Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

Come on, man.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

“Squeaker” McCarthy

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

Bark louder, little dog.

Let’s finish the job.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

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

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

If you are still in the GOP, you are an extremist.

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

Bad news for Ron DeSantis is great news for America.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

You are here: Home / Politics / Domestic Politics / Pictures Are Worth A Thousand Words

Pictures Are Worth A Thousand Words

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I’ll have actual analysis on today’s bombing in Brussels either tomorrow or Thursday once more solid information has been reported out. In the meantime, and in response to some of the responses from elected officials in the US regarding today’s bombings in Brussels, I’m going to simply post these pictures. They say far more, and speak far more eloquently than I could, about what happens when we respond to challenges, crises, and threats in an emotional and politicized manner and attribute guilt by superficial association.

1942-01-30-internment*

exclusion**

Heart_mtn

Heart Mountain Internment Camp***

Kooskia

Kooskia Internment Camp****

momphoto

Minidoka Internment Camp*****

10590535

Dining Hall at the Fresno Assembly Center******

* Image from here.

** Image from here.

*** Image from here.

**** Image from here.

***** Image from here.

****** Image from here.

Reader Interactions

179Comments

  1. 1.

    dedc79

    Adam – for a future Bundy update post, perhaps?

    With dozens of anti-government extremists facing criminal charges over their roles in the two high-profile Bundy showdowns over public lands, Republicans in Congress have rolled out proposed legislation that would diminish the authority of federal agencies to enforce federal public lands law.

    The bill, the Local Enforcement for Local Lands Act of 2016, was introduced last week by Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) along with the rest of Utah’s Republican delegation: Reps. Mia Love, Rob Bishop and Chris Stewart. It would strip officials in the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) of their authority to enforce laws regulating federal land. Rather, local and state authorities would be provided with a block grant to enforce the laws instead.

  7. 7.

    jl

    Thanks for the reminder. But Cruz doesn’t want camps, he wants local police to corral and monitor them into compounds where they live, which I guess is a difference.

    “I’ll have actual analysis on today’s bombing in Brussels either tomorrow or Thursday once more solid information has been reported out. ”

    What kind of a blogger are you, anyway?

  8. 8.

    Adam L Silverman

    @dedc79: Bella already emailed it to me… I’m tracking it. Also that the Ryan kid, who was the redacted indictee, is no known and there are calls for a violent response, centered around his parents home, to prevent the Feds from taking him into custody. Apparently Shawna Cox, Jeanette Finicum, Gavin Seim, and others have decided that a line must be drawn in the sand and they are perfectly happy to have other people lay down their lives for their principles.

  9. 9.

    Mnemosyne

    I think someone in the other thread posted a link to the Anti-Defamation League’s press release, which made this exact point.

    And since I’m sure some idiot on the right will claim they were only giving advice for Belgium, for someone to argue that governments in Europe should round people up based on their religion is even MORE completely fucking clueless and horrifying.

  11. 11.

    Felonius Monk

    @jl:

    he wants local police to corral and monitor them into compounds where they live, which I guess is a difference.

    Oh, you mean like a ghetto. Cruz is a real original thinker.

  12. 12.

    Adam L Silverman

    @rikyrah: And despite what anyone says, the 2nd Amendment did not allow them to prevent this. And this was before background checks or anything other than bans on machine guns.

  13. 13.

    jl

    Besides being American citizens, and besides the immorality and betrayal of humanity and our principles, it harmed the country and war effort. Comparison of how Hawaiian citizens of Japanese descent (the vast majority of whom were not interned) responded, compared to those on the mainland, is good evidence of that.

    I don’t like to talk about the practicalities while ignoring the principles. But it is good to point that fact out once in a while to show the GOP war crime style policy response fails even by its own standards. What the real reasoning behind GOP hate and madness is, as opposed the stated, is another question.

  14. 14.

    Roger Moore

    @efgoldman:

    How could one organization with only 435 people include so many ignorant, illiterate, racist, fearful. hateful, spiteful people?

    They are chosen to be representative of the USA. It’s kind of scary how representative they actually are.

  15. 15.

    dedc79

    @efgoldman: Very well put. My only edit would be to add “treasonous” in there somewhere. Chaffetz and his cohorts have essentially cast their lot with the domestic terrorists.

  17. 17.

    Gravenstone

    @jl:

    But Cruz doesn’t want camps, he wants local police to corral and monitor them into compounds where they live, which I guess is a difference.

    So a ghetto, in other words? Pretty much a distinction without difference. It’s still ostracism for superficial reasons.

  19. 19.

    dedc79

    @Mnemosyne: Here’s the ADL statement:

    As we saw in Brussels today, violent terrorism is a legitimate concern for the home front. But demonizing all Muslims is a misguided and counterproductive response to the terrorist threat posed by those motivated by a radical interpretation of Islam. It is an irrational approach that harkens back to the fear and bigotry that led to a dark and tragic chapter in American history – the relocation of more than 100,000 Japanese-Americans to internment camps during the Second World War simply because of their ethnicity.
    The overwhelming majority of Muslims in America are law-abiding people who are as outraged by terrorism and bigotry as Americans of every other faith. Sweeping generalizations about them can serve only to foment discrimination and hate crimes against innocent, devoted Americans. Furthermore, our law enforcement agencies need the cooperation of Muslim communities and community leaders to combat and deter crimes, including violent extremism.

    Ordering special patrols of Muslim neighborhoods will almost certainly create an adversarial relationship between law enforcement and the communities they have sworn to protect, making those communities more vulnerable, more frightened, and often less willing to help. The approach is contrary to the principles of individual rights, equality, justice, and religious freedom on which this nation was founded.

  20. 20.

    MazeDancer

    Internment camps were among my first thoughts, too, this morning, hearing the rabid Muslim bashing. Someone I “know” on Twitter, who has relatives who were in the camps as kids, said they were having flashbacks as the GOP started their bigotry.

    Brian Williams was questioning a terrorist expert, whose name, alas, I did not get, and asked something along the lines of “Do you have any doubts this is the war of our generation?”. The expert sighed audibly. And said, “No.” He added “That is what ISIL wants us to think. They are small in number”. Williams ended the segment promptly.

    News divisions being profit centers will be the death of us, literally.

  21. 21.

    Adam L Silverman

    @jl: If there were ongoing attacks and a chase I’d put up a live feed, like I’ve done before, and comment on that. But right now we know only a few things:
    1) That the Brussels Muslim community helped in the capture of Abdesalam.
    2) That the Belgian authorities were concerned that by taking out the leadership node in the network that they could trigger an attack as either
    a) reprisal
    b) advancing an attack that was in planning so that it could be conducted before the rest of the network was rolled up
    3) The Belgian authorities had already gotten, through conventional interrogation, information from Abdesalam that planning was under way for an attack – unfortunately they couldn’t stop it.
    4) Despite IS’s English media site taking credit, until Islamic State puts out a statement in Arabic, we shouldn’t conclude that this was definitely an IS organized attack; especially as we don’t seem to yet know the command, control, and communication between Abdesalam and IS leadership in Syria.

    That’s why I’m going to wait.

  22. 22.

    raven

    The nation’s highest award for combat valor, the Medal of Honor, was conferred upon twenty-one members of the 100th Infantry battalion of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team of World War II.

    On 5 October 2010, the Congressional Gold Medal was awarded to the 442nd Regimental Combat Team and the 100th Infantry Battalion, as well as the 6,000 Japanese Americans who served in the Military Intelligence Service during the war.[22]

    In 2012, the surviving members of the 442nd RCT were made chevaliers of the French Légion d’Honneur for their actions contributing to the liberation of France during World War II and their heroic rescue of the Lost Battalion outside of Biffontaine.[23]

  24. 24.

    Adam L Silverman

    @MazeDancer: I have a good friend from aikido, he is senior to me in terms of total time training, though I think I’ve passed him in rank, who was interned in one of these camps as a child. It was unacceptable then and it is unacceptable now.

  26. 26.

    amygdala

    Thank you for this. I had an aunt who was in the camps. So were the parents of a number of my high school classmates. It was a horrible chapter of US history. From Fred Korematsu to the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, there were many Japanese-American heroes of that era. Ansel Adams, angered by what he saw, protested by turning his lens on Manzanar, leaving remarkable images so that we never forget.

    We must not forget, and do what we can to keep that from happening again.

  27. 27.

    Adam L Silverman

    @bmoak: One would think, but she’s been on social media asking for the “patriots” to be on standby.

  28. 28.

    NotMax

    Hummus is now Freedom Paste.

    Teens can no longer have a date; instead hook up on Liberty Liaisons.

    And anything seersucker is right out from the get-go.

    (Do I have to mark it snark?)

  29. 29.

    debbie

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Also maybe

    5) If the reports turn out to be true that one of the suicide bombers, as in Paris, couldn’t go through with it and ran away, that maybe ISIS’s grip on its minions is beginning to slip.

  30. 30.

    Felonius Monk

    @raven:

    Daniel Ken “Dan” Inouye (Japanese: 井上 建 Hepburn: Inoue Ken?, pronounced /iːˈnoʊwɛ/ ē-noh-weh; September 7, 1924 – December 17, 2012) was a United States Senator from Hawaii from 1963 to 2012. He was a member of the Democratic Party, and he was President pro tempore of the United States Senate from 2010 until his death in 2012,[2] making him the highest-ranking Asian American politician in U.S. history.[3] Inouye also served as chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations.
    Inouye fought in World War II as part of the 442nd Infantry Regiment. He lost his right arm to a grenade wound and received several military decorations. Returning to Hawaii, he earned a law degree and was elected to Hawaii’s territorial House of Representatives in 1953, and to the territorial Senate in 1957. When Hawaii achieved statehood in 1959, Inouye was elected as its first member of the U.S. House of Representatives, and in 1962 he was first elected to the U.S. Senate. Inouye was the most senior U.S. senator at the time of his death. He is one of the longest-serving U.S. Senators in history, second only to Robert Byrd. Inouye was the first Japanese American to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives and later the first in the U.S. Senate. He never lost an election in 58 years as an elected official, and exercised an outsize influence on Hawaii politics. At the time of his death, Inouye was the second-oldest sitting U.S. senator, after Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, who also died soon afterwards.

  32. 32.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @dedc79: When the ADL condemns your approach to a Muslim community, it should be an indication that your idea has gone off the rails. Of course the ADL knows all too well where this sort of sentiment leads, since the group they represent has experienced it.

    It’s shameful how the US treated its own citizens during WWII and it’s shameful how the GOP proposes it treat US citizens and all Muslims now.

  34. 34.

    Adam L Silverman

    @debbie: That too. Sorry, I saw that and forgot it. I checked in with my aikido friends in Brussels (my original senseis are from Brussels). One of them was at the airport,when the bombs went off. She was just returning from a trip. She’s fine, I’m still waiting for other people I emailed to check back in.

  35. 35.

    NotMax

    @raven

    Lots of ’em from Hawaii.

    Not all that many years ago that a veteran center commemorating Japanese-Americans who fought in WW2 was built here. The street leading to and fronting it is named Go For Broke Drive.

  36. 36.

    RandomMonster

    @dedc79:

    block grant to enforce the laws instead

    Abandoning public lands to states that will never do anything to enforce federal law. Great idea!

  39. 39.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @bmoak: I expect it’s another example of a long game strategy. She’ll be back in custody before midsummer, imho.

  41. 41.

    p.a.

    As you might expect in this country, a main impetus to the treatment of the Japanese-Americans was the desire of whites to expropriate their property. (D. Neiwert a source for this info, IIRC)

  42. 42.

    Miss Bianca

    I was hoping you’d weigh in with some analysis on this, but yeah…images like these are freaking powerful as hell as well.

    The only times my dad ever shocked me by being (to my mind) savagely racist was about the Japanese and Japanese-Americans…all of which came boiling out when I had a chance to go to Kyoto, and he basically told me he’d disown me if I tried to go. I got it that he was on Iwo Jima, and had strong feelings about it, but I never got it about the animus against his fellow Americans, all of whose ancestors had come here in pursuit of the same goal and the same desires as his…

    But then I just don’t get it about this country…ever since the 1600’s we’ve always been a country of immigrants who have pissed ourselves freaking out about the next wave of Immigrants and Foreigners!! That weird push-me/pull-you dynamic…

  44. 44.

    NotMax

    @raven

    On Oahu, there’s mostly Japanese tourists anywhere one goes. :)

    Numbers approach critical mass during Golden Week in Japan.

  50. 50.

    Felonius Monk

    @raven:

    Inouye’s son Kenny was the guitarist for influential D.C. hardcore punk band Marginal Man.[27]

    ETA:

    On August 8, 2013, Inouye was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama. The citation in the press release reads as follows:
    Daniel Inouye was a lifelong public servant. As a young man, he fought in World War II with the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, for which he received the Medal of Honor. He was later elected to the Hawaii Territorial House of Representatives, the United States House of Representatives, and the United States Senate. Senator Inouye was the first Japanese American to serve in Congress, representing the people of Hawaii from the moment they joined the Union.[34]

  52. 52.

    raven

    @NotMax: They were more respectful than the fucking idiot on the boat out to the Arizona Memorial that would not sit down and stop taking pictures no matter how nice the sailors told him to do so. I waited until the end of the tour to explain to him what a fucking asshole he was.

  57. 57.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @LAO: They sure can’t. Not that I’d know anything about that…

    BTW I suggested to needed to follow this more closely in lieu of paying attention to Princess Dumbass of the Northwoods and her proposed new TV show.

  58. 58.

    jl

    @p.a.: I read that in CA, the White’s desire for land grab for Central Valley farmland was common knowledge in the FDR administration. They wrote memos about it and discussed it. I forget which history of WWII domestic policy where I read that.

  59. 59.

    Felonius Monk

    @raven:

    I waited until the end of the tour to explain to him what a fucking asshole he was.

    You are too damn polite. Shoulda just thrown his ass overboard.

  60. 60.

    Miss Bianca

    @raven:

    Understood – it was a peculiarly painful thing for both of us that a). he wouldn’t/couldn’t talk to me about his war experiences, and b). his daughter was seriously into All Things Japanese. It was a passion I had the sense to hide from him till I had a chance to go study Noh Theater and then a huge frothing wave of horribleness came gusting out as a result.

  62. 62.

    LAO

    @p.a.: yeah, no. And what really galls me is his use of the US’s granting visas to Jews emigrating from Russia as precedent to limiting the visas on religious grounds.

  68. 68.

    LAO

    @a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):

    BTW I suggested to needed to follow this more closely in lieu of paying attention to Princess Dumbass of the Northwoods and her proposed new TV show.

    She will never replace Judge Judy in my heart! I seriously love stupid tv judge shows. My mom (retired lawyer) mocks me relentlessly. But I still won’t watch the quitter from wasilla.

  69. 69.

    NotMax

    Rachel started out reporting voting using her somber, dropped down half a register voice but has given up and gone back to her usual swifter, higher pitched election coverage voice.

    No results to speak of yet.

  70. 70.

    raven

    @Miss Bianca: My old man spent 4 years in the Pacific. He came away with a grudging respect for the Japanese. By the time he was a football coach in LA in the late 50’s the grudging was gone and he only respected the Japanese kids on his team to the extent that he watched to see when they were slowing down as a sign that he had pushed the team hard enough. My uncle never left Navy Pier during the war and he hated the “Japs”.

  71. 71.

    p.a.

    @Miss Bianca: Just to bring a bit of levity to the discussion: my uncle went awol 2 or 3 x in WW2. His dad was still an Italian citizen; could barely speak English, but when the MPs showed up at the door the only thing he said was “attic”. Scared of being interned if he didn’t cooperate.

  73. 73.

    NotMax

    @LAO

    Couldn’t readily find the appropriate clip, but flashed on Trelane (in cascading horsehair wig) expostulating at Capt. Kirk “You are guilty – GUILTY – GUILTY!”

  76. 76.

    Miss Bianca

    @p.a.:

    : )

    @raven:

    Really wish my dad could have come to that reaction…I just remember how embarrassed I was in high school when I brought my new pal over who was an exchange student from Japan…and how cold and weird my parents were, it was awful..particularly because they had fawned over the other exchange student, the white guy from South Africa…so dumb me, I was all like, “oh, they like exchange students, they’ll dig Etsuko!” But they were of the generation that didn’t talk about Shit That Mattered, so I was just deeply confused. Mom made cryptic references, but Dad refused to say anything at all.

  77. 77.

    Baud

    How long have the Dem primaries been completely proportional? At some point, we’ll have three roughly equal candidates, and none of which will get a majority.

  78. 78.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @NotMax: Thanks for thinking of me! Does anyone other than me remember when Doug! was DougJarvus Green-Ellis for a couple of weeks and Sarah Proud and Tall told him his new nym sounded “like a hip hop artist from Idaho” as only SP and T could say? That’s where I stole the nym – though I do have a friend in Idaho.

  80. 80.

    Anoniminous

    Cruz should win Utah outright. Arizona is an interesting test case. Trump leads in the polling but there are a lot of Mormons and Fundie/Cons in the state which have been going for Cruz. On the other hand the state is chock-a-block with bigots and angry, retired, white old farts who are the key Trump constituency. Arizona is WTA so 58 delegates ride on who bothered and bothers to show up.

  83. 83.

    Anoniminous

    @Baud:

    Thus the importance and function of the Super Delegates. In a Three-Way they have the power to cut through the crap and select the nominee.

  84. 84.

    raven

    @Miss Bianca: Well, my earliest memories were of my the team my old man coached in North Chicago. It was a mixed race team and they would come to our house on Sunday mornings for breakfast. Later in life he copped a really shitty attitude about African Americans after Phoenix was denied the Super Bowl. It never made any sense to me but that’s what happened. He talked to me about WWII after I came home from Vietnam, I guess he figured I was no longer shockable.

  88. 88.

    Anoniminous

    Speaking of Idaho … whatever happened to that gun-toting walled compound all the nutters were gonzo crazy about?

  89. 89.

    LAO

    @a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): I’m disappointed to tell you that in his first court appearance representing himself, Ryan Bundy did not make an ass of himself. Reported at obp.org.

    Also, have you noticed the weird federal district judge battle developing between Nevada and Oregon?

  92. 92.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @LAO: I was on jury duty once and we were assigned to a courtroom, the judge was named Wapner. When court adjourned he told us yes, his dad is the Judge Wapner from the TV machine.

  93. 93.

    Miss Bianca

    @raven:

    Yeah…damn, if only I’d joined ROTC like he wanted me to, then maybe the Old Man would have come clean about his *other* experiences as “the Barefoot Boy of Iwo Jima”…the fact that he wouldn’t wear his boots on land being the only thing he would share with me, as an example of military (il)logic – his superiors being all, “wear your boots because Land Mines ‘n’ Shit” and his retort being, “boots ain’t going to save me from land mines.”

  95. 95.

    HinTN

    @raven: I walked up to the Punchbowl early one morning looking for Ernie Pyle. That’s a really special place. I also found Ellison Onazuka there, which was a pleasant surprise for a space geek.

  101. 101.

    catclub

    @MazeDancer:

    The expert sighed audibly. And said, “No.”

    Although for the question “Do you have any doubts…?” The answer he seems to mean is Yes! Lots!
    It isn’t.!

  102. 102.

    catclub

    @Anoniminous: Not only that, Utah is proportional unless someone gets over 50%, and kasich staying in will probably hold Cruz below 50% there. That means Trump may get ALL in Arizona, and not be shut out in Utah. The genius GOP stop-Trump effort rolls on!

  110. 110.

    Anoniminous

    @catclub:

    HuffPollster Poll of Polls has Cruz winning Utah outright:

    Ted Cruz 53.0%
    Donald Trump 11.5%
    John Kasich 4.0%.

    Same source has Trump winning Arizona but with 14% Undecided it could go either way.

  113. 113.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @LAO: I saw at opb how well R. Bundy managed his appearance. He’s apparently the brains of the Bundy clan. I’m not at all sure what’s up with the fed jurisdictional dealio. It’s interesting, to be sure.

    When I was in school, our property law professor was a local TV judge. His show was called Juvenile Court.

    Sorry no lines on potatoes from me, since I’m as much from Idaho as Sarah Proud and Tall is, well, Sarah. Sadly I’m not nearly as funny as she either.

    @Steve in the ATL: We wouldn’t be if you’d been around in threads, man. I’ve missed you, as I’m certain LAO has as well – and Adam also, too.

  115. 115.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    BTW, the Allegiance cast album dropped last week. I’ll need a couple more listens to really decide what I think other than Lea Salonga is always fantastic.

  117. 117.

    PurpleGirl

    I was visiting a friend in L.A. in 1976. This friend has been intrigued with Japanese culture for years so we went to see the Japan Day parade. George Takei was the grand marshal that year. Around that time a lot of Japanese companies and individuals were buying up land and buildings in L.A. and the surrounding areas and it was causing problems between the purchasers from Japan and the native-born Japanese-Americans. Why? Well, the native-born citizens were just then starting to be able to buy back their lands, buildings, stores, etc. after having lost them during the internment. And the purchasing by Japanese was driving up the prices to levels the native-born citizens couldn’t afford. It took a long time for those wounds to heal for those citizens. George Takei has written and spoken eloquently of the period.

  119. 119.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @Ben Cisco: I’m so glad someone else remembers! Obviously I thought it was hilarious too.

    @Steve in the ATL: Real life. I kind of remember that. Interview Thursday for non profit gig, and my final med school lecture for this academic year next week.

  120. 120.

    Steve in the ATL

    @LAO: I’m still trying to get my around a Jewish/New Yorker/criminal defense/lawyer. Never seen any of those combinations before!

  122. 122.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @Steve in the ATL: I know a Jewish/Atlanta (thereabouts)/criminal defense lawyer. He’s a forensics expert. Wrap your head around that.

  124. 124.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @LAO: I told the story about my Jewish defense lawyer pal, who had a particular vehicular homicide case when I worked for him, and the photos had just been turned over. He handed them to me and said “look at these and tell me I I can look at them.” I did, and told him “not a chance.”

  125. 125.

    PurpleGirl

    @raven: Bad Day at Black Rock

    Yes, it’s one hell of a movie and very powerful. I haven’t seen it in years but it stays in my mind.

  127. 127.

    LAO

    @a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): I remember. I’d say, a good half of my fellow defense attorneys are Jewish. As a very young associate, I was sent to visit a client in state lockup. He was allegedly a member of organized crime. I introduce myself and he just stares at. And stares. Finally, he leans toward me, squints his eyes and asks, “you a Jew?” I answer, quietly, yes. He jumps up, comes around the table, hugs me and yells “2 Jews and an Italian, I can’t lose”. It was awkward.

    (My 2 bosses, one Italian and one Jewish). And by the way he was acquitted.

  128. 128.

    Adam L Silverman

    @LAO: There are actually three sides to the Force. The light side, used by the Jedi. The dark side, used by the Sith. And the blonde side, used to promote ditziness.

  129. 129.

    PurpleGirl

    @LAO: I’ve only seen a few Judge Judy shows and those years ago. But what makes her good, besides the fact that is clever and witty, is that fact that she is a lawyer and was a judge and she knows what she’s doing. I doubt that the Quitter from Wasilla will be able to be even half as clever or witty. (She definitely won’t know the law and will probably have a understudy to tell what to do behind the scene.)

  130. 130.

    Chris

    @LAO:

    And today, Tom Cotton proposed a special visa program to let Christians fleeing ISIS entry into the US.

    There it is again. “Save the Christians.” They can’t even be bothered to pretend that they give a shit about any of ISIS’ other victims, even the other non-Muslim ones. As with everything else in the GOP, it’s an exercise in tribalism.

  132. 132.

    NotMax

    @Steve in the ATL

    Was a running theme in many movies of the 30s, 40s and 50s that someone in need of a defense lawyer would have a buddy read off names of firms out of the phone book.

    Rejecting them all until something like Goldberg, Goldblatt and Schwartz would come up, then they’d exclaim “That’s the one!’

    (Remember a nearly identical scene from All in the Family as well, in the 70s.)

  135. 135.

    Adam L Silverman

    @LAO: Based on the leading master practitioner of the Blonde Force that I know, I would estimate lots of chocolate. And coffee. But your cell phone and wallet will be lost somewhere and you may or not be able to find your car in the parking lot.

  137. 137.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @Steve in the ATL: This is more for LAO and Adam, but he’s Reform and his wife is Orthodox. They were looking for a shul when they first got married. At one, he told the rabbi he was Reform, and the rabbi asked “how Reform is ‘Reform’?” To which my pal replied “just about Southern Baptist.” That wasn’t the shul for them, the rabbi graciously suggested.

    Lots of criminal defense lawyers here are Jewish, many 2d generation lawyers, a demographic that originated in the days when Jews were not welcomed into white shoe firms downtown. I’m sure that (the white shoe situation) was quite common – if not the norm – 50 years ago and back in all cities.

  138. 138.

    Adam L Silverman

    @LAO: I had a classmate at Emory. She was stupid rich (or, rather, her parents were) and she was stupid ditzy. She couldn’t find her car one day at the Buckhead mall after going shopping. So she took a cab back to school, called her dad, and went and picked up her new car the next day.

  139. 139.

    Steve in the ATL

    @LAO: I missed y’all too! I’ve been so lonely, like the last guy occupying a wildlife refuge after everyone else has been arrested.

  140. 140.

    LAO

    @Adam L Silverman: you know, I’m not totally unsympathetic. I once lost a rental car in a lot. I absolutely forgot what color it was. At a spring training game in port st lucie. The lot was a giant field. It was ridiculous. And, no alcohol was involved.

  144. 144.

    Steve in the ATL

    @LAO: I played my first ever round of golf in Port St. Lucie. With one of the Mets, though I can’t remember which one (they all look the same to us Braves fans).

  147. 147.

    Adam L Silverman

    @LAO: But its important. Your patron saint, or at least paragon, should be John Adams defending the British soldiers. Among other exemplars.

  149. 149.

    LAO

    @Steve in the ATL: the Pete Dye course at the PGA village is my favorite course in Florida. And yeah, die heart Mets fan.

    ETA: I just noticed the Braves fan thing. This could be the end of a beautiful on line friendship.

  153. 153.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @Steve in the ATL: My “look at the pictures for me” pal asked me, as were were leaving a pretrial with our client the week before Xmas last year “what kind of weird winter holiday do you pagans celebrate?”

  154. 154.

    Steve in the ATL

    @LAO: Does it help that I’m a naturalized Braves fan? Cubs by birth.

    Also, probably shouldn’t mention that my wife and Chipper Jones were high school classmates….

  156. 156.

    Adam L Silverman

    @a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Huge community. Came in through Savannah and a good chunk settled in Macon. They’re Sephardic. A large number of the Bobo family – some of whom eventually converted to Christianity – originate in Macon. During the Civil Rights’ period the largest reform congregation in the area, the Atlanta Temple, was blown up by the KKK.

  158. 158.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @Steve in the ATL: We’d best not start talking baseball fan stuff. I’m still not over the fact that the first game of the MLB season is no longer limited to the team I cheer and its opponent. So I get kinda crabby.

  159. 159.

    Steve in the ATL

    @redshirt:

    All you funny and smart people are making me wonder if I should go to law school.

    As the great lawyer/philosopher Will Smith opined, “Oh HELL no!”

  161. 161.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @Steve in the ATL: His people are from the desert and had a very different view of Jesus than that of the people who co-opted Yule. But our Xian client was watching and listening with great interest.

    Sadly, she’s spending Easter as a guest of the county sheriff. Even with full restitution, she got local time. Had the theft been from, say, Macy’s, she’s be hosting an Easter Egg hunt. But since it was from the local Chamber of Commerce where she was director, we did well to keep it to 60 days. Especially since there were about 15 Chamber members at sentencing, though the Board President said only that they thanked the criminal justice system for the resolution and that the Chamber wanted to move forward.

  162. 162.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Gin & Tonic: There are many, many reasons to hate practicing law, but, as a labor and employment lawyer, I have *great* cocktail party stories.

  164. 164.

    redshirt

    @Steve in the ATL: I tried to adopt the Braves as my second team, my NL team, Boston’s second team, and I tried. I really tried. Watched TBS. Followed standings. Rooted in the playoffs. But alas…..

    It’s me, not you, Braves. I just can’t be a fan. Sorry.

  165. 165.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @redshirt: Do you actually want to practice law? I loved law school. Academic law is really interesting to me. The actual practice of law is a different thing.

  166. 166.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @Omnes Omnibus: That it is. I enjoyed the courtroom much more than law school though. Many days I miss it, and will work my ass off for the D county prosecutor candidate, since this should be a very high D turnout year.

  167. 167.

    Steve in the ATL

    @redshirt: n

    I love helping people, too, and I’m a hardcore liberal. But my job largely involves union busting and protecting my company from harassment and discrimination claims which sometimes have merit. So you never know where you’re going to end up.

    There are much better ways to help people. Even if you hate people. And some areas of law will really make you hate people (family, criminal, insurance defense).

    The only lawyers I know who are truly inspired by what they do are the ones who defend death penalty cases. Holy shit they have a lot of passion for what they do.

    Well, and maybe female divorce attorneys who went to law school late in life after getting burned in a divorce and my god every encounter with them ends in scorched earth. But they are bitter as hell.

    These days I only recommend law school to people with a technical background who can be patent lawyers (close second: copyright and trademark lawyers–you get paid an IP premium but without having a technical background).

    That’s my $0.02, which represents about a half second of my billable time (that’s an estimate–we have finance nerds to do the actual math).

  168. 168.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @redshirt: n. I only recommend law school to those who can complete it without debt and have an abiding interest in a specific area of law.

  169. 169.

    NotMax

    @redshirt

    Might fit in to an obscure niche, like Maritime Law.

    Or Space Law.

    On the other hand, could stick to only handling house closings. Steady work there.

  170. 170.

    Miss Bianca

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I always figured I would love law school, hate practice, Have to ask my brother some time…he actually went through it. I thought being a law librarian would actually be kind of fun, I loved working in law libraries…

    ETA:
    Out here, Water Law is actually a thing, and a subject I find weirdly fascinating…

  171. 171.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @Miss Bianca: Riparian rights are serious law in the western US. It’s a legal field will only get more volatile, imho.

  172. 172.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Miss Bianca: The worst thing about law school is the fucking assholes who are your classmates. The second worst thing are the sanctimonious asshole professors. The second best part is the law itself. The best part is hooking up with undergrad sorority girls (might be less appealing to you).

  175. 175.

    Steve in the ATL

    @NotMax: Closings are steady work but oh my god so boring.

    Water rights is a great area to get into–not a crowded field at all, and becoming more important all the time (even here in the southeast: Georgia, Tennessee, and Alabama have been fighting for more than a decade over the Chattahoochee River, Curiously, Georgia has not had to change its practices at all despite losing every single round in court).

    Maritime and admiralty are ok, but limited to certain geographies. And admiralty courts are a weird fetish of the sovcitpa movement.

    There is a lot to do around technology too–how do we rewrite our traffic laws to account for autonomous cars, for example.

    Don’t know much about space law, but I assume the possibilities are infinite….

  177. 177.

    Miss Bianca

    @Steve in the ATL:

    well, I think the sorority girls just wouldn’t be that interested in hooking up with *me*, see…

    @a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
    Yup, *if* I were going to law school, under all conditions and caveats outlined above, Water and Riparian Law would be the subject…as I said, weirdly fascinating *and* only to become more contentious (and expensive!).

    Remember…”Out here, whiskey’s for drinking, water’s for fighting over!”

  178. 178.

    Sam Dobermann

    @amygdala:

    Ansel Adams, angered by what he saw, protested by turning his lens on Manzanar, leaving remarkable images so that we never forget.

    Dorothea Lange also photographed within a camp; I don’t recall which one but she was forever getting stopped and told not to photograph this or that by the guards, Finally they banned her and impounded all her plates.

    A recent documentary about her life and work — of course her life was her work — ran on PBS and showed a lot of her work there. Heartbreaking and infuriating.

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