McConnell delaying the vote on the FEMA Administrator nominee due to a nasty storm seems appropriate.

On CNN senator Whitehouse (with a name like that, shouldn't he should be president?) said that Flynn is now cooperating witness

Was there ever any question Flynn would be a weasel?

The kid from UVA who took down that poster in North Korea died. Awful.

Spicer is out as press secretary and will help find a replacement

The Crimson Cyclone wrote:Spicer is out as press secretary and will help find a replacement

lol

Remember when there were those Twitter stories of feds raiding some offices in the eastern district of VA? Well subpoenas we're issued to a bunch of places connected to Manafort.

Slowhand wrote:

The Crimson Cyclone wrote:Spicer is out as press secretary and will help find a replacement

lol

They basically don't hold on camera briefings at this point.

The Crimson Cyclone wrote:Spicer is out as press secretary and will help find a replacement

They're gonna find another role for him in the White House because he's obviously a multitalented government executive

Jared making his first public utterance today. Hooboy - I can see why they kept him in the closet so to speak (or not speak). Definite high-talker. Sounded like a pimply high-school freshman. Maybe he'll take on press secretary duties; the guy can do it all

Spicer can get his old job as the Easter Bunny for the Egg Roll.

Ivanka's voice is lower than Jared's.

Don't think osoff is going to win tomorrow and I'll be sad

show us the bill

The Crimson Cyclone wrote:

thephan wrote:From a Washington Post story about gerrymandering, the graphic below is exceptional. The big news of the article is that the SC is going to take up a case about gerrymandering.

analysis suggests the GOP won between 25 and 37 extra seats in the 2012 election because of its redistricting advantage

Read it for yourself

Not surprising since it was an actual implemented plan in 2010 to win as many state seats as they could with gobs of money and then redistrict everything to install house control for a decade.

I posted a clip from the Maddow show from a few years ago before on how they did it. She actually interviewed one of the guys who helped plan it.

The vote/seats efficiency thing is not a useful proxy for partisan gerrymandering and the paper says as much. The GOP advantage in winning more seats than votes would suggest was a combination of benefiting from partisan gerrymandering, nonpartisan gerrymandering, political geography, incumbency advantages, and the vagaries of individual campaigns. Would guess partisan gerrymandering is a third of the edge there at best. Which isn't to say it's irrelevant, but it's overrated.

Anyway, replying because it is precious to say it's not surprising the GOP has this advantage since they tried to win states in 2010! and then redistrict things afterwards! As if the Democrats did not have similar actual plans in 2010. And both parties in 2000. This is in large part what political parties exist to do. The GOP benefited from a wave election in 2010. They got to draw the lines in a bunch of key states. Democrats might win a bunch of statehouses next year in an anti Trump wave and control redistricting in them. There will probably even be TV clips talking about how they tried very hard to win the races they won.

jerseyhoya wrote:The vote/seats efficiency thing is not a useful proxy for partisan gerrymandering and the paper says as much. The GOP advantage in winning more seats than votes would suggest was a combination of benefiting from partisan gerrymandering, nonpartisan gerrymandering, political geography, incumbency advantages, and the vagaries of individual campaigns. Would guess partisan gerrymandering is a third of the edge there at best. Which isn't to say it's irrelevant, but it's overrated.

Anyway, replying because it is precious to say it's not surprising the GOP has this advantage since they tried to win states in 2010! and then redistrict things afterwards! As if the Democrats did not have similar actual plans in 2010. And both parties in 2000. This is in large part what political parties exist to do. The GOP benefited from a wave election in 2010. They got to draw the lines in a bunch of key states. Democrats might win a bunch of statehouses next year in an anti Trump wave and control redistricting in them. There will probably even be TV clips talking about how they tried very hard to win the races they won.

So we can put you down as "pro gerrymandering" then.


Seems like an interesting question. It seems stupid to permit states to effectively decide for themselves how the manage the way their citizenry selects representatives to the federal government. And in fact they aren't permitted to do odious things that effectively tilt selection processes based on race, for example.

But there's no one right way to draw boundaries, eliminating politics from the process isn't possible, and the typical form of a court's ruling - "we aren't telling you how to do it, but you can't do it XYZ way" - seems likely only to create - or expand? - a "redistricting lobbying" industry.

So good, on balance, for your career prospects?

ICE believes the attacker in the Muslim teen attack was an undocumented immigrant from El Salvador. There is no confirmation of this, as far as I can see.

Also things that cannot be confirmed, Russia's claim last week that they killed IS leader al-Baghdadi.

GOP voter profiling database of ~198M US voters left exposed for at least 2 weeks. It has been mentioned that it is an easily downloadable file format, so I am guessing a massive flat file CSV. The data apparently paints a fairly complete and accurate picture of a majority of the electorate. So apparently the GOP does not need Russian intervention or hacking, they are just delivering Americans on the half-shell as a service to the internet community. So nice. Seriously, what is worse, Team Hillary taking the bait in a fishing exploit OR freely available dossier type data on most of the voting age citizens?

This was announced yesterday and it does not seem to be getting the kind of attention it should.

thephan wrote:GOP voter profiling database of ~198M US voters left exposed for at least 2 weeks....
This was announced yesterday and it does not seem to be getting the kind of attention it should.

well, what "reports" that conventional media outlets (LA Times for example) have put out are so bereft of facts, or specifics, or anything other than "ZOMG, there's a big table with peoples' names & addresses & shit in it somewhere!1!!", that it's almost pointless to mention it.

Data can be gathered and made more or less informative, with varying levels of reliability. What's done with it is where the action, legal and otherwise, can start.

Bruce Bond, a radio host in central PA had to resign after management told him to stop criticizing President Trump. The station is 92.1 WTPA-FM which seems to be based out of Ephrata. He's apparently invoked controversy before per a pennlive article in 2013 including serving 2 years in prison for his involvement in a forged-check scheme.

sounds about right

everybody dont forget to get on the SorosbusTM down to ga-06 and vote.