Subtropical Storm Alberto is parked to our west. My whole house is a mudroom now, and we haven’t had the worst of the rain yet. But aside from floors that need mopping (fully clothed, if you please), we don’t expect too much trouble from Alberto, which looks like it will skirt the coast on its way north. Stay safe if you’re in the path!
CNN’s top story is about Claudia Patricia Gomez Gonzalez, a young woman from Guatemala who was shot in the head by a US Border Patrol agent. Right after I read the account of her death and was filled anew with horror and despair about what this country has become, I wandered over to Twitter and saw the following from Trump:
Who’s going to give back the young and beautiful lives (and others) that have been devastated and destroyed by the phony Russia Collusion Witch Hunt? They journeyed down to Washington, D.C., with stars in their eyes and wanting to help our nation…They went back home in tatters!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 27, 2018
He’s not talking about the 20-year-old from Guatemala who had hoped to further her education in accounting. He means people like Hope Hicks, who was inconvenienced by having to testify about her boss’s lies and erratic behavior. He means folks like the aide who had to leave when it was revealed he was a serial domestic abuser.
Ugh. Sorry to spoil an open thread with news of that odious asshole’s contemptible blather. But the endless atrocities — like the shooting of the unarmed migrant, missing children, separated families, mass school shootings, murdered young black men — and a lawless administration that is hell-bent on making it worse, make me wonder when enough will be goddamn well enough. And what actions a citizen can take beyond registering new voters. I keep coming back to this quote from Mario Savio:
Still figuring out what that means for me. And on that cheery note, open thread!
[Edited to fix typo]
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
I’m with you, Betty. I’m losing my grip over these ICE stories.
Ferdinand
Talk between my wife and I is turning towards tax protests, calling for general strikes, and appropriate monkeywrenching.
SiubhanDuinne
What you did there has been seen.
***
I was asking about that Trumptweet in the thread downstairs. Several commenters suggested Javanka and Hope Hicks, and yes, those make a certain amount of sense. Except for the fact that he almost invariably tweets in response to a particular news item or FOX News/GOP Congress talking point. Javanka are still in DC, and Trump clearly uses the past tense (“went back home”), and Hope Hicks left months ago, so the timing doesn’t seem to work. I have that itch-under-the-skin sense that there’s something else going on that either I’ve missed or that’s about to break.
Jeffro
Time for a #StopAbusingAmerica march that ends at the WH…and stays there.
Jerzy Russian
That tweet is delusional, even for him. How long can this go on?
RedDirtGirl
Good morning all. It’s a rainy Sunday in Booklyn. I’ve recovered from my bizarre Friday work day (boss pranking me), and am thrilled to have two more days off. Just found out that my 16 yo niece is going to Rwanda for 3 weeks this summer through The Putney School Service Program. So excited for her!
Jeffro
@SiubhanDuinne: maybe he means Spicey, the Mooch, that guy who beat his wife…? There have been so many losers parade through and out, it’s hard to tell…
Mnemosyne
I’ve noticed from my one Trumper cousin’s posts on Facebook that they’re doubling down on forced birtherism to push down the criticism over this stuff. It’s their usual how can you criticize us for killing people and breaking up families when you’re murdering innocent babies in the womb?
They think that being anti-abortion is a moral get-out-of-jail-free card for all of the awful things they want to do for the people who are already here. It ain’t.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
@Mnemosyne: I put my Mom Hat on and I say this thing you want to talk about is something we can talk about later. But right now we’re talking about this other thing. Do you or do you not approve of this person you associate with taking children away?
O. Felix Culpa
What that quote has meant (means) for me: My intended retirement of leisure – reading books, taking history and art classes, gardening, etc. – has turned into nearly full-time political work. I thought I was busy as ward chair until my recent election as Vice Chair of our county Democratic party. OMG. Sometimes the people on your side are harder to deal with than your opponents.
But no time for a self-pity party with stories like those of Claudia Patricia Gomez Gonzalez. I have sacrificed nothing compared to her and so many others. We must win in November and again in 2020. In her honor. In the Parkland students’ honor. In honor of all the black lives lost at the hands of lawless police. For the sakes of the many whose names we will never know. We organize and we go to the polls. And, if necessary, to the barricades, mes amis!
Immanentize
@Mnemosyne:
That is well and truly fucked up.
So the moral policy is to force a pregnant teenager to have a child that you immediately rip from her arms? Yea for Trump! Yea for Christ!
SFAW
He is such a vile motherfucker. What human would EVER consider tweeting shit like that?
Cleek’s Law example number 23 bazillion. Actually, it’s a variation: Whatever pisses off anyone who’s not a completely evil motherfucker
B.B.A.
Thoreau refused to pay taxes to support slavery and foreign wars. Nowadays with withholding it’s much more difficult, but I wonder if next year I should just report zero income and be willing to go to prison for refusing.
MattF
@Mnemosyne: And somehow blame libruls, Democrats, and OBAMA. And OBAMA CLINTON CLINTON CLINTON CLINTON.
Another Scott
You do a lot, Ms. Cracker, posting here and being directly involved with your local Party stuff.
I think scanning LOLGOP’s Twitter feed is a better use of everyone’s time than reading Twittler directly.
As I mentioned in an earlier thread, I strongly agree with his post at Eclectablog, also too.
Every time we discuss Donnie, we’re spending less time on pushing our message and building the wave for November. Trump is a horrorshow. We know and have known that. It’s only going to change by voting him and his minions out of office. That’s what we need to spend as much time and effort on as we’re able.
DougJ!’s BJNWTH Thermometer.
DLCC Donate.
VoteRiders Donate
LWV Donate
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
(“Will 5 links make it???”)
Doug R
@Mnemosyne: Non of those anti-choice people seem to have an answer for “Do you own these women? No? Then what they do with their bodies is none of your or my business!”
SFAW
@Jerzy Russian:
Hopefully not past January, 2025.
Immanentize
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady): that reminds me of a very effective cross examination technique a friend in San Antonio taught me — when a witness just goes off and is not responding to a question, you let them ramble on and then say, “I’m glad you got to tell that little story, are you now willing to answer the question I asked you?”
Jurors love that kind of thing.
JPL
@Jeffro: It wouldn’t surprise me if it were the wife beater. Along with Hope, he would like him back.
SFAW
@Doug R:
Not so: their reply will either be “Not yet” or “We’re working to fix that.”
trnc
@Mnemosyne: Ironic that your cousin proably wouldn’t consider that many ice victims are Catholic and likely anti abortion.
PsiFighter37
@Doug R: It’ll be fun to hear Donnie explain away his way out of the hush money Elliot Broidy paid for the Playmate’s abortion. I am very surprised that only one outlet (NY Magazine) has even bothered taking a close look at this theory.
B.B.A.
@SFAW: The delusional tweets will continue long after he’s out of office.
Doug R
@SFAW:
FIFY
MagdaInBlack
@Mnemosyne:
My response: how can you care so much for innocent babies in the womb, and not care about living children?
So far no good answer.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
@Immanentize: Ooh, well put.
Kay
“Stars in their eyes and wanting to help”. My ass. Trump assembled the most cynical, nastiest mean-spirited group of people he could find.
It’s funny because the Trump Administration seems to be aware on some level that is isn’t good politics to be so nasty- they pick that up because they’re self-interested and want to be “popular”- but they can’t help themselves. They are nasty and mean-spirited so everything they do or say reflects that. On some level they know it’s a political vulnerability, but they can’t manage even a veneer of decency.
MattF
@SFAW: I think a more likely response is that some people should be punished for their sins– and as soon as possible.
Baud
Tick tock, motherfucker.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
He’s also not talking about Sgt LaDavid Johnson or any of the other volunteer military personnel who have been killed during his time in office. I’m deeply skeptical– even frightened– of politicians and bumper-sticker patriots who use service members to promote jingoism or partisanship, but it’s Memorial Day weekend, fercrissake. Where are all those “I support our troops” people on this despicable whine from the toxic sludge in the Oval Office.
Gelfling 545
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady): My response is “ given what you say you believe, how can you NOT criticize?”.
MattF
Trump’s goal is the Two Minutes Hate:
Steve on St. Simons Island
@Baud:
Shadoobie shat shattered
Patricia Kayden
@RedDirtGirl: I’m in Brooklyn now visiting a friend for the Bam Africa festival. It has been hot here this weekend. The rain kind of cooled things down a little.
Miss Bianca
@O. Felix Culpa:
QFT, and God bless you for all the work you are doing, herding those Democratic cats!
Brachiator
It would be good to be able to say “now, he’s gone too far,” but I think he is just getting started.
Trump and his people have a sick talent for twisting their worst excesses, and making themselves the aggrieved party.
At the same time, Trump is pleased with himself when he does this, absolutely gets off on it. He will be using this at his next political rally.
We need to hit him everywhere. Defeat him in the midterms. Investigate and prosecute his staff if they have committed crimes. Go after his business holdings and his crooked deals. Make it as costly as possible for Republicans to keep protecting him.
Kay
It’s not like nothing they’ve done has produced a negative reaction. People were genuinely appalled when Trump bragged about assaulting women- in that instance it was the tape that mattered because of course he would have lied about it.
A lot of people will be horrified by the Trump Administration policy of taking children from their parents and Kelly bragged about that, there’s a record, so they won’t be able to lie about it.
It’s not like NO ONE cares. Tens of millions of people care. Most people aren’t like Kushner and Miller, giggling like 7th grade psychopaths when Trump smears all Latinos. Kushner and Miller aren’t “the public”- they’re two coddled, over-promoted jerks.
Patricia Kayden
@B.B.A.: Going to prison isn’t a way to resist Trump’s horrific agenda. Voting and getting others to vote is.
Achrachno
Your quote is from Mario Savio, not Salvio. He was a leader of the free speech movement at Berkeley in the 1960s (in the event anyone doesn’t know).
O. Felix Culpa
@Patricia Kayden:
Yes.
Patricia Kayden
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Trump and his ilk act as if they love the troops more than anyone else. Yet we have Trump whining about useless grifters who got caught in Mueller’s web instead of honoring our troops.
diane in sonoma
@MagdaInBlack: I try really hard not to buy into “babies in the womb” locution. They aren’t babies, they are fetuses. Calling them babies gives them the right to say that abortion (or even miscarriage) is murder.
Patricia Kayden
@Kay: It wasn’t stars in their eyes. Those were dollar signs.
Barbara
I think Hope Hicks faces actual legal jeopardy. I think everyone including her former boss realizes it. That’s who he is referring to.
Steeplejack
Pretty nice weather today in my little corner of NoVA. Overcast earlier, but sunny now, 76°, going up to 85° later.
No big plans for the day. Have resolutely stayed away from the news—kept the TV off, in fact—and have been listening to music while doing my crosswords and reading here and elsewhere on the Intertubes.
Some light, bright music for a Sunday: Marcos Ariel, “Americas” .
Sounds a little like Freddie Hubbard, Speaking of whom, “À Bientôt”.
Had a pleasant outing yesterday afternoon. Had to get cat food—Jesus, I’m getting it, shut up, shut up!—and once I dynamited myself out of the bunker I had a good time. Felt so energized that I motored into downtown Falls Church to try out Liberty Barbecue, which opened a few months ago.
It’s run by the same people behind the Liberty Tavern, a pretty good, trendy place in the Clarendon part of Arlington. The barbecue place has good beers on tap, good brisket (will get pork next time), interesting sauces in squeeze bottles. I got the broiled Brussels sprouts as a side, but they were a little too fancied up with some kind of sauce that went bitter toward the end. Mac ’n’ cheese or baked beans next time. Excellent key lime pie for dessert.
What really panned out was that I got there just in time for the start of the Champions League final match: Liverpool vs. Real Madrid from Kyiv (formerly Kiev), Ukraine. I knew it was coming up soon but didn’t know it was yesterday. So I ate at the bar in front of a big TV and watched most of the match. Had some amiable soccer conversation with a guy a few stools down from me, and we gave the side-eye to some Real Madrid thugs at the other end of the bar. The full sports-bar experience.
Left there when it became clear that Liverpool was pining for the fjords (condolences, Amir), went to the grocery, got cat food and some other victuals. Finished off the outing with a run by the state liquor store to pick up tequila for margaritas. Came home, schlepped everything up to the hideout. Fed the housecat, made myself a gigantic margarita and piled into the cushy chair. Rest of the evening business as usual. Extra servings for the little beast—the buffet is always open here at the Threadkill Inn.
She’s dozing at her workstation beside me now, heating pad set to 1 (“keep warm”). Reverses polarity occasionally for even warming. She’s doing okay for 18½ , but then she’s pretty rigorous about eating right and getting her 20 hours of beauty sleep every day.
One more song. Guess it’s close enough to summer for this: Kool and the Gang, “Summer Madness”.
That’s about it. Happy Memorial Day to the Juice Nation!
PsiFighter37
@Barbara: That would be great, since she is just like Trump – born into money and supremely unqualified for the jobs she held – and stupid enough to get in trouble with the law.
Kay
People on this site fret when I bring this up, but one way to deal with it is fatalism. Not in a negative way! :)
Are any of you going to change your minds if Republicans hold Congress and start thinking they’re good? No. Then in a way it doesn’t matter if you’re the last Trump opponent on earth. That’s what a “resistance” is, right? A recognition that you’re out of power and for now these people hold all the power. We can’t just stay in the “I can’t believe this” space. Believe it. I don’t know but I’m not sure one can get anywhere productive without really inhabiting the predicament we’re in and then going from there.
Denying it takes so much energy. It’s bad. You’re opposed. Now what?
gene108
@MagdaInBlack:
Cognitive dissonance is a prerequisite for being a conservative
Jim, Foolish Literalist
and maybe also the Large Adult Children, specifically the one he hesitated to name after him since he might grow up to be a “loser”.
Kay
@Patricia Kayden:
Please. They all started cashing in immediately. Then they all lied about cashing in. Cohen alone was taking in hundreds of thousands of dollars.
What were their “dreams”, exactly? I hope their dreams were “huge tax cuts for rich people” since that’s all they’ve fucking accomplished. What were they stopped from doing by Robert Mueller?
When I’m feeling hopeful I’m glad they they all whine so much, because I hope it’s an indication that they all know they’ve broken laws and they’re whining like any other criminal who gets caught. I hope it means they know it’s bad for them.
gene108
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Trump has stated he doesn’t like military, who get captured by the enemy. Why would he like military, who let themselves get killed by the enemy?
Kay
Trump seems particularly unhinged about the criminal investigation(s) right now. Did he find something out that we don’t know yet? God, I hope so.
Citizen Alan
@Mnemosyne:
My theory about the anti-abortion movement: I now believe that most of them are not actually motivated by any interest in protecting life nor even truly any interest in punishing women. The real motivation for being anti-abortion is that they realize in their hearts that they are awful shity people who have never done anything in their lives to make the world better for anyone except themselves. Consequently, easy access to abortion fills them with existential terror because they know in their shriveled hearts that the world would actually be a better place without them if they had been aborted themselves.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
@PsiFighter37: As I recall, when they were all concocting the false statement on Air Force One, Hicks said their emails wouldn’t matter because they’d never get out. That right there should have disqualified her from any job in professional communication. I’d have failed a ProCom student who said such a deluded thing.
Alain the site fixer
Test
danielx
86 degrees and sitting on the back porch listening to the Indianapolis 500…..long time tradition.
HinTN
@Steeplejack: Americana at its finest. Thank you and happy Memorial Day weekend to all.
Immanentize
@Kay:
Everyone went real quiet after last Thursday’s briefing about the C.I. during the campaign. Pin drop quiet. Trump hasn’t tweeted “SPY!!!” since. Someone told him to shut the fuck up and this tweet is as close as he can get to shutting the fuck up:
“Wwaaah! Poor idealistic young-uns.”
ETA clarity
HinTN
@Alain the site fixer: On my android devices the check box to remember my stuff is there but the text is way over to the right in a narrow vertical frame. Otherwise functioning fine.
JPL
@Kay: I think it has something to do with this
http://www.businessinsider.com/fbi-obtains-alexander-torshin-wiretaps-from-spanish-police-2018-5?r=UK&IR=T
Brachiator
A few degrees of separation.
Mario Savio, son of a Sicilian immigrant father, went to Martin Van Buren High School in New York.
Martin Van Buren, son of Dutch Americans. Van Buren was raised speaking Dutch and learned English at school, making him the only president who spoke English as a second language. He was the first president not born a British subject, nor of British ancestry.
And Savio, of course, was not only a leader of the Free Speech Movement, he had put his ass on the line, working with civil rights groups in Mississippi.
We have always been a nation built on diversity, and the best of us have always fought for justice, when the need arose.
Good time to fight, now.
JPL
@Immanentize: That is a good point!
Teddys Person
They’re all starry-eyed beautiful young things until Dolt45 needs to throw them under the bus to save his orange hide.
Alain the site fixer
Ugh. This is a temporary fix for the saving email address issue for mobile comments. This is a temporary patch until I get the proper new file.
It means that mobile users lose the pie filter and a few other things. This is just temporary, until the theme is fixed proper by the manufacturer.
RedDirtGirl
@Patricia Kayden: Yeah, I don’t actually mind the rain. I find it cosy.
Teddys Person
Rudy “noun verb 9/11” Giuliani is showing his ass on the TV this AM.
Steeplejack (phone)
Testing nym fix.
Brachiator
@Kay:
Good point. Also, I don’t think that there is any best way of rallying people to get something done.
To paraphrase John Lennon,
Whatever gets you to the fight,
Well it’s all right, it’s all right!
bemused
Trump and company are monsters. Most people don’t raise their kids to emulate any of them. We watched how a close relative and spouse raised their kids before we started a family and it was quite an education in how not to fuck up your kids.
Steeplejack
@Alain the site fixer:
Feedback on mobile “persistent nym” fix:
For me (Android, Chrome) the “save nym and e-mail” thing is now working. Yay!
What has changed and/or isn’t working:
1. Nym, e-mail, website and “save” checkbox are now in between the comment text box and the “Post Comment” button, which is inconvenient—you have to go down practically a whole page to get to the button. Keep comment box and “Post Comment” button together.
2. The look of all comments has changed. Text is smaller—not good on an already small phone screen. It’s smaller than the text of the main post; they used to be the same size, I think.
3. Comment numbers have disappeared, as has the “hot” time stamp on each comment that allows you to pull that comment up to the top of the screen. A very useful feature that it would be sad to lose.
4. “Reply” button is a little too close to the last line of the comment text. It almost overlaps with the text of a line that extends all the way to the right margin.
Wild Cat
@Achrachno: Savio grew up in Glen Oaks, Queens, not far from Trump. I grew up there a decade later. Savio was never mentioned. This was white New Deal terriority, a decent liberalism that somehow coexisted with horrific segregation. From what I know of it now, the white ramparts have been busted, so progress does slowly crawl on.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Steeplejack: Same results on iPhone. Nice to be able to save my nym!
SFAW
@Doug R:
My, aren’t WE optimistic?
maya
Is that the new Ivankalanka Chinese slave-shop ripped-chic clothing line?
SFAW
@Teddys Person:
Fuck Rudy “Giving Cover for Traitors” Giuliani
Another Scott
@Citizen Alan: Repost – Jill LePore in the New Yorker in 2011:
The (modern) anti-abortion movement has always been about politics, not caring about “the unborn”.
Cheers,
Scott.
Kay
I’m on a drug court board so I go to various “levels” in the program and listen. The first level is where the defendants talk about where they are- they say things like “I hate that people think I’m a liar” or “I hate that people say I’m a bad mother” – there’s a distance between what they do and how they feel about it and it’s “other people say this”. One of the social services people told me this is enough for first level- that they don’t need to get further in order to “fake it ’till you make it” – they’re looking at other people and then next step will be when they start to mimic other people – go to work, start taking care of their kids, stay clean , etc. They have to “fake it” because they don’t have any inner sense anymore of what the “right thing” would be.
This is how I see Trump Administration people when they do these “we ARE good people!” campaigns. They know on some level that they’re receiving social censure for…something or other, so they fake a response.
Sanders doesn’t say “I should stop lying”. She says “I hate that I have a reputation for dishonesty”. There’s no inner guidance there- they have to see it mirrored by other people. They don’t say “we should change our policy where we rip toddlers from their mothers” they say “I hate that we’re portrayed as mean-spirited psychopaths so I’ll try to change that perception”
It’s first level. The sense of decency doesn’t go any deeper than that.
Steeplejack
@Alain the site fixer:
Got it. Not carping below, just giving (hopefully) helpful feedback.
Don’t stress too much about it. I think most people would be satisfied to get through the weekend if they can at least save their nym.
Mary G
I tweeted back to him that he is neither young nor beautiful. I have a stack of postcards to voters to mail and another batch to do today. Can’t do many because my hands hurt and cramp, but it’s worth it. Sent an extra over budget $50 to the ACLU yesterday in honor of the missing children. Gonna get rid of the landline tomorrow, which’ll make some of it back. It’s mostly telemarketing anyway.
B.B.A.
@Patricia Kayden: So I should continue to give them my money and let them do unspeakable acts in my name? We’re not going to get him out of office for another two and a half years, but the taxman takes his cut every two weeks.
We’re talking about “putting your bodies onto the gears” and Thoreau’s tax protest is the classic example. Obviously the government can keep going without my money, or any individual person’s, but if the entire Democratic party went on a tax strike… well I know that’s not possible. But some things just can’t wait for another election cycle.
Steeplejack
Okay, I’m going full-on retro/smooth jazz/yacht rock* for the beginning of summer.
Chris Rea, “On the Beach.”
Pieces of a Dream, “Warm Weather.”
The Lovin’ Spoonful, “Coconut Grove.”
———
* “Music as smooth as the hands of a man who loves the sea but has people to do all the boat stuff.”
Mary G
I didn’t even think of this. Is it true?
James Powell
@Kay:
But nothing they’ve done has caused their support to crater as much as we would expect. Obama’s approval was almost as low and the only horror he committed was trying to extend health care coverage to millions of people – oh the humanity!
And while many people were appalled when Trump bragged about assaulting women, almost as many were entertained, amused, and not put off at all.
debbie
@Kay:
Nothing is beneath that monster. It wouldn’t surprise me if those children were disappeared, only to next be seen picking crops in red states.
Another Scott
@Mary G: Rules and laws only apply to little people.
Kellyanne can tell her all about it.
HTH!!
:-/
Cheers,
Scott.
Steeplejack
@Kay:
Maybe stoicism is a better word than fatalism. But maybe a bit clunky.
Suzanne
I don’t know what to do, how to protest. I live in a border state, and Arizona—and especially Phoenix, for many reasons—has a very large population of undocumented immigrants, DREAMers, and first-generation Americans of Latino descent. Immigration raids are happening in the neighborhood I grew up in. These people are Mr. Suzanne’s students, not to mention the people who do the lawns and clean the houses of all of my neighbors (and me—full disclosure). This feels fucking personal.
I participated in SB1070 protests and did non-partisan voter registration. I have marched with undocumented immigrants, as I am descended from undocumented immigrants. I will do so again this year. But I just do not know what else to do and it is heartbreaking.
FWIW, I always tip the landscapers and housecleaners exceedingly well. Their rates are really reasonable and I want them to have some extra that, well, whether or not they report their tips is their business.
arrieve
@Kay: Yes, I think this hits it squarely. They’re all greed and narcissism and Id, in vaguely human packaging, with no more concept of being a complete human being than your average amoeba.
Another Scott
@Suzanne: Thank you.
None of us can do it alone, but when enough of us work together good things happen.
Keep doing what you can. That’s all any of us can do.
Cheers,
Scott.
debbie
Will this occasion an angry tweet?
Kay
@James Powell:
Okay. But on some level they know that there is risk here, or they wouldn’t bother to lie about it or continually whine that they are “good people”.
If they believed this, if they believed that their behavior was not only acceptable but popular they wouldn’t bother to lie about and they wouldn’t do all this whining about how they’re perceived.
Jared and Ivanka’s whole marketing effort is intended to conceal the fact they’re mean spirited, venal assholes. One person- their publicist/PR person, has a full time job hiding the fact that they’re assholes.
EFFORT goes into this, and the effort shows there’s some estimation of value among them for being perceived as “good”. There’s hope in that. That’s the vulnerability.
Shell
And its a card that can be plugged into absolutely any argument. From forced splitting of families to school massacres.
EBT
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady): Have you gotten to the part where qualified immunity leaves us with zero legal response? These children can be legally sold in to sexual slavery because racist white guys with the correct gang sign (a badge) are doing it.
Kay
The part that kills me about the “rip children from their parents” policy choice is how banal I bet it was. How many people did that pass thru? There are memos, because the policy has a stupid name.
People sitting at desks reviewed that and signed off on their part of it, just as part of an ordinary workday in the Trump Administration.
So what can you think about those people? You can’t think they’re “good people” because they endorsed this cruel policy and that’s not fair to “good people”- I mean, don’t there need to be some standards? If everyone is equally good then no one can be bad.
This didn’t happen but say that one of them had said “this is cruel and inhuman and I won’t endorse it”. What’s that person? The same as Kelly? Or better than Kelly?
Shell
Jeezuz, he should write for the Hallmark Channel.
Kay
@Shell:
They moved onto their lucrative gigs as full-time, non-state, Right wing grifters- which actually pays better and involves less… interaction with law enforcement.
Fewer scary interviews with FBI agents in the private sector Right wing grift sector.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
@Kay: Is there a line in an account somewhere that budgets for little striped pajamas for the kids to wear in their camp?
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Kay:
“Operation Streamline”, right? It’s banal in an American way, so there’s that.
J R in WV
@B.B.A.:
Almost all my taxable income comes from either the federal government, social security, or the state government, my pension. Hard to do tax activism in that case, although I like the idea of putting it all into an account they can’t touch. So as to have it when the tax strike ends and this horror show is over.
But I do regular donations to House candidates who look to have a chance and who support health care, the safety net, and democratic policies in general.
Shell
Weve been talking about songs that say Summer to you.
What about foods/flavors. What tastes like Summer to you?
For me its always fresh raspberries.
Barbara
@James Powell: Well, as she more or less admitted in her interview during the Winter Olympics when she was asked directly about her father’s relationship with Stormy Daniels, she feels free to put on whichever hat she likes best for doing whatever she wants that day. Some days she’s a senior WH advisor and other days she’s just the president’s daughter. But really, it’s the latter. I can’t believe there is any real policy related work that ever crosses Ivanka’s desk.
Kay
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady):
Exactly. I don’t think I’m an especially “good” person, not a stand out or anything, and if I saw that I think I’d say “this is going to bring up all sorts of awful historical comparisons and those comparisons will be correct” – just that surface an analysis.
No one in Trumpworld said that. In fact, they thought it was so mainstream they sent Kelly out to brag about it. These are flawed people. There’s something wrong with them.
scav
Funny how all those kids armed with toy guns of the un-merkan color are immdiately judged as potential threats of real and present danger to actual policemen in actual cars or even when merely wandering up ho houses to ask for directions (SHOOT! SHOOT! ENTIRELY JUSTIFIED SHOOT!) but somehow all the kids they’ve lost track of (No Moral Reaponsibility) are of no concern to the usual alarmists, despite being the children of UTTERLY NOT THE BEST GANG MEMBERS!!!!
Alain the site fixer
@Steeplejack: all my customizations are temporarily gone. I don’t expect to hear from them until Tuesday afternoon and will see what they say. I don’t want to waste a few hours digging into this new hybrid theme if it’s going to be fixed proper soon!
ETA didn’t want to ignore your comment, I didn’t take it as carping.
p.a.
@Alain the site fixer: I’m on Android phone, mobile page, but temp or not I like the format. Not seeing/not not seeing anything beyond the usual.
Steeplejack
@Shell:
Watermelon. Or—though I haven’t had one in
yearsdecades—a banana Popsicle by the swimming pool.Feebog
@Suzanne:
All you can do is all you can do. Vote. Make sure your left leaning friends neighbors and aquaintinences vote. If you have time, work on a local campaign. Contribute what you can to candidates who will make a difference. Do what you can do.
Steeplejack
@Alain the site fixer:
No problem! I get it.
ETA: And I see that you got it. Good!
Betty Cracker
Joan Walsh said on Twitter that Twitler is definitely referring to Hope Hicks in the above tweet and that she is no longer taking his calls and instead refers him to her lawyer. Hope that’s true.
Teddys Person
@Steeplejack: Now I want a banana Popsicle. My mom used to stock the freezer with boxes of single flavor popsicles she got at the Agway Store. Banana and root beer were my go to flavors.
debbie
@Kay:
Most people have no knowledge of any events that would serve as historical comparison.
debbie
@Shell:
Creamsicle (the way they used to be made, out of ice cream and sherbet, none of this popsicle crap). Happily, the current special flavor at Graeters is Oranges and Cream.
Betty Cracker
@Achrachno: Typo fixed. Thanks!
NotMax
@Shell
Gazpacho.
Gin and tonic.
Can’t for the life of me remember the name of the fruit-flavored hard candy discs with a fine dusting of sugar which came in a squat round (mostly black) metal canister with a pry-off, push-on lid; only ever saw them during summertime.
@Steeplejack
With you on the popsicle thing (as well as the amount of time elapsed since last had one) but differ on the flavor. Root beer.
Also too (again, it’s been decades), Good Humor toasted coconut encrusted strawberry and cream treat on a stick.
Certain neither would now come come close to living up to the memory of them.
J R in WV
@Shell:
“What tastes like Summer to you?”
For me:
Fresh picked corn on the cob with green beans (half-runners about here!) and new potatoes. We don’t eat anything else for a couple of weeks when the corn comes in next month. The farmer’s market has great corn and beans real soon now!
Also, fresh cukes in vinegar and oil, fresh heirloom tomatoes with BLT sandwiches on local real bread.
ETA add quotes, etc.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Betty Cracker:
Cue Trump outside Hope’s window in the middle of the night holding up a boombox wearing a trench coat
Teddys Person
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: That’s a disturbing thought. When my mind puts together Trump & trench coat, I conjure up images of the types of men who lurk around parks and playgrounds flashing their junk.
Steeplejack
@Teddys Person:
Heh, I didn’t give the back-story, lest it sound elitist. I was an Air Force brat, so the “swimming pool” was the one at the officers’ club at whichever base we were stationed. Somehow “officers’ club” seems to conjure up images of the British Raj and decadent excess, although in reality it was more a combination rec center/restaurant/bar/conference center on a par with a mid-level Ramada Inn. (And, yes, the “enlisted ranks” had an equal facility in their “housing area,” i.e., subdivision. I often went over there for swim meets, to see friends, etc.)
Anyway, the banana Popsicle conjures up images of eighth to tenth grade at a pilot-training base in the barrens of west Texas. I would get up early to mow lawns before it got too hot (100° was not unusual), and well before noon we would be in the water at the O-club pool, where we would stay until almost suppertime. Lunch would be a burger or a grilled cheese sandwich from the little snack bar. Snacks the previously mentioned banana Popsicle or an orange sherbet Creamsicle (remember those?). And we would save one of the wooden sticks to use for playing Dibble.
Good times. And I’ve got the history of low-grade skin cancer to show for it. As one of my dermatologists put it, “What’s the best way to avoid skin cancer? Stay out of the sun thirty years ago!” Thanks, doc.
Shell
Also, fresh basil.
Jackie
@debbie: I LOVE those! A fun substitute is a vanilla ice cream with orange soda float ?
Ruckus
@MagdaInBlack:
Don’t hold your breath, as you realize, there is no good answer. They will justify their bullshit with more bullshit but there is no logical answer. Because they do not accept individual autonomy, only gang mentality. The gang they belong to, in this case the republican party says something, they accept it. They don’t think we are a nation of individuals, we are collective groups of followers. That’s why they are willing to say whatever they are told, to do whatever they are told and to all act the same, because they are a member of a gang for which they don’t want to lose their membership. It’s like a pack of coyotes, if you are a coyote you want to be a member, there’s more food and protection. If you try to be a loner the group will try to kill you. Sound familiar?
Teddys Person
@Steeplejack: Sounds like the perfect childhood summer routine. Oddly, never heard of Dibble. Sounds like a game I should have played as a kid.
John Revolta
@debbie: I was gonna say Creamsicle! Orange of course. Did they even come in any other flavors?
J R in WV
@NotMax:
“Gazpacho.
Gin and tonic.”
Gaspacho, gazpacho, however you spell it, tastes of summertime. Can’t believe I didn’t think of that. But I drink G&T pretty much year ’round, since it’s always warm inside.
Ruckus
@Kay:
I don’t see that as a sense of decency. It’s a sense of survival. Decency is a ways up from survival.
First level – survival in whatever circumstances they find themselves in.
Second level – learning the limits of the civilization.
Third level – learning the responsibilities of the civilization.
Fourth level – learning the responsibilities of the individual in the civilization.
Fifth level – learning to accept the responsibilities of the individual in the civilization.
Sixth level – learning to be a part of the entire civilization – personal limitations.
Seventh level – learning decency towards self and others. Some think this is third level but that leaves out a lot.
This is what we are supposed to learn as children. Lots of people never do.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Oh my god, that’s funny
A Ghost To Most
Note to Rump: those weren’t stars in their eyes; they were swastikas.
Ruckus
@Mary G:
It depends on her exact position and what she actually did.
There are exceptions to who can do what, some WH members of the executive branch are exempt. Her exact position would determine if she is required to obey the act and then exactly what she did/didn’t do. Wanna bet that she knows that the Hatch act even exists?
debbie
@John Revolta:
Not in my part of the country. Do you remember pushups?
Ruckus
@debbie:
Ice cream or bras?
Yes in either case.
Shell
Outside of Baltimore- we’re having sudden torrential rain.
CapnMubbers
@Steeplejack: From the link: “Children aged 8 and above, provided they can swim, are the ideal participants.” Non-swimmers may participate, though less than ideal???
Fleeting Expletive
@Citizen Alan: Also, I’d like to point out just how coincidentally convenient it is that abortion is the ONE SIN that can only be committed by a woman. Men are so pure that not one has ever, ever done it. She bit the apple, she had it comin’, it all makes perfect sense.
The Lodger
@Alain the site fixer: I miss message numbers. Are they coming back?
Steeplejack
@CapnMubbers:
Yeah, that’s a bit of a poser.
Steeplejack
@The Lodger:
Alain said above that the status quo is temporary, won’t be fixed/changed until at least Tuesday.
MagdaInBlack
@Ruckus:
Sounds completely accurate.
They’re completely mindless.
And heartless.
ohthatguy
How can their be a group that both derides people for trigger warnings and safe spaces while whining so much that people are mean to them?