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[muldrake]

The point is that Trump does things Republicans haven't let Democrats do, whether or not they are right to do so.

i thought the whole "its evil when you do it but its good when we do it" thing is just status quo for politics.

This is actually just a really good way of identifying subpar intellects.

It's also objective because dumb people of every imaginable political ideology do this.

[martinuzz]

The Financial Times got to see an as of yet unpublished research by Stanford university into the employment benefits and retirement funds for US civil servants.
Alarmingly, not a single one of the investigated 649 benefit and pension funds is in black numbers.

Chicago even has a retirement fund deficit that is as large as the city's total tax income of the past 19 years. New Orleans, Dallas, Philadelphia, New Jersey and Kentucky are in similar predicament.

As it looks now, today's young civil servants stand to be left with barely any retirement funds when they reach retirement age.
With retirement fund deficits being the city's responsibility, experts believe quite a few cities are heading to a bankrupcy, Detroit 2013 style.

http://www.volkskrant.nl/buitenland/vs-kampen-met-kolossale-pensioentekorten-met-name-voor-ambtenaren~a4494911/

(there's a FT link in that article, but it's paywalled)

[TheBiggerFish]

Oh dear.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

In the continuation of the MetalSlimeHunt Ameripol Non-Trump Discussion Movement Movement, here's some more Gallup polls about everybody's two favorite topics, gay priests.

I mean homosexuality and religion. Yeah. Those.

Approval of homosexuality has reached new highs, apparently undergoing powerful movement now that the GOP has moved from actively dying on that hill to only passively dying on that hill.

Same-Sex Marriage

Legal: 64%
Illegal: 34%

Support By Party

Democrats: 74%
Independents: 71%
Republicans: 47%

Support By Religion

Catholics: 64%
Protestants & Other Christians: 55%

Gay Sex

Legal: 72%

So, support for SSM is moving up a few percent every year since Obergefell, Democrats and Independents are on the same page, Republicans gave up on the whole thing, Catholics continue to ignore Rome, and the 40% of the nation or so who supported gay rights by focusing only on the legality of homosexuality itself is pretty small now that it's mainstream.

Meanwhile, in the Suburban Bungalow of God, there have been scandalous shifts in the interpretation of scripture.

Biblical Interpretation

Literal Word: 24%
Inspired Word: 47%
Mundane Record: 26%

That's right, seeing the Bible as the literal word of God is now the least popular view in America. On this topic. Not in general. I guess the least popular belief in general would be something like "Is your bartender a lizard person stealing your pathos to feed the unyielding maw of Ted 'True Zodiac' Cruz" or just forget you read this sentence, alright? The point is that I'm trying to tell you religion is terrible without saying that because I'm smarter than I was when I was 14 and know how to degenerate a viewpoint without outright attacking it. So don't tell anybody, it'll be our little secret.

[smjjames]

So, um, apparently Trump shared top secret info from an ally with the Russians....

Remains to be seen if this was intentional or just a massive blunder...

Linkage: http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/15/politics/trump-russia-classified-information/index.html?adkey=bn

Edit: https://www.vox.com/world/2017/5/15/15643720/trump-russia-classified-intelligence-post  Apparently information in relation to the ISIS fight.

edit2: On Vox, it's apparently technically not illegal because he has the power to declassify whatever he wants.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Indeed, the classification system exists via executive order and could theoretically be changed however the President wants. Trump could even just rescind that order if he really wanted, leaving no information secret.

[smjjames]

While it might not be illegal, it's still a really, really, REALLY dumb thing to do just on an apparent whim with no apparent forethought, especially for the POTUS. There were already concerns about how he'd handle classified information.

[EnigmaticHat]

Certainly doesn't look good since its Russia and our interists in the ISIS conflict aren't aligned.  Bad headline to be running right now but nothing more.

[smjjames]

Not really 'nothing more', there could be ripple effects in the intel community because allies trust us to NOT release the info to others. Publiclly and domestically, yeah, that's as far as it goes.

[Baffler]

It's honestly a bit baffling that the CNN article makes so much of it at the head of the article, then goes on to explain that yes it's perfectly reasonable that such intelligence would be shared, then comes right back again to screeching about muh classified information. The Vox article is the same, but without the middle bit. Maybe they would prefer that ISIS successfully sneaks bombs into Russian airports?

[Dunamisdeos]

You guys realize that if Trump loses office via impeachment Pence takes over, right?

I'd take Trump over Pence. He would not be able to keep his religion and his governmental duties separate (In other news, water is wet). Painful as it is for me to say, I would ignore almost anything Trump does short of outright war if it kept Pence playing second fiddle.

Also, what exactly did he share?

[Frumple]

Not... not really perfectly reasonable. The intel in question is something we apparently hadn't even shared with our allies, shared with a representative from a country we're largely at odds with in the general region and subject, that could potentially put people in rather lethal degrees of danger. Giving a rather strong indication the U.S. can no longer be trusted with information of that nature, and that working with them has become significantly riskier for potential agents and allies. Dude probably ratfucked US cooperation in intelligence operations pretty hard with the disclosure in question, more or less.

[Dunamisdeos]

Wow, yeah, if we hadn't even shared it with our allies that is remarkably stupid. I expect he probably did it to try and repair the perceived hole in Russia/US relation since the Syria incident, but wow, that is bad.

What was the intel exactly?

[Frumple]

Pretty sure it hasn't exactly been explicitly released for... obvious reasons. General report seems to be that it referenced high level stuff on ISIS, or something along those lines, though, from sources that hadn't particularly given us the to ahead to share outside US organizations of appropriate nature. Possibly less direct disclosure and more saying shit that makes how we know certain stuff something approaching obvious, for what it's worth.

[smjjames]

Wow, yeah, if we hadn't even shared it with our allies that is remarkably stupid. I expect he probably did it to try and repair the perceived hole in Russia/US relation since the Syria incident, but wow, that is bad.

What was the intel exactly?

It was apparently something about how ISIS was making laptop bombs, but seemingly, the ally who gave us the info didn't want us to share it with other allies. Either way, it's severely damaged trust within the intel community.