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You are here: Home / Immigration / “Stupid and detrimental…”

“Stupid and detrimental…”

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I like Congressman Ruben Gallego:

Trump has been ginning up hysteria for the last couple of days about a “caravan” of Central American immigrants in Mexico, hinting darkly about crime and drugs and national security. It’s 100% bullshit. What we’re talking about here are a little over a thousand unarmed people — many of them women and children — who are fleeing violence and poverty.

The Golden Horde they ain’t. This afternoon, the Pentagon is holding a news conference about Trump’s order to send the National Guard to the border. Fox News has the alleged border menace on continuous loop, as if this pitiful collection of desperate people are a grave national security threat. It’s all so goddamned stupid and sad.

Trump could have extorted tens of billions for his racist vanity wall from Democrats who want to protect American kids in DACA status, but he can’t negotiate his way out of a wet paper bag, so he got bupkis. The screechiest racists his base are disappointed there isn’t a big “Fuck you, wetbacks!” wall to crow about.

So, Trump is sending officials out to lie about fence repairs constituting “The Wall” and wasting untold stacks of money on an unneeded deployment of national guard troops. That’s all this is. Kudos to Rep. Gallego for pointing that out.

Anyway, open thread, I guess. Le sigh.

Reader Interactions

137Comments

  1. 1.

    LAO

    But, but what about his First Amendment rights?

    Kevin Williamson has been fired from The Atlantic. From Jeffrey Goldberg's letter to staff: "The language he used in this podcast—and in my conversations with him in recent days—made it clear that the original tweet did, in fact, represent his carefully considered views."— Jessica Valenti (@JessicaValenti) April 5, 2018

  2. 2.

    trollhattan

    Speaking of our awful administration, Zinke countemove on Pruitt for worstest label.

    The U.S. Department of the Interior proposed a rule to the White House this week that would effectively rescind most protections for hundreds of species of wildlife listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Protections to be eliminated include the 40-year-old rule, 4(d) in the Act, which offers the same special protections for threatened species as those categorized as endangered.

    “The Trump administration just issued a death sentence to nearly 300 threatened species,” Noah Greenwald, endangered species director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement.

    The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which establishes and implements regulations, has broad authority under the Endangered Species Act to conserve threatened species. Section 4(d) of the ESA, which has been in effect since 1975, directs the Service to issue regulations deemed “necessary and advisable to provide for the conservation of threatened species.”

    The 4(d) rule can be modified to allow the Service to work on maintenance, rodent control and weeding without violating the regulations that apply to endangered species. About 70 species in California, another 20 in Hawaii, and scores more fish, birds, mammals and plants around the country are at risk of losing special regulatory protections. The wildlife under threat include southern sea otters, northern spotted owls, piping plovers, red knots, Yosemite toads, delta smelt, Santa Catalina Island foxes and gopher tortoises.

    Greenwald called 4(d) “crucial” for the protection of “iconic wildlife” and said when the Service enacted the rule that protections would be relaxed only if they “determined that fewer protections were warranted.”

    According to Greenwald, the rule change would benefit major polluters and companies that operate in wildlife habitats. For example, without these protections, logging companies could begin working in nesting habitats for the northern spotted owl, Greenwald said.

    Ha-ha-ha, fuck you, gopher tortoise! Make up your stupid tiny minds, are you gophers or are you tortoises? Guess it doesn’t matter now, does it?

  3. 3.

    Corner Stone

    This afternoon, the Pentagon is holding a news conference about Trump’s order to send the National Guard to the border.

    Let me summarize the Pentagon presser: “We’re re-assigning a few DoD Project Managers to draw up big, beautiful graphs to show Trump. And we’ll waste plenty of money coming from nobody knows where. But it will temporarily salve the man-baby’s yoog ego.”

  4. 4.

    trollhattan

    @LAO:
    Well that didn’t last long, did it? Which resurrects the question–why bring him on in the first place?

  5. 5.

    Corner Stone

    @LAO:

    Kevin Williamson has been fired from The Atlantic.

    They had no business hiring that asshole in the first place, but this may be the best news I hear all week.

  7. 7.

    Hungry Joe

    Author Luis Alberto Urrea (“The Devil’s Highway,” “The House of Broken Angels”) last month on “Fresh Air”:

    “I’m telling you, this wall is a boondoggle. It’s a joke. And … the eight new [prototypes] of wall that President Trump claims he’s finally going to go see, I’m telling you, one day it’s going to be a kitschy tourist stop for ironic hipsters. It’s going to be spray-painted. It’s going to look like Cadillac Ranch and people are going to take selfies at it. But it’s not going to start a multibillion-dollar Great Wall of China project. I promise you. There’s no way to build it.”

  10. 10.

    TenguPhule

    @trollhattan:

    The 4(d) rule can be modified to allow the Service to work on maintenance, rodent control and weeding without violating the regulations that apply to endangered species. About 70 species in California, another 20 in Hawaii, and scores more fish, birds, mammals and plants around the country are at risk of losing special regulatory protections. The wildlife under threat include southern sea otters, northern spotted owls, piping plovers, red knots, Yosemite toads, delta smelt, Santa Catalina Island foxes and gopher tortoises.

    Zinke needs to find a corporate lobbyist’s head in his bed.

  11. 11.

    Corner Stone

    @trollhattan:

    Can they kill two birds with one stone by having Trump’s ginormous military hardware parade somewhere near Brownsville?

    Preferably in late July or early August, which I have heard Brownsville is an unlivable hellhole during said time.

  14. 14.

    No Drought No More

    Remember when Brownsville, Texas was threatened with being wiped off the face of the earth from missiles launched from commie Nicaragua? If you were alive when the Reagan administration was essentially spewing the same line of bullshit, you should.

  16. 16.

    Corner Stone

    @trollhattan:

    delta smelt

    Ahh, I remember fondly back in my yoot when me and my buddies got high AF of some good quality Mexican delta smelt. Good times.

  17. 17.

    LAO

    Sometimes the lack of context on twitter leaves me baffled. This is one of those times, from Trump’s rally in WV:

    "Women are raped at levels that have never been seen before" – US President Donald Trump— Andrew Beatty (@AndrewBeatty) April 5, 2018

    ETA: I can’t tell if he thinks this is a good thing, bad thing, or what the fuck is he talking about.

  19. 19.

    Chyron HR

    @LAO:

    “We’re reaching dementia levels that shouldn’t physically be possible.” – Neil “Degrassi” Tyson

  20. 20.

    Corner Stone

    I still love that our good friends Manchin and Hietkamp voted Yes to confirm Pruitt in a 52 – 46 vote. And Zinke somehow got 67 Yeas to 31 Nays. Just beautiful.

  23. 23.

    MattF

    @LAO: And it was only yesterday that Williamson was an upright (if, y’know, a wee bit abrasive) young man. Things change so fast.

  25. 25.

    piratedan

    @LAO: well I am incredibly pleased that the Atlantic extended themselves to have Mr. Williamson be a member of their staff only to find out that he really is an unrepentant asshole that everyone else says that he is…

    I only wish the same courtesy can be extended to many other folks out there that are busy punditing while being a POC or worse yet, a person of a non-male gender who actually might have an opinion or ideas that would add to the national discourse.

  26. 26.

    Roger Moore

    Trump could have extorted tens of billions for his racist vanity wall from Democrats who want to protect American kids in DACA status, but he can’t negotiate his way out of a wet paper bag, so he got bupkis.

    I don’t think this is the correct interpretation of events. I think what’s happening is that Trump is revealing his real priorities. He cares far more about blocking Dreamers from becoming citizens than he does about border security. Building the wall is a great propaganda slogan to gull the rubes, but it’s not what Trump and his backers want. They want a permanent underclass of poor people with no rights who they can ruthlessly exploit, which requires that illegal immigration continue. That’s why all their immigration enforcement focuses on terrorizing immigrants rather than punishing employers who knowingly hire them.

  27. 27.

    bemused

    @LAO:

    I guess I don’t have to cancel my Atlantic subscription after all…yet. Will wait to see if Goldberg makes any more asinine hires.

  29. 29.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @LAO: Considering how unself-aware Trump is, his desperate need to be seen as the victim and to ciam anything successful as his, it sounds like Trump is trying to co-opt the “Me Too” movement.

  30. 30.

    Josie

    @Corner Stone: You heard correctly. I would not want to make the troops suffer this way, but I would like for Trump to have to stand on a reviewing stand without shade for the entire parade.

  31. 31.

    Gin & Tonic

    @LAO: Since I blessedly know who neither of those people are, I’ll leave it to you to render the opinion.

  32. 32.

    ruemara

    @LAO: Literally thousands of women complained, there was screenshots of his tweets, his writing, but the podcast was the straw.

  34. 34.

    jc

    This is what Trump does, he manipulates information to gin up controversy, and he uses other people’s misery to manufacture cheap shot political advantage for himself. A white woman is accidentally shot by an undocumented immigrant, and Trump twists the facts and turns it into a major hate point in his cult stump speeches. He ignorantly misrepresents the DACA people, but it’s by design, to muddy the issue.

  35. 35.

    Jeffro

    Speaking of stupid and detrimental…heeeeeere’s Wilmer (well, a pretty good take on him, anyway):

    On Wednesday, Sanders spoke at a commemoration event in Jackson, Miss., to mark the 50th anniversary of the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King. BuzzFeed reporter Ruby Cramer quoted Sanders as saying:

    “The business model, if you like, of the Democratic Party for the last 15 years or so has been a failure . . . People sometimes don’t see that because there was a charismatic individual named Barack Obama.”

    In response, some folks revved right up to a now-familiar criticism of Sanders, namely that he always wants to subsume every issue — even the issue of racial justice, on the anniversary of King’s slaying — to economics.

    In Sanders’ defense, this event was billed as “Examining Economic Justice 50 Years Later.” And if you listen to all of his remarks (you can watch them here), there isn’t that much any Democrat would object to — even if you take issue with his apparent belief that Democratic losses at the state level happened because the party didn’t provide a sufficiently leftist economic agenda, and not because there was a powerful racial backlash against the Obama presidency. But this is going to happen over and over again: Sanders is going to make the same arguments he’s been making for a long time, people are going to disagree with him, and then there will be a bunch of “Dems in Disarray!” coverage.

    We’ve already seen a fair amount of this type of coverage around the intraparty battles that have taken shape during some primaries. But this pattern is going to be less consequential than it appears. For one thing, as remarkable as the Sanders phenomenon was in 2016, if Sanders 2020 happens it will be a far more diminished force. That’s because, in 2016, he became the one real alternative to the boring, establishment, seemingly inevitable nominee, which made him fascinating and cool, especially to young people. In 2020, you will likely have a dozen Democrats running, many compelling in their own ways. Most of the people who supported Sanders last time around will peel off to other candidates.

    Those who remain with him will be, in no small part, a rump faction of anti-Democrat Democrats, who share Sanders’ conviction that the party is irredeemably corrupt and a collection of neoliberal corporate sellouts. This is the essence of the Sanders brand; it always has been and always will be. No matter how much the party moves to the left — and it has moved a great deal in the last few years — there will never be a point where Sanders says, “I’m really pleased with where the Democratic Party is right now.” Because once he said that, there would cease to be any need for Bernie Sanders to exist.

    He’s yesterday’s news. Fresh faces please!

  38. 38.

    bemused

    @LAO:

    No one really knows and it just hurts the brain to try to figure it out. When the guy blurts out his gut reactions coupled with what Fox news fills his head with, it’s nothing but putrified word salad.

  41. 41.

    Roger Moore

    @trollhattan:

    Which resurrects the question–why bring him on in the first place?

    They wanted to have more intellectual diversity, but have such a narrow, blinkered view of the world that they were unwilling to look beyond established media figures when trying to find it.

  42. 42.

    MisterForkbeard

    @LAO: Hopefully the news orgs run this with the caption underneath of “This is a conspiracy theory”.

  43. 43.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Roger Moore:

    They want a permanent underclass of poor people with no rights who they can ruthlessly exploit

    That’s what moneyed Republicans and capital want. That’s not what Trump wants. Trump wants ethnic cleansing. He’s trying to get rid of brown people. He doesn’t have any understanding that brown people come in different kinds until and unless he meets particular individuals whom he’ll reluctantly decide are “one of the good ones,” then he’ll go right back to thinking of them as Mud People. He’s a horrible person full of hate and spite, and that’s what his fans like about him, because they are too.

  45. 45.

    TenguPhule

    @Corner Stone:

    I still love that our good friends Manchin and Hietkamp voted Yes to confirm Pruitt in a 52 – 46 vote. And Zinke somehow got 67 Yeas to 31 Nays. Just beautiful.

    Shhh, you’ll upset Mx4 with talk like that.

  47. 47.

    LAO

    @ruemara: This made me laugh:

    *Workers goes on strike to protest insufficient wages, dangerous working conditions*Conservative Twitter: Fire them all!*Rich white guy who advocates for executing women gets fired from a cushy media job* Conservative Twitter: WHAT HAPPENED TO THE CONSTITUTION?— Jonathan Cohn (@JonathanCohn) April 5, 2018

  48. 48.

    FlipYrWhig

    @jc:

    This is what Trump does, he manipulates information to gin up controversy

    You give him too much credit. He’s just an ignorant racist dumbass who sees things on TV and yells back.

  49. 49.

    TenguPhule

    @LAO:

    Trump says there is massive voter fraud in California and insists that “this is not a conspiracy theory”

    So that’s how he’s planning to nullify the CA vote in the nationals this year.

  51. 51.

    FlipYrWhig

    @LAO:

    Trump says there is massive voter fraud in California

    This means “brown people.”

    @LAO:

    “Women are raped at levels that have never been seen before”

    This means “brown people.”

  53. 53.

    MattF

    @LAO: But brown-skinned people are voting! That’s not allowed!

    ETA: And don’t forget that Trump claims he actually won the popular vote for President. He lies about everything all the time.

  54. 54.

    MisterForkbeard

    @TenguPhule: It’s one of those things where noting that Manchin and Heitkamp aren’t great Democrats is useful, especially insofar as we can try and push them to be better. But it’s not particularly helpful in the larger scale. Are they more valuable in their seats than the Republican alternative? (yes) Could they be replaced by better Dems in a primary who would then win in the General? (Probably not). Trying to make them even LESS popular amongst Democrats is probably a bad idea.

    In which case, continuing to complain about them is counterproductive and generally furthers a “Democrats suck” narrative that’s also not helpful.

  56. 56.

    gene108

    @Roger Moore:

    They want a permanent underclass of poor people with no rights who they can ruthlessly exploit, which requires that illegal immigration continue.

    Maybe some business interests want this, but the true believer xenophobes want to ethnically cleanse America of non-white people.

    First they said they only objected to illegal immigration. Now they have moved to kick people out, who are here legally, such as people, who have been here for 20 years on temporary resettlement visas. They are trying to make avenues for legally immigrating here harder.

    A significant number of business interests actually backed Bush, Jr.’s immigration reform. It removed their liability of hiring low wage foreign workers.

  57. 57.

    MisterForkbeard

    @TenguPhule: Man, if only they had literally any evidence of this whatsoever. It’s not like they haven’t spent decades trying to find it and failed miserably, is it?

  58. 58.

    Roger Moore

    @bemused:

    Will wait to see if Goldberg makes any more asinine hires.

    My Magic 8-ball says “Signs Point To Yes”.

  61. 61.

    kindness

    Good to see The Atlantic getting rid of rotted wood there. Even though they brought it on themselves just a month ago.

    Can we please get the NYT & the WaPo to now do the same thing?

    Pretty please?

  62. 62.

    rikyrah

    LMAO!

    “I will gladly work with the President when his ideas aren’t stupid and detrimental to the United States,” says Rep. Ruben Gallego on his opposition to Trump sending troops to the Mexican border https://t.co/UyY7v7LGss pic.twitter.com/Pt9eZRZJVa

    — CNN (@CNN) April 5, 2018

  63. 63.

    ruemara

    @germy: Fresher, non-griftyier, non-lying asses, faces.

    @FlipYrWhig: You are correct. People simply do not want to understand that. They don’t want a permanent underclass of browns. That’s the plan for whites. They want to murder all the other races and have a permanent servant class of whites.

  64. 64.

    Roger Moore

    @FlipYrWhig:

    That’s what moneyed Republicans and capital want. That’s not what Trump wants. Trump wants ethnic cleansing.

    I’m pretty sure Trump wants a permanent underclass, too; that’s why he’s so eager to hire foreign guest workers for his businesses rather than American citizens. I think Trump would be just fine with there being brown people around as long as we could do away with that annoying 14th Amendment birthright citizenship.

  65. 65.

    Corner Stone

    @MisterForkbeard: There was no reason for them to vote Yes. None. None then and none now. How about advocating for Democrats to be a little more hardball when it counts? Their vote on Pruitt isn’t going to alter their election one iota. You think any undecided is going to eye that vote and think to themselves, “Hmmm…what I really want is someone who can work across the aisle! Now where’s muh ballot?”

  66. 66.

    TenguPhule

    @MisterForkbeard: The problem is that as big assholes as they tend to be now while in the minority, think about how much worse they’ll be as the deciding votes in any Senate majority.

    I remember that fucking asshole Lieberman.

  69. 69.

    germy

    The WSJ (like the NYT) is full of collaborators.

    Paul Manafort authorized a secret media operation on behalf of Ukraine’s former president, featuring “black ops”, “placed” articles in the Wall Street Journal and on U.S. websites, and anonymous briefings against Hillary Clinton, The Guardian reports. https://t.co/OHP8L5hQso

    — Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) April 5, 2018

  72. 72.

    Corner Stone

    @piratedan:

    a person of a non-male gender who actually might have an opinion

    You know what they call a person like that, right? A witch. Then they see if she can float.

  73. 73.

    Jager

    Good thing trump didn’t pay attention in school, he’d love “Indentured Servitude” he’d be humping it as a market based solution for immigration. Young Mexican girls who look like Selena Gomez would be in great demand.

  75. 75.

    TenguPhule

    @MisterForkbeard:

    But they’ll still be mountains better than having republicans in charge.

    The risk is that their bullshit will cripple the national agenda and cost us the majority.

    Like Lieberman and his fucking fellow blue dogs did.

  76. 76.

    Corner Stone

    @germy: But I have reliably been told that the WSJ’s “News” dept are walled off from Murdoch and the Op-Ed section? And they play it straight with valuable reporting?

  78. 78.

    Roger Moore

    @TenguPhule:

    The problem is that as big assholes as they tend to be now while in the minority, think about how much worse they’ll be as the deciding votes in any Senate majority.

    I’ll still take being a 51-49 majority with Manchin and Heitkamp as the last two votes over being a 49-51 minority with Republicans in their places.

  79. 79.

    Joe Falco

    @TenguPhule: Lieberman was truly the most insufferable of them all. In the alternate timeline where Al Gore didn’t have the presidency stolen away from him, I shudder what VP Lieberman would have done to the country. Probably nothing nearly as bad as what he actually did as senator, but still, a sci-fi writer can imagine…

  80. 80.

    Victor Matheson

    Perhaps I just always think too much like an economist, but how much is it costing to mobilize the National Guard versus how much would it cost to simply rent about 20 buses, pick up the entire wave of refugees, and simply house and feed them for a while?

  81. 81.

    germy

    @Corner Stone:

    But I have reliably been told that the WSJ’s “News” dept are walled off from Murdoch and the Op-Ed section? And they play it straight with valuable reporting?

    Open floor plan.

  82. 82.

    TenguPhule

    @Victor Matheson:

    Perhaps I just always think too much like an economist, but how much is it costing to mobilize the National Guard versus how much would it cost to simply rent about 20 buses, pick up the entire wave of refugees, and simply house and feed them for a while?

    But the money wouldn’t go to the right/white people!

  84. 84.

    Roger Moore

    @Joe Falco:

    In the alternate timeline where Al Gore didn’t have the presidency stolen away from him, I shudder what VP Lieberman would have done to the country.

    Very little. One of the benefits of the Vice Presidency is that is has very little power and not a lot of media exposure. I bet VP Lieberman would have gotten less attention than Sen Lieberman.

  85. 85.

    Formerly disgruntled in Oregon

    @TenguPhule: Is that really what cost Dems their congressional majorities in 2010? A national agenda crippled by blue dogs like Lieberman? It’s hard to have 60 Dem Senators without some major ideological diversity, so I don’t understand the alternative.

  86. 86.

    Corner Stone

    Another reminder that Always Wrong Bloody Bill Kristol remains a non-ally “ally”:

    Bill Kristol
    ‏Verified account @BillKristol

    Of conservative writers, Kevin Williamson is one of those most willing to be heterodox, most committed to reality-based reporting, with a bold intellect and indomitable character. But the philistine progressive mob can’t stand him. Why? Because he won’t bend the knee…to them.

  87. 87.

    Formerly disgruntled in Oregon

    @Roger Moore: We can’t afford to squeak by in the Senate like that. Like it or not, Dems need a broad, diverse coalition if we are to drive the Republicans into irrelevance.

  88. 88.

    Roger Moore

    @Formerly disgruntled in Oregon:

    It’s hard to have 60 Dem Senators without some major ideological diversity, so I don’t understand the alternative.

    The practical alternative would have been to do away with the filibuster and actually get stuff done. I understand why it didn’t happen, but the 2009-2010 session of Congress would have looked very different if the Democrats could have passed stuff with 50 votes + Biden.

  89. 89.

    LAO

    Can this possible be true — I’m giggling like a deranged toddler:

    Sources tell @InsideEPA that former WH aide Rob Porter leaked the damaging information about Scott Pruitt after his former girlfriend, who resigned from the EPA last week, told the WH about his alleged assaults of his ex-wives https://t.co/tWgMT4iPHy— Anshu Siripurapu (@AnshuSiripurapu) April 5, 2018

  91. 91.

    Corner Stone

    @LAO: I am having a hard time making 2 + 2=4 in this tweet? I don’t have access to the original article.

  93. 93.

    Wapiti

    @Josie: Well, if he’s standing in the summer sun, let’s make it a long ass parade, maybe march the same units past him, around the block, and past him again. Maybe have water stations on the other side of the block so the troops can stay hydrated.

  95. 95.

    LAO

    @Corner Stone: I don’t either, but the opening lede reads as follows:

    Rob Porter, a top former aide to President Donald Trump who was fired earlier this year over domestic abuse allegations, is reportedly a source of information about EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s ethical transgressions that are threatening his future at the agency, after Porter’s relationship with a top former Pruitt aide soured, sources say. Porter did not respond to requests for comment but two sources say he leaked information about Pruitt after Samantha Dravis, his former girlfriend who resigned last week…

  97. 97.

    tobie

    @germy: It’s an odd reversal of affairs when the NYTimes domestic news section is considered more partisan than the WSJournal’s. What kind of news organization decides to base it’s reporting on the work of a known right-wing hack like Peter Schweitzer and his book Clinton Cash? I expect that from Fox and it’s painful to see the NYT’s domestic political coverage sink to the same level.

  98. 98.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Roger Moore: Maybe I jumped to conclusions because I currently live in a vacation/tourism-economy-powered town where there are a lot of young people waiting tables with the looks and accents of the former Soviet Union, but I was under the impression that a lot of the foreign workers TrumpCo hires are Eastern Europeans. I think he’s a lot keener on pale-skinned foreign workers than brown-skinned ones.

  99. 99.

    FlipYrWhig

    @LAO: I hope this isn’t the male equivalent of “slut-shaming,” but just how many women in the Executive Branch has Rob Porter been boning?

  101. 101.

    rikyrah

    @Roger Moore:

    They want a permanent underclass of poor people with no rights who they can ruthlessly exploit, which requires that illegal immigration continue. That’s why all their immigration enforcement focuses on terrorizing immigrants rather than punishing employers who knowingly hire them.

    UH HUH
    UH HUH

  102. 102.

    Joe Falco

    @Corner Stone: The philistine part is just comedy gold. Hey Bill, do I get to be called an uncultured swine too for wanting garbage people like Williamson tossed out on their ear for their repellant views?

  104. 104.

    Jay

    @LAO:

    Samantha Davis outed her ex-boyfriend Rob Porter’s wifebeating to the White Supremacy House,

    Ex White Supremacy House staffer Rob Porter outed Pruitt’s Fiscal Peccadillo’s at Interior, to the White Supremacy House.

  107. 107.

    Corner Stone

    @LAO: I read the lede but I guess I am just not getting where Pruitt fits in? If Samantha Davis dumped Porter, and even if she ratted him out about abuse, why did he choose to out Pruitt? And then wait until she resigned to do so? zif this was a romantic spat I don’t see how Porter is getting back at Davis.

  109. 109.

    Citizen Alan

    @Corner Stone:

    The most pathetic thing about it is that they only fired him after confirming that he was serious. Because joking about the mass murder of women was fine.

  110. 110.

    LAO

    @Corner Stone: I have no idea if this is remotely true, the funny thing is, it wouldn’t surprise me if it were true. He may have leaked the info prior to her resignation, who knows? I’m hopefully that we’ll find out though.

    ETA: Dravis, the former girlfriend and Pruitt Aide, resigned today, so it’s seems likely that the ethical violation leaks were before her resignation.

  112. 112.

    FlipYrWhig

    @LAO: I was being ironic. I know I’m not supposed to cast aspersions on people with a lot of sexual partners, but I’ll happily cast hella aspersions on that dumbfuck abuser Rob Porter.

  113. 113.

    rikyrah

    @gene108:

    First they said they only objected to illegal immigration. Now they have moved to kick people out, who are here legally, such as people, who have been here for 20 years on temporary resettlement visas. They are trying to make avenues for legally immigrating here harder.

    Remember…
    it was all about the CRIMINALS….
    that’s how they sold this bullshyt.
    Those paying attention knew otherwise.

    Now, they’re rounding up people who don’t so much have a parking ticket in this country.

    ICE needs to be abolished. Period.

  115. 115.

    Jay

    @Corner Stone:

    Pillow talk with Samantha gave Porter payback,

    Samantha resigned when the salary shenanigans came out, via Porter.

    As a wife beater, Porter will “fuck over” anybody supporting an ex, and Pruitt supported his ex with a move, a job, and a raise.

    These morons are the “burn the village down to get rid of the fleas” type.

  117. 117.

    Barbara

    @Citizen Alan: The idea that it was a joke was always a dodge because, at the same time, they credited him with being “consistent” in his convictions (e.g., if a fetus is a person why wouldn’t women be treated the same as any other murderer?). Neither “joking” or “equivalent treatment” explains why he specifically called for “death by hanging,” which, of course, doesn’t happen anywhere in the U.S. anymore and hasn’t for a long time. For me, the coup de grace however is that Williamson hates poor people, and he especially hates poor families and taking care of young children whose existence he very clearly thinks should have been avoided in the first place by their maladapted parents.

    ETA: Which is to say, in the world as envisioned by Williamson, abortion will be even more urgently necessary for many women than it is now.

  118. 118.

    Brachiator

    @Roger Moore:

    They want a permanent underclass of poor people with no rights who they can ruthlessly exploit, which requires that illegal immigration continue. That’s why all their immigration enforcement focuses on terrorizing immigrants rather than punishing employers who knowingly hire them.

    No. They want all of the racist nativist agenda. They are pushing bigotry into the mainstream. This morning, as part of a story about California counties fighting the sanctuary cities law, people were interviewed who simply want all illegal immigrants out, no matter whether they are law abiding or have criminal records.

    There are also renewed calls to rescind laws which allow undocumented people to get drivers’ licenses. Note that this would make it harder for undocumented people to get work and to get to work reliably. The people who would exploit the labor of undocumented people are being overruled by the bigots who want to make it so hard for illegal immigrants to live here that they would supposedly self-deport.

    Also, as I noted before the new tax law accelerates the oppression of undocumented residents by stripping away their right to claim certain tax credits. And this also makes it easier in some ways for unscrupulous employers to take more advantage of illegal immigrant workers.

  119. 119.

    Citizen Alan

    @Joe Falco:

    I have said for 16 years that Gore would have won if he’d picked literally anyone on his shortlist other than Lieberman. If he’d been smart enough to pick Ben Nelson, it would have been a cakewalk.

  120. 120.

    Corner Stone

    @LAO: Hmmm…I’m not sure what the heck is going on:

    A source familiar with Dravis’ resignation said that she has been looking to exit the administration for some time to pursue opportunities in the private sector. She submitted her resignation letter last week, days before the stories broke about Pruitt’s $50 per night rental of a condo owned by the wife of a lobbyist or the large raises for two top aides.

    Two sources told CBS News’ Arden Farhi that Dravis had no involvement in those scandals, which were largely handled by Pruitt’s chief of staff.

    CBS News

  121. 121.

    Jay

    @Barbara:

    Not sure, it’s all so incestuous it’s hard to keep track.

    It’s like “The Death of Ceasar”, but where the assassin’s spend all their time, shiving eachother, not Cesear.

  123. 123.

    Citizen Alan

    @Formerly disgruntled in Oregon:

    Lieberman did literally kill the Medicare Buy-in proposal singlehandedly. I think things would have been at least a little easier with Ned Lamont. There were other problem Senators, but I don’t recall any with an axe to grind as big as Lieberman’s.

  124. 124.

    Corner Stone

    @Jay:

    Porter payback

    Did you just use “Porter” and “Payback” in the same sentence? Yes. Yes you did.

  125. 125.

    Corner Stone

    @MattF:

    One should bear in mind that Kristol was actully bad enough to lose his job as an NYT columnist. A wonder to behold, that.

    And yet he still shows up on MSNBC’s air all the time. A wonder, that.

  127. 127.

    Roger Moore

    @Brachiator:
    I think one of the reasons immigration is so unsettled politically is because it cuts across our normal political groupings. The Republicans can’t make up their minds about immigration because the business wing of the party wants plenty of cheap immigrant labor to exploit, while the racist wing wants to throw the untermenchen out. The Democrats have done a slightly better job of making up their minds, but there are still working class Democrats who are worried about the effect of immigration on their jobs.

  128. 128.

    Brachiator

    @LAO:

    I very rarely “crush” on celebrities but I have a particular fondness for Jason Isaacs (who has a particular good twitter game)

    Apparently, Isaacs is friendly with the BBC Radio 5 film team of Kermode and Mayo. He has been known to send them Twitter messages from TV and movie sets. And they often include a “hello to Jason Isaacs” along with their interviews and reviews. Listeners of the show have been known to say hello to Isaacs if they run into him in person, and he cheerfully acknowledges them.

  132. 132.

    Brachiator

    @Roger Moore:

    I think one of the reasons immigration is so unsettled politically is because it cuts across our normal political groupings.

    Again, Trump is the wild card. He is a racist nativist. This is manifestly clear in his listening to the Ann Coulters and the Tucker Carlsons. Trump fundamentally believes that nonwhite people are inferior, that they cannot be assimilated, and that their presence diminishes America. And again, he is trying to make his views policy, and tires to make these beliefs acceptable to all citizens by demonizing these groups.

    The Republicans can’t make up their minds about immigration because the business wing of the party wants plenty of cheap immigrant labor to exploit

    Trump has overridden the views of the business wing, just as he has with his crazy tariff war. And I don’t think that any conservative pundit has pushed back hard on any of Trump’s immigration views. There have, for example, been stories that Trump’s targeting of undocumented workers have made it harder for the agricultural industry to get workers, but it’s tough shit, agri-business.

    Trump’s policies also make it harder for employers who want to treat undocumented workers fairly.

    A cynic might say that in the past, anti-immigrant Republicans would turn a blind eye as the Chamber of Commerce wing of the GOP sought to employ undocumented workers. But Trump and the anti-immigrant hard liners have declared war on immigrants and Trump doesn’t give a shit about how it affects employment.

    The Democrats have done a slightly better job of making up their minds, but there are still working class Democrats who are worried about the effect of immigration on their jobs.

    Yeah, right. Here, as you note, Trump does not go after employers and neither Republicans nor Democrats try to fight for workers as effectively as they could. So much easier to scapegoat immigrants.

  134. 134.

    TenguPhule

    @Brachiator:

    and neither Republicans nor Democrats try to fight for workers as effectively as they could.

    Employees don’t contribute as much money to campaigns as their employing businesses do.

  135. 135.

    Bill Arnold

    @Bill Arnold:
    To be clear, trust is possible (e.g. there are people that I personally trust, and there is the whole US security clearance apparatus (and other national equivalents) as a large example) but it must not be the default.

  136. 136.

    Rand Careaga

    @MattF:

    One should bear in mind that Kristol was actully bad enough to lose his job as an NYT columnist.

    Whenever I have occasion to refer to David Brooks, I append the Homeric epithet “second-dumbest man ever to hold a regular op-ed gig at the NYT.” Second place, of course, because in that category Kristol’s mercifully abbreviated tenure makes him Padishah Emperor for Life.

  137. 137.

    Procopius

    As I understand it, the “caravan” is an annual thing. It’s basically a protest of American immigration policies, and it’s conducted in Mexico because Mexico is a free country. Oh, wait … Anyway, in past years they came up close to our border and made some speeches, and then went home. The Mexicans let them. This year is different.

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