DeVos Calls for Due Process in College Rape Cases, Amazon Announces Massive Expansion, Trump Jr. Explains Meeting with Russians: P.M. Links

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  Paul Gordon/ZUMA Press/Newscom

  Education Secretary Betsy DeVos in a speech today said she's going to fight the practice of colleges using Title IX as a way of punishing students accused of sexual misconduct without allowing the accused appropriate due process under the law.

• Amazon announced today plans for a second headquarters that would employ 50,000 in North America, which will no doubt result in many city leaders climbing all over each other to offer incentives to be chosen as the location.
• Donald Trump Jr. today told Senate investigators that he set up a meeting last year with a Russian lawyer in order to get information damaging to Hillary Clinton but says he did not collude with the Russian government and had planned to consult with attorneys before using any information he might have received.
• If you're looking for some hurricane counterprogramming, here's a piece on how zoos and aquariums (of which there are many in Florida) handle these storms. The picture alone is worth the click.
• A Las Vegas police union has responded to an NFL player's claim that he was targeted for excessive force due to his race by demanding the NFL investigate the player and "take appropriate action" over his "obvious false allegations." Always forging better connections with their communities, those police unions.
• Australia's highest court will allow a non-binding postal vote to proceed that asks the public whether to legally recognize same-sex marriage. Opponents of the vote would prefer the country's parliament vote (and vote yes) and avoid the taxpayer expense. The mail-in votes themselves will not determine whether they become legally recognized. The parliament will still have to vote anyway.

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Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

...she's going to fight the practice of colleges using Title IX as a way of punishing students accused of sexual misconduct without allowing the accused appropriate due process under the law.

Rape apologist. What else to expect from a p*ssy grabber's administration?

[Anomalous]

I'm sure that safe spaces will be provided for those who were triggered by this news.

[Rich]

It depends on what you mean by "triggered".

[Rufus The Monocled]

Hello.

Good on DeVos.

What will happen to Mattress Girl and all those little girls she inspired?

[Trigger Warning]

On the hook for civil damages and flushed down the memory shitter. Ideally.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Amazon announced today plans for a second headquarters that would employ 50,000 in North America...

MAGA

[Jerryskids]

That stack of H-1B applications just got ten feet higher.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Donald Trump Jr. today told Senate investigators that he set up a meeting last year with a Russian lawyer in order to get information damaging to Hillary Clinton...

What kind of monster...

[Unicorn Abattoir]

Not very nice, maligning a Russian lawyer like that.

[Rich]

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos in a speech today said she's going to fight the practice of colleges using Title IX as a way of punishing students accused of sexual misconduct without allowing the accused appropriate due process under the law.

Something is *seriously* wrong if fixing this shit falls to the Secretary of Education.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Who else was going to do it? You?

[Rich]

Well, I was thinking ... maybe ... the chief LEO of the nation ....

*** kicks pebble ***

[DJF]

What does college rape claims have to do with the law?

Its about feelings

[Rhywun]

So say we all.

[Zeb]

Something is seriously wrong if fixing this shit is something that needs to be done at all.

[Trigger Warning]

Something is seriously wrong if fixing this shit is something that needs to be done at all.

[Careless]

It started with that position. Who better to fix it?

[Fist of Etiquette]

A Las Vegas police union has responded to an NFL player's claim that he was targeted for excessive force due to his race by demanding the NFL investigate the player and "take appropriate action" over his "obvious false allegations."

So, do people generally take police union missives seriously?

[colorblindkid]

Sounds like it's somewhere between the two sides. The dude was totally lying and greatly exaggerating about certain parts of his story, judging by the video and audio of basically the entire thing, but the cops were absolutely still dickbags.

[Jerryskids]

In his letter, union president Steve Grammas says race played no role in Bennett's detainment and called his statement on the matter "false and defamatory." The letter also contains an unrelated shot at "Bennett's disrespect for our American flag, and everything it symbolizes."

Obviously.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Australia's highest court will allow a non-binding postal vote to proceed that asks the public whether to legally recognize same-sex marriage.

Down Under is really mailing this one in.

[Rich]

Hey, whatever happened to "invisible furry hand"?

[Fist of Etiquette]

Probably left in the Rexit. SEEMS LIKE THE TYPE. (Although, if not, I will think about offering a rare apology.)

[Rich]

The picture alone is worth the click.

Yep. "Not the first time."

[Don't look at me.]

Wonder if the birds were pissed about it, seems like a shitty place to stay.

[Jerryskids]

The birds seemed to be enjoying it, practicing their wide stances in the mirror and all.

[Crusty Juggler - Lawbertarian]

Nirvana, Lauryn Hill, and Faxes From Don Henley: Behind the Scenes at the Original 'MTV Unplugged'

The show's first episode, taped on Halloween 1989, was a grab bag headlined by the wry English rockers Squeeze. But Unplugged's first breakthrough came with its fifth show, featuring Joe Walsh, who threw in a cover of the Eagles' "Desperado"?only to have Eagles frontman Don Henley refuse permission to air it. "We got a fax that said, 'If you want Don Henley to perform 'Desperado,' then book Don Henley,'" Coletti recalls. "So we were like, 'Yes, please!' Don booked himself on the show."

Gallen has 20 solid minutes of material on Paul McCartney's 1991 appearance, starting with the fact that Sir Paul was inspired by randomly catching a rerun of the Hall & Oates Unplugged and really digging it. Soon Gallen was sitting on a couch on McCartney's London farm, watching his idol run through the whole 22-song set list, forgetting lyrics, and forgetting which album "Her Majesty" was on. ("He goes, 'What was that, the White Album?'" Gallen recalls. "It was very endearing.") To produce a London installment was a pricey gambit back then, especially amid the myriad corporate travel bans inspired by the Gulf War, so Gallen squeezed in a performance by the Cure, too.

[Crusty Juggler - Lawbertarian]

But Unplugged is the rare idea durable and genius enough that pure nostalgia doesn't have to be the driver. The trick is to frame a currently beloved artist in an entirely new way, or help turn a young, hungry upstart into a currently beloved artist in real time. The only variable that remains is is the music good enough. No bullshit, no artifice. Unplugged is as close as MTV specifically?and the '90s generally?ever got to that platonic ideal. This latest reboot doesn't have to re-create or replace that genuinely rich and storied history. Living up to the legacy will be quite enough. It's a lot to ask, but the way you do it is simple.

90s = best decade for music.

[Pro Libertate]

What?

[Crusty Juggler - Lawbertarian]

The best musical decade is the 1990s.

[Pro Libertate]

BC?

[Crusty Juggler - Lawbertarian]

It was the golden age of hip-hop, the introduction of all the wonderful "alternative" bands, the cessation of hair bands, you had bands like Nine Inch Nails bringing about industrial metal, and it's also the decade that gave us Lisa Loeb.

[Pro Libertate]

In the universe where Spock had a beard, you mean.

[Crusty Juggler - Lawbertarian]

Plus there was Witney Houston and Lauryn Hill and Fatboy Slim and Moby and Garth Brooks...the list goes on.

[BestUsedCarSales]

2000s gave us Die Antwoord

[lap83]

Plus there was Witney Houston and Lauryn Hill and Fatboy Slim and Moby and Garth Brooks...the list goes on.

thank you for that concise list of 90's bands no one cares about anymore
/millenial

(ok, I listened to Moby's Play on a road trip last year and Fatboy Slim has the classic Weapon of Choice music video, but otherwise meh)

[Crusty Juggler - Lawbertarian]

Fatboy Slim has the classic Weapon of Choice music video

Praise You is better.

And I didn't even mention the plethora of boy bands.

[lap83]

I do like that one.

[Jerry on the sea]

Rape, assault, triggering: https://youtu.be/ruAi4VBoBSM?t=55

[MarkLastname]

Christopher Walken is timeless.

[Red Rocks Baiting n Inciting]

It was the golden age of hip-hop, the introduction of all the wonderful "alternative" bands, the cessation of hair bands, you had bands like Nine Inch Nails bringing about industrial metal, and it's also the decade that gave us Lisa Loeb.

Maybe up until the mid-1990s, but the back half of the decade was full of excremental boy-band and nu-metal garbage.

[lap83]

The second half is great if you like electronic.

[Red Rocks Baiting n Inciting]

That's probably why I don't look back on it with very fond memories, because I never liked music that required me to be high in order to enjoy it. I recall 1999 having a few high-sucrose highlights, but most of those years are pretty barren of anything of lasting memory.

The most notable part of that period is that it's probably the last time the music industry had a bunch of artists at once capable of selling 5 million albums or more without breaking a sweat. Nowadays, I think Taylor Swift's the only one who can consistently pull those kinds of numbers.

[lap83]

I like electronic music and I never get high. I'm one of the weird ones who would go to a rave sober (though I was too young for that in the 90's anyway)

[Crusty Juggler - Lawbertarian]

I like electronic music and I never get high. I'm one of the weird ones who would go to a rave sober

This is why we can't have female libertarians.

[ChipToBeSquare]

Even in the nu-metal garbage heap you have Deftones. I will defend them as a great band til the day I die

If you're a punk fan, depending on your feelings about early emo (when they wore scarves instead of Hot Topic shirts), the mid-late 90s had some great stuff as well

[Zeb]

I'd agree that the 90s was a good decade for music. I don't know if I could call any decade the best. There has always been plenty of good music and shit loads of dull crap.

[lap83]

The 90's has plenty of dull crap....Crusty was probably drinking too much zima to remember

[Crusty Juggler - Lawbertarian]

And?

[Pro Libertate]

Take a stand, Zeb! 1950s Mormon metal!

[BestUsedCarSales]

I'd say the biggest thing now is that the internet has allowed for such proliferation of music that people have as much choice as they are willing to use. This leads to a weakening of any single mainstream musical culture.

Personally, I'm fond of this fact.

[Red Rocks Baiting n Inciting]

I'd say the biggest thing now is that the internet has allowed for such proliferation of music that people have as much choice as they are willing to use. This leads to a weakening of any single mainstream musical culture.

I don't listen to Top 40 anymore, but for a long time, probably up until the mid-2000s or so, the dominant musical cycle in pop tended to last about 5 years (ex.: New Wave in the early 80s gives way to hair metal in the late 80s after Bon Jovi breaks out, then Nirvana signals hair metal's downfall). Music has been an extremely disposable cultural commodity for a long time, probably since Rock Around the Clock and the initiation of the Billboard Hot 100 charts, which is why stars that manage to endure in the popular consciousness such as the Beatles and Elvis are so highly revered.

[BestUsedCarSales]

And I'll also note that many of those are were from a time where it was much more difficult to self-discover new music.

[ChipToBeSquare]

One side effect of this is that album sales are horrendous and streaming services are nice for us but not as nice for artists. I wonder if that's why festivals are becoming such a thing, because the death of monoculture has made live shows more important than ever for both exposure and income. I for one hate that fact. I want to see Jawbreaker's reunion next week. I don't want to go to Chicago for a three day festival to do so

[Zeb]

I think that touring has become a more significant part of a popular musician's income than it used to be and that it probably is related to the proliferation of festivals.

[Crusty Juggler - Lawbertarian]

And I forgot the most 90s of all 90s bands: Dave.

Yeah, 'nuff said.

[BestUsedCarSales]

What about Tad?

[Pro Libertate]

Dave's not here.

[Fist of Etiquette]

I picture a certain someone jamming to Warrant's "Cherry Pie" as we speak.

[Rhywun]

Who the hell is unplugging now? Today's popular music seem suited for it.

[Rhywun]

*doesn't seem

[Fist of Etiquette]

Can you still auto-tune if you're unplugged?

[Pro Libertate]

That's right. If you unplugged modern pop, all that would be left would be static.

[BestUsedCarSales]

Seems like modern rap, with it's incredibly stripped down production, would be even more suited for unplugged.

[The Last American Hero]

I believe Katy Perry did a few years back.

And Opeth might as well have unplugged the way they've changed direction in recent years.

[Zeb]

I'm not sure Opeth is really popular music in the "pop music" sense. There's plenty of well known music that could work in an acoustic version.

[BestUsedCarSales]

I feel like it's silly to say that if you play unplugged its any more about the music than other ways of playing.

[Trigger Warning]

90s = best decade for music.

Uh, FUCK no.

[lap83]

Faxes from Don Henley

great album name

[Marty Feldman's Eyes]

As if anyone needed any *more* reason to hate Don Henley. What a petty bitch.

[Fist of Etiquette]

The parliament will still have to vote anyway.

But the mailers are certainly preferable to lawmakers than putting their wet finger in the air.

[Fist of Etiquette]

The picture alone is worth the click.

Seems begging for a caption contest.

[Rich]

Or a picture contest.

[Crusty Juggler - Lawbertarian]

"The bathroom line at an Elton John concert."

[Robert]

Hilarious how they're all looking in the mirror. But then, when you're one in a flock of flamingos, what else you gonna look at?

[Crusty Juggler - Lawbertarian]

Police: Taco Bell Employees Fatally Shoot Armed Robber

Police have said two masked robbers entered the restaurant early Wednesday and ordered three employees to lie on the floor. Police say three other employees pulled out handguns and opened fire, shooting one of the suspects six times. The other suspect ran off.

Brought to you courtesy, of the red, white and blue.

[Red Rocks Baiting n Inciting]

You'll have to take the breakfast quesadillas from their cold, dead hands.

[MarkLastname]

I can easily believe 3 or more employees at any given Taco Bell are packing heat.

[Fist of Etiquette]

...many city leaders climbing all over each other to offer incentives to be chosen as the location.

No state sales tax?

[Rich]

Why John Deere Just Spent $305 Million on a Lettuce-Farming Robot

Because Americans won't do some jobs?

[The Last American Hero]

Does it come with a translator droid that speaks Bocce?

[Fist of Etiquette]

...he did not collude with the Russian government and had planned to consult with attorneys before using any information he might have received.

Consulting attorneys makes anything okay.

[Rich]

Hey, worked for Hillary!

[Crusty Juggler - Lawbertarian]

In film, 'It' tosses out the most powerful part of Stephen King's novel

"It" may not be Stephen King's most beloved book (that's probably "The Stand") or his most ambitious effort (that's probably his eight-book opus, "The Dark Tower" series). But the book about a band of friends who come together to battle a wicked psychic clown may be his best: the great American horror novel, a literary glimpse into the terrors it has cultivated through the years. And that's in large part because King, in the way he structured the book, made Derry, the town in which the novel is set, a character unto itself ? a character into which boomer King poured all his generation's anxieties and fears.

[BestUsedCarSales]

That's a really long article to say the book was better. Which is patently false.

[mad.casual]

Which is patently false.

I haven't seen Skarsg?rd's portrayal and can certainly agree that Curry's portrayal of Pennywise was a value-added proposition.

[ChipToBeSquare]

I thought he was gonna talk about a certain scene with Beverly

[Zeb]

I know that was my favorite part when I read it when I was about 12.

[Red Rocks Baiting n Inciting]

a character into which boomer King poured all his generation's anxieties and fears.

Didn't King admit he was on a massive coke bender when he wrote that book?

Anyway, King is a great example of how culturally dessicated literature in the post-boomer era has become. His work has always been marked by interesting concepts that began well but then dribbled into an incoherent mess by the end, but because he's one of the few writers of the last 40 years that isn't hopelessly derivative, people treat him as if he's a genius. It's notable that movie directors have consistently made his work more compelling by cutting out the fluff and/or offering alternate visions. His hatred for Kubrick's treatment of The Shining is well-known, and it's pretty obvious that it's because he considered, consciously or subconsciously, Jack to be his avatar. It makes the scenes in that movie all the more disturbing, because in the book Jack is a decent man who's overtaken by the evil spirits of the hotel, but in the movie he's already an alcoholic dirtbag who badly injured his son before he got the job at there. That one probably hit pretty damn close to home for King.

[MarkLastname]

One 'post-boomer' novelist who gets too little appreciation is Cormac McCarthy. King feels like a discount bin paperback writer next to McCarthy, imo.

[BestUsedCarSales]

A Las Vegas police union has responded to an NFL player's claim that he was targeted for excessive force due to his race by demanding the NFL investigate the player and "take appropriate action" over his "obvious false allegations." Always forging better connections with their communities, those police unions.

"We use excessive force against people of all races and will not allow ourselves to be slandered."

[Rebel Scum]

Donald Trump Jr. today told Senate investigators that he set up a meeting last year with a Russian lawyer in order to get information damaging to Hillary Clinton

I'm fairly certain a web search would have sufficed.

[Rebel Scum]

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos

Hawt.

in a speech today said she's going to fight the practice of colleges using Title IX as a way of punishing students accused of sexual misconduct without allowing the accused appropriate due process under the law.

"Fight"? You're the EdSec. Lock it down. Accusations of crime belong in the justice system, not a university tribunal.

[Rebel Scum]

The picture alone is worth the click.

I think it would be better if I was high.

[Mazakon]

http://www.startribune.com/geo.....on to sink

HOUSTON ? A California geophysicist says the sheer weight of the torrential rains brought by Harvey has caused Houston to sink by 2 centimeters.

Chris Milliner, a postdoctoral fellow at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology, says water weighs about a ton per cubic meter and the flooding was so widespread that it "flexed Earth's crust."

He told the Houston Chronicle that he used observations from the Nevada Geodetic Laboratory and other statistics to measure the drop. Milliner says it will only be temporary. Once the floodwaters recede, there will be an "opposite elastic response of the crust," similar to jumping on a mattress.

[BestUsedCarSales]

Bushwick Bill doesn't need to lose anymore height.

[Careless]

"Water weighs about a ton per cubic meter"

The metric system: how does it fucking work?

[CatoTheChipper]

Pure water weighs precisely a tonne (metric ton) per cubic meter at 4 degrees C. It weighs about 1.1 American tons per cubic meter, but I suppose that's about a ton.

[Sports Reporter Charles Manson]

It's the mix 'n match system. A third-way system, taking good ideas from each. Don't be so binary, man.

[CE]

it's about 5 kilometers west of there, then 3 or 4 furlongs south.

[Sports Reporter Charles Manson]

The obesity epidemic, meanwhile, is turning North America into the next Atlantis.

[Rebel Scum]

The mail-in votes themselves will not determine whether they become legally recognized. The parliament will still have to vote anyway.

So they are basically doing a more expensive poll...

[Don't look at me.]

boost post office revenue.

[Tony]

It's gonna be hilarious when Trump refuses to pardon his son, not because he's not a corrupt, nepotistic tinpot fuckface, but to "teach him a lesson" or as a part of a quid pro quo to save his own ass.

[BestUsedCarSales]

That doesn't sound super funny to me. Have you ever listened to Stephen Wright? I think he's hilarious.

[Don't look at me.]

I put my instant coffee in the microwave, and went back in time.

[Pro Libertate]

You know when you're sitting on a chair and you lean back so you're just on two legs and you lean too far so you almost fall over but at the last second you catch yourself? I feel like that all the time.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

North America, which will no doubt result in many city leaders climbing all over each other to offer incentives to be chosen as the location.

Or progressive-splaining why so many highly paid employees are ruining the city's character.

[BestUsedCarSales]

Nothing like a person of incredibly middle-class upbringing, who then went to Columbia, complaining about all the other people trying to make a living ruining things for him.

[BestUsedCarSales]

Man, that article is such a jerk-off.

[Sevo]

It's obvious the twit has no ability for embarrassment:

"The first night we went out, he glanced at the glossy condominiums and the fashionable bars on Bell Street and shuddered: "Seattle is losing its vibe." We did the things we always did?smoked weed at viewpoints and drove to Dick's; drinking, bowling, and playing Big Buck Hunter. But something was off. Andrew kept noticing new signs of decline urbanists would call "revitalization." The bars were too crowded; the food was too expensive; the bros and bores were too pervasive. "The Northwest has had its moment," he prophesied. "Seattle is dying.""

He wrote that and let it hit the printing presses; gaaaah!

[Red Rocks Baiting n Inciting]

That turd's in no position to complain. These are the same class of left-wing asshole urbanites who look down their nose at the hicks in the sticks for not being part of a "vibrant, diverse" community of boutique restaurants, hookup bars, and atomized relationships. They revel in the fact that the uneducated proles can't afford to live there--until it becomes too expensive for them to live there too, then cue the whining.

Gen-X and Milennial progressives are basically standing in the culturally superficial wastelands they helped create and are crying now because no one stopped them.

[BestUsedCarSales]

His parents are both exactly the same class of people he's maligning too. An engineer and a speech pathologist. It is literally nothing more than people getting mad that other people are enjoying things too now.

I hate crowds more than most people I know, and I rarely go into Seattle because of this. But I don't jerk-myself-off talking about how all these other people who like the city are ruining the city for me. I jerk-myself-off to black women.

[ChipToBeSquare]

They could always try raising the minimum wage and adding more zoning laws. That way more people will be out on the streets due to an inability to find jobs or housing, and homelessness always adds character

[CE]

These people see gentrification as a problem, rather than an improvement.

[lap83]

sorry if this was posted already.... tech elites aren't libertarians according to Stanford study

But gather all the hardcore Silicon Valley libertarians from their subreddits, and you'd struggle to fill a few Google buses. The reality is the technology community in bright-blue northern California is a reliable stalwart of Democratic politics.

So a large segment of California are....Democrats!? No kidding

But it's still kind of interesting, they diverge from other Democrats in two ways...

But there were two key areas where the entrepreneurs' views diverged from Democrats, hewing much more closely to most Republican donors and voters: strong opposition to labor unions and government regulation. While that doesn't make them Republican (tech employees sent 97 cents of every dollar in political donations to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton), it does make them outliers in the world of progressive politics.

[BestUsedCarSales]

A couple of questions I had while reading it.

1. The research, presented at the American Political Science Association last week (and now under peer review), asked more than 600 "elite technology company leaders and founders" (a group of mostly millionaires who had raised a collective $20 billion in venture capital)

If they only asked company leaders, why are they extrapolating to the population at large. I don't know if libertarianism is actually big there or not, but I'm not certain that's a meaningful sample to generalize from.

2. tech employees sent 97 cents of every dollar in political donations to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton

What does this sentence even mean? That 97% of Hillary's donations are from tech? That 97% of all donations from tech workers went to Hillary? That's a very weird way of writing it.

3. "We show that technology entrepreneurs' predispositions toward racial tolerance, non-authoritarianism, and cosmopolitanism align them with Democrats...

This along with your comments above about them being against government regulation and unions, those are core tenants of modern democrats, and certainly a strong regulatory state seems core to progressivism. At what point do they diverge enough that they can't just claim that they belong to democrats?

[ChipToBeSquare]

I'd consider somewhere like Slate Star Codex to be a good place to find some of these people (even if Scott Alexander himself is becoming a sort of left-libertarian who can't quite let go of his fondness for the Democratic Party). The lefty readership there is at least open to the idea of the free market most of the time, while the progressives are starting to become more blatant about their desire to do away with it altogether. Some of them are starting to realize just how deep the split between liberals and progressives really is

Also, all of point 3 is slimy and disgusting on their part

[Mickey Rat]

How does being for nonauthoritarianism align them with Democrats. Should that not be in spite of that fact, they align with Democrats?

[BestUsedCarSales]

They live in their own world. They also somehow believe that regulatory action does not relay on authority.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

What does this sentence even mean? That 97% of Hillary's donations are from tech? That 97% of all donations from tech workers went to Hillary? That's a very weird way of writing it.

Tech employees send a gajillion dollars to political candidates. 97 cents of every dollar Went to Her.

[Arizona_Guy]

"non-authoritarianism ..align them with Democrat."

Ah, the big lie that Blues are not authoritarian. They even seem to believe their own bullshit on this one.

Another one I've noticed is that many people on the left think they are "pragmatic" rather than "ideological"

[Arizona_Guy]

and yes, as to point one, that is definitely sampling bias. Too small and narrow of a a group to extrapolate to a larger group such as tech workers in general.

[Sevo]

Tony|9.7.17 @ 5:05PM|#
"It's gonna be hilarious when Trump refuses to pardon his son"

Tony lives in a fantasy world we can all but try to imagine:
"Son, I'm not going to pardon you for talking to people from other countries. Nope. No siree!"
"OK, Dad. Got any plans for dinner?"

[Robert]

People think cleaning a public rest room is disgusting enough under most circumstances. Imagine how it'd be after a few days of housing a flock of flamingos.