Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The revolution will be supervised.

Nothing says ‘pro-life’ like letting children go hungry.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

The current Supreme Court is a dangerous, rogue court.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

Not rolling over. fuck you, make me.

Beware of advice from anyone for whom Democrats are “they” and not “we.”

I like political parties that aren’t owned by foreign adversaries.

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

Live so that if you miss a day of work people aren’t hoping you’re dead.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.

Do we throw up our hands or do we roll up our sleeves? (hint, door #2)

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you do not.

Of course you can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

Rupert, come get your orange boy, you petrified old dinosaur turd.

The republican ‘Pastor’ of the House is an odious authoritarian little creep.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Weird. Rome has an American Pope and America has a Russian President.

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Open Thread: Do the Right Thing

Open Thread: Do the Right Thing

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Have I mentioned recently that I {heart} my senior Senator? From the Hill article:

… “[Syrians are] terrified that the world will turn its back on them and their children. Some politicians have already moved in that direction, proposing to close our country to people fleeing the massacre in Syria,” Warren said. “That is not a real plan to keep us safe.”

She added that the United States has “a choice either to lead the world by example or to turn our backs to the threats and the suffering around us.”…

She also took a veiled shot at the Republican presidential field, where Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush have suggested refugee resettlement should focus on Christians.

Warren said that the United States isn’t a country that sends “children back into the hands of ISIS murderers because some politician doesn’t like their religion, and we are not a nation that backs down out of fear.” …

Back here in Massachusetts, Rep. Stephen Lynch has apparently decided to become the Masshole Pete King, but he’s not getting much backup, per local news channel WCVB:

… Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-MA, Wednesday called for a “pause” in Obama’s plan to bring 10,000 Syrian refugees into the United States, the only member of the Massachusetts delegation calling for a suspension…

But a survey of the other 10 members of the Massachusetts Congressional Delegation revealed continued support for Obama.

“Proposing to close our country to the people fleeing the massacre in Syria,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-MA, “is not a real plan to keep us safe and that is not who we are.”

Warren said the current vetting process takes up to two years and is far more stringent and thorough than the “open border” policy now in place in most European countries.

The rest of the delegation agreed with Warren that most of the terrorists in the Paris attack had legitimate European visas that would allow them to enter the U.S. outside of any refugee plan.

“We can not shut the door on the very people that ISIS is trying to persecute,” said Rep. Seth Moulton, D-MA. “That is just playing into the hands of the enemy.

“We never let the enemy change our values,” said Moulton, a former U.S. Marine…

That Moulton kid is new to this politics stuff, but I get the feeling he should be included on the list of Young Dems with A Bright Future. He’s gone on the record criticizing our Governor, Charlie ‘Chickenshit’ Baker, for playing the ‘more study needed before we admit any scary Syrian refugees’ card. And, per the Boston Globe‘s Yvonne Abraham, he’s got a pretty good rebuttal to the inevitable “If you want them here so badly, why don’t you take in a refugee?”:

… His translator in Iraq was devoted to those values, Moulton said. “He exemplifies the American dream more than just about anybody I know.” He risked his life, and his family’s, to defend it. When civil war descended on his country, and insurgents targeted his family, it became impossible for the translator — here on a Fulbright scholarship — to return home, so he applied for asylum.

For a while, he lived with the Moulton family in Marblehead. Moulton says he is like a brother.

Even with a decorated Marine captain supporting his application, it took 16 months to complete the security checks and grant the translator asylum. “And he already had a record of service, of literally putting his life on the line for our country in combat,” Moulton said.

Refugees submit to more screening than any other category of traveler coming to the United States, Moulton said, and the State Department and the White House back him up. And it’s not like they’re piling onto boats and streaming over the borders en masse, as they have been in Europe. They don’t set foot in this country until they go through a vetting that takes 18 to 24 months…

Say it with me: Proud to Be A Democrat!

Reader Interactions

36Comments

  2. 2.

    Mandalay

    @Anne Laurie:

    He’s gone on the record criticizing our Governor, Charlie ‘Chickenshit’ Baker, for playing the ‘more study needed before we admit any scary Syrian refugees’ card.

    To my surprise, Charlie Pierce is supporting Baker.

  3. 3.

    PurpleGirl

    This is a response to ThresherK and Elizabelle in a thread several posts down (the one about the name Isis). It is me who talks about Cassie’s Kitten Kastle. I’m glad you watched some of the housewarming party.

    I was there in CT from Friday afternoon through Monday afternoon. I played with kittens and had a couple of older cats sleep with me. It was a good weekend.

  4. 4.

    Punchy

    I’ve read where all the known attackers were European. Nada one was Syrian; the passport dropped was probably a plant for this very effect…

    Looks like terrrorists have won. All the bed-shitters are terrified.

  5. 5.

    Mike J

    Our gov Inslee is better than Massasippi’s gov.

    “I live on Bainbridge Island, this little island just west of Seattle. And it was the first place where we succumbed to fear, in 1941 after Pearl Harbor…And we locked up Washington and American citizens, and we sent them to camps for years while their sons fought in the Army in Italy and were decorated fighting for democracy…We regret that. We regret that we succumbed to fear. We regret that we lost moorage for who we were as a country. We shouldn’t do that right now.”

  6. 6.

    seaboogie

    Warren is so practical and eloquent in her speeches, and I just wish she would add one rhetorical flourish: “Listen, you dumbasses….”. I know it is pretty much implied, but I think it would be wonderful if she would just say it out loud.

  7. 7.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Mike J: I usually watch about a hour or so of Morning Joe, I’ve only been able to make it though about 10 to 15 minutes this week. I really do feel for the custodial staff there at 30 Rock having to mop up all the piss on the floor after they’re done with that show.

  9. 9.

    Calouste

    @Mike J: Nice bit by Inslee.

    I understand the use of “who we are as a country” by both him and President Obama, but I’m getting a bit fed up with it. Kicking minorities while they are down is as American as apple pie, it is what the people in this country do and have done for centuries. Some people aspire it not to be so, and sometimes they succeed, but far from always.

    The Statue of Liberty should have a big fat star on its inscription after “Give me your poor” and list all the exceptions starting with the Chinese Exclusion Act that was already in effect when it was dedicated.

  10. 10.

    Botsplainer

    According to Politico, evangelicals support the refugees.

    http://www.politico.com/story/2015/11/refugees-christians-215991

    Coulda fooled me by what I’m hearing on the street, seeing online and watching on my FB feed. The loudest evangelicals want to turn ’em away for Jesus. I’m guessing that Politico is trying to plant a counter-factual to mitigate some of the damage that the filth that is Christianity is doing to itself.

    It isn’t working.

  12. 12.

    jl

    Youtube put on this clip after the Warren clip.
    It’s Matthews, but seems to be a good show with good guests, talking sense.
    Not sure what commenters were talking about saying that Matthews was raving. I know Mathews can rave and froth and say silly things. But he seems sane in this one.

    HARDBALL 11/18/2015 How safe is Washington, DC from ISIS?
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDKLgkr7Uss

    Edit: OK, listening to latter part of the clip. Matthews is going off now on why the young men are not staying to fight. He’s frothing. I guess people can skip through and listen to his very good guests.

    Edit: I guess by Matthews standards, all the Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians who fled their countries rather than being pressed by the Nazis or Commies during WWII were filthy cowards.

  13. 13.

    Mike J

    @Calouste: Nobody likes a scold, even (especially) when it is deserved. People are more likely to try to like up to their ideals if you present the failings as lapses rather than arguing that the country is built on a lie. You may believe it, but I don;t think it helps.

  14. 14.

    jl

    Warren said. “That is not a real plan to keep us safe.”. Which echoes Sanders statement that we need to be tough but not stupid.

    Besides the moral issue, millions of refugees fleeing countries with no where to go, or stewing in refugee camps is in itself a security risk. And a security risk sitting right in the middle of countries who should be our allies in the ME fighting ISIL/Daesh. Over a million each in Lebanon and Jordan.

    But what do the supposedly tough minded, practical, git-‘er-done GOPers have to say about the problem? They shit their pants and yell that they are skeered about any of them coming here.

    Man, what a vile, cowardly and very deeply stupid bunch.

  15. 15.

    Goblue72

    Steve Lynch was a Southie Neanderthal when he was a lawyer representing white public housing residents is Southie accused of assaulting Latinos. He was a Neanderthal on Beacon Hill. And he’s a Neanderhal in DC. A true son of Southie, he’s never met a brown person he wasn’t fully ready to kick down.

  16. 16.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Punchy: Of course the terrorists have won. The entire GOP is made up of their most loyal, fervent allies, doing everything they can to advance the Daesh agenda.

    Way to go, guys. You’re giving aid and comfort to the enemy by your actions. Every last one of you should live out the rest of your miserable lives in a supermax for actual, black letter in the Constitution you claim to revere, fucking treason.

  18. 18.

    Calouste

    @Mike J: Oh, I totally understand that that’s the way Obama and Inslee and other people need t bring it, if they want to get anywhere.

    Doesn’t mean I’m not frustrated with America’s lack of self-reflection and adherence to mythology.

  20. 20.

    some guy

    The Times is very very upset that nobody else besides the mideaval monarchists we are allied with are willing to help us overthrow the sovereign government of Syria. Though it was refreshing to read an article by the Times Steve Erlanger that didn’t include a direct quote from an AIPAC lobbyist at the Washington Institute for Near East Hegemony. refreshing, in a “NYT Zionists forced to tone down their rhetoric” kind of way.

  21. 21.

    TheMightyTrowel

    @Goblue72: I vote (from abroad) in Lynch’s district which is where my last US domicile (my parent’s old house) was located. I take great pleasure voting for whomever stands against him up to and including writing in the names of my favourite high school teachers and take great sadness every election when I hear he has been re-elected. He’s a woman-hating, race baiting sack of shit old-boys-only MA Dem and everything he says is wrong.

  23. 23.

    J R in WV

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Yes, Exactly! The constitution details what treason is, and helping Daelo or whatever the new acronyn is for these shitbags is treason. Making people scared is the current goal of our enemy, so making more people more scared is giving direct aid to our enemy, the direct definition of treason where it is described in the founding document of the nation.

    Cruz, who is a foreigner far more than Obama is, is helping the terrorists create terror inside the US. Rubio, also a foreigner born of foreign parents, is also making people afraid, which is exactly the point of the terrorist attacks, making people afraid.

    Anyone who can’t see that rousing up more fear is in direct aid to our enemy is a complex combination of evil, ignorance of society, brutality and how it works, and treason. Round them up and send them to their masters in the Caliphate, because they are working for the Caliph already.

  24. 24.

    BGinCHI

    Ask yourself this: if the GOP had anything else to run on, to campaign with, would they be making this much noise over it?

    They are out of ideas. Or, more accurately, even more out of ideas than before.

  27. 27.

    NotMax

    A troika of items which caught the eye.

    A different (and enlightening) perspective.

    Indian-Americans Feel ‘Disappointed,’ ‘Abandoned’ By Bobby Jindal

    VW missteps continue.

    A more than $1,000 cash-and-services offer to U.S. diesel-car customers this month that was meant to show goodwill instead met a lukewarm response and scorn from some U.S. lawmakers, who called it “insultingly inadequate.”
     
    “This is a textbook example of how it should not be done,” said Sasja Beslik, head of Responsible Investments at Swedish fund group Nordea Asset Management. “Volkswagen’s communications have been totally reactive.” Nordea held about half a million shares of Volkswagen’s common stock before the crisis, but since has sold off 90% of its holdings, Mr. Beslik said.
    [snip]
    No one holds more sway over how much Volkswagen eventually may have to pay in fines and penalties than the EPA. But Volkswagen often has been defiant, to the point of publicly criticizing the agency’s testing methodology and suggesting the EPA was out to stifle competition.
    [snip]
    “We still don’t know what to tell our customers,” said Steve Kalafer, who co-owns Flemington Car & Truck Country, a New Jersey-based dealership. “We need details about how VW plans to make our customers whole.[snip] Even Volkswagen’s closest allies in Germany have complained the company left them uninformed as the crisis brewed.
     
    Lower Saxony Prime Minister Stephan Weil told his legislature on Oct. 13 that he and a top deputy heard the news ” from media reports” over the weekend. Volkswagen’s handling was “absolutely unacceptable,” he said later. “In my opinion, the information should have been available a lot sooner.”
     
    The German state holds 20% of Volkswagen’s voting stock and depends on Volkswagen and the automotive industry for 200,000 jobs. Mr. Weil sits on the company’s supervisory board.
     
    A Volkswagen spokesman said management wasn’t required to inform Mr. Weil or other directors until the full dimension of the scandal became clear. Source

    And last but not least,

    China’s president has condemned the killing of a Chinese hostage by the Islamic State (IS), saying such groups are enemies of mankind.
     
    But although Xi Jinping expressed resolve to crack down on terrorism, there was no indication that China would change its consistent opposition to outside involvement in the conflict in Syria, where IS has captured a broad swathe of territory…
    [snip]
    China has not dispatched troops, planes or any other assets to take part in fighting in Syria. But Beijing in recent years has shown a willingness to use its military to protect its citizens in conflict zones and dispatched planes and a navy frigate to aid in the evacuation of 35,000 Chinese workers from Libya in 2011.
     
    More recently, China sent a naval squadron to Yemen this spring to rescue Chinese citizens and other foreign nationals from fighting.
     
    Most Chinese citizens are believed to have already left Syria following four years of civil war. Source

  28. 28.

    NotMax

    @NotMax

    Missed putting a [snip] notation just above the paragraph beginning with Lower Saxony in the VW story.

    (No edit function or else would have corrected the original.)

  29. 29.

    mclaren

    Everyone is getting depressed at the Republican reaction to these events in Paris. I’m encouraged. What we’re seeing is a hard sustained across-the-board pushback by all Democrats, from the president on down, against the Republican fearmongering.

    That didn’t happen after 9/11. If the Democrats had stood up and told the American people to stop wetting their pants with fear, we could have avoided the insane 2003 Iraq invasion, we could have avoided staying in Afghanistan, we could have avoided building this giant useless national security state whose only practical function is to spy on Americans for domestic political purposes (and to act as copyright cops for giant corporations, which is mostly what the Department of Homeland Security now does), and we could have avoided all the demented self-destructive craziness that has led to destroying entire states in the middle east and replacing them with nothing. Which is what produced ISIS.

    Democrats need to push back even harder against the Repubs. All Democrats at all levels need to start calling out Republicans as infantile little crybabies shrieking with terror every time there’s a lightning storm or a creak in the rafters of the house at night. Republicans are not strong tough guys, they’re whiney little infants who fill their diapers anytime someone says “Boo!” to them.

    The Republican party is the party of torture, the party of cronyism, the party of crawling under a bed and wailing with abject hysteria. The Republican party is not a party that can lead America anywhere but into bed with the covers clutched over their heads.

  30. 30.

    Matt McIrvin

    @mclaren: It’s inspiring for now, but the moment a Paris-sized terrorist attack happens in the United States, all this resistance is gonna melt. I don’t know what the probability of that happening soon is, but it’s not zero.

    Even as it is, while most Democrats are standing firm, I’m pretty sure this is an unpopular minority position in the country right now, by a margin that amounts to a presidential landslide. So if this turns out to be the big relevant issue, we’ll go down fighting but we’re probably going to go down.

  31. 31.

    brantl

    Let’s make a point of calling them pants-wetters, at every opportunity. Hammer on that, and we will finally show them for the cowards that they are.

  32. 32.

    A guy

    If Obama hadn’t bailed on Iraq we’d have a nice military force there to destroy isis and preserve for the Syrians their homeland and they could stay. It is that simple

  33. 33.

    pensive

    Just wanted to say Lynch used to be my rep and…ugh. I gave money to the guy who tried to primary him in the last election, but to no avail. I moved and now I have a Kennedy so I don’t have to hate my congressman anymore. Yay!
    And as for Warren – I think Charlie Pierce said it best when talking about her (not) running for president. “She’s ours – get your own ya bastids”.

  34. 34.

    Steeplejack

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    You are wrong about that. I have no particular affection for naked links, and you will note that almost all of my links name the song or, if it’s not a song, indicate where the link is going. The exception is the very occasional joke (e.g., sound of a rim shot).

    It wouldn’t kill me to see naked links go away. But I will take a naked link any day over unsourced “breaking news” being spewed on the blog with no hint of where it’s coming from or whether it might be months or years out of date.

  35. 35.

    Will R

    @A guy: If Bush hadn’t decided to invade Iraq both Iraqis and Syrians would likely be living in relative stability today.

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