Skinypupy wrote:I was proud of my self-control today. Sat across the aisle from Jason Chaffetz on his final flight back from DC as a congressman, and I didn't lob any f-bombs or insults his way.
Although I may have said "good riddance" a little too loud as we were getting off the plane...
A Texas judge has declined to revoke bond for the mother of a teenager who used an "affluenza" defense regarding a fatal drunken-driving wreck after prosecutors said she carried a rifle and sipped beer.
Judge Wayne Salvant on Thursday urged Tonya Couch, who's free on bond, to "use common sense" pending her trial on hindering apprehension of a felon and money laundering charges. Prosecutors wanted her returned to jail.
Witnesses testifying for prosecutors Thursday alleged Couch carried a rifle at a gun show over the weekend and sipped beer at a restaurant last month.
NJ state government is shutdown because they couldn't pass a budget. So 4th of July weekend tons of state parks are closed losing TONS of money. Seriously this state is so broken. Christie can go f himself. What a piece of shit he is.
Capitalism tries for a delicate balance: It attempts to work things out so that everyone gets just enough stuff to keep them from getting violent and trying to take other people’s stuff.
Octavious wrote:NJ state government is shutdown because they couldn't pass a budget. So 4th of July weekend tons of state parks are closed losing TONS of money. Seriously this state is so broken. Christie can go f himself. What a piece of shit he is.
Many beaches are closed too, which is a huge economic hit.
This morning we drove back to Philadelphia from a NY visit. It's wise to get out early to miss some of the shore traffic on the NJ turnpike, but we left later than we planned. Once on the highway, we couldn't figure out why there was almost no traffic to speak of.
Octavious wrote:NJ state government is shutdown because they couldn't pass a budget. So 4th of July weekend tons of state parks are closed losing TONS of money. Seriously this state is so broken. Christie can go f himself. What a piece of shit he is.
What is amazing to me is people should be melting down about how shady his reason for the shutdown is *and* that he staged this to happen over the 4th of July weekend. A lot of shore towns are getting kicked in the teeth again by this sunavabitch.
I also discovered that since the State govt didn't pass a budget, my town can't certify the new property tax rate, and so the town can't provide my mortgage company with the amount of the next payment. So on Friday morning they needed me to pay them $2500 when my refi closes Monday morning. But then they couldn't get the amount, and that meant that they had to take last year's payment and bump it by 20%. Unfortunately last year's payment was inflated by $800 because my property taxes jumped $2000 last year. And so by Friday night, I need to give them $3500 Monday morning.
I'll get the difference back once the actual amount is determined, but in the meantime I get to loan the lender $1000.
F you Christie and NJ Democrats.
And in banks across the world
Christians, Moslems, Hindus, Jews
And every other race, creed, colour, tint or hue
Get down on their knees and pray
The raccoon and the groundhog neatly
Make up bags of change
But the monkey in the corner
Well he's slowly drifting out of range
I also loved how Christie went and held a planned family party at a house in a closed beach justifying it by saying that he wasn't using state services. Talk about a low life piece of scum. He closed the State over the 4th of July weekend in the hopes of lining his future pockets and then couldn't be man enough to say sorry to his family about being a dick. Let them eat cake. Politicians have always been slimy but it really seems like even in the sunlight they don't mind being seen as cockroaches.
Smoove_B wrote:That's insane. That's not something I even considered and I'm hoping you're making phone calls because that's beyond ridiculous.
I made a lot of phone calls Friday night. The issue is that the new mortgage will be sold before the first payment (9/1). In order to sell the mortgage, they have to demonstrate that the taxes are paid. So for this one time, the mortgage company has to pay the taxes to be able to make that guarantee (part of the reason for the refi, in addition to combining two mortgages to avoid a looming balloon payment, is to do away with this escrow account nonsense). To do that they have to collect the property tax payment at closing.
Since the payment is due in Aug, they looked at last Aug, which was inflated due to getting fisted (elbow deep) by my town last year. They literally picked the worst month in my town's history to use as a basis for this calculation. I didn't discover this until after the escrow and Title company were closed on Friday.
So my request to have them use the May payment as a basis cannot be addressed until Monday morning. But we're closing Monday morning. So my options were to delay the closing or give them the inflated number and collect the difference back next month. So that's what I did to get this closed, and get the anchor of that second mortgage off my back once and for all.
And in banks across the world
Christians, Moslems, Hindus, Jews
And every other race, creed, colour, tint or hue
Get down on their knees and pray
The raccoon and the groundhog neatly
Make up bags of change
But the monkey in the corner
Well he's slowly drifting out of range
Smoove_B wrote:Does looking at photos of Chris Christie relaxing on the beach help? Shameless. Absolutely shameless.
He is trash and doesn't give a damn that everyone knows. This is a shining example of some of our core political problems - complete lacking of: humility, shame, compassion, decency, fairness, and ethics. A leader doesn't rub our noses in his special perks. Especially one who has failed as consistently and completely as he has.
Between Christie and Trump I can't really take much more. Surrounded by self serving loud mouth bullies. It's so god damn depressing. I seriously have to start avoiding the news at this point. Thank god I didn't really have any plans that are impacted by this asshat.
Capitalism tries for a delicate balance: It attempts to work things out so that everyone gets just enough stuff to keep them from getting violent and trying to take other people’s stuff.
Octavious wrote: I seriously have to start avoiding the news at this point.
I have to take news breaks to recover my stamina/sanity. I'd love to bury my head in the sand entirely but I'm afraid to, and I think I'm an Internet addict...
Octavious wrote:Between Christie and Trump I can't really take much more. Surrounded by self serving loud mouth bullies. It's so god damn depressing. I seriously have to start avoiding the news at this point. Thank god I didn't really have any plans that are impacted by this asshat.
At least CNN has a nice article up about the situation:
What explains it? Either Christie is actively working to destroy any political future he might have or he has simply stopped caring.
The latter option is more plausible. Christie is term-limited out of office early next year. He has zero interest in running for the US Senate and couldn't get elected to one of those seats even if he did want to wind up in the world's greatest deliberative body.
Christie's only option is to be a second-wave Trump administration appointee; he is regularly rumored as a chief of staff possibility if and when Reince Priebus leaves or is ushered out.
And, if there's anyone out there who l-o-v-e-s Christie sunbathing while the beaches are shut down, it's Trump. The President digs anyone who thumbs his nose at convention. If you can feud with the press too, well, that's a double bonus in the eyes of Trump.
When you see Christie on the beach then, you see a man who has stopped caring. He knows he is done as a politician in New Jersey -- and that his only possible future rests in the hands of a man who has built a political career on flouting convention.
Not that he cares, but I didn't think it was possible for my opinion of him to go any lower; it has. I hope he leaves office in NJ with a single-digit approval rating.
Six teenage girls from Afghanistan planned to come to the US to compete in the First Global Challenge robotics competition this month, but those plans were canceled after they were denied visas to enter the country. Forbes reports that the girls traveled 500 miles to Kabul for their visa interviews, and that their robot’s supplies were held in customs for months.
This kit, which the competition organizers issued to every participating team, included different components, like brackets, extrusions, fastening hardware, hardware adaptors, bearings, wheels of different sizes, gears, pulleys, motors, servos, and sprockets. The State Department feared ISIS might try to use these parts on the battlefield, which is why they delayed sending them to the girls.
Still, the team built a ball-sorting robot on a shortened timeline; their kit only arrived three weeks ago. More than 100 other teams have entered the competition, including participants from Iraq, Iran, and Sudan. The girls’ robot will still compete, but the team will only be able to watch over a video call from their homes in Herat, Afghanistan.
"What? What?What?" -- The 14th Doctor
It's not enough to be a good player... you also have to play well. -- Siegbert Tarrasch
If they don't sign a budget today, I'd say that's pretty much a lock. He's saying he's Mr. Reasonable, but yet he said if they don't include Horizon in the deal he will line item veto everything in the budget. Essentially he will be screwing over every special interest group in the state to prove a point. And we all know he's not bluffing as why should he give a shit anymore? It's disgusting.
Capitalism tries for a delicate balance: It attempts to work things out so that everyone gets just enough stuff to keep them from getting violent and trying to take other people’s stuff.
Right - he's trying to take a state-created health insurance plan's $300 million budget surplus and force them to turn it into an drug-treatment fund. He's trying to set up some type of legacy so that we all think of him kindly...or demonstrate to someone on a federal level that he cares about drug treatment. Either way, he's a douche.
Trump's always has the most. And he sees conspiracies against him in everything. Logic and facts do not matter to him.
"If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts." - Albert Einstein "I don't stand by anything." - Trump “Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.” - John Stuart Mill, Inaugural Address Delivered to the University of St Andrews, 2/1/1867 “It is the impractical things in this tumultuous hell-scape of a world that matter most. A book, a name, chicken soup. They help us remember that, even in our darkest hour, life is still to be savored.” - Poe, Altered Carbon
But while Gov. Chris Christie and his family tanned, the other families burned -- with anger.
The other Island Beach residents were ordered out of the homes Friday night under the threat of arrest. They packed up and drove off, right past the governor's summer retreat, its lights ablaze with activity.
...
They are strictly seasonal, getaway bungalows tucked behind dunes and hidden in the forest of dwarf cedars and pines, and thickets of bayberry, beach palms, and, yes, crazy amounts of poison ivy.
They pay $1,900 a year but get no services or utilities. Electricity comes from gas generators or solar panels or propane. They carry in their own drinking water. They do their own spraying for the uncontrollable mosquitoes and green and black flies.
It's roughing it, for sure, but it's home for the summer - at least for vacations.
So Howard and Betty Height were surprised when park police knocked on the door Friday night and told them they had to scoot.
"They're good guys," Howard Height said. "They were just doing their job. But they said if we weren't gone by midnight, we'd be arrested."
On Friday, the Heights and other families had received calls saying the park might close but lease holders could come in, limited to two people per house.
What an asshole.
When darkness veils the world, four Warriors of Light shall come.
Volvo is phasing out cars that rely on combustion engines, with every new model launched from 2019 to have an electric motor, as the shift away from the technology that’s dominated the auto industry for more than a century gathers pace.
Promising the “historic end” of cars that only have combustion engines, Volvo Car Group will introduce five electric models by 2021 and offer hybrid options across its product line, according to a statement on Wednesday.
With the law now in place, any county resident — not just any parent with a child in the country’s public schools, as was the case previously — can now file a complaint about instructional materials in the county’s public schools, and the school will now have to appoint a hearing officer to hear the complaint.
So every whack job can now submit a complaint to the school district demanding that they cover the theory that Earth is flat and rests on a giant turtle that rests on giant elephants - and the school board will be forced to pay some clown to "review" every one of those complaints.
Thirty years ago, as Donald Trump gave what is widely considered to be the first campaign speech of his career, he criticized one country above all for cheating the United States in trade: Japan.
On Thursday, Japan took on the mantle of the global rules-based trading system, as it sidestepped a failing trade agreement with the United States to forge a historic new pact with the European Union.
Leaders from Japan and the European Union on Thursday announced their agreement on the broad strokes of a trade deal that will cover nearly 30 percent of the global economy, 10 percent of the world's population and 40 percent of global trade.
The deal crafts a trading bloc roughly the same size as that established by the North American Free Trade Agreement, a 1994 deal between the United States, Mexico and Canada.
Coming on the eve of the Group of 20 meeting of global leaders in Hamburg, Germany, the announcement appeared to be a calculated rebuke of both the United States, which has spurned global trade agreements in favor of more protectionist policies under President Trump, and Great Britain, which voted to leave the European Union last year.
"What? What?What?" -- The 14th Doctor
It's not enough to be a good player... you also have to play well. -- Siegbert Tarrasch
Trump is such a fucking moron. Spurned Europe and pushed Japan into Europe. Tore up TPP and pushed the rest of Asia into China. Trump is going to go down in history as the biggest chump ever. Literally throwing away empire to keep his childrens' pockets full. People who think that the best times are ahead Roman Empire style past the fall of the Republic probably need to re-calibrate now. What a goddamn fucking moron.
malchior wrote:Trump is such a fucking moron. Spurned Europe and pushed Japan into Europe. Tore up TPP and pushed the rest of Asia into China. Trump is going to go down in history as the biggest chump ever. Literally throwing away empire to keep his childrens' pockets full. People who think that the best times are ahead Roman Empire style past the fall of the Republic probably need to re-calibrate now. What a goddamn fucking moron.
I agree, although during the campaign TPP was taking tons of shit on the left and from the Democratic party as well (and, IIRC, Clinton came out against it during the campaign). While I am inclined to think that not signing onto the TPP was a significant mistake (although I don't know a ton of the details of the agreement to be honest), it's far from clear that President Clinton would have signed on either.
I think she would have perhaps backed off, negotiated more, and messaged about it better. The merits of TPP were not explained well and that made it too easy to sink. However I'm confident she wouldn't have just thrown up her hands and said...have at it China. Especially knowing the Japan/EU deal was in the wings. This is going to be seen as a colossal mistake eventually.
She would have been smarter about it, to be sure (although that applies to everything), but it's at least unclear whether she would have ultimately signed on or not. Did TPP need congressional approval?
There were many good reasons not to sign the TPP. Trump didn't pick one of them and I would have preferred there had been some more diplomatic talk about alternatives or changes to make the treaty better.
Clinton is a global free trader. She would have found a way to slow walk TPP through with Republican moderate and business support in a post-Trump world.
Trump takes no strategic initiative. His Presidency has been low-energy, high-noise. He leaves money on the table out of inattention and negligence, while focusing on personal projects that produce nothing but headlines.
"If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts." - Albert Einstein "I don't stand by anything." - Trump “Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.” - John Stuart Mill, Inaugural Address Delivered to the University of St Andrews, 2/1/1867 “It is the impractical things in this tumultuous hell-scape of a world that matter most. A book, a name, chicken soup. They help us remember that, even in our darkest hour, life is still to be savored.” - Poe, Altered Carbon
Zarathud wrote:... while focusing on personal projects that produce nothing but headlines.
Of course. If it doesn't have "Trump" as every 16th word, he loses focus and wanders away. He really likes attention, and will smash everything in arm's reach to get it.
Black Lives Matter
2021-01-20: The first good night's sleep I had in 4 years.
Now the commencement speakers will typically also wish you good luck and extend good wishes to you. I will not do that, and I’ll tell you why. From time to time in the years to come, I hope you will be treated unfairly, so that you will come to know the value of justice. I hope that you will suffer betrayal because that will teach you the importance of loyalty. Sorry to say, but I hope you will be lonely from time to time so that you don’t take friends for granted. I wish you bad luck, again, from time to time so that you will be conscious of the role of chance in life and understand that your success is not completely deserved and that the failure of others is not completely deserved either. And when you lose, as you will from time to time, I hope every now and then, your opponent will gloat over your failure. It is a way for you to understand the importance of sportsmanship. I hope you’ll be ignored so you know the importance of listening to others, and I hope you will have just enough pain to learn compassion. Whether I wish these things or not, they’re going to happen. And whether you benefit from them or not will depend upon your ability to see the message in your misfortunes.
Is Steve King planning on running for President in 2020? Because I can't think of another reason he'd say this:
Congress should use money from its food stamp budget and Planned Parenthood funding to pay for a wall along the border between the United States and Mexico, Rep. Steve King said Wednesday.
...
"Are you comfortable, congressman, with providing $1.6 billion of taxpayer money, not from Mexico, to build that wall?" CNN's Alisyn Camerota asked on "New Day."
"Absolutely, yes and more," he replied. "And I'd throw another $5 billion on the pile and I would find half a billion of that from right out of Planned Parenthood's budget. And the rest of it could come out of food stamps and the entitlements that are being spread out for people who haven't worked in three generations."
I know he's gross, but I'm still amazed elected officials are going full-on masks are now off with their interviews.
