StrangeSox

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jan 12, 2018 -> 08:26 AM) Like when he debated Hillary, and Hillary mentioned how he had not paid taxes in years. His response was becasue he was smart. He later said he never said that. His base believes. Here's the scarier possibility: he believes

Sen. Durbin now confirming, in response to Trump's denial (which was prompted by Fox News, who now controls the country apparently):

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jan 11, 2018 -> 09:44 PM) It was a general question, I wasn't doubting these comments. Every scoop for the past year has been sources or insiders, do those ever have to be proven?. A few months ago the NYT was saving democracy, now my Twitter feed treats them like Fox News. What happened to all the sources and.scoops they had? Oh I see, sorry for the mistake. They don't name sources and arguably rely on unnamed sources too much in reporting, but that goes back years if not decades. Even when their sources burn them by feeding deliberately misleading or outright false information, they'll still protect them. On the good side, journalists are even willing to go to jail for refusing to give up sources, which can protect really important and justified leaks/whistleblowers. So it takes some understanding of that to read reporting critically. Often, sources are authorized to provide information "on background," meaning they'll be unnamed but have approval or have been directed by leadership to provide information. More common in this administration are just straight-up leaks. In that case, you've got to take a look at how many sources are claimed for this, whether or not there's a quick and strong denial from someone, whether other news orgs confirm the reporting independently, etc. So in this specific case, the White House didn't deny until Trump tweets this morning, CNN verified independently, and none of the Republicans present in the meeting denied the allegations. some of Wolff's reporting in that book, on the other hand, didn't have multiple independent confirmations, so some of the specifics there should be taken with a grain of salt (or read as that particular source's viewpoint, not objective truth). Nyt still has sources, they do some bad editorializing too just as every org does sometimes. Twitter overreacts to everything in the moment.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jan 11, 2018 -> 07:54 PM) Has WaPo ever had to confirm that these sources or "people" are legit? CNN confirmed and the White House didn't deny, nor did any of the people present at the meeting. Trump is a deeply racist man and has been openly so for years. This shouldn't surprise anyone.

Wapo updated with more “Why do we need more Haitians?” Trump said, according to people familiar with the meeting. “Take them out.”

FBI agents who criticized Trump are "treasonous" http://www.newsweek.com/trump-says-text-me...easonous-779009

QUOTE (Brian @ Jan 11, 2018 -> 12:53 PM) Walmart closing lots of Sam's Clubs at end of month. That tax cut! 53 stores, and they're laying off thousands of workers. Pretty easy way to offset those $1k* bonuses *must have worked for Walmart for 20 years to receive $1k

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Jan 11, 2018 -> 04:01 PM) Trump: Definitely not a racist. come on, we all know racism isn't even real any more and nobody even knows any racists the official WH response isn't denying it, either, but it is doubling down on xenophobic fear-mongering and lies. Don't forget the recent story that he also said everyone from Haiti has AIDS.

Multiple Sam's Clubs close without notice in Houston, across nation Welp, hard to enjoy those raises or "up to $1k" bonuses when you're laid off without notice.

QUOTE (Iwritecode @ Jan 11, 2018 -> 10:20 AM) In the overall scheme of things, 1 million isn't a lot. There are 123 million full-time workers in the country right now. I don't know if that includes part time workers or not. Less than 1% of them live in poverty? It's 1 million workers specifically in the retail sector, not 1 million total.

And speaking of better-paying jobs that could lead to careers and paths out of retail/food sector poverty wage work, the tax bill is only going to hurt that. Tax Law May Send Factories and Jobs Abroad, Critics Say

QUOTE (soxfan2014 @ Jan 11, 2018 -> 09:45 AM) This is exactly how these types of jobs are supposed to be unless you are in management at the company, IMO. Of course you aren't going to be paid great. Increasingly, and this means going back at least a couple of decades, that's not how these jobs are even if they're "supposed" to be. More and more people have had to rely on low-wage service sector jobs like retail and restaurants as manufacturing and other better-paying work has disappeared. The average age of a worker in this sort of job has steadily crept upwards. This is from a few years back and is specifically about fast-food workers, but I think the stats apply broadly across food and retail sectors. edit: some more specifically on retail workers, consider the source is a pro-worker group but the main takeaways are the statistics The model of retail or fast food jobs being mainly "high schooler's first job" died out in the 90's. Those workers are still there, but so are a lot of older workers including some who are the sole provider for a family.

Guy Who Defended Prop 8 And Backed Torture Memo Author Says He’ll Make A Great Judge Trump court nominee Howard Nielson told senators not to worry about that time he attacked a gay judge’s impartiality. The conservative movement is largely okay with whatever Trump wants to do or say or whatever outside forces helped win him the election because he largely gives them what they want.

QUOTE (raBBit @ Jan 11, 2018 -> 08:51 AM) https://t.co/3goQfjM7vC Country’s top employer raises minimum wage and gives bonuses as a result of GOP tax plan. Being at full employment is creating some of that pressure to raise wages, too. This is another good part: What we will have to see, and it'll be years down the road, is a big complex mix of how this all shakes out with respect to income and wealth inequality, how the wage growth keeps up over time (easy to grab some good press with one-time bonuses right now), and how badly federal programs that many of these same workers rely on will get cut. If you get a $2k/year raise but all of a sudden you're losing $5k/year in assistance, that's still a net loss. Tamping down the top statutory corporate rate in an honest effort to reform the tax code never was the big issue, but this legislation also didn't really simplifying anything.

I can't find it again now, but I saw a headline recently that said something like 90%+ of Peloton buyers still have a subscription a year later. That seems like a really high rate.

Everything is "double taxed" depending on how you want to look at it. My payroll and income are both taxed, then I pay sales tax, and businesses pay tax on profits from my purchase, and use the revenues from my already-taxed dollars to pay their employees which includes payroll taxes again etc. etc.

Confused Trump Tricked by Fox News Into Opposing His Own Surveillance Bill More live-tweeting during "Executive Time," this time he ends up opposing his own administration's policies. Love that the President's primary source of information and understanding is a cable propaganda network.

BREAKING: Rep. Darrell Issa to Announce Retirement That seems like another big shift to "leans D"

The great Republican abdication The report concludes that Trump “has been negligent in acknowledging and responding” to the threat of future election sabotage, and calls on him to “launch a national response” to that threat. This includes establishing a coordinated inter-agency response to the threat; and presenting to Congress a “comprehensive national strategy” to deal with it. The Associated Press reports that “no Republicans” signed on to this document and its set of recommendations. Yet the basic outlines of this story have already been established by an extensive investigative report in The Post, which concluded that the U.S. government’s ability to prepare for this threat has been hampered by Trump’s refusal to accept that Russian sabotage of our election in 2016 happened at all. The Post noted that administration officials themselves acknowledge that Trump has “never convened a Cabinet-level meeting on Russian interference or what to do about it.” Even worse, The Post noted that “there is an unspoken understanding” within the National Security Counsel that the matter must not be raised with the president, because this would “acknowledge its validity, which the president would see as an affront.” Incredibly, The Post reported that this is rooted in a refusal by Trump to accept what even many inside the administration “regard as objective reality.” It is rapidly becoming the position of the whole GOP to join in this great abdication. First, it will be an interesting test to see how many Republicans — who, you may recall, previously condemned Russian meddling — join in endorsing even the general recommendations in this report, never mind the criticism of Trump. What’s more, you can draw a line from this directly to other big displays of GOP abdication on the Russia front. When Senator Dianne Feinstein released the transcript of the Fusion GPS co-founder’s congressional testimony, it was in response to the Republicans’ refusal to do the same. That refusal basically denied the American people crucial information that Republicans themselves had gathered about the genesis of the FBI probe into Trump-Russia collusion, simply because it didn’t prop up — and indeed undercut — the alternate narrative that Republicans had developed with the purpose of casting efforts to hold Trump and his associates accountable as illegitimate. The goal of that alt-narrative is in part to discredit the investigation as an abuse of power in its own right, by depicting the allegedly partisan Steele Dossier as the trigger for the original FBI probe. But thanks to that released testimony, we have learned that the FBI apparently took the findings of the Steele Dossier author seriously because it corroborated information the FBI had already gathered from other sources. Meanwhile, this abdication continues on other fronts. Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee are now weaponizing their probe against the FBI in service of this alt-narrative and are derailing the probe’s actual truth-seeking by refusing to green-light subpoenas to re-call Donald Trump Jr. and Attorney General Jeff Sessions to fill in more detail about Trump’s apparent efforts to obstruct justice. Obviously one can argue that warnings of the Russian threat to future elections are overblown, or that the collusion and efforts by Trump to impede the probe that have already been documented don’t amount to serious misconduct or crimes. But the point is that Republicans are working to frustrate a full accounting into all these matters without knowing what, exactly, they are preventing from seeing the light of day. Democrats are finally mounting pushback that is commensurate with a recognition of the true nature of what we’re seeing here. The Cardin report marks a newly aggressive effort to sound the alarm about Trump’s abdication of responsibility to protect our elections. Feinstein’s release of the Fusion GPS testimony signals a recognition that Republicans are actively trying to suppress the truth at this point, and that tougher measures are needed in response. Democrats on the House Intel Committee are mulling the release of a minority report that would detail the avenues of inquiry that Republicans have blocked. If Republicans are joining Trump in this great abdication, we are now seeing a new phase in the Democratic response to it. Republicans doing absolutely nothing to honestly and earnestly investigate, understand and prevent foreign influence on our elections because it makes their leader look bad is a failure to serve the country. They're all complicit.

I don't think Arizona has a "jungle primary" like California.

Bannon out at Breitbart. Trump's base has made it very clear that they follow him above all else.

PHOTOS: The Sahara Desert, Painted White With Snow more cool photos at the link

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 8, 2018 -> 11:11 AM) Early Nov. - Trump removes protections for 2,500 Nicaraguans in U.S. for decades Late Nov. - Trump removes protections for 60,000 Haitians Now - Trump orders nearly 200,000 Salvadorans out.

first-past-the-post systems are less than optimal