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[Frumple]

It's called corruption, honey. That and a sufficiently dedicated electorate.

[Rolepgeek]

China!

Rumor has it, every time trump says china, his chinese debt gets reduced by 100 bucks.

Advertising fees, obviously

[MetalSlimeHunt]

He's a lot like Trump, actually. They both do a bunch of crazy, blatantly unacceptable shit in broad daylight and attract the support of everybody who secretly or not so secretly wish for it.

You've got big stuff like the tent prison and burning people to death, but also smaller stuff like implying prisoners are filthy homosexuals by giving them pink underwear.

[Reelya]

Abuse of prisoners is one thing. Prisoners are an underclass, so you can get away with a lot. But Arpaio has been going after political-class rival for years now, including federal justices. Basically he's overstepped the normal level of abusive asshat. He somehow survived politically targeted bogus "investigations" into local political figures but then he tried the same shit with the Feds. Bad move.

[Reelya]

Arpaio's only valid excuse would be if he really thought there was a conspiracy against him. But that excuse is blown away the minute you find out he tried to dig up dirt on the guy's wife. The only reason for that is not to "expose a conspiracy", it's to try and blackmail the judge, which is a clear attempt to commit a felony I believe.

And what this suggests is that blackmailing judges and political figures is part of the existing Arpaio playbook. I'm guessing he has dirt on some local figures already, tried that shit on the Feds and it backfired.

[martinuzz]

Montana's tourist industry is likely to be hit hard this year, as the authorities have closed down the Yellowstone river, and several smaller rivers feeing into it, in an attempt to halt the spread of a parasite which gives fish a lethal kidney disease. Biologists say if left unchecked, it could kill 90% of the river's fish population. Several 10s of thousands of dead fish are already floating in the Yellowstone river. The state's governor says the river is likely to remain closed for months, probably until winter when the cold will stop the parasite from spreading.

It's no longer allowed for locals and tourists to fish, or enter the water, either by swim or by boat.

One of the fish species affected is the Yellowstone Cutthroat, a trout species which draws fishing tourists from all over the world.
The tourist fishing industry nets the state of Montana about 6 billion dollars per year, and employs 64000 people. They will need to find another job for this year.

Dead fish have not yet been sighted in Yellowstone Park, and authorties hope, with this measure, to keep it that way.

[Morrigi]

CNN done goofed.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Rolepgeek]

Man, being properly liberal is hard

[Reelya]

The system is stacked against black people at literally every step of the legal process - whether or not you think that's deliberate, it's a fact of life.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kim-farbota/black-crime-rates-your-st_b_8078586.html

(1) If a black person and a white person each commit a crime, the black person is more likely to be arrested. This is due in part to the fact that black people are more heavily policed.
(2) When black people are arrested for a crime, they are convicted more often than white people arrested for the same crime.
(3) When black people are convicted of a crime, they are more likely to be sentenced to incarceration compared to whites convicted of the same crime.

Going off known sentencing figures they estimate what happens when 1000 white people and 200 black people commit the same crime - i.e. crimes which are committed in the same proportion as the population. When you add up the known biases at each step in the process, instead of 16% black inmates (which would be equal treatment), you end up with 60%.

CNN didn't "goof", at all. The number of black people in prison is completely divorced from the question of whether blacks have higher criminality, since they're about 6 times more likely to be jailed for the same crime as a white person.

Also, stripping felons of voting rights for life is just screwed up policy. It's worthy of third-world dictatorships, not a modern democracy. You can basically fake arrests to disenfranchise people en masse. And they're aware of that. It's the new KKK down there and that's how they keep unwanted people from the ballot box.

[Morrigi]

That's a lot of bold claims from a single study pushed by HuffPo. Do you have any more reliable sources?

[Reelya]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/may/28/black-people-minneapolis-nine-times-more-likely-arrested-for-petty
Black people in Minneapolis nine times more likely to be arrested for petty crime

https://thinkprogress.org/blacks-are-almost-four-times-more-likely-to-be-arrested-for-marijuana-704dcbb812f2#.8yyq2xxp3

African Americans are almost four times more likely to be arrested for marijuana than whites, even though they use the drug at similar rates

Overall between 2001 and 2010, there were more than 8 million marijuana arrests, 88 percent of which were for possession. These arrests account for more than half of all drug arrests. Since 1990, marijuana possession arrests have increased 193 percent, tracking the spike in overall drug arrests and an inflated national prison population. But the increase in marijuana arrests has come almost entirely from increased arrests of blacks. While arrests of whites have remained largely constant since 2001, the arrest rate for blacks has spiked 32.7 percent:

As you probably know, the crime rate spiked around 1992-1994, and has fallen off immensely. But the number of black people they put in prison didn't decline (which would be logical if there's a 90% decline in violent offenses), because they ramped up arrests for petty drugs like marijuana - solely targeting the black community.

[martinuzz]

Lol, Trump's wife hired the top lawyer who bankrupted Gawker over the Hulk Hogan case to sue anyone who implicates her having been an escort girl.

This is how the Liberal America website responded: http://www.liberalamerica.org/2016/08/21/melania-trump-sex/

"Third Lady" made me laugh, and wonder at the same time if that's not exactly what she would have to be officially called if Trump were elected president.

[Reelya]

Talk about the Streisand Effect. She's probably ensured the story gets a lot more traction. From what I can see via even the Daily Mail story the thing is probably completely bogus, and thus would have dissipated more quickly if no legal action was taken.

That's the great thing about the USA though. Equal opportunity for skanky hoes, even the White House. I've seen some of those Melania Trump photo shoots now ... that's gotta be a first, perhaps worldwide when you can download and print out glossy nude pics of the First Lady. I've heard of porn chic but that's taking it a bit too far.

[Frumple]

Opportunity, at least. Not even remotely equal, but opportunity, sure.

[Reelya]

The book claiming she was a prostitute is on Amazon. The book has serious credibility errors. See if you can spot any on the cover:

Spoiler: Cover Art (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Notes (click to show/hide)

Other than the spelling issues, there's no author named on the cover, nor any publishing details. It's like it was 'shopped and designed to be anonymous. The stated author has no other works on record, and media outlets haven't been able to ID him.