeholders Who Endorse Trump Are Sellouts

So, the Trump fans are right. The Republican party is full of people who care more about power than about conservatism.

How do we know? Because many of them are choosing to support Donald J. Trump. After all, there's nothing conservative about Donald Trump. He's a Dorito-tinted proto-fascist who admires Vladimir Putin and Saddam Hussein, a conspiracy theorist who accuses George W. Bush of deceiving the nation into war, and a cad who brags about bedding "top women." He's advocated relaxing libel laws so that, when he's president, he can more easily sue his critics. He's touted "the good parts" of Planned Parenthood. He's praised single-payer health care.

Dispense with the fantasy that Donald Trump would, at least, spare us the progressive radicalism of Hillary Clinton. He would be every bit as bad, and in many of the same ways.

Republicans should be able to say that. But it is apparent that members of the party are currently struggling to decide whether the party, or the things the party has historically stood for, are more important.

[John]

Maybe the people at National Review should ask why so many supporters of their own party hate them so much? If your "ideology" involves screwing so many people so badly that they turn to someone like Trump, maybe you should rethink your ideology a bit.

These people are totally incapable of any sort of self reflection.

[Domestic Dissident]

The National Review crowd are a bunch of unrepentant bubble sociopaths. They're the miniscule remaining dead-ender portion of the population that actually still thinks George W. Bush was freaking awesome and the Iraq War was a great idea.

[John]

I will defend the Iraq war more than most. Even I, however, will admit that the Iraq war was not a "conservative" war. it was a Wilsonian war fought to affirm US credibility and the credibility of the UN. There was nothing conservative about it. Movement conservatives are so ideologically bankrupt they have convinced themselves that defending a Wilsonian war like Iraq is a litmus test for who is a "real conservative".

[Suthenboy]

I keep hearing all this bitching from RINOs more concerned with power than conservatism about Trump meaning the end of conservatism. It is the end of their power that they fear. Anytime something resembling a real conservative ascends they do everything they can to sabotage them.

Fuck those guys.

[Princess Trigger]

An interesting article about how refugees are sought as a way of saving dying rural regions in Italy. But they don't seem to care why those regions are dying and why Arab refugees might make exactly the same calculations and choices that sent their children and grandchildren out of the regions.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/.....ear-mounts
""I had to give up [hiring a good worker] due to the social contributions and work insurance costs involved in a new non-subsidized contract. I just could not afford it."

[Lee G]

They'll never unwind the overhead costs of hiring. At least not until they go completely broke.

[Rich]

At least 2,079 Clinton emails contain classified material

Hillary: no classified emails

When will the indictment come?

[Juvenile Bluster]

I'm going to go with "never".

[Rich]

"It was a 'reasonable mistake of law'!"

[Lee G]

Either a criminal or a fool. There are no other options.

I'm going with the former.

Listened to NPR on the way in today. One of their female reporters (can't remember which one) was interviewing a 20 something woman. All the questions were phrased as to imply "How could you possibly not vote for the (Democratic) vagina?"

[Lord Humungus]

Democratic Vagina? Is that like the Village Bicycle?

[Rich]

So, a bleeding part liberal?

[Tonio]

[golf clap]

And I'm stealing that.

[SugarFree]

Nice. Good one, Rich.

[Citizen X]

So, you got the coveted SugarFree Seal of Depravity. My thoughts and prayers are with you.

[John]

She is not a fool. A fool would have let her advisers do everything and none of this would have happened. She is an arch criminal.

[Lee G]

Either way, unfit for office. And it's painfully obvious.

[John]

My prog friends have no idea how bad this is and refuse to believe me when I explain why it is.

1800 and counting classified emails? I have seen entire servers wiped clean because one email contained one line of classified information. The extent of her misconduct just boggles the mind.

[Lee G]

Pretty sure it was Tamara Keith

[Libertarian]

It's not an "either/or" issue. She has been both. She is both. And, if elected, will continue to be both.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

Saw a meme last night with Hillary:

Voting for Hillary because she's a woman is like drinking antifreeze because it looks like gatorade!

[Trigger Warning]

So maybe the outcome we're gonna get is: Trump nominated, Repukes over as a serious national party, President Clinton in office with an opposition-controlled Congress.

That might not be so bad. HRC will be GWB part 3 and the general antipathy toward her might result in delicious gridlock.

Holy shit. The best outcome I can envision is still pretty bad.

[Rich]

"an opposition-controlled Congress"

Like the one that's reined in the current president so well?

[Lord Humungus]

har.

[Tonio]

There hasn't been a red meat issue like the emails.

[AlmightyJB]

The big red meat issue is illegal immigration which the establishment gop has ignored or paid only lip service to for decades, and more recently are basically no different then dems on the issue. That is why Trump has taken over the nomination. The nativist populist wing is tired of the gop rhetoric and no action. Doesn't hurt that the other 67% of republucans are splitting their votes 714 ways .

[Jerryskids]

The big red meat issue is illegal immigration which the establishment gop has ignored or paid only lip service to for decades

They ignored it because it wasn't a big issue until the economy fell in the shitter and all of a sudden "deyterkerjerbs!" became a viable rallying cry - and that's exactly what Trump's taking advantage of and that's exactly why we're so fucking fucked with Trump. Trump's gonna build a wall to keep out all those thieving Mexicans what stole our jobs, but it's not the Mexicans stealing our jobs, it's the regulatory state that's stealing our jobs. Trump took a jab at Carrier moving production to Mexico because of cheap labor, but Carrier itself said it wasn't the cost of labor so much as the cost of complying with the EPA and the DoL. You simply can't competitively manufacture a damn thing in this country any more that requires a smokestack at the factory or a labor force that can't do the job without the requisite number of women and gays and blacks and handicapped and left-handed albino midgets who all get 12 weeks maternity leave every take they take a dump.

[Jerryskids]

Now Trump's fine with that level of regulation, he got to be king of New York real estate by knowing all the right palms to grease and he has zero interest in making it any easier for the next guy to come along and build any properties without having even more palms to grease even heavier. He's a crony capitalist - as long as I get mine who gives two shits about what the consumer wants? The harder I make it for anybody else to do business, the better it is for me.

So he's gonna build a literal wall with Mexico and a virtual wall with China by slapping a 35% tariff on imported goods - that's going to bring plenty of jobs back to America. And we're going to need those jobs because you just put Walmart out of business. But fuck Walmart, those are low-paying jobs for losers anyway, they can all get jobs at Bloomingdale's where we'll all be buying our clothes now. Sure, they'll be $15 t-shirts instead of $5 t-shirts, but that's only a big deal to the sorts of losers who have jobs where $5 is a lot of money - like Donald Trump's supporters.

[Jerryskids]

But, hey, Mexicans make a convenient scapegoat and scapegoats ain't hard to find once you start looking for them, when the walls don't bring prosperity back to America we'll be able to find a new one easy enough. As long as you're economically illiterate and don't understand bailing out GM means the government forced you to buy cars you didn't want to buy just for the sake of giving a big-ass welfare check to every GM employee who helped GM become the shithole that required government coercion of its "customers" to stay in business. And that Donald Trump is going to give you lots more of the same, because Trump thinks the government using force to make you buy shit you don't want to buy is just good business. He got rich off of it, didn't he?

[John]

It must be great to wake up every day with the certain knowledge that everything you believe is absolutely correct and governed by a foolproof ideology and everyone else is racist and ignorant. It must be a great life.

[AlmightyJB]

"Like the one that's reined in the current president so well?"

Yes, and they're confused as to why Trump is doing well.

[EMD]

Hillary ain't half-black. And women hate women more than men hate women.

[Trigger Warning]

I know. I'm grasping at air.

[R C Dean]

Trump nominated, Repukes over as a serious national party, President Clinton in office with an opposition-controlled Congress.

Which is it? The Repubs are done as a serious party, or the Repubs control Congress?

[Trigger Warning]

I didn't necessarily envision the Repubs as the opposition. They've hardly been opposition anyway.

[CE]

Except Trump will win.

[Juvenile Bluster]

Shocking story here. San Francisco police said they shot Amilcar Perez-Lopez 6 times when he lunged at them with a knife. Turns out he was shot in the back.

[R C Dean]

Over/under on how long until the cops are cleared?

I'm gonna say six months, to give it time to cool down and become old news.

[Brett L]

Everyone knows that criminals run at cops backwards so they can get shot and blame the cops!

[straffinrun]

Price controls on condoms on Puerto Rico. The condom bubble has burst.
http://www.theguardian.com/wor.....zika-virus

[Tonio]

Boo!

[Domestic Dissident]

Between Zika and the impending bankruptcy and economic collapse, the island has been slowly depopulating itself as more and more people there are moving to Florida.

[Libertarian]

So Puerto Rico is a bit like a pet Cuba for the USA?

[Juvenile Bluster]

Nihilist Arby's ?@nihilist_arbys 5m5 minutes ago
Trump: a sentient beef n cheddar who cares for nothing save his own immediate pleasure as he courts the end of all things
choose doom

Arbys

[Lord Humungus]

Texas Candidate Zena Stephens' Office Shot in Apparent Racial Attack

Stephens told NBC News that she was standing outside her campaign headquarters in Beaumont, Texas, when a white male in a white Jeep pulled up and shouted "f*** the n*****s." Seconds later, a shot shattered the glass door of the building.

No one was hit or injured. There were about 25 people inside the building and five or six outside the office, Stephens said.

"Anytime something like that happens with innocent people around you're concerned for them," Stephens said. "I don't know if it was a random act or whether it was targeted, but I just think it is, you know, ignorance."

[John]

More racial healing in the Obama era. Lovely.

[Irish ?s ESB]

Black person shot at in alleged racist attack and you blame Obama.

Okay.

[John]

I didn't blame Obama. Read the post again and think about it. The joke is that electing Obama was sold as a way to end the racial divide in this country. It hasn't exactly worked out that way has it? That doesn't have to be Obama's fault for the promise to have been a complete lie.

[DEATFBIRSECIA]

If you have to explain the joke it's not funny.

[John]

Sure, but I didn't have to explain it to everyone, just Irish. The corollary to your statement is "if you have to have the joke explained to you, you don't get it". And yes, he didn't get it.

[Crusty Juggler]

Blatant racists seem to only attack fairly obscure political figures.

[WTF]

So.....you're saying this could actually be a cheap political stunt?! That would never happen, would it?

[straffinrun]

No,no,no. The boy who cries wolf isn't supposed to actually shoot at himself. I hate these new versions of the old tales.

[R C Dean]

I put the odds that this is a false flag attack at a dead even 50/50.

[Brett L]

Apparently they got the license plate and went to the guy's house. We'll know by tomorrow. They were questioning "several" people, so I'm not betting yet.

[R C Dean]

Me neither. That's what I mean when I say 50/50.

[CatoTheChipper]

Having lived there, I'd take that action, wagering against it being false flag. I'd lay 3:2 the perps were just some reckless knuckleheads rather than false flag.

Vidor was one of very few municipal strongholds of the KKK just two decades ago, and is just across the Neches River. Jefferson County is one of few solidly Democrat counties in Texas, and has a long history of Klan activity. I know the Klan had rallies in the woods north of Beaumont back when I lived there forty years ago, but it was already in decline then. I never met anyone who was so proud of being a Klan member that they'd talk about it in polite society. My only encounter with the Klan was when I was hunting rabbits in those woods and ran across two armed Klansmen posting bills announcing a rally. (That was a bit unsettling, but those two clowns were more pathetic than hateful.) I haven't been back, but I imagine that a residual amount of real racism remains. On the bright side, a black woman has a chance to win an election there as a Democrat even though the county is majority white. That's progress!

[Unreconstructed (Sans Flag)]

Oh, Vidor...back in HS they were in our district for a bit. Only all-white football team I ever saw in person. East Texas is definitely *not* the enlightened part of the state.

[Lord Humungus]

EU migrant crisis: Calais 'Jungle' clearance work resumes

French authorities believe about 1,000 migrants will be affected by the eviction plan while aid agencies say the number of people living there is much higher.

The BBC's Anna Holligan in Calais says that migrants, under cover of darkness, tried to access lorries on the motorway heading towards the port.

Riot police fired tear gas, forcing them back, she said.

Those living in the camp, mainly from the Middle East, Afghanistan and Africa, hope to cross the Channel to the UK, often using people traffickers to try to enter illegally.

You know who else moved under the cover of darkness...

[WTF]

Batman?

[SugarFree]

He is the night, after all.

[EMD]

The Rolling Stones?

[DEATFBIRSECIA]

That dude in Trainspotting who shit the bed?

[CE]

Dracula?

[Derp-o-Matic 5000]

I can't believe I actually agree with Piers Morgan about something. (Well, except that I don't watch the Oscars at all)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....ights.html

[John]

Did they really talk about sex abuse? These are the same people who gave Roman Polanski and Oscar a few years ago.

[Derp-o-Matic 5000]

See your own comment above. It's their smug conviction that they are morally superior to everyone else and therefore the rules don't apply to them. They "bravely take stands" on issues that all of their friends and everyone around them agrees with, while behaving reprehensibly. Hollywood's record with discrimination and sex abuse (nevermind the rumors of rampant pedophilia that crop up from time to time) is disgusting, but hey look I hashtagged on the Twitter that I don't like rape!!!!

[John]

I think if the full truth ever came out, the pedophilia in Hollywood would make what went in the Catholic church look like and old man saying something dirty at a church picnic by comparison. You are telling me that when 200 kids who are all equally cute and motivated show up to audition for a part, none of these degenerates take advantage of it?

[Certified Public Asshat]

Yeah wanting to be entertained and watching the Oscars does not compute, but otherwise he is mostly on point.

[Lord Humungus]

Suspended Gophers Possibly Linked To Sex Tapes

The U announced that two freshmen and one sophomore were being suspended just minutes before Sunday night's game against the University of Illinois.

Comments on the message board website Gopherhole.com said one of the players, Kevin Dorsey, posted two graphic sex tapes to his Twitter account on Friday. Dorsey's Twitter account is no longer active.

The U issued a brief statement that said freshmen Kevin Dorsey and Dupree McBrayer and sophomore Nate Mason were being disciplined for violating team rules.

"There are expectations and standards to which we hold our student-athletes accountable, and they have failed to do so," head coach Rick Pitino said in the statement.

[John]

What the hell kind of weirdo watches a gopher sex tape?

[straffinrun]

A Minnesota Fratboy?

[Derp-o-Matic 5000]

Someone who visits gopherhole.com, it would appear...

[Robert]

Never mind that...who's still using Gopher rather than a Web browser & portal?

[Roger the Shrubber]

Rule 36: Gopherhole.com

[Citizen X]

"Gopher, Everett?"

[Brett L]

I would sue the University and say that there is ample reason in the current climate for a college athlete to record all sexual encounters in order to defend against later action by both schools and individuals.

Posting it to Twitter was dumb.

[Lord Humungus]

Inside the Clinton Team's Plan to Defeat Donald Trump

That strategy is beginning to take shape, with groups that support Mrs. Clinton preparing to script and test ads that would portray Mr. Trump as a misogynist and an enemy to the working class whose brash temper would put the nation and the world in grave danger. The plan is for those themes to be amplified later by two prominent surrogates: To fight Mr. Trump's ability to sway the news cycle, Mr. Clinton would not hold back on the stump, and President Obama has told allies he would gleefully portray Mr. Trump as incapable of handling the duties of the Oval Office.

Democrats say they risk losing the presidency if they fail to take Mr. Trump seriously, much as Republicans have done in the primary campaign.

"He's formidable, he understands voters' anxieties, and he will be ruthless against Hillary Clinton," said Gov. Dannel P. Malloy of Connecticut. "I've gone from denial ? 'I can't believe anyone would listen to this guy' ? to admiration, in the sense that he's figured out how to capture everyone's angst, to real worry."

[John]

That strategy is beginning to take shape, with groups that support Mrs. Clinton preparing to script and test ads that would portray Mr. Trump as a misogynist and an enemy to the working class whose brash temper would put the nation and the world in grave danger.

The problem with that strategy is I am not sure how it motives Democrats to show up and vote for Hillary. I suppose it could disillusion Trump supporters, but I can't see how it will motivate Democrats. The last six elections have been determined entirely by which side showed up to the polls. And right now Hillary has a huge enthusiasm gap with the Republicans. If she doesn't fix that, she can't win. I am not sure how that does it.

[Catatafish & Woodchips]

While it might have an effect on some independents, nothing will disillusion true Trump supporters. Their skulls are impenetrable to battery acid, much less truth.

[John]

I think you are probably right about that. That is one of the reasons I think Trump might beat her. Her only hope is to convince her opponent's supporters not to show up. Good luck doing that with Trump voters.

She would have a better shot if she wasn't so well known as a crook herself. Trump will get right down in the mud with her. If it turns out to be a mud wrestle between two candidates the country hates, people are likely to give the tie to the new guy.

[CatoTheChipper]

I'm old enough to remember Bill Moyer's "Daisy" ad.

Today's ten-year-olds in contested states are going to be traumatized by far worse when it's HRC v The Donald.

[Citizen X]

I'd not be surprised if there was a bidding war between the two campaigns over SugarFree's ad-writing services.

[Roger the Shrubber]

Who didn't know that this would be the primary campaign strategy regardless of the Republican nominee? Why can't I get paid to be a campaign consultant?

[John]

No kidding. Okay Mrs Clinton, my brilliant plan is to call the Republican nominee a racist sexist oligarch who hates women, minorities and working people.

Why didn't we think of this before?

[Emmerson Biggins]

And I think Trump is the one guy who has shown he is quasi-immune to this kind of attack. He loves it when it's all about trash talking. You think maybe they would have noticed this by now.

[R C Dean]

portray Mr. Trump as a misogynist

I'm sure Trump is just quivering in fear. "Please don't throw me into that briar patch, Ms. Rapist's Spouse"!

[bassjoe]

How many times has Trump -- as an individual and his corporate entities -- been sued? How many times has he been put under oath to explain his actions? I imagine the answer to both of those questions is "a lot" and many of those lawsuits and transcripts are likely buried in county-level courthouses scattered around the country.

There is likely a shit-ton of dirt on Trump out there that has not been mined by his Republican opponents or their Super PACs (because they are, apparently, complete idiots who burned countless millions on attacking each other in Iowa and New Hampshire). The Polish illegal immigrant thing is likely just the tip of the iceberg.

You can bet Hillary now has interns rifling through decades-old filings in courthouses in every jurisdiction Trump has ever had a business venture.

[John]

All of that is true. But that only works if the people who support Trump care. Think about all of the dirt that was out there on Obama. Yes, the media did everything it could to cover it up but it was out there and people knew. They just didn't care because voting for Obama was their way of showing how tolerant they were and no amount of dirt about Obama was going to deprive them of that pleasure.

Trump is similar in that voting for him is a brand. It is the way you can say fuck you to the entire media and political culture. I don't think dragging up people Trump screwed over the years is going to have much effect on people who want to do that. The only issue is how many of those people are out there.

[Lord Humungus]

No black animals were harmed...

Look at These Photos of Shirtless Irish Farmers Snuggling Baby Animals

[DEG]

Someone finds 75 rounds of pistol ammunition underneath a house and the bomb squad evacuates nearby homes.

In San Antonio of all places.

[WTF]

Hey, it's well-known that pistol rounds can go off all by themselves and blow up houses!

[AlmightyJB]

Bomb squad wanted to play with their millions of dollars worth of toys that they don't need.

[AlmightyJB]

Who will be the next King of the Idiots.

[Lord Humungus]

*raises hand* me?

[MJGreen - Docile Citizen]

According to a new poll, both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders "easily top Republican front-runner Donald Trump in hypothetical general election match-ups."

Nuh-uh. He's actually more electable than the two of them.

[John]

It was a poll of registered voters not likely voters. That is important because Republicans currently have an 11 point intensity gap over Democrats.

http://downtrend.com/robertgeh.....-democrats

To put that into perspective, the Republicans had a nine and seven point advantage in 2010 and 2012 respectively.

It is of course early and who knows what those numbers will look like in November. But given the significant intensity gap between the two parties, a poll of registered voters is meaningless.

[John]

2010 and 2014 respectively. Not 2012.

[bassjoe]

The 2016 intensity gap will be the skewed polls of 2012.

[John]

Maybe. The polls of 2012 were skewed because they didn't take into account of who actually intended to show up. Obama used his social networking and advanced metric to motivate base voters to show up. Romney ran an old style campaign and tried to appeal to moderates and forgot about his base. Romney ended up winning moderates by 11 points as I remember but lost the election because unlike base voters moderates generally don't show up to vote. Obama won because he got his base to show up and Romney didn't.

The question is can Hillary do what Obama did and motivate her base to show up. The Republicans had an advantage in 2012 as well but it turned out to be in the five percent range and didn't save Romney because Obama's campaign was able to target and motivate Democratic voters to come out and Romney couldn't do the same for Republicans.

Hillary is no Obama and will have a harder time motivating Democrats. Whoever wins the Republican nomination will have to figure out a way to get the people who voted for the loser to show up or get other voters to show up in greater numbers.

Trump seems to be the only Republican candidate who is actually bringing in new voters. That would seem to make him the more dangerous candidate.

[Clich? Bandit]

John, weren't you one of the many claiming Romney was a sure bet? That not Pres has ever been reelected with a bad economy or unemployment or something?

I learned my lesson in 2008 when I said there was no way Obama could be clinton...i stopped trying.

[John]

I also said the Republicans were retaking the Senate in 2014. And for months everyone said "but you said Romney would win" as an excuse for thinking. I also said right after the 2008 election that the Democrats would never hold the House in the midterms. Everyone said I couldn't possibly be right about that.

The one thing I was wrong on was thinking there was anyway Obama would be re-elected. Yeah, I under estimated what a loser Romney was and also didn't fully understand how elections had changed and that it was no longer about winning the middle, which Romney did easily.

The things I have been right about are of course completely forgotten. As are the reasons why it was reasonable to think Romney would win, given what we knew at the time and what the actual result means for now.

It is of course much easier to just talk about Romney because doing otherwise involves thinking. And that is really hard for some people.

[Jerryskids]

As are the reasons why it was reasonable to think Romney would win, given what we knew at the time and what the actual result means for now.

The models were wrong, not me.

[John]

Well yeah. That is why you think things and figure out why the things you believed were in fact wrong.

Why do you find that idea so mysterious? What other option is there? I guess I could just not worry about it and adopt the position of "no Republican will ever win the Presidency again". That would be easy. And hell, it may be right for all I know. But if it is right, it is out of dumb luck.

I don't understand people like you Jerry. I really don't. What is so appealing about not thinking about things? I don't get it.

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[Derp-o-Matic 5000]

Spambot, you're not even using real figures anymore. What the fuck is a ? ?

[EMD]

I just had a very intelligent wonderful young man argue to me that a world without Republicans would result in a cure for cancer and flying cars. Honestly.

[Lord Humungus]

which one first?

[GILMORE?]

We must cure flying cars ASAP

[EMD]

I asked him to think about how well other one-party ruled countries faired.

He responded: "You mean, like dictatorships?"

[bassjoe]

Dude. I barely trust people/computers to navigate cars on a 2D landscape; if they add a third dimension, I'm probably going to cloister myself in my home for the rest of my life.

[NoVaNick]

I haven't voted yet here in Virginia. Was planning to vote for Bernie- I don't agree with his economics, but he is better than any of the other candidates on drugs, civil liberties, and non-interventionism. Then it struck me last night that I have a moral obligation to keep the Trump from getting anywhere near the presidency and Hillary is heavily favored to win VA anyway. Sooo, I still can't decide: I don't think Cruz has much of a chance and Rubio seems like a complete douche, even though he is most likely to defeat Trump. I thought about Kasich but after reading up on some of his positions, he seems like your average statist turd (pro-military, pro-drug war, pro-tax). Maybe I'll just stick with my original plan...

[Libertarian]

Since 1980, I've always voted Libertarian for President. I decided not to vote in 2016. For the first time in my life, I've timed something right.

[Lord Humungus]

Yeah I'll be sitting this one out too

[R C Dean]

Yeah, this will be the first Presidential election since I turned 18 that I don't plan to vote.

[CE]

Don't give up now. The Dems and Repubs are finally both shooting themselves in the foot in the same year.

[GILMORE?]

"he is better than any of the other candidates on drugs"

not cool brah

[Derp-o-Matic 5000]

I don't know, I bet Carson on drugs is a sight to behold

[Citizen X]

I bet if he did some coke he'd talk as fast as a normal person.

[Drake]

Good luck with that shit sandwich. I'll be voting for Cruz if it even matters by the time we have a primary in NJ.

[Tonio]

I think he's talking about the Primaries, guys. Virginia is an open-primary state with both party primaries today. Team R is doing a straight primary, and Team D is doing a primary but apparently it's not binding (unsure of how that works).

[Drake]

Vote however you want, Clinton gets the delegates either way.

[CatoTheChipper]

For the past couple of decades, this time every other year, I resign from the Libertarian Party (in my mind) for a day and go vote in the Republican primary.

This year it's pointless. There's not a single GOP candidate that I want to vote for. I was thinking about voting for Sanders in the Democrat primary, but decided to do the responsible thing and stay home.

[Trshmnstr, terror of the trash]

Derpbook is extra derpy today. People are crawling out of the woodwork to express their uninformed opinions on politicians they just learned about a few days ago.

[GILMORE?]

THAYRE ALL RACISTS EXCEPT TEH WOMAN

[John]

There is a special place in hell for women and men who won't support a woman for high office.

[R C Dean]

I expect that's where most of my friends will be, so I'm good with it.

[John]

Its going to be awfully crowded down there.

[EMD]

A woman like Sarah Palin?

[bassjoe]

That theoretical new third party will not be libertarian-leaning. It will, in all likelihood, be an anti-populist "free-market" rump of the Republican Party that cannot come around to supporting Trump due to his multiple heresies.

It is also unclear how popular this rump party will be; I'm guessing it won't get close to winning even a single state, at least not this election. Why? If it's one thing Trump has done, it has exposed the Republican Party platform as being out of touch with its actual voters. Republican Party leaders have spent decades talking about their Christian values, "entitlement reform" and "tax cuts" while scare-mongering over "socialized medicine" when it seems many to most of their voters only really deeply care about stopping brown people from taking their jobs (whether those brown people are inside or outside of our borders). It's the only way a thrice-married atheist socially/culturally liberal huckster like Trump could be on track to win the nomination.

[John]

I think you are dead on. Who would be in this "third party"? The people claiming to want it also say they don't want the establishment and they don't want the Trump voters. Just who the hell is left? And what would it stand for? I guess it would be something like a small government constitutionalism that Cruz professes but how do you then square that with the hawkish positions on international engagement and the conservative pro government positions on the culture war it would take?

If the idea is to reduce the federal government to what it was intended to be, I am all for that. I don't see how you can do that consistent with an aggressive US foreign policy and the federal government making laws on culture war issues like abortion and the gays. If the federal government ever returned to its intended limits, all of the culture war issues would be kicked back to the states. I don't think these guys would like that very much.

[Rhywun]

The Democrats also have a coalition that could fall apart at any moment. The SJW's, union hacks, and minorities don't exact have a lot in common other than being pandered to by the same people. Yet somehow they've kept it together for decades with no end in sight.

If the Republicans threw out what few principles they have left, maybe they can achieve this too.

[Free Society]

I'm not so sure the Democratic edifice is in danger. Democrats have an unswerving adherence to party doctrine, they have media support, governmental institutional support and a series of great myths about the righteousness of the Democratic Party that keeps that dumbest people in society clinging to it. They'll be fine. The fact that the GOP is teetering on the brink of collapse I think speaks to the relatively superior integrity and principles of it's base.

[Unreconstructed (Sans Flag)]

Maybe - but aren't their indications that a lot of white, blue collar Dems are siding with the Trumpinator? That takes one leg of the stool out - SJWs and minorities are still there, but will that be enough?

[CatoTheChipper]

Trump gets NASCAR endorsement

So now he's got both the WWE vote and the NASCAR vote. Woohoooo! This is yuuuuuuuuge!

[John]

The Republicans lost their principles because they got so big. They accepted all of these refugees from the Democratic party in the 80s and 90s and there was no way to square all of their beliefs.

The Republicans were always the party that objected international engagement and nation building. Yes, they were committed to fighting the cold war but they always did that within the context of advancing US interests. Then along came the Neocons who were kicked out of the Democratic Party by the new left. Now we have the Bush family fighting wars in the name of UN credibility and trying to end the terrorism problem by creating democracy in the middle east.

The Republicans were always pro free trade but never saw it as a fetish and were skeptical of international entanglements that came with free trade agreements. Along game the new libertarian right to join the party and absolute free trade became a requirement.

The Republicans were always against the counter culture but they were not SOCONs in the way we think of it now. The Goldwater Republicans back in the 60s were in fact pretty liberal about things like abortion and the gays. Then the evangelicals, many of whom were Democrats, start getting crushed by the Progs and join the Republican party.

Here we are in 2016 and you have all of these people who really don't agree on much other than the fact that they hate the Democrats.

[Free Society]

So basically, expecting two political parties to represent the total spectrum of beliefs among 300millionish people is fucking retarded. Yes. But unfortunately the first-past-the-post system seems to favor that arrangement.

[Jerryskids]

Maybe California votes to split into two or more states, Texas secedes from the union (possibly several other states as well) and the whole place falls apart into several different countries with the Dems and the Reps running the bulk of the states in two different USAs, the socialists running the People's Republic of California and the Greens running Ecotopia. And the Libertarians will wind up locked in the Bible camp gulags somewhere in the deserts of New Jerusalem.

[John]

California would last about a decade as an independent country before it became a wholly owned and ruled subsidiary of China.

[CatoTheChipper]

US ought to exchange California for China's holdings of Treasury and Agency debt.

Californians want to punish their big corporations and to make government even bigger and more intrusive, so it ought to appeal to them.
China needs to get some value for its money.
US has too much debt.

So, it'd be win-win-win.

[CE]

California would be the wealthiest nation on Earth in short order, even with the prison guard unions and the barely policed cross-border drug trafficking. Between Silicon Valley and Hollywood there is no place more creative, and creativity creates value. Take away the federal net tax burden and California's budgetary problems would be over.

[CE]

+6 Californias

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