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[smjjames]

The House already passed their bill though didn't they? They definetly have their work cut out for them in trying to reconcile the two bills as the differences are so big. Adding the individual mandate in there just makes things that much harder, so really, it's potentially going to fuck all of the Republicans, it just depends on how you approach it.

And then there's that wildcard of Moore, assuming they don't pass it by December 12th and expelling Moore fails, nobody knows how he would vote and he very well could vote no just to spite the establishment.

I agree that he isn't fit for Congress, but seriously, the Republicans deserve it for the way they've turned their party into. So. I kind of secretly hope he does win and stay in that seat because this is the culmination of the kind of politics that they've been fostering.

I guess that's a slight misunderstanding on my part, nvm. Maybe I thought they'd go and try to pass both bills, as crazy as that sounds.

Or maybe you were thinking of the normal cross-chamber amendments process? That can sometimes look like passing both the House and Senate versions of a bill, even though it's only one final piece of legislation.

Possibly.

[RedKing]

While it's mostly an unrelated shitshow, the Hannity-Moore-Keuriggate thing is just becoming farcical.

To recap for those of you at home:

Roy Moore (Republican Senate candidate, disbarred former Alabama Supreme Court Justice, and part-time drugstore cowboy) was accused by a woman of having made sexual advances towards her when he was in his 30s and she was 14. Ruh-roh.

Moore denied the allegations, which were then followed by two other women who claimed he tried to date them when they were 16 and 18, respectively. Other former colleagues came out and said that it was "common knowledge" that Moore had a thing for dating high-school age girls in his 30s (when he was a deputy Attorney General).

Moore's campaign manager gave one of the worst possible defenses by citing the Bible and claiming that because the Bible is full of older men shacking up with young women, there's "nothing immoral or illegal about it, just maybe unusual". Also known as the O.J. Simpson "If I Did It" defense.


Enter Sean Hannity (FOX News pundit and talking neck).
Hannity defended Moore on his program last week, painting the whole affair as a Democratic hatchet job and even intimating that if it is true, well there's nothing wrong with taking a 14-year old to your house and getting her naked!

On social media, some savvy liberal activists started targeting Hannity's advertisers and asking them to drop their ads so as to "not be supporting pedophilia". Several, including Keurig Coffee, 23AndMe, Volvo and Nature's Own quickly responded and pulled their ads.

Cue the predictable MAGA backlash. Social media was suddenly aflame with videos of angry Hannity fans smashing their Keurig coffeemakers in protest, while liberals announced they were buying Keurigs for people on their Xmas list this year.

Flash forward to tonight's Hannity show, in which he claimed to have accepted the Keurig CEO's apology (which nobody has confirmed exists) and announced he was giving away 500 Keurig coffeemakers. He then said that Roy Moore had 24 hours to "prove his innocence" or Hannity was 'done with him'.


If I didn't know better, I'd almost swear the entire thing was some kind of bizarre viral marketing stunt by Keurig. Meanwhile, hundreds of angry white pedoph-I mean, Republicans are waking up angrier than usual because they don't have their coffee, and are now trying to figure out how they're supposed to feel about Keurig and Hannity. And Moore. It must be tough to process all the conflicting signals.

[scriver]

Yeah if we all could just not try to weasel around potential sex offenses against 14-year-olds, that would be great, thanks.

[Reelya]

I'm just waiting for the Bill Nye the science guy sex scandal, where he can claim that because of relativity, who can really know how old the girl is? /s

[martinuzz]

Russian ministry of Defense dun goofed.
Past tuesday they posted photos on their official Facebook page that would prove irrefutably that the US supports IS fighters against Russian backed forces with air strikes.

It turned out that one of the photos was actually a screenshot from a game called AC-130 Gunship Simulator. The other 4 photos come from the Iraq ministry of Defense archive of 2016, according to Russian research group 'Conflict Intelligence Team'.

The Russian ministry of Defense quickly removed the photos from their page and replaced them with new ones, but the original post has been archived.

https://www.volkskrant.nl/tech/techblog-miskleun-russen-op-facebook-screenshot-uit-game-als-onweerlegbaar-bewijs~a4534555/

[Reelya]

Ironically, during the Bush era something similar happened, and it also involved your homeland Martinuzz. Congress got shown footage of a "video game" that was claimed to be made by Al Qaeda in Iraq, which had a voice over about how the Americans came in their black-hawk helicopters raining fire and destruction. The Pentagon told Congress that this was a game-mod made by Al Qaeda as a recruitment tool and you had to pay $25 over the internet to get it.

However all those things turned out to be bald-faced lies. Actually, it was just regular footage from completely un-modded Battlefield, which some kid in Holland had put together - and the voiceover was from Team America. The video had been lifted straight off a Battlefield fansite, had the attributions removed then presented to Congress as a "look how high tech Al Qaeda is now - they're in the video game business - give us more money!" thing. They were literally just making this shit up: there's no plausible excuse for it.

They seriously played audio from Team America to Congress and claimed it was Al Qaeda recruitment material, for real.

[Max™]

...something something something.... FUCK YEAH!

[Mech#4]

I think there was something similar involving concept art from Fallout 3 showing the destroyed Capitol building in Washington D.C.

[sluissa]

I think there was something similar involving concept art from Fallout 3 showing the destroyed Capitol building in Washington D.C.

This is nothing new.

Russia used faked footage of stinger missiles to prove the US was supporting Ukraine. How to prove it was faked? Labeling on the missile launchers and crates had typos which also occurred in the game Battlefield 3.

China a few years ago used footage from the movie Top Gun in a promo video for one of their new fighter planes. Frames of a mid air explosion were identical from the two videos.

Propaganda gonna propagand.

[RedKing]

New development in the Roy Moore fiasco.

As you may remember, the seat that Moore is running to fill is the Senate seat left vacant when Jeff Sessions left to become Attorney General and Trump whipping-boy.
Mitch McConnell has now floated an idea to have GOP voters in Alabama do a write-in campaign to elect....Jeff Sessions.

Is this that four-dimensional chess I keep hearing about?

[Telgin]

I've seen a few news outlets talk about a potential loss of a Republican Senate seat over all of this, but is that even remotely possible in Alabama?  As deep red as the state is, the only way I could imagine him losing now would be if multiple write-in campaigns ended up splitting the vote.  Even then it feels more likely he'll be hit by a falling asteroid.

[sluissa]

I've seen a few news outlets talk about a potential loss of a Republican Senate seat over all of this, but is that even remotely possible in Alabama?  As deep red as the state is, the only way I could imagine him losing now would be if multiple write-in campaigns ended up splitting the vote.  Even then it feels more likely he'll be hit by a falling asteroid.

More possible now than at any other time in the last 2 decades. A special election(tend to get worse turnout than regularly scheduled elections), with the Republican side more frustrated with their own party than usual and the democrats fired up, with the Republican party not backing the main contender on their side and even going so far as to propose write ins against him to split the vote. Yeah, I'd say it's possible. It's still going to be a tough fight, but it's possible.

[Egan_BW]

Painting Alabama purple would be quite the thing.

[RedKing]

Meh. My gut says that unless the mounting pressure causes Moore to withdraw (and it's not even clear that he *can* at this point), Alabama will elect him. As a friend of mine noted, "They had no problem with putting a sexual predator in the White House, why would they have a problem putting one in the Senate?"

'Bama isn't just in the South, it's in the Deep South. The kind of place Obama was referring to when he made his infamous "clinging to God and guns" comment. Way too many of Moore's constituents would love to see him help bring about an American theocracy, and hey -- if an unwed teenage girl was good enough for God to knock up, where's the harm in Roy Moore getting a little sumpin-sumpin too, y'know?

Now, the idea of various GOP factions being unable to unite behind a single write-in candidate is very possible, and it would be hilarious if that caused Doug Jones to get elected. Jones has gained about 4 points in the polls since this saga began. But Moore only ever lost 1 point, and he's now polling higher than he did BEFORE the allegations surfaced. Because now voting for him is a big 'fuck you' to the damn godless libruhls and the establishment GOP. Because everything is now part of the culture wars.

[Karnewarrior]

I doubt a purple Alabama would last long though. Too many moralists for the secular dems not to rub them the wrong way.

Not to mention the Rep response would be huge and pretty easily convince everyone that that extra money they're getting from social security is just that republican 4D chess paying off and not the Dems replacing stupid republican laws.