Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

People are complicated. Love is not.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

The GOP is a fucking disgrace.

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

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

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

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Let there be snark.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

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

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Saturday Morning Open Thread: Salmagundi

Saturday Morning Open Thread: Salmagundi

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More grounded than Howie Kurtz… and she’s a professional cartoon character…


… (okay, voice actress)

Reader Interactions

204Comments

  3. 3.

    JGabriel

    Joy Reid @JoyAnnReid (via Anne Laurie @ Top):

    In other words, we’re being governed by the comments section.
    https://twitter.com/brianbeutler/status/842835158751498240

    4:32 PM – 17 Mar 2017 · Manhattan, NY

    I take exception to that remark, Joy!

    I have no doubt that we in the Balloon Juice commentariat, or any left-leaning commentariat, could do a better job running the country than the Trump administration.

    The problem isn’t that we’re being governed by blog commenters. The problem is that we’re being governed by conservative blog commenters. Or, more specifically, we’re governed by people who read conservative blog commenters and, worse yet, agree with them.

  4. 4.

    satby

    @rikyrah: Good morning! It’s my Monday, back to work I go. I’m already anxious for next Wednesday. Ironic, because it should be a reasonably enjoyable, fairly low stress job. But the office manager is a nightmare boss.

  8. 8.

    The Pale Scot

    I’m catching up on the news, and it came to me. To Benito, “Surveillance” is reporters reporting, and people reading those reports. Any scrap of info that doesn’t come from the shitgibbon’s twitter account is “illegally procured”. We’re ALL engaged illegal surveillance of Smallfingers.

    As someone who tries to be law abiding, I have half a mind to turn my self in. But where? Local police? The FBI sounds dicy, not sure if that would be safe. It’s probably better if we all turn ourselves in at the same time so there’d be witnesses.

    And a late St Patrick’s offering.

    Irish woman moves to the Bronx to teach music at a public school, Irish dance mania ensues.

    Principle says in a broad NY accent. “Everybody’s hopping around!”

  9. 9.

    cmorenc

    It’s worth intermittently checking out the way Faux News website is presenting current Trump / world /national events and with what emphasis, compared to CNN and MSNBC. For example, last night the lead story on Fox’s website was “Donna Brazile admits she fed debate questions to Clinton”, and their presentation of Trump’s meeting with the Irish Prime Minister or Angela Merkel would have left readers with the impression “nothing to see here”, except a Chris Wallace blurb: “I was struck by what Trump, Merkel didn’t mention” And this morning, the Fox lead is “TERROR IN PARIS: Attack at Orly Airport becomes terrorism investigation after man killed”….crickets about this on CNN and MSNBC.

    Of course, this contrast confirms what you already knew – that Fox-watchers are being presented with an entire alternate reality than the rest of the entire MSM. But once in awhile when Trump is making a fool out of himself, it’s worth reminding yourself that Fox is only presenting things critical of Trump when it threatens the broad Republican brand enough – and Fox’s presentation is all a vast swath of the country bothers to see.

  13. 13.

    XTPD

    I know at least 70% of the stuff Tara Strong’s been in, which makes be feel both 14 again and with even less of a life than I already do.

    I have to go douche the crap out my socks now.

  20. 20.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    They don’t call them ghost huntin’ cameras for nothin’. Actually the grave and the birthplace were the only parts that would work in IR since they’re outdoors.

  21. 21.

    mai naem mobile

    I wonder if these leaders do conference calls after meeting Dolt 45 and laugh. I can’t even imagine the conversation. ‘What does he have on his head?’ ‘Did you see his daughter the babysitter?’ ‘Do you think he’s all there?’ ‘He told me about how big his election win was.Like I care.’

  23. 23.

    D58826

    So I’m watching Tweety talk about the N. Korean crisis last night. He was comparing the two leaders. One country is headed by an overgrown child with a thin skin. One who is likely to start a nuclear war out of spite. Then Tweety started to talk about the N. Korean leader Kim. (sigh)

  24. 24.

    JPL

    @mai naem mobile: If they returned home, and gave an interview with the papers, what would Donald do? I wish that President Obama would troll him, just to watch Trump’s reaction.

  27. 27.

    OzarkHillbilly

    From Vox:

    We had a shared inbox with a drop-down menu where you would select your individual account and it would pop up with your signature when we were emailing back and forth with clients. I had been having some difficulties with a client. I’d dealt with difficult clients before, but this one was just really frustrating me. He was working in an industry that I knew fairly well and being dismissive of my comments. He would overexplain things to me that I already knew.

    And then I realized: I had been signing all these outgoing emails as Nicole. I realized it was Nicole he was being rude to. For the sake of keeping a client happy, I said, “Hi, my name is Martin. I’m going to take over for Nicole.”

    And there was an instant change in his approach. I didn’t change anything other than my name. Suddenly I was being thanked. I was being thanked for questions. Information was presented freely instead of me having to tease it out of this gentleman.

    I went to Nicole, and I asked her, “Does this happen a lot?” And she said, “Kind of, yeah.”

    And then she had the idea: Let’s switch names on all our client emails from now on, both new and current clients. She would interact with clients as “Martin,” and I would interact with them as “Nicole.”

  28. 28.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kenneth Kohl: To paraphrase someone on Twitter: White men who read “Atlas Shrugged” are going to kill more people than cancer, heart disease and drugs combined.

    Troof!

  31. 31.

    WereBear

    My own personal story about that is when Dish Network first came out, and they gave you a gadget for the VCR. (Yes, long ago, when recording shows meant a big cassette :)

    I would set up an evening lineup, but it wasn’t working right. I figured out the problem was the programming, and I battled my way to the actual programming department, where I told them what I thought the issue was with the coding.

    And they dismissed me, saying this was a big problem, they had all these people working on it, etc.

    Then first husband took the phone, said the exact same thing, and they exploded. OMG! That was it! Genius! We would get a new gadget as soon as they fixed it! This had been stumping them for so long!

    So I just should have pitched my voice to a lower register. And I would have been listened to.

  32. 32.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: You have any neighbors with cats? It would be really nice if Tricky Dick was paid regular visits by all the neighborhood cats from now until the end of time.

  33. 33.

    Yarrow

    @JGabriel: @Hal: At this point I’m convinced that those dumbass comments that show up in local newspapers or YouTube or places like that are Russian bots. The number of botnets the Russian government sponsors for Twitter is massive. Why wouldn’t they also infiltrate YouTube comments and even local papers?

  35. 35.

    Lurking Canadian

    @JGabriel: She misspoke. It’s not government by comment section. It’s government by the trolls who infest comment sections.

    I swear half of Trump’s policies were born as talking points by USENET trolls in the mid 90s.

  36. 36.

    Mnemosyne

    We don’t get on our airport shuttle until 1 pm, so we’re taking one last bite of the Disneyworld apple and spending the morning at Hollywood Studios to hit a last few rides.

  39. 39.

    Ken

    @JPL:

    I wish that President Obama would troll him

    You mean by, say, walking down the street? The hard trick for President Obama is to do something that doesn’t troll Trump.

  42. 42.

    Yarrow

    @OzarkHillbilly: Interesting story. I especially like the dad who realized he needed to be more aware of what his daughter was dealing with because of reading about their experience.

    Summer Brennan, an author who was tweeting a lot against Trump after the election was getting hammered by trolls. She switched her picture with her brother’s and the trolling pretty much stopped. Only change she made.

    On December 1, Brennan uploaded her brother’s photo to her Twitter account (a bit of Twelfth Night, or What You Will) and reduced her first name to “S.C.”—but kept the same handle.

    For 48 hours, the effect on her mentions was astounding.

    “The stream of abuse stopped almost immediately,” says Brennan. “There was probably a 99-percent reduction in trolling.”

    Brennan was open with her followers about what she doing, and didn’t change her Twitter banner (which proudly displays her latest book and identifies her as a female author). Apparently assuming a new profile photo was enough to silence the trolls.

  46. 46.

    Chris

    @D58826:

    So I’m watching Tweety talk about the N. Korean crisis last night. He was comparing the two leaders. One country is headed by an overgrown child with a thin skin. One who is likely to start a nuclear war out of spite. Then Tweety started to talk about the N. Korean leader Kim. (sigh)

    Has there ever been a time when two mutually hostile nuclear powers were run by such belligerent and unstable schmucks?

    The early eighties is the closest I can think of, but even that seems unfair to Reagan and Brezhnev.

  47. 47.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Via TPM, The White House cited a parody article published in the Washington Post as support for President Donald Trump’s proposed budget:

    A few other things we are cutting:

    Chemical Safety Board: Give us CHEMICAL DANGER, which sounds way more metal.
    Corporation for Public Broadcasting: Instead, anyone who turns on the radio will be able to hear audio footage of a Trump son shooting a rare land mammal.
    National Endowment for the Arts: The NEA will be destroyed and replaced with an armored helicopter with a shark painted on it.
    National Endowment for the Humanities: The NEH will be replaced with half a fighter jet and a bunch of drones. This is the only art America needs.
    U.S. Institute of Peace: Wimpy.
    U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness: We will all live outdoors in the new Hard Power America and we will pump steel together and shout “GRRR” and there will be no mental illness because it is only in your mind.
    Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars: This is counterintuitive given Wilson’s track record of racism, which is no longer the handicap that it once was, but you must remember that he also tried to start the League of Nations, which was like the United Nations but more so.

    There is a $2.6 billion line in the budget to pay for the wall until Mexico pays for the wall. I think? Sounds right. The education budget is also cut so I can’t tell if this logic makes sense.
    …..
    All schoolchildren will be taught by an F-35 wearing a Make America Great Again hat. They will also have new school choice options including the choice not to afford any school at all, because at school you are taught things like grammar and pronouns and spelling and history, and these are all potentially inimical to the future we are trying to build. We will also be cutting Meals on Wheels, as well as after-school programs to feed children, because they are not improving performance as we would like. Feed children just to feed them? What are we, SOFT? No. No we are not.

    AMERICA WILL BE STRONGER THAN IT HAS EVER BEEN! Anyone who survives will be a gun covered in the fur of a rare mammal, capable of fighting disease with a single muscular flex. RAW POWER! HARD RAW POWER GRRRRRR HISSS POW!

    It will be great.

    As the author herself notes in a tweet, ” *sigh* no one reads any more”

  48. 48.

    Kay

    Amir‏ @amiraminiMD
    In the German media, one of the most perplexing aspects of Merkel’s visit was: Why on earth was the Chancellor seated next to Ivanka Trump?

    They don’t live here so they don’t know it’s now normal for the President’s family members to be treated as some kind of nobility- and we didn’t even officially change any of our laws! They were installed. No one objected.

  54. 54.

    Kay

    The Trump family members have more power with less transparency and accountability than if they were actual royals in a country that has that system.

    It’s really better to be a shadow royal family as far as raw power balanced with accountability for actions.

    Other wealthy families in other countries could take lessons from what we’ve allowed to happen here, and probably will.

  55. 55.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Yarrow: It is hard for a man to understand how deeply misogyny is ingrained into society and the subtle ways it asserts itself.

  56. 56.

    hovercraft

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    As the author herself notes in a tweet, ” *sigh* no one reads any more”

    As he told Tucker just the other day, he’s looking at, oops, he means reading a book about Andrew Jackson right now, but it’s really hard, he’s just so busy presidenting, he can barely get through half a page.

  58. 58.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Chris: I missed one of ETA’s terror attacks by one day. It was a security nightmare the next day. I kept wanting to scream, “THEY’RE ALL GONE NOW!”

  60. 60.

    Pogonip

    @satby: It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good: my boss has a chronic ailment and usually doesn’t feel up to pestering anybody. He’s a nice person so we still all hope he recovers. (Our bosses have no choice but to pester us about ever-changing Metrics, which exist because Reasons.)

  61. 61.

    Iowa Old Lady

    @Gin & Tonic: I think privilege makes it hard to recognize its own existence. I know I gain enormous advantage by being white, but I doubt if I truly understand the extent of it.

    What does seem conscious is the malice Trump voters express. I don’t see how you could miss that.

  63. 63.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    It’s horrifying how quickly it became “normal”. The President’s son is law is treated as if he’s a Senator or a Cabinet member. A powerful Senator, even. Up there with the three or four you hear about all the time.

    A soft, comfortable coup where none of the people grasping power take any risk or suffer any downside. That’s what makes it stand out to me in perhaps even a historical sense. These revolutionaries are overturning the US government and none of them take the slightest personal risk or sacrifice at all. In fact, the only sacrifices that will be made will be at the low income/low status end of the public.

    That has to be historically unique, right? Radicals who overthrow a system yet sacrifice or risk absolutely nothing? This is a brand new thing we’re seeing.

  64. 64.

    TrabbsBoy

    My latest, undoubtedly vain, hope is that Mar-a-lago costs are going to turn into a big issue. The asshole-in-chief is costing us $3 million every weekend so that he can play golf. He’s gone five times already. Assuming that pace holds that’s getting toward ONE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS over the course of a year. Not to mention the bullshit millions to keep the poor baby offspring from missing his school friends in New York. And then bragging about not taking the $400,000 salary. How can this shit not make people furious whatever their politics? We don’t have a fucking king. We are supposed to have a public servant.

  65. 65.

    JGabriel

    @efgoldman:

    Unless you’re going to pee or shit on it, why bother?

    This is why I want the epitaph on my gravestone to read:

    No pissing, no shitting, no fucking. And no dancing.

    I’ll have the busiest burial plot in the world, as everyone lines up to do exactly all the forbidden things on top of my dessicated corpse.

    I’ll never be forgotten!

  68. 68.

    bystander

    @Chris: If you’d like to get your heart rate up without using a stationery bicycle, try AM Joy right now. She’s interviewing Col. Wilkerson. Hair raising.

  70. 70.

    amk

    @bystander: He was the first repub to speak against the rethugs way back when. Pity all the other rethugs, including bob fucking dole, got neutered. Is he still telling it like it is?

  72. 72.

    Kay

    As chief compliance officer for a corporate owner of for-profit colleges, Robert S. Eitel spent the past 18 months as a top lawyer for a company facing multiple government investigations, including one that ended with a settlement of more than $30 million over deceptive student lending.
    Today, Mr. Eitel — on an unpaid leave of absence — is working as a special assistant to the new secretary of education, Betsy DeVos, whose department is setting out to roll back regulations governing the for-profit college sector.
    The Education Department says Mr. Eitel has conferred several times with its ethics officer to avoid conflicts. But it says he is not precluded from having a voice on general issues and regulations that affect the for-profit college sector.

    Regular people could actually help with this but I feel as if people are squeamish about it because it feels awkward, warning young people or people who have never gone to college that a lot of these places are a brutal rip-off that will essentially ruin their lives, but it’s okay to say it. I can tell you from personal experience this is one area where people really do want advice. They know they don’t know anything about college and why would they? They often don’t even know people who went to college very well. They’re not in high school anymore. There are no guidance counselors. They’re on their own and the downside for making a mistake is so big that you should speak up.

    I get that it’s a little out of bounds to be like “OMFG, stay away!” because we all like to think this is some superbly functioning market-based “system” and you’re worried it will appear patronizing but it’s really the goddamned Wild West so warn away. It’s the equivalent of warning someone they’re about to step off a cliff. At least tell them they can’t discharge the debt. Ever. They aren’t told that.

    Be like an unpopular, nanny-statish hectoring regulator, but one by one :)

    I don’t have any proof of this but we saw fewer and fewer signing up for this as word sort of got out among them so the people who got ripped off are warning others away.

  73. 73.

    Chris

    @Kay:

    I’ve thought a lot over the last few years about the number of times throughout history that you see revolutions (or the attempted overthrow of a system) led, not by the poor and dispossessed, but by the wealthy and privileged, fighting because they think they’re still not getting enough hugs and pampering and should be getting even more.

    But you’re right, even in those cases – i.e. the American Civil War or the Fronde in France – they usually are taking some risks themselves. The only examples I can think of are actual coups, where the generals control all the guns and therefore don’t have much to fear.

  74. 74.

    JMG

    @Kay: The problem with this, for both them and us, is that the grift is dependent on never losing power. Even one house of Congress under control of the opposition would lead to an immediate constitutional crisis as illegal acts are investigated with subpoenas you know Trump will not comply with. And I do not think the next Democratic President will be as forgiving of illegal acts by a predecessor as Obama was.
    So honest elections may have to go.

  75. 75.

    bystander

    @amk: So eloquently that it was frightening. Discussing Tillerson’s ominous and uninformed comments on top of this week’s diplomatic fail with Merkel.

    Now, Joy is on to the Hungarian Nazi and Steve King. Promises to be a great substitute for a step climber.

  76. 76.

    Jeffro

    @cmorenc: so true. And they’re actually getting worse over at Faux, if that’s even possible.

    Btw I may have to start cleaning out my grocery store’s National Enquirer rack…maybe hiding them behind the spaghetti sauce or something. It’s such offensive, fantastical anti-Obama garbage it pisses me off

  77. 77.

    bystander

    AM Joy just now: Jennifer Rubin is no longer a repub because of the rampant anti-Semitism. Called Twitler a “buffoon”.

  78. 78.

    Ridnik Chrome

    @JGabriel: She should have specified: the combined YouTube and Yahoo News comments sections.

    Also, Howard Kurtz should be placed in stocks and pelted with rotten fruits and vegetables. And it should be televised nationally.

  81. 81.

    Kay

    @Chris:

    I was watching Bannon get lauded as some kind of revolutionary and it occurred to me that he’s risking nothing.

    Bannon will be in the same place or a better place, personally and financially, whether his revolution succeeds or not.

    There should be “moral hazard” before the “revolutionary” designation is granted. There should be a possibility you’ll get your head cracked open on the bridge if you want to to claim that status. Sessions isn’t the same fighting against voting rights as the people who fought for voting rights because Jeff Sessions risks nothing. He’s fine either way.

    Labor laws came out of something. They came out of violent clashes and uprisings where people suffered GREAT personal risk. Some of them died. ALL of them suffered financial harm because they weren’t paid when they were striking and they were blacklisted as employees. The “revolution” gutting labor laws is extremely comfortable for the “soldiers”. There’s something off about how this is being portrayed.

  85. 85.

    D58826

    @Chris: Yes I would say unfair to both. Brezhnev was probably getting senile but the Politburo would have acted as a check on his wilder moments. Reagan was more bellicose than his predecessors but still within the mainstream. He also had advisers around him who would check any impulsive behavior and covered for him in his later declining years as president.

    There is no one in the WH to check Der Fuhrer. In fact they all seem to amplify his irresponsibility. As for Kim, he might be unchecked as well but I suspect the N. Korean military has no desire to become part of a mushroom cloud so they might act as a brake (said with more hope than conviction).

  86. 86.

    MomSense

    @Kay:

    Ivanka has been filling the “spokesmodel” role for the trump organization for decades. Her brothers are creepy. Her dad is super creepy. She goes to all the ribbon cuttings, has her photo taken at their construction sites, and is sent to meet with business partners to try and both soften and glam up the partnerships. They are trying to have her fill this role for his administration. The problem is that she doesn’t know shit about anything that is relevant to running a superpower.

    His “business experience” is as a real estate developer / infomercial/home shopping salesman. Go to just about any town in America and you will find a bad story about an over promising real estate developer or an infomercial product that was a dud. They are running the same game now in politics and it is working as well as those of us with three brain cells in our heads predicted.

  87. 87.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Kay: I also don’t like the aggrandizing press that the portly inebriated person gets. Even here on Balloon Juice. Quake in your boots. He is an evil mastermind. Fuck him and his fluffers.

  88. 88.

    Kay

    @Chris:

    I wonder if that’s where the strutting around and big talk and violent language come from on the Right- they know this designation they’ve granted themselves is bullshit and hollow and fake.

    Paul Ryan was reminiscing about his days as a young revolutionary. I don’t know if you’ve been to Miami of Ohio but it’s a very nice place. The place itself, the land, was a grant from the federal government. It’s an odd thing- a university that was really the creation of high-minded elites in the federal government. This is where a young Paul Ryan planned his revolution and he’s been comfortable and secure every day he’s been running it since.

  90. 90.

    Chris

    @Kay:

    Yep. But this comes down to the oft-discussed pathology of privileged people wanting to appropriate the moral virtue that comes from claiming oppressed/revolutionary status, without actually having to work for it.

  91. 91.

    D58826

    @Kay: At this rate we will have the four flagship military academies and Trump U. as the civilian equivalent. Get the graft early and often

  93. 93.

    Kay

    @schrodingers_cat:

    I know we agree on this. My daughter and her husband object to it too. It seems clear to me that Bannon cultivates that image- a glowering “dangerous” person standing behind the President ready to wage war. It also seems clear to me that Bannon plants most of these pieces in the press by giving them access.

  94. 94.

    Aleta

    @TrabbsBoy: I wonder how “Coal miners and single mothers” feel about paying for those trips. (The ones who Republicans claim don’t want PBS, a lie that ignores its programming for children.)

  95. 95.

    Ridnik Chrome

    @Kay: People like Ryan are not revolutionaries. They’re counter-revolutionaries. See also Gingrich, Leroy Newton.

    Also, your “moral hazard” comment was spot on.

  96. 96.

    Chris

    @D58826:

    Yeah, I was thinking of the senility/slipping mental state in both cases. We didn’t know then that Reagan had clinical issues, but we do now, though we can’t be sure when they started to seriously affect his work.

    But yeah, you’re right that people around both would probably have acted as a check on their power.

    That, and – as near as I can tell, neither Trump nor Kim Jong Eun have the excuse of actually being mentally not-all-there, in the clinical sense. They’re just monstrously entitled people, born with a silver spoon in their mouths and raised in extreme privilege, who’ve never been told “no” by anyone in their entire lives, and reached the obvious conclusions.

  97. 97.

    Kay

    @D58826:

    No, they’ll keep the big, selective main campuses of the public universities to retain a patina of “merit” and “bootstrapping”. University of Michigan Ann Arbor isn’t going anywhere. Those university presidents have actual power- clout.

  98. 98.

    Chris

    @Kay:

    Oh, I think there’s definitely overcompensation in mind. Same kind of subconscious protest-too-much that forces dictatorships to call themselves “people’s republics,” “democratic republics,” and “democratic people’s republics.”

  99. 99.

    Thoughtful David

    @bystander:
    Jenghazi Rubin will always be a Republican. She’s decided Trump is a threat to her, but she worked hard for decades to make sure someone like him could get elected. She hate, hate, hates Hillary Clinton, and hate, hate, hates, Obama, and hate, hate, hates any Democrat or liberal policy, and really, really, really hate, hate, hates any Muslim. She worked really hard to tar all of those things and to help put nutcase Republicans in power. Bet she wrote 200 columns on how Hillary Clinton should be hung for Benghazi and emails. She needs to own Trump now.
    Fuck her and the horse she rode in on.

  100. 100.

    Chris

    @bystander:

    Jennifer Rubin is no longer a repub because of the rampant anti-Semitism.

    ::checks Wikipedia for Jennifer Rubin’s religion::

    Yep, sure enough! Yet another conservative who suddenly decided that it stopped being funny when her group was the one in the crosshairs.

    ETA: further reading; God, she worked for PJMedia? The hell with her. Nobody who worked for that cesspool has any business being morally outraged by Trump. You Built This.

  101. 101.

    JMG

    @schrodingers_cat: No, it’s just a possibility. It has been noted that when push comes to shove in an equal fight, Trump tends to back down. He might just decide that if worst comes to worst, he can pardon himself and his clan on the way out the door. It’d be perfectly constitutional.

  102. 102.

    Kay

    @D58826:

    I was reading this incredibly long Redditt discussion of for-profit colleges once- it went on for years, thousands of people weighed in- and there were basically three kinds of people commenting. There were the people who had been ripped off and told their stories, their were the people who knew better and were genuinely helpful and then there was this sneering contingent who were insisting that everyone should know 30k a year for a two year medical assistant degree is too much. Everyone doesn’t know that. If you’re in a family and community where almost no one went to college you DON’T know that. People take this “knowing” they have and attribute it to their own work and smarts and they didn’t do anything to get it. They absorbed it from their family or friends or community. They weren’t born “knowing” these things.

  103. 103.

    OldDave

    @Jeffro:

    … start cleaning out my grocery store’s National Enquirer rack…maybe hiding them behind the spaghetti sauce or something.

    My local store hides them behind an opaque shield, much like the ‘Adult’ magazines at an airport news stand. Probably for the same reason.

  104. 104.

    wuzzat

    @schrodingers_cat: Which of course means that tuition rates will have to increase enough to compensate for that massive revenue loss. Truly, a win for the working class.

  105. 105.

    bystander

    @Thoughtful David: I was just enjoying watching her hold her nose and renounce her own party. I agree about her and her horse.

    There should be a Daily Joy program. The only one who knows her beans, moves the program along, has interesting guests, and brooks no b/s.

  107. 107.

    hovercraft

    @amk:
    Unfortunately for Twitler fans, and the rest of us, it’s only just begun, he’s barely scratched the surface. Since he doesn’t know what a president is and does and he can never be wrong, he’ll keep doubling down. The more the rest of the world rejects him the more his fans will love him for standing up for us, not bowing down before foreigners.

  108. 108.

    hovercraft

    @bystander:
    She’s too liberal for that. Rachel keeps her gig because she’s the number one prime time draw. Chris Hayes was on his way to getting shit-canned but then he won an Emmy and the following year was nominated for another one. O’Donnell I think has pictures of someone. The network is being turned into FOX lite.

  109. 109.

    MomSense

    @Thoughtful David: @bystander:

    Unfortunatley we are going to have to make common cause with these people in the short term in order to make progress countering the 45 administration.

    That doesn’t mean we forget or that we give them a pass when we no longer have common interests.

  110. 110.

    Brachiator

    DT’s cabinet is so diverse. You’ve got blogger Nazis, Hungarian Nazis, fat Nazis, Jewish Nazis, old KKK dudes with progeria

    and

    World leaders’ reactions to meeting with the White House resident#Merkel #RESIST #FightOn #SecretService #DonTheCon

    Coming late to the thread (hey, it’s California), but love the humor. We really need it.

    The world leader reactions reminds me of the Big Lie in conservative media that world leaders did not respect Obama and were yearning for a strong white man American President, leader of the Free World, and Potent Potentate. Instead we’ve got El Douche Small Hands, Orange Shitgibbon of the Ridiculous. Still, the popular, right leaning talk radio shows out here in Los Angeles have been bending over backwards to make Trump look good. And to his supporters, he can do no wrong. He is everything they want in a president.

    ETA: Some co-workers have praised the live action “Beauty and the Beast.” Singled out is Luke Evans, who I previously only knew as the charismatic bad guy in one of the later “Fast and Furious” films. Like Hugh Jackman, Evans actually has a theater background, and can sing like a boss. His Gaston apparently is spot on and exudes such pompous vainglorious macho swagger that he makes Trump look humble and self-effacing by comparison.

  111. 111.

    tobie

    German newspapers are up with headlines about the US, none of them pretty. The main story in the FAZ is Trump’s tweet that Germany owes tons to NATO with the subtitle that the meeting with Merkel evidently didn’t lead to any substantial exchange of opinions, as indicated by the tweet. The Suedeutsche Zeitung says that the US blocked the G-20 from making a statement against protectionism. The FAZ quotes the President of the EU commission asking whether the US is prepared for a trade war with Europe. Merkel tried to make the case yesterday that nations can do things for mutual benefit. For tRump,there are only winners or losers. Looks damn well like we’re losing. Bigly.

  112. 112.

    bemused

    @Kay:

    Founder of a charter school in Michigan, Steve Ingorsoll, recently began serving his fraud and tax evasion 41 month sentence in Federal Prison, Duluth, MN. His ability to defraud Michigan state millions of dollars is laid at the feet of Betsy DeVos and cohorts success in doing away with charter school accountability regulations. Eye doctor Ingorsoll with no education degrees also instituted a bogus learning diagnosis test called Integrated Visual Learning.

  113. 113.

    Another Scott

    @Lurking Canadian: Even when Donnie has a bit of a point, and usually he doesn’t, he has no understanding of why things exist the way they do. E.g. On Twitter this AM he’s saying he had a GREAT meeting with Angela, but then beat up on Germany (yet again) for not paying 2% of GDP into NATO.

    Stars and Stripes from January:

    […]

    Like many other alliance members, Berlin is nervous about Trump’s commitment to the trans-Atlantic relationship. He has directly criticized Germany — which hosts the largest number of U.S. troops in Europe — and accused Chancellor Angela Merkel of making a “catastrophic mistake” by allowing into the country more than 1 million migrants, mainly from the Middle East and Africa.

    “The Germans have not adapted well to the new Trump administration, and they think they can make the same arguments that they have to past U.S. administrations, highlighting other types of contributions,” said Jorge Benitez, a NATO expert with the Atlantic Council in Washington. “I think we are in for some turbulence between the U.S. and Germany.”

    From Dwight D. Eisenhower to Barack Obama, U.S. administrations have long complained about free-riding allies that underinvest in defense. But Trump is the first to suggest a link between allies’ military expenditures and the U.S. commitment to collective defense in Europe.

    […]

    Germany’s defense budget this year will amount to 39 billion euros, some 20 billion less than what NATO guidelines stipulate for achieving the 2 percent target.

    “It will be almost impossible to reach 2 percent,” said Thomas Wiegold, a Berlin-based analyst. “Even if you showered the military with money, they could not absorb it quickly.”

    Analysts say the main limiting factors were Germany’s overly bureaucratic procurement procedures, a general lack of interest among Germans in joining the armed forces and a dwindling pool of young people in an aging society.

    “The procurement process is too complicated,” Wiegold said. “Defense industry people say that where it took a year to finalize a contract (during the Cold War), now you need just a year for the lawyers to go through the contract.”

    An example of such delays is the government plan, after Russia’s actions in Ukraine, to quickly reactivate the 100 Leopard 2 tanks. Despite the urgency of the requirement, the contract for the new tanks still hasn’t been concluded nearly two years later.

    Another issue is recruitment for the armed forces, which became an all-volunteer force after the end of compulsory conscription in 2011. A robust economy and a general historical reluctance to enlist in the military “because of our past,” are serious obstacles, said Wiegold, referring to Germany’s tilt toward pacifism since its crushing defeat in World War II.

    In Germany, the idea of increasing military spending is likely to face resistance among left-wing parties.

    However, among the political mainstream there is general support for investment in defense, said Daniela Schwarzer, an expert on trans-Atlantic relations at the Berlin-based German Council on Foreign Relations.

    “Obviously Germany knows that it has to do more. You can see the trend of budgets slowly increasing,” said Schwarzer, who added Berlin’s larger concern is that Trump could threaten an international rules-based order Germany has come to depend on.

    The lack of defense investment in the past in Germany has degraded capabilities. In 2016, only 29 of a stock of 93 Turbo fighters were operational because of equipment and mechanical problems. Similar problems have plagued attack and transport helicopters and fixed-wing transport aircraft, which has hindered operations in support of the campaign against the Islamic State group.

    “I don’t think Germany understands the problems they are creating, not just for the U.S., but for European security as a whole. By not being responsible (defense partner) they are creating more instability,” Benitez said.

    Indeed, Trump’s son-in-law and key adviser, Jared Kushner, has hinted U.S. and German relations are under review. During a post-election December meeting in New York with German Ambassador Peter Wittig, Kushner became demanding, according to the influential German magazine Der Spiegel .

    The magazine, citing anonymous sources, said the encounter culminated in a question for Wittig.

    “What can you do for us?” Kushner asked.

    No modern defense force can absorb a 50% budget increase quickly and efficiently even if they want to. Angela can’t do more than incremental steps along that road.

    And honestly, there’s nothing magical about 2%, and there’s nothing iron-clad objectively logical about making every NATO country spend the same 2%. Maybe if it’s been a problem since the 1950s, well maybe that number needs to be revisited.

    Throwing money down a rat hole isn’t going to make Germany’s or NATO’s defenses stronger, even if it “meets the commitment”.

    The end of that story shows that Trump’s minions are again sorting this in personal “business deal” terms. What are others going to do so that is Donnie going to win? Other countries don’t have their own interests and constraints, it’s all about Donnie.

    And if he can bully Germany, then he thinks he’s going to be able to easily bully the other 23 NATO countries that aren’t paying 2% of GDP, also too. And he’d like nothing better than setting up grifting opportunities there, also too.

    (sigh)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  114. 114.

    JMG

    Having spent his life taking advantage of others for personal gain, it’s only natural Trump assumes all other persons, institutions and countries operate the same way. Con artists have to be paranoid. It’s a vital line of defense for them.

  115. 115.

    Thoughtful David

    @MomSense:
    Correct, but keep in mind she’s a scorpion, and when the threat is no longer directly to her, she’ll take the opportunity to sting. She has never ever said that she disagrees with anything Trump or the Republicans want to do except for the anti-Semitism and things she thinks might hurt Israel, like the Muslim ban which will rile Muslims against Israel as being a US ally.
    She is only anti-Trump, and that is only because he is a direct threat to her, herself, Jenghazi Rubin.

  116. 116.

    germy

    “I can tell you, speaking for myself, I own nothing in Russia,” President Trump said at a news conference last month. “I have no loans in Russia. I don’t have any deals in Russia.”

    But in the United States, members of the Russian elite have invested in Trump buildings. A Reuters review has found that at least 63 individuals with Russian passports or addresses have bought at least $98.4 million worth of property in seven Trump-branded luxury towers in southern Florida, according to public documents, interviews and corporate records.

    http://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-trump-property/

  119. 119.

    Chris

    @tobie:

    The main story in the FAZ is Trump’s tweet that Germany owes tons to NATO with the subtitle that the meeting with Merkel evidently didn’t lead to any substantial exchange of opinions, as indicated by the tweet.

    This kind of seems to be the problem with everybody who talks to Trump, from foreign leaders to his own cabinet secretaries who’re stuck carrying out his orders. You’ll meet with him, talk with him, come away thinking you have a clear-ish understanding of what’s going on. Then at three in the morning, he tweet-vomits a bunch of crap completely changing everything he just told you. It really is government by five-year-old with matching attention span.

  120. 120.

    Chris

    @Another Scott:

    And, Jesus Christ: NOBODY WANTS GERMANY REARMING. NOBODY. That’s half the freaking point of why NATO exists in the first place. Complaining that NATO is keeping Germany’s defense contributions small is like complaining that pumping the brake makes your car go slower. That is literally what it’s there for.

  121. 121.

    Another Scott

    BBC: US vetos traditional G20 language about resisting protectionism and fighting climate change.

    Finance ministers from world’s biggest economies have dropped an anti-protectionist commitment after opposition from the US.

    G20 ministers left the two-day meeting without renewing their long-standing pledge to bolster free trade.
    Last year, the group of the world’s 20 largest economies vowed to “resist all forms of protectionism”.

    But since then, President Donald Trump has taken office, and is aggressively pursuing an “America First” policy.

    […]

    The comminque, which was published at the end of the meeting in Baden-Baden with the agreement of all attending delegates, also failed to include a vow on climate change.

    Mr Trump has already promised to slash environmental funding.

    […]

    German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble said the meeting had reached an impasse when it came to the issue, and added that his counterparts could not “force partners” – read the United States – “to go along with wording with which they don’t agree”.

    Mr Schauble insisted that there had been “a lot of goodwill” at the meeting, but whether that goodwill extends to the future trade relationship with the world’s largest economy is now very much in doubt.

    Winning Bigly!!11

    :-/

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  122. 122.

    Neldob

    Can we stop calling these jerks ‘conservatives’? They are so not. Right-wing, exteme right-wing, moral monsters, anarchists, there must be a better word! Fury, thy name is me!

  123. 123.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Howard Kurtz needs to be drained, because he is most definitely part of the swamp.

  124. 124.

    raven

    I remember when there was no way the Eer’s played a team like Notre Dame in the second round and John wouldn’t have a thread.

  128. 128.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @raven: YW! When I first joined up, there were still SP5s and SP6s, but they were being phased out and were confined to the medical service types. I even saw some old training film with a SP8 in it!

  129. 129.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @MomSense: Once Donald is gone, the collaborators (particularly those of the Village) need to suffer.

    Hugely. Bigly.

  130. 130.

    Brachiator

    @Another Scott:

    Analysts say the main limiting factors were Germany’s overly bureaucratic procurement procedures, a general lack of interest among Germans in joining the armed forces and a dwindling pool of young people in an aging society.

    Increasingly, the German armed forces will include assimilated immigrants, including Muslims. Trump should love that.

  131. 131.

    raven

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    “In 1968 when the Army added the rank of command sergeant major, the specialist ranks at E-8 and E-9 were abolished”,[3] because they were notional rather than actual. “In 1978 the specialist rank at E-7 was discontinued and in 1985, the specialist ranks at E-5 and E-6 were discontinued.”[3]

  132. 132.

    Another Scott

    @hovercraft: The best ratings was no protection for Phil Donahue.

    Just sayin’.

    Cheers,
    Scott.
    (Who doesn’t watch MSNBC anymore, but who intentionally watches little else than the BBC, The Simpsons, and Futurama reruns these days.)

  135. 135.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @hovercraft: He “loves to read” but he never seems to be able to make any time to do so. The phone is always ringing and distracting him, you know.

    It’s so fucking phony. His fucking supporters, who are every bit as literate as he is, just eat it up though.

    There are so many things that piss me off about Donald, but his casual lying about anything and everything is the worst.

  136. 136.

    gene108

    @Chris:

    Trump tells you what you want to hear or, in other words, whatever he has to say to close a deal and sell you on what he’s pitching. And after the ink is dry on the contract, it doesn’t really matter to him if it was bullshit or not or if he’ll say something totally different to the next mark sucker guy he’s trying to close the sale with.

    Though this might have served him well enough in closing real estate deals, over the last 40-50 years, it night not serve him too well in international diplomacy.

    And at his age, he ain’t gonna change.

  137. 137.

    Another Scott

    @Brachiator: Yup.

    I was surprised in the early ’80s when I saw a story on the TV (60 Minutes, maybe?) about manufacturing in Germany. They showed a Porsche assembly line where some guy was on his back in a 911 pushing up on the roof with his feet to get a sunroof piece to fit properly. Many/most of the assembly line workers were immigrants from Turkey (who would never be able to get citizenship under the existing German laws).

    This “Populist” White Nationalist MAGA Take Our Country Back Kick Out the Rohingya / Algerians / Syrians / Iranians / Muslims / Liberals BS never made any sense anywhere, and it’s utterly ridiculous when examined with even the slightest bit of honesty.

    (sigh)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  138. 138.

    D58826

    @Kay: To your point on ‘everyone knows’. First people who are desperate will grab at any straw if it looks like a way to get ahead.

    Second, I read a bio of an award winning African American cosmologists at Cornell (I think). He only enrolled in college because someone told him about the scholarships that were available. He was the first in his family (poor in S. Carolina) to go to college and no one ‘knew’ about financial aid. They had no idea how to even apply for it, let alone apply to college in the first place.

    There are a lot of things that not every one ‘knows’. I think I’m reasonably well informed but I stumbled on the same thing recently. Since I’m still working I didn’t apply for SS benefits. If you held off till age 70 you get a ‘bonus’ added to your payment. That part I knew about but I thought there was a tax penalty if you worked and drew SS so didn’t apply when I turned 70. Turns out there is no penalty and no good reason not to apply once you turn 70. So I did.

  139. 139.

    Sab

    @Iowa Old Lady: His accountants, because his previous accountants discovered that he changed numbers on tax returns they had signed. So what he filed was not what they had prepared.

  140. 140.

    tobie

    @Chris:

    And, Jesus Christ: NOBODY WANTS GERMANY REARMING. NOBODY. That’s half the freaking point of why NATO exists in the first place.

    Thank you for pointing out the reason for NATO’s existence. I’m stunned that no one in the press even thought of this. We have a press corps with zero expertise in anything but optics, theatrics, gamesmanship, as Howie Kurtz’s tweet so perfectly demonstrates.

  141. 141.

    Chris

    @gene108:

    Yeah, and I mean, that’s one thing when you’re negotiating with another party, and arguably sometimes smart if unethical. It’s another thing entirely when you’re doing the same thing to your own underlings, and when the thing you’re tweeting about isn’t an agreement you signed but an instruction you just gave them to carry out. Then it’s just counterproductive.

    So yeah, I don’t really see a method to it – it’s just him having no impulse control and the memory and attention span of a goldfish. With a possible side order of “show ’em all who’s boss.”

  142. 142.

    D58826

    @Chris: NATO was formed in 1948 to keep America IN, Russia OUT, and Germany DOWN. Still valid.

    And on the other side of the world Japan’s post war constitution was designed to achieve the same end.

    I don’t think the world really wants a nuclear Germany and Japan.

  144. 144.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    @Baud:

    Maybe you’ll capture his ghost if you shoot in infrared.

    He’d have to be shooting in a sewer to do that…

  146. 146.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    @D58826:

    I don’t think the world really wants a nuclear Germany and Japan.

    Perhaps we should schedule a Q&A session for you and Trump about that…

    ETA: Clearly, Trump doesn’t understand the issue in an historical context… but given the crowd he runs w/, maybe he’d like to see a nuclear Germany after all…

  149. 149.

    Another Scott

    @Gin & Tonic: Here’s hoping your arm is fixed up as painlessly as possible quickly. Let us know how it goes, and best wishes!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  150. 150.

    Chris

    @D58826:

    People have progressively forgotten this as they indulge their little victimhood complex and whine piteously about how much money we’re spending. Nobody remembers that we’re not giving money away for free – we’re essentially buying a massive stake in the defense of two of the world’s largest centers of industry. It ties them to us (and not to Russia or China), it makes them less likely to go around starting wars of their own, it makes them spend more money on domestic issues which guarantees lots of wealthy middle class customers for our products. It’s good business. The kind that says spending some money here to avoid much more expensive problems later is a good deal.

    Of course, we’re talking Republicans. People who, as I believe John Cole once reminded us, would rather pay a few thousand dollars in car repairs than pay a few hundred in taxes to fix the potholes. Good business is not what they do.

  152. 152.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    @OldDave:

    much like the ‘Adult’ magazines at an airport news stand.

    Careful… you’re giving ‘Adult’ magazines a bad name…

  155. 155.

    tobie

    @Chris: Preach it. I’m starting to wonder if it’s a peculiarly American phenomenon and at that a peculiarly WWC phenomenon not to understand the idea of mutual benefit or long-term gain. Republicans present everything as a zero-sum game. A win for one person is a loss for another. Mulvaney’s budget argument that he can’t ask a single mother in Detroit to contribute to free school lunches for the working poor is yet another instance of this, though he disingenuousness at that moment oozed out of every pore and was obvious to everyone but Chris Cilliza who praised him for her polished ‘performance.’

  156. 156.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    @D58826: Well, given the business model Trump appears to be following, that trip & meal would undoubtedly be charged to the govt at an 800% mark up… and of course, you’d get to shake his hand which means you would also join that list of people, like Merkel, Abe, & Trudeau, caught by the photographers w/ a strange look on your face right afterwards… but just think of the memories and the stories you’ll have to tell your grandchildren…

  157. 157.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @tobie: Mulvaney’s budget argument that he can’t ask a single mother in Detroit to contribute to free school lunches for the working poor

    but we can and will ask her to pay for defense, or is it Defense, which is apparently bombing the shit out of Yemen

    Patrick Karlsson‏ @ Patrickesque 14h14 hours ago
    Greenwald saying in February 2016 that Trump would be against military intervention
    We have bombed Yemen in 2 months more than all of 2016

    via DougJ’s twitter

  159. 159.

    Jacel

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: The Truman Library helped produce a show in the 1960s about Truman’s career. The former President looked back on key situations in a surprisingly candid way. Watching that series did a lot to inform young me about the government and the world. I’ve long wished it was more visible, but I’m glad to see the episodes are being handled by CSPAN.

  160. 160.

    Another Scott

    There’s that word again…

    Business Insider:

    During the start of the interview, conducted by the right-leaning Independent Journal Review, Tillerson addressed recent media reports that he cut his trip to South Korea short because of “fatigue.”

    “[The South Korean government] never invited us for dinner, then at the last minute they realized that optically it wasn’t playing very well in public for them, so they put out a statement that we didn’t have dinner because I was tired,” Tillerson said.

    “So are you saying they lied about it?” the interviewer asked.

    “No, it was just their explanation,” Tillerson replied. He continued, “The host country decides whether we are going to do things or not. We didn’t decide that.”

    Regarding foreign policy, Tillerson stressed that the US’ main objective is a denuclearized Korean peninsula, but that “circumstances [regarding North Korea] could evolve” to a point where the US may have to consider allowing South Korea and Japan to develop nuclear weapons.

    For the moment, Tillerson said he hopes to de-escalate the conflict with North Korea by imposing strict sanctions on the rogue nation. In addition to imposing sanctions, he voiced the need for stronger cooperation between the US and China to deter North Korea from nuclearization.

    “That has been China’s stated policy for more than two decades — is a denuclearized Korean peninsula. They need to help solve this,” Tillerson said.

    While acknowledging that there are a broad range of issues that define the US-China relationship, Tillerson zeroed in on North Korea because “the threat of North Korea is imminent. And it has reached a level that we are very concerned about the consequences of North Korea being allowed to continue on this progress it’s been making on the development of both weapons and delivery systems.”

    [ image ]

    When asked what the US was willing to offer China in exchange for its cooperation, Tillerson said, “We’re not going to share with you any of what we might be talking about relative to things that are important to China, things that are important to the US.”

    Tillerson said he believes the two powers are at a “historic moment, when pressed about how he would define the US’ relationship with China,

    “I do think because of what is happening globally with people in the world over — globalization itself — that we’re at perhaps at an inflection point in the relationship of global powers in general,” he said. He touched on the fact that there are “issues arising that have gone unresolved,” perhaps in reference to Trump’s claims about China engaging in currency manipulation and unfair trade practices with the US.

    He’s an ignorant buffoon if he doesn’t know what “imminent” means these days.

    He seems to think that demanding total capitulation by an adversary before even starting talks is the way to Win Bigly. He seems to think that imposing sanctions and publicly threatening war is the way to “de-escalate” a situation.

    He insults one of our most important allies in the region (SK), he reduces the USA’s relationship with China to what Donnie is going to get out of it (presumably mostly related to Trump’s trademarks and future investment options), and he thinks big “inflection points” are a good thing in international relations.

    He’s a dangerous incompetent who has no business being anywhere in the US government, let alone SoS.

    He’s going to trash the USA’s reputation around the world, and get us more involved in more pointless wars, unless he starts letting professional diplomats and experienced press spokemen and women at Foggy Bottom do their jobs.

    (sigh)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  161. 161.

    smintheus

    The predictable end to this story of brutality in FL is sickening: a multi-year cover-up after a mentally ill inmate in a private prison was tortured to death.

    A 101-page investigation released Friday concludes that corrections officers who locked a schizophrenic inmate in a hot shower at Dade Correctional Institution and left him there for nearly two hours — until realizing he was dead — committed no crime.

    The report, issued by Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernández Rundle, said the death of 50-year-old prisoner Darren Rainey was an accident, the result of complications from his mental illness, a heart condition and “confinement in a shower.”

    At least six inmates claimed that the shower was specially rigged so that corrections officers controlled the temperature and were able to crank it up to scalding — or down to an uncomfortably frigid spray, thereby using it as punishment to control unruly inmates, most of whom suffered from mental illnesses.

    But the state attorney’s two-year probe decided that the inmates’ statements were not credible.

    The nurse who attended to the corpse said his body temperature was so high that it couldn’t be measured with a thermometer, and his skin was peeling off.

    Other than two prison officers, a nurse and a paramedic, no one was interviewed by police — including multiple inmate witnesses who had reached out to various law enforcement authorities — until two years later, when the Miami Herald began raising questions about the case as part of what would become a three-year probe into corruption in Florida prisons.

    The final report does not address why the case was put on hold, or why, nearly five years later, the autopsy has never been released.

  162. 162.

    Jacel

    @Chris: Ten years ago I saw a French news report about groups that provide support for couples in mixed marriages — one German, one French. Even in the 21st century, bad feelings about the other country would surround them. Damn right that NATO and the EU are valuable for a very long term healing from the past.

  163. 163.

    Brachiator

    @Another Scott:

    This “Populist” White Nationalist MAGA Take Our Country Back Kick Out the Rohingya / Algerians / Syrians / Iranians / Muslims / Liberals BS never made any sense anywhere, and it’s utterly ridiculous when examined with even the slightest bit of honesty.

    But of course, to echo your thoughts here, the problem is that the MAGA bullshit, by definition, lacks even the slightest bit of honesty.These dopes are playing out some fantasy in their heads about racial purity and loss of manliness, or something equally repulsive.

  164. 164.

    smintheus

    @Another Scott: He’s also going to give away the store to the Chinese in order to get their (probably meaningless) promises to cooperate in trying to put NK back on a leash.

  165. 165.

    CaseyL

    @The Pale Scot: That’s one of the best things I’ve seen in a long time. It’s exactly what teaching should and can be, exactly what multiculturalism should be, and I love how the program expanded the kids’ consciousness. Brought tears to my eyes.

  168. 168.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Baud: Tommy Vietor, Obama FP flak, who I gather twitter-jousts with GG, had him on his podcast this week. Everyone says it’s a very interesting talk, but I just can’t bring myself to listen

  170. 170.

    Gvg

    @D58826: that was true when NATO was formed, but you know I think it does need to be looked at again. I do mean looked at when we have a serious President, not a clown, but reflex isn’t the best way to think and time does change things. Germany is not warlike now. Japan I am less sure of as they seem from a far distance and non expert view to have more a split personality. I have the impression they still widely deny that they did things that are historical fact.
    2% is not a big goal and slow procurement processes are not helpful to a countries actual self interests. They have legitimate fears since the Ukrain invassion but haven’t done much to deal with it. Even if the US was still governed by someone competant that is not smart. The whole of Europe has been free riding on our defense spending for decades. If we can ever reduce our over militarization and it’s bad effects on our countries character we need everyone else to do a little more. Persuasion cannot be threats which is all Trump knows though so no sense in bring it up right now and giving Trump diversionary cover. One thing I have noticed is that a reason no military or disaster relief efforts go forward without us is apparently the rest of the world just doesn’t keep many helicopters. I know they are hard to maintain and dangerous but it still seems odd.

  171. 171.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Another Scott: Every year around this time, North Korea blusters and makes noises, because there’s a big US/ROK joint military operation called Team Spirit that takes place every March. This has been going on for decades now. Seeing as he’s totally new to the world of international politics that has something to do with other than lining his pockets and the pockets of his cronies, Tillerson is making amateur mistakes that anyone who has ever been stationed in Korea knows better than to make.

  172. 172.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Gvg: All that “free riding” by NATO has prevented wars.

    Donald only knows how to look at a spreadsheet. Things not on the spreadsheet elude him. Peace is one of those things.

  173. 173.

    germy

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Every year around this time, North Korea blusters and makes noises, because there’s a big US/ROK joint military operation called Team Spirit that takes place every March. This has been going on for decades now.

    Isn’t there someone on the payroll who can tell him that?

    Why are they trying to reinvent the wheel?

  175. 175.

    Iowa Old Lady

    Our Secretary of State apparently thinks the press are a version of his corporate PR dept. News flash: they work for us (or should), not you, Rex. You may not need them but we do.

    I’m not a big media press access person. I personally don’t need it. I understand it’s important to get the message of what we’re doing out, but I also think there’s only a purpose in getting the message out when there’s something to be done. And so we have a lot of work to do, and when we’re ready to talk about what we’re trying to do, I will be available to talk to people. But doing daily availability, I don’t have this appetite or hunger to be that, have a lot of things, have a lot of quotes in the paper or be more visible with the media.

  176. 176.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Baud: and I’ve never gotten into podcasts

    They can be as much of a time-sucks as blogs!

  178. 178.

    philadelphialawyer

    @Another Scott:
    The two percent thing is way overblown anyway.

    First of all, there are accounting differences to consider. Not every NATO nation bills its “defense” budget the same way. What the US “counts” towards that budget, other nations don’t.

    Beyond that, the two percent target is not a legally binding commitment, unlike Article Five (collective defense) of the North Atlantic Treaty. The two percent thing is rather more a goal, or, as they say in the movies, a “guideline.”

    And, even at that, this is what was “agreed to” with regard to it:

    “Allies currently meeting the NATO guideline to spend a minimum of 2% of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on defense will aim to continue to do so…

    “Allies whose current proportion of GDP spent on defence is below this level will:
    halt any decline in defence expenditure;
    aim to increase defence expenditure in real terms as GDP grows;
    aim to move towards the 2% guideline within a decade with a view to meeting their NATO Capability Targets and filling NATO’s capability shortfalls.”

    And that was in 2014. Which means any NATO country operating at below the two per cent level need only “aim to move towards” that level “with a view to meeting” it in 2024, to be in compliance with the what is already merely a non binding goal.

    In other words, and not surprisingly, the whole thing is a horseshit nothing burger.

    Beyond the strictly legal issues, there is also the fact that the USA purports, by treaty, to guarantee the security of the entire New World, New Zealand, Australia, South Korea, and Japan, which no other NATO members do. And the USA also claims a thousand other security “responsibilities” which the other NATO members don’t. So, of course the USA has a much bigger “defense” budget than its NATO allies. The NATO allies are, for the most part, only concerned with Europe. This is particularly true of Germany, which has no overseas commitments, and has not had any since the Versailles Treaty. But it is pretty much also true of all NATO members besides the USA, the UK and France.

    Afghanistan was as far-flung a NATO adventure as can be imagined, and most of the NATO countries contributed their share to it, even though it was a huge stretch to call it an act of “defense” for the USA. Hills, I believe, actually mentioned this during the campaign. Of course, emailghazi and goldmandebbiewassermansachs were much important.

  179. 179.

    debbie

    Too much is going on to keep up, so help me: Jared went off to the Middle East to create peace a few weeks ago, but I never heard anything about results. Did I miss anything?

  180. 180.

    Thoughtful David

    @smintheus:
    I have said since November 9th that the big winners of the election were the Chinese. Because of the way the rest of the world views Trump, China now has a starting advantage on everything that has to do with Asia. We start from down in a deep hole, and to get to parity we have to give up stuff important to us or pay and pay. Canceling the TPP added to it*. Any agreement we make with the Chinese will be less advantageous to us–even if we can get an agreement–than it would have been without Trump.
    We also did the same thing for all of the markets in Africa, and partially the same thing to markets in South America. We now start at a disadvantage on all of those things.

    *I’m not a fan of the TPP document as it was written–or as it was purportedly written–but at least we were involved. With us out of it, now the Chinese have the upper hand in all of those trade issues and the US has no say.

  183. 183.

    Gindy51

    @Another Scott: We as a country are never going to be trusted again by anyone. If we can elect this kind of disaster once it can and will happen again so why should anyone bother with trusting us? If I were Merkel I would seriously think about re-arming Germany NOW. Same thing with Japan. Neither country can trust that we will do the right thing anymore.

  184. 184.

    hovercraft

    @Iowa Old Lady:

    Our Secretary of State apparently thinks the press are a version of his corporate PR dept.

    Not just the SoS, the entire cabinet and their boss, scratch that the entire GOP, that’s what the “liberal media bias” bullshit has always been about. The media asks them tough questions about their bullshit “agenda” and points out that the numbers don’t add up, so they are biased against them. They are precious snowflakes who can’t take criticism so they lash out. Twitler is the ultimate entitled “rich” asshole, he wants the media to be his PR department just reporting what he says on his terms. Fuck them all.

  187. 187.

    D58826

    @philadelphialawyer:

    The two percent thing is way overblown anyway

    If the US gets to use bases on German territory, does the value of that lease count toward the 2% or do we pay for the use of the base?

  188. 188.

    debbie

    @philadelphialawyer:

    I’m no expert, but I’d bet in percentage of population, other countries’ contributions outweigh ours when it comes to wars or disasters. Also, I listened to an discussion on NPR about Trump’s whining about foreign aid inequities, and it was reported that America was 22nd in the world in terms of foreign aid as a percentage of the economy. So Trump sucks at math too. Or he just willfully lies.

  190. 190.

    philadelphialawyer

    @D58826: My understanding is that Germany pays the private land owners for the lease of the land the US bases are on. Also, the whole relationship is complicated, in terms of which government pays for what, what is reimbursed, how things are split up, and so forth. What portion of what is “counted” towards Germany’s two percent goal is beyond my pay grade!

  191. 191.

    philadelphialawyer

    @debbie: Yeah, “defense budgets” are not the be all and end all. Again, particularly when comparing the USA to its NATO allies, who spend more on humanitarian aid (as a portion of GDP) than the USA does, and who don’t have the global pretensions that the USA does.

  192. 192.

    Villago Delenda Est

    The US has deployment/logistic capabilities that no other country in the world can match. That alone increases our share of the “burden” of maintaining the peace that draft dodging scum like Donald benefit from in countless ways…and repeatedly refuse to help pay for. Every time a .01% bitches about taxes, what they’re actually complaining about is that they have to pay for things, tangible and intangible, that make their wealth possible in the first place. “It takes money to make money” apparently is no longer true when you get to be a Mercer or a Koch…or even a relatively penny-ante player like a Trump.

  193. 193.

    Chris

    @Jacel:

    The thing is, that’s a best case scenario too. As much bad blood as there is with Germany, the whole reconciliation thing is much better there than the equivalent situation in, say Asia with Japan.

  194. 194.

    The Pale Scot

    @CaseyL:

    Brought tears to my eyes.

    Me too, I watch it a couple of times a month.

    There’s a great film “Step Into Liquid” about surfing. The film work is beautiful. It has a chapter covering a surfing “camp” that brings Cath and Prod children together on an Irish beach learning surfing from Cali based Pro surfers the Malloy brothers. Just looks of glee and joy. I have it on Dvd but can’t find it to rip to tube.

    It’s definitely worth paying to watch if you can put it on a good screen

  195. 195.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Chris: The Japanese are still tone deaf about a great many things, and have been significantly less than forthcoming about the various war crimes committed by their forces all over east Asia from 1931 to 1945.

  196. 196.

    stinger

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    It is hard for a man to understand how deeply misogyny is ingrained into society and the subtle ways it asserts itself.

    It can be hard for women to understand that, as well, without some sort of education in feminism. Otherwise it can seem like just how things are.

  197. 197.

    Chris

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Absolutely, but to be fair, they’re far more the norm than the Germans are. Germany’s the only country I can think of off the top of my head where people can actually face up to the crimes in their country’s past like friggin’ grown-ups. To a great extent that’s because a gun was held to their country’s head until that happened, but it doesn’t make it less true.

  198. 198.

    smintheus

    @Thoughtful David: The Chinese are trying to recast the TPP to put themselves at the center and exclude the US from the zone as much as possible. That is a disaster for the US.

  201. 201.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    @Thoughtful David:

    With us out of it, now the Chinese have the upper hand in all of those trade issues and the US has no say.

    But… but… FREEDOM!

    (***face palm***)

  202. 202.

    Seth Owen

    @Another Scott: Not to mention the historical irony of Germans reluctant to spend much on the military and earn more reluctant to be IN the military. The 19th and 20th centuries really are History now.

  203. 203.

    J R in WV

    @Chris:

    Back in 2013 we visited northern Spain and southern France, and stayed in Bilbao for several nights. I noticed with interest that there was a Beretta arms shop not far from the 4 star hotel, very near the Getty Art Museum.

    So guns are allowed in Spain, and sold from name-brand stores on the most popular commercial locations in the city. In the heart of Basque country. We didn’t have tome to stop by, but thought it was quite interesting to see in “unarmed” Europe. One more thing the NRA is wrong about!

  204. 204.

    JosieJ (not Josie)

    @germy:

    germy says:

    Isn’t there someone on the payroll who can tell him that?

    No. This is the end result of the Trump mAdministration’s foot-dragging on filling Deputy and Undersecretary-level jobs in the DoS (and elsewhere). There’s nobody left with the requisite expertise and, more importantly, the access to the SoS to fill him in on the particulars. There are a whole bunch of civil service staffers with the expertise, but they don’t have the access, so their advice goes unheard.

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