***Official Political Discussion Thread***

Lost in all this hubbub is the other maga-deplorable terrorist murderer that tried to enter a black church in Kentucky to kill parishioners but couldn’t get access so he walked over to a grocery store to kill instead... :smh:

Crazy how these mutant deplorables have grown like mushrooms... These are the real NPCs that are trying their best to clear the board for the maga “master control program”...
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Do you believe in supply and demand? Do you believe in competition? If you do, then logic will tell you that the more unskilled labor workers that are looking for jobs then the lower the wages will be because of simple supply and demand. If someone is willing to do work cheaper then that person is driving wages down. That is a fact sir. It's not a "shtick". People offer free work all of the time to get their foot in the door.

Minimum wage shouldn't be raised. If people made better life choices they could survive off of minimum wage.

Here's the thing, there is no one single labor market. Yes, the markets for agricultural labor and construction are skewed because US based employers are accustomed to drawing upon the reserve army of labor from Latin America. At the same time, most workers’ wages have stagnated over the last thirty years even in parts of the US with little or no immigration and in jobs which are necessarily protected from competition from undocumented immigrant labor. There lots of jobs that require citizenship or just the ability to speak English fluently which undocumented people couldn’t do and yet those jobs still are subject to low or at least stagnated wages.

If you are truly concerned with low wages and want to see them raised, you should be in favor of policy changes such as a monetary policy which prioritizes full employment over near zero inflation. You should be in favor of a Federal Jobs guarantee which would radically skew the markets of labor in favor of workers. You should favor sociological changes that would value work done by caretakers. You should be in favor of breaking up mega firms which use their oligopsic power to suppress wages. You should be in favor of much stronger social safety net and an UBI which would make workers less desperate and would give them leverage in asking for higher wages.

There is so much more we could do aside from blocking small groups of refugees in the hope that we can tilt a few local labor markets for general and agricultural labor.

If you're only worried about low wages in the context of refugees and undocumented immigration, I am sorry but I have to suspect you are not actually worried about the plight of the American working class and instead you're concerned with something else entirely.
 
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Putin already already snubbed him the last time Trump tried to invite him to Washington, not long after the Helsinki summit. However the timing seems more appropriate now for the handler to conduct his next annual review.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/26/donald-trump-invites-vladimir-putin-to-washington
Donald Trump invites Vladimir Putin to Washington
It is not clear if Russian leader has accepted offer extended during John Bolton visit
Donald Trump has formally invited Vladimir Putin to visit Washington DC next year, the US national security adviser, John Bolton, has confirmed.

“We have invited President Putin to Washington,” Bolton said during a visit to Tbilisi, Georgia.

It is not clear whether Putin has accepted the White House’s invitation, which came when Bolton visited the Kremlin earlier this week.
The meeting would be a highly anticipated sequel to the pair’s controversial summit in Helsinki in July, igniting a firestorm of criticism against Trump, who has ignored Republican hawks to seek a close personal relationship with Putin.

The US president was widely criticised for appearing deferential to Putin in the Finnish capital and suggesting that he trusted the Russian leader’s denials about meddling in US elections more than reports from his own intelligence agencies.

Bolton made headlines earlier this week when he confronted officials about the alleged interference, claiming it did not affect Trump’s election.

Putin and Trump are due to meet briefly in Paris next month, when they attend a centennial memorial service for Armistice Day, which marked the end of the first world war. Bolton said during a news conference in Tbilisi that those talks would be brief.

A Washington visit would be far more controversial, with relations between Russia and the west at their worst since the cold war. The US is to impose new sanctions on Russia next month over the use of a novichok nerve agent in the attempted murder of the former spy Sergei Skripal in Salisbury, England.

Meanwhile, Moscow has accused Washington of sparking a new arms race by pulling out of a nuclear arms treaty that has been credited with keeping nuclear missiles out of Europe. The US has accused Russia of violating the treaty first, by developing a new cruise missile.

Bolton’s visit to Moscow was largely prompted by Trump’s decision to withdraw from the treaty. Bolton met Putin, as well as senior Russian defence and diplomatic officials, before beginning a tour through ex-Soviet countries in the Caucasus, including Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan.
 
If people/Americans/deplorables weren’t so stupid and lacking in critical thinking they wouldn’t have to, but alas here we are. I’m 100% all in on the media saying eff it, this guy isn’t getting anymore coverage of his idiocy.
It isn't stupidity; it is ignorance. Pure, unadulterated ignorance mixing with a potent dose of fear. I work with Trumpists. If you scared those fools into believing that gravity wasn't real, they'd forget all their technical training and jump off a building thinking they would fly. Those same people have spent so much time seriously despising liberal arts that they do not even consider the possibility that the ideas that gave birth to the Democratic West were nurtured and developed by liberal arts geniuses.

The fundamental rights that we take for granted (right of expression, of assembly, of dissent, and the right to choose who governs us) in any Democratic society are not God-given, and are the foundations of modern Western Civilization. The Enlightenment is the genesis of Western democracy, not the Bible. It wasn't Moses who inspired the founding fathers to write the constitution, it was the philosophers behind the French revolution. They don't teach that stuff in trade schools or STEM programs.
 
Could literally be anyone facing a Mueller grand jury subpoena, though it seems likely the unknown grand jury witness could be another one of Roger Stone's associates.

Excerpt
:
Nothing on the two dockets for the mystery grand jury fight mentions Mueller or his team.

However, a POLITICO reporter who visited the appeals court clerk's office on a day when a key filing in the dispute was due earlier this month observed a man request a copy of the special counsel's latest sealed filing so that the man's law firm could craft its response. The individual who asked for the secret filing declined to identify himself or his client and replied “I’m OK” when offered a reporter’s business card to remain in touch.

Excerpt 2:
Another detail emerged Wednesday strengthening the secret legal battle's apparent tie to Mueller's probe.
The first appeal appears to have been rejected by a D.C. Circuit panel as premature. The witness's lawyers asked the full bench of the appeals court to review that decision but a notation in court files says only nine of the court's 10 active judges participated. Bowing out was Judge Greg Katsas, the court's only member appointed by President Donald Trump.
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/10/24/mueller-investigation-grand-jury-roger-stone-friend-938572
Mueller link seen in mystery grand jury appeal
The special counsel appears to be locked in a dispute with a mystery grand jury witness, but much of the case is sealed.
Special counsel Robert Mueller appears to be locked in a dispute with a mystery grand jury witness resisting giving up information sought in the ongoing probe into alleged Trump campaign collusion with Russia.

It's unclear exactly what the two sides are fighting over, but the case appears to resemble a separate legal battle involving an associate of Trump ally Roger Stone, Andrew Miller, who is fighting a Mueller subpoena. Miller's lawyers are using the case, slated to be argued at the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals early next month, to mount a broad legal assault on Mueller's authority as special counsel.


In the more shadowy case, which involves an unknown person summoned before a grand jury this summer, the D.C. Circuit on Monday set a separate round of arguments for Dec. 14.

The case traveled in recent months from U.S. District Court Chief Judge Beryl Howell to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, back down to Howell and back up again to the appeals court with most details shrouded in secrecy, another indication that much of Mueller's activity is taking place behind the scenes and is rarely glimpsed by the press or public.

Nothing on the two dockets for the mystery grand jury fight mentions Mueller or his team.

However, a POLITICO reporter who visited the appeals court clerk's office on a day when a key filing in the dispute was due earlier this month observed a man request a copy of the special counsel's latest sealed filing so that the man's law firm could craft its response. The individual who asked for the secret filing declined to identify himself or his client and replied “I’m OK” when offered a reporter’s business card to remain in touch.

Three hours later, a sealed response in the grand-jury dispute was submitted to the D.C. Circuit.

Another detail emerged Wednesday strengthening the secret legal battle's apparent tie to Mueller's probe.

The first appeal appears to have been rejected by a D.C. Circuit panel as premature. The witness's lawyers asked the full bench of the appeals court to review that decision but a notation in court files says only nine of the court's 10 active judges participated. Bowing out was Judge Greg Katsas, the court's only member appointed by President Donald Trump.

Katsas served as a deputy White House counsel before Trump tapped him for the powerful D.C. Circuit last year. At Katsas's confirmation hearing, he acknowledged working on some issues related to the Russia investigation and signaled he would take a broad view of his recusal obligations stemming from that work.

"In cases of doubt, I would probably err on the side of recusal," Katsas told senators last October.

A spokesman for Mueller's office, Peter Carr, declined to comment on the litigation.

Lawyers for Trump said the mystery grand jury subpoena fight moving through the D.C. Circuit had nothing to do with the president. “No idea,” said Trump personal attorney Jay Sekulow when shown the docket for the case.

Attorneys for Stone said they didn’t know of anyone challenging a Mueller subpoena beyond Miller. Miller's lawyers agreed with Mueller's prosecutors to make many aspects of that dispute public.

No such agreement appears to have been struck in the other fight, although Mueller's team and the mystery witness did file a joint motion earlier this month asking the appeals court to expedite resolution of the dispute.

Several other lawyers who represent witnesses in the Mueller investigation also said they were unaware of who's crossing legal swords with the special counsel's team in the largely secret case.

A few, bare-bones details about the dispute are available in the public record. While all records about the litigation in the district court are sealed, the D.C. Circuit's docket shows that the case was brought in the District Court on Aug. 16 and Howell ruled on it on Sept. 19. The initial appeal was filed five days later.

"The bottom line is the most likely scenario is someone filed a motion to quash or otherwise resisted a grand jury subpoena, and the judge issued an order denying that and saying the witness needs to testify," said Ted Boutrous, a Gibson Dunn & Crutcher attorney who has handled grand jury-related litigation for journalists and media organizations.

It's unclear whether the case the appeals court has agreed to hear in December involves an assertion of attorney-client privilege or some other privilege, is framed as a broader attack on Mueller's authority, or perhaps advances both sets of arguments.

"It's very hard to tell from this docket," Boutrous said.

The grand jury cases pose a threat to Mueller's investigation because they can serve as vehicles to get questions of his authority and legal legitimacy before appellate judges relatively quickly. Such questions have also been raised by defendants in some of Mueller's criminal cases, but all the human defendants who have set foot in a courtroom have ultimately decided to plead guilty and drop any challenges to the special counsel's authority or tactics.

One Russian company charged in and fighting a Mueller case, Concord Management and Consulting, has attacked the special counsel's authority, but the judge turned down the motion. Concord attempted an immediate appeal, but since dropped it.

Mystery cases moving through the courts involving grand jury matters and independent counsel matters aren’t uncommon. A 1997 conflict-of-interest investigation into AmeriCorps chief Eli Segal’s fundraising activities was conducted under seal from its start. And a final report remains out of public view involving another Clinton-era probe into Labor Secretary Alexis Herman and influence peddling accusations.

“This can get a step or two weirder than it already is,” said an attorney representing a senior Trump staffer in the Russia inquiry. The lawyer recalled a case from a previous investigation where he couldn’t even get to see a judge’s opinion because it was under seal.

“It could be anyone who’s been subpoenaed by the special counsel for anything,” the attorney added.
 
Minimum wage shouldn't be raised. If people made better life choices they could survive off of minimum wage.
What are those better life choices?
If we took a childless, single 18 year-old working a minimum wage job in a large city:
- are you saying that they shouldn't pursue further education? After all, it is the economically safe choice, since they would most likely incur debt to earn a 4-year degree.

- are you saying they will be able to afford to live in a decent neighborhood in a decent apartment on minimum wage?

- are you saying they will be able to save for retirement and emergencies on minimum wage?

 
Megyn Kelly is getting a $67 Million dollar payout from NBC. she probably planned this all along.

I said back in early 2017 that NBC was stupid for even hiring her.

What made them think that someone who was notorious for race-baiting at her previous job was all of a sudden going to change up?
 
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