It was a one timer that killed Jo Cox (UK MP). How many people do you think would have died if the murderer had an AR in his possession?

Was he the one ****ing kids when he was a teacher? Or am I thinking of a different guy?

Nobody itt is arguing against AR-15 bans?

Maybe you're thinking of Dennis Hastert, the former GOP speaker who molested kids when he was a high school wrestling coach.

Fun Fact: Paul Ryan's favorite "majority of the majority" rule that he uses to block any Democratic legislation from getting a vote is called the Hastert Rule, after the aforenamed pedophile.

Ah. Got my Dennises confused.

dont know anything about it. he was clevelands mayor in the late 70s and he was so liberal and so righteous that he pissed off just about every person on both sides which is about what you would expect since this is just another super corrupt city and it was proly way worse back then with the mob and all.

from wiki

lol didnt even know about the mob hit.

he does have an insanely hot wife who is like 25yrs younger than him and like a foot taller. statuesque redhead. oddest couple ever.

anyway, after that he became a rep and won his district like every year until like 2012 when the republicans gerrymandered his district into another dems district and he lost.

heres my boring story about meeting him. I used to play poker at the so-called "charity" games around town. well there was a massive middle eastern festival on the west side. lots of iraqis and palestinian immigrants. mostly christian I think. they loved to gamble and and iirc there were 12 tables going. 2 15-30 full kill games. I was surprised bc the week before other regulars had made disparaging remarks about the upcoming "arab festival" . I got there a bit late and was buried on the waitlist with really no hope to get in the game which sucked bc these guys were the worst gamblers in the world and they were cash rich. they go on tilt, blow their money and then run to raid their gas station register and come back with a handful of crinkled dollars and 5s. lots of regulars that would follow the games around but this night had the guys who only showed up bc it was their festival.

really crazy atmosphere, hard to describe. just tons of ppl across a big lot and large interior space.

so I go to get a schwarma and Im about the only white guy around until I notice everyone clapping and dancing on the dance floor outside by the vendors. I see in the middle some old white guy dancing up a storm and dancing with all the women and children. it was kucinich. really funny sight, but you proly had to be there. this was proly 2004 or 2006 and I guess the political climate was better than it is now, but I remember a ton of anti-middle eastern and for lack of a better term anti-brown people sentiment. even tho these guys were christian, it not like there were many black or white ppl there and that section of town is really mixed and these game would rotate to churches and italian/greek/irish festivals and had tons of white regs.

so I thought it was pretty cool that he was there and that it was a bit of a risk given the climate and the animosity at the time.

now I see on his wiki that he has been a foxnews contributor and has said some things defending trump and I am kinda scared to look into it more bc I always liked the guy and he was virulently anti-bush and cheney and those guys were crooks that slaughtered millions of ppl for a lie that everyone knew about at the time.

he also has seen a UFO and plans on knocking on the door of every homeowner who owns a semi-auto rifle in the state and politely confiscating it. lololol

he can have mine for market value + a snapchat video of me flapping his ears like dumbo.

I talked to Sam Jammal for a while last night. He's running to take Ed Royce's seat in OC. Probably best to just look up his positions for yourself. The only thing I pressed him on at all was to check our his warmongerness and he didn't come across as one. Seemed pretty smart and genuine.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/04/u...T.nav=top-news

As Primaries Begin, Divided Voters Weigh What It Means to Be a Democrat

Lipinski for those that don't know is maybe the worst Democrat in Congress. He voted against the ACA, voted against the Dreamers, opposes legal abortion, opposes gay marriage, opposes the fight for $15, and obtained his safe blue district in the Chicago suburbs by getting the state House speaker to gerrymander it for him personally. So of course any kind of serious primary challenge is good news.

The DCCC and party establishment has actually handled themselves well in this primary, refusing to endorse the incumbent and refraining from retaliation against members who publicly endorse Lipinski's challenger. So who is his challenger?

Hmmm...

Very identity politics obsessed, but to be fair, it could be the author's personal bias. So I checked out Newman's webpage and unfortunately there are a lot of platitudes that gesture toward specifics but with no commitment per se - "healthcare for all solutions," "advocate for livable wages," etc - the DCCC's preferred approach to policy during the campaign. Amusingly, one issue where Newman becomes hyper specific is in opposing the BDS movement (gotta get that AIPAC endorsement, bruh).

All of this is to say that Newman is mostly fine and anyone in the area should certainly vote for her over a Republican like Lipinski, or the actual Republican who in this case is a literal Neo-Nazi. But returning to the title of the NYT article, what it means to be an (establishment) Democrat, it seems to me that it is just generically opposing discrimination and generically supporting equality. It feeds into the idea that the D's don't stand for anything. Policy litmus tests need to become more of a thing on our side.

So.... Was there anything good at all in the spending bill

Lots of good news for housing

PPP poll: Dem leads by 5 points in Tennessee Senate race

Dems would need to win nationwide by 11 points to retake House: analysis

lol wtf

That's an insane number. Blackburn is pure evil, so maybe that's just finally catching up to the people of the state. That and Bredesen was a decent governor, especially for the South.

Folks I've seen say 7 is probably more likely. Matt Yglesias has dealt with those claiming the gerrymandering isn't really a thing that matters in his standard fashion.



https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/sta...05317095673856

Most of TN has always known Blackburn is terrible. She had her little district locked up but I think she's going to regret giving that up to run in a statewide election. Probably already realizes she's made a huge mistake.

Stopping Blackburn would be a pretty huge blow to the Deplorable movement, and any chance the dems might have to take a senate seat is awesome.

For chimpstark: In New York, Trump Backlash Takes Aim at Renegade Democrats

Progressive groups are running challengers against the group of eight Democratic state senators that caucus with Republicans:

Meanwhile, the guy who leads the IDC has quite a, uh, bizarre view on the state of the party:

Yes, that makes total sense: the leader of the breakaway group of Democrats who literally vote with Republicans thinks his opponents are the reason the party isn't unified (and why Trump won).

However, Democrats still need more gains in order to take power; Republicans hold 31 seats in the state Senate, while Democrats (including nine defectors) hold 30.

Get your act together, New York. This is why CA GOAT.

CA cost the Ds at least a half dozen house seats by makikng redistricting non partisan. Illinois GOAT.

Your governor is an anti-labor Republican

Ya'll are cool and stuff, but my state is one of only two where every single county went blue in 2016.

I always thought you were a New Yorker for some reason. MA then? Get in the cah and we'll pick up some chowdah.

I'm from the other end of the state, where we pronounce the letter R. I've also spent most of my adult life elsewhere.

its a good the supreme court is on the this gerrymandering thing by taking down the....Democrats in Maryland. country is a complete joke and really has no chance.

Seems a bit premature to say that before they've made any ruling. Proponents of functioning democracy should be fine with them considering the MD map though because 1) it's in the running for most extreme gerrymandering in the entire country and 2) worst case is Democrats lose 1 seat but there would then be precedent to challenge the maps of larger Republican controlled states which has to be worth more than +1 seat EV.