Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”

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

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

This fight is for everything.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

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

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Welcome to day five of every-bit-as-bad-as-you-thought-it-would-be.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

“In the future, this lab will be a museum. do not touch it.”

I’m more christian than these people and i’m an atheist.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

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

Jesus watching the most hateful people claiming to be his followers

Not all heroes wear capes.

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

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

There are more Russians standing up to Putin than Republicans.

Second rate reporter says what?

the 10% who apparently lack object permanence

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Liars, all the way down

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The Justice Department sure is shouty today:

This is the equivalent of Jeff Sessions holding a boombox aloft in the White House driveway and blaring “In Your Eyes” at Trump. But it also reminds me of this creative re-purposing of Microsoft’s dreaded Clippy widget:

Can you spot the logical fallacy involved in Sessions’ attempt to demonize all furriners to further the racist, xenophobic, anti-immigrant agenda he shares with his boss? I’ll give you a hint: international terrorism tends to involve global actors, whereas domestic terrorism features homegrown goobers.

Trump is lying on Twitter this morning about “Amnesty” and “Border Security” and “the Russia Collusion Hoax” and “our VERY DANGEROUS SOUTHERN BORDER” and “a great WALL.” Still hasn’t thrown Sessions a bone, despite the hard work on that report. Sad!

In other news, Trump’s DHS Secretary, who I believe used to work for John Kelly when he was enthusiastically enacting Trump’s bigoted immigration policies (before he was called up to supervise the adult daycare center on Penn Ave) says Dreamers have nothing to worry about, even if there is no DACA deal:

She’s a liar. How do we know? Because she lied under oath to a congressional committee today.

The Trump administration is a Russian nesting doll of lies — falsehoods inside prevarications containing fibs enclosing untruths enveloping deceits. Liars, all the way down.

Reader Interactions

102Comments

  2. 2.

    Thoroughly Pizzled

    They are unspeakably vile people, the lot of them. Full amnesty and immediate citizenship for every undocumented immigrant is my preferred way to get revenge when the time comes.

  5. 5.

    Cheryl Rofer

    Five tweets from the president* this morning, full of lies. But most of the people I follow aren’t bothering with them.

    Another day, another dozen lies.

  6. 6.

    laura

    I saw a Detroit family ripped apart for no good reason on my TV this morning. She’s a liar. They’re all liars.

  7. 7.

    Kay

    If Democrats ever take back a chamber they should do something about people lying under oath.

    Come on. Tens of thousands of ordinary people testify truthfully every day. This is the deal.

    Lying can’t become the norm, where only the little people are expected to tell the truth.

    I don’t like prisons so I suggest hefty monetary fines. Direct withdrawal, pls. The Trumpsters will stiff us.

  11. 11.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Wait, what? That means 25% of these international terrorists are American citizens. How many people are we talking about…?

  13. 13.

    Cheryl Rofer

    Bannon has been subpoenaed by Mueller to appear before a grand jury. Lots of lawyers on Twitter interpreting this. Looks like the reasons may be that it will be easier to document lies. Also, Bannon’s lawyer will not be allowed to be with him.

    ETA: Great minds, Betty!

  14. 14.

    MJS

    That’s an odd spelling of Secretary Nielsen’s first name. Has anyone checked into her parents’ immigration status?

  17. 17.

    Mnemosyne

    Okay, I’ll be that asshole: I can’t help noticing that Nielsen is a Fox-ready blonde. There’s a shocker.

    And about the Bannon subpoena: tick-tock, motherfuckers.

  19. 19.

    Mike J

    @schrodingers_cat:

    In which country was Timothy McVeigh born?

    That was domestic terrorism and they specifically said international terrorism. Doesn’t count. Like all the nazi crimes, the Trump admin is OK with killing Americans, as long as you kill the right ones.

  20. 20.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Cheryl Rofer: DIdn’t John Dean say that he wasn’t involved in any direct discussions about Watergate, but picked up enough, basically by osmosis, to become the star witness? I imagine the Hobo Duke has a whole lot of high-level gossip about the Large Adult Children, and between that gossip, the internal politics of the trump outfit, and the general stupidity of the LAC, there could be a whole bunch of perjury traps being constructed.

  23. 23.

    Kay

    @Walker:

    I don’t know and perjury is complicated and it’s Congress. But if Congress can do anything they can run their own hearings, right?

    This is a big deal in county courts! Frowned upon and also unusual. Blatant liars are the bottom of the barrel exception. MOST people tell the truth. This is not a high standard or impossible to meet. Surely the President’s employees can meet the same standard as 95% of people shuffling thru the justice system every day. They’re the bottom 5%? Get a handle on this, Congress.

  24. 24.

    Brachiator

    Can you spot the logical fallacy involved in Sessions’ attempt to demonize all furriners to further the racist, xenophobic, anti-immigrant agenda he shares with his boss? I’ll give you a hint: international terrorism tends to involve global actors, whereas domestic terrorism features homegrown goobers.

    These people tire me out with their combination of lies and detestable actions.

    It’s going to be a long ass year.

  25. 25.

    trollhattan

    Nicely played by Durban. “I hope you remember me. We were at two meetings together” last week.

    Far be it for a cabinet member to pay much attention to the words uttered by the president of the United States. Focus is overrated.

  26. 26.

    Barbara

    @Mike J:

    The Trump admin is OK with killing Americans, as long as your skin tone is light enough.

    FIFY — Lots of white people died in Las Vegas and at that little church in Texas. But since their killers were also white, who cares?

  27. 27.

    Calouste

    She’s a liar. How do we know?

    That she chose to work for the shitgibbon is the only clue you really need.

  28. 28.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I despise Lindsey Graham, but he is addressing Nielsen with what sounds very much like worn out contempt

  29. 29.

    Jeffro

    @Cheryl Rofer: @Kay: @Walker: Great minds and all that (glad I read through the thread for a change). These fucking liars…they need to pay in 2019 for all the lies they told/are telling in 2017-2018

    @Mike in DC:

    He won’t roll on Trump but must be chomping at the bit to stick a shiv in Jared.

    1) (of course) “Why not both?”
    2) Trumpov has excommunicated Bannon and the Mercers have cut him off…he has no reason not to throw all of them under the bus
    3) Mueller doesn’t care who Bannon wants/wants not to roll on…he just has questions. Many questions…

  30. 30.

    Humdog

    Remember when the first Muslim ban went into effect and people were detained at US airports? I recall that some authority wouldn’t allow lawyers to access the detainees even after the lawyers had gotten court orders. It had to be some DHS entity but I cannot recall the acronym. I can’t find any info about who ordered those “authorities” to ignore the courts. Did they try to blame it on it individual officers? That was the first clue, to me, that our institutions are only as strong as the will of those with guns to submit to the law and to not follow their prejudices. I am not encouraged as time has passed and we find many in our government never meant the oaths they took to uphold the constitution.

  31. 31.

    Another Scott

    TheHill (opinion): Will 2018 look like 1890?:

    […]

    In 1889, the Republicans had full control of the government. Along with winning solid majorities in the House and Senate in the 1888 election, Republican nominee Benjamin Harrison had prevailed in the Electoral College (233 of 401 votes, or 58 percent) and won the presidency. These results, however, masked the closeness of the presidential contest.

    Harrison had lost the popular vote to Democratic President Grover Cleveland by about 100,000 votes of the nearly 11.4 million ballots cast. Had Cleveland been able to win about 15,000 more votes (out of the more than 1.3 million cast) in New York (the state where he was governor before president), he would have garnered 36 more electoral votes and been returned to the White House.

    Republicans forgot the closeness of the election almost immediately. As historian Charles Calhoun described, “In his inaugural address, Benjamin Harrison put the country on notice that the Republican administration and Congress would pursue an activist agenda.”

    And even though the 51st Congress was “one of the longest and most productive sessions in its history,” the legislation garnered little Democratic support (e.g., the McKinley Tariff, the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, and the Sherman Anti-Trust Act). Democrats were also angry that House Speaker Thomas Reed instituted new rules that prevented them from effectively obstructing the majority’s partisan agenda through dilatory tactics.

    But the Democrats soon exacted their revenge. In the 1890 midterm, Republicans resoundingly lost their majority in the House. They lost 93 seats, which was more than half of the GOP conference (52 percent of their 179 seats) and a full 28 percent of the 332-seat chamber. They were able to retain majority control in the Senate, but they lost four seats in the 88-seat Senate. Interestingly, Populists picked up a fair number of the Republican seats in the House (8) and the Senate (2), suggesting once again (and as we have seen in our own elections since 2006) that the American public was likely voting against the incumbent president and his partisan agenda, and not necessarily for the challengers’ policy promises.

    While partisan gerrymandering and population sorting make it nearly impossible for the Republicans to lose an equivalent 125 seats (or 52 percent of their 241 seats) in the House, a midterm wave that ousts between 50 and 60 Republicans does not seem out of the question. The Senate is likely to go with the flow, but how high the blue tide rises, as Nate Silver has pointed out, is a lot more complicated of a calculation.

    […]

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  32. 32.

    Jeffro

    Oh whoops, meant to add this gem from Tea Pain on Twitter: “Trump is very flexible on immigration. He’ll gladly take highly-skilled white workers or highly-white skilled workers.” That’s pretty accurate, actually…

  33. 33.

    Frank Wilhoit

    In order to understand this, it is necessary and sufficient to understand that lies are not told for gain, or from fear, or for any of the other reasons commonly adduced. They are told to humiliate their audiences. Every time, no other reason. Lies are an intangible weapon.

    Accordingly, the subtext of the lies that are enumerated here and here, is “you don’t deserve the truth”.

  34. 34.

    tobie

    @Cheryl Rofer: I haven’t following the Twitter discussions of Bannon’s subpoena but I recall hearing over and over again that Mueller and team won’t ask questions unless they already know the answers, which means they must be in possession of enough evidence to compel Bannon to testify. Lying to a grand jury is still a crime. Here’s hoping.

  39. 39.

    low-tech cyclist

    she lied under oath to a congressional committee today.

    What, about what she heard Trump say?

    She may well be a liar about many things. But let’s stay away from what other people did or didn’t hear. To quote Firesign Theatre:

    Gen. Klein: “What is it worth? How much do I hear?”
    Alvarado: “That’s metaphysically absurd, man! How can I know what you hear?”

    –Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers

  40. 40.

    JMG

    I must imagine Bannon’s testimony is to corroborate facts already in evidence before the grand jury related to the campaign and transition, that is, Flynn’s testimony.

  41. 41.

    Barbara

    @tobie: In nearly every circumstance, no good lawyer asks a question on the record that they don’t already know the answer to.

  42. 42.

    Another Scott

    @Jeffro: Donnie has no problem hiring immigrants from the Caribbean or other less-developed countries to work at his hotels. In fact, he prefers them to hiring Americans at the prevailing wage.

    He just doesn’t want those immigrants to think that they actually have any benefits and protections while they’re here. They gotta know their place, doncha know.

    It’s stuff like that that figures into his “I’m not a racist – I’m the least racist person you have ever met” statements and “arguments”.

    And it’s infuriating.

    Grrr.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  43. 43.

    Mnemosyne

    @Frank Wilhoit:

    They are told to humiliate their audiences. Every time, no other reason. Lies are an intangible weapon.

    This. The lies that the Possum Queen and other Trump functionaries tell are a demonstration of their power over us: they can lie to our faces and there’s not a thing that we can do about it.

  44. 44.

    Jeffro

    Fox News Dot Com: ” ‘SLOPPY STEVE’ To Squeal”?

    Yes, you lying asses, he’s going to ‘squeal’ on Dear Leader. Which automatically makes everything he says #FakeNews, right? Jesus, I wish I could turn off my higher-order brain functions like that…

    Dancing through life
    Skimming the surface
    Gliding where turf is smooth
    Life’s more painless
    For the brainless
    Why think too hard
    When it’s so soothing…

  45. 45.

    Amaranthine RBG

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    Bannon has alot of incentive to keep lying for Trump to keep his perch at Breitbart and to stay in Trump’s good graces.

    Oh, wait…

  46. 46.

    The Moar You Know

    Links to the WaPo seem to be useless now, unless you are a subscriber. Recent development.

    @Dennis: There’s a lot of potential money to be made off the anti-Trump movement. They’ve decided to get some of that money.

  47. 47.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    again, I despise Lindsey Graham but…

    Igor Bobic‏Verified account @ igorbobic
    GRAHAM blaming it on staff: “I don’t think the president was well served by his staff… I do believe his staff missed the mark here.” Adds that someone on his staff probably “gave him bad advice”

    Graham (!): “We cannot do this with people in charge at the White House who have an irrational view on how to fix immigration”

    staff including “Chief of…”? Col Graham telling Gen Kelly to back the fuck up?

  49. 49.

    WaterGirl

    Dreamers have nothing to fear? This is horrible: The deportation of Jorge Garcia

    Jorge Garcia of Michigan apparently doesn’t have a criminal record. He does, however, have a wife and two children, all of whom are American citizens.

    Yesterday, however, he had to say goodbye to them. As USA Today reported, Garcia, an undocumented immigrant who was brought to the United States from Mexico at age 10, was deported after three decades of life in the United States
    .
    His arms wrapped around his wife and two teenage children, Jorge Garcia’s eyes welled up Monday as he looked into their eyes one last time near the entrance to the airport security gate.
    His wife, Cindy Garcia, cried out while his daughter, Soleil, 15, sobbed into Garcia’s shoulder as they hugged, with two U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents keeping a close eye on them.

    After 30 years of living in the United States, Jorge Garcia, a 39-year-old landscaper from Lincoln Park, Mich., was deported on the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday to Mexico, a move his supporters say is another example of immigrants being unfairly targeted under the Trump administration.

    The article added that the Obama administration had given Garcia several stays of removal, but “because of the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration, in November Jorge Garcia was ordered to return to Mexico.”

    This is obviously a very sad story and the deportation of a man who doesn’t match the president’s description of a “bad hombre.”

    But I mention this in part to put a human face on an important story, and in part because it’s a story that’s likely to get worse before it gets better. With Trump taking steps to end DACA, putting Dreamers’ futures in jeopardy, and then rejecting proposed solutions, it’s alarmingly easy to imagine yesterday’s scene with Jorge Garcia playing out, over and over again, in communities across the country in the very near future.

  50. 50.

    ruemara

    @WaterGirl: Nielsen. She was at the immigration meeting where Trump insulted everyone from Africa or majority brown folks nations. She is also obliquely calling him a liar.

  52. 52.

    JPL

    @MattF: If Graham does nothing more than rid us of the bigots on Trump’s staff, that is a win. Kelly and Miller instantly come to mind.

  53. 53.

    WaterGirl

    @ruemara: I’m pretty sure Dick Durbin is pissed about being called a liar. These people have no shame. I seriously wonder how they can look at their family members when they go home. All the republicans have lost the plot.

  54. 54.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @MattF: if there’s a chance he pissed off that asshole Kelly, who I believe is as arrogant and thin-skinned and racist as his boss, I’ll enjoy that possibility.

    Doesn’t make up for his other sins, his war-mongering or his demagoguery about Benghazi (I think he was the biggest player in that), but if he made Kelly open an extra roll of Tums today, he has served a purpose.

  55. 55.

    JPL

    If we go to a merit based system, will the Trump properties be prevented from bringing in immigrants to clean his toilets. Of course that could still be a job most Americans won’t do.

  56. 56.

    ruemara

    @WaterGirl: I hate to say it, but based on Sarah Huckabee and Whateverherface Romney – they look their families in the face just fine because the family is just as toxic & depraved as they are. Sociopaths all the way down.

  57. 57.

    patrick II

    The Trump administration is a Russian nesting doll of lies — falsehoods inside prevarications containing fibs enclosing untruths enveloping deceits. Liars, all the way down

    The essence of the Trump administration eloquently stated. Did you use a thesaurus?

  58. 58.

    WaterGirl

    @ruemara: I know that hate and fear are powerful motivators, but I cannot comprehend that half the people in this country care nothing for science or reason or logic and they don’t seem to value telling the truth. The only question when you’re in bed with a liar is when are they going to lie to you or about you? How can they trust one another, even a little bit, enough to get all this evil stuff done? It boggles my mind.

    edit: Forgot to include the fact that they apparently see half of their fellow human beings as not human.

  59. 59.

    Raoul

    “The majority of drunk driving convictions involve people who have consumed alcohol.” That’s the brilliance-level of Beauregard’s DOJ.

  61. 61.

    NotMax

    Couple of things which caught the eye overnight –

    1)

    Russia’s Lavrov berates Trump administration on Iran deal, Syria and North Korea

    · Moscow will not accept any U.S.-imposed changes to the Iran nuclear pact, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said during a press conference Monday
    · Lavrov also disparaged Washington’s recently announced plan to implement a 30,000-man border security force in Syria’s Kurdish territory
    · The minister called U.S. policy toward North Korea “destructive”, while Moscow has quietly increased trade and oil exports to Pyongyang over the past year Source

    2)

    Russia has developed an underwater nuclear drone with the ability to hold a 100-megaton nuclear warhead, according to a leaked draft of the Pentagon’s nuclear posture review.
    [snip]
    “Russia is developing and deploying new nuclear warheads and launchers. Russia is also developing at least two new intercontinental range systems, a hypersonic glide vehicle and a new intercontinental, nuclear-armed undersea autonomous torpedo.”
    [snip]
    Hans Kristensen, a nuclear weapons specialist at the Federation of American Scientists, questions whether the administration is overstating the Russian threat and responding with the right solution.… Source

    The pairing of the words “autonomous” and “nuclear-armed” are enough to make all one’s hairs stand on end. Cheryl, any insights to share on this?

  63. 63.

    Adria McDowell

    “It’s not going to be a priority of @ICEgov to prioritize their removal. I’ve said that before. That’s not the policy of DHS.”

    SureJan.gif

    P.S. I wish we could post gifs here. But then I guess it would just be Twitter. :-)

  64. 64.

    Ladyraxterin

    @schrodingers_cat: Extremely good point.

    IIRC he was stationed at a military base in KS. A former student came back to school on a visit. Said he was/had been at a KS base that had a number of people with McVeigh’s mind-set.

  66. 66.

    ruemara

    @WaterGirl: I like history. I’m disappointed but not very surprised. I don’t think it’s quite half. I think it’s 1/3 but a whole nother third is the milquetoast, spineless, ok with racism since it doesn’t affect them directly, but they would strongly condemn a burning cross. They’re the problem.

  67. 67.

    trollhattan

    @WaterGirl: I lifted it from the WaPo article Betty links to above. She was under oath at the time.

    Nielsen described Trump’s tone at the meeting on immigration policy while testifying under oath to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday morning. She repeatedly declined to cite specific words used by the president, but otherwise confirmed the general tenor of the exchange. During the testimony, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) asked Nielsen whether Trump had used the vulgarity to describe the countries “or a substantially similar word.”

    “I did not hear that word used,” Nielsen told members of the committee.

  68. 68.

    Gelfling 545

    Almost done reading Fire and Fury. Jesus. You could make an opera out of it. (The Twilight of the Trumps?)

  71. 71.

    Wyatt Derp

    So international terrorists (sorry I mean INTERNATIONAL TERRORISTS) are…international? In other news, 99% of terrorists from muslim countries are…muslim! BTW, what about domestic terroris…oh, that’s right, never mind.

  72. 72.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Cheryl Rofer: @I’mARanting POS: Depends on how much Vlad-The-Paler wants him to keep his mouth shut. My guess is that no more than 48 hrs after the Mercers dumped him there came through the Bannon mail slot letters containing – oh, I dunno – photos of his (grown) children (& a caption: “No one will ever know it wasn’t an accident”), photocopies of his secret offshore bank accounts (“These can all go to zero in a few nanoseconds”), a blank piece of paper with a tiny metallic dot on it (“It only takes this much polonium”)…Stuff like that. Word to the wise guy & all that.

  73. 73.

    patrick II

    Trump’s biggest lies:

    There was no collusion
    I am not a racist
    There will be healthcare for everyone and it will be a lot cheaper too.
    They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”
    I will not touch medicare or medicaid
    There will be coal mining like there used to be: thousands of jobs.

    I know he’s told thousands of lies (I won’t leave the white house and golf all of the time like Obama). But I rate the lies on the list above as most egregious for a combination of being blatant and important lies. The more he repeats them (no collusion!) the truer they are.

  74. 74.

    HRA

    @WaterGirl:

    I saw the story of Jorge Garcia yesterday and was really upset about it. I thought of my Dad escaping the then INS as an illegal and going to Canada. I also thought about the access to Canada across the Detroit River to my hometown of Windsor, Ont. In this now vile atmosphere for the DACA people they have to get out of here soon and into Canada ASAP.

  76. 76.

    bemused

    @Frank Wilhoit:

    Reading the link made me think of the book Authoritarians, studies of authoritarian leaning people and how easily they will bow to the top dog authoritarian.

  78. 78.

    Jay S

    @trollhattan: Having read the article, the questioning or at least the reporting of it seems to be focused more on the words used than the meaning. There was a more open ended question and she tried to minimize the meaning.

    Durbin noted that Nielsen arrived late to the Jan. 11 meeting with Trump and other lawmakers to discuss a possible immigration deal. He asked her to describe what the president said about immigrants from African countries.

    Nielsen said Trump told the group, “He’d like to move away from a country-based quota system to a merit-based quota system.”

    It continues by trying to pin her down about the nature of the remarks with not much success.

  79. 79.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    @Chyron HR:

    “Ah sell international terrorism and international terrorism-related offenses.”

    -Hank “Beauregard” Hill

  81. 81.

    BRIAN SMITH

    Saying “It’s not a priority” doesn’t mean that they won’t do it! If pressed why the deportations happened anyway, the Secretary would say “We found the resources and did it anyway.”

  82. 82.

    Mike in DC

    So, basically:
    1. Deport all undocumented residents, except maybe the Dreamers
    2. End family based migration
    3. End the visa lottery
    4. Evict everyone here on TPS
    5. Drastically limit the number of refugees
    6. Limit/ban travel from several muslim countries
    7. Shift to a purely merit based quota system rather than country based
    8. Cut the number of green cards issued per year from 1M to 500k
    9. Build a giant superfluous wall as an F U to our southern neighbors
    Wow. It’s not the first immigration policy shift based on white panic, though it is about as blatant as the old ones.

  83. 83.

    Chris

    Can you spot the logical fallacy involved in Sessions’ attempt to demonize all furriners to further the racist, xenophobic, anti-immigrant agenda he shares with his boss? I’ll give you a hint: international terrorism tends to involve global actors, whereas domestic terrorism features homegrown goobers.

    The first rule of Tautology Club is the first rule of Tautology Club.

  84. 84.

    Chris

    @Humdog:

    Remember when the first Muslim ban went into effect and people were detained at US airports? I recall that some authority wouldn’t allow lawyers to access the detainees even after the lawyers had gotten court orders. It had to be some DHS entity but I cannot recall the acronym.

    It was CBP. What was even scarier, and went almost completely uncommented on, was that the U.S. Marshalls refused to enforce the court orders against CBP officers.

  85. 85.

    toujoursdan

    We haven’t have a country based immigration plan in 50 years. Discrimination based on national origin is supposed to be outlawed.

  86. 86.

    Gin & Tonic

    Speaking of liars, isn’t there supposed to be a briefing from the President’s physician today?

  87. 87.

    Brachiator

    @Mike in DC:

    Shift to a purely merit based quota system rather than country based

    And this kind of thing needs to be rejected because the claim of “merit based” is a fig leaf for a neo-soci@l Darwinist BS categorizing of human beings. It also insanely turns becoming an American into some stupid quasi-job interview based on the resume of the applicant. The ultimate in running the country “like a business.” Vile, dehumanization.

  88. 88.

    Betty Cracker

    @low-tech cyclist: Nope, Trump flunkies don’t get the benefit of the doubt and definitely shouldn’t in this case. Unless they were eating takeout Chinese food at that meeting and she’s on video shoving the chopsticks through her eardrums, she heard what Trump said. Durbin and Graham confirmed it. Flake confirmed a second-hand account using the word “shithole” before it was reported in the media. The only people who “can’t recall” are shameless toadies like Cotton and Perdue, who are liars just like Nielsen.

  90. 90.

    Chris

    @Brachiator:

    “Merit-based,” for fuck’s sake. Most of our [white Americans’] ancestors showed up with nothing to offer at all other than their bodies, and worked them off copiously on farms, in mines, and on assembly lines. There’s no reason at all contemporary immigrants should have to do anything like that.

    (Not to mention that we know perfectly well that “merit based” will in practice just mean the time-honored practice of racial profiling. “He’s Asian? He must be tech-savvy, let’s take him. He’s Latin? He must be lazy and drug dealing, leave him at the door.”)

  91. 91.

    Chris

    @schrodingers_cat:

    And IIRC, plenty of countries (the ones Trump wants more immigration from) never come close to fulfilling their quotas, while plenty of others never come close to finding spots for all the people who want to immigrate. You’d think this would mean that you could simply take those unfilled openings and give them to people from the countries with long lists of candidates. But no. That would make sense.

  92. 92.

    Immanentize

    @Cheryl Rofer: Lawyers are almost never allowed to accompany a witness (their client) in the Grand Jury. There is no right to counsel, only a limited fourth amendment right, and really no fifth amendment rights outside a blanket refusal to testify. Once you go beyond identifying information, if you answer a question, you have waived your right to not testify…. From a criminal defense perspective, grand juries are SCARE-EEE!

  93. 93.

    Immanentize

    @MJS: From day one of this shithole shitstorm, I imagined Kelly was behind it — that is his kind of language for sure and I just imagine him saying to Trump: “I’ve been to these countries, and let me assure you Mr. President, they are all shitholes.”
    And Trump thinks, “Donnie likes!”

  94. 94.

    geg6

    @Adria McDowell:

    One of the many reasons I don’t use Twitter is all the gifs. They slow down and screw up all of my devices. I wish even front pagers couldn’t post gifs here. I realize I’m probably in the minority, but I hate them. I come here for conversation, not more Twitter crap.

  96. 96.

    Boatboy_srq

    @NotMax: Not Cheryl, but speaking as a Navy/USN-contractor brat, one of the scariest things about Trident II was the near-self-launching functionality, and that was an early-80s development. If Russia has developed this capability, they’re a) way behind the curve and b) stepping awfully close to Red October territory.

  97. 97.

    Humdog

    @Chris: Right, thanks for clearing that up. Marshall’s are Justice department, correct? This seems to have dropped into a memory hole.

  98. 98.

    Immanentize

    @Humdog: Marshalls are a part of the judiciary, not justice. That is why it was so weird. But Marshalls (known as Grey Pants) need a judge to tell them what to do or they will not do it. A Court Case decision without a specific order is not enough for them to act.

  99. 99.

    Brachiator

    @Immanentize:

    Marshalls are a part of the judiciary, not justice.

    A bit of both?

    The United States Marshals Service (USMS) is a federal law enforcement agency within the U.S. Department of Justice (28 U.S.C. § 561)….

    USMS is an agency of the United States executive branch reporting to the United States Attorney-General but serves as the enforcement arm of the United States federal courts to ensure the effective operation of the judiciary and integrity of the constitution.

  100. 100.

    Chris

    @Humdog:

    Wikipedia says yes. I didn’t remember where they fit into the government bureaucratically, but they’re the enforcement arm of the federal courts. So, if they’re sticking with their “fellow” uniforms against the people they owe allegiance that’s frankly terrifying for anyone who cares about separation of powers, accountability in the security state, and just the rule of law in general.

  102. 102.

    J R in WV

    @Raoul:

    “The majority of drunk driving convictions involve people who have consumed alcohol.” That’s the brilliance-level of Beauregard’s DOJ.

    Actually, if you change that to Driving While Intoxicated, it would be accurate. But they’re too dump to make the change.

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