quote:

Housing Secretary Ben Carson pointed the finger at his wife and cited safety needs for the eye-watering cost of a $31,000 dining set for his office.

Facing the House Appropriations subcommittee on Tuesday, Carson claimed he “dismissed” himself from the furniture selection process and left his wife, Candy Carson, in charge.

But emails released by an accountability organization last week suggest that Carson and his wife both played a role in selecting the furniture.

Carson also said the old dining set posed a safety hazard, and that the decision to purchase a new one was a “facilities” issue rather than a decorating concern.

“It’s my understanding that the facilities people felt that the dining room table was actually dangerous. People are being stuck by nails, a chair collapsed with somebody sitting in it, it’s 50 years old,” he said.

And so Carson and his wife looked at furniture catalogues together even though "the prices were beyond what I wanted to pay," he said. “I made it clear that didn’t seem right to me.”

Carson told the committee he "dismissed" himself from the process because he had more important things to do and left Candy Carson in charge of choosing the furniture.

The news of the purchase broke in February, and Carson said he was shocked when he found out about the $31,000 price tag.

"I said, 'What the heck is that all about?'" he said. "I investigated and immediately had it canceled. Not that we don't need the furniture but I thought that was excessive."

On his wife's role, Carson said "a style and a color was selected by her with the caveat that we were not happy with the pricing and they needed to find something. If anybody knew my wife they would realize how ridiculous this was, she's the most frugal person in the world."

Carson also told the panel that if it were up to him, "my office would probably look like a hospital waiting room."

RuanGacho posted:

Cross posting from the PNW thread:

http://www.king5.com/article/news/politics/bills-aimed-at-expanding-wa-voter-participation-signed-by-inslee/281-529996340

quote:

POLITICS
Bills aimed at expanding WA voter participation signed by Inslee
Under one of the measures, people can pre-register to vote starting at age 16.
Author: Natalie Brand
Published: 4:32 PM PDT March 19, 2018
Updated: 7:29 AM PDT March 20, 2018
Governor Jay Inslee signed a series of bills into law Monday, aimed at increasing participation in Washington state’s elections.

“You can think of them as the four horsemen of democracy,” Inslee told an auditorium of students at Foster High School in Tukwila where the signing ceremony was held.

One of the bills would expand pre-registering of teens, allowing 16 and 17-year-olds to sign up so they’re in the system when they turn 18 and can legally vote. Twelve other states and the District of Columbia currently allow pre-registration starting at 16.


“I think it will make a difference,” said senior Kobe Promvongsa who plans to vote for the first time in August during the primary election.

“I want to see people who represent me, who have the same interests as me, who want to better me and my community," Promvongsa continued.

Another bill signed into law will enact automatic voter registration for eligible Washington residents, starting in 2019. Currently, individuals have to opt-in for voter registration when applying for a driver’s license. Under the new system, you would have to opt-out.

A third bill will expand voter registration, starting in 2018, even allowing same day registration in person the night of elections, up until 8:00 p.m.

The Washington Voting Rights Act also passed this session, after stalling in the state legislature in past years. The legislation aims to increase minority representation by giving communities greater leverage, or the possibility of court challenges, if they want to transition from at-large to district elections.

"I have seen our schools and communities grow more diverse, but the makeup of elected bodies that represent us have not kept pace," said Ubah Aden, a speaker at the bill signing, who immigrated to Washington from Somalia.

Seattle and Yakima are examples of cities where city council members are elected by smaller districts, allowing individual communities to have a greater voice in who they choose to represent them.

RELATED: Lawsuit forces history-making district elections in Yakima


The final bill of the series expands campaign finance disclosure requirements by nonprofit organizations that are not defined as political committees.

While the package of legislation was considered a top priority this past session for Democratic lawmakers who currently hold a slim majority in Olympia, Republican Secretary of State Kim Wyman also calls the bills "a positive step forward."

"Your vote is actually really powerful," she told students on Monday. "Your vote does matter."

Wyman says her office will spend the rest of this year gearing up for implementation of the expanded registration in 2019.

"Not only do we want to have this unprecedented access which we're very excited about, we also have to build security on the other side," said Wyman. "We'll be working with our colleagues across the country to learn from their hard lessons and try to make sure our roll out is good for each one of these bills."

Inslee said Washington becomes second only to California to have all three registration related bills on the books, along with the Voting Rights Act. Various other states have individual measures already in place. For instance, Oregon passed automatic voter registration system in 2015.

“We know that this is an important bipartisan process that can lift registration and thus lift participation,” said Natalie Tennant, former Secretary of State from West Virginia who now works with the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law to advocate for increasing voter participation.

“This says a lot about the forward-thinking of Washington state," Tennant said of the package of bills. “People deserve to have their right to vote and they deserve to get registered to vote in an accessible, streamlined manner."

Dumb Lowtax posted:

Cross posting from the cross post post:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/rachael-ray-pet-food-brand-nutrish-severs-ties-ingraham-article-1.3903268 posted:

Toxic TV talking head Laura Ingraham offered a tuchus-covering mea culpa Thursday after advertisers fled her Fox show because she mocked a Florida high school shooting survivor.

Nestle, Johnson & Johnson, TripAdvisor, Hulu and Rachael Ray’s pet food company and home furnishing website Wayfair, announced that they were pulling their ad dollars from the show after Ingraham tried to Twitter-shame Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School senior David Hogg for getting turned down by four colleges.

In response, Hogg flexed his growing social media muscles, summoning his more than 600,000 followers to express their disdain for the conservative commentator to 12 of her advertisers.

The Fox host took refuge behind Jesus as she watched financial support bleed from her show.

Parkland survivor David Hogg calls for boycott of Laura Ingraham
“On reflection, in the spirit of Holy Week, I apologize for any upset or hurt my tweet caused him or any of the brave victims of Parkland,” Ingraham tweeted Thursday.

Ingraham added that any student “should be proud” of a 4.2 GPA, including Hogg. However, in her series of tweets, she noted that “for the record, I believe my show was the first to feature David immediately after that horrific shooting and even noted how ‘poised’ he was given the tragedy. As always, he’s welcome to return to the show anytime for a productive discussion.”

It was too little, too late for TripAdvisor.

“In our view, these statements focused on a high school student, cross the line of decency. As such, we have made a decision to stop advertising on that program," the company told The News.

Hogg also was also unimpressed with the apology. The high schooler echoed a tweet by Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter Jaime was killed in the school shooting on Feb. 14: “I 100% agree an apology in an effort just to save your advertisers is not enough.

“I will only accept your apology only if you denounce the way your network has treated my friends and I in this fight,” Hogg added.

get that OUT of my face posted:

Ben Carson: "Women be shoppin'"

Saint Freak posted:

This is more like a nuclear burn but I don't think we have a thread for that.

https://twitter.com/BillOReilly/status/980605864640950272

https://twitter.com/chrissyteigen/status/980647950639562752

Dumb Lowtax posted:

https://twitter.com/shawnwasabi/status/706742626154745856

mrbradlymrmartin posted:

Dumb Lowtax posted:

The parallels are pretty hard to deny

Zamboni_Rodeo posted:

Another one bites the dust:

Blake Farenthold resigns

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/09/us/politics/fbi-raids-office-of-trumps-longtime-lawyer-michael-cohen.html?smid=pl-share

quote:

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan obtained the search warrant after receiving a referral from the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, according to Mr. Cohen’s lawyer, who called the search “completely inappropriate and unnecessary.” The search does not appear to be directly related to Mr. Mueller’s investigation, but likely resulted from information he had uncovered and gave to prosecutors in New York.

SKULL.GIF posted:

I walked away to do stuff for the last 3 hours

I come back and there's so many news stories I can't process them all

Me

I can't handle the amount of news

Is this the mattering

Mariana Horchata posted:

Clowner posted:

Is this the right place to post about Paul Ryan not seeking re-election

Because it sure makes me feel happy

Edit: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/11/us/politics/paul-ryan-speaker.html

GreyjoyBastard posted:

Michael Cohen's mystery third client is Sean Hannity

BiggerBoat posted:

fool_of_sound posted:

https://twitter.com/OfficialJonZal/status/985974791436939264

fool_of_sound posted:

https://twitter.com/OfficialJonZal/status/985974791436939264

fool_of_sound posted:

https://twitter.com/OfficialJonZal/status/985974791436939264

mrbradlymrmartin posted:

what is going on?! its goating hot in here

Dumb Lowtax posted:

https://twitter.com/hunterw/status/985958553419698176