Gorsuch Filibuster Likely, Susan Rice Vs. Trump Team, More on Russian Train Attack: P.M. Links

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  • Russian attack
    Geodakyan Artyom/ZUMA Press/Newscom

    The Democrats have enough votes to filibuster Judge Neil Gorsuch's nomination to the Supreme Court. Bring on the nuclear option, probably. The Senate Judiciary Committee advanced his nomination, 11-9.

  • Former National Security Adviser Susan Rice apparently attempted to request the identities of people connected to Donald Trump presidential transition team whose communications were incidentally collected as part of federal surveillance of foreign leaders. This was in all likelihood legal, but will nevertheless probably be a point of political contention.
  • Authorities say that the explosion on a train in St. Petersburg, Russia, was a terrorist attack, but nobody has claimed credit for the attack yet. Eleven were killed. A second explosive device was found and defused at another station.
  • Despite New York City's status as a "sanctuary city," police officials are nevertheless informing the feds about court appearances of immigrants charged with crimes and subject to deportation. They're just not helping detain immigrants at the government's request.
  • A federal judge has blocked Indiana's law requiring a woman to get an ultrasound and then wait 18 hours before getting an abortion.
  • So many journalists have been killed in Mexico that a newspaper near the border has decided to shut down.

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Scott Shackford is an associate editor at Reason.

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  1. The Democrats have enough votes to filibuster Judge Neil Gorsuch's nomination to the Supreme Court.

    MUSHROOM CLOUD. THE DAY AFTER.

    1. GroundTruth

      One more nail in the coffin of the Republic as we slide towards a simple democracy.

    2. Rufus The Monocled

      Hello.

      Democrats are losers.

      That is all.

    3. CE

      So make them do an actual filibuster, with people speaking for hours on end to stop the appointment of an apparently well qualified appointee, and see how their voters feel about them doing nothing in Congress. (Me, I'd be fine if they filibustered something or other every day from here on out, but I suspect others not so much.)

  2. Former National Security Adviser Susan Rice apparently attempted to request the identities of people connected to Donald Trump presidential transition team whose communications were incidentally collected as part of federal surveillance of foreign leaders.

    Oh. My. GOD.

    1. Fucking "attempted to request."

      What does this look like?

      "Bill, uh, I need--"
      "What Dave?"
      "Yeah, I, uh, need--"
      "Dave. What?"
      "Bill, please, dude. I need--"
      "Goddamnit Dave, what?!?"
      "Bill, please...."

      1. She found an old pair of Sandy Berger's pants and tried to sneak the identities out in those.

    2. Bubba Jones

      This is how you DON'T say they were spying.

  3. Chipper Morning Wood

    We'll take those unemployed Mexican journalists. It's gotta be an improvement over what we have.

    1. mad.casual

      *MURICAN JERBS!*

      *faints*

    2. Jerry on the sea

      So many journalists have been killed in Mexico that a newspaper near the border has decided to shut down.

      Mexican Wallpaper.

  4. Authorities say that the explosion on a train in St. Petersburg, Russia, was a terrorist attack...

    Speaking of Rice, are we sure it wasn't a youtube.ru prostest?

    1. Chipper Morning Wood

      "Prostest" is the word my doctor uses to suggest I am due for a prostate exam. It is also the word I use to voice my objection and refusal.

    2. "Prostest" actually means "to our healthiest Volk long may Literally Hickler reign."

      It's secret Nazi code language.

      1. I like to periodically and purposely mistype words to see who would be petty enough to focus on that rather than address the REAL ISSUES in my comments. AND YOU TWO FELL RIGHT INTO THE TRAP.

  5. Fox News contributor sues network alleging Roger Ailes looked down her dress while making her kiss him, said Kimberly Guilfoyle would 'get on her knees for anyone' and demoted her for refusing his sexual advances

    Does anyone know Kimberly Guilfoyle's contact information?

    1. Chipper Morning Wood

      Crusty, he meant she would pray for your soul.

  6. They're just not helping detain immigrants at the government's request.

    If NYC can't squeeze them for fines, no use housing them until the feds show up.

  7. Uber is a monstrous company run by monsters:

    To keep drivers on the road, the company has exploited some people's tendency to set earnings goals ? alerting them that they are ever so close to hitting a precious target when they try to log off. It has even concocted an algorithm similar to a Netflix feature that automatically loads the next program, which many experts believe encourages binge-watching. In Uber's case, this means sending drivers their next fare opportunity before their current ride is even over.

    And most of this happens without giving off a whiff of coercion.

    "We show drivers areas of high demand or incentivize them to drive more," said Michael Amodeo, an Uber spokesman. "But any driver can stop work literally at the tap of a button ? the decision whether or not to drive is 100 percent theirs."

    1. Chipper Morning Wood

      Binge working is the next public health menace.

    2. Unicorn Abattoir

      The decision is 100 percent their own? No wonder lefties are turning on Uber.

      1. But they don't know they're being guided to those decisions. That's why Uber needs to be regulated out of existence. That way people won't have any decisions to be coerced into in the first place.

    3. "Hey look, you can earn even more money!"

      COERCION!

    4. Bubba Jones

      The only thing that irritates me about the autoplay feature is that I am paranoid about sucking bandwidth (or losing my place) when I turn off the TV.

    5. NOT EVEN A WHIFF

    6. Juice

      So they've turned it into a freemium app?

    7. Fascist loofa-faced shitgibbon

      " In Uber's case, this means sending drivers their next fare opportunity before their current ride is even over."

      If I were an Uber driver, this is exactly what I would hope would happen. No down time between fares. What exactly is the complaint?

  8. A second explosive device was found and defused at another station.

    ...by a shirtless Putin.

    1. Chipper Morning Wood

      You know who/what else was found and defused by Shirtless Putin?

      1. Anomalous

        Medvedev?

  9. The government's struggle to hold opioid manufacturers accountable

    the DEA and federal prosecutors would contend that the company ignored its responsibility to report suspicious orders as 500 million of its pills ended up in Florida between 2008 and 2012 ? 66 percent of all oxycodone sold in the state. Government investigators alleged in internal documents that the company's lack of due diligence could have resulted in nearly 44,000 federal violations and exposed it to $2.3 billion in fines, according to confidential government records and emails obtained by The Washington Post.

    But six years later, after four investigations that spanned five states, the government has taken no legal action against Mallinckrodt. Instead, the company has reached a tentative settlement with federal prosecutors, according to sources familiar with the discussions. Under the proposal, which remains confidential, Mallinckrodt would agree to pay a $35 million fine and admit no wrongdoing.

    I don't think will end well for the drug manufacturers. Good reporting, but I don't think you will come to the same conclusion as your average WaPo reader.

    1. Spartacus

      FTA: "The case shows how difficult it is for the government to hold a drug manufacturer responsible for the damage done by its product. "

      So aparently Mallinckrodt has engineered a pill that gets up at night while everyone is asleep, escapes its bottle, and goes around doing all kinds of damage.

      1. If the government were to assign agency to people, why would we need the government?

  10. Jerryskids

    Authorities say that the explosion on a train in St. Petersburg, Russia, was a terrorist attack, but nobody has claimed credit for the attack yet. Eleven were killed. A second explosive device was found and defused at another station.

    Probably because it was a Putin false-flag operation he's going to use to justify cracking down on whichever faction he's planning on cracking down on next. Chechens or Georgians or Turks or Muslims or gays, take your pick.

    1. Apparently the Chechens are themselves cracking down on the gays, so that might get confusing.

      1. Cracking down, or Tossing Off?

      2. mad.casual

        Apparently the Chechens are themselves cracking down on the gays, so that might get confusing.

        Oh yeah, confusion, that's what'll bring the whole victim/persecuted minority hierarchy house of cards tumbling down. *rolls eyes*

        Use the letter 'T' for both Transgender *and* Turks and you'll have Putin completely flummoxed. They'll be too busy drafting and revising org charts to actually persecute anyone.

    2. You know who else cracked down on the g...

      Oh Scott answered that above. Carry on.

  11. Who is vastly more unattractive than Sarah Jessica Parker, you ask? This creature.

    I have dolls that look more real.

    1. Chipper Morning Wood

      Crusty, your dolls might be needed for Patriarchy Smashing Balloons: The Squeakquel.

    2. Zeb

      Parker may have a horse face, but at least she has an actual face, not whatever the hell that barbie chick has.

    3. Rufus The Monocled

      I'm not sure I want to see this doll collection of yours.

      1. Chipper Morning Wood

        I am sure there is something there that would tickle your gancy, Rufus. Why, some of the dolls are even bipedal.

  12. Jerryskids

    A federal judge has blocked Indiana's law requiring a woman to get an ultrasound and then wait 18 hours before getting an abortion.

    Can the pregnant woman claim she wants a do-it-yourself abortion via handgun and demand the waiting period for that purchase be waived?

    1. LibertarianJRT

      Excellent. This should be precedent.

  13. A federal judge has blocked Indiana's law requiring a woman to get an ultrasound and then wait 18 hours before getting an abortion.

    The judge thought lawmakers should have ultrasounded the bill and waited 18 hours before passing it.

  14. TV series Girls provides perceptive insight into modern men

    Say what you like about Dunham but she can write men. Adam Sackler (played by Adam Driver) is the most consistently, unsparingly but also sensitively drawn modern male to grace the small screen this decade who is not a gangster or a detective. If it wasn't for Girls, Driver probably wouldn't have been cast as the conflicted villain Kylo Ren in the new Star Wars trilogy. He is a Hollywood A-lister because of the room and complexity the Girls character has given him.

    Modern men ought to watch the show, not for the insight into how women work, but for what it tells them about how they ? men ? can come across. In an age where young cultured men identify as feminist by default, we are desperate to shed any residual trappings of misogyny while also retaining some sort of masculine identity. It's not always a smooth process. Girls shows us the ?successes and failures of this in ?motion. As well as Adam there are various sensitive, well-adjusted, conventional men who stifle, or else use their very considerateness and progressiveness to ensnare or manipulate.

    She gets me.

    1. Wow. It reads like a diary entry AND a suicide note AND a manifesto.

      Brilliance.

    2. Spartacus

      "...or else use their very considerateness and progressiveness to ensnare or manipulate."

      Those bastards! It's a double-ultra-microagression, all disguised as merely being polite and sensitive.

    3. Juice

      Modern men ought to watch the show

      What about ancient men? Postmodern men?

    4. MarkLastname

      Nothing says equality like women telling men what it means to be men.

    5. Pussy-Grabber@SPCA

      Does "conflicted villain" mean 'simpering pussy who loses a fight to a girl' in feminist speak?

      Driver was a non-threatening, deformed gork with the charisma of bed wetter, simply because a good looking, charming guy would have traumatized the screechy, desperate blow pigs on Girls. That show exists because they are ugly and bitter, period. (No pun intended.)

  15. "Former National Security Adviser Susan Rice apparently attempted to request...."

    According to the article, she REQUESTED, not "attempted to request," the identities. Why are you writing it this way?

    1. My guess? Scott wants to keep attending all of those liberal media cocktail parties.

      1. It's not the cucktail parties, it's the friends list on Facebook. Scott strikes me as the type who won't give up one fucking 'like' if he doesn't have to.

    2. He's playing "fair and balanced" because his alma mater, Team Blue, is on the hook for some classic backroom skulduggery AND if this blows up, it would validate what the Schismists were claiming all along; there is compromised journalistic integrity here at Reason. (Lock, stock and fully shocked.)

      Given the hilariously bold claims by this very website of the falsehood of Trump's claims of being espied... it is no wonder they're hedging. I would.

      1. Nailed it.

    3. Fatty Bolger

      Good question. Who did Susan Rice report to, anyway? Somebody important, no doubt. Did that person maybe ask her to do it? I mean, why else would she? She wasn't part of any independent investigative body, right?

    4. Jerryskids

      Just. To. Piss. You. Off.

      If he really wanted to mess with you, he would have said "Former National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice".

    5. Chip Your Pets

      Maybe she was going to request the names, but the person she had to make the request with was never at their desk? Or they had bad hearing? Or they never let her get a word in edgewise in a conversation?

      There's lots of explanations. Lay off the Love Shackford.

    6. Zeb

      It's links. I don't think there is a lot of editing.

  16. A federal judge has blocked Indiana's law requiring a woman to get an ultrasound and then wait 18 hours before getting an abortion.

    But does she still have to wait 7 days before she can get a gun?

    1. Juice

      Only if she wants to use it to shoot her fetus.

  17. Zeb

    How fucking stupid can the Democrats be?

    Do they really think that they will get someone they like more than Gorsuch? What do they think is going to happen here? What's their endgame? Hold it up for 4 years, hope for a Democrat president and then try again?

    1. They're Waiting for Her.

    2. Fatty Bolger

      Yeah, it's strange. It appears to be simple payback for Garland. Maybe leadership wants to trigger the nuclear option, but it doesn't seem like it.

    3. NAL

      I think it's all about appeasing the base who are rabidly illogical right now.

    4. NAL

      I think it's all about appeasing the base (who are rabidly illogical right not).

    5. buybuydandavis

      How fucking stupid can the Democrats be?

      What Democrat gains votes by saying "I voted Yes on Gorsuch"?

      Dems are fairly openly calling for assassination/coup.

      1. Zeb

        Dems are fairly openly calling for assassination/coup.

        Examples?

    6. Juice

      I want them to shoot down Gorsuch so Trump can nominate Napolitano.

    7. Chip Your Pets

      Do they really think that they will get someone they like more than Gorsuch?

      No.

      What do they think is going to happen here?

      Exactly what is going to happen -- the GOP uses the nuclear option and they scream and wail about how partisan those awful Republicans are, while their allies in the MSM sweep previous Dem usage of the nuclear option under the carpet.

      What's their endgame? Hold it up for 4 years, hope for a Democrat president and then try again?

      They don't have to hold it up, as they know the nuke is coming.

      Their endgame is to make their base happy with them again, while allowing Trump to crash and burn (because what he wants is unworkable). The moderates then flock to them in 2018.

      Basically a redux of what they did in 2005, which worked pretty well for them in 2006-08.

    8. Right now, the only perceptible political momentum is Resisting Trump, and a bunch of Senate Dems are up for reelection next year. In terms of long-term governing, of course it makes no sense to oppose a judge like Gorsuch. But there are a bunch of angry progressives and liberals, and primaries for 2018 aren't that far off, so... don't put another 6 years of a cushy job at risk. As for why Chucky Schumer is pushing the other senators to do it, well, he's Schumer. He'll seize any opportunity to grandstand and complain.

    9. MarkLastname

      Their main goal is to stay in the news.

  18. Bubba Jones

    I love the claim that Gorsuch wasn't sufficiently respective of precedent. They are afraid he will vote against RvW.

    I suppose he could just flat out lie the way Kagan did about Heller.

  19. Chip Your Pets

    Former National Security Adviser Susan Rice apparently attempted to request the identities of people connected to Donald Trump presidential transition team whose communications were incidentally collected as part of federal surveillance of foreign leaders. This was in all likelihood legal, but will nevertheless probably be a point of political contention.

    Damn. I remember when, back in my youth, Reason had a problem with warrantless surveillance by the federal government. Now they're dismissing complaints because, well, it was legal under established procedures.

    The memories fade over the, er, few months that have passed since then.

    1. Demosthenes3000

      I 'member - the good ol' days.

    2. Zeb

      Where are they dismissing it?

      The point is that they are complaining about the same shit Reason and others have been complaining about for years as if it's new and specific to Trump or his campaign people.

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