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I'm curious as to what and who notable lawyers thought should have been charged with something. Also, you (and the notable Norwegian lawyers) may or may not realize that Florida has the 'stand your ground' law, which is likely partially why no charges were brought. Still, it sounds like a horrible accidemt that would almost deserve a Darwin award. edit: The guy was certainly unaware of the confrontation the father in law had with another relative earlier that night.

At least I tried to be funny.

Joking around aside, yeah, with the off the grid stuff and everything, you're likely more environmentalist than most people here GD.

I'd imagine there'd be some embarrassment involved at this point, or is it a nationalism thing? You're a polluter with those um.. farting horses! yeah, farting horses. lol

I see. Was a little confused if you were trying to attack or not. Anyhow, looks like Rick Perry, DOE Secretary, may be the next casualty of the investigation. The Politico link has the three sources claim that Ukraine has nothing to do with it, but it could be a contributing factor as he's been sucked into it.

Um, I think you misunderstand? I wasn't trying to defend Russia, I was basically going 'and antics like that weren't contributing factors? Because Obama tried to do the relations reset (as botched as it was), which isn't exactly behavior of someone 'basically restarting the cold war'. Maybe I should have said the whole thing rather than the part I did say.

And antics like Russia invading Crimea had nothing to do with it? More like getting shocked out of complacency IMO, but could partially be an accelerationism effect too.

Now Trump is saying that China of all countries should investigate the Bidens. After which he made a context free claim. I can easily imagine China seeing this and going "What?! No way, we're not getting involved in this clusterf**k" (except in more diplomatic language), especially not after he's straight up blurted it out in public since everybody is going to know. It's probably an attempt along the lines of his "Russia, if you're listening, please find Hillary's 30,000 (or whatever number) emails!", but it's in the middle of where people are already wary.

The thing though is that there technically is no precedent because this has never happened before, so, it's hard to judge it based on historical precedent.

Well, if the DNC continues the pattern of two sets of debates having the same qualifying rules, she'll definitely make the December debate. I don't know how much more they might increase their requirements since any further restriction might start being seen as unfair, especially as it gets close to the Iowa caucases. Yeah, theres lots of contradictions on her prosecutorial record vs what she is talking about as far as policy. I've also heard that she isn't doing great here in California either, her home state.

@Bartimaeus @ShadySands True, though it'd be more of a concern for the general. However, unless Biden somehow does something to alienate Sanders supporters, the Democrats are united enough against Trump that it shouldn't be too much of an issue. She's been kind of struggling in the polls though, so if she is the most electable, that message hasn't gotten out. She will make the November debate though, so, she probably just has to at minimum stay afloat and keep getting into the debates until voting actually starts. Besides, anything could happen between now and Iowa, as the Ukraine stuff shows and Sanders health scare.

Bruce is also South African, not that he isn't entitiled to his own opinion. Also, Bernie Sanders has said he'd back whoever wins the nomination 'because we need unity' (paraphrased). His supporters though, are another matter entirely.

Actually, edit to my previous post, apparently what they got was a 'packet of propoganda' according to some of the Dems. It also has more of what Rep. Raskin said as I didn't catch the whole thing earlier. Given what the WaPo link said about the guy being a 'straight shooter' and the given reason for the briefing, I find it hard to believe that he would allow his position to be used that way. So, I'm not sure what to think of it atm. edit: and apparently just strange overall since it appears to basically been just handing over a bunch of papers without explaination.

From what that one congressman said, sounded like those at the briefing (or maybe just that one congressman) were a little confused too, I think. Anyways, The Guardian has some info. Basically it's about, or at least in part, potential political retaliation against career officials over Ukraine. And yes, that presser with the Finnish President was a clusterbleep all right.

The article does state 'a large quantity of rooms' without specifying the exact numbers. However, if we continue this tangent, without knowing details like how many rooms the hotel has, how many days they were rented for, how much was paid, etc, we can't even begin to figure out whether it would end up being a net loss or whatever. I can imagine situations that might look similar like booking for some conference and plans change and they somehow forget to unbook, but without plausible and credible explainations like that (though even my explaination sounds barely credible since it'd be quite the financial screwup), it looks pretty odd, especially taken into context Trump.

I'd imagine renting an unoccupied room and using it and renting an unoccupied room and not using it would be totally separate things financially for the hotel owner though. edit: Could have inserted that into my previous post, but eh well.

While it's reasonable to expect a few in any given year (or month for large hotels) since plans can change and people forget to cancel it; I assume that most hotels have procedures to free up rooms that are booked but not occupied after a certain period of time because while I assume that they can certainly take into account the few random ones that do happen, anything more than a handful is going to cause problems for the hotels. ehh, massive runon sentence that I'm not sure where to split it.

*doublepost because the forum doesn't show the thread as updated when the latest post has been edited* Also, I've gotta sympathize with Finland, it has to be embarrassing to have their President be in the room while that press conference devolved into an absolute farce. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/464088-reporter-asks-finnish-president-what-favors-trump-has-asked-for Oof, that's gonna get asked of every leader that visits isn't it?

Yeah, but you have to think in terms of his narcissistic personality, not to mention that they didn't use any of the services and if it happens in big enough numbers, could actually start hurting business.

I dunno, Trump seems like the person who would get pissed off at booking but not using, if he ever found out about that. Still, it's EXACTLY the type of emoluments violations that would constitute corruption and the kind of thing people were concerned about with Trump not divesting his businesses. I know the founders were actually thinking of stuff like gifts from kings and whatever, but it probably needs to be updated and clarified.

Short is generally considered good, for the prosecution, means that the jury isn't wrestling over some tough bits. Six hours might be somewhere close to the average though? Gromnir would probably know what the statistic is, or at least have a better idea of what's considered typical.

Oh, hadn't seen that mention by Trump. I wonder if Trump even knows that by throwing Pence under the bus, he risks Pelosi becoming President (even in caretaker mode, given the timing as mentioned earlier in the thread)?

@Pidesco @Malcador @Guard Dog Huh? The only thing 'throwing Pence under the bus' that I've heard about is a half-joke about having Pence be President, but that's a real stretch from implicating Pence. There's no indication that I know of that he is directly involved or otherwise implicated in the current scandal.

I was kind of referring to the whole Mueller findings stuff and the general attitude of the GOP. Still, I agree that it'd be impossible (might be slightly easier if you did it while the election is happening) to quantify whether the disinformation changed any votes because any one single ad is unlikely to be the one that changes someones mind.

Well, initiated by AG Barr is a little different, but it's still just as troubling. I know the DoJ works with other countries on legal stuff all the time, so, it's not entirely out of the ordinary (though I have no idea how 'normal' such asks are. I could see maybe national security related stuff, but not outside of that), but the troubling part is how partisan it is and in the context of the Ukraine one. edit: Though I wonder what AG Barr thinks he could get out of Morrison that he couldn't get out of working with the Australian counterparts.