Trump Casinos.
Trump Steaks.
Trump Airlines.
Trump Vodka.
Trump Mortgage.
Trump Magazine.
Trump Ice.
Trump University.
What do all of these Trump-branded things all have in common? They all went belly up. Kaput. Deceased. Bereft of life, they’ve joined the bleedin’ choir invisible.
If tens of millions of our fellow citizens weren’t such goddamned idiots, this record of scammy failures would have vaporized Trump’s “successful businessman” image, which seems to be the only thing Trump has expended a lot of effort to build. But, people are dumb and gullible, especially when reality collides with a carefully cultivated TV image, so here we are.
But 18 or so months into this dystopian hellscape, there’s just no excuse for a seasoned political analyst to express faith in another fraudulent Trump brand: the alleged moderating influence of Ivanka Trump. Yet Karen Tumulty does just that in a Post opinion column:
Melania Trump weighs in on her husband’s cruel policy. Where are you, Ivanka?
The first lady’s decision to step into the debate makes the silence of another Trump family member all the more telling. Where is Ivanka Trump, who is actually an official adviser to her father — and the one who claims that family issues are her portfolio?
All those photos of crying children don’t look so great on Instagram. Still, Ivanka, there is time to step up. You can do it. Be best.
Seriously? Give me a fucking break.
Now, as I said a couple of days ago, I think the Trump people have trod on their own dicks by going all-in on child-snatching. The practice is so morally repugnant that even reliable toadies like Franklin Graham publicly object to the policy, and Trump’s usual lie-and-deflect strategy doesn’t seem to be resonating outside the Fox News bubble.
Meanwhile, the images of crying parents and brown kids in cages have generated such enthusiasm in Trump’s white supremacist base that it will be difficult to walk the policy back without angering the most devoted cultists. It’s possible the abnormal brain trust in the White House is discussing a face-saving climb-down this very moment, possibly even one involving Ivanka.
But even if Sarah Huckabee-Sanders trots Ivanka Trump out at today’s news briefing to announce an end to the old man’s child kidnappings (spoiler: not gonna happen — Shitler is doubling down on Twitter right now), it would be yet another scam. Ivanka’s supposed influence on her monstrous father is just another Trump-branded fraud, and anyone who seriously looks to that empty-headed non-entity for moral leadership is a moron.
Gin & Tonic
It’s an effective distraction from Manafort, Stone and Caputo, I’ll grant them that.
kindness
Snatching children from their asylum seeking parents may make Trump laugh but we all know it positively thrills (and not in a good way) Stephen Miller. That man is a cross between a Grimm’s fairy tale wicked witch and a Nazi.
Parfigliano
They only thing Ivanka influences with Trump is in his pants.
Fester Addams
This morning I’m hearing the administration trying to tie ending family separation to legislation funding Trump’s border wall. Has anyone heard if they’re offering to free the child captives in exchange for Democratic rep’s votes? Is it too soon to be making Boko Haram comparisons?
zhena gogolia
You avoided the “f.c.” epithet that is now indelibly wired into my brain when I hear the word “Ivanka.”
Betty Cracker
@Gin & Tonic: Seriously? Jesus.
schrodingers_cat
These children are hostages. Kelly, Miller and their boss want to get rid of everyone that does not confirm to their idea of an American and or good immigrant.
JPL
Nielsen is talking about generous we are, but we need to change the law so that undocumented youth from crime infected countries can not come here and ask for amnesty. They are taking advantage of us.
I fking hate her.
germy
I remember when Lorne Michaels decided it’d be good for business to have Tr*ump host SNL.
There was one “sketch” where Ivanka makes a cameo appearance. She walks onstage as herself.
Now, usually a celebrity cameo brings the house down. Laughter, applause, cheers from the audience delighted by the surprise appearance.
Ivanka walked on to complete silence. Not a peep from the audience. I’d never seen anything like it on SNL (or any other variety show) before.
EDIT: Fun fact: more than a few cast members have since talked about how horrible he was as a guest. No sense of humor, barely literate.
Bruce K
@zhena gogolia: I’m’a gonna assume that the “f.c.” stands for “feckless crook”, because even though I know what Samantha Bee said and meant, “crook” applies even better to the (hawk, spit) First Daughter.
germy
Who will be the next republican presidential nominee? Roseanne?
JPL
MSNBC cut away from her speech, and is now talking about ports of legal entry being closed or back logged.
gvg
Actually I took that article as a not especially well written attack on Ivanka. I’d say the writer despises her almost as much as we do and is just using the Melania lame letter to attack Ivanka. However the whole think is kind of Meh as I am well past the scolding stage and into rage.
GregB
I saw Spocko has a post about de-Trumpication after this monstrous chapter in our history is over.
We do need to understand that at a good chunk of our population consists of fascists
Here is that magic number again.
https://politicalwire.com/2018/06/18/almost-half-of-republicans-agree-with-separation-policy/
Kay
It’s race to the bottom. Lowered standards. Melania issues some boilerplate, committee-written DC statement on legislation and they all give her an A+.
Trump got kudos for not bombing North Korea. No one mentioned that he;s the one who threatened to bomb North Korea in the first place. They lower standards for the Trumps. Every day.
It’s also gross how all the “feeling” is outsourced to the Trump women. You don’t have to be “a mom” to know pulling little kids away from their parents is wrong. I’m sick of their personal biographies being used as some claim to morality “as a MOM”, as a Catholic, as a Bible banger” Forget “as a mom”. PEOPLE know this is wrong. The “moms” in the Trump Administration, in fact, did not RECOGNIZE this as wrong until they had to feign concern as a result of public pressure.
schrodingers_cat
@germy: Marine General Honorable John Kelly.
scav
To a degree, it’s only failed if Ivanka ever actually gave a shit about families and mothers, children etcetera andnwished to actively promote their general well-being with effect in the actual realio-truelio world meaning not just her own and friends selves and spawn. Insofar as a brief to gemerate headlines, puff-pieces and chyrons, it’s had moderate success and probably done better than the steaks.
zhena gogolia
@Bruce K:
I’d never use Bee’s expression out loud. All I’m saying is it’s stuck in my head like the melody to “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina.”
Yarrow
Ivanka is a traitor. Can’t wait to see her in an orange jumpsuit. I don’t think they let you Instagram your prison stay, do they?
Gin & Tonic
@Betty Cracker: Did I omit the snark tag? Seriously, Trump’s former campaign chairman was sent to jail on Friday for witness tampering, and two close advisers to the campaign, including someone who’s been a key Trump strategist for decades, suddenly “remembered” over the weekend that they’d had contact with a sleazy Russian guy – despite testifying to Congress that they’d had no such contact. It’s Monday morning, and those stories are down the memory hole. Gone. Cui bono?
germy
@schrodingers_cat: You’re probably right.
Jeffro
Trumpov is really losing his mind on Twitter today – doing Putin’s work for him by lying about immigration in Germany, railing about Strozk, etc.
I keep seeing him leave the WH in handcuffs, but maybe a straightjacket is more likely? Stroke out and leave on a stretcher, jerk.
Yarrow
@germy: Maybe there won’t be a Republican party.
Amir Khalid
@Fester Addams:
No, not too soon. In fact, it’s right on target.
@germy:
No, not horrible enough. Too easily got rid of by the network.
Kay
@Jeffro:
That guy who wrote Trump’s biography thinks he’s reaching the danger point- genuinely losing it. He probably knows him as well as anyone CAN know an empty drum of a person.
rikyrah
Core Civic made about $2,300 per immigrant/prisoner last year, based on total income of $180 million dollars and a capacity of 78,000 beds. They own 58% of all private prison beds in the U.S. https://t.co/lyHRN42mxx 5/12
— John Roberts (@_thejohnroberts) June 17, 2018
randy khan
@gvg:
Yeah, I read it the same way – almost as a taunt to Ivanka.
JPL
@Jeffro: Stephen Miller has the phone today. Trump would be tweeting about lyin Laura.
Mnemosyne
@Gin & Tonic:
Hopefully, the toddlers currently being locked into cages.
I think you’re VASTLY underestimating how shocked and horrified people are by these family separations. The reason they’ve taken over the news is that they’re so fucking monstrous that even some people who voted for Trump are disgusted by them.
I know why you’re focused on Ukraine, but don’t become that guy at the back of the room who shouts, “What about the workers?” regardless of the topic.
C. Isaac
These people deserve to be at public trial in The Hague, not in the White House.
Human rights abuses is the kindest term that can be used about these atrocities.
Crimes against Humanity is the appropriate term.
rikyrah
FROM TPV:
UH HUH
UH HUH
smintheus
How many tests of integrity do Melania and Ivanka have to fail before they get a failing grade?
Spanky
Well, it may be that Tumulty’s ultimate aim here is to get people to notice that Dear Ivanka hasn’t done jack shit, and it seems to me that that’s a pretty effective way to do it. But I’m also thinking that that is purely accidental, given Tumulty’s track record.
Accidental or not, I’ll be happy if others start noticing too.
rikyrah
@schrodingers_cat:
YOU were the first one to bring to our attention that Kelly wanted this policy.
It was the indication to me that Kelly wasn’t shyt.
rikyrah
@C. Isaac:
uh huh
uh huh
Jeffro
@Jeffro: “…migration is rocking the already tenuous Berlin coalition” – W.T.F.???
At what point does the national security apparatus of this country publicly put it out there that the #1 threat to our country and world peace is right thar at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue?
Hey Trumpov, just ’cause Merkel thinks you’re a dunce doesn’t mean she’s wrong? Just ’cause Putin wants her out of the way and the Western alliance destroyed doesn’t mean you’ll be left to lead the New Dictator Order.
zhena gogolia
@Mnemosyne:
It’s not just about Ukraine. Trump wouldn’t be in power if it weren’t for Russia. Period. We’d have Hillary pursuing some reasonable course on immigration and being blocked at every turn by Rethugs.
Mike R
@smintheus: All of them, but that probably is only going to get them an incomplete.
Jeffro
@JPL: Good point. Also, the correct and disgraceful use of the word “tenuous”.
JCJ
@Kay:
To borrow the line from the esteemed rikyrah: The curve for mediocre white men is real. And in this case it applies to women (Ivanka) as well.
different-church-lady
I’m telling you, 90% of the people are below average intelligence.
Jeffro
@Kay: Well, we’re going to get there sooner or later…anything that pushes him closer to the stroke-out red line, I’m all for.
Go on live TV, Trumpov! Tell the whole world how excited you are to be kidnapping children so you’ll have more ‘leverage’ for your fucking wall. Tell us some more about how these kids ‘aren’t so innocent’, and what you mean by that. Go for it, asshole.
Kay
So- cages, but the children in cages are not being treated like they would treat animals in cages, however that would be.
But we all now agree on cages.
Gin & Tonic
@zhena gogolia: @Mnemosyne:
Bingo!
Of course the Trump/Sessions/Kelly/Nielsen policy is monstrous. The problem is our media can only apparently focus on one story at a time. Trump has known this and used it for most of his life.
randy khan
@smintheus:
All of them, Katie. And they’re well on their way.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
You forgot the most spectacular failure: Trump Administration. It hasn’t gone under yet, but it’s early yet.
JPL
@Jeffro: It could even be Kelly, but who ever has it is doing a bad job of aping Trump.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: I was paying attention to what the man was saying and his actions as the DHS secretary. You were among the first who thought I was not being hyperbolic with respect to the general.
Betty Cracker
@zhena gogolia: True, but that doesn’t mean we should ignore atrocities that are happening as a result of that originating crime. And the Manafort, Stone, etc., story is hardly in the memory hole — it’s on the front page right now at The Post, CNN, etc.
Patricia Kayden
We have to stop caring about Trump’s racist base. We really must. They are not the majority of us and they don’t represent us. Trump and his GOP lackeys must feel the full wrath of American voters in November and impeachment must be on the table if Democrats are able to take back Congress. I hope Trump’s bigotry will be enough to get our side off their butts and into the voting booths or we’re screwed.
Amir Khalid
I remember that there was/is a Trump winery as well as a Trump Vodka business. It makes me wonder. Trump’s a teetotaler, so people say. How does a teetotaler sell alcohol? Why would he even want to?
Kay
@Jeffro:
He Tweeted this morning that he’s snatching the children to use as leverage! They’re hostages to Donald Trump’s wall.
the Conster
@Fester Addams:
No. That’s exactly the right comparison. #WhereAreTheGirls
schrodingers_cat
@Amir Khalid: He lies about everything, why not this. May be he is a raging alcoholic, it would be irresponsible not to speculate.
zhena gogolia
@Kay:
It is totally time to call it the Boko Haram administration.
schrodingers_cat
@Kay: Schumer was ready to give him the wall during the last DACA negotiations. He wants more than the wall, nothing less than to administratively rewrite the entire immigration policy.
the Conster
@rikyrah:
but but but he marched with MLK! WHAT.A.FRAUD.
rikyrah
@Mnemosyne:
I’ve said repeatedly:
The simplicity of the UTTER EVIL of all of this cuts through the bullshyt.
It’s plain as day.
You don’t have to be pro illegal immigration to believe that CHILDREN SHOULD NOT BE TAKEN AWAY FROM THEIR PARENTS.
And, that’s not even getting into taking the children away from PEOPLE DOING THE LEGAL ROUTE TRYING TO SEEK ASYLUM.
tomtofa
The headline I’m waiting for, in vain:
“Dems to Trump: we don’t negotiate with terrorists.”
JPL
Marketwatch.com has this
Trump Today: President uses false German crime assertion to defend separation policy
hmmm
pat
@Fester Addams:
I’m wondering when we will start to see the word HOSTAGES used.
MattF
It’s a royal court, or at least a simulation of one. I guess Jared and Ivanka would be Duke and Duchess of Trump. Several people have tried out for Fool, Giuliani is the current candidate.
For all of them, it’s necessary to keep the King propped up. And that’s all that really matters for them.
Kay
@Gin & Tonic:
The coverage of the Russia story is terrible though. They’re better at the snatched baby stories than the complex money laundering and white collar crime stories.
germy
@rikyrah:
rikyrah
@Kay:
They didn’t get the Frank Luntz approved term yet, Kay.
Amir Khalid
@the Conster:
No, no, no. You have that backwards. MLK marched with him.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Because, they want to beat around the bush, Kay. They don’t want to call a spade, a spade.
Money laundering isn’t complex.
Neither is the Russia Story.
germy
A strongly worded tweet is something I suppose.
MattF
@rikyrah: “Freedom de-enhancement devices.”
TriassicSands
Franklin Graham, maybe, but you won’t have any trouble finding spirited defenses of the Trump child-snatching policy in the comment sections of the Times and Post. The average person in Trump’s base is even worse than the unimaginably horrific Graham. Now, that says something! A little thing — you know like a tiny brown toddler crying for his mother — is not going to sway those who believe that the shortcut to MAGA is making America white again. Now, if we could just figure out a way to rescind the citizenship of those who are already here. It comes as no surprise that the Trump administration is working on that, too.
pat
@pat:
I see I wasn’t the first here at least.
Jeffro
Wow. I’m scrolling through the past two days of tweets from the president* and just wow.
– he’s trying to get Washington Post employees to strike
– he’s claiming that obstruction of justice isn’t a crime/isn’t possible in his case
– he’s clearly and weirdly obsessed with calling Strozk/Page “lovers”
– he also loves to throw the word “sick” around a lot (projection much?)
– and of course, there is the Merkel-bashing I mentioned upthread. Look, Vlad, aren’t I a good boy? Arf!
What a loon. I wonder which would be more effective, a human chain around the WH all chanting “stroke! stroke! stroke!” or a million of us tweeting it at him?
Mnemosyne
@zhena gogolia:
@Gin & Tonic:
Sometimes an emergency has to take precedence. This is a fucking human rights emergency.
I’m fine letting Robert Mueller continue his work while we try to stop these family separations. It’s not like the investigation is going to suddenly vanish because people are looking at family separations.
Yarrow
@Gin & Tonic: Yep. Trump’s one skill is that he’s a good conman. One of a conman’s skills is to get people to look over there at that thing while he walks away with the money.
The separation of children from parents is appalling and people are rightly horrified by it. That doesn’t mean it’s not also a distraction attempt by the administration. In this case I think they misjudged how people would respond. They’re so deep in their bubble that they thought it would just work as an outrage-of-the-day distraction and not something that would blow up like it has.
Edit: To be clear, the policy is something they want and support. They just didn’t think the reaction against it would be so strong or so sustained.
Kay
How does she know they’re being treated well? Fifteen minutes ago she lied and said it wasn’t policy. If it isn’t policy how would she be aware of how they’re treated? According to her she had nothing to do with it.
Let’s review: policy? Yes. In cages? Yes. Treatment while in the cages? Still lying about that.
Patricia Kayden
@Kay: And yet he keeps lying that some mythical Democratic law requires him to separate migrant families. He’s such a bozo. Can’t keep his lies straight.
rikyrah
@Patricia Kayden:
CLAP.CLAP.CLAP.
TELL IT.
Gin & Tonic
@Amir Khalid: It was/is a business of one of his sons.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Bytch, please.
Lying piece of shyt.
Mnemosyne
@JPL:
I’m wondering if the horrifying photos from the US are going to end up propping up Merkel and her party in Germany. A few speeches along the lines of, Is this how you want Germany to treat its refugees? might go a long way.
MattF
@Yarrow: Specifically, with someone like Franklin Graham. Graham is exquisitely sensitive to what his parishoners are thinking. If he’s condemning the policy it’s because a significant piece of his congregation is unhappy about it.
WereBear
Father’s Day on Twitter was a bizarre wall of Right Wingers posing with their children, talking about how important it is to be a father, alongside photos of crying children being taken away from their parents… and we don’t even know where some of them are or what is happening to them.
I continually ask myself how they can be so tone-deaf and optics blind: but these are not normal people; they are deeply disturbed and it shows.
Now, to pry their sticky hands off our government.
Kay
They should release the contracts for the care of the caged kids. All the terms will be in there. We could save a lot of time asking the lying, low quality Trump hires questions (which they won’t answer honestly anyway) and instead just get and read the docs.
We wasted three days wading thru these peoples lies and excuses. They’re not credible. They all lie, all the time.
rikyrah
@Yarrow:
Of course, it’s what they want and support. They thought that folks wouldn’t just ‘ get over’ seeing children in cages….they didn’t understand that, most decent people, like me, went something like this..
Depression at seeing it..
Horror…
And now, a persistent rage that burns stronger everytime I even THINK about it…
rikyrah
@Kay:
You are right..where are the contracts..Let’s see them in black and white..
tobie
@Kay: When the going gets tough, just blame the press. That’s the Trump strategy in a nutshell.
OT: Is IG Horowitz testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee today? I’d like to know why he didn’t investigate the NY Office of the FBI for his report on the handling of Clinton’s emails. Will we ever find out who leaked to Giuliani, Nunes, et al and will we see choice bits from their texts and emails like we’ve seen from Strozk and Page?
eric
So, Trump’s Border people are “uncomfortable” with the word “cages.” Well, motherfuckers, think how the kids in cages feel about the cages themselves. You heartless fuck sticks!
Patricia Kayden
@Jeffro:
This is so inappropriate. He’s bashing Chancellor Merkel, who is the leader of one of our allies, while praising Kim Jung Un to the skies. Putin is getting his money’s worth from installing Trump as President.
eric
@rikyrah: FOIA, please.
Kay
@WereBear:
It’s none of my business but I could do without the whole internet bragging about having children anyway. Stop using your children as proof of your humanity, or whatever this bizarre new custom is. meant to signal. Just post a photo of yourself and write “I’m a great father/mother” and leave the child props out of it. This is some gross “branding” exercise.
germy
rikyrah
@Fester Addams:
NOT.TOO.SOON.
Mike in NC
@germy: Not sure why anybody ever thought it a good idea to invite Trump onto SNL because every time he just stood there like the bloated, stone-faced cretin that he is.
Patricia Kayden
@germy: Actually, Bernie is doing great when it comes to this issue. I believe that Manchin and a few other Senate Democrats still haven’t signed onto Dianne Feinstein’s bill which would prohibit Trump from separating migrant families. I hope they are getting calls and emails from their constituents.
Spanky
@Jeffro:
“LOCK HIM UP!”
the Conster
@rikyrah:
What is TPV? Is there a transcript?
germy
My wife had public radio on yesterday and I heard someone refer to “shelters” the migrant children are being held in.
I didn’t hear any pushback from the host or other guests.
Shelters?
Omnes Omnibus
Ron Johnson is walking back his support for the child snatching policy. Today, his staffer said that he now opposes separating families who are seeking asylum. He still wants to do “mumble mumble” to remove incentives for illegal immigration.
Keep making calls. We are having an effect.
Mnemosyne
@MattF:
For the most part, people who are “pro-life” have a self-image of being people who care more deeply and sincerely about babies and children than those mean ol’ liberals who want to kill them all in the womb.
This Trump administration policy is challenging that self-image and causing a huge amount of cognitive dissonance — how can they say they care about babies while ripping breastfeeding babies away from their weeping mothers?
Graham and Trump are desperately trying to re-direct the blame onto Democrats, but I don’t think it’s working. Graham’s congregation is asking themselves how they can be anti-killing-“babies” but pro-caging-babies, and at least some of them are concluding that they can’t be both.
Baud
@Patricia Kayden: Last I heard, it was only Manchin.
bluehill
This observation at TPM is why I think repubs will ultimately swallow this as they have with other once unfathomable Trump actions and continue to slide down the slippery slope. The biggest issue IMO is the middle of road voters who look the other way.
tobie
@Mnemosyne: I don’t have a TV in my apartment here in Germany so I can’t say what’s being reported on TV news. But Trump’s comments about Merkel are certainly getting commentary in the press and probably strengthening her hand. (Her leadership is being challenged from the right-wing flank of her party from Bavaria, which has always seen itself as an equal partner with the Christian Democrats.) You’ll see on the front page of the Süddeutsche Zeitung that the third top story has the headline, “Trump intervenes in German asylum debate.” Am about to head out but will read the papers later to see the stories on separating families and caging children in the US.
burnspbesq
@Gin & Tonic:
Nope. His supervised release pending trial was revoked. He hasn’t been convicted of anything. Yet.
Chet Murthy
@germy: I tried to write an email and quickly devolved to “I eagerly await your arraignment and trial at the Hague”. Perhaps this might not be the best way to email her if I wish to be convincing. Uh, any suggestions? Asking seriously.
germy
@Patricia Kayden:
That’s good to know.
The tweet from NewEnglandGirl indicated he told an interviewer he wasn’t getting involved. Maybe he experienced some pushback from this, or maybe the tweet was incorrect to begin with.
I hope Manchin comes to his senses.
schrodingers_cat
@bluehill: TPM hosts John Judis whose ideas about immigration are not that far removed from this administration. TPM also had misrepresentations regarding both the diversity visas and family reunification visas. I sent them corrections which they included but never acknowledged that they were wrong.
I don’t take TPM as an unbiased source on immigration related matters.
Gin & Tonic
@burnspbesq: That was IANAL shorthand.
germy
@Chet Murthy: I politely expressed my disappointment and said I hoped she would rethink her priorities.
efgoldman
@Patricia Kayden:
And they would give up their rolling coal, half of their meth, and two of their ARs to vote against us. They are irredeemable (and HRC was right: deplorable)
Fuckem
Bobby Thomson
She’s not a feckless cunt. That would imply she’s trying but failing to moderate policy. She’s fully complicit – the Susan Collins of the trump crime family.
Steeplejack
@zhena gogolia:
Chuck Todd snapped back at Kellyanne Conway a little bit on Meet the Press yesterday. Saw the clip on Morning Joe today and realized that I want cable hosts and pundits to start calling her, Ivanka, Jethrene, Kirstjen Nielsen et al. “feckless.” Just that. Nothing more is needed, because everyone will mentally fill in the missing word. Hell, use it on Sessions, Kelly and Stephen Miller, too!
Chet Murthy
@germy: Care to share your letter? I would reword obvs. But …. yaknow, difficult to muster politeness on this. I descend into white-hot rage in about one sentence.
West of the Rockies
It can’t be long before some weird rightwing meta jump in outrage compels conservatives to start complaining about brown people taking prison beds from hard-working American criminals.
Dorothy Winsor
Sessions is apparently speaking. I can’t bring myself to watch.
There’s a cruel, sadistic streak in this administration that’s a mile wide.
Platonailedit
A true case of failing upwards. So many people, including voters, media and govt agencies have failed miserably for this to happen.
schrodingers_cat
@Dorothy Winsor: The children had it coming. It is their parents fault that they are in this position, in the first place.
Is that a good summary of what he said?
Patricia Kayden
@eric: They’re uncomfortable with critical coverage. That’s about it with this White House. The fact that Trump is trying to shift the blame to a non-existent “Democratic law” shows that even he knows that separating children from their parents isn’t popular. If he thought it was popular, he’d be taking credit for this policy.
Steeplejack
@GregB:
We are going to need a truth and
reconciliationretaliation commission.Patricia Kayden
@Baud: Good to hear.
LAO
I can’t help but feel that this is a real “moment of truth” time for the press. Trump and his lackeys have been yelling FAKE NEWS for years now and Administration Officials like Nielsen are denying that they are separating families at the border — and they are blaming the “law” or Democrats. It’s flat out lying to cover truly egregious and immoral conduct. If the press lets them off the hook, I think that we are done as a functioning society (to the extent that we function). I’m pretty pessimistic right.
Bobby Thomson
@Kay: it’s a bizarre new custom to share pictures of kids?
germy
@Chet Murthy:
Short and not as elegantly worded as I wanted, but I didn’t have time to fuss over multiple drafts. I assume at some point she’ll change her email address.
grandpa John
@Kay: I would bet that they don’t feel nearly as uncomfortable as the Kids in the cages
MomSense
@Dorothy Winsor:
I’ve had it with these motherfucking NAZIs in this motherfucking trump administration.
germy
@Bobby Thomson: With strangers on facebook and twitter? Sure, that’s a somewhat recent development.
West of the Rockies
@LAO:
NPR, that bastion of BothSiderism, has a fact-check article up about the claim that it’s all the fault of Democrats. NPR clearly says no.
The fault, dear conservatives, is not in the stars…
MattF
@LAO: I guess that newsrooms are divided and layered. Owners, managing editors, editors, reporters– each chunk is divided. There will be winners and losers in these wars, and the long-run outcome is unclear, to say the least.
efgoldman
@burnspbesq:
Shall we start a pool for when he flips?
the Conster
@germy:
It’s interesting how he’s always barging into photo ops like with the Parkland kids and staged events like MLK Day, but when it matters, like showing up at the border or to get arrested in the streets like the Dems *tried* to do this weekend… **crickets** I know he’s old, but so is John Lewis – you know, the one who said he never saw the fraud when it mattered then, either.
efgoldman
@germy:
Manchin’s voters are likely 80-20 supportive of the maladministration
MattF
@germy: I’d expect that emails are collected, screened, and summarized before being presented to Phoebe. But it’s worthwhile to get your views in the summary, at least.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Kay:
Yet another constitutional question this guy raises: If the president* is the guy out on the balcony with the AR-15 shooting tourists, who does the Secret Service protect?
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@the Conster: I know a lot of elderly Quakers in their 80s and 90s who have no problem going to protests and getting arrested.
MattF
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: A Secret Service agent I knew used to say “You elect ’em, we protect ’em.” They’re not the police.
JPL
@tomtofa: This! If it happens I want to see Steve Doocy’s face.
the Conster
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Yes, but do they send out tweets? Because that’s the real activism /s
trollhattan
File under “Blind pig finds acorn”
efgoldman
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
If someone handed Weasel Face an actual weapon, he’d faint dead away in fear and shoot his own foot
Big talker, fucking coward
Fuckem
JPL
@Mnemosyne: I wish she would.
germy
@MattF:
That’s why my email was so … wishy washy.
I figured if I went into full caps rage mode (how I really feel) I’d land in the trash folder and she’d never see it.
randy khan
@burnspbesq:
I think “sent to jail for witness tampering” is perfectly accurate. He wasn’t convicted of anything, but he’s sure in jail and the reason is that he tried to tamper with witnesses.
rikyrah
@the Conster:
The People’s View blog.
efgoldman
@trollhattan:
All about the optics, eh you rapist asshole?
Betty Cracker
@LAO: I don’t delude myself that it’s a long-term change, but the mainstream press really does seem to be responding to this particular crisis appropriately. I’ve seen the word “lie” used more often. Real-time fact-checking. No “GOP says no caged kids; Dems say kids caged — opinions differ” bullshit.
germy
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Fox And Friends would praise his marksmanship.
efgoldman
OT: VT state’s attorney just called. They are finally moving forward on the state murder and assault charges. and the federal gun charges, against the murdering bastard brother in law. He’s already served 2.5 years remand in county lockup. It will do mrs efg and her mother a lot of good to resolve this.
West of the Rockies
Oh, wow…
The Coulterwocky is saying we’re not seeing true immigrant children but child actors.
She is beyond vile.
JPL
@Betty Cracker: When Marketwatch uses the word false, you can sense a change is coming.
Baud
@efgoldman: Good.
MattF
@West of the Rockies: During an appearance on Fox.
efgoldman
@germy:
Before or after he sprayed the set and took out two anchors?
West of the Rockies
@MattF:
Is she a true believer or just a dollar-hungry grifter?
Steve in the ATL
@rikyrah:
MattF
@West of the Rockies: There has been some debate about that, but I haven’t paid attention to her recently. My guess has always been that she found a way to profit from her natural tendencies– and who can object to that?
scav
@West of the Rockies: Maybe that’s the Republicans’ cunning employment plan: full-employment for child actors! Ability to cry piteously when losing parents and / or bleeding out when shot a plus!
efgoldman
@Steve in the ATL:
He can’t actually be running again. Now he’s just grifting for $$
Smart state parties will keep him off the ballot
Mary G
@Betty Cracker: WaPo is definitely getting more blunt and aggressive now. Current headlines say WH can’t get its story straight, Roger Stone’s dammingly false denial of contact with Russians, are all a lot strongly worded than in the past. Good.
Brian Murphy
The phrase you’re looking for is “feckless cunt” (Cf. Sam Bee).
the Conster
@efgoldman:
Glad to hear this, and so sorry that you and Mrs. ef have to endure this agony. So, there isn’t any difference between guns in Vermont and guns in Chicago like the junior Senator from Vermont says when in the wrong hands, I guess?
JPL
Since undocumented immigrants are fearful to report a crime this happens
Deputy accused of sexually assaulting girl, 4, threatening to have mother deported if she spoke up
Because of the chaos caused by the asshole in chief, it doesn’t even make the media news.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/06/18/deputy-accused-of-sexually-assaulting-girl-4-threatening-to-have-mother-deported-if-she-spoke-up/?platform=hootsuite&utm_term=.2486d65ce455
Republicans could care less about family values.
Bobby Thomson
@Brian Murphy: see above. She’s not feckless.
The Ancient Randonneur
@efgoldman: Some good news.
thalarctosMaritimus
@Steeplejack:
Maybe he’s belatedly starting to figure out that he carried water for someone who really isn’t such a great person after all.
LAO
@Betty Cracker: Interesting piece by Margaret Sullivan in the Post this afternoon
Bobby Thomson
@efgoldman: now?
Spanky
Totally OT, but the AARP newsletter tells me that Willie Nelson is 85! Where’d the time go?
Mandalay
The feckless Dana Bash on CNN wants extra credit for understanding that separating children from their kids is a bad thing because she herself is a mother.
Who knew? Such powerful insight.
JPL
Trump is lying on TV.
germy
@Spanky: I read the interview with him in the AARP magazine while waiting for an oil change. He’s certainly been through a lot.
Spanky
@LAO: Top block at the WaPo site is saying “Trump meets with the National Space Council”.
Sweet Jeebus! Nothing good can come from this.
(ETA: Unless he agrees to be fired into the sun.)
rikyrah
@efgoldman:
Hope that they get closure soon.
Bobby Thomson
@germy: only to the extent those platforms didn’t exist before. Brag books were around for decades. It’s just a medium.
LAO
@JPL:
rikyrah
@JPL:
WHERE.ARE.THE.GIRLS.?
NotMax
@Spanky
Yet more confirmation that living on Maui is good for you.
;)
LAO
@Spanky: Maybe space force will arrest and deport him.
lollipopguild
@Spanky: Time keeps drifting, drifting into the future.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Mnemosyne:
It’s a cheap, showy piece of performance empathy to be anti-abortion. The proclaimer can pretend to be caring and doing something for people while making zero sacrifice of funds or possessions; other people will bear all of the costs of your proclaimed morality.
Darrin Ziliak (formerly glocksman)
@Jeffro:
Play this song at full volume from a truck mounted sound system.
Billy Squier – The Stroke.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@LAO:
Make that “give me my VANITY wall…”
rikyrah
A poster on another blog makes a good point:
That’s another point that must be made..
IF these children HAVE RELATIVES THAT ARE IN THE UNITED STATES..
They are NOT being released to said relatives.
Mike R
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Excellent, short to the point and absolutely true.
Spanky
@lollipopguild: Thanks, Steve.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: They are Nazis, their solution is final. Tent city in triple digit Texas summer weather. You do the math.
Waratah
@trollhattan: I noticed his first concern was how bad this looks not concern for children first.
NotMax
@lollipopguild
Music cue
Time is too slow for those who wait
And time is too swift for those who fear
Time is too long for those who grieve
And time is too short for those that laugh
Steeplejack
@thalarctosMaritimus:
I think Chuck Todd’s thing has always been somewhere in the “we report, you decide” zone, with a strong dose of bothsiderism added in. So a lot of the time he seems to be carrying water for GOP apparatchiks just by letting them drone on and on unchallenged. The bias comes in unnoticed because NBC (and MSNBC, to a lesser extent), like all the networks, is weighted toward right-wing talking heads and the Democratic/left/liberal voices tend not to be so flamboyant/“colorful”/lying.
I don’t watch Todd very much, but I do catch bits here and there on MSNBC, and I agree with something that valued commenter Kay said here a few days ago, i.e. (paraphrasing): The press in general has been struggling (and failing) to cope with the Trump administration’s “post-truth” reality, and Todd does seem to be among the first to grasp that the old methods are not working and that a new approach is needed. He hasn’t found it yet, but he does show signs of groping in the dark. Even the little snapback he gave Conway yesterday would have been unthinkable a year ago.
ruemara
@efgoldman: I’m glad for you & mrs. efg having some movement towards closure. I know it won’t bring back her loved ones but any peace is good peace.
@Patricia Kayden: Great how?
satby
@Kay:
You keep saying that, but I guarantee that they knew perfectly well it was wrong. They didn’t, and don’t, care except for how bad the blowback on them personally is. A d they figured they could manage that blowback. They’ve miscalculated far, but keeping people outraged and calling reps and demonstrating is vital.
Yarrow
@Steeplejack: I commented yesterday that Meet the Press panel discussed how to deal with Trump’s lies. It was kind of interesting to watch their views on it. They allowed it to get this bad because they didn’t call it out at the beginning, but at this point they’ve started to realize they have a problem.
Fair Economist
@schrodingers_cat:
For MONTHS TPM has had a link to “Is Massive Immigration an Unmitigated Blessing?” Beat that strawman!
efgoldman
@the Conster:
One of many, many reasons i could never vote for him and his tinniest of ears.
ruemara
@efgoldman: He is. Bernie over Country!
efgoldman
@JPL:
And today ends in “day”
Water is wet
Film at 1100
West of the Rockies
@rikyrah:
Plan? Republicans don’t need no stinking plan?
Oh, oh, wait! How about by his–keep them locked up until they’re adults, then prosecute them as adults or send them “home” to countries they barely remember.
I hate Republicans.
efgoldman
@schrodingers_cat:
Surprised they haven’t hired sheriff Criminal Joe to run it. Probably doesn’t pay enough
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
Manchin’s in.Link
ruemara
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap: I figured he’d join up once his staff or his conscience got enough feedback to determine if he should do the right thing. Otherwise, he’d stay silent except for the platitudes NeverTrumpers will spout.
Mandalay
@Steeplejack:
Only because it was a very safe and prudent thing to do; not because he’s finally grown a pair. Todd is well aware that he would be the one getting crucified if he let her talking points go unchallenged, besides which Conway is only a peon the Trump White House.
Todd never snaps back at the senior figures of any administration, and never will, because he’s a doormat who knows that servility buys access, and making a major politician look bad can be a career ending move.
Stan
Yeah, and even though I personally think that’s a terrible negotiating position to take up, I am trying to be generous here….maybe Schumer was thinking that trump’s vision of a wall will take many years to build so, why not let him have the issue, fund the thing, and stall the construction enough that not much gets actually built before Pol Potbelly leaves office. And at that point you just kill it off having wasted a few million bucks.
Doug R
@germy: Well look who finally showed up:
https://twitter.com/SenSanders/status/1008746686947168256
30 minutes ago
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
Y’now, looking at the magazine covers, I wonder how many people actually bought them? The contents don’t seem too damned coherent, and I can’t imagine that anybody outside one of those shitty Del Webb 55 and older mausoleum developments would have any interest in a magazine which has “new money showing off in a handful of tacky ways” as its only purpose.
Doug R
@rikyrah:
That poll that says Republicans are in favor of this policy? Not even half of them. “Only” 46% of them could say they support it, lots of “undecided”.
46% of 26% is less than 12%
https://news.gallup.com/poll/15370/party-affiliation.aspx
When are we supposed to let the 12% lunatic fringe drive policy?
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
@Doug R: Go read the comments. Half of them are “Obama started it.”
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
Oh, Jesus – I dived a bit into the Trump magazine venture. People got destroyed, but Trump collected royalties.
It was a total bust out.
Check the cover on the wiki photo from 2006 – ”Bubble? What bubble?” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_magazines
Mandalay
@Fair Economist:
Betteridge’s law of headlines: any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered by the word “no.”.
JPL
In other news that won’t receive much information
Joseph Hagin, Trump’s deputy chief of staff for operations, once worked in Libya with key backers of an alleged “sex cult,” according to five sources who spoke with BuzzFeed News
https://www.buzzfeed.com/tariniparti/trump-hagin-libya-igtet?utm_term=4ldqpgc&bftwnews#4ldqpgc
I can’t even…
? Martin
Well, Franklin also knows which way the wind is blowing. The Southern Baptists are bailing on the GOP. Torturing children won’t get the young people in the pews, and it would appear they’ve finally accepted that they’re in a demographic free-fall. White patriarchy is finally sufficiently poisonous culture to embrace that they’re in the process of giving it up. They’re not about to become liberal, don’t get me wrong, but for my entire lifetime they were the footsoldiers for the GOP, through thick and thin. They could be counted on defending any GOP policy or at least staying silent if they didn’t agree with it. I think those days are over, and just having them out as a reliable part of the GOP base is pretty huge. It’ll take decades, though.
schrodingers_cat
@Fair Economist: WTF is massive immigration, define massive. And J^2’s answer to that rhetorical question is no. The average number of green cards per year is around a million. Of which about half are spouses of US citizens.
efgoldman
@Doug R:
Apparently that’s what their leadership (non-existent) “thinks”.
They’re afraid of getting turfed from the right in their primaries.
No Drought No More
“If tens of millions of our fellow citizens weren’t such goddamned idiots, this record of scammy failures would have vaporized Trump’s “successful businessman” image, which seems to be the only thing Trump has expended a lot of effort to build. But, people are dumb and gullible, especially when reality collides with a carefully cultivated TV image, so here we are”.
Hillary Clinton finally grabbed the brass ring in 2016, and she ran a lousy campaign. She had one job. She had all that information about Trump’s business failures at the tip of her fingertips, but never, or so it seems in recollection, on tip of her tongue. It deserved to be her mantra, but went unexploited. She didn’t sell it.
I fully credit that Russia and Trump’s treason was the vital difference in her/our defeat, but my point stands. Which is, simply, a more capable candidate- Barack Obama, say- would have hammered it home during the campaign, and crushed Trump that night in spite of it all.
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
@No Drought No More: Yep if only we had Johnny Unbeatable. You’re a fucking moron, go play in traffic.
PJ
@Stan: I’m guessing that Schumer was betting, as I would, that the wall would never actually get built, and whatever it would amount to would just be giving away hundreds of millions of dollars to contractors.
Cheryl from Maryland
@efgoldman: Good. Here’s hoping you, Mrs. efg and her mother get justice.
Miss Bianca
@No Drought No More: Has anybody told you to fuck off yet? No? Fuck off. Fuck directly off, do not pass go, do not collect $200. Just.Fuck.Off. Because all you ever do is come around with that “it’s all Hillary Clinton’s fault/mainstream Democrats’ fault/everyone’s fault but a really woke brogressive’s like ME” bullshit. Go do something useful like contact your representatives, or hell – just sit on your thumb and spin for a while. Or go find your ideological bros over at Breitbart or National Review or something if you want a cheering section for your “Democrats suck!” schtick.
Mnemosyne
@Stan:
Yep. It was the political version of Let the baby have his bottle.
waysel
@No Drought No More: How many rubles did those three paragraphs get you?
TenguPhule
@rikyrah:
To be fair, if he’d said he was getting involved, half the commenters here would be bitching about how he was making this issue all about himself.
Mnemosyne
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Of course! But it was also a vital part of their self-image as Good Christians Who Are Better Than You Godless Secular Humanists, and now that piece of their self-image is crumbling before their very eyes. They can’t virtuously picture innocent fetuses floating in midair while weeping toddlers are being carried away from their screaming parents. Cognitive dissonance only takes you so far.
Also, I suspect that the Trump magazine was primarily used inside the Trump-branded hotels. Put a copy in every room and scatter them in each lobby and you magically boost your circulation numbers. But even that boondoggle didn’t cover the printing costs.
TenguPhule
@Kay:
Wasting time is a feature, not a bug for Republicans.
Nazis gotta Nazi.
Mnemosyne
@efgoldman:
Good. I hope the asshole takes a plea that keeps him in prison for the remainder of his life so your family doesn’t have to undergo the additional stress of a trial.
cwmoss
@tobie: Can’t find it now, but I read last week that the omission of a lot of stuff about the NY field office from the IG report suggests that it is the subject of a separate IG investigation.
tybee
@Stan:
har!
Joey Maloney
@Amir Khalid:
You can still find the occasional bottle of Trump vodka on the shelves here in Israel. It sold well because it was one of the few vodkas that were kosher lepesach (completely grain-free and hence allowed for consumption during Passover).
Except, would it surprise you to learn that many of the shipments of the stuff were fraudulently certified KLP?
Fair Economist
@schrodingers_cat: It seems people are missing the point. Nobody claims that large-scale immigration has no bad features whatsoever. Attacking that nonsensical claim is just setting up a strawman for the pro-immigrant position to support anti-immigration positions. It’s an extremely bad faith argument against immigration, and TPM (which normally bends over backwards to be “fair”) has front-paged it for months. The point is that TPM is abetting a bad-faith argument against immigration.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap:
So? They’re still a lunatic fringe.
TenguPhule
@MattF:
They’re law enforcement. They handle counterfeiting.
TenguPhule
@efgoldman:
During.
Ohio Mom
Very late to this thread but Betty, you left out Trump Eyeglasses. My optometrist met Trump at the semi annual trade fair in New York many, many years ago — it’s where the latest frames are previewed and optometrists plan what to add to their stock.
Cliff said he was very tall and personable. Since Cliff is from Cincinnati, Trump talked about his impressions of the city. He was familiar with Cincinnati because his first real estate venture, a low-income housing project, was here.
As I recall (I am not goggling to confirm my foggy memory), Trump was managing the garden apartment complex for his father, and he got into trouble for not renting to African Americans. I would guess that wasn’t included in his chit chat with Cliff.
Anyway, just to be clear, Cliff is no fan of Trump. It is just a funny anectodote to him.
TenguPhule
@efgoldman:
Water makes other things wet. Water itself is not wet.
/Pedant
Dev Null
@bluehill: You’re quoting Josh Marshall’s post Family Separation, Evil via Policy, and the Internal Contradictions of Trumpism.
My take is just the opposite of yours: JM is saying that the Trump Admin is trying to play different tunes to different audiences … and they’re flailing (and failing) because – being the incompetents they are – they keep mixing up the message and letting everyone see “the man behind the curtain”.
I think MattF in comment 81 and Mnemosyne in comment 99 have hit the nail on the head: Franklin Graham has come out against this because he’s getting pressured from below. (Guessing not parishioners, more likely donors and/or staffers.)
Aleta
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/08/donald-trump-magazine-employee-confessional-bankrupt-2016-214155
Dev Null
@schrodingers_cat: er, have you read the link?
Quoting Marshall:
I am hard put to interpret this as sympathy for the Administration’s immigration policies.
“Performative cruelty” is a phrase that would fit comfortably in comments at this forum.
Dev Null
@West of the Rockies:
Hmm, yes, you’re right. The Admin’s solution is too generous, too merciful. It isn’t a (ahem) final solution.
Why won’t Democrats talk about a final solution to this nation’s immigration problems?!?
Not a fan of Michael Hayden for many reasons, but he’s got the right take on the Admin’s family separation policy. If they get away with this, they will start thinking about gas chambers.
If they’re not already thinking about gas chambers.
schrodingers_cat
@Fair Economist: We are in agreement, then.
schrodingers_cat
@Dev Null: I was talking about the Judis interview .
with the known anti-immigrant George Borjas which has been on the FP for months now
Dev Null
@efgoldman: “When Loofah O’Reilly has a better sense of the optics of a political crisis than anyone in the Trump Admin.”
I get your point, but seriously, O’Reilly?!? The Devil is ice-skating.
Dev Null
@schrodingers_cat: Not sure what your point is. I read TPM as religiously as I read BJ, and I don’t recall a lot of articles by Judis, who (IIRC) was previously at the somewhat-rightish Villager blog “Inside the Beltway”.
Whereas Marshall writes a lot. Speaking only for myself, obviously, but I generally find his analyses insightful and reliably liberal.
Fine to damn Judis … but thinking your criticism of Marshall – if that’s what it is – is misplaced.
As I said, I do not think that the TPM / JM analysis bluehill cited says what he thinks it says.
YMMV.
Dev Null
@JPL: His lips are moving, I take it.
(OK, OK, sorreeee … just because I’m the zillionth commenter to use that line. And probably late into the bargain. Sheesh.)
schrodingers_cat
@Dev Null: Why is Marshall giving Judis space to spew anti-immigrant venom? He owns TPM does he not? The last time this issue was at the forefront there were a number of factual inaccuracies in a report on TPM on the family reunification visas. I pointed them out and they were corrected without ever acknowledging that they published lies as facts that T spouts about on this issue.
Namely that an immigrant can sponsor distant relatives for a green card. The so called chain migration. I don’t trust TPM on immigration. YMMV.
Dev Null
@Dev Null: The best minds all agree! (The Mooch edition):
https://twitter.com/Scaramucci/status/1008789583977504768
Which (again) is the point I take from Josh Marshall’s post at TPM on Trump’s separation policy.
Dev Null
@schrodingers_cat: No offense, but you’re conflating two distinct issues.
As for Judis, IIRC he was hired long before Trump was elected president. My impression is that he’s what passes these days for a moderate Republican. Beyond that, well … I can’t speak to JM’s employment policies. It isn’t unheard of for news outlets to carry opinionators of various political persuasions on their roster, e.g. the WaPost has Lady Jane Galt and Inquisitor Thiessen on theirs. (And let’s not speak of the Vichy Times …)
As for “inaccuracies”, OK, they should have acknowledged your contribution.
I’d be annoyed too … because similar things have happened when I’ve sent in corrections.
You let it go or you don’t.
schrodingers_cat
@Dev Null: I have no issue with today’s piece. I read them regularly too. I don’t trust them on the overall issue of immigration.
J R in WV
I’m a childless old man, and I know how to take care of children better than anyone in the White House appears to. You hug them, wash their face, hug them, change their diaper, hug them, feed them, hug them, put them to bed, hug them. I’m omitting the spit ups etc.
You don’t take them away from their family unless family is headed to the hospital or to jail. And I don’t mean jail on a hocked up fraudulent charge like the ones Ms. Kirstjen Nielsen esq. has cooked up with regard to asylum seekers, I mean for stealing, pushing smack, murder,
being a Republican,being a Trump.Dev Null
@schrodingers_cat: Fair enough.
To undercut my own credibility, I saw that headline about “Unrestricted Immigration Always a Plus” (or whatever), yawned, and turned the page (figuratively speaking) to the next article thinking, “Hunh, who knew that unrestricted immigration is always a plus?!?”
Which is to say, I didn’t read it.
It could be that I don’t remember Judis’ essays, much, because each headline leaves me thinking that the essay will be boring and the conclusion predictable. Those I have read have rarely struck me as insightful.
But then I’m not a Republican, “moderate” or otherwise.
Dev Null
@Jeffro: I imagine that everyone has moved on, but if not, EW has an insightful essay on weaponized migration at her site that is perhaps more than tangentially related.
Usually I have no idea what she’s talking about (IANAL), but her last half-dozen posts are quite accessible.
Dev Null
@JPL: Another late to the party post, but I am surprised that – with notably rare exceptions [1] – no-one ever mentions Kirstjen Nielsen’s remarkable record of accomplishment.
Is this because everyone knows she’s a clueless incompetent git, so no-one bothers to waste electrons on her?
[1] I am aware of all Internet traditions.
Ohio Mom
@J R in WV: Even though you have no children, as an experienced mom in good standing for over two decades, I can vouch that you clearly have the basics of parenting down.
J R in WV
@Kay:
But what makes anyone assume those contracts will be adhered to, if no one is competent to administer them?
The people actually running those facilities day-to-day have to know that no one in the agency administering the contracts knows how to read the document, knows what is actually required by the document, will make the inspections necessary to know what’s being done in the facilities, whether it’s in compliance with the contracts at all.
Little children, being taught by older children how to change the baby’s diapers. Using what to be sanitary? No running water in those cages to clean the children with.
Vile, despicable monsters from the White House down to the cages. Not the children, the adults…
Kozlowski
Bravo, Cole!!
Dev Null
@schrodingers_cat: and there’s this:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-press-conference
Perhaps your quarrel is with Judis, not TPM?