Back when presidential candidate Barack Obama was demonstrating what many of his biggest fans considered a time-wasting commitment to negotiating even with people who obviously didn’t have bipartisan comity at the top of their to-do lists, I remember trying to explain that Mr. Obama had been trained as a community organizer. One of the key skills such organizers need to develop is a preternatural patience with time-wasters, cranks, and partisans of the opposing team — because you can’t organize without cooperation, and you can’t achieve cooperation without allowing all parties to air their ideas & grievances (be they never so stupid or self-serving).
Donald Trump has trained from birth, and achieved the notoriety that would allow his success as a reality tv actor, as a real estate developer. This, I am told, requires an entirely different set of social skills. The producer of the tweet-storm from which the following extract is taken (someone with whom I doubt I have anything at all in common, politically or philosophically) explains:
First, remember that at a certain scale, developers aren't pitching land or location. They're pitching themselves.
— ≠ (@ThomasHCrown) June 21, 2016
So Trump falls back on one of the traditional escape routes: Make this all about the investors and not him.
— ≠ (@ThomasHCrown) June 21, 2016
Invariably, when you hear that, it means a few things. (1) The project is in danger. (2) There's no easy way out. (3) The developer is thin.
— ≠ (@ThomasHCrown) June 21, 2016
***********
This gives the developer room to do one of three things. (1) Structure for bankruptcy/exit. (2) Turn it around. (3) Keep screwing up.
— ≠ (@ThomasHCrown) June 21, 2016
As far as he's concerned, that's *our* job.
— ≠ (@ThomasHCrown) June 21, 2016
The whole project was sold on the idea that people would go out of their way to exist around something they never wanted anyway.
— ≠ (@ThomasHCrown) June 21, 2016
To read the whole thing (including the punch line) click here for the Storified version.
redshirt
Too many words. Better summed by:
Grifters gonna grift.
Adam L Silverman
Saw this the other night, but it got lost in the shuffle with all the other goings on.
Mike J
smith
What Crown describes sounds a lot like the old pigeon drop con, only with hundreds of millions of dollars instead of a couple thousand.
Ultraviolet Thunder
Hustlers gotta hustle. But he’s starting to sweat with the effort.
SiubhanDuinne
O/T, hope you’re feeling better, AL. Protracted dental work is never fun.
Humboldtblue
@Adam L Silverman: Have you seen this piece about traumatic brain injury and ties to PTSD? Fascinating read.
As for politics, I am pretty fucking fortunate to have watched the live scenes from the floor of the House yesterday and to have seen my former Congressman, Mike Thompson, standing at the podium giving a speech while my current congressman, Jared Huffman, stood off the side awaiting his turn. It’s nice to live in a heavily democratic county in a Democratic-controlled state.
Haydnseek
Open thread, so time for one Drumpf name to rule them all…….
Tanning Bed Torquemada!
Iowa Old Lady
@Mike J: Obviously the man is a radical, Islamic terrorist.
Oh no, wait. He’s a lone wolf who was driven to extremes by govt overreach.
LAO
@Mike J: It’s a doozy of a Complaint.
ETA: The FBI infiltrated his militia group.
Corner Stone
@Ultraviolet Thunder:
He’s looking increasingly bloated. They showed some side profile shots of him the other day as he waited to speak and he looked very, very puffy.
Chris
@Mike J:
That’s not terrorism.
If it is terrorism, then it’s clearly directed at Christians, who are a persecuted minority here.
Look, over there, Muslims!
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a bomb is a good guy with a bomb.
Also, this just proves that we should stop immigration from the Middle East.
THANKS, OBAMA.
Hillary Rettig
Great novel (good summer reading) on the mind and workings of a real estate developer similar to what the tweeter is describing is Tom Wolf’s A Man in Full.
Mnemosyne
My family has been in real estate (not on the Trump level) for a couple of generations, so the “mixed-use project in an outlying county” line made me snort-laugh.
LAO
@Chris:
Damn straight. It’s constitutional patriotism. Especially since the target with the BLM — you know, the fascist usurper of the god-given rights of western ranchers (and pretend ranchers).
Origuy
@Chris:
FIFY. The bomb that Keebler used was supplied by an FBI infiltrator.
Mary G
This my favorite:
Too true.
aimai
@smith: I was thinking of re-reading The Big Con, the book that details all the cons. Because Trump is definitely executing, over and over again, a fairly stylized grift. i read the twitter storify about the real estate scam the other day. its quite revealing but almost more revealing of the psychology of the mark than the grifter.
Mnemosyne
So, the House is now in recess until July 5. Anyone know if the Senate is still keeping up its facade of never going into recess to prevent recess appointments? And, more to the point, would a similar sit-in at the Senate force them to recess and leave the door open for a few recess appointments? Inquiring minds want to know.
Corner Stone
@Chris: Why won’t Obama say the words “Radical Bureaucratic Terrorism” ?!
Maybe because he’s a part of it? There’s something going on there…
Ultraviolet Thunder
Trump may be big time in the real estate world (until he recently basically quit), but that’s a face-to-face business.
It doesn’t scale and he’s not seeing the success he’s used to.
He subbed out Trump University to more qualified large scale conmen.
Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA
Makes me think of the developers shouting for joy about the giant ferris wheel they feel the need to build on Staten Island for some reason.
Too many people don’t realize that suits + money =/= knowing WTF you’re doing. (Or in the very least, suits + money =/= honest.)
LAO
@Mnemosyne: BTW, you’ve been rocking it these past 2 days.
No — couldn’t have a sit-in in the Senate because the rules are different. I’m sure some one else will offer a better more detailed explanation. But, it is why the Democrats went with a filibuster, the other day.
Origuy
For a change of pace:
Joe Biden arriving at Matt Malloy’s Pub in Westlake, Ireland.
Anoniminous
@Humboldtblue:
It’s been known for years and years PTSD has a physical component. Here’s a link to a recent work.
lollipopguild
@Haydnseek: I still like The talking Yam.
Chris
@LAO:
For a second, I read BLM and thought “Black Lives Matter.” Now, there’s something they definitely would’ve called constitutional patriotism.
Emma
@Origuy: He’s actually in Ireland now? Oh, first class trolling. Well done, sir!
Fair Economist
@Mnemosyne: It would be tricky to force the Senate to adjourn precisely because McConnell wouldn’t want the recess appointment. More significantly, though, according to the Constitution, the President has the power, in the event of disagreement between the house as to time of adjournment, to adjourn them to such time as he thinks appropriate. Technically I think Obama could adjourn the Senate until July 5th (or whenever, actually) right now. The power has never been used and I don’t think it would be good politics to use it on a brief disagreement but if this comes up again it might be more reasonable.
Humboldtblue
@Anoniminous: Thanks, anon, I had no clue research was available.
Haydnseek
@lollipopguild: Me too. I just wanted to throw a new one out there. I still bow to the person who described his hair as “cotton candy made from piss.”
Adam L Silverman
@Humboldtblue: I had not seen this article, but I was aware of the work on TBI, concussive blasts, and the connection to PTS/PTSD. It doesn’t surprise me. The push back will be from the psychologists. And my Dad’s PhD was in psych, despite him being a professional criminologist – so no knock on psychologists intended. There is a vested, professional sunk cost for psychology and psychologists in that this is a psychological reaction to stress. The psychologists I know working for the Army don’t discount or disregard the TBI component, but they look at the world as psychologists and the discipline made a concerted effort and push in the 70s to have PTSD formalized into the diagnostic manuals. And this is even before the grifters get involved. That charlatan senior professor at UPenn who created the psychology of happiness BS that Barbara Ehrenriech took down in Brightsided has his fingers into the cash flow on this stuff from the Army. I warned the people I know that he was using them and the Soldiers they are trying to care for as research subjects – he’s actually been publishing findings from his/his team’s work with them where they’re considered patients by the Army that is paying for it. So no human subjects protection protocols or IRB oversight. The folks that this article covers have a big boulder to push up a steep hill because its going to take a lot of money out of a lot of influential people’s rice bowls. And I can tell you from experience and the scar tissue that comes with it that the people that own those rice bowls in the Army do not like to be told that their bowls are dirty and their rice is rancid.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@Corner Stone:
Perhaps we can destroy Trump with just six words:
“Don’t you think he looks tired?”
daves09
A local builder/architect here in Reno wanted to build a $300,000,000 casino hotel. All he needed to get started was for the city to give him the land and the county to guarantee the loan-he’d take care of everything else. He couldn’t believe that no one else thought it was a great deal.
Emma
BTW, according to Charles Pierce, Cory Lewandowski is joining CNN as a political commentator. Can we start thinking about organizing a boycott or is that too much theater?
Luthe
@Mnemosyne: The real miracle was conning the locals into approving such a thing in the first place. *has been to too many P&Z meetings in the boonies*
Adam L Silverman
@Mnemosyne: They’re not in recess, they’ve adjourned. There’s a difference. And no, I’m not staying up until 3 AM explaining Congressional rules arcana today. Good day to you Ma’am, Good day!
Poopyman
@Origuy: That’s WestPORT.
Sheesh.
(/Mayo boy.)
West of the Rockies (been a while)
I know it won’t happen, but I think it would be kind of cool if Hills had Biden as her VP. Dude knows the job, is pretty awesome, can debate the snit outta anyone Trumpy might name.
Adam L Silverman
@LAO: The Senate has unlimited debate and the rules are set up to allow for everything to be done by universal acclimation. Failure to achieve that opens up unlimited debate, which requires a procedural vote to end that debate (cloture vote), followed by a set cooling off period/time period before the actual vote on whatever the issue is: adjournment, legislation, resolution, etc. So once a Senator has the floor, as long as they can talk and can keep 60 votes from being amassed to shut them up, they can hold the floor open as long as they want. The House rules did away with this option in 1840 and was firmly in place by 1842. Also, the Senate doesn’t have a Rules Committee, the function of that committee is handled by the Senate Majority Leader’s Office and he or she has great latitude.
raven
@Adam L Silverman: You’d think the lack of and IRB would raise some pretty big red flags.
Major Major Major Major
@West of the Rockies (been a while): That only works on women.
Adam L Silverman
@raven: Given that a component of this was tied into a research element were I was on the special staff, I thought so to and raisedthe issue. Everyone, including the guy running that research element responded to me like I was speaking Martian. It just didn’t track for these folks that such a respected and senior psychologist would do such a thing, even though I had specific examples of the publications, which had reference us as an institution by name, thus implicating us in a major ethical problem. My doing so also gave a number of people hives that the silly schmuck civilian didn’t know how to keep his mouth shut – as in should never say anything to anyone.
raven
@Adam L Silverman: I went to a day-long seminar put on by The Center for Deployment Psychology. Are they in on this?
raven
@Adam L Silverman: That’s what happens on the Sand Pebbles.
LAO
@Adam L Silverman: See, I knew someone (i.e. you) would come in and explain the technical details.
Mike J
@Adam L Silverman:
So what would happen if Joe came down the street and said, “hey, the constitution says it’s my job to preside over the Senate, and here’s what I think we should vote on today.”
Lurker Extraordinaire
@Adam L Silverman: So are you saying that there are high ranking uniformed personnel in he Army that are making money off of using soldiers as research subjects without ethics oversight?
Some of this would explain why it took to the Army so long to deal with the PTSD issue. It makes me wonder about a friend of mine with PTSD (and still in) who starts to panic if he runs out of meds somehow. The idea of him being used as a guinea pig without his consent just……makes me want to smash something.
raven
@Lurker Extraordinaire: Yea, the green machine never did that shit before.
Haydnseek
@Emma: Well, at various times they’ve hired Erick Erickson and the hideous Dana Loesch. Nothing is beneath them.
SiubhanDuinne
Cons and grifters everywhere:
I got it from Charles P. Pierce, who got it from Politico.
(Minor edit)
Another edit: Totally missed Emma @ #35, sorry.
MomSense
@LAO:
Woah that complaint was craze balls. He didn’t want to hurt people for now but he may need to escalate things in the future. Wow.
Calouste
Just reading an article in the Guardian about Adolf Trump’s Scottish golf course. It’s located 10 miles north of Aberdeen (avg. high Dec-Feb: 44 F), so unsurprisingly it is closed a number of months during the winter, and also unsurprisingly, it is losing money.
Mnemosyne
@Fair Economist:
Yeah, that’s why I was wondering if there was a way for Senate Democrats to stampede the Republicans into an actual recess and not the facade they’ve been keeping up the past few years.
@Adam L Silverman:
Aw, c’mon, I’m sure you know someone you can email …
?
ETA: Aw, go on!
lollipopguild
@West of the Rockies (been a while): Trump is “Low energy”.
Dolly Llama
@West of the Rockies (been a while): I’ve thought the same damn thing many times. Why not keep Joe Biden where he is? Is there any historical precedent for someone to serve as a VP under two different POTUSes?
Lurker Extraordinaire
@raven: True, true. Lol. But this time people know about it NOW not twenty years after the fact.
Gin & Tonic
@Adam L Silverman: Oh. come on, I was looking forward to you and Patroclus dancing and weaving around each other for another 15 rounds.
lollipopguild
@West of the Rockies (been a while): That would be a Big Biden Deal.
Roger Moore
@Adam L Silverman:
I assume that there’s also an issue around physical vs. psychological issues when it comes to how soldiers are treated. For example, right now the Purple Heart is limited to soldiers who suffer from physical wounds, not psychological ones. If it’s shown that PTSD is a result of physical brain damage rather than just psychological harm, it would make a lot of soldiers who PTSD but no obvious wounds eligible.
Iowa Old Lady
Led Zeppelin won their copyright suit.
Dolly Llama
@Dolly Llama: Nevermind. Just found the answer to my own question. George Clinton and John C. Calhoun have both done it, according to Wikipedia. Hasn’t been done in a long-ass time, though.
I would LOVE to see a “draft Joe for VP” movement.
raven
@Lurker Extraordinaire: I hope it comes to something.
LAO
@MomSense: And the second bomb in the car — just in case they were stopped by law enforcement. Crazy! I expect we will hear a lot about entrapment, but since its more likely than not that the meetings were recorded, I doubt the FBI agents were too blatant. (Also, entrapment is a very difficult defense to prove).
MattF
@SiubhanDuinne: Took a moment for the meaning of those words to register. Is there something lower than shameless?
raven
@Roger Moore: If I’m not mistaken it is pretty common for ETS’ing troops to be advised to note PTSD on their records to make it easier to make a claim later. Imagine tying a Purple Het to that.
Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA
@Emma: Christ. They’ll take anyone, won’t they?
LAO
@Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA: It’s a remarkably craven move by CNN. I will never watch again (not that I watch now!).
redshirt
@Iowa Old Lady: The greatest band ever. They even rock the courtroom.
gogol's wife
@LAO:
Yeah, my boycott of CNN started about 20 years ago. Caused by boredom rather than outrage.
Major Major Major Major
@LAO: I’m pretty sure the FBI’s done this enough times by now to know how to avoid any entrapment complications.
It’s kind of their ‘thing’.
hovercraft
@Calouste:
Funny how the man set to ‘improve our image everywhere’ is already disliked. I mean when Scotsmen are putting up Mexican flags to get under your skin, you’re in trouble.
Here’s Why Donald Trump Should Expect a Chilly Reception In Scotland
From Fortune.
Donald Trump set for chilly reception on visit to Scotland, Ireland. From the Washington Times
LAO
@Major Major Major Major: You’d be surprised, I’m currently working on a valid entrapment defense case. But, here, I’m confident that they approached a Bundy confederate with all the T-s crossed and I’s doted.
Emma
@Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA: I am a bit of a paranoid and I smell rat pee all over this. The guy gets his behind bounced by the Trumps and coincidentally lands a CNN job?
Iowa Old Lady
@Major Major Major Major: You’d think the crazies would get suspicious when a new best friend turns up and offers to help them make a bomb. But no. Crazies gotta be crazy.
Roger Moore
@hovercraft:
I’m willing to bet he’s even less popular in Mexico. AFAIK, Trump pinatas are still a thing there.
Poopyman
OK, I went over to CNN to see if they mentioned Lewandowski. I didn’t find that, but I did find a totally unsurprising map on child well-being in the US.
And depressing. Did I mention depressing?
Emma
@Roger Moore: The Scots near the resort are putting up Mexican flags.
Mnemosyne
@hovercraft:
Funny how going off on massive anti-immigrant rants would set up people’s backs in Ireland, a country where emigration is still very common.
I’m waiting for Trump’s I didn’t mean WHITE immigrants! speech in Ireland, but as I keep saying, when Republicans dogwhistle about Latinos by saying “immigrants,” people who came here from other countries can hear them, too.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@Dolly Llama:
I want his voice and insight to remain active. We need more than just a laconic autobiography of his eight years with Obama. And on that note, I have very high hopes that Obama won’t just be painting feet stickin’ out of a tub.
mohagan
@Humboldtblue: Tell it! I’m in Mendocino County, feeling the same.
Elie
@Corner Stone:
Its pretty interesting to me as I look at his physical state: How did a man supposedly so rich and so narcissistic end up looking so dissipated — even as we accept that he does not drink or do drugs? Your body does not lie if you have been taking care of it. He must get like NO exercise and his diet must be shit. If he did minimal exercise and kept some sort of control over his diet, he would not have those big puffy rings and that flushed, blotched complexion. This man has servants to prepare his food — no need to worry about pulling a menu together. If he is not lying about the drinking or drugs, then what on earth is a rich man doing looking like that in relatively young senior years? One partial answer may be chronic insomnia — which would make his mental and physical state much worse. My suspicion is that he also eats irregularly, eats a fair amount of junk and does not exercise at all — sitting around a lot screaming at people.
The media largely did not expand the issue of the “kids” taking over as his main campaign advisers. That to me was a red flag not just for his campaign (imagine any other candidate for the office of President who needed to have his kids take over running things)– but it signaled to me a man with a tenuous grip on the complex mental operations necessary not only to run the campaign but importantly for them, safeguard their businesses and assets — and that they did not see him as up to the task. That to me is very significant. He is running to be the President of the United States and he needs his daughter to wipe his chin and remind him what to do???? This is alarming…
Major Major Major Major
@Mnemosyne:
Possibly because we’re just one bad downturn away from it meaning ‘people who came here from [non-Latin] countries’, too.
In England, they aren’t fond of the Poles or Romanians either, for instance.
smith
@Adam L Silverman: Really surprised that this would have been brushed off. When I worked for the VA we had some joint research compliance issues with the Army, and boy howdy, were those guys strict. Much more into compliance with human research protection than most of the universities I dealt with. My guess is that if you’d dropped a quiet word to the appropriate IRB they would have taken notice.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Calouste: It isn’t the cold in Scotland that will kill you, it’s the bloody wind coming in off the sea. Believe me I spent enough time on freezing parade grounds in December to remember that shit.
Cat48
I wonder if any of the GOP money men are going to give Trump $$$.’ Looks like he’s broke & he’s at the place where he says, “If you’re not going to help me, I’ll do it myself”. I’ve read three articles that say if he shows up,at the convention with,no money and low poll numbers, he will be replaced.
Somehow, I’m not convinced that will happen.
germy
@Iowa Old Lady:
And he was wearing shiny black wingtips!
Origuy
@Poopyman: I thought that sounded wrong after I posted it, but I was in a hurry to go to lunch.
Cat48
@Elie:
I agree, it’s alarming. Nukes!
SiubhanDuinne
@Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA:
@LAO:
@gogol’s wife:
If Ted Turner weren’t still very much alive, he’d be spinning in his grave.
germy
@Elie:
He admitted to an interviewer that he sleeps fitfully only a couple of hours a night.
And he’s a steak guy. Not a big vegetable eater.
Adam L Silverman
@raven: I don’t know who all is involved. I know Armg Research Institue had a piece and the Army Welness Center or whatever it’s called this year had a piece, but beyond that it wasn’t my lane. I know these two as I was working with ARI folks on something else and the Army Wellnes Center is at USAWC. The director of the latter is a great guy and friend and it was the integrity of his shop hat made me bring it up.
EthylEster
Just want to get on record here.
I do not like posts that are dominated by tweets.
I notice that this is often AL’s preferred format.
The thing is, if I wanted to read tweets, I’d be on twitter.
Elie
@Cat48:
My guess is that he will have no or relatively not enough money. Who is gonna give this guy money now? The risk is off the charts! His kids are running his shit and that just screams “incompetent” (not in the legal sense but in the mental/cognitive sense) for a man who is running to be leader of the free world! Oh, he is running hither and tither and giving somewhat more coherent speeches using a teleprompter, but his kids told us that they do not trust him with their assets but somehow we should put him in charge of the nation’s — much less any kind of global leadership? Its a testament to the GOP insanity that people haven’t yet stampeded for the exits. This is a freak show that someone needs to pull the plug on and I am thinking that this is getting much more likely.
Corner Stone
I’m beginning to long for the end of The Steve Kornacki Experiment.
Adam L Silverman
@Mike J: most likely be arrested. Possibly be put on a 96 hour evaluatory hold.
Adam L Silverman
@Lurker Extraordinaire: no, there is a high ranking civilian professor of psychology at UPenn that appears to be. The Army is trying to do the right thing and is, frankly, overwhelmed. This, combined with uniform personnel’s blind spots to civilians with fancy credentials scamming then contributes to a lot of waste, fraud, and abuse.
LAO
@SiubhanDuinne: That made me, literally, lol.
MomSense
@Adam L Silverman:
It’s tough because you could have someone with co-occurring disorders, TBI, and PTS/D. Add to this homelessness and/or involvement in the criminal justice system and you have quite the challenge.
OzarkHillbilly
@EthylEster: It’s a free country. You don’t have to.
Marmot
So, I realize that this is naive, but are mixed-use developments always bullshit? Whole lotta open retail at ground level here in Austin in those things, and while overall retail occupancy is super high.
liberal
@Roger Moore:
Seems unlikely that PTSD is due to brain “damage” in the usual sense of the word “damage”. Presumably what happens in PTSD is that certain neural pathways are reinforced by environmental triggers that leads to the syndrome. It’s “damage” in a broad sense, and there are attendant physical changes in the brain, but the changes are wrought by the brain’s own mechanism, not by physical shock/foreign object/etc.
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
The incidence of it is a bit exaggerated, but there was some anti-Irish prejudice in the US during the days of high immigration, so the Irish tend to be on high alert for those kinds of sentiments.
'Niques (frequent visitor; occasional commenter)
@germy:His eyes are so puffy it is surprising he can open them. This is the evil coming through. Happening to Sarah as well. No escape.
Cat48
@Elie:
The whole situation makes me nervous. We can’t be assured he will lose. crazy things happen.
redshirt
I assume Trump will be moving entirely into reality TV production after this election. As I can’t imagine his real estate businesses will survive the harsh light of opposition research.
Villago Delenda Est
@aimai: You can’t cheat an honest man
Cat48
@Corner Stone:
The Kornack gives me a headache. I mute him or turn him down. He speaks louder everyday. Heh
Major Major Major Major
@Mnemosyne: A bit exaggerated, that’s putting it mildly (thinking specifically of the “Irish Need Not Apply” type). But that doesn’t matter to the larger point, since Irish-Americans believe it was widespread.
Adam L Silverman
@Lurker Extraordinaire: let me add: the Army is taking this seriously, as is DOD, and trying to get these Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines proper care. I don’t think that everyone outside of government that is partnering with government always has the military personnel’s best interests at heart. But that’s the case with a lot of things.
germy
@‘Niques (frequent visitor; occasional commenter):
Like two pee holes in the snow.
(the yellow snow)
Major Major Major Major
@germy: NNnnooooooo
BillinGlendaleCA
@Elie:
He doesn’t sleep. Trump loves to brag that he only sleeps at most 4 hours a night.
Adam L Silverman
@Roger Moore: I would think that would be an administrative issue that would eventually be resolved.
Adam L Silverman
@smith: I’m considered a subject matter expert on the DOD human subject guidelines, so I’m tracking. In this case it was a combination of the center director not wanting to believe that a senior civilian professor and practitioner would do such a thing and the rest of the staff just being staff that had no idea what I was talking about. You have to remember that even the soldiers with doctorates don’t understand the civilian academic and research culture and the scams, cons, and politics that go on within it. I had to help right vetting rules for
civilian subject matter experts at one point for TRADOC because uniformed personnel just don’t know how to properly vet outside credentials. And if it involves a contract the assumption/default is the contractor does the verification. They don’t all too often. But I served as a funding external reviewer for another federal agency on tdy and found the same bogus credential issues being pushed forward by the lead civilianacademic unit seeking to have their funding reupped.
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
It did exist, though — I have a book called “The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction,” where a group of nuns brought some Irish orphans to Arizona to be adopted by some of the local Mexican (Catholic) families because the kids weren’t white enough to be adoptable in NYC, but they looked plenty white enough for the Anglo settlers in Arizona. The anti-Catholic prejudice is a confounding factor — was it truly a “race”-based prejudice and they were disliked for being Irish, or was it a religious prejudice against Catholics, many of whom happened to be Irish?
Adam L Silverman
@MomSense: it’s a mess.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@liberal: The Times article referenced above is about the discovery of microscarring in the brains of veterans. I think that counts as damage at least as much as CTE does.
Elie
@Cat48:
I might be nuts but I feel pretty clear that he will not be elected and may not even be the nominee.. He is very unstable and in a way that he won’t be able to bluff away. Its still not good — I get that. We have a significant minority — maybe as high as 30% of our country who are and are gonna be even more ungovernable…
Elie
@BillinGlendaleCA:
I said that but I don’t think that is all of it. There is more here than meets the eye…
Major Major Major Major
@Mnemosyne: It did exist, as I recall it was even a confounding factor in getting the Irish in say Boston on board the abolition train, but the modern Irish-American story of persecution, at least as I was raised with it, is largely overblown.
schrodinger's cat
In topical non-Trump news
Cats against Brexit
humboldtblue
@Adam L Silverman: Fascinating. It’s like the Navy Ordnance board repeatedly claiming that there was no possible way a torpedo battery could sink the Scorpion because that would have meant they and their research was wholly wrong.
Maybe the fact that the researchers at BU who have been studying the brains of boxers and football players can help push that rock up the hill with the comparisons to battle damaged soldiers and what is happening to football players.
SFAW
@Dolly Llama:
Damn! Dude gets around! Was Bootsy the Secretary of Funk in that Administration? That would have been outstanding.
ETA: And having “One Nation Under a Groove” as the National Anthem would have been doubly awesome.
rikyrah
@redshirt:
You nailed it. He is a con man.
humboldtblue
@mohagan: Nice, huh?
Major Major Major Major
@SFAW: National Funk Congress Deadlocked on Get Up/Get Down Issue
SFAW
@Major Major Major Major:
Are you saying that the Congress wants to get funked up?
ETA: By the way, thanks for that link.
Fair Economist
@Elie:
Reagan could give a competent teleprompter speech after he couldn’t even remember which page he’d just read, and famously repeated a page at an honorary dinner for Thatcher.
humboldtblue
@liberal:
That’s not what the article I linked to says. The researchers involved are looking into the fact that very discernible physical changes/damage to the brain caused by concussive shock may play a key part in PTSD and in fact they may play a far larger role than any psychological factors.
The one thing that stood out from that article was the fact that the changes/damage done to the brains of soldiers was wholly different from that they found in athletes who suffered from repetitive concussive knocks to the brain that led to CTE.
redshirt
@Major Major Major Major: LOL. Oh, I miss the 90’s.
Adam L Silverman
@humboldtblue: Actually the NFL has partnered with the military on this. I think they’re trying to greenwash or purple wash (the color for Joint billets) the fact that they really don’t give a damn about their players and are hoping they can pick up some good will by cozying up to the military. I also brought this up. I also got looked at like I was nuts.
Miss Bianca
@Origuy: Matt Molloy! *The* Matt Molloy?! So ’tis! Joyous!
Lord, and Handsome Joe fits right in! Love how happy everyone looks to see him, and he them! And how the musicians don’t drop a beat!
@Major Major Major Major: One of my all-time favorite Onion articles! : )
humboldtblue
@Adam L Silverman: Sure, the NFL wants the issue gone, I was referring to the BU group studying the boxer and football player brains.
PurpleGirl
@schrodinger’s cat: Some of those cat pictures are so cute, even the grumpy once.
debbie
Trump reminds me of salesmen I used to know back when I was in publishing. Lots patter before getting down to business.
Miss Bianca
@Corner Stone: “The Steve Kornacki Experiment” has got to rate as one of the worst band names ever. .
redshirt
@Miss Bianca: My second favorite Onion article is the Point/Counterpoint between Vicki and her computer.
nutella
@Marmot:
They’re not bullshit but they are unpopular in suburban areas because suburbanites really hate efficient use of space.
Miss Bianca
@redshirt: Love it! This here, tho’ is my all-time favorite. My friend the religious scholar was peeing herself over this one.
Enhanced Voting Techinques
@Adam L Silverman: Would you prefer her to learn about Congressional Rules on the Streets then? Good heaven sir, good heavens.
Mnemosyne
@humboldtblue:
I’ll be curious to read the article once I get home and have a larger screen, but it makes perfect sense that the damage from a large concussive shock would be different than the damage from small, repeated shocks. There’s still so much we don’t know about closed head injuries and concussions, so I’m not really surprised that there may also be a physical component.
My coworker’s sister has epilepsy that’s too severe for her to work (even with medication) and has also been diagnosed with PTSD, so that’s another potentially interesting avenue for scientists to look at since epilepsy causes small amounts of brain damage with every seizure.
Mnemosyne
@Miss Bianca:
So what does a teetotaler like Handsome Joe drink in Ireland? Somebody was telling me that when she was in Ireland, they served a shot of Bailey’s with her morning porridge right next to the cream.
redshirt
@Miss Bianca: That was an enjoyable read. Thank you.
Here’s my favorite Onion article, though it is terrifying in the prophetic accuracy of the joke.
redshirt
Our long era of peace and prosperity.
debbie
@Mnemosyne:
That must be where Reince picked up that habit (except with cold cereal).
Adam L Silverman
@humboldtblue: I’m aware of the BU group. They’re doing good stuff. If I recall correctly they’re dialed into what the Army is doing. I basically had little to do with any of this as it was outside the stuff I was working on. I had simply come across reporting on what the professor from Penn was doing, passed it on as a concern, and watched the befuddlement.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@nutella: If they wanted to live in apartments, they wouldn’t be suburbanites.
Yes, I know M-U developments aren’t just apartments, but they might as well be. I just about went nuts living in a row house. My current fifth-acre lot is barely big enough; at least I only hear the neighbors when they get into their regular
screeching matchesairing of grievances.Old Broad In California
Meanwhile, Breitbart is reporting that with that anti-Hillary teleprompter speech, Trump has “regained control of his narrative” and made a “devastating attack on Hillary” or some such BS. (I only know because Facebook showed me a snippet for some reason- NOT because I read Breitbart.)
different-church-lady
I’m still trying to figure out…
different-church-lady
…how we arrived at a point in our society…
different-church-lady
…where the only way people will communicate long-form thoughts…
different-church-lady
…is by using a technology limited to short sentences…
different-church-lady
…and then use another technology…
different-church-lady
…to overcome the limits of the first technology…
different-church-lady
…and stitch the fragments back together into the form they would have taken in the first place…
different-church-lady
…had they not chosen a technology inappropriate to long-term thoughts…
different-church-lady
…in the first place.
amygdala
@Roger Moore: Lots of Trump pinatas here in SF. Trump toilet paper, too.
jc
That’s a beautiful string of Tweets. I’ve suspected this was Trump’s game for several months, and have tried to express as much to friends — and I’m very glad someone better versed in the nuts and bolts than I am was able to articulate it properly.
No One You Know
NICE JOB, AL!
I found this really helpful. Thank you.