Report out of Argentina that when Trump and President Mauricio Macri talked Trump asked for help getting an office building Trump's been trying to build in Argentina through.
He talked about those policies during the campaign, so it's not like they're supposed to be secret. He just wanted a dramatic reveal because he's a reality TV president.
This is good bet how the Trump administraion goes: Ask legitimate Qs, get sad, pathetic responses.
Quote:
Jeremy W. PetersVerified account
@jwpetersNYT
I asked @KellyannePolls if Trump was breaking any laws by continuing to conduct business. She said I was being negative.
Federal judges panel finds state redistricting plan an "unconstitutional gerrymander"
A panel of federal judges on Monday ruled that Wisconsin's 2011 legislative redistricting plan, created by Republican leaders virtually in secret, is an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander.
"We find that Act 43 was intended to burden the representational rights of Democratic voters throughout the decennial period by impeding their ability to translate their votes into legislative seats," wrote federal appeals court judge Kenneth Ripple, the senior judge on the three-judge panel. "Moreover, as demonstrated by the results of the 2012 and 2014 elections, among other evidence, we conclude that Act 43 has had its intended effect. Finally, we find that the discriminatory effect is not explained by the political geography of Wisconsin nor is it justified by a legitimate state interest. Consequently, Act 43 constitutes an unconstitutional political gerrymander."
...
Republicans have countered that as the majority party, they can draw the map any way they choose, short of creating districts that disenfranchise racial minorities.
When a state or local government draws a redistricting map that does not distribute the population completely evenly, but still keeps the deviations from perfect equality under ten percent, the map can still survive unless the challengers can show that something more nefarious was going on. Exactly how nefarious that conduct must be is an open question, but the Court’s opinion strongly indicates that challenges will succeed “only rarely, in unusual cases” – a high bar indeed.
The Democrats in the Wisconsin case claim that they have a method of measuring. From the article I posted:
The Democrats contend that they have found a way to measure unconstitutional partisan gerrymanders that are designed to give an extreme and durable advantage in elections to one party, a measure that the U.S. Supreme Court has said it was lacking. The measure, called the efficiency gap, shows how cracking (breaking up blocs of Democratic voters) and packing (concentrating Democrats within certain districts) results in wasted votes -- excess votes for one party in safe districts and votes for losing candidates in those safe districts.
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Speaking of Wisconsin, here's a really good article on the voters of a Milwaukee suburb who simply didn't vote (or voted for themselves). And also why Oprah 2020 or Kanye 2020 is nowhere near as absurd or stupid as we think. It might actually be the Dems best chance.
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Four barbers and a firefighter were pondering their future under a Trump presidency at the Upper Cutz barbershop last week.
“We got to figure this out,” said Cedric Fleming, one of the barbers. “We got a gangster in the chair now,” he said, referring to President-elect Donald J. Trump.
They admitted that they could not complain too much: Only two of them had voted. But there were no regrets.
“I don’t feel bad,” Mr. Fleming said, trimming a mustache. “Milwaukee is tired. Both of them were terrible. They never do anything for us anyway.”
As Democrats pick through the wreckage of the campaign, one lesson is clear: The election was notable as much for the people who did not show up, as for those who did. Nationally, about half of registered voters did not cast ballots.
Wisconsin, a state that Hillary Clinton had assumed she would win, historically boasts one of the nation’s highest rates of voter participation; this year’s 68.3 percent turnout was the fifth best among the 50 states. But by local standards, it was a disappointment, the lowest turnout in 16 years. And those no-shows were important. Mr. Trump won the state by just 27,000 voters.
Milwaukee’s lowest-income neighborhoods offer one explanation for the turnout figures. Of the city’s 15 council districts, the decline in turnout from 2012 to 2016 in the five poorest was consistently much greater than the drop seen in more prosperous areas — accounting for half of the overall decline in turnout citywide.
The biggest drop was here in District 15, a stretch of fading wooden homes, sandwich shops and fast-food restaurants that is 84 percent black. In this district, voter turnout declined by 19.5 percent from 2012 figures, according to Neil Albrecht, executive director of the City of Milwaukee Election Commission. It is home to some of Milwaukee’s poorest residents and, according to a 2016 documentary, “Milwaukee 53206,” has one of the nation’s highest per-capita incarceration rates.
At Upper Cutz, a bustling barbershop in a green-trimmed wooden house, talk of politics inevitably comes back to one man: Barack Obama. Mr. Obama’s elections infused many here with a feeling of connection to national politics they had never before experienced. But their lives have not gotten appreciably better, and sourness has set in.
“We went to the beach,” said Maanaan Sabir, 38, owner of the Juice Kitchen, a brightly painted shop a few blocks down West North Avenue, using a metaphor to describe the emotion after Mr. Obama’s election. “And then eight years happened.”
All four barbers had voted for Mr. Obama. But only two could muster the enthusiasm to vote this time. And even then, it was a sort of protest. One wrote in Mrs. Clinton’s Democratic opponent, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. The other wrote in himself.
Quote:
“I felt cornered,” said Ian Pfeiffer, 25, who works the grill at Jake’s Delicatessen and says he did not vote. “We were stuck between Trump and Hillary. They really left us with no choice.”
Mr. Pfeiffer’s grandmother, an avid supporter of Mrs. Clinton, spent months trying to convince him to vote for her. But he could not get over his revulsion at what he saw as trust issues related to the Clinton Foundation. (Mr. Pfeiffer’s grandfather pushed him toward Mr. Trump, but he found him even less appealing.)
He thought Oprah Winfrey would be a good candidate.
“Hey, would you vote for Oprah Winfrey?” he said in a loud voice to a line of customers.
“Yeah, I’d vote for her,” said Erin Miles, 41, a financial services worker waiting for her sandwich. “She has a level head and decision-making skills.”
Dan Carlin has speculated that a third-party candidate with a high Q-quotient - an actor or celebrity of some kind - would have won this election. I have my doubts about the actor part, as a lot of Americans have nothing but contempt for celebrities and their vapid political posturing. But what other fields of endeavour grant Americans a high profile?
__________________
Quote:
Originally Posted by fotze
If this day gets you riled up, you obviously aren't numb to the disappointment yet to be a real fan.
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Dan Carlin has speculated that a third-party candidate with a high Q-quotient - an actor or celebrity of some kind - would have won this election. I have my doubts about the actor part, as a lot of Americans have nothing but contempt for celebrities and their vapid political posturing. But what other fields of endeavour grant Americans a high profile?
You say celebrity but I think you meant to say liberal actor. A celebrity just won the presidency.
Trump had invited a bunch of the media to an off-the-record meeting. A few thought it might be about media access; Trump hasn't held a press conference since I think July (lol remember when Trump criticizing Clinton for not having press conferences was a thing?). Some thought it might be generally about access, Trump doesn't have a protective press pool yet.
Nope, guess it was so he could berate them some more.
“It was like a f---ing firing squad,” one source said of the meeting. "Trump started with [CNN President] Jeff Zucker and said, ‘I hate your network, everyone at CNN is a liar and you should be ashamed.’"
“The meeting was a total disaster. The TV execs and anchors went in there thinking they would be discussing the access they would get to the Trump administration, but instead they got a Trump-style dressing down.”
The Post’s second source said the meeting included 30 to 40 people, and said Trump also took aim at ABC and NBC.
“Trump kept saying, ‘We’re in a room full of liars, the deceitful dishonest media who got it all wrong,'" the source said. "He addressed everyone in the room calling the media dishonest, deceitful liars. Trump didn’t say [NBC reporter] Katy Tur by name, but talked about a female correspondent who got it wrong.
