Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

the 10% who apparently lack object permanence

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

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

They don’t have outfits that big. nor codpieces that small.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Giving in to doom is how we fail to fight for ourselves & one another.

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

The arc of the moral universe does not bend itself. it is up to us to bend it.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

We will not go back.

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

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

Tide comes in. Tide goes out. You can’t explain that.

You are here: Home / Elections / Election 2016 / Blowed Up (Open Thread)

Blowed Up (Open Thread)

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There are a million reasons to rejoice at Doug Jones’ victory over the lawless, bigoted, kid-diddling theocrat Roy Moore. But I have to admit one of my favorites is this: It’s another example of how thoroughly the literal walking Confederate monument Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III has exploded in Trump’s ugly face.

Sessions is one of the most abject toadies who ever licked a would-be authoritarian’s boots. Recognizing a fellow bigot, Sessions jumped on the Trump train early, giving establishment imprimatur to a racist, sexist, xenophobic demagogue when most elected Republicans still believed Trump would blight their 2016 prospects.

Then Trump won, and Sessions was rewarded with a plum post. All Sessions ever wanted to do was advance the worst aspects of Trump’s bigoted agenda. He’s doing that. But despite his devotion, Sessions has proved a personal liability for Trump at almost every turn, and in the process, he’s earned his boss’s utter contempt.

Trump blames Sessions for the Russia probe. He publicly humiliated him over it. And I’m sure Trump blames Sessions for losing the Alabama senate seat too because nothing is ever Trump’s fault.

Trump is a three-time loser in Alabama — first picking Sessions, then backing Strange and then endorsing Moore. Sessions is taking a wrecking ball to civil rights, so it’s cold comfort. But he’s been a fucking disaster for Trump, despite his best intentions, and I bet Trump reminds him of that at every opportunity.

Reader Interactions

145Comments

  2. 2.

    Roger Moore

    I predict that we’re going to see a huge wave of departures from the Trump Maladministration as it rolls past the 1 year mark. There are a bunch of people who desperately want to get out but need to stay for a full year for tax or similar reasons. Here’s hoping Doug Jones will help to make it much harder to confirm their replacements than it was to get them confirmed.

  3. 3.

    Humdog

    I remember reading that Bannon originally wanted Sessions to be his guy for prez. Can you imagine!?! I mean, he’d get the bigot vote but he is so dorky and Keeblery, I just don’t see him inspiring to our Confed-Nazis. Tiki torches and Keebler Krackers!

  5. 5.

    schrodingers_cat

    The attack on immigrants continues, did you guys see the op-ed put out by the USCIS head calling an end to family based immigration and also the diversity lottery.
    That means the current administration does not want naturalized citizens to be able to sponsor parents or siblings for a green card. Out of curiosity, how many BJers have family sponsored immigration in their family tree?
    IIRC wasn’t T’s grandfather a beneficiary of what these peeps call chain immigration.

  6. 6.

    Brachiator

    @Betty Cracker

    But he’s been a fucking disaster for Trump, despite his best intentions, and I bet Trump reminds him of that at every opportunity.

    Very true. Part of Trump’s psychological profile has to be the need to belittle and humiliate people, especially those who he encourages to curry favor.

    You’ve seen this consistently from the very beginning. Romney, Christie, Mayor Rudy G. Spicer. Tillerson. Trump loves to make people grovel. And still it is arbitrary whether or not it will save them.

  7. 7.

    Roger Moore

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Out of curiosity, how many BJers have family sponsored immigration in their family tree?

    That was how my grandfather got here. It’s hard to imagine another way he would have been allowed to immigrate during WWII, given his previous citizenship was German. Technically he was stateless at the time, having been stripped of his German citizenship by the Nuremberg Laws, but that didn’t help at that time. Having an American spouse did.

  8. 8.

    jimmiraybob

    On the bright side I understand that malls and high schools in the DC area have stepped down from DEFCON 2 and will maintain at DEFCON 4 (slightly elevated from normal) for a while until they assess Roy’s chances of getting a cabinet position.

  9. 9.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    Daily Trix‏ @DailyTrix

    My thoughts on Bernie trying to attribute Jones’ win to his “revolution”: STFU.

    11:55 AM – 13 Dec 2017

    4 replies 6 retweets 28 likes

    It pains me to say my longtime friend Trix is wrong. We all owe Bernie a BIG thank you for staying outta the race and not planting his bumbling kiss of death on Doug Jones.

  12. 12.

    Capri

    I might have imagined this, but I swear I remember one of the Rachel Maddow segment that walked through the money trails that connect Trump to Russian mobsters in which she noted that Sessions was on the board of trustees of the dirty Cyprus bank they use to launder money.

    Which explains why Bannon wanted him and why he is in the Trump administration. He checks every box for them.

  14. 14.

    geg6

    SO this just happened…I was in my office when I heard what sounded like gunshots, not a sound you expect on my little campus. I looked out my office window and saw two bodies laying in the parking lot and saw campus cops running toward them. I dove under my desk. Turns out that one of our chefs (and a friend) had just finalized a nasty divorce and he came to campus with a gun and shot and killed her and himself. I haven’t quit crying.

  16. 16.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @jimmiraybob: If Trump offers Moore a cabinet position that will say a lot how desperate Trump is getting. Trump don’t like losers. Moore lost so that would mean no one is else is willing to take the job.

  17. 17.

    Brachiator

    @schrodingers_cat:

    The attack on immigrants continues, did you guys see the op-ed put out by the USCIS head calling an end to family based immigration and also the diversity lottery.

    That means the current administration does not want naturalized citizens to be able to sponsor parents or siblings for a green card. Out of curiosity, how many BJers have family sponsored immigration in their family tree?

    The truly sad thing is that Trump also uses this to play immigrants against each other.

    A co-worker and her husband are going through the process of getting approval to become legal residents. And even though my co-worker despises Trump, she believes that sponsored family members take slots that might be used for others to become legal residents.

    I keep reminding her that a lot of this stuff is arbitrary. We’re not running out of room. Many thousands more could easily be accommodated. But Trump and his people use every opportunity to argue for the deliberate exclusion on nonwhite people, on the grounds either that they are dangerous, or simply undesirable.

    ETA: I think that even Trump’s immigrant ancestor got here in part because of a family connection. So he is doubly a hypocrite.

  22. 22.

    Jerzy Russian

    @geg6: That is awful. Condolences to all involved. Sadly that won’t make the news here since that sort of thing happens every day.

  24. 24.

    SFAW

    @Roger Moore:

    I predict that we’re going to see a huge wave of departures from the Trump Maladministration

    What I’d like to see is a wave of departures from being allowed to walk freely, and instead sent to prison.

    @David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:

    My thoughts on Bernie trying to attribute Jones’ win to his “revolution”:

    Did he really? Asshole.
    Well, actually, he might be right: if it weren’t for his “revolution” being as “successful” as it was, we might never have had Shitgibbon in the White House, and Moore might have remained the shitstain he is, and Sessions would still be infesting Alabama, instead of the DoJ.

  25. 25.

    Cacti

    @David Merry Christmas Koch:

    It pains me to say my longtime friend Trix is wrong. We all owe Bernie a BIG thank you for staying outta the race and not planting his bumbling kiss of death on Doug Jones.

    Hear, hear!

    Everyone endorsed by Bernie loses their election. Thank you Bernie for not depressing the black voter turnout with any of your paeans to “ordinary Americans” (wink, wink).

  28. 28.

    ruemara

    @geg6: OMG. I am so very sorry. For her, you and everyone at campus. Men, domestic violence and guns. They seem to come together. Please take care of yourself, geg.

  33. 33.

    Brachiator

    Fuck. The GOP has come to agreement on a tax plan.

    From the LA Times

    GOP leaders on Wednesday agreed on a final tax cut plan that would lower the corporate rate to 21% and drop the top individual rate to 37%, according to a Republican source briefed on the deal.

    Earlier House and Senate versions of the measure would have lowered the corporate rate to 20%, but in reconciling the two plans, leaders needed to nudge up the corporate rate in order to pay for benefits elsewhere. The one percentage point increase would provide an extra $100 billion over 10 years.

    Among those benefits will be a drop in the rate paid by the richest Americans, a risky move since President Trump and GOP leaders have tried to portray their sweeping plan as aimed at the middle class.

    The original House plan retained the current 39.6% top rate while the Senate version lowered it to 38.5%.

    Among other compromises, the final bill will allow mortgage interest deductions on loans up to $750,000, and deductions for state and local income or property taxes up to $10,000. Both provisions would have a significant impact in high-tax states such as California, New York and New Jersey.

    It will also include the Senate provision that will repeal the Obamacare requirement that Americans buy health insurance.

    Bastards.

  34. 34.

    Jack the Second

    @schrodingers_cat: My father’s side of the family moved here into a neighborhood of people from not just their same country/language group but from the exact same town, where they proceeded to spend the next several generations not learning English and only interacting with their fellow immigrants.

    But they were German farmers in the 19th century, so it was cool. Such a thing would positively destroy America if it were allowed to happen today.

  35. 35.

    JustRuss

    The fact that Trump and Sessions can’t stand each other yet are forced, by their own choices, to deal with each other continuously is about the only thing about this train wreck of an administration that makes me happy.

  37. 37.

    debbie

    @geg6:

    Just horrible, and I’m so sorry for your friend. The murder/suicide scenario happens more and more often now, unfortunately.

  41. 41.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Brachiator

    A co-worker and her husband are going through the process of getting approval to become legal residents. And even though my co-worker despises Trump, she believes that sponsored family members take slots that might be used for others to become legal residents.

    That is a fallacy I have seen among many who have to wait for years for GC #s to become available (longest backlogs are for those from India, China, Mexico and Philippines IIRC) labor under. The regime proposed Cotton would get rid of the family categories and throw out the applications of all employment based categories that have an initial approval and are waiting for the GC #s to become available.

  45. 45.

    Gravenstone

    @geg6: Fuck. I am so sorry that you had to experience that. If your campus makes counseling available in the aftermath of this tragedy, by all means take advantage of it.

  47. 47.

    marcopolo

    How To Thank Black Women for Keeping Roy Moore Out of Office

    Late on Tuesday night, America was once again reminded of the power of Black women. Thanks in large part to overwhelmingly high turnout among Black voters and Black women in particular, Alabama managed to elect a pro-choice Democrat in the Bible Belt, tighten up the U.S. Senate’s progressive alliance, and keep an accused child molester out of the government. Exit polls show that 98 percent of Black women (and 93 percent of Black men) who cast ballots voted for Jones, while 63 percent of white women voted for Moore.

    Black women are not new to this, we are true to this; 94 percent of us voted against another accused sexual harasser, Donald Trump, while white women ushered him into power. Black women have been the Democrats’ most reliable voting bloc for decades.

    On Wednesday morning, the media erupted with calls of “Thank you!” to Black women for showing up. But as Kamala Harris said, we need to do more than congratulate them. “Let’s address issues that disproportionately affect Black women—like pay disparity, housing & under-representation in elected office,” she tweeted. ‘Tis the season, after all, and supporting black women should be at the top of your list. There are many organizations and causes that could use our support. Give because our power has been proven time and again — despite movements silencing us, funders forgetting us, and voter suppression restricting us. Give because Black women show up to save the country time and again. Here are a few ways you can help.

    Use the link above or this.

  48. 48.

    NotMax

    Open thread?

    Bizarre.

    A British surgeon has admitted assaulting two patients by burning his initials into their livers during transplant operations.

    Simon Bramhall pleaded guilty on Wednesday […] to two counts of assault, in a case a prosecutor called “without legal precedent in criminal law.” Source

  49. 49.

    MomSense

    @geg6:

    I’m so sorry. You’ve been through a trauma. Even if you think you are ok and just need some time, counselors who specialize in trauma can help in ways you may not even know you need. Can you call someone? Does the university have counselors available?

    Please take care of yourself.

  52. 52.

    kindness

    It’s off track but I’ve had Neil Young’s ‘Alabama’ going through my head all day. Mind you, Alabama isn’t nearly so anti-southern as Southern Man. Still, it get’s folks dander up. But it’s been wormed into my brain and I’m going to have to YouTube it shortly. Honestly when I’ve gotten tired of that ear-worm I’ve tried to break it off by going with Lynryd Skynrd’s ‘Sweet Home Alabama’. Which works till it’s over…..

  53. 53.

    Betty Cracker

    @geg6: I’m sure your thoughts are with your friend who was senselessly murdered today — that’s as it should be. But bear in mind that witnessing something so horrific, and the fear you experienced before you realized what was happening, can affect you in unexpected ways. I speak from experience.

    Don’t try to be tough. If you need help, get it. If you need to talk to someone, I’m here.

  54. 54.

    Sloane Ranger

    @geg6: I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to say. The emotional stress of divorce and guns, not a happy combination.

    Don’t be afraid to seek counselling if you feel you need it.

  57. 57.

    Major Major Major Major

    Via Clickhole, I Hope You DISGUSTING DEMS Are Happy, Because Now A KNOWN SEX PERVERT Has A BUNCH MORE Free Time On His Hands

    Well, I hope you’re enjoying your vegan victory parties, because by electing Jones, you’ve given known sex pervert Roy Moore a bunch of free time on his hands.

    Bravo, libtards. You have essentially given a well-documented pedophile free rein to prey on America’s youth.

    Seriously, what in the goddamn hell were you democrat dipshits thinking?!?

  58. 58.

    debbie

    From what I’m seeing on FB (ie, Grassley asking Trump to reconsider his controversial judicial picks), the GOP is finally running scared. Good, I hope it eats out their stomachs.

  59. 59.

    MomSense

    Has anyone seen Keith P since Hurricane Harvey? I know his house flooded in 2015 or 16 and he has health problems and fur/feathered babies he didn’t want to leave. I haven’t seen him here since the Hurricane and I’m worried.

    Any way a FPer could try and contact him?

    Keith G has checked in and I think is on the mend since his cancer diagnosis. I think it is only Keith P we haven’t heard from since the hurricanes.

  61. 61.

    NotMax

    @Brachiator

    Full details of what’s in the bill are not out yet, but reports do state that it also includes a provision opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling.

    So more and more what is called a Christmas tree bill – what else has been stuffed into this piece of sh*t we won’t fully know until the weekend (if even then). Expect an avalanche of horribleness.

  62. 62.

    Mezz

    Sessions is taking a wrecking ball to civil rights, so it’s cold comfort. But he’s been a fucking disaster for Trump, despite his best intentions, and I bet Trump reminds him of that at every opportunity.

    Or,
    Mrs. Lincoln: So I’d say the play is rather morose, hard to follow and tangential, but the musical numbers and harmonies are first rate! And, oh, Poor Mr. Lincoln.

    Cold comfort indeed. And now the tax bill. Let us eat this sh*t sandwich.

  66. 66.

    spudgun

    @geg6: Oh my…geg6, that is terrible, I can’t even imagine how awful this is for you! Hope you can leave work early.

    And that poor woman…

  67. 67.

    Ruviana

    @geg6: I saw this on the news and actually came here to make sure YOU were okay! I’m sorry that it impacted you anyway and that you have to lose friends in such an awful way.

  73. 73.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @trollhattan: This.

    Bad enough, geg6, that a shooting happened outside your window…but one that involved people you knew…horrendous. [[[hugs]]]

  75. 75.

    Just one more canuck

    @Chyron HR: i just read some of HA Goodmans twitter feed. I felt a great disturbance in the Force as millions of my brain cells cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced

  77. 77.

    WaterGirl

    @NotMax: Wowser. Hope they took his license away, pronto! How does one even find out that has happened? Did their transplants go okay? Hopefully no one died. Just when you think people can’t get any more fucked up, someone steps up.

  78. 78.

    marcopolo

    @MomSense: Murkowski asked McConnell to include it in the budget resolution in order to get her vote. What passes in the budget resolution becomes the template for what can go in the tax plan. The budget resolution passed with it, ergo, it is okay to include it in the tax bill.

    WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate passed a budget resolution Thursday that could provide Alaska’s congressional delegation its best shot in four decades to open part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling.

    The Senate voted 51-49 to pass the budget resolution, along party lines. Republicans defeated a Democratic amendment to strip the ANWR-allowing provision from the budget resolution, by a vote of 52-48.

  79. 79.

    Heidi Mom

    @geg6: So sorry this happened, and that it involved someone you know. I didn’t know that you were at Penn State-Beaver (I checked the B.C. Times — lived on the main street in Beaver, across from the cemetery, from 8/87 to 10/95).

  81. 81.

    Major Major Major Major

    @marcopolo:

    What passes in the budget resolution becomes the template for what can go in the tax plan.

    It’s supposed to, but it’s not in the rules anywhere. The only germane rule here is the Byrd Rule and I don’t see how this passes. The parliamentarian will have to weigh in.

    @Gravenstone: it’s the onion’s parody of the rest of the internet.

  82. 82.

    WaterGirl

    @geg6: So horrible. You are safe but it can take awhile for that knowledge to catch up in your body. Cry as long and as much as you need to, that’s one way for the body to handle all that adrenalin.

  84. 84.

    different-church-lady

    Sessions has proved a personal liability for Trump at almost every turn, and in the process, he’s earned his boss’s utter contempt.

    Now let’s be fair here: he would have gotten Trump’s contempt even if he hadn’t been a liability.

  87. 87.

    Big R

    I haven’t done the research to see if someone else suggested this, but could we set up a BJ ActBlue account that gives to every Democratic WOC running for office? Or some subset (federal office, governor, etc.)?

    Trying to put my money where my mouth is and donate to Democratic WOC after they saved my state last night. And certainly I’ll be donating to Terri Sewell specifically (my congresswoman woot woot!). But there’s too many great WOC running for me to be able to decide between them.

  88. 88.

    Brachiator

    @NotMax:

    Full details of what’s in the bill are not out yet, but reports do state that it also includes a provision opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling.

    This was slipped in earlier, but retained, which is just as bad.

    There is one last chance to try to sway some Republicans. The leadership seems hell bent on giving Trump a “victory.” To hell with the people.

  91. 91.

    MoxieM

    @Roger Moore: Yah, similar, but just prior to the First WW. My grandfather was American (born in New Jersey…does that make you American? Har har.), but grew up in Germany for non-German reasons (see: education). He married my German grandmother in 1910. They came to the USA, he had a fellowship. They planned to go back but WWI ended those plans, then Weimar, then the world going up in flames. So I guess technically my grandmother chain migrated? She naturalized as an American when they married. My other grandmother emigrated from the Canadian maritimes, where even more than a century ago there was not much work. In today’s terms she was one of those bad job-stealing immigrants (although “legal”). Plus also whitey-white, as an Anglo-Canadian, also High Church. As one of my aunts said, they didn’t even eat broccoli at home, it was too “foreign”. I hate to say it, but the Tangerine Temper Tantrum probably would have liked the family cuisine. Jello with sugar sprinkled on, anyone? With tea. And oatmeal.

  93. 93.

    Cermet

    @geg6: So very, very sorry. That is brutal – such actions have terrible consequences for all. The murder of an innocent is the worse, of course. Try to talk about it to fiends and especially family as best you can and not hold in the pain and shock.

  94. 94.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @SiubhanDuinne: Agree with that, McConnell hates Moore with a passion, but then if no one else takes it and it’s something that has to be filled like SoS…

  95. 95.

    Roger Moore

    @Brachiator:

    The leadership seems hell bent on giving Trump a “victory.”

    This is less about Trump and more about their ultra-wealthy sugar daddies. The ultra-rich want their tax cuts, and they’re threatening to withhold campaign funds if they don’t get them. Failure here could be devastating to the Republicans.

  96. 96.

    NotMax

    @MoxieM

    Broccoli was foreign to nearly all in the U.S. until less than a hundred years ago.

    Commercial cultivation of broccoli in the United States can be traced to the D’Arrigo brothers, Stephano and Andrea, immigrants from Messina, Italy, whose company made some tentative plantings in San Jose, California in 1922. A few crates were initially shipped to Boston where there was a thriving Italian immigrant culture in the North End. The broccoli business boomed, with the D’Arrigo’s brand name “Andy Boy” named after Stephano’s two-year-old son, Andrew, and backed with advertisements on the radio. Source

  101. 101.

    Yarrow

    @geg6: Very sorry to hear this. How awful for everyone. Please take care of yourself and if they offer grief counseling take advantage of it.

  103. 103.

    Brachiator

    @Roger Moore:

    This is less about Trump and more about their ultra-wealthy sugar daddies. The ultra-rich want their tax cuts, and they’re threatening to withhold campaign funds if they don’t get them. Failure here could be devastating to the Republicans.

    Well, yeah. There’s that, too.

    But passing the bill ASAP is as much about Trump as it is the plutocrats. They want to gain cover for some last minute BS before they adjourn for Christmas.

    Here, giving Trump something to brag about over the holidays is a special present to an often troublesome little child.

  104. 104.

    geg6

    @Heidi Mom:

    Yes, I’m the financial aid officer there. Horrible. Maybe we can meet up some day. I live in Center.

    @Ruviana:

    Thanks, this is traumatic for the whole campus. We’re small and close knit.

    Thanks for the kind thoughts, everyone. BJ is the best.

  114. 114.

    Anotherlurker

    @geg6: Geg, take it from the survivor of a “natural” disaster, The full extent of a severe emotional shock takes time to manifest itself, months or years, even.
    Therapy won’t prevent PTSD, but it will educate you in how to deal with it. Please, take advantage of the talents of some of the most caring people you will ever meet. Therapists and Social Workers. We need more of them and fewer MBAs.

  115. 115.

    Mnemosyne

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Out of curiosity, how many BJers have family sponsored immigration in their family tree?

    One of our family stories seems to indicate that my great-grandmother came here semi-legally when the letters from my great-grandfather began to taper off and she suspected he was going to conveniently “forget” that he had a wife and kids in Italy. So she packed up the kids, came through Ellis Island, and showed up on his doorstep in Chicago to “surprise” him.

    The other side of my family came during colonial days, so the legality of their arrivals in somewhat in question based on today’s laws.

  116. 116.

    Mnemosyne

    @geg6:

    I’m so sorry. We know that domestic violence is one of the primary ways people end up being shot dead, but no one seems willing to try and effectively prevent it.

  121. 121.

    Mnemosyne

    @schrodingers_cat:

    I never met her (she died when I was a baby), but most of my aunts (her granddaughters) on that side turned out to be pretty kick-ass, so I find the story to be plausible.

  122. 122.

    JR

    @Brachiator: antiimmigration laws have nothing to do with curtailing immigrants. It’s about weakening their leverage — to get jobs, better wages, etc.

  123. 123.

    geg6

    @Anotherlurker:

    In this way, we are lucky. One of the degrees we offer is psychology. Plus we have two campus personal counselors. There will be lots of help, ready and waiting. There were witnesses to the actual shooting who are, I’m sure, in a bad place right now. My boss just called and asked if I wanted tomorrow off but I said no. I want to go and support the students and grieve with them and my co-workers. I think that my boss was relieved. I get the feeling most of my department have elected to take the day off and he didn’t want to be there alone.

  124. 124.

    TenguPhule

    @Major Major Major Major:

    Suuuuper budgetary, right there. Totally what reconciliation is for.

    The Anti-Health Care provision is in the reconciled version too.

    A twofer. We have to fight for our taxes and our medical insurance.

  126. 126.

    sukabi

    @Roger Moore: on the mass exodus in January…what happens to an administration if EVERYONE except Drumpf, pence, and their immediate families bail and they can’t get anyone to replace them?

  127. 127.

    The Fat Kate Middleton

    @Jack the Second: I grew up in a tiny midwestern town comprised chiefly of families who were third generation descendants of German emigrants. They all still spoke German among themselves (as did my grandparents) and were all Lutherans (of course). As an RC Irish-American family, we were viewed with some suspicion.

  130. 130.

    Roger Moore

    @sukabi:
    They’ll always be able to find some crook or huckster who’s desperate for a job. The scary thing is to think the current batch of crooks and hucksters are the best they could find, and the replacements will be worse.

  131. 131.

    Lyrebird

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Out of curiosity, how many BJers have family sponsored immigration in their family tree?

    Gee, for the recently arrived side of our family, that’s how everyone got here!

    Wish I’d kept a copy of that WSJ editorial, and no I do not usually point to them in agreement, that pretty much said that other than Native Americans we all came here in little boats.

    These scapegoaters are not protecting anything other than their own greed. Horrible! or even… Sad!

  132. 132.

    martian

    @geg6: Your poor friend, I’m so sorry. What a terrible thing for you to witness, and what a hideous way to lose a friend.

  133. 133.

    The Fat Kate Middleton

    @marcopolo: Thank you for this. As an Iowa resident, will be giving to Diedre DeJear, who’s running against Paul Pate, for Secretary of State. Spouse and I know Little Paul way too well. He’s a snake who fancies himself another Kris Koback.

  134. 134.

    The Fat Kate Middleton

    @kindness: Drove into and through Alabama today – the sign announcing the state line welcomes you to “Sweet Home, Alabama.” Which was followed almost immediately by a gigantic Conderate flag flying. Not as many Moore signs as I thought there’d be, though. FYI – in Florida now for First Granddaughter’s college graduatiion from FSU.

  137. 137.

    No Drought No More

    You forgot the best part about Sessions relationship with Trump. Session’s understands full well that both he and Trump are guilty as hell. He can no more quit now than he testify truthfully. He’s in too deep, and will need a pardon, albeit from a president who hates his guts for the best of reasons, i.e., Sessions screwed the pooch as badly as possibly when he recused himself. No doubt he calculated that with republicans in control of the three branches, any investigation could be controlled. And why not? After all, the entire planet witnessed Bush-Cheney control the official narrative of their plot to war, despite the fact the entire planet by then knew them by then to be war criminals. No, Trump cursed Sessions because knew what Sessions could not possibly know: the scale and extent of his ongoing criminal enterprise, and the mortal threat Mueller is to his person and family. Trump will only pardon Sessions now if he fears what Sessions might tell Mueller. Even then, it’s doubtful Sessions can tell Mueller anything he doesn’t already know. Sessions is aware of this this, too, of course. He knows that his odds of escaping ultimate incarceration is therefore dependent on the political survival of Donald Trump. Most certainly Sessions knows that Mueller will not be inclined to go easy on the chief law enforcement officer of the United States having been engaged in an ongoing criminal conspiracy within the Executive branch..

    In other words, Sessions is well and truly fucked, AND that’s the best news of all. Is this a great country, or what?

  138. 138.

    jimmiraybob

    @SFAW: That’s what I thought and looked it up before posting. #1 is essentially the worst. #5 is the resting state.

  141. 141.

    Ruckus

    @geg6:
    As everyone has said, a truly horrible situation. I think you are right to go in and face this and grieve with your coworkers/friends. Hiding the emotions that something like this creates just keeps them simmering, with no relief. I still recall the kids I went to HS with, who lived up the street, who came home to find mom and dad in the same situation. No one ever talked about it, it was too horrible, too unimaginable. I haven’t forgotten this in over 50 yrs. Because it’s too horrible, too unimaginable, that’s the reason you have to deal with it.

  142. 142.

    (((CassandraLeo)))

    @geg6: That’s horrifying. So sorry to hear this. I certainly agree with the others who suggest taking advantage of whatever therapy is available. PTSD is the obvious one but a lot of other more obscure disorders can result from traumas like this one. I’m suffering from depersonalisation-derealisation disorder as a result of an unexpected death in the family (a fairly common trigger for this fairly uncommon disorder) and my experience has got to have been thousands of times less traumatic than yours. Take care of yourself.

    And agreed with all the others – fuck guns.

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